Not cold, but cool. Not temperature, but attitude.
When somebody walks by with a jaunty, self-possessed gait or a swagger that catches our attention, people say they're "cool." (But you and I know that not noticing the person walking by is really cool.)
When, in a tense situation, a person is able to remain calm, think clearly, and do what needs to be done without losing their composure, they are said to have kept their cool. (But, in that same situation, the person who says, "I'm cool, I'm cool," clearly isn't.)
Which is why, when I was asked to write this column, and I looked at the Back to Cool promotion, I decided not to write about it. There were a couple of reasons for my decision. First, while I think it's clear that the tag line is a play on "back to school" -- which fits with the timing of the promotion -- I felt that the "back" part of the phrase suggested that, previous to this promotion, some of the comics weren't cool. That's me, though. I've been with DH since its inception, and I can't help but feel protective. But I also know that saying something is cool doesn't make it so.
The problem is, when I started looking at the actual books in the program, I had to admit they were pretty cool. Not cool like aloof, or self-possessed, but cool. Like when you see a sleek sports car slip through traffic and you find yourself saying, "That's so cool."
The best part of the whole promotion is that there are so many kinds of cool represented (and here I have to give credit to the brain trusts in our Editorial and Marketing departments who recognized a common link in attitude, execution, and integrity between the many different titles included in the push).
You've got everything from cutting edge to classic adventure; humor to horror. Everything from C. Scott Morse's Ancient Joe to the new ongoing Planet of the Apes, by writers Ian Edginton and Dan Abnett, and artists Adrian Sibar, Paco Medina, and Pop Mhan. From Joss Whedon's (and others) Tales of the Slayer, with artists such as Leinel Yu, Tim Sale, and P. Craig Russell and the new Angel series by Whedon, Brett Matthews, and Mel Rubi, to Tony Millionaire's latest Sock Monkey and the giant collection of weird humor, Scatterbrain (with Mike Mignola, Sergio Aragonés, Jim Woodring, Evan Dorkin, Dave Cooper and many others). There's even Ron Marz and Rick Leonardi's utterly impossible -- but incredibly hot -- Darth Vader vs. Darth Maul story in Star Wars Tales #9.
And look at that. I did what I wasn't going to do. I guess I lost my cool.
Keep yours. Get back to cool.
Randy Stradley
some guy at Dark Horse