Author: Gary

Carlos Ezquerra Passes Away

I was all ready to post a note of how disappointing Heroes in Crisis #1 was, when instead I came across some really sad news: Carlos Ezquerra, co-creator of Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog amongst others, has passed away, aged 70.

He was long one of my favourite artists; as a kid reading 2000AD, there were a handful of artists whose work I could identify just by looking at a single panel – Ezquerra, Dave Gibbons and Ian Gibson spring to mind – and he was always top of my list.

Regular readers may remember my mate Spike bumping into Ezquerra and other 2000AD luminaries last year, and thanks to Spike, I’m lucky to have a signed, original sketch by Ezquerra which is framed and on my wall. While I haven’t read 2000AD regularly for years, I still pick up the collections of Strontium Dog stories, most of which have been illustrated by Ezquerra; they’re definitely not going to be the same again.

I’ve seen the image below being used on a couple of news articles about his death – two of his biggest and best creations together, which kinda fits.

RIP Carlos.

Monday Mash-Ups #13

Back on my old blog, I ran a series of related posts on Mondays and I’ve been wanting to do something along those lines here.

So, and I admit to being HUGELY influenced by the wonderful Super-Team Family blog which has been doing this for years (and a lot better) on an almost daily basis, I’ve mashed up a few comic covers.

Each week I randomly generate two years and two months and then compare the titles I own from both those dates, trying to find some covers that, with a little basic photoshopping, I can mash together, and then I force the results on you lovely people.

Old school meets new school as the New 52 Ray clashes with the Earth-2 Cyclotron in an effort to save the original Atom.

The New 52 Ray mini-series wasn’t bad and, with the Phantom Lady and Human Doll series that followed it, it looked like there was going to be a new iteration of the Freedom Fighters, but sadly that went nowhere.

The Boys On TV

I am really looking forward to this – The Boys will be arriving on Amazon Prime in 2019.

Sure, I’d rather Karl Urban was playing Judge Dredd again, but I can live with this in its place.

Joker Phoenix Part 2

There’s a video posted by Hollywood Pipeline of Joaquin Phoenix in full costume and make-up as the Joker; you can see it here and there’s some photos here.

I am all for saying “let’s wait and see” and I try not to go all raging internet fanboy but this . . .

. . . just looks like a little too close to this . . .

for my liking.

For the record, I have never liked the Adam West Batman series – if you think it’s wonderfully ironic and delightfully camp in retrospect, you are wrong: the entire bloody thing was dreadful.

Watch the video, though – the protesters are holding signs referencing “clown town” and “clown makes me frown” and “clown mayor” . . not a mention (that I could see) of the Joker.

Is he going to be known as the Clown in this film?! I’d say surely not but then I would have said that neither Superman nor Batman ever kill anyone, either . . .