Some weekend linkblogging…
Once Upon a Geek can’t wait for the upcoming DC Adventures RPG.
Multiversity Comics casts the Teen Titans
The Beat finds that Comic-Con brings money into San Diego after all. Who knew? Oh, right, we did: the ones spending it!
4thletter! looks at Flash and Batman in Final Crisis: “Everything about the Flash, any of them, in Final Crisis is dead on…”
Comics Worth Reading reviews Wednesday Comics.
Sorry I haven’t been updating much this week. I’ve been busy, and there hasn’t been much Flash news. So, to tide things over a bit, here’s some linkblogging.
The Comic Book Letterheads Museum has been posting headers from The Flash letter columns, including 1988′s Fleet Sheet and 1989′s Speed Reading (where I got the title for this feature). Further back in the archives you can find Flash-Grams from 1970 and 1976.
Multiversity Comics casts a Flash movie. Has anyone else noticed how often Neil Patrick Harris shows up in these lists? (Also: Linda Park as…Linda Park.)
When Words Collide reviews Wednesday Comics in its new hardcover form, concluding that “The Flash is still, by far, the best thing in Wednesday Comics.
Following up on the reader-chosen Greatest Mark Waid Stories Ever Told, Comics Should Be Good got Mark Waid to pick his own list of favorite stories from his work. A lot of the usual suspects still appear, but one of the surprises was Impulse #3, Bart Allen’s first day at school.
Newsarama interviews Geoff Johns and asks him about Flashpoint. As usual, he can’t say more than we already know.
Judging by this cover for Guardians of the Globe #1 (not the joke one with Barack Obama and Harry Potter, the serious one further down), the design has been tweaked a bit for the Invincible spin-off’s resident speedster, Outrun. [Edit: I forgot to include the link when I posted this!]
Some art-related linkblogging…
Yildiray Cinar draws an impressive Reverse Flash (via @SpeedsterSite)
There’s a new Rogue in town…a new Rogues blog, that is: The Rogues Kick Ass (via @liabrown1). So far, it’s mostly comedic scans from published comics. (Context? What context?)
This is Knutz presents: The Rogues as kittens. (via @SpeedsterSite) Hilarious!
The Best Comic Covers looks back on the 9 Best Superman vs Flash Covers.
Various people at DC Comics weigh in on their favorite DC covers. Dan Didio’s is Michael Turner’s Flash #207 (via @SpeedsterSite).
Last week, Once Upon a Geek posted a series of poster galleries, including the JSA, Flash, Green Lantern, Sandman, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and more.
Francis Manapul has been posting a lot of Flash art on Twitter lately: the uncolored art for the Flash #5 cover and five pages from Flash #2.
Val Victory’s review of the Flash: Rebirth hardcover includes scans of Ethan Van Sciver’s discarded designs for Wally West’s new costume.
Lots of places have been posting about Wednesday Comics with the release of the hardcover this week. The Source has some of the extras, including art from Karl Kerschl’s Flash strip.
OK, none of these strips are Flash-related… but I had to share them anyway.
Comic Critics points out that Gotham City is a bad place to open themed businesses.
Creebobby presents Batman after a bad night on patrol: Bat-Fail.
nedroid has been posting comic strips based on LOST, including Ben and Hurley #2: An Amazing Discovery. (via @TheNerdyBird)
The long-awaited hardcover edition of Wednesday Comics is out this week, featuring all 15 strips from last summer’s weekly series in all their 11×17″ oversized glory:
The Fletcher/Kerschl Flash strip was my favorite Flash story of 2009 (yes, I liked it better than Flash: Rebirth or Blackest Night: The Flash). It was fun, full of crazy ideas and adventure, and played around with the format, making use of the fact that it was being told as a newspaper comic strip.
Wednesday Comics sells for $49.99, though you can find it for less if you shop around. (Amazon’s selling it at $31.49
Other Flash appearances this week include:
)
Earlier this month I posted a poll asking readers to choose their favorite Flash story of 2009. The poll closed today, so here are the results.
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…
All right! DC has announced that they’ll be collecting Wednesday Comics as an oversized hardcover book at 11×17″!
It’s not the full size, which would be ideal, but I do think an oversized hardcover is the best way to collect it. Shrinking the art to standard size would diminish the experience of reading it, and trying to do something this size as a paperback is unwieldy at best, judging by Comic Book Tattoo
Amazingly enough, they plan to sell it for $49.99, the same price as the archive books that clock in at the same page count but smaller page size. Back when I tried to figure out how Wednesday Comics could be collected, I figured a coffee table book from DC would end up costing a lot more.
I do have to wonder how they’re going to manage the paperback edition, but with this option available for this price (and you know it’ll be discounted in places like Amazon)…does it really matter?
Note: I managed to delete the original post when I intended to edit it, losing the comments made earlier this evening. Sorry about that!
Comics Should Be Good wraps up the month of iconic covers with the Top 5 Most Iconic Barry Allen Covers.
Ain’t It Cool News has a preview of Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, the next direct-to-home video DC animated film. It’s based on a number of Earth-2/Earth-3 stories in which the Justice League goes up against their evil counterparts from another world, the Crime Syndicate. There’s a few frames of the evil Johnny Quick in the preview, sporting an entirely new costume. (Thanks to Jesse for the link.)
Speaking of evil, the “Mark Waid Was Evil” teaser turns out to be for a new series, Incorruptible, intended as the flip side to Irredeemable. This series follows a super-villain who decides to become a hero in response to the Plutonian’s fall to the dark side.
Newsarama evaluates Wednesday Comics, giving the Flash strip a B+.
Avatar Press has started a collaborative map of comic shops around the world. You can help by adding the local store where you buy your comics.
Over at my other blog, I made an amusing discovery about Wizard World Los Angeles, the Long Beach Comic-Con, and two convention centers.
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.
There’s not a whole lot of Flash-related news coming out of Chicago Comic-Con, partly because we’re still in the middle of Flash: Rebirth and partly because they dropped the big news two weeks ago in San Diego. But there were a few items mentioned at DC Nation.
First, Newsarama’s report mentions:
Red Robin will “absolutely” be dealing with the return of Superboy and Kid Flash in the near future.
I believe DC has previously mentioned that Tim and Bart will both be showing up (beyond the cameos in the first issue) of Conner Kent/Superboy’s stories in Adventure Comics. I wonder if Tim and Conner will be showing up in Red Robin at some point?
It’s interesting to note that, with Red Robin, Adventure Comics, and Kid Flash, the three original founders of Young Justice will all have their own series for the first time in eight years. Impulse and Superboy, both launched in the mid-1990s, were canceled in 2002. There’s a great scene from Young Justice around that time in which Bart and Kon are lamenting that “my comic got canceled” (supposedly referring to their favorite series to read), and commiserate until Robin walks into the room — and they proceed to glare at him. Does anyone remember what issue this was?
Anyway, back to DC Nation. CBR’s write-up adds another note.
Asked about the further ramifications about Barry Allen’s return as the Flash, “We are not retiring Wally West,” Sattler said to applause.
As reassuring as it is to know that DC does recognize that Wally still has fans, it’s more reassuring to know that the comment got applause. Of course, the best reassurance is still Geoff Johns’ remark that “Wally’s not only going to be fine, he’s going to kick ass.”
On the other hand, @weeklycrisis pointed out that “at DC, heroes either die off or live long enough to become the bad guy.” Ray of sunshine, there…
A couple of final notes from CBR’s article:
“Wednesday Comics” will be collected into trade according to strips rather than altogether, Sattler said.
I wonder if this means 15 separate books (which would actually be more volumes than the original 12-part series!) or whether it means they’ll be combining them by tone, style, character connections, etc.
“Aquaman Reborn” by Geoff Johns? “Ah, Aquaman,” Sattler sighed. No answer, but not in a “maybe” way–more exasperated.
Aquaman? Really? Not Vibe? 
Welcome to SpeedForce.org, a blog focusing on DC Comics' super-hero, The Flash. It's a companion site to Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning, a fan reference site for the Fastest Man Alive.
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