Welcome

Welcome. If you're here, you've presumably already heard of comics writer Peter B. Gillis. But here's a little preamble and overview of why this blog exists. 

I was a huge Marvel comics fan in the 80's, snapping up every issue I could find here in the UK. I've always had a taste for the original, offbeat, and downright peculiar, which drew me to the stranger underbelly of Marvel; the space opera of Micronauts, the black magic of Doctor Strange and the Lovecraftian weirdness of New Defenders. One name that kept popping up in the credits of said comics was writer Peter B. Gillis. His stories were always so literate, humanistic, idiosyncratic and an all round cut above from your average tights book of the era.

Then at the start of the 1990's, his name started disappearing from credits. By 1992, he appeared to have left comics for good. I started wondering, whatever happened to Peter B. Gillis? The proto-internet of the mid to late 90's was no help solving this riddle, so I posted an article on my old website about my love for Gillis' comics, together with an ever expanding checklist of his writing. (Now we have comics.org, thanks internet). 

After a long absence, Peter Gillis returned to the comics scene in the 2010's and got to tell his story through the internet and a string of podcast interviews. Sadly, after battles with ill health, he passed away in June 2024.

I've recently been reminiscing on all the fantastic, underappreciated comics Gillis wrote over the years, so I decided to undertake a reasonably chronological readthrough of all his works, title by title. I'll discuss my thoughts on each issue or storyline, together with a little about the back story behind them. 

A brief disclaimer: I've attempted to research the history of these comics as thoroughly as possible, through any interviews and press snippets I could find. Therefore the information presented here may be inaccurate or subjective. In the end, the reviews are just my personal opinions on the work. Also note, I've generally referred to creators by their surnames throughout, to avoid overfamiliarity.

I'll kick things off with Captain America, with new posts following hopefully every few days. Hope you enjoy, and please leave comments.