Teen Angels and New Mutants: Rick Veitch's Brat Pack and the Art, Karma, and Commerce of Killing Sidekicks

by Stephen R. Bissette, Charles Hatfield (Introduction)

Writer/artist Rick Veitch's career bridges the underground comix of the 1970s, mainstream DC and Vertigo Comics, and the self-publishing revolution of the 1980s and 1990s. In that extraordinary body of work, Brat Pack(R) remains a landmark, and Teen Angels & New Mutants is the first book-length, in-depth study of a creator and graphic novel worthy of the autopsy. En route, Teen Angels offers a crash-course on teen pop culture and superhero sidekick history, fresh analysis of Dr. Fredric Wertham's seminal books, ponders real-world "new mutants" like Michael Jackson, The Olsen Twins, and Justin Bieber, and charts the 1980s comicbook explosion and 1990s implosion--and more.

Genres: Comics, Nonfiction

412 pages, Paperback

First published February 25, 2011

About the author

Stephen R. Bissette is an American comics artist, editor, and publisher with a focus on the horror genre. He is best known for working with writer Alan Moore and inker John Totleben on the DC comic Swamp Thing in the 1980s.

Reviews

[D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an exhaustive history of side-kicks in comics, mixed with an analysis of BRATPACK, covering almost every ancillary topic that comes up along the way. This means that Bissette covers topics ranging from Hollywood's child stars to 1970's exploitation films to the "death" of Superman to contemporary "Boy Bands" to the history of contemporary comic books and beyond.

What makes the book exceptional is how well-written it is. Bissette has done some amazing scholarship here, and manages to keep his "heady" topics genuinely interesting by showcasing how BRATPACK was a response to society's exploitation of children, particularly in the entertainment industry. Some of the topics are uncomfortable, but Bissette (who is a close friend of Veitch) never moves into exploitation himself, instead raising the same questions as BRATPACK, and encouraging the reader to think for themselves.

GREAT stuff. In a perfect world, this would be recognized as a landmark of "pop culture" scholarship.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

An eye-opening and illuminating amalgamation of scholarship, media criticism, history and biography, with a little bit of autobiography thrown in for good measure. As 1991's graphic novel Brat Pack by Rick Veitch was a commentary on the exploitation of children, Bissette's book-length examination of the forces that created the need for that commentary shines a harsh light at our culture and the many ways we take advantage of the younger members of our society, and how that has changed over time. It's an astonishing, unique, vital work. You'll never look at movies, music, advertising, books, comic books, or your neighbors the same way.