T-Shirt: Apple vs. the Flash

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Today’s Shirt Woot features yet another visual pun linking Apple’s war on the Flash animation format to the super-hero.

The T-shirts, designed by Lim Heng Swee, are already sold out at the $10 debut price, but they’ll be back tomorrow at $15.

As always, the write-up is worth checking out for gems like this:

Listen, Adobe. I come to you under a white flag to try and warn you: a little collateral damage like a dead JLA member isn’t going to stop this guy. He’s put out an iFatwa on all things Flash, and he doesn’t let a failed launch set him back.

(Tip of the hat to @ElfGrove for the news, and @ryanoneil for pointing out that they’ll be back tomorrow!)

Help Wanted: Golden-Age Flash Collectors!

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The Grand Comics Database needs better scans of the original Flash Comics. In particular, the following two covers are marked as needing replacement:

That said, there are quite a few others that are either low-quality scans or scans of badly deteriorated comics. If you have any copies of Flash Comics or All-Flash in decent condition, I’m sure they’d appreciate it if you’d help them out by improving their cover database!

Most of my own Golden Age collection is coverless, or in poor enough condition that it wouldn’t be worth contributing, though I was able to submit a few of the later All-Flash covers.

I actually have a copy of that Flash Comics Miniature Edition, and considered sending a scan, until I pulled it out of the box and saw what condition it was in:

As you can see, it’s in worse shape than the one they’ve got! This isn’t terribly surprising. One of the previous owners of this copy wrote a note on the back of the board:

Wheaties giveaway, 1946. All known copies were taped to Wheaties boxes and are never found in mint condition.

Yeah, that might cause a problem…

It makes me wonder what the print run was on books like this. How many copies were taped to cereal boxes and shipped to markets nationwide? How many were removed carefully, and how many were summarily ripped from the packaging? How many were treasured, and how many discarded?

Oh, yeah, you’re probably wondering: Who’s that pointy-headed guy on the cover? That’s Dmane, a one-shot villain (as so many of them were those days) billed as “The Criminal From Tomorrow,” who used futuristic technology to perform miraculous feats in the present day. (Sound familiar?) It’s also an early case in which Jay Garrick travels through time under his own power with perfect accuracy.

Speed Reading: Recommendations

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The linkblogging catchup continues!

Comics Should Be Good features Flash #54: “Nobody Dies” (William Messner-Loebs and Greg LaRocque) in their Year of Cool Comics. It’s one of my favorite one-issue stories from Wally West’s run, and not surprisingly it made the reader-selected list of top 10 Wally West stories a few weeks later.

A bit off topic, CSBG also reviews Mysterius the Unfathomable. It was a fun fantasy/horror/comedy miniseries last year, and is now available as a trade paperback.

Multiversity Comics recommends the new Flash series. Among other reasons: “he has a secret identity which actually gets used, instead of being forgotten for more exciting superhero stories.” And of course, “Flash has some of the best and most fleshed out rogues in the business.”

Update: One more! Several Flash storylines appear in CSBG’s Greatest Mark Waid Stories Ever Told list: Dead Heat, Terminal Velocity and The Return of Barry Allen.

Speed Reading: Things to Think About

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More linkblogging! Here are some (mostly) non-Flash-related posts on general comics, fandom, and online community issues.

Orbital Vector analyzes an aspect of super-speed that’s usually glossed over: Just How Old is the Flash, subjectively? (via dhusk’s comment on the Flashes’ experience post)

Techland has eight questions for comics creators to consider before putting a book on the market. (via @SpeedsterSite)

Multiversity Comics looks at some of the pros and cons of waiting for the trade.

Comic Vine has 5 Things to be Aware of When Buying Back Issues.

What do websites with open comments do when they realize that people are jerks? Reining in Nasty Comments. (via @ThisIsTrue) I’m reminded of Penny Arcade’s expression of the Greater Internet ****wad Theory (NSFW language): Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total ****wad.

Technologizer tracks down the origin of the term Fanboy (via The Beat)

High Five Comics considers The Problem with Madame Lady Girl-Woman.

In the 1940s, Crash Comics introduced a super-hero named Blue Streak. He was a “skilled fighter.” With that name, how did they not make him a speedster?

There have been a lot of articles on the battle for the future of Comic-Con International, but one question jumped out at me in this one at Deadline Hollywood: Jeff Katz asks, “Are you a fan show with trade elements, or are you a trade show that lets in fans…or is there a happy medium?”

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.

Quick News: Velocity, DC History, Green Lantern, World’s Fastest Man

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A few brief news items:

Top Cow’s delayed Velocity #1 is shipping June 16. I’ve been looking forward to this since reading the Pilot Season book, though of course this is an entirely new creative team. On the plus side, it’s a miniseries, so there’s not a huge commitment to picking it up.

Cartoon Network will be producing a Green Lantern animated series. Green Lantern: First Flight was pretty good, but of course there’s no guarantee that any of the same people will be working on this.

DC will be teaming up with TASCHEN Books to produce 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking. Basically it’s a history of DC Comics. How soon can I pre-order this?

Hypergeek notes that the UK graphic novel Whatever Happened to the World’s Fastest Man? has been nominated for the 2009 Eagle Awards. From his review, it looks like it’s not about a speester so much as it’s about a man who can stop time, and reluctantly becomes a hero. I’m going to have to look for this one as well. [Edit: I should note that I stopped reading the review once I decided the book looked interesting, just in case there were spoilers.]