''Journey: The Adventures of Wolverine MacAlistaire'' is an

independent comic book Alternative comics cover a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to mainstream superhero comics which ...

created by

William Messner-Loebs William Francis Messner-Loebs (; born William Francis Loebs, Jr., February 19, 1949) is an American comics artist and writer from Michigan, also known as Bill Loebs and Bill Messner-Loebs. His hyphenated surname is a combination of his and his wif ...

about

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

frontier A frontier is the political and geographical area near or beyond a boundary. A frontier can also be referred to as a "front". The term came from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"—the region of a country that fronts o ...

life in the 19th century. An ensemble piece, it tells the story of the Fort Miami settlement and the characters, both real and fictional, that occupy it. Among these is the title character, Joshua "Wolverine" MacAlistaire.

Publishing history

''Journey'' was first published as a back-up feature in ''

Cerebus ''Cerebus'' (; also ''Cerebus the Aardvark'') is a comic book series created by Canadian cartoonist Dave Sim, which ran from December 1977 until March 2004. The title character of the 300-issue series is an anthropomorphic aardvark who takes on ...

'' #48 and #49 from

Aardvark-Vanaheim Aardvark-Vanaheim is a Canadian independent comic book publisher founded in 1977 by Dave Sim and Deni Loubert and is best known for publishing Sim's ''Cerebus''. For a brief time, the company also published other titles, sometimes under the name ...

, then as a title unto its own, starting with Issue #1 in Mar./Apr. 1983. The 13th issue features an

intercompany crossover In comic books, an intercompany crossover (also called cross-company or company crossover) is a comic or series of comics in which characters, that at the time of publication are the property or licensed property of one publisher, meet character ...

with

Jim Valentino Jim Valentino (born October 28, 1952) is an American writer, penciler, editor and publisher of comic books, best known for his 1990–1992 work on ''Guardians of the Galaxy'' for Marvel Comics, and for co-founding Image Comics, a company publis ...

's ''

normalman normalman is a limited series of American comic books created by Jim Valentino. It began in November 1983 as a four-page story in ''Cerebus'' #56 and #57 before being launched as a full-color 12-issue series which was published by Aardvark-Vana ...

''. After fourteen issues, the series moved to

Fantagraphics Fantagraphics (previously Fantagraphics Books) is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, manga, magazines, graphic novels, and the erotic Eros Comix imprint. History Founding Fantagraphics was found ...

, which published an additional thirteen issues. Fantagraphics collected the ''Cerebus'' back-up features along with the first four issues as ''Tall Tales'' (January 1987), and included a ''Journey'' story in ''Anything Goes!'' #5 (Oct. 1987). A sequel to the original series, ''Journey: Wardrums'' (Fantagraphics, 1987–1990), was billed as a six-issue mini-series, but only two issues were published. A new ''Journey'' story was included in the one-shot ''Many Happy Returns'' (published by

About Comics About Comics is a publisher of comics and comics-related material founded in 1998 by Nat Gertler. According to Gertler, it is intended to be "eithera mainstream comics publisher, nor an alternative comics publisher". The company has published w ...

) in 2008. In July 2008,

IDW Publishing IDW Publishing is an American publisher of comic books, graphic novels, art books, and comic strip collections. It was founded in 1999 as the publishing division of Idea and Design Works, LLC (IDW), itself formed in 1999, and is regularly recog ...

released a trade paperback collecting the first 16 issues. In 2009, a second volume was released, containing the next ten issues.

References

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External links

Interview with William Messner-Loebs, in which he talks about ''Journey''
Aardvark-Vanaheim titles Renegade Press titles 1983 comics debuts 1984 comics endings Comics set in the 19th century Adventure comics Fantagraphics titles {{comics-stub