Concrete: The Human Dilemma

Nearly twenty years ago my first Concrete story appeared. I look back with a smile on that relatively naïve Paul Chadwick, unrealistic about my abilities, struggling with the toolbox of storytelling. About some things I was clueless.

For one, I thought Concrete would run its course and IÂ’d move on to a career in illustration.

What I didnÂ’t appreciate is that a character with a following that is all yours is a gift a cartoonist should hold close like a baby. Nurture it and keep it healthy! Jeff Smith did it right. And Stan Sakai. Dave Sim, too, that brilliant whack job.

Eventually, I saw this big rock fellow as my lifeÂ’s work. Despite breaks to do other things, IÂ’ll be returning to him for the rest of my years, I hope.

With time comes a shift in perspective, and in the quality of story one wants to tell.

Take the new series (five years in the making!), Concrete: The Human Dilemma, six big issues starting in December.

It comes from the perspective of someone whoÂ’s lived forty-odd years, weathered marriageÂ’s plateaus and gullies, raised a kid, enjoyed an economic boom and choked in its smoky aftermath, and despaired to see a march of folly toward years of ambiguous war.

One, too, who has witnessed a quiet population explosion thatÂ’s seldom discussed.

This last phenomenon is at the heart of Concrete: The Human Dilemma. In it, Concrete agrees to become a spokesman for a foundation urging people to remain childless. A guy who hates controversy finds himself neck-deep in it.

How do they snag him for the job? Through his collecting mania for Victorian paintings of ethereal women.

Ah, sex. This series is soaked in it. It’s what leads to babies and overpopulation, after all. (There’s enough in it — shopkeepers, please note — that this is the first Concrete series that isn’t safely labeled “all ages.”) Through that lovely process one of our characters bears a child and faces the wonder and terror of parenthood.

ItÂ’s not whom youÂ’d first suspect.

ThereÂ’s also a stalker and a murder. And wedding plans. And a reckless idea to save the world. And a delusional belief that pizzas contain contraceptives.

They donÂ’t, of course, though those hormones they give dairy cows may be another matter.

A while back, at the big Comic-Con in San Diego, my friend Mike Richardson suggested I make major changes in my characters and their relationships. It was time.

I thought about it. I agreed. I put an already-started Concrete series aside, and did this one.

I think it was the right decision.

The stir weÂ’ll make for Concrete: The Human Dilemma allows us to bring old Concrete stories back into print, along with my series The World Below. Look for these attractively packaged trade paperbacks in the following months. Also, a new Concrete sculpture. And two art prints that tie in to Concrete: The Human Dilemma. And a T-shirt. WeÂ’re giving Concrete the full treatment.

ItÂ’s good to be back.

— Paul Chadwick