Bob collected records at the time and worked in a record store on Stevens Creek Blvd. in San Jose. The story is he started hanging around the store a bit, shooting the shit with Frank, since they both had lots of time on their hands. Frank proceeded to brag to Bob what a sweet deal it was to have a comic shop — remember this is circa 1968-69. No price guide, so comics (and pulps) would come in the door and people were thrilled to sell them for five cents, ten cents, a quarter each at the most. Comics still only sold for .12 each new, .rising to .15 cents in 1969. Annuals cost 25 cents. Seven Sons is the perfect series for fans of fast-paced plotting like The Fugitive paired with The Da Vinci Code’s Biblically high stakes. Nutshell elevator pitch for Seven Sons is a pretty decent hook: there’s a Second Coming afoot, built on a magic prophecy written in the birth of seven identical children to different mothers across the planet on July 7th, 1977. If it seems too good to be true, you shouldn’t be surprised to hear the whole thing was a scam concocted by mad science. Problems compound when an actual resurrection occurs in the midst of all the vigorous fakery. Cue hijinks.

Over the decades, Lee’s line has evolved into something far more delicate. The closest comparison I can find is in Lee’s precise contemporary Paul Pope. There’s a similar purposeful tentativeness in their lines, something that recalls a more mature iteration of Tony Salmons’ diaphanous mid '80s style. Very rare to find any manner of solid bold line in a Jae Lee comic book. Did this story begin life as a screenplay? One could, if feeling ungenerous, perhaps discern the outline of a cinematic treatment that could have resulted in something vaguely reminiscent of The Da Vinci Code - what with the vast religious conspiracy at the heart of a mystery film with a handful of action set pieces. To its, credit the book is a bit more cynical about religion than much of mass media tends to be now, even if it does end on with advent of an actual Second Coming to supersede the venality of the ersatz Messiah. Possibly also scientifically motivated? The ending is ambiguous.Ahhh, don’t get me started. I could talk about Jae Lee all day. He started out with a lot of Sienkiewicz before becoming something completely different. Of course, The Sink knows a thing or two about starting off with a strong understanding of another artist’s style before branching out. There’s no mistaking Lee’s work for anyone else now; truly breathtaking. After working primarily for mainstream comic publishers for the majority of his career, noted artist Jae Lee announced last summer that he would be releasing his first creator-owned comic series in over 25 years with Seven Sons, a 7-issue miniseries drawn by Jae Lee and co-written by filmmakers Robert Windom ( Stars Fell On Alabama) and Kelvin Mao ( 10 Minutes Gone) with colours by June Chung and letters by Simon Bowland. Today, Image Comics released preview art and release details for the miniseries, set to launch this June. We were friends with Bob and Frank both and also hung out in both stores, swapping comics, playing cards, swapping news and comics lore. The story goes that Bob said, “If this bozo can do this (Frank was not the brightest guy around, sadly), I can do it and maybe better.” We closed Comic World at the end of August 1970. I was starting my first year at the previously mentioned San Jose State (now California University San Jose). I had signed up for 18 units and could not imagine also running a store. John was also busy, starting year two of journalism degree.

He’s been around for a fair while, our Mr. Lee. He started really young - not even 20 years old when he got his start on a Beast serial in Marvel Comics Presents that ran concurrent to Sam Kieth’s breakout Wolverine feature, 1991. Kieth's was the trippy serial that immediately followed Weapon X and somehow managed to not stink up the joint. A fairly high-profile gig for both artists. Oh, and Lee’s credited co-penciler for the first two parts of that serial? Rob Liefeld, incidentally. Actually, a lot of this book has it that there is more than one of the seven, which is part of the issues here. This jumps about its timeline like I don't know what – someone at the wedding at Cana, perhaps. We're following people that are dead, people that want people dead, people that want the murderous people put to rights, and so on. So the core of the book ends up being a reasonably distinctive way of doing the People Against Lots of Other Lots of People kind of plot, which of course features in the history of so many religions, but it doesn't make for an incredibly welcome read. I have a deep interest in fiction that seeks new twists on the ideas of organized religion, especially Christianity and that’s what this issue does. It takes the concept of Seven Sons and how they are supposed to be gifted in powers of the occult as the central premise and expands it into a world built on this supposed miracle. The mythos that Robert Windom and Kelvin Mao have built here is both fascinating and repellent and I believe that’s the whole point, this is a world where these seven individuals have been deified in the most crass but believable way possible as the writing team take the idea of the second coming and commercialize it to the absolute extreme. Imagine a city where the second coming has become merchandise sold at convenience stores, where taxi’s drive around with elaborate crosses on their roof and for day to day people the second coming is treated and talked about with the same spectacle as something like the Superbowl? The crassness of it is repellent but believable. The issue also takes the time to introduce the main players including some history of these seven individuals, six of whom are now dead and no longer with us. I can’t say I’m particularly fond of vilifying Islam as a story beat at all, but perhaps it goes deeper than that, because everything about these seven so called sons of God feels off. Jae Lee’s artwork is as spellbinding as ever, and with color artist June Chung, the art in Seven Sons is perhaps the primary attraction. A gloomy atmosphere hangs over the book, a stark visual contrast to the bliss of the celebration. Lee’s figures skirt the line between human and monstrous, where wrinkles on faces become deep crags and the relative smoothness of the sons gives them a divine appearance in a world of so many wretches. It’s beautiful and repugnant all at once, creating a perfect tone for a story like this.We scouted out a location and John actually got a hit of tear gas while were were up there looking around, staying out of one of the small student riots going on. Amazingly, we found someone to rent us a real, honest to god decent sized store on Telegraph and Dwight Avenue and we opened in September, 1972. Described as The Fugitive paired with The Da Vinci Code’s Biblically high stakes, the series follows “Delph—a young man who may be the Second Coming of Christ—[who] runs for his life as he attempts to learn the truth behind his existence.” I moved to Grass Valley in Spring 1975 with my new wife and my best friend since grade school, who also was my first employee. My goal was to be within an hour of the closest C&C store, and by then we had one in Sacramento and would soon open another in Citrus Heights, outside Sacramento. I’d run comix and undergrounds and all my stuff down to the stores once a week, where someone else would run a route with other stuff that would flow between the stores. But that’s another story….