There’s no getting around it, Barry Allen wore a bow tie: Over on 4thletter, David Brothers talks a bit about why Flash: Rebirth just isn’t doing it for him, and notes something that bugged me about last week’s third issue—Geoff Johns offers Explanation #2 for why Barry Allen wore a bow tie. The real answer is, of course, that Barry Allen is old, and he starred in old comics from a long time ago, back when people wore bow ties. Now only conservative TV pundits do, so Johns has attempted to explain why Allen, who, on DC’s sliding timeline never was from the time of bow ties being fashionable, always wore a bow tie. Once was probably sufficient; it’s not like Frank Miller devoted any panel time to explaining Bruce Wayne’s pipe-smoking and ascot-wearing in Batman: Year One.
Why this place doesn’t sound the least bit pleasant: Southern Ohio’s Springfield News-Sun chats up local creator Chad Lambert about his graphic novel Return to Point Pleasant, which is about a now legendary local cryptid—The Mothman.
I like his logo: The Honolulu Star-Bulletin on the print-on-demand return of Mr. Jigsaw, a one-time Charlton Comics back-up star.
“More like Whine for Justice” made me laugh: Here are Rachelle Goguen’s reviews for some of the books she read this week. When discussing Green Lantern Corps, she got distracted by the multi-page preview of Justice League: Cry for Justice included in the back, and she wasn’t terribly excited about it. Tucker Stone didn’t much care for it either, bringing it up in his review of last week’s Batman, after wondering if “Ed Benes and Ethan Van Sciver having a line-drawing fight or something”:
Sure, DC was nice enough to jam that hideous looking “A Cry For Justice” preview in the back of the comic to remind you how much worse things can get, but still—who gets off on this kind of art?
I agree with #2: Sandy Bilius shares a few brief thoughts on the comics industry, and I second his second one, regarding weekly comics. From a business perspective, I’m sure it actually helps Marvel and DC to stretch out their six-, seven- and eight-part crossovers to last as long as possible—since, if adding Civil War: in front of any title helps it sell better, the longer the time period they have, the more comic copies of Civil War: Richard Rory they can publish—but if these things would wrap up in the course of a few weeks, that sure would be preferable from a reader’s perspective (and it also allow for more non-crossover storylines in the rest of the line, encouraging writers to write their own stories, rather than focusing on building up to, tie-ing into, and dealing with the aftermath of whatever the big universe-wide story is).
Everything he learned about editing he learned from J. Jonah Jameson: Stephen Colbert guest-edited a recent issue of Newsweek, and in his editorial about why he took the job (entitled “Why I Took This Crummy Job”) he discusses what editing entails. Comic book reference in paragraph seven.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:46 am
It only gets attention if you say something negative, these days I guess. For what its worth, EVS is one of the greatest artists working today, and I like Mauro Cascioli’s (is that right?) work as well. But then again, I feel like Patrick Gleason’s work is terrible and I seem to be alone in that so what
Also. Not that anyone cares since I’m just some guy on the internet, but the second you mention you’re not a fan of GL/GLC right now, I tend to stop caring about your opinion as those are some of the most well-done comics right now.
While we’re on the subject…how come everytime I’m linked to a 4th letter blog post I never see David Brothers talking about anything positive?
June 15th, 2009 at 11:35 am
I talk about positive things all the time. I had a solid week where I gushed about Pluto a couple weeks ago, I review Lone Wolf & Cub each week and enjoy it very much, I linked a short film about a superhero in South Africa no one else has noticed, I talked about Mos Def’s amazing new record around this time last week… I’d wager that 90% of my posts are positive, and around the same ratio for all of the posts on 4thletter!. If you don’t see anything positive, you must not be reading.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Personally I love the artwork that I’ve seen from Justice League: Cry for Justice. That, and the fact that James Robinson is writing it, have sold me on getting every issue in it. So apparently not everyone shares the (stunted?) taste buds of the reviewers who didn’t care for it… go figure!
June 15th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
I also love the artwork for JL:CFJ. I’ve been looking forward to this title for what seems like YEARS and the previews do not disappoint. And what’s with all the EVS hate? EVS is consistently good. His stuff on Rebirth is proof of that.