During the “Marvel: The Next Big Thing” panel at San Diego Comic Con, the publishing giant announced a unique way to present classic comic stories to modern audiences. X-Men: Grand Design will retell the first 280 issues of The Uncanny X-Men into a stunningly compact six 40-page issue miniseries.
Marvel just dropped the news that they gave me the reins to make a comic encompassing Uncanny X-Men issues 1-280 into one tight story. #sdcc pic.twitter.com/bEINnmQJRg
— Ed Piskor (@EdPiskor) July 20, 2017
Summarizing 28 years of comics into this unique retro format is creator Ed Piskor, best known for his indie and alternative comic work, including Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor, his self-published hacker book Wizzywig, and the Eisner Award-winning Hip Hop Family Tree.
Piskor credits his 2015 tweet of a mock comic page asking his followers which era of X-Men is their favorite in getting attention from Marvel.
Tell me. Which era was yours? Favorite story from that era? Talk to me. #xmen #marvel #wolverine #newmutants pic.twitter.com/x0IjBjy5Ny
— Ed Piskor (@EdPiskor) March 30, 2017
And he wasn’t shy to let Marvel know his interest in the X-Men.
They should let me make any kind of X-Men comic I feel like making. https://t.co/ThDSAFuS2e
— Ed Piskor (@EdPiskor) September 23, 2015
Luckily, both Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso and editor Chris Robinson are fans of Hip Hop Family Tree, and of Piskor’s gritty, humorous style. “There is no one that looks like him, it’s something special,” said Robinson in an interview with Bill O’Driscoll of the Pittsburg City Paper.
The first issue of X-Men: Grand Design is slated to be released in December 2017.
I think this is the first time I’ve been excited about an X-book since the Whedon / Cassaday run.
(To answer Piskor’s question: original era, first appearance of Juggernaut. Lee / Kirby / Toth.)