June 29, 2010
Jesse sent in this photo of an amazing piece of Flash artwork he recently bought:
Here’s how he describes it:
It’s a single board of paper with drawings of the Flash from some of his most notable artists. You’ve got the two main Flash artists from the ’90s: Greg LaRocque (my favorite Flash artist) drew the large picture of Wally on the left, and Mike Wieringo drew one, too! There are also drawings by Pop Mhan and Craig Rousseau. To top it off, Carmine Infantino did the sketch at the top. (I like to think that the 4 drawings are of Wally, with the spirit of Barry looking over, since it’s in a lighter ink.) Oh, and Mark Waid signed the bottom as well. I don’t own a lot of comic art, but even though this was expensive, I jumped at the chance to get it.
Wow!
It really makes me wonder what the story is behind the fan who originally went around collecting these sketches.
Update: Check out the comments below, where artist Greg LaRocque reveals the secret origin of the sketch!
April 28, 2010
Legendary Flash artist Carmine Infantino will appear at this year’s Superman Celebration in Metropolis, Illinois, Superman Homepage reports. Infantino created the look of the Silver Age Flash and many of the Rogues, and the article summarizes his many other contributions to the DC and later Marvel universes. Superman Celebration runs June 10-13, 2010.
(Thanks to Steve for the tip!)
April 7, 2010
I’m back from San Francisco, catching up on work, email, and reading. I’ll post my WonderCon write-up when I get a chance (tonight, I hope, but definitely by the end of the week [Update: it's up now]), but for now, here are a few more Flash items from the convention:
Jesse Quick will be joining the Justice League of America after the upcoming JLA/JSA crossover, as announced at the James Robinson Spotlight.
He included the character because he was always such a fan of the character’s father, Johnny Quick. The writer made sure to mention that he has no plans to upset the marriage between Jessie Quick and Hourman. He promised there would be no cheap plot device to break them up.
Robinson also made some thought-provoking remarks about the Flash in the Super-Hero Origins panel, which I’ll write up when I have more time and can look at my notes. Update: Here they are: JR on super-hero origins.
When asked about plans for DC movies beyond Green Lantern, Geoff Johns said, “We’ll talk in San Diego.” A lot of sites are taking this to mean that DC will announce Flash & other movie plans at Comic-Con International in July.
At the Ethan Van Sciver Spotlight, the artist was asked about Carmine Infantino’s classic art in connection with Flash: Rebirth.
The artist said that he loved Infantino’s work, and that besides Batman, the Flash has one of the best set of villains in the DCU, which Van Sciver credits to Infantino. “His characters were so unique and individual, so wonderfully different from each other,” he said, also mentioning that he would love to go back to “revisit the wonderful, angular, ugly faces of Carmine Infantino’s rogues, and restore them.” Van Sciver even said he would talk with new “Flash” artist Francis Manapul about Infantino’s rogues.
And once again, my photos from the con are up on Flickr.
November 22, 2009
Comics Alliance has a couple of Flashy items: First, a page from the Shortpacked! coloring book: Batman Can Breathe In Space, But Not The Flash.
Second: they look back at a pair of Baby Ruth commercials from the 1990s, featuring Hawkman and an obvious Flash stand-in called the Blur. They have a video clip of the Blur commercial. Fun fact: The Blur was played by Tim Thomerson, who played Barry Allen’s brother Jay in the pilot episode of the 1990 Flash TV show.
Speaking of the Flash TV series, it makes Comic Book Movie’s list of Top Ten Most Accurate Live Action Superhero Costumes
The Secret of Wednesday’s Haul contrasts Ethan Van Sciver and Carmine Infantino in their approaches to conveying speed.
noscans_daily has a Flash Appreciation Post focusing on the character from the animated Justice League and Justice League Unlimited TV series.
A Trout in the Milk reviews Wednesday Comics and asks the question: “What have we learned?”
InTylerWeTrust82 casts Superman and the Flash, with some interesting choices for the heroes, their supporting casts, and selected villains.
What Were They Thinking? has an example of Golden Age Flashdickery. Jay Garrick was a bit of a prankster in those days…
September 9, 2009
Flashback Post from 3 years ago. Some of the stuff is old news about the launch of Flash: The Fastest Man Alive, but a lot of it is also a look at Flash history with a number of writers and artists who have worked on the character: Geoff Johns, Carmine Infantino, Mark Waid, Joe Giella, Brian Bolland, Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo.
I missed the first half of Saturday’s “50 Years of the Flash” panel because we missed the red line and got stuck waiting to transfer at America Plaza. The shuttle might have gotten us there faster (maybe even on time), but we were pretty sure they wouldn’t let us on with our coffee.
What I did see of the panel was still mostly retrospective, and mainly Mark Waid, Geoff Johns, and Danny Bilson. Carmine Infantino told a couple of stories (one of which he’d told at Thursday’s panel, about the “war” between him and Julius Schwartz: he’d try to draw ever-more-nasty cliffhangers on his covers, and every time, Julie would come up with a story to go with it. So finally he drew one with the Flash and the Golden Age Flash both racing to save some guy, and said, “There! Top that!” The rest, of course, is history).
After a while they started talking about the new Flash book. While the most common answer in the Q&A session was, “Wait and see,” Bilson and DeMeo did answer a couple of questions that I’ve seen people asking about.
For the “legacy pages” in the first two issues, they did a whole bunch of research, sometimes finding conflicting info. (They didn’t mention this one, but the issue of “Who named Impulse” is probably one of those cases.) Any changes in continuity are accidental, and not intentional.
The reason Bart’s acting so morose in these first few issues is that he’s got this problem to deal with, and once he starts to work through it, his impulsive nature will start taking over again.
I almost got the new #1 signed, but staff kept telling everyone to clear the room, and as near as I can tell, Bilson and DeMeo took a different exit than I did.
Bilson and DeMeo told a good story about how when they pitched the TV show, the powers that be wanted the Flash to be running around in a gray sweat suit. So they got Dave Stevens to design a suit and his rendering convinced them to go with it. Even then, the network resisted bringing costumed villains in until they showed it could work. And apparently what killed it wasn’t bad ratings, but network politics. Someone wanted his show, so he could get a better bonus. A real pity, as the second season opener would have been a two-hour special with the Trickster, Captain Cold, and Mirror Master—a Rogues Gallery episode.
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July 20, 2009
I decided to switch the Twitter digests from weekly to daily for the week of Comic-Con International. This is a bit cleaned up and reorganized.
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July 17, 2009
Some Friday morning linkblogging…
Creator Interviews
Remember that interview with Carmine Infantino last week? The legendary artist was unhappy about how he was portrayed in the article, and has fired back a complaint at the interviewer. The Beat has the whole story.
CBR goes in-depth with Ethan Van Sciver, talking with the artist about everything from Cyberfrog and Impulse to Green Lantern: Rebirth, Blackest Night, and Flash: Rebirth.
The Half Hour Wasted podcast devotes its latest episode to Ethan Van Sciver. Despite the name, it’s actually over two hours long, and the artist talks about topics as varied as his recent trip to South Africa, balancing previews against spoilers (apparently none of the solicited covers for Flash: Rebirth issues 4-6 are the “real” cover — I’m guessing that the cover for #5 is mostly the same image, only with Professor Zoom instead of the Black Flash), redesigning Sinestro, and much, much more.
CBR presents the second monthly Geoff Johns Prime question-and-answer column.
Marc Guggenheim will attempt to re-imagine the campy Battlestar Galactica spin-off Galactica 1980 as a comic book.
Flashing Back
Comics in Crisis has Attack of the Cartoon Heroes part 2, including a Justice League clip.
Castle Vardulon presents: the amazing single-sentence continuity error from Flash v.1 #133.
Comics Should Be Good looks at DC’s June 1965 covers, including Flash v.1 #153, featuring Professor Zoom and the Mightiest Punch of All Time!
Silver Age Comics looks back on Neal Adams’ Brave and the Bold run, including his take on guest stars like the Flash.
More
A nifty series of superhero illustrations, with several nice Flash pieces in part 2.
Blog@Newsarama has an interesting idea: What if the JLA membership were chosen by DC’s sales rankings?
July 11, 2009
Some linkblogging for the weekend:
Two Artists and a Writer
NYC Graphic Novelists has an interview with Carmine Infantino. He talks about growing up in the depression, breaking into the fledgling comic industry, building the Silver Age, and his tenure as editor at DC. Update: There’s been some fallout from this interview, with Infantino feeling he was misrepresented.
Geoff Johns will appear at a Blackest Night launch party at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles on Tuesday, July 14. Update: The Tuesday event at Meltdown has been canceled. He will also be signing at Isotope Comics in San Francisco on Saturday, July 18.
The Green Lantern Spotlight Podcast has an interview with Ethan Van Sciver. It’s long at 99 minutes, but it’s worth a listen. He talks about everything from deadlines and inking to why he’s drawing Iris Allen younger to designs for Black Lanterns.
Review
The Captain’s JLA Blog reviews “Speed Demons”, the Superman: The Animated Series episode that guest-starred the Flash and introduced the scarlet speedster to the DC Animated Universe.
The Flash-Back Podcast reviews The Return of Barry Allen.
Fan Creations
Flash endorses Green Lantern for Mayor! (via Robot6)
The Heretics Blog has a collection of fan films, including the Flash getting a speeding ticket.
May 25, 2009
LA Times’ Hero Complex has a tribute to Carmine Infantino, co-creator of the Silver Age Flash, who celebrated his 84th birthday yesterday.
I got to see the legendary artist at the 2006 Comic-Con International, where he appeared on at least two panels: a Carmine Infantino spotlight (where he mostly reminisced about his time in the comics industry) and the 50 Years of the Flash (not counting Jay Garrick) panel featuring at least half a dozen writers and artists who had worked on The Flash.
One of the stories he told at both panels was about the “war” between him and Julius Schwartz: he’d try to draw ever-more-nasty cliffhangers on his covers, and every time, Julie would come up with a story to go with it. So finally he drew one with the Flash and the Golden Age Flash both racing to save some guy, and said, “There! Top that!” The rest, of course, is history
The HeroComplex post incudes a gallery of classic Infantino covers.
May 1, 2009
Ain’t It Cool News interviews Mark Waid about his work on Flash, Fantastic Four, Irredeemable and more (basically his entire career). He’s got some really interesting things to say about the Flash. Eventually I’ll find time to read the whole thing and pick out some good quotes to post here.
The latest Fan Film Podcast episode focuses on The Flash: Crossover from Influence Films.
POP! lists Barry Allen and Iris West at #3 on its 25 Greatest Super-hero Romances (via Robot 6).
The Comic Treadmill looks back at the 1970s revival of All Star Comics, featuring the Justice Society of America on Earth-2.
The best-condition copy of Showcase #4, first appearance of Barry Allen as the Silver-Age Flash, is “off to a fast start” at Heritage Auctions, already up to $100,000 with three weeks to go.
Comicbook Rockstar talks about lunch with Carmine Infantino, comics legend and co-creator of the Silver Age Flash, and the veteran artist’s advice for writers.
Comic Bloc user CreativeArtist has a new animation based on Flash: Rebirth.
Pegasus News reviews a production of Based on a Totally True Story (by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa), a stage play about a playwright on the verge of making it big in Hollywood — who also happens to write the Flash comic book.
Update: The first installment of Q&A column Geoff Johns Prime is up at Comic Book Resources. He doesn’t say much about Flash: Rebirth beyond “wait and see.”
