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.

Speed Reading is a post from Speed Force.

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!]

Speed Reading: Letterheads, Casting, Waid and More is a post from Speed Force.

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.

Behind the Scenes

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.

Comic Strips

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)

Speed Reading: To the Art is a post from Speed Force.

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:

• ADAM STRANGE written and illustrated by Paul Pope
• BATMAN written by Brian Azzarello with art by Eduardo Risso including additional panel art on each page!
• METAMORPHO written by Neil Gaiman with art by Michael Allred
• DEADMAN written by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck with art by Dave Bullock
• THE DEMON AND CATWOMAN written by Walter Simonson with art by Brian Stelfreeze
• THE FLASH written by Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher with art by Karl Kerschl
• GREEN LANTERN written by Kurt Busiek with art by Joe Quinones
• HAWKMAN written and illustrated by Kyle Baker
• KAMANDI written by Dave Gibbons with art by Ryan Sook
• THE METAL MEN written by Dan DiDio with art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Kevin Nowlan
• SGT. ROCK written by Adam Kubert with art by Joe Kubert
• SUPERGIRL written by Jimmy Palmiotti with art by Amanda Conner
• SUPERMAN written by John Arcudi with art by Lee Bermejo
• TEEN TITANS written by Eddie Berganza with art by Sean Galloway
• WONDER WOMAN written and illustrated by Ben Caldwell

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 to start, though since they get their inventory on a book publishing schedule, they won’t have Wednesday Comics until next Tuesday.)

Other Flash appearances this week include:

• Teen Titans #83 featuring Kid Flash/Bart Allen
• Titans vol.3: Fractured featuring Flash/Wally West (Again, Amazon has it cheap)
• Super Friends #27 featuring Flash vs. Zoom and Green Lantern vs. Sinestro

This Week (May 26): Wednesday Comics HC & More is a post from Speed Force.

Not surprisingly, Flash: Rebirth — the only Flash-titled series we’ve really had during 2009 (not counting one issue of Blackest Night: The Flash in December) won the poll…but it only pulled in 35% of the vote!

Making a strong second-place showing was Blackest Night at 28%. While not primarily a Flash story, the Green Lantern-based universe-wide event has focused heavily on Hal Jordan and Barry Allen.

Third place, with 13%, is the Flash feature in Wednesday Comics. (This one was my favorite.)

Some of the write-ins are rather telling, though. While many readers have liked this year’s Flash stories (or at least some of them), others have been extremely disappointed. I have to admit getting a chuckle out of “It’s like asking which punch in the face was better.”

Readers’ Favorite Flash Story of 2009 is a post from Speed Force.

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…

Speed Reading: Breathing in Space, the Blur, Casting, EVS vs. Carmine Infantino & More is a post from Speed Force.

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. There’s a reason I bought the hardcover of that book, and it wasn’t so that I could carry extra weight around the convention floor. (It wasn’t to weaponize a comic book, either, but I’m sure I could knock someone out if I hit them over the head with it.)

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!

Wednesday Comics: The Giant Coffee Table Book is a post from Speed Force.

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.

Speed Reading: Iconic Covers, Crisis Preview, Evil, Maps & More is a post from Speed Force.

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.

Creator Catch-Up: Kerschl, Manapul, EVS, Waid & Wieringo is a post from Speed Force.

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?

Flash Hints from Chicago: Bart and Wally is a post from Speed Force.