Fan groups and fanzines have sprung up around comics forever. In fact, back in the early '80s, Alan Moore wrote a regular column in a British magazine reviewing fanzines. So it shouldn't be surprising that Awesome had one, too.The Awesome Army Online was created in 1997 by Andy Wolfe, who wanted to create a forum for Awesome fans free of "Liefeld-bashers." Soon Chris Milnar, president of the Supreme Fan Club, came on, as well as a guy named Mick Swinarski. Swinarski was a longtime Captain America fan who contacted Jeph Loeb and followed Loeb to Fighting American and Awesome.
Swinarski became the editor of the fanzine, the AAO Outpost. The first edition of the Outpost came out in March/April of 1999. The Outposts were filled with fan fiction text and comics about all of the Awesome characters, as well as interviews and random fan pieces. (It helps to have a passing knowledge of most of the Awesome comics to get all the references.)The stories, like most fan fiction, are a mixture of good and bad, but the love of the characters is palpable throughout. And, as we saw in the Gil Kane story, some of the stories are well worth remembering.
Professor Night was a favorite, as you can see in this story from the second Outpost:
Here's another good one, an origin story for the Winter Knight from Judgment Day:
The Outpost lasted seven issues (and the Gil Kane supplement) before they realized that Awesome was dead and all of the creators went their ways. However, they've left this wonderful little treasure chest of love for the Awesome universe. As there aren't going to be any more Awesome stories from Alan Moore or Jeph Loeb, you can do a lot worse than check out the hidden gems in here. A few of the creators have gone to work as artists or writers on comics or in the comics field.
I've made a page dedicated to the AAO here, where you can download all the issues for yourself. I had the good fortune to talk to a number of the creators of these and appreciated their answering my pedantic questions and allowing me to share these with you.
I'll probably reprint some more of the stories in some future posts where it makes sense (or I'm desperate for something to write about.
