Tag Archives: Interviews

Speed Reading: Kolins, Johns, Morrison

IGN is running an interview, the Geoff Johns Marathon, in which the writer talks about just about everything he’s working on, including Flash: Rebirth (via trmnlvlctyyy at Comic Bloc). Among other things, he writes:

Right now I’m looking at the Flash with Rebirth, and I want to see how I can make this mythology even bigger. It’s already huge. The Flash has an awesome base, so cracking it open even more has been an incredible challenge.

and

The Flash has always been my favorite character since I was a kid. And it’s fun to get back to writing Wally West. I wrote him for five years. To get back to him and then write Barry Allen. Like I said earlier, I get to take what I’ve learned over the last several years writing comics and apply it to the Flash. Because I started writing the Flash almost when I started writing comics, and now I get to look at everything I’ve done to this point and see how I can apply that onto my original work on the character. I want to continue to elevate my writing, and hopefully I’ll achieve that.

Newsarama interviews artist Scott Kolins on Faces of Evil: Grundy, which reunites him with Flash and Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge collaborator Geoff Johns.

Finally, MTV’s Splash Page wonders why Grant Morrison can’t talk about a Flash movie, given the number of NDAs he’s signed in connection with various film projects. [Edit: Since the original page has vanished, I’m attaching a quote from the Google cache so you can have a little context. Thanks, Rockin’ Rich.]

“Yeah, that’s the kind of thing I can’t talk about,” Morrison said. “Yes, I have talked to them. I’m deeply involved in those discussions. I know what’s going down with all of that, and it’s actually really exciting. But beyond that, I can’t say anything. I wish I could tell you. I’m sure announcements will probably be made at some point, but I can’t say anything.”

Quick Link: EVS on Flash: Rebirth

Newsarama spoke with Ethan Van Sciver at Mid-Ohio Con this weekend, and he talked about Flash: Rebirth. Some highlights:

But this is not just about Barry Allen’s return; this is about the Flash’s rebirth. This is the entire Flash legacy, all of the friends and neighbors, and bringing them all back and giving them a purpose and a new sort of lease on life. So even though Barry Allen has already appeared in Final Crisis, and was brought back in Final Crisis, which saved us a little bit of work, you’ll still see many long-lost friends. And you’ll be happy to see them again — some for the first time in ages.

And on Wally’s new costume:

He will have a very interesting and exciting new costume that will establish his own unique identity in the Flash Universe. When you see it, it will be instantly familiar. Nobody’s going to freak out. It’s not suddenly blue. He’s not reverting to the costume he wore as an infant, or as Kid Flash. It’s just a handy new look that fits right in, just like everything I’ve done. I just try to keep everything so that it looks like I didn’t create it. It was already there.

Bits and Pieces: Interviews and More

First off, Newsarama interviews Alan Burnett, whose 4-issue arc on The Flash started last week. He very carefully avoids giving out any spoilers, but talks about how he got the assignment and his history with reading The Flash.

Former Flash writer Mark Waid, now Editor-in-Chief of BOOM! Studios, speaks with writer Rockne O’Bannon about his upcoming Farscape comic books at Newsarama.

Marc Guggenheim, the final writer on Flash: The Fastest Man Alive, talks to the Pulse about Spider-Man, where he applies the Chewbacca Defense to “One More Day” and the end of the Spider-marriage, and to CBR about Eli Stone. (Pulse link via Lying in the Gutters; Comics Should be Good riffs on the OMD comments)

Monday’s Heroes featured the show’s first on-screen speedster, Daphne Millbrook. It was also a very good premiere. Season 3 is off to a much stronger start than last year.

Todd Klein, who designed the first post-Crisis Flash logo in 1987, looks at dots and dashes in comic lettering, and how the typewriter gave comics the double-dash (--) instead of the more standard em-dash (—). Among his examples: the last issue of Flash Comics and the lead story from Showcase , the last and first solo Golden Age and Silver Age Flash stories.

Speaking of Todd Klein, last Spring he wrote up a 4-part study of the Flash Logo from 1940 through the present day: Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3 · Part 4.

Heroes: Villains’ Speedster: On the Set

CBR has an extensive interview with Brea Grant, who debuts as the super-speed villain Daphne Millbrook in Heroes Season 3: “Villains.” In it she talks about her character’s personality and journey, as well as the show’s effort to make the speedster’s powers look authentic. “We’ve talked about the physicality of it,” she says, “as well as there are just practical elements to it. I have to run a certain way, stop really quickly or stop on a dime.”

Daphne also starred in a two-part comic book story earlier this month, “Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration,” by Zach Craley and Micah Gunnell. The story is available on NBC’s website: Part 1, Part 2.

Quote of the Day

Grant Morrison on Final Crisis (from an interview at IGN):

I think of it like dance music, and how they just took pop music to a place where there was nothing left but the bass and the drum and the build-up and release, and I kind of wanted a comic that would throw out all the boring conversations and fights and keep only the stuff I like to read. You know, to create the crack cocaine of superhero comics. [laughs]

Also worth noting, for anyone who’s confused about how the monthlies line up with Final Crisis:

Pretty much every storyline that’s currently running in a DC book is happening before Final Crisis, because the events of Final Crisis are so big, that we didn’t want to see its influence destabilizing major stories already running in the other comics. The whole story of Final Crisis is in that one book and its few tie-ins, and then when Final Crisis ends, the entire range of DC books will be dealing with the aftermath. So if you look at it that way, everything that you’re reading that comes out during Final Crisis tends to be happening the week before the story takes place.

There’s a lot of other interesting stuff in there — it’s worth a read if you have the time.

Flash Companion Linkage: Waid on Bart as Flash

This week’s Lying in the Gutters includes an excerpt from The Flash Companion. It’s a later segment from the same Mark Waid interview that I previously posted here (on creating Impulse). In this segment, Waid discusses the editorial directive from above that changed Impulse to Kid Flash, and then Kid Flash to the Flash.

It’s about 2/3 of the way through the column, the section labeled “Flashburning Bridges.”