yadoT ew kool ta a yllaer taen retcarahc ni eht CD esrevinU.

Zatanna was created by Gardner Fox and artist Murphy Anderson. She first appeared in a cool storyline which was one of (if not the first) multi-title crossover (where the titles were not all directly connected to each other) where she visited a number of DC books looking for her lost father, Zatara.

Zatara was a famous magician, and his daughter followed suit (Zatara made his first appearance in some lame comic called Action Comics #1).

Zatanna is a world famous stage magician, but that belies her real power, which is as one of the most powerful magicians on Earth. She casts spells by saying words backwards.

Zatanna spent most of her time in this state - doing stage work and occasionally doing some hero work,

After her initial appearance, she did not make many appearances, until a decent run as a back-up in Adventure Comics...

But that changed when she joined the Justice League for a long stretch (almost 100 issues worth!).

She also got a really ugly costume at this point (as you can see).

She eventually got a better costume after awhile and wore that for the rest of her tenure with the League...

Sadly, she had a pretty weak departure from the League (one of those "Writer B comes in and has to finish Writer A's plot, and doesn't really do it the way Writer A intended, whether Writer A's intentions were good or not).

After she left the League, Zatanna basically went back to relative obscurity, even though she actually got a one-shot soon afterwards.

After that, though, her most significant appearances were in Vertigo books like Books of Magic...

Although she DID have another mini-series in the early 90s.

Also, Paul Dini used her on the Batman cartoon. Dini LOVES her, and did a one-shot featuring her...

Then came Identity Crisis, where Zatanna suddenly was a major figure again, as it was revealed that in the past, she magically lobotomized the Justice League villain Dr. Light (and also used her magic powers to brainwash some other criminals into becoming good)...

Around the same time, she also was part of the awesome Seven Soldiers series of mini-series!

Most recently, Dini has succeeded in working her Batman cartoon appearances (where she and Batman seemed to have a thing going on) to the comics themselves...

Beyond that, she's been working with the Justice League again recently...

plus she had a trip to Hell to try to save her father (who died awhile back)...

Otherwise, she seems to be basically back in her "Break Glass if Magic Expert Needed" box.

Too bad, as she's a great character!

35 Comments

• At June 1, 2009, Michael wrote:

  Justice League of America 51 was a Zero Hour crossover? Boy, that's *really* foreshadowing!

• At June 1, 2009, Sanagi wrote:

  Zatanna is one character who remains awesome no matter how hard any writer tries to permanently wreck her.

  And as for ...

• At June 1, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  rasauQ rof si Q. rasauQ rof si Q. rasauQ rof si Q.

  Dammt, didn't work.

• At June 1, 2009, McK wrote:

  She also got a really ugly costume at this point (as you can see).

  Not as hideous as that Supergirl costume ...

• At June 1, 2009, Brian Cronin wrote:

  There'll be a new "Month of" debuting today. I think you'll dig it!! Well, I mean, I think most people ...

• At June 1, 2009, Adam wrote:

  McK beat me to it. What's with that Supergirl costume?

• At June 1, 2009, joshschr wrote:

  Great finish to the month! Did you mention the Herograsm Easter Egg ;) ?

  A year of "Month of..." specials ...

• At June 1, 2009, Stephen wrote:

  Everything wrong about the current JLA can be summed up by that JLA #25 cover - ye gods, that's a ...

• At June 1, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  Brian, as much as I love seeing old comics covers posted, some of those didn't even mention the character (For ...

• At June 1, 2009, Ethan Shuster wrote:

  I knew that Zatanna first showed up to search for her father, but never realized it was a story that ...

• At June 1, 2009, rwe1138 wrote:

  Did you catch her on Smallville? I stopped watching it a few years back, but tuned in expressly to see ...

• At June 1, 2009, Ethan Shuster wrote:

  Her Smallville appearance even involved the loss of her father.

• At June 1, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  Seven Soldiers is really the only time I've enjoyed a Zatanna appearance, but I could see that portrayal carrying its ...

• At June 1, 2009, chad wrote:

  i would agree Zartana is not being uses the way she should be for she is such a cool character ...

• At June 1, 2009, Mike Zeidler wrote:

  The Supergirl costume was because of a "Hey kids! Send in your ideas and we'll use 'em!" initiative that worked ...

• At June 1, 2009, Tuomas wrote:

  Zatanna and John Constantine seem to be the two characters who can freely hop between the mainstream DC universe and ...

• At June 1, 2009, joshschr wrote:

  Tuomas, it seems it was explained somewhere that speaking backwards is just her doorway to accessing the source of magic, ...

• At June 1, 2009, Tuomas wrote:

  "Tuomas, it seems it was explained somewhere that speaking backwards is just her doorway to accessing the source of magic, ...

• At June 1, 2009, Tuomas wrote:

  Sorry for the typo, I meant to write "any extremely *powerful* character".

• At June 1, 2009, Jacob T. Levy wrote:

  Some important appearances that got skipped: Swamp Thing 49-50 (reveals her past romance with Constantine; Zatara dies); early issues of ...

• At June 1, 2009, joshschr wrote:

  I think you’re right, but the specific way her power works makes it seem like she can do pretty much ...

• At June 1, 2009, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  It's weird how a character can be in something, presumably popular, like Justice League for a hundred or so issues, ...

• At June 1, 2009, Graeme Burk wrote:

  Zatanna and John Constantine seem to be the two characters who can freely hop between the mainstream DC universe and ...

• At June 1, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  I do my best to ignore Zatanna's relationship with Constantine. Really, I can hardly think of two characters less suited ...

• At June 1, 2009, Stephen wrote:

  Another point: because Hawkgirl wasn't deemed to have enough value as a playable character, Zatanna got elevated to "big seven" ...

• At June 1, 2009, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  I do my best to ignore Zatanna’s relationship with Constantine. Really, I can hardly think of two characters less suited ...

• At June 1, 2009, Dean wrote:

  I think Zatanna as a character is great, but her power makes her kinda difficult as a hero. Theoretically she ...

• At June 1, 2009, comb & razor wrote:

  An "alternate" (and almost unrecognizable) version of Z also appeared in the shortlived Books of Magic: LIfe During Wartime.

  And yeah... ...

• At June 2, 2009, DanCJ wrote:

  Zatanna's okay. I do get annoyed by her backwards talk - the way she reverses the letters in each ...

• At June 2, 2009, Joe Rice wrote:

  "You could do “A Month Of Bad Costume Designs” and designate an entire two week period on some of Supergirl’s."

  AKA ...

• At June 2, 2009, Biggles wrote:

  Personally I always preferred the red cape costume to that weird red thing on her head in the other one.

  Of ...

• At June 2, 2009, geekmobster wrote:

  What IS that thing on her head? I was introduced to the character when she had the white cape, the ...

• At June 2, 2009, Dean wrote:

  If anyone has a valid reason for two costumes, then it is Zatanna.

  The top hat and fishnets look is for ...

• At June 2, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  Speaking of Zat's costumes, her first was based on her father's and her second was her mother's. It was from ...

• At June 3, 2009, Blackjak wrote:

  Love Zatanna.

  Hated the Red Mind Worm Hair comb thing... To much Klingon...

  The Seven Soldiers story arc, where she "lost" her ...

Today we look at a late, great comic book writer who helped turn a sour moment in comic history into a bright spot.

Kim Yale was a fine writer who was married to John Ostrander (another great writer). She worked with him on Suicide Squad and Manhunter, with the latter book being more Yale-centric. Basically, if you enjoy the writing of John Ostrander, you'd likely enjoy the writing of Kim Yale, I'd say.

Her biggest contribution to comic book history, though, resulted in her being dismayed at a comic book DC put out in the late 80s (the following appeared on the blog a couple of years ago in a less Yale-centric form)...

The story begins in May of 1988, with the publication of Alan Moore's The Killing Joke.

In this much-hyped event, the Joker shoots and paralyzes Barbara Gordon, formerly known as the heroine Batgirl (Barbara had given up the identity in a Batgirl Special earlier that year by Barbara Kesel, to pave the way for the Killing Joke. The idea was to give her a quick presence before the Killing Joke so that the event would have more of an "impact," as it were).

Almost immediately, Kim Yale had a problem with the comic.

Discussing her dislike of the treatment of Batgirl in the issue with her husband, John Ostrander, the two formulated a plan to address what would happen next for Barbara. As Ostrander recalls, "There were no plans for her in the continuity at that time. We decided that if that happened, we weren't just going to make her better magically -- we wanted to explore what happened when someone like her was crippled and how she would respond."

In late 1988, Oracle made her first appearance, but only as the NAME "Oracle," a hacker who aided the Suicide Squad, in Suicide Squad #23.

Oracle aided the Squad for the next year, with hints given to his/her identity piling up (and Oracle started appearing in Ostrander and Yale's Manhunter).

Finally, in Suicide Squad #38, in early 1990, Oracle is revealed to the readers as Barbara Gordon!

After that, Barbara laid low for most of 1990, making a few appearances in various titles, such as Ostrander's Firestorm and Roger Stern's Starman (plus a quick appearance in Batman #451, reacting to the return of the Joker, believed dead after Jason Todd's death), but she made a big return in Suicide Squad #48, when Amanda Waller saves Barbara from the psychotic new Thinker, and asks Barbara (who she knows as the alias Amy Beddoes...does anyone know if that name has any significance?) to join the Squad full-time.

Barbara accepts.

At about the same time, Barbara Kesel becomes the first writer other than Ostrander and Yale to use this new take on Barbara Gordon extensively, as Kesel brings Barbara to the pages of Hawk & Dove to resolve some old plots from the Batgirl backups that Kesel used to write in Detective Comics.

Soon after, Barbara, for a time, even became the leader of the Suicide Squad when Amanda Waller became incapacitated.

However, when Suicide Squad folded in early 1992, Barbara's future was in real doubt.

Luckily, she had a new patron, one who would shape her destiny dramatically for the next decade. Later in 1992, Denny O'Neil introduced the concept of Oracle being Batman's main source of info in the pages of Sword of Azrael #1, which was the biggest mini-series of that year, giving Barbara a nice shot of exposure.

However, she still did not have a high profile for the next year (she made an appearance in two issues of the Hacker Files series, but that would be expected, as it was a series about computer hackers, for crissakes).

Significantly, though, if only for later events, Oracle DID make an appearance in an issue of Black Canary!! It was only as a way for Huntress to come into contact with Nightwing to go save a captured Black Canary, but still, looking back, that appearance is interesting.

Barbara's next big appearance was in Detective Comics #680, where Robin uses Oracle for information for the first time (that issue was written by Chuck Dixon, which is significant because, as you may know, once Dixon has decided to use a concept, he is committed to that concept for YEARS). This began the trend of Batman writers using Oracle more and more frequently, but surprisingly the character STILL did not appear all that much over the next two years, only making appearances every other month or so (in Dixon comics, mostly).

This would change with 1996's Black Canary/Oracle: Birds of Prey one-shot (by, who else, Chuck Dixon), which came out the same summer that John Ostrander and Kim Yale conspired to tell the origin of Oracle in Batman Chronicles #5 - "Oracle: Year One."

This was to be the last story that Ostrander and Yale worked together on, as Yale was sadly quite sick at the time with breast cancer. In fact, just writing that one story was a struggle for her, but in retrospect, it is one of the strongest issues that John and Kim ever did together.

Kim Yale passed away in 1997.

She lived long enough to see Oracle: Year One published, as well as the launch of Chuck Dixon's Birds of Prey series of mini-series (as well as Barbara becoming a MAJOR part of the Batverse, during the Contagion crossover of 1996).

The rest, I suppose, is history.

Kim Yale was a special writer, and it's great to know that she had such a significant impact in comic book history before she passed at far too early of an age (only 43 years old).

14 Comments

• At May 31, 2009, Crash-Man wrote:

  Great retrospective. Learned a lot, thanks.

• At May 31, 2009, Kris Bather wrote:

  Great article Brian. Oracle is one of those great characters who I assumed was always around, but it sounds like ...

• At May 31, 2009, Michael wrote:

  Years later, Barbara had a rematch with the Joker, where she got in one good shot and was then pushed ...

• At May 31, 2009, Brendan T wrote:

  "Years later, Barbara had a rematch with the Joker, where she got in one good shot and was then pushed ...

• At May 31, 2009, Dean wrote:

  The Batgirl-to-Oracle transformation is the pretty much the best argument in favor of continuity and a shared universe in DC ...

• At May 31, 2009, Dean wrote:

  Really, the single most over-looked aspect of comics creation is that the creators work together. I mean, how many ...

• At May 31, 2009, chad wrote:

  great history lesson there for always wondered whose idea was it to have barbera become oracle and glad to see ...

• At May 31, 2009, Mike Loughlin wrote:

  I have to track down that Batman Chronicles issue, now. Ostrander's work, especially with Yale, is always worth reading.

• At May 31, 2009, Bob wrote:

  If Yale and Ostrander hadn't created Oracle, some yahoo would've undid the crippling by now...either through some convoluted story that ...

• At May 31, 2009, joshschr wrote:

  Incredible choice for Y. It is so important to show that the stories of the creators can be more ...

• At June 1, 2009, Stephen wrote:

  Nice retrospective. Might have to track down a copy of that Black Canary issue, as it really does seem like ...

• At June 1, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  I always thoguht that meltzer's upgrading of Calculator to the walking job board of the DCU was setting up an ...

• At June 1, 2009, Stephen wrote:

  "I always thought that Meltzer’s upgrading of Calculator to the walking job board of the DCU was setting up an ...

• At June 2, 2009, DanCJ wrote:

  How many other charatcers can so easily make their wayinto just abotu any comic that they want? Nick Fury, maybe. ...

Today we look at a great character who may be making a comeback soon!

Xombi was one of the many great books that Milestone put out, but it might very well have been the closest the company came to a truly unique title, a result of giving John Rozum room to move.

The concept of the book is that brilliant scientist David Kim is working on a nanotechnological virus that could assist in tissue regeneration. Well, a villain breaks in trying to steal it and mortally wounds David in the process. His assistant figures that the only way to save David is to inject him with the virus. And it DOES save David by turning him into a techno-zombie and at the same time, the nannites partially "eat" said assistant to give David the matter he needs to get back to "living."

Here's where it gets tricky. Yes, he's a zombie only through scientific means, but as David finds out, being a zombie through science really does not matter much - you're still a zombie, and suddenly he's now a freak AND tied into a world that he never knew existed.

Basically, Rozum just went absolutely NUTS with some trippy ideas in this series, and artist JJ Birch was there along the way to illustrate everything Rozum asked for - even a super-powered teen girl named, of course, Catholic Girl (she prayed for her powers).

Rozum's descriptions of magic (or magick?) were brilliant and the series had a real literate nature to it that was great to see.

Milestone clearly liked it, too, as they got it 21 full issues even while the Milestone line was crumbling around it.

Recently, Dwayne McDuffie showed an alternate universe where David Kim was Green Lantern.

Pretty soon, Xombi is going to make his DC Universe debut (I believe up against the Spectre).

Should be fun (although I'd love to see DC let Rozum return to the character).

9 Comments

• At May 30, 2009, The Mad Maple wrote:

  I was wondering how you were gonna do "X" without using the X-Men...

  Haven't actually read the comic (the stores here ...

• At May 30, 2009, joshua m. neff wrote:

  I didn't discover Xombi until late into its run, unfortunately, but I sure did love it! It was not unlike ...

• At May 30, 2009, Ian A. wrote:

  I hope DC collects this series at some point because I'd really like to read it.

• At May 30, 2009, Patrick Rennie wrote:

  Well, Ian, I just picked up a new trade rereleasing the first issues of Static Shock this week. Hopefully integrating ...

• At May 30, 2009, Craig wrote:

  Xombi is awesome! I have all 21 issues, and lent it to someone that was heavily into heady, wild comics... ...

• At May 30, 2009, The Mad Maple wrote:

  Anyone placing bets on the Final Two?

  I'm leaning towards "Young Heroes in Love" and "Zot!", myself.

• At May 31, 2009, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  I was wondering how you were gonna do “X” without using the X-Men…

  I'm wondering how you thought he could write ...

• At June 1, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  X is for Xuasar! Hell, I shoulda been trying alternate spellings all this time. Kwazar! Zwasar!

• At June 1, 2009, Eric Michael wrote:

  Of all the Milestone books, I want this one collected the most, because it is the one I quit reading ...

Today we look at one of the very greatest comic book creators working today.

Chris Ware is one of the most inventive and breathtaking comic book creators still producing regular comics today.

I find it an absolute delight to know that every year I can count on a new edition of Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library to come out to absolutely thrill me, whether it is with a continuing narrative or if it is with some one-off projects (like Building Stories).

Last year, I named the latest edition of Acme Novelty Library my Top Comic of 2008, and 2008 had a lot of good comics in it.

What Ware does with his work is, while having a clear and definitive influence from the works from such early 20th Century legends like Winsor McKay and Frank King, create an almost unique way of delivering comic book content, with a sprawling style that presents you with interconnected panels of intricately depicted figures delivering the story almost all at once to you.

It's really a marvelous approach.

Here is a perfect example of his style, in this simply stunning "life of" piece he did fairly recently about a young man's older brother during the 1930s and 40s (obviously, click to enlarge - you need full-sized pages to appreciate Ware, so all of these pages can be clicked on to enlarge)....

Isn't that just magnificent?

And Ware keeps that level of quality in almost all of his work.

A drawback I hear people say often of Ware's work is that it is often quite depressing. And that's roughly true - most of Ware's characters live fairly depressing lives, but if the work is done well (and Ware certainly is), then I don't really find that much of a drawback.

Here's some Ware pages from Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (which was originally done in Acme Novelty Library)...

Here's a Building Stories page...

Here's an awesome Thanksgiving cover he did for New Yorker (he did three others that combine to form one massive page)...

And here, luckily enough, is a short story he just did for New Yorker just a couple of weeks ago!

That last one is a great look at his general tone.

Oh! He also did the poster for the film The Savages. If you've seen the film, you'd know that the tone of that film matches Ware PERFECTLY, which makes the decision to have him do the film's poster a brilliant move.

Ware is a treasure, and I'm delighted that we get to get new work from him yearly (more often than that, all said and done, of course, but at least a guaranteed yearly piece of work).

23 Comments

• At May 29, 2009, TOM wrote:

  WHAT? NOT WOLVERINE?

• At May 29, 2009, sgt pepper wrote:

  That drawing of Linney is really stiff. Good movie.

• At May 29, 2009, DanCJ wrote:

  I actually made it all the way through Jimmy Corrigan. That was one hell of a chore. Quite ...

• At May 29, 2009, Anonymous wrote:

  Chris Ware? Over Wizard? Over Wetworks?

• At May 29, 2009, DanLarkin wrote:

  Good choice. Ware's ability to design a page is unaparalled in comics, and he's one of the best writers the ...

• At May 29, 2009, chroom wrote:

  I can appreciate his design sense, but other than that I've just never been able to see the appeal. ...

• At May 29, 2009, sgt rawk wrote:

  Enh. Chris Ware is only 'cool' in a McLuhanesque sense.

• At May 29, 2009, def wrote:

  Love all his stuff, especially the oversized novelty books. They have some depressing content, but they're wrapped up in ...

• At May 29, 2009, Dean wrote:

  Wow. That is amazing stuff.

• At May 29, 2009, Joe Rice wrote:

  I often think the "depressing" theme is overplayed by Ware critics. This is one of the aspects of Wolk's ...

• At May 29, 2009, Apodaca wrote:

  Chris Ware makes quantum comics. He is very awesome.

• At May 29, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  His artwork's magnificent, yes, and unlike anything out there. I'll give you that.

  I read Jimmy Corrigan and found it to ...

• At May 29, 2009, Dan Felty wrote:

  Hooray for Chris Ware!

• At May 29, 2009, sgt rawk wrote:

  Again, and I'm in the minority here and maybe I just plain don't get it but I DON'T LIKE CHRIS ...

• At May 29, 2009, benday-dot wrote:

  Chris Ware and Jack Kirby have insane fights in my mind over who is the best comic book creator ever. ...

• At May 30, 2009, def wrote:

  Another things about Ware is he's an incredibly nice guy. I met him years back at a dinner party, ...

• At May 30, 2009, Tom wrote:

  eh. Not a Ware fan.

• At May 30, 2009, Evan Waters wrote:

  I think "often quite depressing" may be understating it. I read through one of the ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY collections and ...

• At May 30, 2009, Apodaca wrote:

  I'll never understand how "depressing" is a criticism. Art is supposed to have an emotional effect on you. Duh.

• At May 31, 2009, Julian wrote:

  I still need to get those Thanksgiving prints. That story about his brother is in my top five comic strips ...

• At June 1, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  Who's with me for claiming for Chris Ware to draw a monthly Qausar comic? Huh, huh?

  (crickets)

  Okay, onto plan b: Art ...

• At June 1, 2009, Richard J. Marcej wrote:

  Chris Ware says more on one page (like that New Yorker cover) then most modern cartoonist/artists say in a TPB ...

• At June 2, 2009, DanCJ wrote:

  I wouldn't say calling his work depressing is a criticism, but it is a valid reason why someone might not ...

Today we look at a classic member of the Avengers.

Through 200 issues of the Avengers, since it was a team book starring various characters, many of whom who had their own book, the book really wasn't "about" anyone in particular.

However, if you had to pick one character that the series was "about," it would definitely be the Vision.

He was the third significant member of the Avengers to make his debut IN the pages of the Avengers (Wonder Man being the first and Dane Whitman being the second)...

The Vision was an android created by Ultron, based on the brain patterns of Wonder Man, who was thought dead at the time.

Vision could change his density (making himself intangible then as tough as diamond), he was strong, he could fly and he could shoot heat beams from his eyes. Upon joining the Avengers, he was almost instantly one of their most powerful members.

Part of the fun in following Vision was seeing him grow as a "person."

As a sign of his importance to the book, with #93, he was given the corner box, which is usually where the picture of a book's star goes...

Neal Adams did some awesome work with the Vision...

A major part of the Vision's popularity was also his burgeoning relationship with his teammate, the Scarlet Witch.

The Vision continued on as a valuable member of the team...

He and the Scarlet Witch married...

He had the corner box for so long that they even changed it to show him in a DIFFERENT pose!

He was one of the few Avengers left standing against Count Nefaria...

But as the book neared #200, his role in the book diminished a bit...

And soon after #200, he and the Scarlet Witch left the title.

They had their own mini-series (where Magneto reveals himself to be Scarlet Witch's father).

And then, after helping the Avengers out, the Vision was incapacitated for a time, and when he came back...

He took over control of the Avengers and started an insane plan to take over the world (for its own good, of course)...

The Avengers saved him (and his sanity) and he and the Scarlet Witch more or less retired to become parents, which they did in their second mini-series.

It involved magical sperm.

They returned to the Avengers, this time the West Coast team.

Sadly, the governments of the world held a grudge over that whole "trying to take over the world" thing, so they kidnapped him...

dismantled him...

And by the time they got him back, it was like tabula rasa (this was aided by the now living Wonder Man being all, "Hell no, I'm not letting you copy my brain again!")...

The Scarlet Witch did not take it well...

The newly blank Vision joined the East Coast Avengers...

There, he slowly regained his humanity (here he is kissing the lady who was married to the man his current brain pattern was based on)

He also got his own foil embossed cover!!

And a new costume...

Kurt Busiek brought him back to his old look, and some familiar territory (Scarlet Witch love triangle, sorta)...

He had two mini-series of his own...

Then Bendis had him destroyed in Avengers #500.

A NEW Vision (of sorts) showed up in Young Avengers...

This new Vision is dating his teammate Stature and is part of the newly formed Mighty Avengers...

Quite a history the Vision has, huh?

I'd like to see the original one return! The new one can stay, too - he can be like a junior version of the Vision (he'd need a new name, though, of course).

27 Comments

• At May 28, 2009, Jax wrote:

  Haha I love the cover to Avengers #243, the Scarlet Witch fights a Fire!! and Starfox battles Bandits!!

  Now that's what ...

• At May 28, 2009, Strider Tag wrote:

  In the Avengers "Kree-Skrull War" story arc ( by Roy Thomas ), the chapter about Hank Pym getting inside Vision ...

• At May 28, 2009, googum wrote:

  "I’d like to see the original one return! The new one can stay, too - he can be like a ...

• At May 28, 2009, sgt rawk wrote:

  Not V For Vendetta? Now I know how that Quasar fellow felt ...

  Never liked the Vision. He's Frankenstein's Robot's Frankenstein. ...

• At May 28, 2009, George M. wrote:

  Awesome! The Vision is one of my favorite characters. Although, you put a picture of him fighting Count ...

• At May 28, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  No mention of the Ultimate Vision?

  Surprising, after all, you've talked about the varied history and looks of Vision, ...

• At May 28, 2009, The Mad Maple wrote:

  I was expecting V for Vendetta, too, but the Vision's a nice choice. too. He always was one of ...

• At May 28, 2009, Ajit wrote:

  Wasn't the Vision the third member of the team to make his debut in the Avengers? Wonder Man was the ...

• At May 28, 2009, rwe1138 wrote:

  "Well, yeah, that’d be great, but what would they rename the new kid? Revision?"

  How about The Glimpse? ;)

• At May 28, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  Visionary? Double Vision?

  Vision had the honor of serving with Quasar. For that the world respects him.

• At May 28, 2009, Stephen wrote:

  "Well, yeah, that’d be great, but what would they rename the new kid? Revision?"

  Considering the team has a speedster named... ...

• At May 28, 2009, dhole wrote:

  Growing up, the core Avengers outside the big three were Vision, Scarlet Witch, Beast and Wonder Man. Vision was always ...

• At May 28, 2009, David wrote:

  And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God,

  I will pour out of My Spirit upon ...

• At May 28, 2009, tk. wrote:

  "One of our androids is missing!" Hilarious. How many do they have at the mansion, anyway?

  The Vision is ...

• At May 28, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  The Vision is a great, great character-- he's the Martian Manhunter of the Avengers. It ain't the Avengers without him.

• At May 28, 2009, Anonymous wrote:

  I've always liked Vision's off-white "blank slate" look.

• At May 28, 2009, Jbird wrote:

  Wow. I knew there was a Mighty Avengers in 1985, but not an Ultimate Vision!

• At May 28, 2009, jazzbo wrote:

  So who exactly is this new Vision? I haven't seen an explanation in the couple of issues of Mighty Avengers ...

• At May 28, 2009, Brian Cronin wrote:

  The new Vision is made up of the armor (and sort of the personality) of Iron Lad, the guy who ...

• At May 28, 2009, jazzbo wrote:

  Thanks, Brian.

• At May 28, 2009, dhole wrote:

  @David:

  Thanks for the quote. Knowing it's a Biblical reference makes the caption a little bit less corny.

  Just a little bit, ...

• At May 28, 2009, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  I had no idea that The Vision was ever meant to be a 'power house' character.

  I always felt I missed ...

• At May 29, 2009, Graeme Burk wrote:

  I'm sorry I can't stop laughing. The VISION. In a comic book alphabet of COOL!?!

  Are you on drugs, Brian?

  The ...

• At May 29, 2009, Jax wrote:

  Just say what you really think Graeme.....

• At May 29, 2009, Blackjak wrote:

  So which is the REAL original Vision... This one, or the World War II one?

  Also, I've only just seen the ...

• At June 1, 2009, HellRazor wrote:

  The Vision was never the same again after John Byrne had him dismantled in West Coast Avengers. Way to totally ...

• At August 21, 2009, Mary Warner wrote:

  It seemed to me that during his period on West Coast Avengers, John Byrne was on some strange crusade to ...

Comic Book Alphabet of Cool Volume 1

Comic Book Alphabet of Cool Volume 2 (currently ongoing)

Valiant Comic Book Alphabet of Cool

Comic Book Alphabet of Vampires

1 Comments

• At May 30, 2009, Jeremy Henderson wrote:

  From Animal Man to Zenith? So in other words, from Grant to Morrison?

Today we look at a different approach to superheroes.

Ultra, by Jonathan and Joshua Luna, was a fresh, cool look at superheroes.

It was about a trio of superheroes in a universe where superheroes make money through endorsement deals, and the various heroes are managed by "agencies" like models. The attractive female heroes are the most popular heroes out there and the book follows three superhero friends.

The main character is the fairly down-to-Earth Ultra (Pearl Penalosa), who is looking to find a normal guy she can love in a world where she is one of the most famous (and most powerful) people on Earth.

The series had a ton of back matter, which was great - articles and stuff like that written from the perspective of what the world would be like if superheroes existed.

It was really low-key, character-based comic books, and the artwork by the Lunas was nice, as well.

I'd say the book was great for about 6 1/2 issue, and it really went off the rails a bit towards the end, as the brothers seemed to be looking for some grand overarching PLOT rather than letting their unconventional but wonderful comic continue as it was, which was a great comic.

Unsurprisingly, a pilot was made (unsurprisingly because this would work really well as a TV series) starring Lena Headley as Ultra. It was not picked up, sadly. Barbara Hall (the lady behind Joan of Arcadia) was behind it, so it could have been really good.

9 Comments

• At May 27, 2009, rwe1138 wrote:

  Great choice. This is a book I lend out to friends who are skeptical of comics being anything but mainstream ...

• At May 27, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  Didn't the Luna Bros. do the SWORD and some other series as well?

  How is those?

• At May 27, 2009, pmpknface wrote:

  Yes, the Luna Bros. are doing SWORD and they did GIRLS before that. They also did the Spider-Woman: ...

• At May 27, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  I ignored the Ultra comics when they first came out because I assumed it was just more cheesecake comics (the ...

• At May 27, 2009, rwe1138 wrote:

  Sijo:

  Although I like to call Ultra "Sex In The City With Superpowers," it's got great drama, and is easily enjoyed ...

• At May 27, 2009, Rob Schmidt wrote:

  "Joan of Arcadia" was a great series. Nominated for an Outstanding Drama Emmy, 7.9 rating on IMDB.com, etc.

• At May 27, 2009, rhod wrote:

  I love these covers, and I'm actually thinking of stealing the name Destiny's Bastard for my next band.

• At May 27, 2009, Stephen wrote:

  It's a really good series, and the design work on those covers and the mocked-up magazine pages inside was outstanding.

  That ...

• At May 29, 2009, Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic Book Resources » Comic Book Alphabet of Cool Volume 2 Archive wrote:

  [...] U is for Ultra [...]

Today we look at a cool non-DC/non-Marvel horror comic book!

Oops, how did that get there?

In any event, we first meet the Crypt Keeper in the pages of EC's crime comic, Crime Patrol...

They then turned the book into The Crypt of Terror...

It finally became the title it is most famously known as (and how it gets placed under "T"), Tales from the Crypt...

The book had a stunning mass of talent, with Al Feldstein handling the writing chores.

The art, though, wow, the ART!

Johnny Craig, Wally Wood, Jack Davis, Feldstein himself, Davis, George Evans, Jack Kamen, Graham Ingels, Harvey Kurtzman, Al Williamson, Joe Orlando, Reed Crandall, Bernard Krigstein, Will Elder, Fred Peters and Howard Larsen!!!

The covers were done by Jack Davis most of the series - WOW, he was good!

Sadly, due to the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency and the ensuing Comics Code of America, the book was doomed.

It ended with issue #46.

But what a run it was while it lasted!

A whole new generation of fans got to appreciate Feldstein's great horror tales (and the great design work of EC Comics' best artists) years later when there was an HBO series based on the comics (straight adaptations).

9 Comments

• At May 26, 2009, Jason wrote:

  Nice fake-out. I think Chris Sims is on the floor, twitching and drooling.

• At May 26, 2009, jazzbo wrote:

  Man, I was really looking forward to how you were going to try to claim that Tarot is a cool ...

• At May 26, 2009, Cass wrote:

  Hey, T for tits, why not? Certainly something that comic books do better (or at least bigger) than any other ...

• At May 26, 2009, Sebastian wrote:

  Oh man, I laughed so hard.

  Tarot would've been fun, but EC is gold.

• At May 26, 2009, Dan Felty wrote:

  I was thisclose to not scrolling down!

  I've read surprisingly little Tales from the Crypt compared to all the other EC ...

• At May 26, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  Stanley Kubrick used to brag that there wasn't a sentence written that he couldn't draw. I think the same about ...

• At May 26, 2009, Michael wrote:

  Why is John Tesh on the cover of issue 18?

• At May 27, 2009, DanCJ wrote:

  Ha - I only scrolled down to see the comments on Tarot.

• At May 27, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  Tarot makes me realize that women with back-breaking boobs are not really that good-looking in real life (to me anyway.) ...

Today we look at a nifty Canadian artist!

Seth (real name Greg Gallant) is a brilliant comic book artist who uses a simple, yet brutally effective art style to tell wonderful stories about often very ordinary people, like his first collection from Drawn & Quarterly, It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken...

This does not mean that he cannot do more fanciful characters justice, as well, because he certainly can, as seen in his offbeat story of a comic book collector named Wimbledon Green...

His most recent major work was the life of a man named George Sprott (1894-1975)...

Seth is also a master designer, as you can see from the design work he has done for Fantagraphics' amazing Complete Peanuts series...

Amazing work from an amazing comic book creator.

10 Comments

• At May 25, 2009, JackKing wrote:

  Good choice!

• At May 25, 2009, Scott MacIver wrote:

  Those Peanuts designs were and still are, very inspired. Very beautiful.

• At May 25, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  I still don't know why he chose the pseudonym "Seth" over his already awesome given name.

• At May 25, 2009, benday-dot wrote:

  Bill, apparently the name change is something he regrets a little now. He adopted the Seth nom de plume ...

• At May 25, 2009, adebisi wrote:

  that first strip put me in mind of the sandman issue where the guy ends up in the cities dreams. ...

• At May 25, 2009, Sebastian wrote:

  That first story was lovely.

  These "Comic Book Alphabet of Cool" posts are really good and not at all obvious.

  I learn ...

• At May 25, 2009, DubipR wrote:

  An inspiring choice for "S"

  I've been a long time Seth fan ever since I saw his work in Drawn & ...

• At May 25, 2009, Jason Thibault wrote:

  Excellent choice of both artist and art to showcase.

  A nice inspiartional start to the week and a fellow Canadian to ...

• At May 25, 2009, Apodaca wrote:

  Hey Brian,

  You wrote "George Sprout", instead of "Sprott".

• At May 26, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  For a sec I thought the S Canadian artist was going to be Dave Sim, and...well, 'nifty' is probably not ...

Today we look at one of the best comic book characters based on a Beatles song!

Rocket Raccoon was a fairly throwaway character introduced by Bill Mantlo and Keith Giffen in an issue of Incredible Hulk.

The character, of course, is named after the song "Rocky Raccoon" by the Beatles. His first appearance was filled with little Beatles' in-jokes.

Rocket was considered off-beat and quirky enough that he was actually given his own mini-series, which was drawn by a young Mike Mignola, who really did a magnificent job on the artwork, making the mini-series well worth picking up.

Then Rocket, sadly, fell into disuse for decades (save for an appearance in the pages of no other than Quasar...

)

Recently, Rocket's co-creator, Keith Giffen, was doing an Annihilation Conquest mini-series starring Starlord. The gist of the series is that Starlord puts together a sort of motley crew of little-used alien characters, and Rocket is one of the characters used!

A triumphant return!

Rocket's return was so well received that when Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning began a new Guardians of the Galaxy title starring a team formed by Starlord, Rocket Raccoon was included!

In fact, after the group and Starlord had a bit of a parting of the ways a half dozen issues in, Rocket even became the temporary LEADER of a makeshift version of the team!

That's where you'll see Rocket monthly, wisecracking and kicking ass the only way an anthropomorphic raccoon knows how!

16 Comments

• At May 24, 2009, Matt Bird wrote:

  Not long after the miniseries came out I got Mike to do a sketch of Rocky for me at a ...

• At May 24, 2009, Sebastian wrote:

  I just picked up the three Annihilation hardcovers.

  Definitely looking forward to Guardians.

  Hilarious!

• At May 24, 2009, bad trotsky wrote:

  I have had a friend who had pet racoons. THEY HAVE HANDS. They can open anything absolute terrors....and they love ...

• At May 24, 2009, buttler wrote:

  The best thing about the Guardians of the Galaxy stuff is the interplay between Rocket Raccoon and Groot. It's so ...

• At May 24, 2009, rwe1138 wrote:

  It should be noted that in a recent War of Kings issue, with an assist from Rachel Summers, Rocket kicks ...

• At May 24, 2009, jazzbo wrote:

  I am Groot!

• At May 24, 2009, Rich in Madison wrote:

  I like Rocket Racoon as much as the next guy, and even have a great Mignola sketch of him, but ...

• At May 24, 2009, Kevin Street wrote:

  Hooray for Rocket Racoon! One of the best Marvel characters ever.

  Love that original miniseries. It came out of nowhere, ...

• At May 24, 2009, chad wrote:

  nice to see marvel does not let their characters not even one a litlte silly as rocket racoon stay dormant ...

• At May 25, 2009, Stephen wrote:

  Anyone who went to school at Queen's University in Canada knows the industrious nature of the racoon. I sure as ...

• At May 25, 2009, Strider Tag wrote:

  I haven't read the recent "Guardians of the Galaxy" series yet, but the scene of Rocket Raccoon SPITTING at ...

• At May 25, 2009, Matty wrote:

  Strider Tag... if you loved that *one* scene in the mini-series, you are doing yourself an unforgivable injustice by not ...

• At May 25, 2009, rwe1138 wrote:

  Indeed. GotG is one of Marvel's best current series.

• At May 25, 2009, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  Great use of text as an element in the cover art on that Quasar cover...

• At May 26, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  I can die in peace: Quasar has been mentioned. In passing, yes, but mentioned.

• At May 27, 2009, johnny the boy wrote:

  thnaks rwe1138, but now i have to pick up war of kings, a series i have to this point been ...

Today we look at a hero who was replaced with a female hero of the same name when he was killed off.

You know what, I would love to regale you with reasons why Vic Sage, the Question, is awesome, but since Eric Newson wanted me to feature the Question so bad, I think it makes more sense for me to use Eric's words to tell you about the Question!

Here, courtesy of Eric's awesome Question web site, is a look at the history of the Question!

Any discussion of the Question has to start with his creator, a writer / penciller named Steve Ditko, known for his uncomprimising attitude and fierce independence, a passion for the works and beliefs of Ayn Rand, and the rigid black-and-white moral code that served as the basis for most of his work. Oh, and he also co-created some character named Spider-Man.

When Ditko left Marvel in 1966 (the reason remains a subject for debate), he found himself in familiar surroundings at at Charlton Comics, where he'd helped create the atomic superhero Captain Atom during his first decade of work in the 50s (as well as tons of other characters and stories in the pulpy Charlton pages). Ditko first worked to revitalize Cap in the age of the Action Hero, then, in the back pages, turned his interests to a decades-old character named the Blue Beetle. Ditko replaced the old Beetle with a new face, new gadgets and a quick wit, and soon the popular new Blue Beetle was starring in his own book.

For the back pages of Blue Beetle, Ditko created a hero that expressed Ditko's personal morals and philosophies. He was given the name Victor Sage and a gimmick: a mask that, instead of giving him a new alter-ego face, gave him none at all. The faceless hero was nicknamed the Question, and Charlton had another Ditko hit on it's hands. But the profits were down for Charlton Comics, and the hero line was downsized. Ditko's Question was featured in all five issues of Blue Beetle and one full-length issue of his own, inexplicably entitled "Mysterious Suspense."

It is a testament to Ditko's skill that this character, few as his Charlton appearances may have been, still inspires discussion and debate to this day.

The Question was featured in a CPL/Gang Publication, a sort of fanzine run by Bob Layton called "Charlton Bullseye." Ditko could not be reached to do a Question story, so Layton turned instead to the artist's artist, Alex Toth for the artwork. The Question next featured in a second version of Charlton Bullseye, this time put out by Charlton itself, though the company was already beginning its death throes. The final appearance of the Question before moving to DC came in a book called Americomics Special, which united Captain Atom, Nightshade, Blue Beetle and The Question in a sort of Justice-League-type team called the Sentinels of Justice. Before the issue hit newsstands, the characters were resold to DC.

Denny O'Neil and Denys Cowan's version of the Question debuted to jeers from the Ditko audience who cried foul on O'Neil's non-objectivist portrayal of Ditko's creation. O'Neil addressed the issue by having The Question die at the end of the first issue, resurrected in the second and born again as a wholly different character. O'Neil's Charles Victor "Vic Sage" Szasz was an orphaned protector of a hellhole -- Hub City -- taught by a zen Kung Fu master, and dealing with a wealth of grotesque characters and villains as Hub toppled like Sodom and Gomorrah around him. The series became known for it's thoughtful handling of real-world issues, an excellent letter column, and, from some, for not being Ditko. The series featured detailed and absorbing art by a young African-American named Denys Cowan, who, along with inker Rick Magyar, was twice nominated for the Eisner Award for best art team.

After the Question series, and a brief follow-up Question Quarterly finished their runs, Vic Sage skipped here and there across the DC universe, making appearances in other O'Neil-penned one-shots and cameos in other characters' books. Giordano joined writer/inker Bob Layton (former Charlton Bullseye publisher) for a simple-but-fun six-issue teaming of the Charlton heroes called the L.A.W. Under the helm of writer Greg Rucka, a self-professed fan of the O'Neil series in college, the Question began a relationship with Gotham vigilante The Huntress in a six-part series called Cry For Blood.

Writer Rick Veitch and artist Tommy Lee Edwards took a new approach to the Question in their 2004-05 six-issue miniseries, turning the Question into a sort of urban shaman who "spoke" to cities through a channel of lifeforce. In the miniseries, the Question comes to Metropolis and has a run in with Superman himself, and it's revealed that, in journalism school, Vic had a huge crush on Lois Lane.

After successes with animated Batman and Superman cartoon shows, Warner Bros. decided to expand their roster of heroes in 2001 with an animated Justice League. The show featured Wonder Woman, Flash, Hawkgirl, Martian Manhunter and John "Green Lantern" Stewart alongside Batman and Superman in more cosmically epic tales aimed at both kids and long-time fans of DC Comics.

As the Justice League cartoon gained popularity on the Cartoon Network, the rosters were expanded again in 2004 to include anyone and potentially everyone in the DC Universe. From B'wana Beast to Vigilante, any character imaginable had the potential to be a member of the Justice League for an episode. Enter the Question.

The animated version of the Question was voiced by Jeffrey Combs, famous for the Re-Animator films and his appearances on Star Trek and Peter Jackson's The Frighteners. Bruce Timm, the producer and originator of the series' style, spoke to fans at a panel at 2004's WonderCon: ""When we recorded the episode with him, we got Jeffrey Combs, from the Re-Animator movies, to play The Question. And he's so creepy. He's like the creepiest hero character we've ever had in any of the shows. We were all totally jazzed when we recorded that show. He was awesome."

Not quite the same as either the Ditko or DC version, the Question on JLU was an investigator of conspiracy theories just on the nuttier side of the X-Files' Fox Mulder, just a little less wild than the Question analogue Rorschach from Alan Moore's Watchmen. From his first appearance in the episode "Fearful Symmetry" (a potential dual reference to the Supergirl clone who appears in the episode and to Rorschach), this version of the Question was a hit with both creators and fans. Dwayne McDuffie told Comic Buyer's Guide Magazine that, "Question seemed special from the first script. About halfway through the first recording with Jeffrey Combs, I looked over at producers Bruce Timm and James Tucker and said, 'Let's just do The Question Show from now on, okay?'"

JLU ended its run in May of 2006, with the Question having appeared in at least seven and having had a major role in five episodes.

In his last comic book appearances, Vic Sage showed up in the pages of 52, where he served as a mentor to Renee Montoya...

Eventually, Vic died...

And he wanted Renee to take over for him, and after some self-growth...

That's exactly what she did, becoming the NEW Question!

Renee will soon be following in Vic's tradition in ANOTHER sense, as she will soon be a back-up in the pages of Detective Comics, just as Vic was a back-up to Blue Beetle!

36 Comments

• At May 23, 2009, John Cage wrote:

  No mention of the Question's appearances on Justice League Unlimited? A bit of an oversight, that.

  I mean, L.A.W. got ...

• At May 23, 2009, Dunc wrote:

  Nicely written but i have to agree with John, JLU gained the Question a massive number of new fans, only ...

• At May 23, 2009, Eric wrote:

  The lack of a mention of JLU is for the same reason that 52 and Renee aren't covered -- somebody ...

• At May 23, 2009, sterg wrote:

  Well played, Brian! :)

• At May 23, 2009, Eric wrote:

  Aha! The other reason is that Brian pulled this write-up together from my introductions to the Charlton and DC comicographies ...

• At May 23, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  I loved the O'Neill/Cowan Question run, even the annuals crossed-over to Green Arrow and Batman.

  The Veitch/Edwards wasn't so bad either.

  I'm ...

• At May 23, 2009, Bailey wrote:

  Tom F., Rorschach isn't from Charlton. An early concept of Watchmen was to use the Charlton characters when DC ...

• At May 23, 2009, Ian A. wrote:

  I really need to track down that Veitch/Edwards mini. I remember preview pages from that looking pretty damn amazing.

  Also, ...

• At May 23, 2009, Nitz the Bloody wrote:

  " Also, yeah, JLU deserved a mention. Jeffrey Combs did a spectacular job voicing Vic. "

  The tips of shoelaces are ...

• At May 23, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  I feel that replacing Sage with Montoya was one of the (many) bad ideas brought about by 52/One Year Later. ...

• At May 23, 2009, Matt Bird wrote:

  I love Ditko and O'Neil's versions equally and I considered it to be a very natural progression for the character. ...

• At May 23, 2009, Sebastian wrote:

  The Question/Montoya thread in 52 was by far my favorite part. Question's death really hit me, but I was so ...

• At May 23, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  Even though the Question's gone through a lot of changes over the years, every run was pretty good. Ditko, O'Neill... ...

• At May 23, 2009, Dean wrote:

  Wouldn’t Captain Atom be a lot more interesting if he was more like Dr. Manhattan?

  Yes, and Ted Kord would be ...

• At May 23, 2009, Thok wrote:

  "Yes, and Ted Kord would be a lot more interesting struggling with his weight and trying to maintain a relationship ...

• At May 23, 2009, Bob wrote:

  I was hoping you would do the Question for "Q"! I never read any of the Charleton stuff, but loved ...

• At May 23, 2009, Chuck D wrote:

  I want Quasar not this question BS. You got me all excited with your intro and then.....blech

• At May 23, 2009, bad trotsky wrote:

  I like the Question and was bummed he was killed off just as my interest in him was growing. But ...

• At May 23, 2009, Michael wrote:

  Why not? He did it last time.

• At May 24, 2009, Jef Ryan wrote:

  Brian punked me again. At least Vic Sage's a cool character. And the week-48 cover's sweet.

  I'd say more, but tears ...

• At May 24, 2009, Brendan T wrote:

  I thought the transition from Vic to Renee was really well handled actually.

  It was a natural character evolution.

  Sure I'll miss ...

• At May 24, 2009, buttler wrote:

  Good call. I love the Ditko Question stuff, and absolutely adore the O'Neil series. I preferred Vic as ...

• At May 24, 2009, Bob wrote:

  It does say something for Rucka's Gotham Central that two of the books main characters went on to become DCU ...

• At May 24, 2009, Brian Cronin wrote:

  No slight against either character, Bob, but I think that only says that Rucka had significant creative control at DC ...

• At May 24, 2009, buttler wrote:

  Is anyone still ON the Gotham police force? Besides Gordon, I mean?

• At May 24, 2009, Brian Cronin wrote:

  They brought Maggie Sawyer over, Buttler!

• At May 24, 2009, Bob wrote:

  I liked Sawyer better in Metropolis. She was one of Byrne's best additions to the Superman supporting cast.

• At May 24, 2009, Brian Cronin wrote:

  She was great in Metropolis, but she was not being used, like, at ALL, so I like the transfer.

  Granted, outside ...

• At May 24, 2009, Bob wrote:

  Are you referring to the Guardian's granddaughter? She'll probably end up replacing him.

• At May 24, 2009, Brian Cronin wrote:

  Yeah, I forget her first name.

• At May 24, 2009, Brian Cronin wrote:

  Oh, and Harvey Bullock is back on the Gotham Police force, too!

  It makes no sense, but he's awesome, so I'm ...

• At May 24, 2009, Bob wrote:

  I was glad when he returned to Gotham after the Vigilante took himself out. His return might not make sense ...

• At May 24, 2009, Dean wrote:

  Are you referring to the Guardian’s granddaughter?

  You mean ... replacing a character from the Gold or Silver Age with a ...

• At May 24, 2009, Matt Bird wrote:

  Harvey Bullock is going to become the new Fat Marvel.

• At May 24, 2009, Capt USA wrote:

  agreed with Bob, Harvey is probably the most believeable 'good' cop in Gotham, the place is corrupt to the core ...

• At May 24, 2009, Bob wrote:

  Can't think of his name at the moment, but there was a cop on NYPD Blue who always made me ...

Today we look some cool comic stuff that ends up on people's walls.

POSTERS!!

Comic posters have been around for a long time, but it was not really until the 1980s that they became a real business in and of itself, and since then, there have been a number of great comic works that exist only in the form of posters!!

Click on the images below to enlarge them (some are a lot bigger than others)!

Michael Golden's Marvel Universe!!!

">

Keith Giffen's infamous Legion poster!

The two posters that Promethea #32 folded out into making (these you can't enlarge - and they only count because you can't see both of them at once normally, as they're back-to-back!)!!

George Perez' 30th Anniversary Avengers poster!

There are two many Alex Ross posters to list them all, so here's two JLA ones and one famous Spider-Man one (the Spider-Man one doesn't enlarge)!

Name some more classic comic book images that exist only in poster form!!

34 Comments

• At May 22, 2009, Pedro Bouça wrote:

  I thought it would be the greatest Marvel cosmic hero - Peter Quill, Starlord!

  Well, you can always use it on ...

• At May 22, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  A question: what was so infamous about Giffen's Legion poster?

  I'd like to know.

• At May 22, 2009, olokin wrote:

  What was the Legion's poster claim to infamy?

  I could name more, She-Hulk at muscle beach, forgot the artist and the ...

• At May 22, 2009, Jax wrote:

  Isn't it the fact that Giffen claims that is almost ruined him mentally and somewhat physically in researching and drawing ...

• At May 22, 2009, DanCJ wrote:

  I think the infamous part about it was that it took Giffen so long to draw it that it completely ...

• At May 22, 2009, DanCJ wrote:

  Damn - too slow

• At May 22, 2009, Jax wrote:

  Oh yeh and another reason is because Super-Turtle was portrayed in the poster!!! :)

• At May 22, 2009, Jim McClain wrote:

  The George Perez New Teen Titans poster. I had it laminated and it's still hanging in my office.

• At May 22, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  I will say this about the Giffen's Legion poster, I'm rather surprised that Darkseid is barely noticeable (just a bubble ...

• At May 22, 2009, sterg wrote:

  @Tom Fitzgerald

  Darksied may be a major villain, but he only had only one (decidedly very good) storyline with the ...

• At May 22, 2009, Graeme Burk wrote:

  The George Perez New Teen Titans poster. I had it laminated and it’s still hanging in my office.

  I also have ...

• At May 22, 2009, The Dane wrote:

  I always liked Rick Leonardi's Dark Phoenix poster, but it's been about 20 years since I've seen it so I ...

• At May 22, 2009, Mandeville wrote:

  My pride and joy was a Secret Wars II poster with the Beyonder in that silver jet engin costume with ...

• At May 22, 2009, C. Adams wrote:

  a bit off topic, but I used to have a Marvel puzzle that I must have done a million times ...

• At May 22, 2009, Anonymous wrote:

  C. Adams - was it this one?

  http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1186/1390849173_e98e4a2377_o.jpg

  I had that puzzle and I must have done it a million times as ...

• At May 22, 2009, MLViola wrote:

  Other Ross posters: His version of the LSH and the Justice League poster on some steps in Washington DC ...

• At May 22, 2009, C. Adams wrote:

  Ill have to look when i get home, thank you.

• At May 22, 2009, dhole wrote:

  My first poster was John Byrne's Alpha Flight with the team sitting around on a giant Puck. I loved that ...

• At May 22, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  This may not be the board's most popular sentiment, btu tthere are a whole lot of fantastic Joe Quesada images ...

• At May 22, 2009, Capt USA wrote:

  I keep hoping that someday the Wizard poster for their 100th(or 150) issue is finished. (as of issue 212 it ...

• At May 22, 2009, tk. wrote:

  I loved that Marvel jigsaw puzzle, so great, I wish I still had it. It has everyone in that ...

• At May 22, 2009, layne wrote:

  Heh, I had that puzzle - I varnished it with glue and had it hanging in my room for years.

• At May 22, 2009, Blackjak wrote:

  I think the She-Hulk muscle beach one was Joe Jusko

  Judge Dredd had a Poster mag for a while, featuring some ...

• At May 22, 2009, Citizen Scribbler wrote:

  I had the Marvel puzzle too. It was awesome!

  But the superhero poster I had in my room growing up was ...

• At May 22, 2009, DanCJ wrote:

  Wasn’t there a Perez/Ross poster for Crisis on Infinite Earths that included the majority of DCU?

  That's the wrap-around cover they ...

• At May 22, 2009, Eric wrote:

  Awesome posters featuring the Question (whose name, I'll remind you, starts with a Q):

  My favorite:

  http://www.vicsage.com/promo/cowanposter.jpg

  Charlton heroes:

  http://www.vicsage.com/promo/johnhigginsposter.jpg

  History of the DC Universe ...

• At May 22, 2009, C. Adams wrote:

  I am glad I am not the only one who loved that puzzle.

  As for posters, I had a lifesize Superman ...

• At May 22, 2009, Pedro Bouça wrote:

  "Which reminds me. 2000AD reprinted ther early stories in the US through Quality Comics, didn’t they?"

  Fleetway/Quality, yes.

  There was also a ...

• At May 22, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  @Sterg:

  Fitzgerald?

• At May 22, 2009, Matt D wrote:

  I always wanted that giant Marvel poster (Byrne, maybe?) when I was a kid.

  I ended up getting the one from ...

• At May 22, 2009, Matt D wrote:

  http://www.superheroes-r-us.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/marvel-universe.jpg

  That's the one I was thinking about.

• At May 22, 2009, rwe1138 wrote:

  Was Perez' cover to JLA/Avengers #3 ever made into a poster? 'Cause it should be.

• At May 22, 2009, ACK wrote:

  Mike Zeck Punisher poster was a classic, IMHO

  http://warehousefinds.com/newitems/comics/punisherposter2.JPG

• At May 23, 2009, def wrote:

  I loved the Arthur Adams/Linda Medley X-Men poster when I was a young teen

Today we look at the letter O, as in "O man is this New God awesome!"

Orion is one of the coolest characters that Jack Kirby created on his lonesome, and he is one of the linchpins that the entire Fourth World of the New Gods rests upon (I'd say Darkseid and Mister Miracle are the other two).

Naturally, he appeared on the cover of the first issue of the New Gods.

Orion is the son of the evil Darkseid. In a pact to keep the peace, Highfather Izaya of the good New Gods of New Genesis swapped sons with Darkseid of Apokolips.

So Darkseid's son, Orion, was raised on New Genesis with the other, much happier Gods.

Basically, he was a rottweiler who was raised with a bunch of poodles, so for the whole time, Orion has to worry about a couple of things.

1. He must defend his fellow Gods, because he is so much more awesome than they are

and

2. He must keep himself from embracing his heritage and becoming the dark God that he could easily be.

Walt Simonson played with this beautifully in his excellent Orion ongoing series from 2000.

He totally got that Orion was a larger than life character, so Simonson used all of his most bombastic drawings to depict Orion's triumphs and tragedies.

At the same time, Simonson knew perfectly well the scarier side of Orion, and had that be a frequent plot point in his series.

Man, that series was great - DC should collect it all in trades.

John Byrne also did some great fill-in art on that series.

More recently, Orion was left the "last God standing" in the lead-up to Final Crisis, but Darkseid killed him.

It is yet to be seen if Orion will return, but I sure hope so!

15 Comments

• At May 21, 2009, Diggity wrote:

  I have that whole Simonson ORION run but I would gladly repurchase it in a series of trades. I was ...

• At May 21, 2009, Dunc wrote:

  Having recently re-watched Justice League Unlimited and re-read the Fourth World books I'm increasingly struck by how amazing a New ...

• At May 21, 2009, rwe1138 wrote:

  "You’d just have to get the title past the religious lobby."

  I think you could just circumvent that by calling it ...

• At May 21, 2009, The Mad Maple wrote:

  You know how to get around that? Just call it "Orion". Works for me.

• At May 21, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  How dare you! How dare you put anyone with Qusaar in the Q spot? How dare anyone disrespect the aw-shucks ...

• At May 21, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  Orion was a great Kirby character; New Gods is one of my favorite comics of all time. Oddly enough, so ...

• At May 21, 2009, Blackjak wrote:

  Who's Qusaar??

  Clay Quartermain would know.

  And I would love to see a showdown between Orion and Lady Quark!

• At May 21, 2009, Brad Curran wrote:

  That reminds me, I really need to find a full run of Simonson's Orion on ebay. That seems like it ...

• At May 21, 2009, Brad Curran wrote:

  Oh, and Dunc; you've seen the Superman: TAS episodes with the Fourth World characters, right? Those were pretty damn good, ...

• At May 21, 2009, Lupin Yonsei wrote:

  @Jeff Ryan: Your Quasar advocacy has got me reading the '90s series. So you're not only funny, but an effective ...

• At May 21, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  That reminds me, I really need to find a full run of Simonson’s Orion on ebay. That seems like it ...

• At May 21, 2009, Thok wrote:

  Honestly, I want to see Jeff QRyan in the Q spot.

• At May 21, 2009, buttler wrote:

  Good old Orion. Not nearly as cool as Big Barda, but still all kinds of Kirby cool.

• At May 21, 2009, Tom from West Chester wrote:

  Orion is an awesome choice for "O." I love the Kirby Fourth World Omnibi. I've never read the ...

• At May 25, 2009, Dunc wrote:

  @Brad -

  Haven't seen them yet but I'm trying to track them down. If they're as good as the JLU ...

Today we look at a cool member of the X-Men!

(NOTE: I wrote the following for CBR's Top 50 X-Men Countdown)

Kurt Wagner was orphaned by his mother as an infant. Taken in by Margali Szardos, a witch, Kurt is raised as a gypsy. He eventually becomes a popular circus performer, but when he is forced to kill his adopted brother, Stefan, Kurt is hunted by the village people, who only see a monster killing a human. Saved by Professor Xavier, Kurt gladly takes Xavier up on his offer to come to America and join the X-Men.

Kurt becomes a stalwart member of the X-Men after that, staying with the team for quite some time, on many adventures, using his agility and teleportation powers to help the team in many fights.

What was notable about Kurt was that, despite his monstrous appearance, he was pretty happy-go-lucky, but even he often had problems, mostly ones about his own competence, which he doubted frequently ("Am I good enough?" etc.).

In fact, it was his feelings of inadequacy that, during the Mutant Massacre, caused him to use his powers beyond their limits, leaving him open for a brutal assault by one of the Marauders.

Kurt and Kitty Pryde (who as also injured) ended up joining a new team, Excalibur, when they thought that the X-Men had been killed. Kurt's confidence grew a lot as a member of Excalibur.

Eventually, though, the team broke up, and Kurt re-joined the X-Men, where he has stayed ever since.

After a time on the loser squad (where Kurt also began to question his confidence, especially due to his involvement in one of the stupidest evil plans ever, involving the Raptu...no, I won't even dignify it with a recap - same thing with Racoday)...

Kurt joined the XSE, who were basically X-Men who were sanctioned to work anywhere in the world as superheroes.

Kurt stayed on this team (even becoming the default leader) until Professor Xavier asked him to go on a mission into outer space. When the man who saved you from a pack of murderous villagers asks you for a favor, it's kinda hard to turn down, so Kurt gladly accepted.

While half of the team that went into outer space were Lost in Space (tm), Kurt returned to Earth with Xavier.

Professor X and Cyclops were not in a good place in their relationship at this point in time, so Professor X needed someone else to help him go look for Magneto, and, let's face it, Kurt had no other plans, so he helped Professor X search for Magneto.

Then Messiah Complex hit, and Kurt is, well, I dunno, a member of the X-Men, I suppose.

And he's religious.

Not really much going on in the House of Wagner.

26 Comments

• At May 20, 2009, Alastair wrote:

  Kurt, my favourite All New X-man, and he needs to be given a higher profile, At one point it ...

• At May 20, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  Isn't he a priest, now?

• At May 20, 2009, googum wrote:

  Nightcrawler's the reason I read the X-Men. Which means I skip a lot of issues. Here's hoping they ...

• At May 20, 2009, chroom wrote:

  My all-time favorite X-Man, the best part of the X-Movies, and one of the few openly religious comics characters who's ...

• At May 20, 2009, joshschr wrote:

  I don't often think about it, but if I had to choose a favorite mutant, it would be Herr Vagner. ...

• At May 20, 2009, Tuomas wrote:

  I think Kurt's devout Christianity made him a pretty interesting character in the original Claremont X-Men. Wasn't there some issue ...

• At May 20, 2009, Matt D wrote:

  It frustrates me to no end when they play up the religion and downplay the awesome swashbuckling.

• At May 20, 2009, Michael wrote:

  "That nearly ruined the character as badly as Alan Cummings' depiction."

  Um, are you insane? Alan Cummings was the best thing ...

• At May 20, 2009, Rob Schmidt wrote:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightcrawler_(comics)

  Veteran X-Men writer Chris Claremont had intended for the mutant terrorist Mystique and her lover Destiny to have been Nightcrawler's ...

• At May 20, 2009, Neal K wrote:

  Never really got the appeal of Nightcrawler, for some reason. I don't actively dislike the character, but I'm not ...

• At May 20, 2009, Tuomas wrote:

  Whoa, Claremont's original origin story would've been pretty cool, but I can imagine it would've raised some eyebrows back in ...

• At May 20, 2009, Tuomas wrote:

  It sounds totally like an idea Morrison might've used in New X-Men though, too bad he didn't have Nightcrawler in ...

• At May 20, 2009, Mea wrote:

  @Matt D

  Seconded.

• At May 20, 2009, Mea wrote:

  Ack, wrong button, I wasn't finished.

  I was going to say that while I don't mind the religious aspect, I find ...

• At May 20, 2009, joshschr wrote:

  Um, are you insane? Alan Cummings was the best thing about X2.

  I don't think it was Alan Cummings fault at ...

• At May 20, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  Kurt effectively got a whole episode of Wolverine and the X-Men to himself, which was pretty biased (he beat Spiral ...

• At May 20, 2009, Mike Loughlin wrote:

  My favorite X-Man, hands down, maybe my favorite Marvel character.

  Alan Davis' solo run on Excalibur made Kurt a favorite. He ...

• At May 20, 2009, MLViola wrote:

  Is there a reason why there is no list connecting to all of the whole Alphabet of Cool to date?

• At May 20, 2009, Blackjak wrote:

  And why did Nightcrawler turn to the cloth? That's right, Clay Quartermain.

  Right after GammaGate, Kurt was inspired by his ...

• At May 20, 2009, Visloch wrote:

  Surprised nobody has mentioned this, but the name "Nightcrawler" is nowhere in the actual article which is funny because the ...

• At May 20, 2009, Nitz the Bloody wrote:

  " Kurt effectively got a whole episode of Wolverine and the X-Men to himself, which was pretty biased (he beat ...

• At May 20, 2009, Mike Loughlin wrote:

  Nitz - in Alan Davis' issues, Kurt confronted his self-doubts, found several solutions to interesting problems, and remained his swashbuckling, ...

• At May 20, 2009, nuTrekRules wrote:

  To me, the X2 Nightcrawler was serviceable, but not the best representation of the character. He needed to be younger, ...

• At May 21, 2009, Andy Turnbull wrote:

  Definitely my favourite of the X-Men. I can't fathom for the life if me what Austen was trying to ...

• At May 21, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  Y'know, Quasar can teleport, too. Tecyhnically he's opening a portal to the quantum zone, and then opening another one to ...

• At May 21, 2009, joshschr wrote:

  I don’t often think about it, but if I had to choose a least favorite Marvel character, I'm really leaning ...

Today we look at a Silver Age comic creation that is practically the epitome of the hyphenated word "off-beat"!

Here's how awesome Bob Haney and Ramon Fradon's creation, Metamorpho, the Element Man is.

For one, he is so awesome that Ramona Frason actually took a break from her maternity leave to draw his first appearance in The Brave and the Bold #57!

For two, he is so awesome that he was given his own ongoing series after just two issues of The Brave and the Bold!

For three, he is so awesome, Ramona Fradon drew the first four issues (sadly, she did not draw any of the rest of the series, and except for one issue by Joe Orlando and the final issue by Jack Sparling, the other artists weren't as good)...

For four, he is so awesome, he actually was brought back TWICE when The Brave and the Bold changed to a "team-up" format!

For five, he is so awesome, he actually turned down an offer from the Justice League to be on the team!

For six, he is so awesome, Batman actually picked him out to be part of his own private superhero team, the Outsiders.

For seven, he is so awesome, he came BACK FROM THE DEAD to join Justice League Europe!

For eight, he is so awesome, he had his own Mark Waid-penned mini-series for those fans who were not pleased with Metamorpho's development in Justice League Europe/International/America during the early-to-mid-90s!

For nine, he is so awesome, a PART of his body split off and joined a new group of Outsiders!

For ten, he is so awesome, he absorbed said dupe and joined the team himself!

For eleven, he is so awesome, when Batman re-formed the Outsiders, he picked Metamorpho for the team!

For twelve, he is so awesome, when Alfred took over the Outsiders after Batman "died," he kept Metamorpho on the team!

That's pretty darn awesome.

18 Comments

• At May 19, 2009, Graham Vingoe wrote:

  Recently reading Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold vol 3 I realised that the team up with Batman and ...

• At May 19, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  Since when is the movie "Nite Owl" a part of the new "Out-siders"?

• At May 19, 2009, Tuomas wrote:

  I want to know more about Lauhing Boy, he looks cool!

• At May 19, 2009, Michael wrote:

  I was so disappointed to find out that the Owlman on the Outsiders was not, in fact, Thomas Wayne from ...

• At May 19, 2009, Colin.ynwa wrote:

  One of my favourite characters. I'm always a little sad that when he's on team books (which is pretty much ...

• At May 19, 2009, Çteve! wrote:

  Is Metamorpho still Rex ? The last i've seen of him was in JLA (the Grant Morrison run) and he ...

• At May 19, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  Metamorpho is so awesome he can convert his body into Quasarium, which is a metallic synthetic form of awesome with ...

• At May 19, 2009, Sebastian wrote:

  I laughed so hard at 9-12.

  @Cteve! Yeah still Rex. His body part was "Shift" in Winick's Outsiders but he rejoined ...

• At May 19, 2009, Ian wrote:

  Look how sad Wonder Woman looks on that Outsiders #1 cover :P

• At May 19, 2009, MarkAndrew wrote:

  "For four, he is so awesome, he actually was brought back TWICE when The Brave and the Bold changed to ...

• At May 19, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  This reminds me; I should buy the Showcase. Metamorpho's one of my favorites-- you can't go wrong with Haney and ...

• At May 19, 2009, George M. wrote:

  Metamorpho is an awesome example of the really out there stuff that has basically gone unchanged in comics for thirty ...

• At May 19, 2009, Eldric IV wrote:

  What year did he start wearing pants?

• At May 19, 2009, Capt USA wrote:

  I don't think I've ever heard of comic fans that didn't like Metamorpho. The guy is just plain cool, in ...

• At May 19, 2009, Sebastian wrote:

  @ Capt USA

  My first exposure to Metamorpho was picking up an old JLA trade and seeing him die.

  Right after that, ...

• At May 19, 2009, stephen cade wrote:

  For thirteen, he had a real cool theme song-

  "This is the story of the Element Man..."

  "Rearrange his molecules, just like ...

• At May 20, 2009, David B wrote:

  What? No love for the other metamorph from the Sandman series? (with pencils by Colleen Doran, no less)

• At May 26, 2009, buttler wrote:

  David: You may already know this, but Element Girl originally appeared in Metamorpho's series in the '60s, but she pretty ...

Today we look at a character created as a joke that turned out to have a pretty long life as an actual character.

L-Ron first appears in the pages of Justice League International #14, as the servant of Manga Khan, a supervillain and intergalactic trader, who sees Earth as a great source of intergalactic bartering.

The character, right down to his name, is clearly intended as a joke.

Here are some of his choice bits from JLI #14 and 15...

However, at the end of the storyline, L-Ron is left behind on Earth as the new assistant to Maxwell Lord, head of Justice League International.

Over the next 40 plus issues, L-Ron does continue to serve as comedic relief, but also as a strong member of the series, and as a good sidekick to Maxwell Lord.

Eventually, L-Ron makes a heroic sacrifice of sorts when he uses his consciousness to take over Despero.

Now in charge of Despero, he becomes a member of Justice League Task Force.

As you might imagine, such a change to the status quo did not last long, and eventually, Despero returned to his normal self.

L-Ron, though, popped up again in the pages of Formerly Known as the Justice League, as Maxwell Lord "put the gang back together again."

L-Ron has only made a cameo appearance or two since the revelation that Maxwell Lord was a bad guy. That's too bad, he'd be a neat supporting character in a number of superhero books.

17 Comments

• At May 18, 2009, stephen cade wrote:

  I loved L-Ron-a great character. I loved his "titles" for the League members.

  Everybody's would sound like compliments, except Guy's--and ...

• At May 18, 2009, sgt rawk wrote:

  No, he wouldn't.

• At May 18, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  Hello, L-Ron here! Looks like his Yellowness Quasar's odds of getting the for-some-odd-reason argued-about Q spot are a mite low. ...

• At May 18, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  L-Ron is one of the underrated supporting cast members from JLI, but also one of the best. He's basically a ...

• At May 18, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  I would have thought that "L" would be Lucifer.

  Now, that was such a cool character. (or hot depending on your ...

• At May 18, 2009, Tom from West Chester wrote:

  I've been assuming that "Q" would be for "Quick Kick." Has that alternative to "Quasar" been thrown out yet?

• At May 18, 2009, buttler wrote:

  Ooo, good call. L-Ron was awesome.

• At May 18, 2009, buttler wrote:

  Ooo, Tom just reminded me: Quickdraw McGraw had a comic! That's a shoo-in for Q.

• At May 18, 2009, ticknart wrote:

  L-Ron also answered the letters in Justice League America for a while. It was a hoot and a half.

• At May 18, 2009, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  No, he wouldn’t.

  Yes, he would.

  (That was easily taken care of...)

• At May 18, 2009, Mike Loughlin wrote:

  Q is reserved for Questprobe, of course.

• At May 18, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  Hmm... wasn't there a DC silver age character who was a private detective in the future who had a female ...

• At May 18, 2009, buttler wrote:

  There was indeed, Sijo. You're thinking of Star Hawkins and his assistant Ilda. Only trouble is, according to ...

• At May 18, 2009, Don_C wrote:

  Tom Fitzpatrick,

  It was revealed in a JLI letter column that L-Ron's last name is... H*bb*rd. That's how it's spelled.

  L-Ron ...

• At May 19, 2009, C. Adams wrote:

  That Dave Johnson cover is still cool. I miss that type of comic book cover.

• At May 19, 2009, Ricardo wrote:

  Hopefully, L-Ron will disappear before Geoff Johns or Brad Meltzer get to remember to use him in a crossover called ...

• At May 19, 2009, Citizen Scribbler wrote:

  My favorite L-Ron moment was that time the Justice League parted ways during "Breakdowns" and, while J'onn is inside some ...

Today we look at one of the funniest comic book writers out there...

NOTE: I just remembered I featured Kupperman for Month of Writing Stars, so forget this, I'm just going to re-use most of that material along with a review of his latest issue of Tales Designed to Thrizzle!

Michael Kupperman wrote for many different publications for a number of years before his first book came out in 2000, a collection of some of his work (plus new drawings) called Snake 'n' Bacon's Cartoon Cabaret.

The book was named after the two characters who Kupperman are probably most known for, the duo of Snake and Bacon, who are, well, a snake and a piece of bacon. The snake only hisses and the bacon only says bacon-related things (like "I go well in a sandwich," "Crumble me up and put me in a salad," "Use a towel to wipe the grease off of me," etc.) and yet they go on all sorts of misadventures.

They highlight what is perhaps Kupperman's greatest comedic skill - the ability to sell surreal ideas in the most serious way possible, highlighting the humor all the more vividly.

Robert Smigel was a big fan and had Kupperman do some Snake and Bacon cartoons for Smigel's TV Funhouse TV series.

A few years back, Kupperman returned to the world of comic book making again with his ongoing series for Fantagraphics called Tales Designed to Thrizzle, using a lot of the same characters from Snake and Bacon (including the titular pair) as well as loads of new characters, such as Hercules ("the public domain superhero") and The Mannister - A man who can transform himself into the shape of a banister.

Kupperman's humor is definitely surrealist and absurdist, but it comes in different delivery methods. Sometimes they will just be straightforward jokes, like the Mannister or Pagus - Jesus' evil twin brother...

Other times, his humor will be more along the lines of examining older works and merely pointing out (through humor, of course) the absurdities of the past that just weren't visible to readers at the time - heck, the title of the comic is even a bit of a play on those older comic works. You had your Tales to Astonish and your Tales of Suspense, well, here, these are Tales Designed to Thrill AND Dazzle, or Thrizzle, if you would.

You can see what he's going for in the covers, as well, as they certainly evoke an era where absurdist ideas were not actually SEEN as absurd at the time (this is the general basis for stuff like Superdickery).

Kupperman also plays along with the silly directions people put in books, like "This is the kids section," as though anyone actually follows the book's instructions. In the latest issue, Kupperman professes to have designed the book to take exactly one day to read (along with instructions on how to do so).

I also like it when Kupperman puts famous people into silly situations, like Albert Einstein and Mark Twain as Magnum Force-esque police partners, or....

Adult Swim is currently doing a Snake and Bacon cartoon series, and Kupperman is doing some other comedy writing for television, but luckily, he seems committed to giving us at least one issue of Tales Designed to Thrizzle a year.

Speaking of which, the latest issue (#5) came out the other week, and it was one of his best issues yet!

It opens with a two-page text feature on stars of yesteryear, and they are amazingly hilarious, including Teodore "Shouty" Jackson, a fellow who was popular in the early days of talking pictures and Oscar Wilde III, who showed up claiming to be Oscar Wilde's grandson, and threatening to sue anyone who suggested that his grandfather was anything but a ladies man.

There's a couple of quick site gags, and then he goes into an extended Einstein and Twain series of jokes, where he depicts the pair in a variety of different styles of old comics (like Archie Comics, mystery comics, crime comics, etc.) It's fifteen pages of hilarity!

There's an awesomely bizarre story of the origin of the Monkees, then a longer tale of a man who has his legs turned into "Sexy women legs" by aliens for a surprise reason.

If any of that sounds cool to you (and it should), you should get a copy of the latest issue of Tales Designed to Thrizzle (and the previous issues, as well, of course).

Kupperman's ART is quite good, too, by the way. He nails each different style he is going for perfectly.

Oh, awesome, Fantagraphics has a four page preview up, and it's from the Twain/Einstein part of the book! Huzzah for you readers out there!

Makeout session. You're a cad, Twain!!

11 Comments

• At May 17, 2009, Mecha-Shiva wrote:

  The cartoon premiered last week, it's online here:

  http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=8a250aae21346166012134ed9c120008

  In classic adult swim fashion, there won't be more episodes for a while, ...

• At May 17, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  The latest issue of Tales is the only one I've read, but I didn't find it as uproarious as I'd ...

• At May 17, 2009, Greg Burgas wrote:

  Bill: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU KUPPERMAN IS A GENIUS YOU SUCK AND SHOULD BE HUNTED DOWN LIKE ...

• At May 17, 2009, Apodaca wrote:

  I don't get you people. You crack up at Joss Whedon and Peter David and you sigh at Michael Kupperman.

  No, ...

• At May 17, 2009, Greg Burgas wrote:

  I don't think I've ever cracked up at either Whedon or David. I've smiled at David, even at some ...

• At May 17, 2009, Michael wrote:

  Kupperberg is good, but not really my thing. I think, in my case, it's a case of guilt-by-association with the ...

• At May 18, 2009, Pedro Bouça wrote:

  It was R. Sikoryak who did that - and he is a genius!

  Best,

  Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

• At May 18, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  The Kupperberg Quasar story is three pages of Quasar and Sinistro havign a wizards' duel with their respective yellow power ...

• At May 18, 2009, sgt rawk wrote:

  I bought Snake N Bacon eight? nine? years ago and I still love it. Too bad it's outta print. The ...

• At June 3, 2009, Apodaca wrote:

  From someone who knows comedy intimately: http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Conan-O-Brien-says-Michael-Kupperman-s-comics-are-a-Must-.html&Itemid=113

• At June 3, 2009, Apodaca wrote:

  The bitter nerd angle is not flattering, Greg.

Today we look at one of the best superhero comics out there...

Paul Grist's Jack Staff is a series that is almost like an anthology, even though is stars Grist's patriotic hero, Jack Staff. Along with Staff, though, Grist populates the book with a bunch of re-imagined takes on various public domain British heroes from the past...

Here are some pages from the book from a spotlight I did on the return of Jack Staff last year (the book had seen a slightly less than regular release schedule the past few years)...

Grist is one of the most inventive comic book artists out there - his layouts and designs are truly remarkable.

His inventiveness makes the series work wonderfully as a whole - he had a large cast of characters, and in each issue, he tends to use a lot of them, yet he somehow manages to work them all into the plot with missing a beat.

This week, in the latest issue of the series he even managed to work in some Hostess Cake ads into the story.

Here are some sample pages from this week's Jack Staff #20 (courtesy of Comic Book Resources):

What a storyteller!

4 Comments

• At May 18, 2009, DanCJ wrote:

  I love me some Paul Grist!

• At May 18, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  Not-true-at-all-urban-legend: Paul Grist has a date marked in 2071 when Quasar becomes public domain. All of these stories are just ...

• At May 18, 2009, Blackjak wrote:

  Jeff,

  Didn't he just extrapolate the calendar on his computer? And print out one year per page, so he could ...

• At May 18, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  Blackjak,

  Yes, that sounds logical. That way, there's only one room in his place devoted to Quasar. And really, we've all ...

Today we look at one of the greatest comic companies out there, and it's really just part of a larger company! ..

Image Central is one of the three "houses" of Image Comics.

The other two "houses" are Todd McFarlane Productions and Top Cow Productions.

Jim Valentino's Shadowline is considered part of Image Central, as is Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon.

Basically, Image Central is just a term to describe all the books that Image comes out with that aren't from McFarlane or Top Cow.

And Image Central roooooooocks.

Here is an example.

The following books are just titles that have come out with at least one issue this year. Just books that have had an issue out this year. Note that that means that there are TONS of other great books that just happened to have no issues out this year.

So JUST titles that at least one issue out this year.

So that still gives us...

Now, besides being from Image Central, what do these books all have in common?

Basically NOTHING ELSE!

That's another thing that's so awesome about Image Central, it's one of the few places you can go for truly diverse comic books!

It's a great company.

19 Comments

• At May 15, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  You forgot Soulwind!!!!

• At May 15, 2009, Blackjak wrote:

  I first encountered Proof on iTunes... Brilliant comic. Will be looking for TPBs or Hardcovers...

• At May 15, 2009, dhole wrote:

  You also forgot Deep Sleeper! Just re-read that one recently, it's a beautiful piece of work.

  I agree, Image has done ...

• At May 15, 2009, rwe1138 wrote:

  What, no love for Firebreather?

• At May 15, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  You know why Image was founded, right? Liefeld and Valentino and Portacio were all fighting because only one of them ...

• At May 15, 2009, Blackjak wrote:

  You know, Mr Ryan...

  Methinks the way this is going, Q is going to be for Lady Quark or Clay Quartermain...

  Might ...

• At May 15, 2009, Nitz the Bloody wrote:

  And to think this all started with Youngblood...

• At May 15, 2009, Dan Felty wrote:

  "Now, besides being from Image Central, what do these books all have in common?

  Basically NOTHING ELSE!"

  They are all action comics. ...

• At May 15, 2009, HammerHeart wrote:

  For my money, Image >>> DC Comics.

  Seriously. Invincible, Walking Dead and Special Forces are better than anything DC is publishing ...

• At May 15, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  I have a feeling reverse psychology regarding Quasar will be transparant. I'm not Ben Linus, more of a Trix ...

• At May 15, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  ...And how much is Image paying you for the publicity, again? ;)

  Seriously, Image comics may have put out some good ...

• At May 15, 2009, Danny Potter wrote:

  Quasar is terrible, just throwing that out there

• At May 15, 2009, Stanley L wrote:

  Danny, you misspelled "terrific"

• At May 15, 2009, Teebore wrote:

  Without a doubt, Dynamo 5, Noble Causes and Age of Bronze are three of my absolute favorite comics, month in, ...

• At May 15, 2009, Bob wrote:

  Hey Jeff, which charater did Dennis O'Niel write in the '90's who was cooler than all the other Q's put ...

• At May 15, 2009, Ian A. wrote:

  Image is pushing out a ton of excellent product these days. I miss Brit like no other, though. That was ...

• At May 15, 2009, jhota wrote:

  “Now, besides being from Image Central, what do these books all have in common?

  Basically NOTHING ELSE!”

  They are all action comics. ...

• At May 15, 2009, Brian Cronin wrote:

  jhota, in fairness to Dan, Phonogram was not up there when he made his comment. I saw his comment, thought ...

• At May 17, 2009, Jonny K wrote:

  Are Soul Kiss and I Kill Giants action comics?

Today we look at an unsung Silver Age artist...

Don Heck (1929–1995) was a great comic book artist who committed a terrible, awful sin.

The sin?

He was not Jack Kirby.

Heck had the misfortune of being a major artist at Marvel during a time when Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko were the main artists at Marvel, and when you're being compared to two of the greatest comic book artists Marvel ever had, it's tough to match up, which is a real shame, because Heck was a really good artist - he had a really nice, sharp art style.

Here is Heck from Tales of Suspense #39, the first appearance of Iron Man (granted, the following page is not that great)...

The rest of these pages are a lot better, though.

From Tales of Suspense #57, the first appearance of Hawkeye!

From Tales of Suspense #51, the first appearance of the Black Widow!

From Journey into Mystery #98, the first appearance of Cobra!

From Journey into Mystery #99, the first appearance of Mr. Hyde!

From Avengers #24, the classic death of Ravonna!

From Avengers #38, Hercules joins the title!

As you can see, the man knew how to tell a story beautifully, and he drew excellent action scenes, as well, all with economical panel usage.

Heck was a great artist, and he deserves more attention than he typically receives!

11 Comments

• At May 14, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  Lots of first appearances there.

  One "Heck" of an artist, Don is.

  ;-)

• At May 14, 2009, Graham Vingoe wrote:

  it took me a long time to appreciate Don Heck's work, but a long period of immersion in Essential ...

• At May 14, 2009, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  If only Don Heck stuck around on Avengers long enough to pencil the world's greatest Avenger, Quasar.

  I wonder if I ...

• At May 14, 2009, Johnny Bacardi wrote:

  For me, as someone who read these comics as a child, Heck was as much a part of the whole ...

• At May 14, 2009, DanLarkin wrote:

  Good choice, Brian. Heck was an excellent storyteller/layout guy. His work never seemed to be inked very well, though. ...

• At May 14, 2009, Ralf H. wrote:

  When I was young (years before I started reading in English) Don Heck was always the awful artist, with stiff ...

• At May 14, 2009, Greg Geren wrote:

  I also recall not appreciating Don Heck's art when I first started reading comics, but as I saw the early ...

• At May 14, 2009, LouReedRichards wrote:

  Like most people have commented, I didn't like his work at first. I mostly knew his work through some 70's ...

• At May 14, 2009, Nitz the Bloody wrote:

  " It is easy to criticize Don Heck for his shortcomings. But he was a talented storyteller. "

  What Heck fans ...

• At May 14, 2009, dr Bob wrote:

  Don Heck's Flash run ws great and was one of the highlights of my early comics reading - I was ...

• At May 15, 2009, sgt rawk wrote:

  I HATED Don Heck as a kid and only mildly dislike him now. I'm still burned by the bait-and-switch Perez ...