Geoff Johns’ Pal, Superman: I noticed the amusing cover design of the Superman: Ending Battle at the shop on Wednesday, but couldn’t post about it because the full cover with the text and everything wasn’t available online. Luckily, James Sime took a picture of it, so you can click through his name to see it, and his post about it. Now I know why they probably designed this cover so that it looks like it’s a trade by Geoff Johns and some other guys who might have helped out a little, and I’m not about to say they’re wrong to push the most popular name on the credits roll or anything, but this sort of thing always makes me giggle. In this case I found it particularly amusing since, as Simes points out, Johns name eclipses Superman’s, and also because I was reading the Super-books pretty regularly at that point, and had no memory that Johns was even involved in that story at all, although looking back at what the trade contains, I guess he would have written one-fourth of the scripts for it (The other writers were Joe Casey, Joe Kelly and Mark Schultz, and the pencil artists were Pascual Ferry, Duncan Rouleau, Brent Anderson, Brandon Badeaux and Derec Aucoin). Regardless of how DC’s selling the trade of it, I remember the story being a pretty good one: Manchester Black, the Jenny Sparks analogue from the DCU’s Authority analogue team The Elite, has discovered Superman’s secret identity and sets in motion a chain of events that sees pretty much every villain Superman’s ever fought targeting the regular people in Clark Kent’s life, all climaxing in the death of Lois Lane! Sorta!
Emmanuel’s Interview: As part of their Memorial Day weekend coverage, NPR spoke with cartoonist Emmanuel Guibert about his collaboration with Alan Cope that resulted in Alan’s War (Released in English last year by First Second). You can read and/or listen to the piece here, and they also have a six-page excerpt. Check it out; it’s a really great book.
Neil Gaiman features are always fun to read, right?: Here’s a nice long one from yesterday’s Chicago Tribune.
This year’s National Cartoonists Society winners are…: These people.
This week’s Comics Reporter interview is…: Jim Ottaviani, the writer responsible for such science-related comics as Wire Mothers, Fallout and, my personal favorite, Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder Lizards. Ottoviani and his Bone Sharps collaborators Zander Cannon and Kevin Cannon have a new book out, T-Minus: The Race to the Moon, and Tom Spurgeon uses the occasion to have a rather detailed chat with Ottaviani about the work.
May 25th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I noticed that cover to Ending Battle as well.
Geoff Johns was the 4th man in that Super-group at the time, a fill-in to replace Loeb for a few issues before Seagle came on as Superman writer.
That’s kind of a slap in the face to Kelly, Casey, and Schultz, who were doing very good work on the Super titles at the time.
May 25th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
It’s kind of ironic that Geoff Johns’ name is so prominent on that TPB cover, considering how under the radar his brief run on Superman was. Ending Battle was the culmination of storylines started by Joe Kelly, Jeph Loeb, and the rest of the Superman team at the time. Johns was just filling in on the book until Steven T. Seagle took over the next year, but he did a very good job regardless. And his writing style still stood out. Given his penchant for revamping villains, “Ending Battle” was actually the perfect storyline for Geoff. I instantly fell in love with the revamped Master Jailer he used during Ending Battle, and I also remember Pascual Ferry turning in some fantastic work in that time period as well (He and Johns made a good team). Johns even managed to sneak in Power Girl during one story (The unfortunate “Lost Hearts” crossover.
May 26th, 2009 at 2:07 am
Jeff Simes?
Do you mean James “The Comic Pimp” Sime, proprietor of San Francisco’s Isotope Comic Book Lounge and Man of 1,000 Suits?
May 26th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Isn’t Ending Battle the story arc that ended with a magical erase of Lex Luthor’s knowledge of Superman’s secret identity? Seemed like so much more could have been done with that story arc.