Concrete #1-10 of the series (this is what the back cover says but there seem to be only eight issues)I wish there really was a complete Concrete that was complete - I've been trying to find all the short stories, mini-series, etc. but libraries are now at an end. It seems like the more current the Concrete story, the harder it is to get. Still, there were three issues here that were new to me. In order of my favorite, from best to least:issue #6: A Remarkable Life - Concrete grows antlersissue

#ThrowbackThursday - Back in the '90s, I used to write comic book reviews for the website of a now-defunct comic book retailer called Rockem Sockem Comics. (Collect them all!)From the September 1998 edition with a theme of "Creative Recycling":INTRODUCTIONLast month's column was about publishers reprinting and repackaging material. This month, I'm going to take a peek at creative recycling.What's creative recycling? That's when a creator takes elements, plots, characters, themes, traditional fra...

Geary Gravel's short introductory essays told me to expect superlative visual and literary artistry. He didn't say that i should adjust my expectations, so i will say it for us all: Read Concrete from an adolescent’s point of view. Paul Chadwick’s 8 major issues of Concrete are collected under this one cover. I read them start to finish as i suspect he intended. They tell the story of Ron Lithgow, a senatorial speech writer who has been transformed against his will into a 1200-pound anthropoi...

I think I'm done with Concrete. I've just read my way through the volumes I have featuring him (this and the two Short Stories collections) and I can't see anything of any particular merit here. I've reread these books several times, and as I get older they just get worse. Chadwick's art, which was striking at the time, now looks bare bones competent (though he does some striking things with layout and perception). His writing, too, just manages. Though conversations seem to have a natural flow,...

I love Concrete. He is a simple science-fiction conceit thrown into a very realistic world, and so he becomes a realistic character by affecting that world. The adventures and character of Concrete, who is a Ronald Lithgow, a human speech-writer whose brain is transplanted by aliens into the body of a rock golem with super strength and endurance, is rendered with physical and psychological realism. These are stories basically about one person with the time, patience, strength and material means

My review from Amazon:This is one of the best comic books and graphic novels I have ever read! I got this by chance at Pass It On Thrift Store in Crestwood, IL here in the USA. It was a great book to read filled with an interesting and exciting cast of characters, storyline, plot and drama not to mention comedy, action, adventure, romance and plenty of ads in a few panels advertising real world products or knockoffs of them. Paul Chadwick did a great job writing this series and this particular b...

I could not get through this collection, I must be missing something.

Concrete is not a superhero. He's not the Hulk smashing everything in his path. He's not The Thing shouting «It's Clobberin Time» before going into action. In fact, there is very little action in Concrete's life. In some ways, you even get to pity the poor schmuck that had his brain transfered into a big pile of rock by a bunch of mysterious aliens. He actually probably lost more than he gained... his sense of touch is practically innexistent, no more taste buds, no more sense of smell either......

A superhero comic where the hero ain’t so super. A man stuck inside a cyborg concrete body decides to go adventuring, helping people sometimes but also testing the limits of his new body’s endurance. This could have been a corny superhero story, but instead it ponders the difficulties of someone stuck in a bizarre situation. A thoughtful and well-written comic.

Another loan from Matt-in-my-shopping-center. I loved the Concrete's character design and the Maxfield Parrish-ish ladies. I liked the concept, but given that Ben Grimm is my favorite comic character, I couldn't help spending a lot of the time contrasting the two.I also have 'Think Like a Mountain' which I've been told is a better story, and I'm looking forward to reading it. My first impression of the series was that there was going to be a strong environmental bend to the stories, and I'm hopi...

he's a good rock

I remember first learning about this series many years ago when they interviewed Paul Chadwick. Both my brother and I agreed that Chadwick seemed kind of odd and egotistical in the interview, so we mocked him and his unconventional idea for a story. Recently though I stumbled across someone discussing the series on facebook and I decided to give it a try. I am very glad I did. As a kid I didn't appreciate what Chadwick was trying to say in his interview and how unique of a story he was telling i...

I think this is one of those graphic novels I lent out once and never got back, which is a shame, because it's awesome. Wrong! I still have it, and it is still awesome. Concrete is sort of eco-realist-fantasy. There's this guy, whose body becomes huge and rocky, and he's very strong and durable, but that's where the craziness ends. From there out its politics, environmentalism, relationships, and basically dealing with the real world. Highly recommended.On re-reading in 2010Holds up quite well.

This is not a super hero comic book series. This is not a series about what a man - a before then less than ambitious speech writer- with amazing abilities trapped (via brain transplant) in an alien body for reasons he has yet to discover might do with the abilities he was given as a result ... though that happens, too. This is essentially a deeply engaging, smartly written, series that long time comic book fans that ever wondered what would the "real world" benefits and ramifications of being a...

Decades ago during my very first run reading comics almost by accident came across a Concrete story where he simultaneously existed everywhere he’d ever been; a man shaped concrete form stretching back and forth across the world. I recall it being a very meditative story and the antithesis of the Image era roided, weaponized and multi-pocketed super heroes of the day. Depending on a small comic shop in middle of nowhere New England never came across it again during that first run.Now well into m...

This got a lot of praise back in the eighties when it was first published, but I never read it at the time. I can't say it looks like I missed much. Ron Lithgow is abducted by aliens and has his brain transplanted into a rocklike cyborg body--hence his sobriquet "Concrete"--and manages to escape. The aliens decamp, and apparently never are seen or heard of again--serving as a plot device to create Concrete, nothing more, or so it would seem. Anyway, the government is interested but lets him live...

Dark Horse for years has published some of the most literary graphic fiction. This series by Paul Chadwick is a treat. One of the great joys is trying to figure out how Chadwick devised the concept. A political speechwriter, divorced, chubby, diffident, is captured by aliens and turned into a 1,200 pound giant with superpowers. This is quite literally THE WEST WING set in stone. Ron Lithgow, commonly known as Concrete, tries to save trapped miners, swim the Atlantic, save a family farm, and clim...

I am a big fan of the Concrete series, which might be best described as a superhero comic without the superheroics. Concrete is the story of a man who is abducted by aliens and finds his mind transplanted into a nigh indestructible cyborg body. However, rather than decide to try to save the world by punching out bad guys, he uses his newfound fame to become a writer and use his words to elicit change.Most of the drama in Concrete comes from his feelings of alienation and the fact that he has to

"If you liked Fraiser and also like comics then you may also like Concrete". A senator's speech writer -> deux ex machina -> concrete becomes a travel writer. According to in story TV producers, Concrete is "entirely too urbane and sophisticated" for mass consumption on late night TV. He spends most of his time and many panels overthinking and worrying about stuff outside of his control, attempting to Sherlock is way out of trouble but fumbling due to hesitation and clumsy fingers. Luckily for h...