In May 1993, the Kid Eternity comicbook series hit the shelves as an on-going monthly for DC Comic’s then just-launched “Suggested For Mature Readers” arm, Vertigo Comics. Kid Eternity picked up from where Grant Morrison and Duncan Fegreedo left off when their 3-issue prestige format mini-series of the same title ended in 1991. Like the mini-series, the monthly series rocked my world. I mean, seriously, Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud arguing over the psyche of a teenager in comicbook format in issue #2? Neal Cassady in issue #4, Marilyn Monroe in #6, Nikola Tesla in #11? Priceless! Like all good things, however, it ended. Or, rather, got cancelled. Other lucky titles last 25 issues (plus a two-part special) like the “House of Secrets,” written by Steven T. Seagle, also under Vertigo.

I had to write about Kid Eternity because collecting all 16 issues had been my crusade for the last decade. 10 long years and I’m still at it, still missing an issue or two. The series has not been reprinted so whenever I find a Comic Odyssey branch, on impulse and as if on a trance, I’d thumb through their stacked “on-sale” comics still hoping to find strays that may at last make me complete all 16 issues. I’d get down on my knees and rummage though Filbar’s or Comic Quest’s back issues whenever I can but, so far, Planet X Comics/Comic Odyssey has the reputation of preserving the quality of the vintage comic variety in a very acceptable state. Alphabetically arranged, too.

In those 10 years, I got my Kid Eternitys from various places: one from Cartimar (surprise, fucking surprise!), quite a few from the Diplomat Bookstore in Iloilo, then some from several Merriam Webster Bookstores around Manila. I’d manage to get one or two a pop. There are some years, however, when I haven’t found a singe back issue. Nevertheless, I’m not complaining. Torrenting a copy (hint hint!) may be an option but I want my single eds collected. It’s the only thing I’m overly patient at doing and something seasoned comicbook collectors pride themselves of having a high tolerance for.

Last night, I found another Kid Eternity issue: the elusive #14 (priced at P120.00) from Planet X Comics on the 3rd level in Glorietta. Yay!

I came up with this entry not to bore you with my version of the specifics of the story. I’m not that good a story teller to begin with. If you managed to read this far, I’ll reward you with a treat. There’s this part in issue #14 that I’d like to share (which I hope Ms Ann Nocenti, writer, wouldn’t mind). There’s this Devil character in the series (the nemesis of the lead, Kid Eternity) with a profundity that makes me want to be him. Er, just his eloquence, that is. I’ll nick his words from this one scene where he thrashes about in hell, all decayed and dying and very uncharacteristic of the Devil we’re all too familiar with:

“When a praying mantis bites off her lover’s head at the peak of their embrace, is it not beautiful? What impulse coils the snake? Is my clutching hand as reverent as a frightened spider, drawing its limbs? Is it predatorial of a virus to invade and burn the health of a body? Or is it simply its right? Why is a viral life not as blessed as any other? The eagle dives only for the meekest, most hallowed of lambs. It is the sane man who is fascinated by the madman, never the reverse.

These things are my body and blood. This is the hymn of hell, my lethal prayer.“

Then he says in another scene as he looks at the reflection of his decaying self in front of a full length morror:

“Is there a way to die that isn’t humiliating? I’m bruised, I’m flaking, I’m cracking and bleeding… Why must a man spend his wisest years trying to hold his body together? If I, who art in hell, must die, then thy will be done. I take you, mankind, with me. I will eat up all your tomorrows…

…Amen.“

Gosh, What. A. Genius!

“Kid Eternity” still is my favorite “coming of age” title and tailing behind it at close second is “Books of Magic” starring Timothy Hunter. There had been rumors that Neil Gaiman had accused JK Rowling of ripping Tim Hunter off to which Neil replied (some time in 1997):

Back in November I was tracked down by a Scotsman journalist who had noticed the similarities between my Tim Hunter character and Harry Potter, and wanted a story. And I think I rather disappointed him by explaining that, no, I certainly *didn’t* believe that Rowling had ripped off Books of Magic, that I doubted she’d read it and that it wouldn’t matter if she had: I wasn’t the first writer to create a young magician with potential, nor was Rowling the first to send one to school. It’s not the ideas, it’s what you do with them that matters.

Genre fiction, as Terry Pratchett has pointed out, is a stew. You take stuff out of the pot, you put stuff back. The stew bubbles on.

(As I said to the Scotsman journalist, the only thing that was a mild bother was that in the BOOKS OF MAGIC movie Warners is planning, Tim Hunter can no longer be a bespectacled, 12 year old English kid. But given the movie world I’ll just be pleased if he’s not played by a middle-aged large-muscled Austrian.)

Not sure how this has transmuted into “Gaiman has accused Rowling of ripping him off.” But I suppose it’s a better story than the truth.

That’s to set the record straight but some Books of Magic fans still feel repulsed about Harry Potter to this very day. If they had followed Tim’s escapades since 1993 and all though out the “Books of Faerie” spin off, “Names of Magic,”  ”Age of Magic,” and “Books of Magick: Life During Wartime,” then their anger must be founded so we’d have to give them that.