Silent Interlude or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Dialogue and Love Visual Storytelling". I think most parents encourage reading in whatever form they can get their kid interested in it and in my case comic books was certainly that. From literally as far back as I can remember, I've been drawing and reading comics. The marriage of words and art were intrinsically linked in my mind. The words could say what the visuals couldn't and vice versa, perfect harmony. But interestingly, the relationship between words and art tends to be a bit of a one way street . . . See, a book with no pictures is a novel, that's for sophisticated readers, they have to IMAGINE the visuals, but a book with no words and just pictures? Well, that's a picture book, that's as dumbed down as it gets, that's practically for babies! . . . Right? I didn't get to experience ARAH #21 when it was originally released. By the time I started reading G.I. Joe comics they were already numbered well into the 80s and I was getting them at gas stations and pharmacies, it would be many years before I finally got my hands on a copy of #21 at a comic store and even though I was in my late teens by then and was well aware of the mythical "Silent Issue", somehow, I still wasn't really ready to fully comprehend it. Sure, it was exciting to finally have the complete Marvel run and read through them in the order they were intended, but it actually wouldn't be until many years later when I could fully grasp the deceptively simple brilliance of this issue. Back to that whole "picture books are for babies" thing, visuals without words have literally been used since the cave paintings. They're all around us, symbols, signs, logos, but there is a fundamental difference between singular imagery and storytelling and it was only once I became a professional comic artist that I finally realized . . . making comics is really hard work!!! Bad comics often use a tremendous amount of expository dialogue to compensate for storytelling that is difficult to convey through single panels, good comics use less, but are still somewhat reliant on words. But GREAT comics? Well, I've read thousands of them in my life and only one single issue comes to mind that not only manages to tell a compelling story with zero dialogue, but to also have unquestionably the biggest reveal ever in terms of the overall ramifications it's had on the entire mythos of a brand and that comic? Silent Interlude. In this case, I think the pictures are worth a lot more than just a thousand words!

Part of the brilliance of what Larry and Steve created with G.I. Joe issue #21 lies in how deceptive its simplicity is. It simultaneously sits as a pristine example of sequential art as a medium for pure art's sake, as a great piece of writing that conveys suspense, emotion and origin reveals of two of pop culture's most famous characters, AND holds within it one of the most fascinating 'war stories' of working within the comic book industry, with all the constraints of deadlines and putting out monthly periodicals. It's often said that the true magic of sequential (comic) art is not the images themselves, but the images "between the panels" that your mind forms, and this story may just fill the readers' mind with MORE images than are on the page. Sometimes in tight gaps between the action, and sometimes much longer breaks, but still each scene change clearly fills your head with what likely transpired since the last moment you saw the characters. All this requires a mastery of the craft, and that's before even getting into the gripping questions the STORY raises.

Make no mistake, that while this issue lacks words, it is BRIMMING with story. WHO is this mysterious ninja? How did he capture Scarlett? And the biggest reveal of all, saved for the very end - WHAT does our favorite Joe commando who we've been following for 21 issues have to do with this strange new enemy? All crafted in something like two weeks due to a publishing deadline.

I sat outside the Mr. Food in the cold February weather of 1984, not wanting to waste a moment of time riding my bike home before I read G.I. Joe: ARAH #21 the moment I got it off the stands. It did not disappoint. For months — even years later, this comic was the cornerstone of every theory my friends and I made about Larry Hama's slow rolling saga of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. - Who were the ninja? What did that tattoo mean? How does it all connect to Snake Eyes? - Our kid brains were on fire with possibility and excitement. What can I say about the Silent Issue that hasn't been said by smarter, better writers? Not a damn thing. It's still spoken of in reverential tones by other artists 40 years after it hit the stands. For comics pros, the Silent Issue is our Dark Side of the Moon, White Album, and Led Zeppelin IV. It's a masterpiece, as pure an example of comic book storytelling that has ever been published. No comic book has ever so fully immersed its reader in its world.

G.I. Joe Issue #23 was great, it had action, it had suspense & there was a cool Cobra Commander moment that I loved! There was a cliffhanger that would have us waiting for one month to see how it would be resolved in the next issue. Wait, this article is on Issue #21 not on #23, my bad. I started reading G.I. Joe comics with Issue #23. I picked it up at a barber shop when I was dragged in to get a haircut by my mom & I saw this issue on a spinner rack of comics. I begged my mom to let me get it while we waited for our turn. It was only 65 cents, so she gave in just to get me to be quiet. Again, this walk down memory lane is about issue #21, when I perused the issue at the barber shop, I realized it was #23, meaning there had been 22 other issues leading up to this one, so I made it my mission to track down all the previous issues. I had been an avid G.I. Joe toy collector for a couple years at that point & I loved catching the occasional animated mini-series that would come out from Sunbow. Thus, adding more G.I. Joe into my life was a desired prospect that I could live with. Now, tracking down said back issues was going to be a different thing altogether, as I was living in Salem, NH at the time & was not aware of any comic stores in my area. So, how would I accomplish this goal? My family moved to Derry, the next town up from Salem & one Saturday, we went to a flea-market in town where venders set up on a weekly basis. It was there I found a comic vendor that had comics. Wide-eyed, I searched through his long white comic boxes in alphabetical order until I came across G.I. Joe. He had a few issues, with #22 being among them (the next issue I needed going back). Unfortunately, there was no issue #21. I asked the shop keeper if he had the next issue & he pointed at #21 on a slanted wood shelf. There was the enigmatic Snake-Eyes hanging from a rope climbing up the side of a wall, with beautiful colors. I asked what the price of this issue was & he responded, "A dollar fifty." A dollar fifty? In those early days of the 80s (and for a kid like me!) that was like a million dollars. So, as usual, I begged & pleaded with my mom for the money. She said "yes", as she was very encouraged by anything that got me to read. G.I. Joe was the beginning of a long love of reading comics for me & my "evil" twin brother to this day. Thank you to Larry Hama for keeping me engaged all these years.