March 19, 2012
Steampunk Flash. We actually did a feature about his costume last year by the costumers who made it.
My full set of WonderCon 2012 photos are up, from Friday through Sunday. Sunday was really different than the first two days for three reasons:
- We brought our son along (it was his first comic-con). Having a toddler with you really changes what you can do, how you get around, how quickly you can get around, etc. He had a great time looking at people and displays, and playing with demo toys.
- We got in late and were stuck parking waaay out at Angel Stadium. (On Friday I actually parked in the convention center lot.)
- I forgot to drink water and ended up thoroughly exhausted and dehydrated after only four hours at the con.
Seriously: Drink water. Especially if you end up eating salty food because it’s what’s available and you can eat it fast. You’re walking around for hours, and if you’re spending multiple days at a con, you can wear yourself out easily. That’s especially bad if you have a long drive home at the end.
Full convention write-up coming soon, Monday if I can make the time.
August 15, 2011
This Steampunk Flash costume was designed and built by Dustin Fletcher of Penny Dreadful and Cathy Jones of God Save The Queen Fashions.
Fletcher and Jones each write about their parts of the costume after the jump.
Photo by Nathan Rupert.
Read the rest of this entry »
August 12, 2011
As fandom moves onto the next big convention of the season, I hope you’ll take a few moments to look back at San Diego and the people who dressed as the Flash (and related speedsters) at Comic-Con International.
United Underworld’s incredible gender-swapped Justice League, featuring Psykitten Pow’s Flash. Photo by John Austin.
It turns out that the Flash was the inspiration for the group theme:
“A couple of us like to do female versions of preexisting male characters. One of our friends, Psykitten Pow, she had a female Flash,” says Tallest Silver, who organized the group and who dresses as Batma’am. “One night, we were all hanging out and I said how funny it would be if we had a whole Justice League with swapped sexes.”
Photograph by Chuck Cook Photography.
The group previously appeared at WonderCon, and Psykitten appeared as the Flash last year. Read the rest of this entry »
July 27, 2011
One of the booths I stumbled across at Comic-Con was selling trading cards and books featuring the Union of Superlative Heroes and Order of Nefarious Villains: steampunk characters inspired by certain well-known super-heroes and villains.
I had to pick up a set just for this one:
Phineas Fleetfoot, able to run at more than 800mph, phase into the fifth and sixth dimensions, and protect the world from the likes of King Congo, Frankenfahrenheit, Professor Perpetual Motion, Abra Le Clobber, and Dr. Didgeridoo.
The heroes set includes Marquis Le Bat and Duchesse Le Bat, Flatiron Knight, Arachno Kid, the Magic Lantern, Baron von Ocular, and more.
I was sorely tempted by the hand-bound flip book featuring both heroes and villains with additional stories, but couldn’t quite bring myself to spend $45 on it. Then I got home, really looked through the cards I’d bought, and regretted missing my chance.
Huzzah for the internet. When the artists got back from the con, they made the remaining stock available through Etsy.
Image c/o Chet Phillips Illustration.
January 12, 2011
For the past decade, Phil & Kaja Foglio have been spinning the mad science/gaslamp fantasy adventures of Agatha Heterodyne in the award-winning comic book-turned-webcomic Girl Genius. Now they’ve stepped into a new medium, adapting the first story into a prose novel: Agatha H. and the Airship City.
The Industrial Revolution has escalated into all-out warfare. It has been sixteen years since the Heterodyne Boys, benevolent adventurers and inventors, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Today, Europe is ruled by the Sparks, dynasties of mad scientists ruling over – and terrorizing – the hapless population with their bizarre inventions and unchecked power, while the downtrodden dream of the Hetrodynes’ return. At Transylvania Polygnostic University, a pretty, young student named Agatha Clay seems to have nothing but bad luck. Incapable of building anything that actually works, but dedicated to her studies, Agatha seems destined for a lackluster career as a minor lab assistant. But when the University is overthrown by the ruthless tyrant Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, Agatha finds herself a prisoner aboard his massive airship Castle Wulfenbach – and it begins to look like she might carry a spark of Mad Science after all.
The comics are great fun, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how they’ve filled in the details in the novel version!
Cross-posted from K-Squared Ramblings.
July 22, 2010
Some mid-week linkblogging as Comic-Con gets going…
Less than a week in, CSBG’s 75 Most Memorable Moments in DC History has already cited two Flash moments: The discovery of Earth-2 (“Flash of Two Worlds”) made day four, and Barry Allen’s lab-accident origin made day five.
Once Upon a Geek has been featuring DC Comics ads from shortly after Crisis on Infinite Earths. Today’s spotlight includes a 1987 ad for the then-new Flash series.
The Hooded Utilitarian really disliked Flash: Rebirth. (To be honest, I pretty much agree with this review — and yet I’m really enjoying the ongoing Flash series. It’s as if the two stories are being written by two different writers, both of them named Geoff Johns.)
Yesterday, artist Greg LaRocque dropped by to shed some light on the Flash Jam Sketch posted last month.
Adidas has winged shoes going on sale August 10.
Yahoo News posts a photo of three JSA cosplayers from last year’s Comic-Con International, dressed as the Golden Age Hourman, Atom and Flash (with Dr. Mid-Nite barely visible behind them). I think this is the group I ran into on the day that I was dressed as Jay Garrick, and one of them said, “I was you yesterday!”
Comics Alliance presents today’s comic book covers reimagined in the Silver Age
Firestorm Fan spotlights an Old West Firestorm and Sillof’s Gaslight Justice League.
The Weekly Crisis has analyzed the Brightest Day teaser image.
Marc Guggenheim talks to Newsarama about his upcoming TV series No Ordinary Family, about a family who gains super-powers but aren’t super-heroes. Early reports had the mother (Julie Benz) gaining super-speed, but this interview makes no mention of what anyone’s powers are.
July 6, 2010
Remember the Gaslight Flash custom action figure by Sillof? In the time since that post, he’s expanded the Victorian-era Justice League set to include a Gaslight Legion of Doom…which naturally includes Flash villains Captain Cold and Gorilla Grodd.
You can see more pictures of these two, as well as Sinestro, Bizarro, the Joker, Black Manta, and the heroes at Sillof’s Gaslight Justice League & Legion of Doom page.
Image used with permission. Thanks to the Irredeemable Shag of Once Upon a Geek for prompting me to go back and look at these again.
December 24, 2009
What Were They Thinking?! has found a…novel way to see at super-speed.
recommends Geoff Johns’ original Flash run.
Grumpy Old Fan considers the likely structure of Legacies and its implications.
IGN’s top 100 covers of 2009 gives Flash: Rebirth #1 the #3 spot.
Toycutter has a Steampunk Legion of Doom set of custom action figures, featuring Sinestro, Black Manta, Joker, Gorilla Grodd, Captain Cold, and Bizarro. (via Great White Snark)
Flash fans will probably get a kick out of this Shortpacked! strip. (via @batmansgirl)
November 24, 2008
There’s a whole community of artists who create custom action figures, often by taking a commercially-produced figure and modifying it through sculpture and paint. Sometimes they’ll simply convert it into a character who doesn’t have an official figure yet, but the really interesting ones are those that go off on a tangent and create something new, like this set of Victorian-style Justice Leaguers by Sillof, inspired by the now-classic Gotham by Gaslight.
Setting it in the 1880s puts it a little earlier than JLA: Age of Wonder (which had its own Flash), and while it’s still too early for aviation, the artist “went for the pilot look” with the Flash, as you can see here:
On a not entirely unrelated note, I’ve been re-reading Girl Genius from the beginning. The comic’s authors, Phil and Kaja Foglio, describe it as a “gaslamp fantasy,” or as most people would call it, steampunk.
(This post is brought to you by Google Alerts, bespredell, and the letter G. Image used by permission.)
June 30, 2008
This post originally featured a costumed quintet spotted at HeroesCon last week, featuring Supergirl, Power Girl, Zatanna, the Flash, and Batgirl, with the goggle-wearing Flash holding his pocket watch. That photo is no longer available, but this is the same group (with a few more members), The Guild of Justice-Minded Citizenry, at another event.
