I usually don't like comics with a nostalgic bent. Generally, too many creators spend their time looking backwards rather than forwards. Terry and the Pirates was great; I'm not denying it -- but do we really need quite so much modern pulp? It's everywhere. Especially in the comic book stores. The target audience for most comics produced commercially these days -- not by the "big two" but by scads and scads of small publishers -- seems to be a nine-year-old boy circa 1945-1965. When people talk about "making comics fun again," this is usually what they mean. And it usually turns me off. I didn't even like Alan Moore's throwback, Tom Strong. And if Moore can't do it, nobody can. Right?

That's why I was so surprised that I liked Silver and the Periodic Forces so much. Maybe it's because the era the comic harkens back to is my own -- the story-beats and the sci-fi schtick they're paying homage to comes from the mid-eighties, not the forties or the sixties. Or maybe it's because I loved Saturday morning adventure cartoons a lot more than I should have. Or maybe it's because they're just that damn good. Check it out! ... read it now!