Category Archives: Creators

Happy Birthday Greg LaRocque

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It turns out that today is Greg LaRocque’s birthday! LaRocque drew The Flash vol.2 through all of William Messner-Loebs’ run and the beginning of Mark Waid’s, finishing up with the well-regarded story, The Return of Barry Allen. He pencilled the book for five years, from Flash vol.2 #15 in 1988 through Flash vol.2 #79 in 1993, with only a handful of fill-in issues by other artists, making him the longest-running artist on Wally West’s series.

Along the way he designed Wally West’s shiny costume, which debuted in the above Flash vol.2 #50. In my opinion, he’s still the artist who made it look the best. As Scott Mateo points out on Comic Bloc, when LaRocque drew Wally and Barry together, you could easily tell them apart even at a glance. The artist talks about the redesign in his interview in The Flash Companion.

It’s interesting that LaRocque and Messner-Loebs worked together on the book for roughly four years, and their birthdays are only a few days apart!

Happy Birthday Bill Messner-Loebs

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I learned on Comic Bloc that today is William Messner-Loebs’ birthday! He wrote The Flash vol.2 for about four years from Flash #15 (1988) through Flash #61 (1992), during which he laid the groundwork for Wally West’s characterization in the 1990s and beyond. He also had a two-year run on Impulse, taking over from Mark Waid in Impulse #29 (1997) and handing the reigns to Todd Dezago after Impulse #49 (1999).

Geoff Johns, DC’s New Chief Creative Officer

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The big DC news yesterday was the announcement of the new executive team for DC Comics. Jim Lee and Dan Didio are promoted to Co-Publishers, succeeding Paul Levitz, and Geoff Johns is promoted to Chief Creative Officer.

So for the most part, it looks like the “corporate overlords” at Warner Bros. like what DC has been doing and want to keep the same people in charge. That, and make sure the writer behind their most popular books isn’t even tempted to leave! (Though it’s clear that Geoff Johns is so fascinated by DC’s universe and characters, I can’t imagine what would lure him away.)

In a statement on The Source, Johns assures fans that he’ll still be “writing Green Lantern, The Flash, Batman: Earth One and Brightest Day.” In addition, he’s in charge of figuring out how to bring DC’s world, including Wildstorm and Vertigo, into other media: “film, toys, television, video games, animation and beyond.”

Flash: Rebirth Original Art on eBay

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Do you want to own a piece of Flash: Rebirth? Now’s your chance. Ethan Van Sciver has posted two pieces of original art from the miniseries on eBay: the Flash: Rebirth #2 Cover and a Flash: Rebirth #4 splash page featuring Jay Garrick and Bart Allen smacking down the Reverse Flash.

Both auctions end on Thursday, February 18. So far the cover is up to $267.00, and the splash page is up to $108.50.

Lia Brown reports that this isn’t the first time original art from the series has made it to the online auction site, though this appears to be the first time the artist has put it up for auction there himself.

Update (Friday): The cover sold for $2,310 and the splash page went for $1,152.

Flashy Convention Appearances (Spring 2010)

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Some upcoming convention and signing appearances by Flash-related people:

Emerald City Con (March 13-14 in Seattle, Washington) has added long-time Flash writer Mark Waid. Geoff Johns and Impulse artist Humberto Ramos are already on the guest list. — @emeraldcitycon

MegaCon (March 12-14, Orlando Florida) has Ethan Van Sciver — @MegaConvention

WonderCon (April 2-4, San Francisco, California) has the Flash: Rebirth team of Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver.

C2E2 (April 16-18, Chicago, Illinois) has the Flash: Rebirth team of Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver. (Note: This means they will not appear at Anaheim Comic Con the same weekend.) — @c2e2

Wizard World Philadelphia Comic Con (June 11-13, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) has Ethan Van Sciver. — @WizardWorld

Florida Supercon (June 18-20 in Miami, Florida) recently confirmed John Wesley Shipp, the lead in the 1990 Flash TV series, for the convention. — @FLSupercon

EVS Talks Flash: Rebirth at Word Balloon

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I finally finished listening to last week’s Word Balloon Podcast with Ethan Van Sciver this morning. During the 90-minute interview, he talks about Flash: Rebirth, the personal issues that caused the delays, redesigning Wally West’s costume, bringing back Impulse, the balance of power between writers and artists, and Cyberfrog.

Some points that Flash readers will find interesting:

Last spring, Ethan Van Sciver started experiencing chest pains and was told that if he didn’t do something about his health, he was going to have a heart attack. So he embarked on a complete lifestyle change, which threw off his work schedule, slowing down Flash: Rebirth. The final issue, originally scheduled for September 30 of last year, will be out in two weeks on February 24.

It was his idea to make Iris “Irey” West II the new Impulse. He wanted the character back, and deliberately made Iris and Jai younger than they had been previously because of that (and because he didn’t like them as tweens). He also made an effort to draw Bart Allen as Kid Flash looking a bit more like he appeared as Impulse: round face, big feet, slightly exaggerated features. On a related note: Geoff Johns has plans for Jai.

He had a really hard time redesigning Wally West’s costume. The way he put it was that it’s easy to design a speedster costume, but it’s hard to design a Flash costume. Whereas with Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night he basically had free reign with new designs, this time he kept getting notes and had several designs rejected. The final version was quite literally a composite of other Flash costumes: EVS wanted the straight cowl from the TV series & Dark Flash, to make it look like a knight’s helmet (in line with his Barry = King Arthur and Wally = Lancelot metaphor), Geoff Johns came up with using the animated-style emblem, etc. To this day, Van Sciver isn’t happy with the way it turned out.

There’s a lot more in there — it is an hour and a half long — and it’s worth listening to if you have the time. There’s also a discussion at Comic Bloc that’s gotten into the writer/artist balance.

Related note: Daniel Way interviews EVS in connection with Cherry Capital Con.