Excalibur #104
“Buried Secret”
Writers: John Arcudi & James Felder
Pencils: Bryan Hitch, Rob Haynes & Scott Koblish
Inks: Paul Neary, Scott Koblish & Rick Ketcham
Colours: Ariane Lenshoek & Malibu Color
Lettering: Richard Starkings of Comicraft
Editors: Matt Idelson & Paul Tutrone
Original Publication date: December 1996
It’s no secret that we sometimes had our issues with the Ellis era. We’re celebrating a fresh start by going grave robbing with famous jerk Kitty Pryde in Excalibur #104, “Buried Secret,” accompanied by the accomplished insights of artist, writer, and certified X-Pert + Eternals Enthusiast Karen Charm! Featuring early Bryan Hitch art and our innermost thoughts about it! Featuring early Bryan Hitch art and our innermost thoughts about it! Plus sympathy for Douglock as he’s persecuted by the straights.
“I feel about X-Men like some people feel about their hometown team in sports. I was born here, so this is my team.” -Karen
“The community support and protection aspect of X-Men speaks to me more than in other superhero fiction.” -Karen
“There’s some stilted language in this comic. There are also some really good lines. At one point, Colossus says, ‘I have buried the heroes of this future too many time.’ That’s a good line.” -Andrew
“In Bryan Hitch’s work, you can see the influence of the Image Revolution, and people like Neal Adams and Alan Davis, but he’s doing his own thing, forging his own path.” -Mav
“My take on Bryan Hitch is that he’s doing Alan Davis but he’s doing Davis very ‘loud’… lots of big shiny surfaces without the subtle undernotes (if we want to be wine snobs about it).” -Andrew
“I like Hitch’s early work but when I think of some recent work, like the Fall of X promo image, riffing on Davis’ Fall of the Mutants image… And Davis’ image is so much better, in terms of fluidity and composition.” -Anna
“Douglock’s just a normal robot hanging out and all these aggressively cis, hetero people will not leave him alone, and are just like—explain yourself!” -Karen
Karen Charm (aka K Czap) is an X-Men fan and Eternals enthusiast on Twitter. They co-wrote the Comic XF Chris Bachalo Primer (with Adam Reck), and defended Paige Guthrie on the Cerebro podcast. They are also an Ignatz-nominated cartoonist and colorist for clients like Scholastic and First Second.
Find them on Twitter @karen_xmenfan and at their website, charmgardens.com.
And! You should definitely check out this essay on their best X-Men story, and their work on the ComicsXF re-design series!
And as usual:
You can find Anna on Twitter (@peppard_anna) and at Sequential Scholars (@seqscholars).
You can find Andrew on Twitter (@ClaremontRun) and at Sequential Scholars.
You can find Mav on Twitter (@chrismaverick) and on his podcast, VoxPopcast (@VoxPopcast).
Enjoy!
-GGW Team