Speed Force

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!

The Flash picked up several mentions in Newsarama’s 10 for 2010 series including the character in 10 Characters to Watch, the series in 10 Comics to Watch, and artist Francis Manapul in 10 Creators to Watch.

The Flash Family also makes Grumpy Old Fan’s list of Ten from the old, ten for the new.

The standard cover of Flash: Rebirth #1 and the Flash-themed cover for DC: The New Frontier #2 are among IO9′s 100 Amazing Comic Covers from the last ten years.

The Perhapablog posts a Craig Rousseau sketch of Impulse reacting to cancellation, along with the Thing drawn by Mike Wieringo.

Remember that Breakfast Club/Teen Titans mashup last summer? Artist Cliff Chiang has recreated more 80s album covers with characters such as Batgirl, Elektra and Vampirella.

Crimson Lightning brings us a “Hi and Lois” strip portraying the Greek gods as super-heroes.

The Rogues’ tailor, Paul Gambi, is named after Paul Gambaccini, a UK-based DJ and long-time comic fan. Bleeding Cool spotted him on a celebrity game show demonstrating his impressive knowledge of DC Comics trivia.

Update: One more item – the New York Times has named Geoff Johns in their “Nifty Fifty” list of up-and-coming talent. (via The Source)

Some more linkblogging…

CSBG’s Cool Comic Book Moments #245 features the death of Barry Allen from Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Crimson Lightning finishes up the Super-Powers retrospective with the original mini-comic that came with the action figure.

Silver Age Comics brings up 3 extremely lame bits about Kid Flash. Coincidence, costume change, and…do you dare read on to learn the third?

Indie Squid Kid presents the golden age of octopus fighting. No, really!

Update: Newsarama’s Friday Flashback looks back at the classic Flash #0 by Mark Waid & Mike Wieringo. This classic post-Zero Hour book told a stand-alone story of Wally West bouncing around in time and, at one point, meeting his younger self, reassuring him that everything would work out. It also set things in motion for the epic Terminal Velocity, which started the following month.

The first of several linkblogging posts for the day.

Geoff Johns offers hints about his upcoming Smallville episode, Society, featuring the Justice Society. The exact lineup hasn’t been determined yet, but sadly it won’t include the Golden Age Flash or Green Lantern, Jay Garrick and Alan Scott. The season will, however, feature the live-action debut of the Wonder Twins.

CBR interviews Darick Robertson on his career, including his work back in the early 1990s on such books as Justice League Europe, Justice League Quarterly, and the Flash TV Special.

Former Flash artist Freddie Williams II talks about The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics

Heroes Online talks about the Mike Wieringo Scholarship.

The Hollywood Reporter, well, reports that Geoff Johns will co-write a Shazam! movie with Billy Birch. So, what do you think? Is Geoff Johns cut out to write a super-hero with a red costume that has yellow and white trim and a lightning motif? featuring Captain Marvel (via CBR and )

Flash artists Ethan Van Sciver (Flash: Rebirth) and Jackson Guice (early Wally West solo issues) are among the guests of honor at C2E2 in Chicago next year.

Ain’t It Cool News talks with Geoff Johns about Blackest Night, Flash: Rebirth, and the Flash and Green Lantern movies.

More sites remember Mike Wieringo: Panels on Pages remembers the artist through Tellos. Pipeline reprints the original column with some updates on matters such as the ‘Ringo scholarship, the What If…? tribute book, and so forth.

Quick round-up of writer/artist links from the past week or so:

Karl Kerschl has been posting commentary on The Flash in Wednesday Comics at AudioBoo: The Page 9 Gauntlet, Wednesday Comics Questions. He’s also done an interview with Newsarama.

Francis Manapul was inspired to do some Flashy art while reading Flash: Rebirth

Ethan Van Sciver and Karl Kerschl will appear at Fan Expo Canada in Toronto at the end of August.

Mark Waid has been confirmed for Long Beach Comic-Con in October. (I finally bought my ticket a few days ago. Hooray for cons within driving distance!)

Many sites remembered Mike Wieringo this week on the anniversary of his passing. To follow up on the links posted on Wednesday: Panels on Pages lists their top six Mike Wieringo covers. Pop Matters has an artistic critique of his Flash work as perfecting “90s nostalgia comics.” Comics Alliance lists some favorite moments. And it’s worth linking again to Blog@Newsarama’s excellent Dial H for History retrospective.

Today’s the second anniversary of artist Mike Wieringo’s death. ’Ringo, as he was known by friends and fans alike, only worked on a handful of Flash issues with Mark Waid in the late 1990s, but in that time he set a new standard for artwork on the series (I believe he established the use of lightning trails) and co-created Impulse.

In remembrance, I’m re-running the post I made two years ago, on the day I learned he had died.

Mike Wieringo (1963-2007)

This weekend I re-read Tellos, a fantasy comic book that ran from 1999-2000. Writer Todd Dezago and artist Mike Wieringo took a 6-month hiatus to prepare the next story arc, but that arc never materialized. Just a few one-shots and an anthology mini that explored backstories and aftermath, with a few hints at the upcoming story. Though from the sketches and posts on Wieringo’s blog—the latest (at left) posted just last Friday, it was clear they were working on relaunching the series, possibly this year.

Read the rest of this entry »

At CBR, Geoff Johns wants your questions! Submit questions for the next Q&A by Monday, June 29.

Scans_Daily demonstrates how Barry Allen kept his secret identity. Or, rather, didn’t.

Comic Bloc has Noah Van Sciver’s comedic recap of Flash: Rebirth #3.

An old post turned up on my other blog a few days ago, reminding me of those “world’s fastest man” commercials for MovieTickets.com. Remember those, with the superhero who had wings on his head, a round symbol on his chest, yellow boots, and a lightning motif (but the website was still faster)? Okay, so the costume was blue, but still…

Beyond the Flash

I’ve written a guest review of Perhapanauts: First Blood at Collected Editions. Perhapanauts, an adventure series about strange creatures like Bigfoot, chupacabras etc. created by Impulse alumni Todd Dezago and Craig Rousseau.

Robot 6 reports on Katelyn Rae Rochelle, first winner of the Ringo Scholarship. The Ringo is named after the late Mike Wieringo, who co-created Impulse during his run as Flash artist.

Lots of sites have linked to this guide to comic book message boards. Seems pretty accurate for the boards I visit from time to time. The DC Message Boards really are that scary, and Newsarama is only marginally better.

Tickets are now available for the Long Beach Comic-Con coming up in October. I’m going to have to figure out which day I want to go!

Some quick linkblogging for the night before Flash: Rebirth #3 hits the stands.

Flash: Rebirth…

First, I’ve got a guest post up at The Weekly Crisis detailing 5 Possible Candidates for The Flash: Rebirth‘s Mystery Villain.

‘Twas the Night Before Wednesday’s J. Caleb Mozzocco (Blog@Newsarama) is more enthused about the collected edition of Flash: The Human Race with “Huge Silver Age cosmic action and huge stakes” than about Flash: Rebirth #3, “in which your dad’s Flash races Superman.”

Can’t Wait for Wednesday’s JK Parkin (Robot 6), on the other hand, is solidly on board. “I wasn’t wild about the first issue, but the second one really sucked me in. This issue features the return of a classic: Superman racing The Flash.”

Update: I noticed a post from 2007 on my other blog is getting more attention than usual, probably because it links Barry Allen and the Black Flash.

…And Beyond

You will soon be able to read Perhapanauts and Tellos on the iPhone. The two creator-owned series have strong Impulse connections. Tellos is a fantasy adventure story created by Impulse writer Todd Dezago and Flash artist Mike Wieringo — Bart Allen’s co-creator. Perhapanauts an action/horror/comedy created by Dezago and Impulse artist Craig Rousseau. I highly recommend both series.

DC Collector posts a sketch of a Jay Garrick figurine from the Eaglemoss DC Super-Hero Collection. It makes me wish I lived in the UK.

Silver Age Comics profiles Julius Schwartz, legendary editor of DC’s Silver Age who oversaw the 1956 revamp of the Flash.

Cartoon Flophouse doesn’t shy away from strong opinions in 5 DC Comics Characters Which Would Translate Better to Film Than Wonder Woman or The Flash.

A bit off-topic, Watch This Space wants to know which of several serialized stories on the blog should not return.

Last week, comic book writer and artist John Byrne posted about how he would have brought Barry Allen back if he’d had the opportunity during the 1990s, as he hinted when responding to speculation about the cover for Wonder Woman v.2 #109. (IIRC, the Flash in the issue was either a clone or a robot. It’s been a long time since I’ve read it.)

Simple, really. It’s very, very, very hard to “kill” a character who can travel in Time. How old was Barry when he “died” in CRISIS? For all we know, he could have been 106.

My idea was to simply have Barry pop into existence in the “current” DCU, returning from one of his trips thru time to find he’d “missed his target” because of disruptions caused by CRISIS. He would then live out whatever life (nature and duration) the Powers that Be would allow.

This is similar to the way Mark Waid did bring Professor Zoom “back” for “The Return of Barry Allen” and the way a young time-traveling Hal Jordan spent some time in the then-present DCU for “Emerald Knights.” It’s also not far from the loophole Marv Wolfman placed in the character’s death in Crisis on Infinite Earths. The main difference is that in Wolfman’s plan, it would be Barry Allen during his final run, rather than a Barry from earlier in his career.

Byrne goes on to add:

(I also had an idea that, since Wally was being The Flash, Barry would take on another identity for a while, knowing that sooner or later he had to go die in CRISIS. But when the moment came, Wally would bushwhack him, take his place, and that would actually have been Wally we saw die.)

Interestingly, Peter David did essentially the same thing in his final Supergirl arc, “Many Happy Returns,” in which the Earth-1 Supergirl’s rocket gets diverted and lands on Post-Crisis Earth. After a few adventures, the Post-Crisis Supergirl gets in the rocket and takes her place, leading to a story of a 1990s heroine in a Silver-Age world. It doesn’t end well, for either of them.

Found in this week’s Lying in the Gutters, which also features another Flash-related story, short enough I might as well just quote the whole thing:

The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre in Pawtucket, Rhode Island is having an online auction to raise funds for its non profit theatre. One of the items is a “Flash: Rebirth” #1 coupled with a TPB of “Flash: Terminal Velocity,” signed by the late great Mike Wieringo.