Page by page, panel by panel annotations of DC Comics' summer events and crossovers
In the same week that Roy Thomas was taken to task for using the word “Oriental”, I came across this classified ad in an old issue of All Star Squadron from the early 80s:
“This is the AMERICAN WAY” it proudly says, “not oriental”
Who needs a collections of fast, athletic moves when you can simply deliver a poorly drawn left-handed punch to the bearded face of a man in a yellow onesie?
Is there anything more American than that, my friends?
Well, this is interesting news – a new event coming to DC for this summer, written by Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV, with art by Andy Kubert, Jim Lee and John Romita Jr that will deal with the “dark underbelly of the DC Universe.”
Not being much of a Batman fan, I haven’t read any of Snyder’s work with the character, though I enjoyed his New 52 Swamp Thing run, so I’m keen to see what he does in charge of a “massive summer event.”
The linked article is light on detail but one thing did leap out at me – part of the the last paragraph from Snyder:
What I want this [event] to be is different. I want it built out of the stories happening now and creating new material and giving everybody a place to tell stories that fit what they’re doing on their books, and feels really modern and different and above all fun. I don’t want it to be grim. I don’t want it to be superheroes arguing over something. Superheroes won’t be fighting superheroes. I want it to be celebratory, and huge, and crazy. I am going for out of control dinosaurs and lasers. It should be fun.
A fun superhero event? Bring it on!
The famed artist has passed away, leaving behind some fantastic artwork.
While he’s rightly famous for his comic work and the adaptation of Frankenstein, I think my earliest introduction to his art was in the pages of the expanded version of Stephen King’s The Stand in the early to mid-80s. I was a big fan of King at that point and The Stand was, and still is, my favourite of his books (though it’s probably a tie with The Dark Tower series.) Wrightson contributed half a dozen or so black and white illustrations for the then-newly released version where, among other characters and scenes, he produced the following picture of the re-emerging Randall Flagg in the till-then unseen epilogue to the book:
RIP Bernie Wrightson.
Remember a couple of weeks ago when I mentioned my mate Spike getting Carlos Ezquerra to do a sketch of Johnny Alpha for me? That popped into my head a couple of days ago when I was looking through some old 2000AD collections and found this in Judgement Day:
Not Garth Ennis’s best work, but at least we got a Johnny Alpha / Judge Dredd team up out of it.
Crisis on Earth-Prime 