Well, 1602 finally whimpered to a close and I feel suckered. Time's Andrew Arnold chose it as the worst of 2003 which at the time I thought just plain silly because it was nowhere near being finished but turns out he was right. I'm sure there were actually worse comics last year but this is a truly spectacular failure from a major talent, the kind of failure that makes you wonder whether the talent is in fact so major. Still, it's not as if we didn't know Gaiman could stumble since American Gods was the kind of fuzzy, obese monstrosity that needed an editor of Max Perkins agressiveness to hack into shape and of course didn't get. (Do such editors even exist anymore?) But I stuck with 1602 because of the promises that there was something really innovative and surprising behind it though in the end it was just a poorly imagined alternate history tale much like a Where's Super-Waldo?. Gaiman was clearly trying to make a Statement About America but apart from, y'know, freedom and stuff it's hard to make heads or tails of that. I should say this is a lesson learned and next time to cut my losses but in fact I'm still sticking with Alan Moore's ABC line though that's really plummeted in quality over the past few months (and it was rarely anything remarkable to begin with).