{"id":1146,"date":"2007-10-01T13:15:47","date_gmt":"2007-10-01T13:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=1146"},"modified":"2007-10-01T13:16:40","modified_gmt":"2007-10-01T13:16:40","slug":"common-grounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2007\/10\/01\/common-grounds\/","title":{"rendered":"Common Grounds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/common-grounds.jpg\" alt=\"Common Grounds\" \/>\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>By <strong>Troy Hickman<\/strong> &amp; Various (Top Cow)<br \/>\nISBN: 1-5824-0436-4<\/p>\n<p>At first glance this little gem appears to a wry and savvy blending of <strong>Cheers<\/strong>, <strong>Friends<\/strong>, and <strong>Astro City<\/strong>, but a closer scrutiny reveals a rather unique viewpoint and talent working here. The premise is simple enough. In a universe awash with the standard clich\u00c3\u00a9s of superheroes &#8216;Common Grounds&#8217; is the name of a chain of Coffee Shops that caters to the ultra-powered, the drastically mutated and the hyper-enhanced.<\/p>\n<p>The six issues collected here feature a series of short vignettes that concentrate on the quiet moments, the down-time and the back-stories of the many varied denizens of the super-heroic and super-criminal communities.<\/p>\n<p>Illustrated by a pantheon of the industry&#8217;s top talents such as Dan Jurgens, Al Vey, Michael Avon Oeming, Ethan Van Scriver, Chris Bachalo, Carlos Pacheco, George Perez, Angel Medina and Sam Kieth among others, it&#8217;s wonderfully easy on the eye, but the real pay-off is the scripting by Troy Hickman. Here is someone who can tell a fully realised story in a remarkably short amount of space and with a deft and incisive ear for dialogue.<\/p>\n<p>That in itself would make this a treat, but just when you think you&#8217;ve got the measure of the thing Hickman pulls all the seemingly disparate little sit-com skits into one highly emotive and cohesive human drama that takes your breath away. Without realising, the reader has been putting together a jigsaw puzzle, unaware even that that is what they&#8217;ve been holding.<\/p>\n<p>Marvellous, charming and enthralling: track a copy down and become a different kind of coffee addict.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c2\u00a9 2004 Top Cow Productions, Onc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00c2\u00a0 By Troy Hickman &amp; Various (Top Cow) ISBN: 1-5824-0436-4 At first glance this little gem appears to a wry and savvy blending of Cheers, Friends, and Astro City, but a closer scrutiny reveals a rather unique viewpoint and talent working here. The premise is simple enough. In a universe awash with the standard clich\u00c3\u00a9s &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2007\/10\/01\/common-grounds\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Common Grounds&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-graphic-novels"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-iu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}