This photo by spatula108 got me thinking: I’ve seen several women dressed as the Flash at conventions, and two or three as Liberty Belle…but I can’t think of a single Jesse Quick cosplayer.

There were at least three women in home-made Flash costumes at Comic-Con International 2007, two of whom I met.

(Originally posted at K-Squared Ramblings)

(From CBR’s Photo Parade)

Looking online, I’ve spotted one more in a homemade costume (SDCC 2009), and several women wearing an off-the-shelf female Flash costume (SDCC 2009 and WonderCon 2010).

I guess it’s the same principle as the Ame-Comi statue of “Jesse Quick as the Flash.” The Flash is the more famous character. He’s got the name recognition, the costume recognition, and the fan base. More people are going to recognize you if you’re dressed in red with the Flash symbol on your chest than if you wear a random mix of red and yellow with goggles.

Come to think of it, though, if someone did want to design a Jesse Quick costume, she’d have a lot of leeway in what she could wear with it still being authentic!

FOLLOW-UP (Oct. 2011): Here’s an actual Jesse Quick cosplay from NYCC 2011.

Cosplay: Lady Flash vs. Jesse Quick is a post from Speed Force.

• Comic-Con International 2009 Index

Quick Link: Comic-Con 2009 Index is a post from Speed Force.

The Boots

Our original intention with the boots was to get cheap boots and make boot covers. I’d picked up a pair of costume boots for myself at Payless at a huge discount a few years ago, which was surprising given that anything in a size 10 or over is hard to find in women’s shoes. However, men’s fashion boots are even harder to find, let alone with a price restriction, and in the sale room of DSW we reformulated our plan. We thought about permanently attaching semi-rigid covers to an old pair of sneakers, but realized that tying laces would prove impossible inside a boot. So it came down to slip-ons, and we located a pair at (surprise!) Payless that fit pretty well. The only question was whether to make them permanent or removable, and the material made the decision for us.

I tend to be a cheapskate when it comes to crafts that I’m going to keep for myself. For gifts, sales, or commissions, I spare little expense; but for my own use it’s Red Heart Super Saver and Westrim beads, because I’m willing to undertake for myself the maintenance that will make the piece look like more than it is. We went to Jo-Ann with no idea what we wanted beyond “shiny bright red.” Luckily, this was during a huge fabric clearance and we found some less-than-half-price red vinyl, which settled the question of what to make the boots from. I also picked up some E-6000 cement, which claimed it would bond vinyl, and some muslin for making patterns and test covers. I didn’t intend to sew the final covers, as it would punch holes in the vinyl. But something else happened then that I did not intend: the E-6000 not only wouldn’t hold up to much pulling (even when I roughed up the shiny vinyl lightly with sandpaper), but flat-out refused to bond to the back side of the vinyl. It didn’t matter that the suggested temperature range meant I’d waited until nearly sunset to be able to use it at all. It just beaded up, dried, and fell off. So, since I didn’t want to mess with mass quantities of hot glue that I’d need to shepherd along definite “seam” lines, it was going to have to be sewing.

We started with pattern creation, which I very nearly botched because we still hadn’t decided whether to attach the covers permanently (with something other than the E-6000, obviously). Sarcasm-hime’s tutorial and the tutorial by God Save the Queen Fashions were absolutely invaluable in helping me get these things made. (Sewing a stuffed rabbit from homemade patterns does NOT provide adequate preparation for making clothing using similar methods.) I managed to get the inner and outer halves of the pattern almost exactly the same size, and the seams came out both straight and centered on the shoe. And one of the cool things about vinyl is that you can write on the back of it with a plain Bic mechanical pencil. (You can’t erase, though. The insides of the covers still say “I” and “O” for “inside” and”outside.”) So I didn’t have to pin anything, just cut the patterns along the seam lines, trace, and then cut about 1/2″ bigger than the pencil lines. The problem was that, on one set of vinyl cutouts, I neglected to mark the location of the bottom of the shoe. It wasn’t at the bottom of the pattern piece, as I’d left a big allowance to either turn under for a more finished and durable bottom edge or sew to a partial sole of more tractiony material. Plus, I’d decided to extend the tops higher than we’d want them to be in the finished product, so that we could size that part by sight and turn the excess inside; and thus I hadn’t made a hard-and-fast measurement of the ideal height, either. What with the vinyl being a wavy-edged remnant and my seam allowance being eyeballed, I had only the slight “notch” at the Achilles, above the shoe heel, with which to align the pieces. It was the second set, a clear case of getting cocky. I ended up having to pin the vinyl after all, and then actually baste it. So remember, kids: mark where the bottom of your shoe is, even if you don’t know where the covers are actually going to stop.

There is, I discovered, a catch to sewing vinyl: you have to sandwich all your vinyl between two layers of woven cloth. If you don’t, the stitches will pull right through the vinyl. Luckily, I tested this before doing any sewing. Also luckily, I had some cloth lying around from another project (it was even yellow!) and was able to get appropriately-shaped strips out of it for securing the seams. The sewing was actually done by Kelson, who’s better with a plain sewing machine than I am (I prefer overlocks, but we didn’t have access to one). I pulled out all the basting thread I could, trimmed the seam allowances, clipped the curves, and popped the covers onto the shoes. It was a huge moment of triumph when they actually fit.

From experiments with scraps, I had learned that Fabri-Tac glue held reasonably well when bonding the back of the vinyl to the strip of rubber encircling the sole of the shoe. I situated the covers correctly and attached them with a line of glue around the top of each rubber strip. This made it easier to trim the bottom edges to an appropriate length for turning under. It didn’t, however make it easier to get the edges to lie down in the curves I wanted. I also learned that the edge needed to be a little higher than the bottom edge of the strip, to account for the sole being compressed while walking. I must have re-clipped and reglued every curve in those boots three times before I was satisfied. Then we decided on a height for the boots, which I marked with some of the gold paint–acrylic washes off plastic–so I’d know where to attach the wings.

The wings for the boots were hand-sewn from felt. I traced the helmet wing pattern onto one piece of felt, cut it out with a seam allowance, pinned it to the second piece, and sewed a backstitch along the lines. The curves were clipped very finely, as I eventually had to turn the whole thing inside out. The inside-out process was kind of nerve-wracking, due to the small size of the pieces; I actually found a small crochet hook useful to pull the narrow end out of the mass of scrunch, and the blunt end of a larger hook perfect for popping out the last feather-tip. The hooks were good for stuffing the wings, too, once I was able to roll a small enough pellet of fiberfill to go into each segment. I closed the wide end with Fabri-Tac, in several little tabbed sections so as to keep it rounded, rather than try to sew it.

To attach the wings, I Fabri-Tac’d a square of the yellow cloth to the inside of each boot at the right spot and sewed through it into the felt. I found that using a two-needle technique allowed me to pull the thread tight without fear of a knot unraveling or pulling through the vinyl, and also let me tie the ends in a good solid knot. Useful when sewing on bits that are likely to get pulled around a lot at odd angles. With the wings attached, I trimmed the seam allowances inside the boot tops, cut the excess off even, and cut a thin wedge out of each side (not technically a dart, but serves the same purpose), and glued the flaps down. A little cleaning with a wet paper towel, and they were done.

The Shirt

As I mentioned in the previous post, we had thought that Graphitti Designs had an appropriate lightning-bolt shirt for sale. Kelson was able to order one, but the next day got an email informing him that the design was discontinued and his size was out of stock. Well, crap. With just over a week to go, our options were limited. He looked around in a few stores, but quickly realized that looking for a long-sleeved shirt in JULY wasn’t likely to get anywhere. So he ordered an appropriate shirt that offered fast shipping, and we procured some yellow fabric paint.

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. Yellow on red is not a good idea if you want to get something other than dark orange. But the label said it was made for opacity (Jacquard Neopaque, if you’re curious), and I decided to trust it. We washed the shirt, Kelson laid out the design in masking tape, and I set up an improvised shirt board and brushed on the first coat. It…wasn’t opaque. Partway through, I found that the “shake well” instruction should have been “stir well,” and I went over the painted area again with the slightly thicker result. It helped, but not nearly enough. In the end, I had to use three thick coats, and in order to let it dry for 24 hours before heat-setting, I was ironing it at 11:30 on Tuesday night.

Handy tip: red fabric gets darker when ironed. It’s not necessarily burning just because it looks like it. I freaked out royally, thinking I’d scorched the most visible piece of the costume by following the “high heat for 30 seconds” directions on the paint jar. Hey, they didn’t get the mixing instructions down too well. Fortunately, the darkening of color subsides pretty fast as the fabric cools, so I figured it out before doing anything drastic. I was very glad for my sleeve board, which was just about exactly the right width for ironing only the design.

And that, as they say, is it. I welcome questions from curious souls, advice from other costumers, and of course general comments. It may not sound like it above, but I had a blast making this costume. And I’m thinking of things to do in the future, too…

Golden-Age Flash Costume: Boots and Shirt Construction is a post from Speed Force.

The helmet is made from paper mache, Crayola Model Magic, glue, felt, cardboard, a few gap-filling pastes of varying efficacy, and both brush-on and spray-on paint and clear-coat spray acrylic. The boots are vinyl covers glued (again, with a sort of tiered success) to a pair of $20 Payless slip-on shoes, with stuffed plush wings made from felt and sewn on. And the shirt, which we originally thought would be taken care of by Graphitti Designs, involved some last-minute Amazon ordering, masking tape, and several applications of fabric paint. I was heat-setting the thing at midnight the Tuesday before the con; we have yet to see what washing will do to it.

The Helmet

I started with the helmet, figuring it would take a while to dry at the thicknesses I’d be creating, even in dry heat. (One thing California summer weather is good for!) We bought the traditional balloons, but I wanted an armature that wouldn’t shrink. And anyway, balloons aren’t really good for creating a shallow oval bowl shape. I ended up using half of one of those kids’ playballs that stores keep in big wire cages. I stabbed the thing at the seam with my knife, then used plain scissors to cut along the handy dividing line and stuffed one half using our stock of #4 recyclable bags. It was a firm armature, easily shaped into the appropriate oval with a few strips of packing tape, and with enough give to pull away from the first layer of mache. The resulting shell looked odd when worn, partly because it was a little too deep with ragged edges, but it fit.

Shaping the brim started out easy. I decided what would be the front and back of the shell, had Kelson settle it on his head, and drew a pencil line around the outside at the level where the brim should start. Then I took scissors and snipped through the mache up to the line, at about 1/2 inch intervals all around. The tabs were folded outward to make a proto-brim that would provide support for more layers of mache. Just bending the tabs made it look immensely better and more hatlike. One side needed a lot of adjusting to make it sit level on both a tabletop and Kelson’s head. And then I realized that I’d unstuffed the original playball to peel it off the shell…and that I needed to make a brim armature as well. Ugh.

I started by trying to cut out strips of thin cardboard (cereal boxes) in curved strips to fit along the outside of the shell, but quickly realized this wouldn’t provide the slight downward tilt I wanted. In the end, I destroyed an empty Kleenex box, packing-taped the pieces into a flattish ring, and set that atop another strip of cardboard taped into a veeery short cylinder that just fit inside the bottom edge of the shell. After adjusting the tape and extending some of the pieces of the outer ring, I taped the whole assembly to the bottom of a plastic serving tray (which was probably very surprised, as it usually gets used for cookies and such). The playball wouldn’t fit into the center cavity, so I approximated with some of the stuffing materials and some tape. Satisfied with the pitch of the armature, I covered the whole thing with plastic wrap and started building up the mache.

For those who are curious, I used a cornstarch paste with a little cinnamon and a lot of salt. The seasonings did their job: the resulting helmet neither smelled funny nor mildewed. Of course, the latter is probably because I applied only a few layers of paper at a time. The downside of this, in combination with not using a firm close-fitting armature after the first stage, was that the dome of the helmet developed dents. I popped them out as best I could, and filled in some of them with extra bits of paper, but I still ended up having to work around them in the end. Lesson learned.

After the first brim application, I trimmed the edge wth scissors to a more even width, fine-tuning the shape through intermittent fittings. Once I had that down, I pencil-marked placement for two cardboard tabs that would eventually support the wings. These were actually made from an ad flier, glued down with Tacky Glue, with the upstanding bits “stuffed” with scraps of Kleenex box so they wouldn’t buckle when the wings were eventually put on. I applied my next layers of mache over the glued-down ends, then turned the (now-sturdier) helmet upside down and applied a layer over the other side of the brim to sandwich in the tabs coming off the dome. Two more applications of mache over the top, a final shaping trim, and I was ready to start the next phase.

I’d known from the start that I’d be wrapping the entire helmet in rolled-out sheets of Model Magic. It’s smoother than mache, and provides a lot of bulk for a little weight–important in a hat. What I didn’t know was that I’d need two packages of it, or that we’d be using some of the first pack to ant-proof our refrigerator seals. I knew from experience that MM will sometimes crack if wrapped around porous material, so I was smart enough to do a test wrap of a small disc of mache. The flat side where I’d pinched the edges of the MM together cracked, but the edges of the disc and the side that was just rolled didn’t. So I decided to treat it like pie crust: don’t stretch it, and moisten the seams. I filled in the remaining dents in the dome, then rolled out the rest of the package. It was just about the perfect amount to cover the top and anchor around the brim, and moistening the seams (unwanted, but inevitable) actually did seem to make a difference in the smoothness of the surface.

Problem #1 surfaced before the wrap was even dry. Part of the cracking on the test disc was due to the fact that MM apparently shrinks as it dries. The sheet-wrapping was pulling up off the mache, which, while it made for a nice even slope, meant the layer of MM was unsupported in parts–making for easy punch-throughs and cracking if handled wrong. So I bit the bullet, got out my X-acto, and made some careful cuts at the edges of the worst-affected areas, then freed the sheet from where it was anchored to the brim. I got some Tacky Glue in under the flaps where the dome became brim, and hand-clamped it until it didn’t want to pop free. Then I had the unpleasant task of shaving little bits of MM off the edges of the flaps so they’d fit flush together. The result wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t perfect, either. Remembering a glue-and-talc dough I’d once made into flexible sculptures, and having no talc on hand, I mixed some white glue with cornstarch and spread the paste over the seams. It worked pretty well as a gap-filler, adhering to the MM with minimal cracking. Once I was sure of this, I patched little cracks and nicks all over the top surface.

It puzzled me that the MM had adhered to the brim but not the rest of the mache, until I remembered I’d been sealing the seams in the pliable MM with wet hands. When I got the second package of MM, I used the knowledge: when wrapping the under-brim, I applied smaller chunks and rubbed water over the back of them until tacky. I’d already filled in some of the uneven spots and used the X-acto to shave down bulgy areas of the top wrap. The only real issue with the underbrim was melding the edge of it with the upper brim. I did my wet-handed best, but there were still ridges and hollows that dried too fast for me to smooth out. Ah well, I’d gap-fill it afterward. Famous last words.

Problem #2 was a direct result of my attempt to fix something that wasn’t broken. Rather than using the simple gap filler I’d devised before, I made up a different recipe using some of my mache paste with extra cornstarch, flour, and glue in. It went on more smoothly and with fewer raised edges, and I thought I’d made a good decision. But when I sprayed on the primer coat (masking the inner dome with a wad of newspaper), I saw the error of my ways: a sea of tiny cracks, all over the spots where I’d used my New-Coke gap filler.

Even through the freakout, I noticed that the spots where I’d used only the original formula weren’t noticeably cracked. So, once the paint was dry, I made a new batch and made a token effort to scrape off the other stuff, which wouldn’t scrape. Eh, at least it didn’t seem likely to flake. I made sure to keep the new coat just thick enough to cover the cracks, so that it wouldn’t be tempted to crack too. When we primed that, it was quite acceptable. Crisis averted.

We’d gotten super-shiny metallic silver spray paint, and when we covered the wing-tabs and painted the helmet, it looked awesome. I swear, we were both grinning like idiots for ten minutes at the sheer coolness. Then we put on the wings.

Wait, I didn’t say how I made the wings? Okay, I can do that.

The Wings

After looking at about ten designs for the helmet and the wings, I drew on cereal-box cardboard a prototype intended to hybridize them all. Somehow, it ended up being in exactly the right proportion to match the helmet *and* pleasing Kelson. So I cut it out, traced it over again, and made a scan of the two cutouts for archival purposes. (This is important, like the suspenders in the Just So Stories.) I used the cutouts as a pattern for the boot wings before making the helmet wings around them, so as not to have to duplicate too much effort. Then I cut down the edges by about a millimeter all around, so they wouldn’t “grow” too much when all the edges were encased in MM. I wrapped a strip of packing tape, sticky side out, tightly around each tab on the helmet, positioned one wing at a time, and sandwiched the taped tab between the wing and an unshaped strip of cardboard. This ensured a tight fit for the wings during the final adjustment phase, and more friction to help the glue hold them on in the final product, while still letting me remove them. I shaved down the edges of the unshaped strips with the X-acto to keep them from showing through the MM layer, then pressed the whole assembly into a rolled-out hunk of MM, cut carefully around it (not paying too much attention to detail at this point), picked it up, and put it cardboard-side-down onto another sheet of MM. I cut out the second layer, wet-smoothed the seams, and sculpted the feather tips, and then started pressing in the detail. The sculpting tool I used was made for polymer and terra-cotta clay, but the rubber tips–one a rounded point, one a straight line–worked just as well on MM. I kept the surface moist, which unexpectedly made the tool squeak as I drew. Unfortunately, one of the wings was a little too moist, and cracked along the pressed lines as it dried. So I had to print out the scan I’d made (see? I said it was important) and make a replacement wing. Amazingly, I had almost exactly enough MM left to do it. The leftovers made a ball only about the size of a cherry.

The wings needed minimal gap-filling, and were quickly ready for painting. I used a color called “Glorious Gold,” which was absolutely perfect, especially against the ultra-shiny helmet. Metallic acrylics have really improved from the stuff I was using to paint Sculpey 15 years ago. It took about 5 coats, but it dried fast. I waited until the wings were painted before fitting them, so I could cut off some of the painted surface on each piece for optimum glue effectiveness. I put some glue on the tabs, too, in case any of it made its way past the tape to where it could stick to cardboard. I used Tacky, because it grabs faster and we were in a hurry by that time.

I’d wanted to glue the wings on before putting on the final coat of clear spray acrylic, so as to get a complete seal with no gaps. MM isn’t waterproof, and I want this thing protected as thoroughly as I can manage. Unfortunately, what with everything cracking and needing to be fixed, I hadn’t made time to test the full paint spectrum on the test disc. This meant that we didn’t know the acrylic, despite its label of “gloss,” would significantly dull the shine of the metallic paint. It was disappointing, but it was also about an hour before we had to leave the house, so there wasn’t much we could do about it. There was still plenty of shine left, just not as much as we’d hoped.

The final step, which I did at the hotel, was to line the inside of the dome with felt. This was easier said than done. All I really want to say about it is: thank heaven for curved nail scissors and Fabri-Tac, and for the little bit of give I’d built into the wing assemblies. And next time, I’m looking for a flimsy cloth hat to mutilate and glue in.

The result!

If this was interesting, come back in a few days for my post on the boots and the shirt. If it wasn’t…wow, you must be really bored to still be reading this.

Golden-Age Flash Costume: Helmet Construction is a post from Speed Force.

This year’s Heroes panel at Comic-Con introduced a new group of players for the upcoming arc, “Redemption” (Volume 5): a traveling carnival made up of people who have super-powers, hiding in plain sight. (Everyone’s making comparisons to Carnivale, but I can’t help but think of Payne’s carnival in Girl Genius.) Among them is Edgar, a knife-thrower played by Ray Park, best known as Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. He also appears as Snake Eyes in the live-action G.I. Joe movie opening this weekend.

Edgar is described as “a speedster with a mission.” Footage played at the panel showed him using his power not for running, but for combat agility as he fought power-magnet Peter Petrelli.

Appropriately enough, the actor kept moving throughout the panel, making it hard for Katie to snap a photo of him that was in focus.

New Heroes Speedster Trained in the Jedi Arts is a post from Speed Force.

Here’s a gallery of photos from Flickr.

Golden Age

I don’t think I’d ever seen a Golden Age Flash costume at a convention until I saw some photos from HeroesCon and Wizard World Philadelphia in June. There seemed to be one Jay Garrick at each. So I figured I’d probably be the only one at San Diego. Imagine my surprise when I ran into not one other, but two!

The photo on the left shows me and a cosplayer who was part of a Justice Society of America group I spotted in line for the DC Nation panel on Friday. I asked the person behind me to save my place in line, walked along the line to where they were, and we did the obligatory “Nice costume!” exchange, then ended up posing for a bunch of photos. We did at least two poss, this one and one just standing and crossing our arms like the Alex Ross poster. Someone got an interesting shot with a blur effect, also.

I ran into the guy on the right on Saturday, when I wasn’t in costume. He actually used an original World War I helmet, polished it up, and made wings for it…then the first day in town the wings broke, so he needed to come up with a substitute fast. He ended up gluing popsicle sticks together and spray painting them gold.

Update: Speaking of the helmet, here’s how my helmet was made. Update 2: and here’s how we made the boots and shirt.

Variations

I didn’t manage to see any of these three in person during the con. But they’re really cool variations.

The two things that usually impress me the most with character costumes are:

• Authenticity – costumes that match the source very well, especially if the person wearing it is a good fit for the character. (That especially helps with costumes from movies and TV shows. If you resemble an actor, seriously look at their roles for ideas!)
• Creative variation – costumes that take a concept and put a deliberate spin on them. The Steampunk Flash from the League of Justice-Minded Citizens, for instance. Or either of the female Flash costumes here.

The Flash is well-suited for variations, because there have been so many of them in canon. You’ve got the basics: Jay Garrick’s Golden Age costume, the Barry Allen/Wally West Flash costume, and the Kid Flash costume (each with its own variations). Then you’ve got Professor Zoom, Johnny Quick, a half-dozen Jesse Quick costumes, Impulse, Max Mercury, Walter West, Iris West II, John Fox’s three costumes…and that’s not counting all the possible future Flashes from “Chain Lightning.”

So it’s not a problem to take the basic red-and-yellow lightning motif and build on it. People will still know who you are, especially if you keep the white circle around the lightning bolt.

Well, except for the dimwits who mistake you for Flash Gordon.

Update August 28: The woman on the left appears to be wearing an off-the-rack costume rather than a custom variation.

Cold and the Kid

I almost missed Captain Cold here. It was late Saturday afternoon, and I was on the phone with my wife trying to work out dinner plans. I saw him through the window, said, “Hang on, I need to get a picture of Captain Cold” and ducked outside into Sails Pavilion.

Kid Flash was there on Sunday. Sterling Gates, who had been announced the day before as the writer of an upcoming Kid Flash series, posted, “I just met Kid Flash! He’s here!” I kept looking for him the rest of the day, but had no luck. Fortunately, Comic Con has a lot of people with cameras!

Bonus: Cheetara!

She may not be a Flash character, but here are two women dressed as Cheetara from Thundercats. Hey, she is a speedster, after all!

Who Else?

I saw at least one, possibly two guys in off-the-rack Flash Halloween costumes during the weekend, and one kid who was probably about 6 or 7.

So…did you see any of these people at the con? Did you see another Flash that I’ve missed?

Flash Costume Sightings at Comic-Con 2009 is a post from Speed Force.

Reviews and Commentary

The Comic Treadmill is doing summer reruns with a look back at Flash v.2 #206-219 from 2005.

Blog@Newsarama looks at a panel from Blackest Night #1 and concludes that Barry died sometime between 1991 and 1996 if “the internet” is new to him today…and then there’s his using the term “geek” to refer to himself and Clark Kent, and Grant Morrison’s comment that “When geeks get power, you get Hitler.” Um…yeah.

Comix 411 reviews Green Lantern #44, guest starring the Flash.

Video Store Blues shows a couple of pages from the 2000 Superman and Bugs Bunny miniseries, featuring the Flash vs. the Road Runner.

The Weekly Crisis wishes DC and Marvel would engage in more world-building dealing with the impact of superheroes on Earth, like the Flash Museum and Superhero Memorial Day.

News and Interviews

CBR interviews Karl Kerschl and editor Marc Chiarello on Wednesday Comics

CBR has their own write-up of the DC Universe panel.

The Source has pictures from Geoff Johns and Dan Didio on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

The Source announces JSA All-Stars, a spinoff of Justice Society of America, and Newsarama interviews Matt Sturges.

Art

Comics Should Be Good has a John Byrne commission showing Doctor Doom defeating various DC heroes including Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and the Flash.

CBR has The Nerdy Bird’s Flight to San Diego, including pictures of her as a Red Lantern with her custom-made plush Dex-Starr, Red Lantern Kitty of Rage!

The webcomic Kidd and Geezer presents Kiddo Cosplays at SDCC with a trio of super-heroes who all have something in common…

Speed Reading is a post from Speed Force.

• Blackest Night: Flash miniseries by Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins — 3 issues starting in November December. (announced at the Geoff Johns Spotlight on Thursday) The book will star Barry, Wally, and a whole lot of dead Rogues. [Note: I was originally under the impression that the second round of Blackest Night tie-ins would launch in November, and at the panel I was focused on the official announcement and the people involved, so I missed the fact that the month was one syllable off from what I was expecting. DC has audio of the panel, and he did say December.]
• Flash ongoing series written by Geoff Johns, to start after Blackest Night: Flash. They’re not ready to announce the artist, but Geoff assures us that he’s “awesome.” (announced at DC Universe on Saturday)
• Kid Flash ongoing written by Sterling Gates. No artist or start date announced. (also announced at DCU panel)
• A new speedster will join the Flash family by the end of Flash: Rebirth (DCU again.)

I liveblogged both panels (though a technical glitch prevented the DCU post from actually going up as I wrote it, which really annoyed me), and there are some other remarks in those panels (and in DC Nation) that Flash fans might find interesting.

Comic Book Resources has an interview with Geoff Johns in which he talks about the Blackest Night miniseries and the ongoing series. The first story is called “The Dastardly Deaths of the Rogues,” and he says that “all the Flashes in the Flash Universe will be major players in both Flash books.” There’s a lot more at the interview, such as this:

In “Blackest Night: Flash,” it’s the Rogues versus the Black Lantern Rogues and Flash is caught in the middle. And Captain Cold will be facing off against Black Lantern Golden Glider.

Ouch…that’s going to be one nasty fight!

Flash News from San Diego is a post from Speed Force.

OMG Nichelle Nichols! #

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Sunday at Comic-Con (in Tweets) is a post from Speed Force.

Had no idea Leonard Nimoy & Brent Spiner were going to be here. #

Got a great Madame Xanadu sketch by Amy Hadley & Richard Friend! #Vertigo #

Batgirl, Harley Quinn & Power Girl @ DC booth #

Whoa. Saw a Princess Leia who was fully clothed. #

Ran into a 3rd Jay Garrick a few minutes back. Most years I don’t see any Flashes at all! #

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Saturday at Comic-Con (in Tweets) is a post from Speed Force.