Kurt Busiek's Astro City: The Annotations

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               KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY VOL. 2, #½
                       The Nearness Of You
        collected as part of the CONFESSION trade paperback                                
                    Narrator: Michael Tenicek
                        Date: April 1996
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Note:     Two versions of this comic were produced. The first was
          available via the WIZARD comics magazine, the second
          regularly distributed. The story itself was unchanged,
          although supplemental material differed. Also, the cover
          for the WIZARD edition (by Brent Anderson and Willie
          Blyberg) was used as the back cover for the newsstand
          edition, which had a new front cover by Alex Ross. These
          are referred to below as Cover(1) and Cover(2),
          respectively.

Cover(1): The Hanged Man surrounded by (back row, left-to-right)
          the Gentleman (flying off the cover), Winged Victory,
          Samaritan, N-Forcer, Jack-In-The-Box, (front row, left-
          to-right) Cleopatra II, the Old Soldier, the Silver
          Agent, the Lamplighter, Black Rapier, the Confessor,
          Beautie, and a figure in sandals (the Bouncing Beatnik?).
          In front of this latter figure appears (judging from the
          color scheme) to be a member of the First Family.

Cover(2): The Hanged Man and Michael Tenicek surrounded by
          (clockwise from upper right) Cleopatra II, Samaritan,
          Winged Victory, Beautie, Jack-In-The-Box, the Bouncing
          Beatnik, Rex Furst (arm and tail visible), MPH, N-Forcer,
          Gus and Julius Furst, the All-American, Slugger, the Old
          Soldier, the Silver Agent, Natalie Furst, the
          Lamplighter, Starwoman, and the Gentleman. Note that the
          heroes are battling some sort of tentacled creature.

2/4:      First mention of Conquerlord.

5/3:      The calendar on the wall dates this story to April 1996.

9/1:      "Novick Avenue": refers to Shield artist Irv Novick.
          First appearance of the Time-Keeper.

 /3:      First appearance of the All-American (first mentioned in
          Vol.1 #2, 3/1) and Slugger, the Junior Dynamo. Note that
          the All-American and Slugger are sports-themed heroes,
          while the Time-Keeper is dressed like a referee.

10/4:     The headline reads "Astro-Naut Captures Ersatz Ed"; first
          mention of Ersatz Ed and the Blackout Bandits.

11/2:     First appearance of Eterneon, first mentioned in Vol.1
          #6, 12/4.

12-13/5:  Note that this scene takes place in the Seventies,
          judging from the ages of the members of the First Family;
          clockwise from upper right are Gus, Julius, Natalie and
          Nick Furst.

     /6:  First appearance of the Lamplighter (center).

     /7:  According to Kurt Busiek in the letter column to the
          standard-distribution edition of this issue, the
          bottommost figure is indeed the Bouncing Beatnik (first
          seen in Vol.1 #2), "or at least, sort of him".

14/3:     First mention of Air Ace and the Barnstormers.

Release History:
Version 1.1 released  5th May 1998
Version 1.0 released 26th April 1998

Notes:
Citation format is page/panel. For instance, 18/1 refers to page
18, panel 1. Two-page spreads are treated as a single "page" for
the purpose of panel enumeration; for example, 6-7/3 refers to the
third panel on a spread covering pages 6 and 7. Issue number is
included if different from the issue being annotated, with issues
from Volume 1 specified as such.

KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY, its prominent characters and their
likenesses are trademarks of Juke Box Productions. All quoted text
is copyright Juke Box Productions.

Additions, corrections and comments should be sent to the editor.
Reproduction of these annotations, in whole or in part, without the
permission of the editor is forbidden.

Sources:
"Comic Art & Graffix Gallery Virtual Museum & Encyclopedia"
(http://www.comic-art.com/enter.htm)

"Who's Who In Astro City" (http://www.bonner.rice.edu/morrow/kbac/
kbacww.html)

Contributors:
Shannon Patrick Sullivan, shannon@morgan.ucs.mun.ca (editor)
Kurt Busiek, kurtbusiek@aol.com
Derek Richman, drichman@kilstock.com