Matrix Comics TP 1st print Sienkiewicz Chadwick Wachawski Br

Description

Matrix Comics TPB (2003-2004 Burlyman Entertainment) #1
Published Oct 2003 by Burlyman Entertainment.

This book is the sole result of Larry and Andy Wachowski’s love of comics. In collaboration with many of the top names in comics, these one dozen stories set in the world of The Matrix expand and further the mythos of the film trilogy.

Released one month before The Matrix: Revolutions, this volume collects twelve original stories set in the world of The Matrix. Read tales that expand the universe of The Matrix, written and illustrated by many of today’s top comic book luminaries, including Larry and Andy Wachowski (writers/directors of The Matrix), Geof Darrow (Hard Boiled, Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot), Bill Sienkiewicz (Stray Toasters, Elektra: Assassin), Neil Gaiman (Sandman, Death: The High Cost of Living), Ted McKeever (Metropol, Wonder Woman: The Blue Amazon), John Van Fleet (Typhoid, Batman: The Ankh), Dave Gibbons (Watchmen, The Originals), David Lapham (Stray Bullets, Murder Me Dead), Peter Bagge (Hate, Sweatshop), Troy Nixey (Jenny Finn, Trout), Paul Chadwick (Concrete, The World Below), Ryder Windham (Star Wars Comics), Kilian Plunkett (Aliens: Labyrinth), and Gregory Ruth (Sudden Gravity, Freaks of the Heartland).

Softcover, PC/PB&W. Cover price $21.95. 1st printing.
Paperback: 157 pages
Publisher: Burlyman Entertainment

Stories by The Wachawski Brothers, Bill Sienkiewicz, Ted McKeever, Dave Gibbons, Peter Bagge, David Lapham, Paul Chadwick, and many more! This book would be best suited to those of you that enjoyed the first movie, since these stories were made before the sequels (which, in my opinion, sucked). If you LOVED the Animatrix (I did!), you’ll love these stories. These stories would have cost millions to put on film! The two highlights of the book are the story by Chadwick, which details a small group of people in Zion that travel to the surface to find a rumored seed depository. Things do not go well. The other highlight takes place within the Matrix. An artist is having dark visions. She creates works of art based on her nightmares and puts them on display. Needless to say the denizens of the Matrix are having strange and violent reactions to these works. Sometimes dreams are best left as just that…

I adore this volume of Matrix Comics. I never read them online, but after seeing all three movies again recently (and Animatrix), these comics are a wonderful supplement to anyone wanting more… or wanting more clarification. The artwork is fantastic and diverse, and the writing is odd and strangely filled with truths as well as more questions on existence. Considering that many of the stories were written before the first Matrix film hit theaters makes these stories more intriguing and creative. I love the artists and writers who signed on to work on this project.

Like the “Animatrix” shorts, this book is a clever expansion into the Matrix universe — 12 comic book stories (well… 11 comic book stories and one prose short story) that tell new tales playing with the toys the Wachowskis created. It’s not essential reading for people who are fans of the movies but just want to know what’s going on, but most of the stories in this book are clever and inventive in their own right.

Ted McKeever’s entry may be the best in the book — the story of a woman who, when given a choice between a blue pill and a red pill, chose the blue. The Wachowskis chime in with their own story, about the robot B1-66ER, whose murder of its owner sparked the first war between humans and machines — this story in particular tied in with The Animatrix. Neil Gaiman, one of the best writers on the planet these days, did a short story with a couple of illustrations rather than a comic book story. His tale, about a man forced to live several lives in the Matrix, plays with the nature of time the way the films play with the nature of reality. It’s one of the standouts.

Near mint, 1st print.