When I drove across country, I did it almost entirely to the radio. I listened to a lot of pop country. I like pop country, but by the end of the trip I did start to grow tired of the overwhelming American exceptionalism in the music. I'm sure I'll talk about that later. While pretty much everywhere I went there was a country stations, it was not true that, "In every state, there's a station/Playin' Cash, Hank, Willie, and Waylon."
This is just another example of country music mythologizing their older stars. Rap does the same thing with the constant callbacks to Biggie and Pac. And so do comics.
I was reminded of this recently when I picked up some 80s issues of FF by Byrne. They were a perfectly enjoyable purchase at a dollar each. They also made me think just how much Byrne was into Kirby. And now the entire Marvel universe is based around past work. There is this small insular world of creators who's entire job is to curate the ongoing adventures of a group of characters from the 60s. It's easy for Art comics fans to look down on this. (And for sure, many aspects of how older creators are treated are very problematic). But, I don't know, there's something really interesting about this slavish devotion to the characters but not the energy of the original comics.
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