Monthly Archives: April 2011

Speed Reading

Flash (and other speedster) linkblogging…

General comics stuff…

  • Comics in Crisis: 6 Annoying Things About Comics
  • CSBG has been extending their Top 50 Comics Writers to the top 125 from the same poll. The extended list now includes Flash writers William Messner-Loebs, Mike Baron and Robert Kanigher in the top 125, with Mark Waid at #12 and Geoff Johns at #10.
  • Also, lots of Flash artists on this extended Top 50 Comic Artists list at CSBG. Mike Wieringo, Ethan Van Sciver, Salvador Larocca made the top 125, with Francis Manapul at #48, Golden-Age Flash artist Joe Kubert at #36, and cover artist Brian Bolland at #22.
  • WonderCon: The Art of the Cover at CBR
  • CSBG asks you to name bad stories in the middle of great creator runs.
  • The Gutters has a great mash-up of comics and video games: Angry Birds of Prey. (Then they ruin the joke with a blog entry that makes as much sense as someone complaining about Superman’s yellow costume.)
  • Mini site update! Back in 2009 I wrote about three miniseries I was reading that had stalled with one issue left. Last week I finally crossed The Oz/Wonderland Chronicles off the list.

Flashpoint Hints: Grodd & Citizen Cold

DC posted more of its Flashpoint writers Q&A on Friday, including Citizen Cold writer/artist Scott Kolins and Grodd of War writer Sean Ryan.

Ryan says of Grodd of War:

Since my one-shot is about one of Flash’s greatest villains, Grodd, the conflict is what does Grodd do without his archenemy. He gets everything he’s ever wanted, but there’s no more challenges in his life. He’s got everything he wants, but he’s miserable.

When asked about his favorite Flashpoint character and a “surprise” character who “will have fans talking,” Kolins says:

I am having so much fun with Cold. Geoff and I have talked many times about how great it would be for Cold to have his own monthly series. Surprise character? Flash fans will be very interested in a mysterious masked character who plays a crucial part in the story.

As for personal stories, “It doesn’t get more personal than CITIZEN COLD. Can a hero with a bad secret fall in love?”

Check out part one, part two and part three from last week, including Scott Kolins’ Flashpoint Rogues, and go onto part four of the interview.

Velocity #4 Preview

Newsarama has a 5-page preview of Velocity #4, the conclusion to the miniseries focusing on Top Cow’s premiere speedster. It may come as a bit of a surprise to those who have been reading the book, but it doesn’t quite spoil the cliffhanger from the previous issue.

Velocity #4
story: Ron Marz
art & cover: Kenneth Rocafort

The Pilot Season Winner is Back!

The clock counts down to zero as the taut, pulse pounding series races to its conclusion. Carin Taylor, the hero known as Velocity, has been infected with a deadly techno-virus. Thus far she has been successful in saving most of her teammates from the same virus, but now the exertion is taking its toil and the fastest girl in the world may not be able to win this race. The issue concludes the creative collaboration of writer Ron Marz (Witchblade, Angelus) and artist Kenneth Rocafort (Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer).

Full Color 32 pages $3.99 limited series

According to Diamond, Velocity #4 ships next week.

Annotations: Flash #274, “The Mark of the Beast”

We’re back with the latest entry in our series of Flash breakdowns.  This week’s focus is issue #274, the last chapter on the way to the momentous issue #275!  Links to additional artwork and research are included throughout this post.

UP TO SPEED:  Last week, Flash attempted to unravel the mysterious appearance of a psychic female fan, while dealing with an internal drug smuggling operation at the Central City Police Department in his civilian guise.  Iris continued to reach for Barry’s attention, but lost out to a massive prison riot spurred by the controversial Nephron Project! 

Continue reading

Contest: “Where Was Wally West?”, Week Two!

It is convention season, and Flash fans across the country have been asking the same question: “Where is Wally West?” 

While we do not know where Wally is now, where he will be, or how long it will be until he is anywhere, we certainly know where he was!  With that knowledge, we introduce our new ongoing contest feature, “Where Was Wally West?” 

On Wednesdays, we will post a panel or sequence from a classic comic featuring Wally West visiting an alternate reality, the past or a “possible future”.  Every fan who can tell us the issue, writer, artist(s) and a reasonable description of the locale/era, by Friday, will be entered into a raffle for a cool Flash prize!  Just send your responses to this email address, and we’ll announce the winner next week! 

So check out the image below and ask yourself, WWWW?

 Wally in time -- where is he?

This week’s prize is a copy of the Return of Barry Allen trade paperback by Mark Waid and Greg LaRocque!

Flashpoint Checklist (Part 1)

Following up on the retailer perspective, here’s what DC wants the reader perspective to be:

I’ve always been kind of ambivalent about this sort of thing. On one hand, it’s nice to have a complete list. On the other, calling it a checklist does sort of imply that you should be getting everything. And while I’m sure the publishers would be thrilled if we all did that, it’s just not feasible for most of us. And I’m sure most DC Comics fans don’t want to read all of these books, just like they don’t want to read every comic that DC publishes.

I’ll give Geoff Johns props for stating up front that it’s a central story with a lot of side stories, and that you only need to read the main miniseries to get a complete story. That’s much better than, for instance, The OMAC Project, where the most important event in the book — the one that continues to have repercussions to this day — happened between two issues of the miniseries, in another comic book.

But it’s still a struggle between the creative team saying, “Read what you want, and I hope you’ll want to read a lot of it,” and the marketing department saying, “Read it all!”

At least it’s not presented as an actual checklist (as these often are), or worse: an ordered list that implies that you have to read the books –all of them — in a particular order to understand what’s going on.