Category Archives: Creators

Speed Reading: To the Art

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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.

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.

Cary Bates Returns to DC with the Last Family of Krypton

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Writer Cary Bates is responsible for the entire Bronze Age of the Flash, but has been missing from the DC Universe since the early 1990s. This August he returns with Superman: The Last Family of Krypton, a 3-issue Elseworlds miniseries (remember those?) about what might have happened if Jor-El and Lara had escaped Krypton along with their infant son Kal-El, and the whole family had arrived on Earth. Renato Arlem handles the art, with covers by Felipe Massafera.

This Elseworlds project, one of very few in recent years, has been in the works almost as long as Bates’ first foray into comics after a decades-long absence, the 2008 Marvel miniseries True Believers. Dan Didio mentioned it at Wizard World Chicago that same year!

Johns, Manapul & Kolins Talk Flash, Blackest Night & Brightest Day

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Friday afternoon linkblogging: a trio of interviews to go along with the Flash relaunch.

Geoff Johns

First, Geoff Johns Prime has the writer answering questions about Brightest Day and The Flash. Some items that stand out:

We don’t want anyone to have to buy a lot of DC books, we want you to. Our job is to tell great stories that can stand alone and also be part of a bigger whole. That’s what the DC Universe is. The Flash is probably one of the most accessible books I have written, but it fits into the bigger tapestry of the DCU.

Johns also explains that these are new stories, written for Barry Allen, not unused Wally West stories. He has a bunch of those that he never got to use since he left the book before he ran out of ideas, but they’ve “been put away for now.” He also confirms that there will definitely be a Flash/Green Lantern crossover at some point — something that should surprise no-one.

Francis Manapul

CBR interviews Francis Manapul about his work on The Flash.

At the beginning, I was digging what Ethan [Van Sciver] was doing with tons of lightning and stuff like that. So, I used some of that at the beginning, but I found more and more that, the deeper I get into the pages, the more I enjoy the multiple images the way Carmine did it. So, I’ve been doing a lot of that. It’s actually been advantageous being able to do the watercolor [effect on] my own work, because the way I would draw the trail of images where he was running from, I’m able to draw on a lighter scale.

He adds: “the goal is that with every issue, you’re going to see the Flash do something completely different, in terms of showing his speed, that you haven’t seen before.”

Scott Kolins

Speedster Site interviews Scott Kolins about Blackest Night, DC Universe: Legacies and The Flash. He talks about designing the Black Lantern Reverse Flash, drawing Wally’s new costume and Barry’s Blue Lantern uniform, and how Blackest Night: The Flash compared to Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge.

Kolins was also asked about the Wally West backup stories he and Geoff Johns were going to do:

DC of course recognizes how important Wally is and has been for the Flash fans and the co-feature idea was one of the ways they wanted to make use of him. -But then they had another idea – a possibly better idea. The reader is the ultimate judge, but it’s all done with the best of intentions. I’ve been working long enough to realize that plans change as the company endlessly searches for new and better ideas.

I’m curious about this “possibly better idea” now, and more hopeful about it than I would have been on Tuesday.

Flash at the Eisners

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The 2010 Eisner Award nominees have been announced. One Flash story has been nominated, as have two of the Flash’s long-term writers.

Best Single Issue (or One-Shot)

  • Brave & the Bold #28: “Blackhawk and the Flash: Firing Line,” by J. Michael Straczynski and Jesus Saiz (DC) (reviewed here)

Best Writer

  • Geoff Johns — Adventure Comics, Blackest Night, The Flash: Rebirth, Superman: Secret Origin (DC)
  • Mark Waid — Irredeemable, The Incredibles (BOOM!)

Waid’s Irredeemable is also up for Best Continuing Series and Best New Series, and cover artist John Cassaday is up for Best Cover Artist.

Dick Giordano 1932-2010

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If you’ve been following any comics news sites over the past week, you’ve probably read that legendary artist Dick Giordano passed away last weekend. I don’t really have much to add to what others have said elsewhere online, but he contributed to more than 70 issues of The Flash from 1970 to 1984.

Funny story: my first introduction to the artist was on the cover of Captain Carrot #14, a funny-animal superhero book which featured the first part of an homage to the classic JLA/JSA team-ups. In addition to the faces of the Zoo Crew on one the left side of the cover and the Just’a Lotta Animals on the other, the bottom of the cover featured funny animal versions of the creative team and others at DC, labeled as Owl Gordon, Duck Giordano, and so on. So I knew his name long before I knew his work!