When the issue of “legacy strips” gets raised from time to time, it’s usually in the context of newspaper features – but, as suggested in recent blog entries by Mike Gold and John Ostrander on the ComicMix site, it’s a valid subject for debate in the comic book field, too.

Mike’s initial sally covers the issue that’s usually meant when “legacy strips” are discussed, which is simply the matter of whether anyone should inherit a feature after the original creator has died or retired. (A case in point being Darwyn Cooke’s revival of The Spirit, which didn’t really add anything to the basic concept, but did contribute some decent entertainment without doing damage to the Mother Ship.)

But there’s another definition that should be considered in a discussion like this, the issue of how to honor – or sometimes reinterpret – the creative work of those who have come before you. John touches on that one with several solid first-person examples.

During a financial crisis a few years ago, I was taking a lot of work on characters that other people had created -

but the question of “legacy” (by either definition) rarely entered my mind. Frankly, when characters have been interpreted, merchandised and movie-ised as much as Batman or the Predator, they stop being the discreet brainchildren of individual creators and begin to fall into the category of commodities. Working on them dictates that you remain true to the essentials of what made the property popular in the first place, but it would be madness to try to incorporate the take of every writer who’s come before you. (See, for example, John’s description of his process when he took over the writing of The Spectre some years ago.)

Mike’s referencing of Cooke’s Spirit reminded me of my own brief brush with the character a decade ago in Kitchen Sink’s short-lived series The Spirit: The New Adventures.

Will Eisner was still with us then and still turning out powerful work, and he’d given the project his blessing – so the only question of legacy was that of how to honor what he’d achieved in his groundbreaking strip. Frankly, I wouldn’t have had the chutzpah to propose myself as any kind of successor to Eisner on The Spirit, but I had been specifically invited to take part. And it gave me another chance to work with artist Dan Burr, so it was almost impossible to resist.

A few ground rules had been laid down, and most of the participants played fair. (Those who didn’t pretty much crashed and burned with their stories. The only successful exception was Alan Moore, but Will was said to have been so charmed by Alan’s efforts that he happily and wisely looked the other way.)

Rather than play “notice me” with my entry, I decided to pay homage to those goofy throwaway romps that Will would occasionally insert like palate cleansers between his more ambitious tales. Sticking to the classic seven-page format, Dan and I whipped up a frenzied little shaggy-dog story of The Spirit dashing out to fight the Octopus, saving the world from nuclear holocaust and getting lucky with one of those patented Eisner lady scientists in cats-eye specs during the time it takes Commissioner Dolan to wander off for an ice cream cone.

It was light and even slight, but I think we honored the legacy, and I was happy enough with the result. Will must have thought I’d done okay, as he later asked me to write a prose novel about The Spirit (about which more at another time). All the same, the idea of writing Spirit comics while Will Eisner was looking over my shoulder was unnerving enough to keep me from wanting to repeat the experience.

Then there’s Omaha, the legacy strip I’d give anything not to be doing right now. As fans of that long-running adult series probably know, Kate Worley and Reed Waller had re-teamed to bring their story to a conclusion when Kate succumbed to cancer. Kate had done a lot of the preliminary work by then, outlining the 150-page final act and writing a good deal of the actual script, but she knew it was possible that she wouldn’t be able to wrap it all up. And it was important to her that it be completed; whatever she earned from Omaha was going to be, in her words, her legacy for our children.

One evening, she looked up from the computer and told me that she wanted me to finish the writing for her if it turned out that she couldn’t make it. The idea of following in her footsteps scared the hell out of me, and it’s been scaring the hell out of me ever since.

Reed, of course, is still there to draw his distinctive characters, but he made it clear to me that he had no interest in writing them anymore. He’s acknowledged on numerous occasions that it wasn’t until Kate came on board that Omaha morphed from cult favorite to beloved sui generis comics experience. The fact that he supported Kate’s decision for me to succeed her is heartening, but this responsibility for so many definitions of her legacy is at times terrifying. Some days, the most I can hope for is that I manage to get the job done without doing any damage.

It’s easy to carp about “legacy strips” being cash cows for the heirs of creators, but I’ve learned the hard way that making a buck can have nothing to do with it at all. There’s a reason Mike named his post “Filling the Big Shoes” – and anybody who thinks it’s easy or somehow disrespectful to fill them in any sense of the word doesn’t necessarily know what he’s talking about.

filed under Bemusements