Wasteland (DC Comics)

Wasteland was an anthology-stylehorror comic book published by DC Comics in 1987-1989. The series, which lasted 18 issues. Most issues had a standard format of three stories written by either John Ostrander, Del Close or both writers in collaboration. A team of four artists (at any given time) would separately illustrate the three stories in each issue, while the fourth would take that month's cover spot. Members of the rotating crew of artists included Don Simpson, David Lloyd, William Messner-Loebs and Timothy Truman. One special issue included only the artwork of Joe Orlando.

Each issue (with the exception of the book-length final issue) consisted of three unrelated stories. For the most part, the stories avoided the sort of gory shock associated with the classic Tales from the Crypt formula horror comics popularized by EC and their imitators, the stories instead focusing on alienation and psychological dread often mixed with grotesque gallows humor, absurdism and sociopolitical satire.

The stories did not take place in the DC Universe and no established DC characters appeared within its stories. The only exceptions came in a story entitled "Crossover" in which a few DC characters (and another of Ostrander's creations, GrimJack) appeared metafictional context in the story entitled "Crossover" and also in the series' final issue, in which the entire run of the series (including "Crossover") was "rewound" to the beginning of the very first story.

Rather, the stories tended to take place in the real world. One story portrayed the death of H. P. Lovecraft. Another pastiched the autobiographical comics series American Splendor by Harvey Pekar, with Don Simpson imitating the drawing style of Robert Crumb. This story portrayed a thinly-guised version of Pekar in one of his acrimonious appearances on Late Night with David Letterman in which he denounced General Electric. Typically, Wasteland both included political content in the story (GE, by that time, also indirectly owned DC Comics as well) and also turned it into a fable about anxiety and self-doubt.

Almost every issue of Wasteland portrayed, in exaggerated fashion, vignettes taken from the colorful life of Wasteland co-writer Del Close. In one of these stories, Close is voluntarily hypnotized by L. Ron Hubbard and is present when Hubbard comes up with the notion of turning the practice Dianetics into the "religion" of Scientology. Close also openly discussed in his stories such other controversial topics as his own drug use and his involvement with witchcraft as a religion.

Wasteland was noted for the lively debates that took place within its letter columns.