Kurt Busiek's Astro City: The Annotations

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              KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY VOL. 2, #10
                          Show 'Em All
      collected as part of the FAMILY ALBUM trade paperback
                      Narrator: The Junkman
      Date: June 18th, 1997 (and several months thereafter)
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Cover:    The Junkman. Note the faces on some of the dollar bills:
          MPH (above the Junkman), the Black Rapier (in front of
          him), Jack-In-The-Box II (to the right).

1/1:      First appearance of the Junkman.

3/4:      The red object is an Etch-A-Sketch, a popular children's
          toy which allows the user to draw erasable pictures on
          the screen using the two dials.

4/3:      The round object is a See And Say toy; the child points
          the dial to one section of the circle (usually a picture
          of some sort) and pulls the cord. The toy then plays a
          message appropriate to that section while the dial turns
          around, landing randomly on another part of the circle.
          The pictures on a See and Say toy are usually either
          animals or popular cartoon characters.

5/1:      Evidently, Jack-In-The-Box II did not perish as was
          mooted in #8, 4/3-4. (That this is the same Jack-In-The-
          Box is confirmed in #11.)

6/1:      The headline reads "AstroBank: Mystery Robber!". The
          paper is dated June 18th, 1997, given a starting date to
          the story (ie probably between #s 4 and 5).

7/4:      This company, "N.R. Gisti[cs?]", would appear to be
          related to that which makes N-Forcer's armor -- it bears
          the logo "Nicholas Royce", as seen in Vol.1 #2, 12-13/1.

9/4:      First reference to Senhor Tecnico.

10/2:     The man is referring to the events of #9; this scene
          therefore takes place in September, 1997.

11/1:     "Vingt-et-un, messieurs et madames": "Twenty-one,
          gentlemen and ladies." The Junkman is playing blackjack.
          (Note that the French here is incorrect: the proper
          pluralisation of "madame" (lady) is "mesdames". More
          commonly used would be simply "dames".)

  /4:     First mention of Tidal Waif.

18/2:     The main headline of the "Detroit Free Press" is "Junkman
          On Crime Spree?". The leftmost story reads:

                    WARY BANKS UP SECURITY

               MANHATTAN -- In the wake of the Junkman's daring
               raid on the first MotorCity Bank in Detroit and his
               resumed robbery of the main AstroBank branch in
               Astro City weeks ago, banks around the world are
               putting millions, if not billions, into security
               improvements, according to the Center for Banking
               Studies in Manhattan.

               "If it's not the Junkman, it's someone else," said
               Unibank president Richard John at a seminar on
               banking and safety issues Friday. "The Brass
               Monkey, the Otter, the Techsperts -- they may look
               screwy but if a bank let down their guard for one
               second, one of these guys is going to walk in and
               clean out your vaults." In the wake of many bank
               robberies, the stolen money is recovered, usually
               by superheroes, but that leads to complicated
               paperwork, delays in federal insurance payout on
               those robberies where the money is not recovered,
               and decreased public confidence in the banking
               system. "Sure, we get they money back a lot of the
               time," said John, "but it'd be better [ ] if it
               never left in the first place [ ] and customers
               both [ ] safer from a [ ]

          Note that the omission of the 'p' in "presumed" in the
          first paragraph is present in the original article. The
          other headlines read "Oldster Eludes Speedster" (at the
          bottom) and "'M.O. In AstroBank Heist Is His As Well'
          Says Author". The headlines on the "Current" read "The
          AstroBank Robbery: First Clues Come To Light; * The Man
          Who Counts The Crimes; * America' Most Powerful
          Elementary School -- A Report Card [ ]".

  /5:     "Five months to the day": this scene would seem to take
          place on November 18th, 1997, except the newspaper on
          23/1 sets the date at November 6th. Perhaps the Junkman
          has a poor memory.

20/4:     Jack-In-The-Box is referring to his encounter with an
          EAGLE helicopter in #8, 4/3-4.

23/1:     The lead article reads:

                    JUNKMAN CAPTURED

          ASTRO CITY -- Investigators looking for the early August
          AstroBank robbery report that they're confident the
          missing cash will soon be recovered. [ ] tools, we've
          found his lair, we've cracked his codes," said police
          detective Harry Tamberlaine. "The money's not there [ ]
          we're [ ]

          Note that the August date for the first AstroBank robbery
          directly contradicts that given on 6/1. The newspaper
          itself is dated November 7th (placing the robbery either
          the night of the 6th or the early morning of the 7th);
          this conflicts with the date given on 18/5.

24/1:     Tyrus Raymond "Ty" Cobb (1886-1961) played baseball for
          the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Athletics from 1905
          to 1928. Often touted as the greatest offensive player in
          the history of the game, Cobb was amongst the first
          players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, its
          inaugural year.

  /3:     The Junkman's device is a modified 8-track of the Swedish
          band Abba. Note that the order of the stylized 'B's in
          Abba's logo is intentionally reversed to avoid using the
          actual trademark.



Release History:
Version 1.1 released 14th June 1998
Version 1.0 released  7th June 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:
"Comic Art & Graffix Gallery Virtual Museum & Encyclopedia"
(http://www.comic-art.com/enter.htm)

"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)
Gilles Barreau, gilles.g.barreau@ope.shell.com
Kurt Busiek, kurtbusiek@aol.com
David Green, nebulosa@marmorata.vulpine.org
Brian D Smith, n9446641@rowlf.cc.wwu.edu
Doug Waldron, doug.waldron@usa.net