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Midnight Nation Oversized Deluxe Edition [Hardcover]

J. Michael Straczynski (Author), Gary Frank (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)

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Book Description

September 14, 2009
Midnight Nation is a thought-provoking story with religious overtones about a police officer in limbo who goes on a cross-country search for his soul, but encounters some mighty obstacles along the way. When Midnight Nation was first released in 2000, J. Michael Straczynski's provocative storytelling and the fantastic art of Gary Frank (Action Comics, Squadron Supreme) captivated readers with its mix of action, horror, and drama built around a message of hope, loyalty, and sacrifice. Collected now for the first time in a deluxe, oversized hardcover, this edition includes Midnight Nation #1-12, the Wizard #1/2 issue, a spectacular cover gallery, and never-before-seen extras!

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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Image Comics; Oversized deluxe edition edition (September 14, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 160706040X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1607060406
  • Product Dimensions: 12.8 x 8.4 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 4.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,135,100 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

J. Michael Staczynski was born in Paterson, NJ in 1954, from a lower-middle-class blue-collar family that moved 21 times in his first 18 years. He began writing in earnest and selling at the age of 17 and hasn't stopped since. He graduated San Diego State University with degrees in Psychology and Sociology.

As a journalist, he has written over 500 published articles for such periodicals as The Los Anglees Times, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Penthouse, Writer's Digest, San Diego Magazine, the San Diego and Los Angeles Reader and TIME, Inc. He has also published numerous short stories in Amazing Science Fiction Magazine, Pulphouse, and various anthologies.

As a television writer and producer, he has written over 200 produced episodes, including workj on The New Twilight Zone, Nightmare Classics and Murder She Wrote. He also wrote, created and produced the series Babylon 5, Crusade and Jeremiah.

Moving from TV to film, he wrote Changeling (directed by Clint Eastwood), Ninja Assassin (produced by the Wachowskis), provided the story for Thor (directed by Kenneth Branagh), wrote Underworld 4 (starring Kate Beckinsale), and has written numerous other films that are currently slated for production.

He has won the Hugo Award (twice), the Saturn Award, the Eisner Award, the Inkpot Lifetime Achievement Award, the E Pluribus Unum Award from the American Cinema Foundation, the Space Frontier Foundation award, the Ray Bradbury Award, the Christopher Award, and over a dozen others.

He was also nominated for a British Academy Award (BAFTA) for his screenplay for Changeling.

He writes ten hours a day, every day, except for his birthday, New Year's Day and Christmas Day.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Filet of Soul May 1, 2004
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Cop's soul is sttolen. Cop is not pleased. He goes for a long walk to get it back. Yes, I'm leaving out a lot of the good bits (Laurel) but I don't want to be a spoilsport.

One reviewer compared this to Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" because of the "slipping between the cracks" lost people imagery. It's not a stolen idea, or if it was it was stolen from someone else a long, long time ago. It's a recurring theme in societies with large populations. There have always been and probably always will be people who just get lost. It's a frightening thing to us.

My opinion: I really liked this one. It's dark, but not obscure. The darkness in this comic is not gratuitous or unnecessarily violent or just there to get some emotions stirred up in people. It's crafted and placed and worked into something that's like wrought iron. And the themes in it; the things that people in despair think, the hopelessness; those are real things. The fear, the stories about going nowhere, those are real.

It's like holding two strong magnets with their oposite poles together. You see nothing but you can really feel it, like a shape made by that unseen force that has a texture. You expect your fingers to be able to touch it but there's nothing there; you can only feel how it's making the things you hold react. This story doens't put all the ideas in but you can feel them, taste them, see them by their lack. They are as clear as the patch of paper left unbleached when you take a picture off old wallpaper.

There's temptation and despair and anger, and a little humor. There's the dregs of your soul and what keeps you going even when you've got nothing left. Duty, but it's never named. It really touched some feelings in me. It's real art.

But like art, different people will see differnt things in it and some will see nothing at all; the art that will touch them is not the same as the art that touches me. I could say that some people will get it and others won't, but that sounds patronizing. And people throughout their lives change; someone might get it at one point and then not get it later... You see what I mean, and that's more a rant about art than about this comic in particular.

My favorite part is that for all the social themes there's not a hint of patronization or holier-than-thou attitude in the tone of this book, and I can smell that bull a mile off.

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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Remarkable October 13, 2003
Format:Paperback
Detective David Gray, LAPD, is investigating what he thinks is just another gangland murder, until he finds himself slipping into a second world beneath the world he knows. He is being pursued by brutal creatures known as "The Men" and is befriended by a group of transients and bums who, like David, have fallen between the cracks of society. It is here that David learns the horrifying truth about what has happened to him -- "The Men" have stolen his soul, and he has less than twelve months to walk from Los Angeles to New York and reclaim it, or he will become one of them.

Straczynski is a brilliant storyteller and Frank was the perfect choice to illustrate this graphic novel. It shifts from scary to hauntingly beautiful without missing a beat, and the climax is nothing short of remarkable. It's truly a masterpiece of the form.

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Midnight Nation is a heavily allegorical comic book that draws on classic biblical themes to tell a story about people who "fall through the cracks" in life. Although it starts off as a straight-foward story about a man who journies to reclaim his soul (at least, straightfoward for JMS), it evolves simultaneously into a much bigger story, and a far more subtle one.

Included is my all-time favorite single issue of any comic book, "The Devil You Know" (issue #4). JMS isn't known for having many stories with an obvious moral in them, so when he does include one, he makes sure it's good. In short, JMS uses the world he created extremely well to tell a story about the dangers of fear and not accepting responsibility for your life. (But that brief summary doesn't even begin to do this issue justice.)

Although "The Devil You Know" can almost stand alone from the rest of the book, the moral in it sets the stage for the entire series, and defines what Midnight Nation all about.

I highly recomend this book. Once it gets going in the later issues it you can really see it distance itself from other comic books, and presents a far more subtle and well crafted story than even JMS is typically known for.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
No Excuse for Being So Ignorant
Straczynski shows how ignorant he is. In his book, he talked about how America car companies were relocating to Singapore because Singapore's wages were so dirt cheap. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Richard Hovin
Pitch Perfect Packaging...
Just got it, haven't read it.
I'm SO IMPRESSED with the packaging.
1. Comes with a deluxe, super slick 18"x36" poster
2. Read more
Published on March 2, 2010 by Alexander P.
Definitely Worth Getting in Hardcover
This is one of my favorite books of all time. I have read it a good ten times and it never fails to illicit a response from me. Just damn good writing I suppose.
Published on February 6, 2010 by Ed Nemo
Graphic SF Reader
A good start, then so-so, but definitely did not see what was coming on the end, improving a lot as it went on, with the various angelic revelations. Read more
Published on September 2, 2007 by Blue Tyson
Top Notch
Not being a big Babylon 5 fan, I was not impressed by 'from the creator of Babylon 5' typed on the cover of Midnight Nation. Read more
Published on December 24, 2005 by Itamar Katz
Much better than i think some reviewers give it credit for
This was a really good book. Especially for a comic book. It was one of those dark, gritty, realistic(ish) comics but not as dark as Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns or Kingdom Come. Read more
Published on April 30, 2004 by baylor
Truly a piece of work
The first issue (22 pages) was paced rather quickly to try and get readers introduced to the story. But after you learn about the plot, this book travels. Read more
Published on May 19, 2003 by Aaron Kasza
why I love graphic novels
Like all great stories, this novel has depth, and, like all great comic novels, the artwork enhances the story line and expands it's message. Read more
Published on April 26, 2003 by Arthur W. Scholbe
pretty good
First off I have to say that I'm not a fan of comic books. This is the only one I own and I bought only because of the reputation of JMS from B5. Read more
Published on April 2, 2003 by A. Price
the apotheosis of all graphic novels
I really felt this story; you can feel the emotion that JMS put into it; a tale that is fictionally autobiographical. And what a tale it is! Read more
Published on March 17, 2003 by J. Lindsay
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