Monthly Archives: May 2012

Back Brian Buccellato’s FOSTER Anthology on Kickstarter

1 Reply

Last month I wrote about Flash co-writer Brian Buccellato’s Kickstarter campaign to launch a collection of short stories set in the world of his creator-owned horror/crime thriller, Foster. Response has been great, and he’s met the initial goal…and now he’s expanded the project.

More pages, more artists and writers…and of course, more money. The goal now is to raise $7,000-$7500 by May 20. If you haven’t backed the project yet, and you like what you’ve seen of Foster, now’s your chance. If you have backed, consider increasing your pledge.

» Foster Anthology on Kickstarter

This Week: Digital Flash Back Issues – Wally West #7-12 & Adventure Comics #461-466

DC and ComiXology have added six more issues of the 1987 Flash vol.2 starring Wally West, all at the 99-cent price point.

These issues introduce Red Trinity and Blue Trinity, two teams of ex-Soviet speedsters, as well as Chunk, who would go on to become a regular supporting cast member. Issue #12 begins the Vandal Savage/Velocity 9 story that straddles the transition from Mike Baron to William Messner-Loebs.

70 issues out of 249 (including #0 and #1,000,000) are now available digitally, including the complete first year. Mike Baron’s run is almost complete, with just two more issues to go. It’s not clear whether DC has a regular schedule for these digital back-issues, but the last time they added to this series was January’s addition of #1-6. This suggests that they’ll be adding six issues every few months, starting at the beginning and working forward, filling in around the issues released as part of the Flash 101 promotion last year.

» The Flash (1987-2009) on ComiXology

They’ve also added six issues of Adventure Comics from its 1970s run as an anthology book. Issues #459-466 featured eight Flash solo stories starring Barry Allen. During the heavily serialized Bronze Age, these were throwbacks to the more goofy done-in-one Silver Age stories. I didn’t even know about them until I read one of Mark Waid’s interviews in The Flash Companion, then I started tracking them down on eBay. I’ve read the lot of them, and wrote about the stories here a couple of years back. ComiXology has Adventure Comics #461-466 online at $1.99 each.

Only a handful of the Silver/Bronze Age Flash series are available, most posted during the Flash 101 sale mentioned above.

» The Flash (1959-1985) on ComiXology
» Adventure Comics on ComiXology

Flash Annual Cover: More Revamped Rogues Revealed! (via Newsarama)

35 Replies

Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato are featured in a new interview over at Newsarama where they discuss the title’s next steps on the road to the one-year mark of the New 52.  Within, the cover for the upcoming Flash Annual, due in September, is revealed.  It features the first looks at new versions of Mirror Master, Heat Wave and a re-imagined Golden Glider, alongside Captain Cold, Turbine and the new Weather Wizard, forming a Gauntlet of Super Villains for the New 52 Flash.


Check out what the duo had to say about thematic ties to Flashpoint, the new, “crispy” Heat Wave, Weather Wizard: Drug Lord and the reintroduction of the Pied Piper (and much more!) after the jump…

Continue reading →

Planned Downtime on Thursday Wednesday

4 Replies

Heads up!

You’ve probably noticed a few site outages here at Speed Force over the last few months. Well, here’s warning for another one. My webhost will be upgrading the network this Thursday evening after 10:00 pm PDT.

DreamHost is allowing four hours for the planned maintenance, but they expect actual downtime to be “minimal.”

With luck, the improvements will prevent the sort of unplanned downtime that’s been a problem lately.

In the event of an extended outage (this week or any other time), you can usually find me on Twitter at @SpeedForceOrg, and you can catch up on recent posts on the SpeedForce Tumblr. If you don’t see anything about it in one of those places, please let me know – it’s possible I’ve missed an alert and don’t know yet.

UPDATE It looks like either I misread the announcement or Dreamhost swapped the LAX & Irvine plans (judging by the URL on the now-404ed original post, I’m guessing the former). In any case, the site was down for about half an hour Wednesday evening during the maintenance window. The funny thing is that I spent three hours tonight working on a network migration for my job. Now there’s timing!

Speed Reading

5 Replies

And of course be sure to check in with The Fastest Fan Alive for Flash collectibles and The Rogues Kick Ass for the Rogues.

Review: Earth 2 #1

18 Replies

Earth 2 #1 was better than I expected, certainly better in terms of an introduction to a world than Justice League #1, though there were still elements that I found problematic.

One of my big worries about the book had been that DC Comics’ Trinity of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman would overshadow the more exclusively-Justice Society characters like Jay Garrick and Alan Scott. They’ve solved this problem neatly, and in the process given the book a bit more of a hook than it would have had otherwise.

I’ve seen the issue described as a prologue, and it is, in that most of the issue takes place five years before the main series picks up. But it’s also a finale: The first 20 pages or so are really the concluding chapter in an apocalyptic war that changed the face of the world. In fact, if Earth 2 does well enough, I can see DC telling the story as a 6-issue miniseries, though the final issue really ought to be a reprint of this story plus an epilogue.

I like what I’ve seen of Alan Scott so far. I haven’t seen enough of Al Pratt to decide. Jay Garrick…well…I’m not terribly thrilled at what’s become of him, but let’s see what we get in issue #2.

On to the spoilers! Continue reading →