Tag Archives: Golden Age

Speed Reading: Breathing in Space, the Blur, Casting, EVS vs. Carmine Infantino & More

Comics Alliance has a couple of Flashy items: First, a page from the Shortpacked! coloring book: Batman Can Breathe In Space, But Not The Flash.

Second: they look back at a pair of Baby Ruth commercials from the 1990s, featuring Hawkman and an obvious Flash stand-in called the Blur. They have a video clip of the Blur commercial. Fun fact: The Blur was played by Tim Thomerson, who played Barry Allen’s brother Jay in the pilot episode of the 1990 Flash TV show.

Speaking of the Flash TV series, it makes Comic Book Movie’s list of Top Ten Most Accurate Live Action Superhero Costumes

The Secret of Wednesday’s Haul contrasts Ethan Van Sciver and Carmine Infantino in their approaches to conveying speed.

noscans_daily has a Flash Appreciation Post focusing on the character from the animated Justice League and Justice League Unlimited TV series.

A Trout in the Milk reviews Wednesday Comics and asks the question: “What have we learned?”

InTylerWeTrust82 casts Superman and the Flash, with some interesting choices for the heroes, their supporting casts, and selected villains.

What Were They Thinking? has an example of Golden Age Flashdickery. Jay Garrick was a bit of a prankster in those days…

Speed Reading: Dezago, Manapul, Reviews and More

Interviews

Here are a couple of interviews with upcoming Flash artist Francis Manapul: one at Multiversity Comics, and one at Comic Book Resources. He talks about trying different ways to portray the hero’s speed, and adds:

…for me, the trickiest part is making sure my Barry Allen looks different from my Wally West. Having grown up with Wally, my natural portrayal of The Flash tends to look like him. As I get more familiar with Barry, I know I’ll get my footing and get it right.

Update: CBR has followed up by interviewing Scott Kolins, artist on Blackest Night: The Flash (starting in December) and the Wally West “second feature” stories in the upcoming monthly book.

Robot6 interviews Todd Dezago, former Impulse writer, on Perhapanauts and its recent Halloween Spooktacular. At the end he reveals what’s next for the series: another special in Spring, followed a few months later by the next major story: “Fourshadowing.” (After “First Blood,” “Second Chances,” and “Triangle.”)

Reviews

Weekly Crisis reviews a bunch of collections including Flash: Ignition.

Several sites have reviews last week’s Brave and the Bold starring Flash (Barry Allen) and the Blackhawks. The Savage Critics didn’t like it. 4thLetter really didn’t like it.

DoubleDCoverage reviews last week’s books including the DC Universe Halloween Special, which featured a Kid Flash story and a Flash vs. Superman race.

Commentary

Daily Scans finds it odd that, early in his career, Jay Garrick didn’t hide his identity very well.

Art

Kid Flash sketch by Teen Titans artist Yildiray Cinar. (via SpeedsterSite)

On the Comics Code

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The Comics Code Authority is little more than a rubber stamp these days, but in the 1950s, it was a last-ditch attempt to save the industry from a popular backlash against perceived immorality, primarily (but not exclusively) in crime and romance comics. (Though some people thought super-heroes were even worse.) Its restrictions, eventually relaxed during the 1970s, are no doubt responsible for many of the silly story elements of the Silver Age.

Check out the Illustrated Comics Code, which uses Golden Age comics panels to demonstrate just what the original version of the code prohibited. (Be warned: the first image on there is kind of gruesome. And misspells Wertham.)

On a related note, I recently finished reading David Hajdu’s The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. It’s a fascinating look at the early years of the comic book industry, the cultural landscape around it, and how a moral panic (not unlike current controversy over video games — actually, more or less exactly like current controversy over video games) nearly destroyed the industry.

Speed Reading: “Science,” Homages, and an Atomic Banana Peel

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CBR Live found themselves “Flashed” by Warner Bros. — or rather, by an advertisement for The Big Bang Theory at their studios in Burbank, California.

What Were They Thinking? uncovers the amazing science behind Jay Garrick’s origin and more Golden Age “science.”

High Five! Comics notes a pair of Flash cover homages: the latest Irredeemable’s homage to “Flash of Two Worlds” and a tale of two Flash #105s.

Mark Waid has found the Flash’s ultimate adversary: the atomic banana peel. No, I am not making this up. And neither is he.

Breaking off-topic a bit, here’s the *ahem* cerealized Blackest Night that’s been making the rounds the last few days.

Blackest Night Breakfast Cereal

Is There Demand for More Flash Archives?

Note: The discussion is from 2007, and while the Silver Age material has gotten a fifth archive volume, three Showcase books and the start of a Chronicles line, the situation for the Golden Age Flash books has not changed.

Newsarama reports that during the Q&A part of the DC Nation panel at this weekend’s Baltimore Comic-Con, a fan asked:

Are there more Legion, Flash or Justice League Archives coming? [VP of Sales Bob] Wayne said that when you get up to the issues that can be affordably bought by collectors the demand for the Archive Editions goes down.

Okay, this might apply to the Silver-Age material. The four Flash Archives books so far are up to Flash #132 (1962). When I was tracking down back-issues in the #133–140 range (the contents of a hypothetical book 5) around 2000 or so, I seem to remember finding reasonably good copies in the $5-15 range. (Better copies, of course, run into triple digits.) Note: Since this was originaly posted, volume 5 has been released.

But there’s still 8 years of Golden-Age material to cover, from 1942–1949: more than 75% of Jay Garrick’s solo run. And those books are much harder to find, with battered readers’ copies often selling for $40–150.

Moreover, those 8 years include the first appearances of every major Golden-Age Flash villain. Continue reading →

Deadly Nightshade After Closing Time

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Comic Cavalcade was an anthology series that ran from 1942 until 1954, publishing super-heroes and other adventures for the first six years. Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Green Lantern were the headliners. DC has reprinted the first three issues as The Comic Cavalcade Archives, Vol. 1. (At 100 pages per issue, it’s still a pretty big collection!) I bought a copy, mainly for the Flash stories, and it finally arrived yesterday.

I read a few of the stories this afternoon, and these panels from the Green Lantern story in issue 1, “The Adventures of Luckless Lenore,” made me laugh out loud.

Two panels from Comic Cavalcade #1

Green Lantern’s sidekick, Doiby, has been trying to romance Lenore, whose “bad luck” seems to be engineered. At this point he’s been captured. I didn’t even notice the name of the bar the first time through, it was the menu that caught me off-guard. Continue reading →

Speed Force

Tracking the Flash – the Fastest Man Alive