Starstruck (comics) - Legacy

Legacy

"Reading Starstruck is like reading sci-fi written and drawn by J.S. Bach in the middle of an acid trip: fugues and choruses and multi-part harmonies of narrative, playing off each other in unexpected ways to produce delayed reveals, sting-in-the-tail pay-offs, devestating, poignant, and ironic juxtapositions."

Writer Clive Barker (Hellraiser) has stated, ""I was, and am, a huge fan of Starstruck, which I think was one of the most brave and elegant experiments in comic book story-telling."

Writer Mike Carey (Lucifer, X-Men: Legacy, The Unwritten), when asked to name his favorite comic of all time, responded "Starstruck, by Lee and Kaluta." He was later asked to write the introduction to the Starstruck Deluxe Edition with his wife Lin Carey, known by her pen name as the Fantasy author, A.J. Lake (The Darkest Age series): "The truth is, there just never was another book out there that did what Starstruck did." They praised the progressive innovations of the series by stating, "So how cool is it that at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it still reads as being ahead of its time?"

Publishers Weekly opined in 2009 that "the cult classic comic Starstruck (was) well ahead of its time when initially released in 1985", pointing particularly to "a cast of strong female characters—a rarity in comics then and now."

After the 1984 graphic novel was published, Kaluta remembers "a few letters (coming in saying) 'My, this is really too clever. The writer and artist are being very, very clever, here, obviously clever, it's too convoluted to follow." The Epic Comics series won critical acclaim and a cult audience, but similar letters followed. Kaluta was proudest of one from an angry reader that took the creators to task for making him take longer than 15 minutes to read a comic. At the same time, the writer and artist realized they had a series that appealed to a growing segment in the mature market, but was being dismissed by the mainstream superhero audience. As a joke, Kaluta asked Epic to run an ad for Starstruck saying, "Readers of The World, Unite! You Have Nothing to Use But Your Brains!", an idea they enjoyed but passed on. Addressing their concern for the future of the series, Lee said, "People have called this a cult book. I hope it's more than that. I hope people will bother to read it and go, 'This is different. Let me give it a try', rather than 'This is different. Let me throw it on the other side of the room from my X-Men comics'." The Epic series was cancelled in 1986 after six issues, and in its wake within the same year, innovative series like Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, and Maus earned acclaim and success for the mature qualities and sophisticated innovations that Starstruck was initially resisted for. In the wake of the cancellation, Comics Journal critic Robert Rodi wrote, "That Starstruck should owe more to Gravity's Rainbow and M*A*S*H* than to the Galactus Trilogy means that many people who are exclusively comics-literate won't have the necessary aesthetic vocabulary to read it. But, whose fault is that, if not their own? And whose loss is that, if not their own?" In 1985, Kaluta had predicted, "But they might, years later, pick up (books like Love And Rockets)...and go, 'Damn it, why didn't I read these things back then?' Because they weren't ready for it, right? They weren't ready to be entertained in that sphere of their life." In retrospect, book distributor and art historian Bud Plant hailed the series as "An exotic, erotic, obtuse and wildly humorous space opera."

The recent 2009 IDW remastering of Starstruck has garnered critical acclaim that has bolstered its reputation as a timeless and essential work in the modern comics pantheon. Pop culture critic David Allan Jones wrote of the republished series that it would be a challenge to new readers who would "have to work a little to follow along, but believe me, it's worth it, especially if you enjoy experiencing the unique. A+." Comics reviewer Greg McElhatton wrote "...it’s definitely one where a slow burn is going to pay off. Starstruck isn’t quite like anything else out there, but I think that’s part of the attraction." Joe McCullough of Comics Comics wrote, "In fact, I like literally everything about this cleverly revised, nipped & tucked edition, apportioning and expanding upon Lee’s modular, time-skipping vignettes with text features crammed right between the ‘main’ story and Charles Vess-inked backup material..., creating a kind of call and response between different characters from different points in time, walking you carefully through Lee’s collage of varied femininity in a hazardous future. World (universe!) building like you don’t see so often...." Alex Dueben of the Suicide Girls site found the series' progressive story and art to be timeless; "Now Starstruck is a pretty nonlinear project, which I love, and I have to say that the structure and the feeling, the complexity, how it moves around, it really feels contemporary." Greg Burgas of Comic Book Resources also concurred with, "It’s exciting reading something from 30 years ago and realizing how, even today, it feels ahead of its time."

Similar praise accompanied the release of the collected IDW remastered issues as the Starstruck Deluxe Edition hardback graphic novel in 2011. Comics media critic Paul Gravett called the collection "a "wondrous, ebullient SF epic and it all comes together in this delectable package. Prepare to be transported!" John Hilgart of The Comics Journal considered it an essential classic, advocating that readers should "pick up this book, because not having read it is sort of like not having read Pogo, or listened to Trout Mask Replica, or seen a Hayao Miyazaki film." W. Andrew Shephard of The New Inquiry wrote of the collection, "Starstruck could be both silly and smart, was progressive but unpretentious, and clever but not so impressed with itself that it ever forgot to entertain. IDW’s reprint of the series is a service to fans of science fiction, aficionados of comics as an art form, and anyone who loves a good story."

After the Starstruck Deluxe Edition softcover was released in 2012, reviewer Richard Caldwell wrote, "You know how most folks peg the Watchmen as the greatest work of the sequential arts? Yea well, in comparison, this baby is far more progressive, in scope and in message, as it’s a magnum opus science fictional tale full of sound and fury, signifying everything to end all magnum opus science fictional tales full of sound and fury, signifying everything."