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Linkarama@Newsarama

November 16th, 2009
Author J. Caleb Mozzocco

1 Comment »

Princess Diana comic book under attack in Britain: The Los Angeles Times’ Geoff Boucher defends Bluewater Productions’ Female Force: Princess Diana comic from its critic Diana Funnell of the Diana Circle UK. Now I really, really wish Marvel would have let Peter Milligan write that X-Statix story where Princess Diana comes back from the dead as a mutant and joins the team, if only to have been able to see the reaction.

“He said that the audience to him tended to look like a ‘blur of pink unicorns’ to him”: I know what causes people to see pink elephants, but what causes them to see pink unicorns? You’ll have to ask Tony Lee, but from the lead of this short feature on his visit to Calcutta, it sounds like it might have had something to do with the length of the flight.

Wow, remember when Batgirl comics used to be awesome?: The gang at 4th Letter does.

Okay, I guess I’m not sick of Obama comics after all: Check out Steven Weissman’s strip. And then explain it to me. Wait, don’t explain it—I think I like it just the way it is.

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Global Freezing Strip 0030

November 16th, 2009
Author Egg Embry

No Comments »

Find out more about Global Freezing here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or at ComicsByEgg.com.

GlobFreezComicsByEgg0030
 
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AH! Adam Hughes talks about the Catwoman #83 cover

November 15th, 2009
Author Lan Pitts

3 Comments »

catwomancover

One year later…

While the Catwoman title may have been cancelled last Fall, Adam Hughes’ covers are hardly forgettable. He continues to exhibit the talent for which he is most known for. Newsarama briefly spoke to Adam Hughes on what it was like, literally, going back to the drawing board.

Blog@: So what was it like drawing Ms. Selina Kyle on her “resurrected” book? Bring back some fond memories?

AH: Yeah, and some regrets. I felt like I was finding my ‘zone’ in that last year on CATWOMAN; I was having ideas that were outside my usual box. Doing this cover reminded me of them. But it’s always great drawing Selina; she’s one of my favorite characters to draw. T’ain’t nothing like a bad girl gone good!

Blog@: How many drafts did you have before this particular one was selected?

AH: Just the one. I have an extremely subtle and streamlined work process with DC Comics Art Director Mark Chiarello, thanks to my years of doing covers for him. He said to me “Dan (DiDio) wants this certain vibe to the piece…” and explained the vibe, and I knew exactly what they wanted. It’s like an old-marriage where you can finish each others’ sentences. And eat their leftovers from the fridge.

Blog@: I guess you can’t give away any specific plot points, but what exactly is going on here on the cover?

AH: That’s OK: I don’t KNOW any specific plot points…! Basically, the feeling that DC wanted was akin to that moment in the 1925 Phantom of the Opera when the girl takes the mask from Lon Chaney’s head, and reveals his gruesome face. I didn’t want to ape that shot exactly, so I switched it so that the girl is in the front. Selina is finding a bloody face and is holding it up in a WTF?!? moment of dawning horror and the owner of the face is grasping at her from the shadows. Spooky stuff! Also, it’s my first zombie I’ve ever gotten to draw. Thanks, DC Comics, whee!!

You can get your paws on Catwoman #83 this January, ‘Rama readers.

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The first part of First WaveBatman/Doc Savage Special #1

November 15th, 2009
Author J. Caleb Mozzocco

4 Comments »

Man of Bronze, Shirt of Kleenex

It was Joe McCulloch who really sold me on the idea of DC’s First Wave series. In his regular preview of the week’s releases, he wrote of Batman/Doc Savage Special #1:

[W]riter/mastermind Brian Azzarello seems to have a pretty great concept brewing: a matured, shared universe of pulp magazine fixtures, upset by the arrival of the gun-toting early Batman cast as the young hotshot in town, thus neatly linking the early notion of the superhero to the costumed magazine characters that certainly provided some of the concept’s lineage.

That does sound like a pretty great idea for a series, huh? Something in the tradition of past DC epics hinging on the change of publishing eras. Think The Golden Age, The New Frontier or Kingdom Come, applied to the dawning of superhero comics as the adventure pulps began to fade. And if someone could do a kick-ass version of such a series, it would almost have to be Brian Azzarello, who has more great crime comics on his resume than just about anyone, and showed a great aptitude for metafictional fun in his Dr. 13 story.

Unfortunately, McCulloch wasn’t speaking for Azzarello or DC Comics, and this first book of the First Wave series/event isn’t anywhere near as clever. Instead it’s a 38-page, $4.99 comic book in which the two leads have a misunderstanding, get in a fight, realize their conflict is premised on a mistake, and decide to team up (Or as Graeme McMillian succintly put it in his Savage Critics review,  it’s “a standard Marvel Team-Up plot without much flair”). It even lacks what little punch that old superhero team-up formula has left, as it’s stretched out past the 22-page mark, but never actually gets around to the teaming-up. That’s something that will presumably happen at a later date, most likely sometime next spring, based on the back matter.

That back matter consists of eight pages of sketch art and character designs by Rags Morales, with a few paragraphs about a variety of characters playing a part in the First Wave to come by Azzarello. The characters are a pretty eclectic mix, so eclectic that it’s hard to find a pattern. There are a few standard DCU characters—new versions of Batman, Black Canary and the Blackhawks. There’s Will Eisner’s Spirit character, who also seems to be a distinctly new take (His Ebony White, for example, is a “brash girl.” Not even Frank Miller thought of doing that!). There’s Justice Inc, an old pulp franchise which became a DC comic briefly in the ’70s. Also from the pulps is Doc Savage, who also did time as a DC Comics-published character. And then there’s Rima, the mysterious jungle girl character from William  Henry Hudson’s 1904 romance Green Mansions, who also did time in the ’70s as a DC character, albeit in a jungle adventure mode.

Is there a logic to the character’s chosen? It’s difficult to say. It seems like they are among the less fantastic characters DC own or has the right to publish comics featuring—none are as hard to imagine existing in the real world as, say, Superman or Space Ghost—but there’s still a sense of the random about them, like they were chosen out of a hat and handed as an assignement to Azzarello, along with the instructions to “Try and make something out of all these guys, huh? We’ll let you know if we can get The Shadow or decide to throw in The Sandman or Crimson Avenger.”

Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Superpowered Prose: China Mieville’s KING RAT

November 14th, 2009
Author Kyle DuVall

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rat
 

You could argue that the sewer-trolling, wall-shimmying, supernaturally powered protagonist of China Mieville’s King Rat is not really a superhero. He doesn’t wear a crazy costume, he doesn’t really fight crime, and since he counts garbage-eating as one of his powers, maybe there’s good reason to distance him from the likes of Superman and Spider-Man. Still, King Rat, with its cast of supernaturally powered characters and clashes, reads like a fugitive from the comics page, like something escaped from the Vertigo roster back in the 90’s and re-captured in prose. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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The Fourth Kind: A Failed Experiment in Suggestibility

November 14th, 2009
Author Isabelle Burtan

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Fourth Kind Poster

“The Fourth Kind” begins with its lead actress, Milla Jovovich, insisting that “real” footage was used wherever possible throughout the film, including audio and film recordings. This is followed by the “real” footage of the film’s director interviewing a strikingly alien-looking “real” Dr. Abigail Tyler. This creepy woman starts to ramble on, giving clues to the “true story” we are about to witness. While her “true story” could be oh-so-compelling—what is really going on in a remote Alaskan town when multiple people start sharing the same sleepy memories of owls—it opts to bludgeon itself to death with its own “evidence,” which succeeds in interrupting built-up tension wherever it occurs. Jarring first-year-o’-film-school split screens reveal the poor acting abilities of the “real people” in the story, making the “actors” seem more convincing. The film also spends so much time hammering on the “truth” of its story that it literally forces you to wonder if it’s not all one big fat lie.

And, (no) big surprise, it is and Universal has to pay money for its viral marketing.

The truth behind hypnosis—the tool the film uses to recover hidden memories of alien abductions from the “real” people of Nome, Alaska—might have been applied to make this “true story” scary movie a much better one. I’ve come up with four (hyuk hyuk) suggestions that “true story” horror filmmakers can use to help make an audience believe in something that isn’t real.

Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Linkarama@Newsarama

November 14th, 2009
Author J. Caleb Mozzocco

1 Comment »

“Anyone with half a brain who had a love for Diana will hate it”: That’s Margaret Funnell, co-founder of the Diana Circle UK, lashing out against Bluewater Productions’ Female Force biographical comic book about Princess Diana. From the looks of the samples shown, and the looks of the other Female Force bio-comics, Funnell seems right on, although I don’t know whether or not loving Diana will necessarily have much to do with hating the comic. Funnell seems far more upset about the existance of the book than the quality of it, however, as she also says “Comic means something to laugh at. I don’t find it at all comical and I wish they hadn’t done it.” I thought everyone in the country that gave us 2000 AD and so many of our best comics writers of the last 20 years was pretty enlightened about comics. Bluewater publisher Darren Davis talks with Coventry Telegraph blogger David Bentley about the criticism, and defends the books portrayal of Diana and her life. Check it out here.

And on the subject of Bluewater’s Female Force bio-sploitation books…: Chris Sims reviews the latest, Female Force: Stephenie Meyer, and he does not much care for it. From the quality of the art he scanned and posted, it’s easy to see why—it’s pretty horrible stuff. It is intriguing that the creators decided to have the bio narrated by a Dracula to either fill space or make it more exciting than the bio on the jacket of Meyer’s own books. See, Margaret Funnell, the Princess Diana book could have been much more tasteless…it could have had an undead horror host narrator in it.

“If I’m to read that right, she’s a MacGuffin in a loincloth. Is this really the kind of nostalgia DC should be reaching for”: Racialicious has some concerns about how DC’s upcoming 2010 First Wave series will treat Rima the Jungle Girl, based on the little character sketch/proposal that writer Brian Azzarello had in the back of this week’s Batman/Doc Savage one-shot. Having just read Green Mansions for the first time this summer, it doesn’t sound a whole hell of a lot like the character in the book. Green Mansions isn’t exactly a terribly enlightened book when it comes to race in the first place, though. (Note: I do hope we get a Rima trade collection out of this First Wave business, though. Those Joe Kubert covers sure look great).

Next for Nancy: Drawn and Quarterly has a neat little preview of the next volume of Nancy from their John Stanley Library series.

“Will Kick-Ass be a 21st Century superhero?”: So asks The Guardian’s film blog. I’m going to say yes, unless they push the release date back about 91 years.

An important reminder from Don MacPherson: DC and Marvel aren’t the only superhero publishers with super-icky comics.

The other fantastic four: Check out PopMatters on Beatles comic books. Here’s my favorite Beatles appearance in a comic book recently, as the mentors attending Blue Beetle’s parent/teacher conference in Tiny Titans:

Jamie Has Four Dads.
 
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Global Freezing Strip 0029

November 13th, 2009
Author Egg Embry

No Comments »

Find out more about Global Freezing here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or at ComicsByEgg.com.

GlobFreezComicsByEgg0029
 
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Eddie Campbell talks… well, everything

November 13th, 2009
Author David Pepose

No Comments »

The Rumpus has a fantastic interview up with Eddie Campbell, first talking about the collection of his Alec stories, “The Years Have Pants,” but ultimately going through his career, the state of making comics, his fan reactions, etc.

Here’s a great highlight:

Campbell: No, the reason I got out of it was because it was becoming more—the business model that existed when I went in had now evolved into another model. When I came in, I was supplying to the comic book shops, and there are no returns in that market. The publisher gets a smaller percentage, but he’s not taking returns. That makes all the difference. The retailer takes the risk. They’re specialists, they know their subject. It was a retailer who designed the scheme in the first place, and proposed it to the publishers. With the swift breakdown of that market through the late nineties, in order to survive we had to deal more and more with the regular bookstores, and these are two market types that have trouble interfacing. It’s like taking electrical appliances abroad. I was grappling with it up to the point where our bookstore distributor went bankrupt, owing me about $50,000. Then I thought “I don’t know how this works anymore.” This was supposed to be our safety net, dealing with the bookstores. Because one market wasn’t working, we go to the other market. And the first thing that happens is our distributor in the new field goes bankrupt. The terrain was getting too rocky, too mountainous, too impossible to negotiate. In fact, three years after my distributor went bankrupt the printer of From Hell went bankrupt as well, owing us $20,000, and we were in trouble because we were still working the old way with big sheets of negative film, and no digital files. The whole thing was just impossible. I don’t know how I survived it. Because everywhere I turned there seemed to be a disaster. That’s the reason I gave up.

Ronnie Scott certainly deserves a medal for transcribing all this stuff, in addition to asking such insightful questions. Want to read more? Click here for the rest of the interview.

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Borders to close down 200 Walden Outlet stores

November 13th, 2009
Author David Pepose

3 Comments »

With red ink rising and book publishers cutting costs, the pain is still moving to retailers even more.

Publishers Weekly has a depressing post up about Borders closing down 200 of its Walden Outlet stores — in this case, mall staples like Waldenbooks, Borders Express, and Borders Outlet. To give a good sense of scale, there will only be 130 of these stores left after the downsizings end.

Some food for thought:

Borders CEO Ron Marshall said that “through this right-sizing, we will reduce the number of stores with operating losses, reduce our overall rent expense and lease-adjusted leverage and generate cash flow through sales and working capital reductions.” The closing will result in the elimination of about 1,500 jobs, the majority of which, Borders said, are part-time positions.

You can check out a list of all impacted stores by clicking here.

What’s curious to me is how this might impact graphic novel sales, especially for younger readers. Keep in mind that while a lot of older comics readers have disposable income and methods of transportation, a lot of younger readers are being shuttled around from A to B — and their best chance of getting more comics is through the Borders and Barnes and Nobles out there, where Mom and Dad will be shopping for their books. What do you think, Rama readers? Sound off!

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Alan Moore — the Musical?

November 13th, 2009
Author David Pepose

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Move on over, Bono and Spider-Man — this is what I really want to see.

The Guardian reports that Alan Moore has been contacted by Damon Albern and Jamie Hewlett to work on the follow-up to their opera Monkey: Journey to the West. Read on:

“They came down to Northampton last week because we’re planning for me to do the libretto on their next opera ,” Moore recently told Mustard magazine. Though Moore offered no more details than that - and semi-erroneously referred to the pair as Gorillaz - Moore’s news will still set Blur (and comics) fans salivating. Albarn and Hewlett’s last show, Monkey: Journey to the West, was a hit in 2007 and led to a series of animated spots for the BBC’s Beijing Olympics coverage.

Jeez, can you imagine an Alan Moore-penned musical? I can pretty much see it now — imagine Rorscach the Rapper:

Read the rest of this entry »

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UDON to take on Darkstalkers

November 13th, 2009
Author David Pepose

1 Comment »

With horror more in vogue than ever, UDON has announced that you just can’t keep a good monster down.

darkstalkers

The publisher announced on its blog this week that, due to the positive response from its Darkstalkers Tribute Book, they would move forward with a three-issue miniseries based on the Capcom fighting game. The premise of the series? Vampires, succubi, mummies, catpeople, lagoon monsters, and more fight for the fate of the world!

The cover shown above is drawn by Alvin Lee; meanwhile, Street Fighter writer Ken Siu-Chong will be writing the stories, while Joe Vreins and Eric Vedder will be drawing the interiors. The book is due out in January.

 
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The Return of Superman Returns?

November 13th, 2009
Author David Pepose

14 Comments »

Do you want to see Superman Returns, just as Bryan Singer intended it?

If so, Latino Review has a post that might interest you — a petition for Warner Bros. to release Superman Returns: The Bryan Singer Cut. For those who think it could never be done, there is precedent: in 2006, Warner Bros. released Superman 2: The Richard Donner Cut.

The petitioners have put up a trailer, as well, which has some stills of Superman Brandon Routh in a black Kryptonian suit:

What’s most interesting about all this is the fact that, despite the talent involved, Superman Returns underperformed by a huge margin, leading DC Entertainment to waver on whether or not they even plan to take another live-action crack at the character anytime soon. Could this director’s cut have the magic that was missing in the full film? What do you think, Rama readers?

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DC hits Bloomingdales

November 13th, 2009
Author David Pepose

2 Comments »

For all our New York readers out there — looking for a cool comics-related scene?

dcat75

Then look no further — DC Comics, in honor of its 75th anniversary, has teamed up with Bloomingdales on 59th Street and 3rd Avenue to have a storefront display!

dcbloomongdales

The windows are set to stay up through around Thanksgiving. Check it out if you get a chance!

 
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Random thoughts on the September 2009 super-comics sales charts

November 13th, 2009
Author J. Caleb Mozzocco

8 Comments »

And put on some pants.

Is it that time of the month again already? Last week, Paul O’Brien and Marc-Oliver Frisch posted their monthly analysis of Marvel Comics and DC Comics sales figures, assembled from ICv2.com’s numbers, at Publisher Weekly’s The Beat.

And then I read the results. And had some thoughts while reading those results. And I wrote them down. And now I’m going to post them on the Internet. And then you can read them and we can all talk about these figures, and what they mean.

But not here, in public like this. Let’s meet after the jump and do it there, okay?

Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Dr. Doom, William Stryker in talks for Red

November 13th, 2009
Author David Pepose

1 Comment »

With news of Mary-Louise Parker, John C. Reilly, and Helen Mirren joining the film adaptation of Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner’s Red, don’t you think you need a little bit more evil in the mix?

The Hollywood Reporter has some news for you, as Dr. Doom and William Stryker have entered the building.

Julian McMahon, who played Reed Richard’s deformed, electricity shooting (yay, creative liberties!) archfoe in the two Fantastic Four films, along with X-Men 2’s Brian Cox, are apparently in negotiations to join the film, the Reporter said.

McMahon is in the running to play the Vice President, who is at the center of the conspiracy, while Cox will play a personal nemesis of protagonist Bruce Willis.

In addition to these two, Ernest Borgnine is in talks to play the keeper of the CIA’s records, while Richard Dreyfuss will have be “a wealthy man who builds a fortune out of lucrative government contracts.”

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Syfy Expands Comedy Block

November 12th, 2009
Author Jade Scott

5 Comments »

My first thought of course is going to go to the grudge that I have against the channel’s name change.  I honestly do not understand why they couldn’t just leave it as SciFi.  It does make more sense.  But, there is nothing I can do about that. So, on to some more important things:  Syfy is expanding its comedy block.

Starting on December 8th, the combination of live-action with 2D and 3D graphic animation will give Syfy its new half-hour show, the five-episode comedy series “Outer Space Astronauts.”  This will be leading into the season finale of the hit reality series “Scare Tactics.” 

Credit for this new thirty minute show goes to creator/executive producer Russell Barrett, along with executive producers David O. Russell and Scott Puckett.  According to THR.com Syfy exec vp original content Mark Stern said, ”Syfy fans have never seen animation quite like this before.  Russell literally produced this in his basement for more than a year, and that allowed him to create a unique series with a sharp, sly sense of humor.”

This futuristic comedy about eight military misfits who journey to the far reaches of the galaxy on board the O.S.S. Oklahoma was developed, executed and edited out of Barrett’s home with help of his childhood friends, some of whom star in the show. 

What do you think, readers? Any interest?

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Review: Superman: New Krypton vol. 1 & 2

November 12th, 2009
Author Michael C. Lorah

10 Comments »

Superman: New Krypton vol. 1

Superman: New Krypton vol. 1 & 2
Written by James Robinson, Geoff Johns and Sterling Gates
Illustrated by Jesus Merino, Leno Carvahlo, Steve Scott, Nelson Pereira, Kevin Stokes, Lee Loughridge, Sal Cipriano, Pere Pérez, David Baron, John J. Hill, Pete Woods, Gary Frank, Renato Guedes, Jon Sibal, José Wilson Magalhães, Hi-Fi
(I assume that’s his real name), Steve Wands, David Curiel, Brad Anderson, Rob Leigh, Jamal Igle, Keith Champagne, Nei Ruffino, Jared K. Fletcher, Tom Chu and Jorgé Correa Jr.

Yeah, I dig Superman. I sit here reviewing Jason and classic strips and relevant prose books and intriguing literary-minded independent comics, but at my core, I totally dig Superman. Of course, I have more conflicted feelings toward the Superman comics themselves and many of the extraneous elements of the Superman mythos, and Kandor is no exception. The possibility of Superman being reunited with his people is one of potential; yet I’ve never – in any incarnation – cared much about Krypton or Kandor. It’s all just an excuse to justify powers beyond those of mortal men, to me.

Despite a large indifference (meaning, they were okay, but nothing that affirmed by love of the character) the few volumes leading into New Krypton, I did my best to give the books a fair shake. Geoff Johns’ lead-in, Brainiac, was solidly plotted, but trended toward predictable, and Robinson’s Coming of Atlas managed a few sharp lines, but padded an issue and a half of story out across five full issues.

Read the rest of this entry »

 
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The Gold Exchange Q&A: Booster Gold #26 with Dan Jurgens and Geoff Johns

November 12th, 2009
Author Russ Burlingame

22 Comments »

Booster Gold #26

Since the day Booster Gold #7 was released and I wrote my first story for Comic Related, “The Gold Exchange” has been there every month, within a week (or so) of the release of a new issue of Booster Gold, without skipping a beat. We’ve talked to creator/writer/artist Dan Jurgens almost every month (excepting once or twice when he was neither writing nor drawing the issue) and had Jeff Katz join the roundtable a bunch of times back when it first launched. I’m happy to say that this month, Geoff Johns has finally had a chance to take time out of his insane schedule to sit down with us and talk Booster Gold and Blackest Night, two of the things he knows best.

And it was an issue where a LOT happened. Black Lantern Ted Kord attacked…Daniel Carter? Well, I guess with Booster Gold missing (actually, he wasn’t missing so much as he was taking a few hours to himself to go back and relive the agony of Ted’s funeral), one dead Carter is just as good as the next? Anyway, we got some Supernova action, plenty of Daniel and Rose, and guest art by Blue Beetle penciller Mike Norton in the pages that featured Jaime Reyes (but no contribution from writer Matt Sturges this month, as Jaime was part of an oversized Booster story, rather than headlining his own tale). What did it all mean? And what’s in store for next month, in part two of the story Geoff Johns calls his favorite Booster Gold adventure?

Blog@Newsarama: So first of all, how did the Black Lantern Ted Kord issues come about? Did you see what was going on in BN and say, “This has to happen?” Or did DC or Geoff or someone come to you and suggest it?

Dan Jurgens: Months ago the basic question came up as to whether or not we’d like to tie in with Blackest Night and if so, who would we like to use as a Black Lantern? Ted Kord was the obvious choice. In fact, we were first concerned it might have been too obvious. But we quickly discounted it, realizing that there was a strong story waiting to be told.

After that, it was a matter of Booster Gold editor Mike Siglain, Blackest Night editor Eddie Berganza, Geoff and myself getting together and talking about what we wanted to do in terms of the particulars of the story. It was during these conversations that we realized no funeral for Ted had ever been done and that became a natural for us.

Blog@: Geoff, My understanding was that Blackest Night started smaller and bled gradually out over the DCU as editors and the like came to understand what a hit it was shaping up to be. That said, how soon after the story left Green Lantern’s back porch, did you know there would be a Booster/Ted meetup?

Geoff Johns: There was always going to be a Booster/Ted confrontation in Blackest Night, but when it expanded beyond our series - thankfully, since we couldn’t do it justice in the space we had compared to what Dan is doing it moved over to Booster Gold.  It truly is my favorite issue of Booster Gold yet.  Dan really did a phenomenal job on it. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Jeff Yorkes mashes up Batman

November 12th, 2009
Author David Pepose

1 Comment »

Talk about looking to the past for inspiration: Jeff Yorkes has created a great-looking mash-up between the Dark Knight and another era…

bat man

…that of Mad Men.

It’s definitely appropriate, considering Batman has another trip through time this week, in the ’30s pulp themed Batman/Doc Savage comic, which sparks DC’s new Firstwave line. What do you think? Could you see Bruce Wayne perhaps owning Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce? Would you rather see him in the ’30s, or the ’60s? Sound off!

[Hat tip to Dean for the link]

 
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