Common Grounds

Written by Troy Hickman, this series examined the life of superheroes in and around a coffee shop called Common Grounds. The series began in 1994 as the mini-comic Holey Crullers, written by Hickman and drawn by Jerry Smith, and was circulated through mail order and sales at comic book conventions (resulting in very few copies of Crullers being in existence today). In 1997, Wizard Magazine became aware of the cult comic, and they devoted a four-page article to it (a first for a photocopied, black-and-white mini-comic).

Then, serendipitously, in 2003, Wizard editor Jim McLauchlin became editor-in-chief of Top Cow Productions, and quickly contacted Hickman about getting the rights to the Holey Crullers scripts. By the beginning of 2004, Common Grounds had been launched as a six-issue series, featuring Hickman's stories and new artwork by comics superstars such as Dan Jurgens, George Perez, Mike Oeming, Chris Bachalo, Sam Kieth, Angel Medina, Carlos Pacheco, and Ethan Van Sciver. The series received a great deal of critical acclaim and garnered an even larger cult following, and in November of 2004, a trade paperback was published collecting all six issues. The series' fame continued to grow even after publication had ceased, and in the summer of 2005, it received two Eisner Award nominations (Best Anthology and Best Short Story for "Where Monsters Dine," drawn by Angel Medina).

The first volume of Common Grounds consists of thirteen self-contained stories (though there is a thread of continuity) featuring numerous superheroes and villains, including Speeding Bullet, Man-Witch, Mental Midget, Flammabelle, Digital Man & Analog Kid, the Acidic Jew, Deb-U-Ton, Strangeness & Charm, Blackwatch, the Liberty Balance, Eternal Flame, Big Money, and American Pi.