Kurt Busiek's Astro City: The Annotations

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               KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY VOL. 2, #3
                   Adventures In Other Worlds
       collected as part of the FAMILY ALBUM trade paperback                                
                      Narrator: Astra Furst
      Date: November 11th, 1996 (and a few days thereafter)
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Cover:    Note that the phone number listed on Astra's missing-
          person advertisement is 1-800-634-FRST. This is a real
          phone number for a commercial company (and hence, of
          course, should not actually be used as the company which
          owns the number must pay for each call).

2-3/2:    First appearance of Monstro City.

4/1:      First appearance of Skrek.

 /2:      First reference to Madame Majestrix.

 /4:      First reference to the Trenchers.

6/6:      Note the student artwork behind the teacher -- a story by
          "Kurt B." (writer Kurt Busiek) and artwork by "Alex S."
          (color artist Alex Sinclair, whose art is an
          appropriately colorful rainbow), "Brent A." (penciller
          Brent Anderson, drawing Jack-In-The-Box), and "Alex R."
          (cover artist Alex Ross, drawing Samaritan -- in fact, a
          simplified version of the cover art for the LIFE IN THE
          BIG CITY collection).

7/1:      First appearance of Kaspian and the Beast-Peoples/Beast-
          Men/Animal-Men, first mentioned in #2, 5/3.

9/5:      Bolling Elementary is named after Bob Bolling, who
          created L'il Archie for Archie Comics.

10/1:     First appearance of Praetor and first reference to
          Omniac. A praetor was a magistrate in ancient Rome and,
          appropriately, Praetor is dressed in old Roman style.

12/3:     The rotifer, or wheel animalcule, is any of two thousand
          microscopic invertebrates making up class Rotifera (or
          Rotaria). They are found mostly in water or on moss and
          lichen, and are so named because the circular arrangement
          of moving cilia at their head looks like a rotating
          wheel.

  /4:     "She's Twins" was a TV show mentioned in the Kurt Busiek
          story "Tooth and Claw", which appeared in CREEPY (see
          16/2).

13/1:     First appearance of Lord Volcanus and the Insiders.


15/1:     First appearance of Kratorr the Invincible. Note that
          this scene appears to take place on the Moon, hence the
          space suits the First Family is wearing.

16/2:     The milk carton advertisement reads:

               HAVE YOU SEEN ME?

               CALL 1-800-555-FRST

               Name: Astra Nadia Furst-Zorus
               D.O.B.: July 9th, 1986   Height: 4' 8"
               Weight: 85 lbs.   Id Marks: None
               Hair: Blonde/Straight/Long
               Eye Color: Blue
               Date Missing: 11/10/96
               [ ]

          This would suggest Rex's family is Zorus. It also
          specifies the date of #2 as November 10th, and this issue
          as taking place over the course of a few days after. On
          the other hand, it does contain a notable typo -- Astra's
          eyes are green, not blue.

          "Tooth and Claw" was a story written by Kurt Busiek for
          CREEPY.

17/1:     First references to Insectra, Ugly Max and the Derelikt.

22/1:     Note the letters on the heads of the three giant robots:
          MO, LA and CU. This is a reference to the Three Stooges,
          a comedy troupe operating for much of the twentieth
          century whose most famous members were Moe, Larry and
          Curly.



Release History:
Version 1.1 released 24th May 1998
Version 1.0 released 18th May 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.

Annotations for other issues of KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY may be
found at http://strindberg.ling.uu.se/~anders/KBAC/main.html
(HTMLized versions) and http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/kbac/ (text
versions).

Sources:
"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)
Philip Flores, philipf@acbc.com
Greg "Elmo" Morrow, morrow@physics.rice.edu
Stirge, stirge@netzone.com
Elayne Weschler-Chaput, firehead@panix.com