Steranko speaks to ComicMix!

Grab your pencil and connect the dots between Howdy Doody, The Fugees, sold out GI Joes and Teri Hatcher! Confused? You won’t be after you take a break to join us on ComicMix PodCast #27 filled with our usual weekend fun – including the first of our ComicMix Comic Book Masters series, featuring a rare interview with Jim Steranko.

Just put your thumb on the button… right here!

Transcript

Now the world will begin hearing us. What's better than another weekend, especially one where we can entertain you with a whole bunch of good stuff? It is Mike Raub with another podcast and this time we're proud to unveil our Comic Book Master Series for the first time.

We'll start with a visit from a man whose vision is one that time still hasn't caught up to. Got a lot of news to get to of course and a look back in time to when we got a weekly romantic look at the last son of Krypton. All that and more on April 14, 2007.

ComicMix. It looks like the game of musical chairs on who's going to write Wonder Woman has stopped and stopped at a good place. Gayle Simone has been announced as a new writer of Wonder Woman beginning on issue number 13 now that she's moved off of Birds of Prey and that book has gone to Sean McKeever.

There will be two issues written by Jay Torries before Simone takes over. Those issues are number 11 and 12. Devils do as announced as several of their recent titles have sold out so you may want to grab these if you see them on the shelf somewhere. These include Zombie number one to Seeley cover and Zombie number one to Far cover.

Also GI Joe America's Elite number 20, 21 and 22 are gone. Dungeons and Dragons issues Dragon Lance Chronicles volume 3 number one and Forgotten Realms the Silver cover number one. Again those are all sold out with no announcement about second printings at this point from Devils Do.

Add to the list a sold out comic Spawn number 166 and we're glad to see it back at a public eye. This is the issue that takes a turn after the big Armageddon story arc and a lot of fans are jumping right back on the title. Now there is no plans to reprint Spawn number 166 with a variant cover or a second printing.

Marvel Zombies Army of Darkness number two also sold out. Marvel says they're at this point in time not going back to press on that one either. Say kids what time is it? Well it's time to rediscover some classics thanks to the guys at the Digital Music Group. They do some distribution of music and video content and they've expanded their DMGI Kids

video catalog with the acquisition of some real classic kids series and animated movies. Now this will include the Bozo the Clown Show, Batfink, Milk and the Monster, Gigantor and 100 Lost episodes of How to Duty which have not been seen for several decades. The Cartoon Network will be the new home for the Mr. Men show which is a new sketch animated series from Chorean Limited.

It will begin on the network probably around January of next year. It's also co-producing the series but if you didn't know the Mr. Men show is based on the Mr. Men and the Little Miss books created back in the 70s by Roger Hargreaves. ComicMix.com This is something we've been working on for a while and we're proud to kick it off this

weekend. Our Comic Book Master series gives us a chance to go on record with the people who've helped shape the industry of comics in the present and the past as well. The year was 1965. Vietnam was creeping into the headlines, the flower children were first coming awake on

the west coast and in the Midwest a young stage magician with a passion for drawing took samples of his work to Marvel Comics. Men editor Stan Lee said he wasn't quite ready to work for the House of Kirby so the artist put some time in drawing some forgettable heroes for the guys at Harvey Comics. A few months later he was back at Stan's desk and got his first assignment on the new Nick

Fury strip in Strange Tales. In months he was a household name. Well, at least in households filled with comic book fans anyway. His visuals drew readers into a pop culture world that reflected the times and then kept on going.

Nearly 40 years after his peak at Marvel, Jim Starranco was still considered to be an innovator. We talked to Jim and asked him that when you look at all of his work, what moments of the drawing board and what characters did he enjoy the most? I try to attack every job with the same kind of passion and I leave that decision to the

people who are looking at it. That's not up to me. By the time they're looking at it, you know, I'm working on my next job already. I never think in those terms about what I like to do most. I mean, there are characters, for example, like Captain America, that are my favorites.

And I like working on those jobs. But in terms of what I produce, I don't have any favorites. I leave that up to my audience to decide. Jim of course is still working today so we had to ask what's coming next. I just finished a cover for Bane Books new spider series.

The old pulp character, the spider, I just finished the first cover of that book. And after that, I'm illustrating the character Hercules for a new series of comics coming out this summer. Jim also found fame as a publisher back in the 70s starting first with two volumes of the incredible history of comics back around late 1970 and 71.

We couldn't resist asking Jim though when we'd finally see the long, long, long awaited third volume. It's done. It is. Yeah, but it's up here in my head.

Ask me next year, Mike. Comic. M-I-S. ComicMix timeline April 14th, 1996. As we get in the comic stores, it was Amalgam Week, something that's taken years of therapy

for me to get over. I mean, it was tough walking to the rack and not seeing any new DCs or any new Marvels, but seeing things like Doctor Strange Fate. Who could forget Magneto and the Magnetic Man? And of course, JLX and a lot more.

In news, President Cliff urged Congress to pass an anti-terrorism bill that had been stalled for over a year. And a major upsurge in fighting in the mid-east began in an effort to wipe out the Shi'i Muslim guerrillas in South Lebanon. The movies were pretty varied this week.

We could catch The Birdcage with Robert Williams, Homeward Bound 2 if we wanted to cry at a Disney flick, and that really nice Ben Stiller movie that a lot of people again still consider to be a guilty pleasure. It had Tia Leone, Ben of course, and a kind of dirty talking Mary Tyler Moore. Again, get a chance if you can to catch Flirting with Disaster.

On TV tonight, CBS had Sybil and Bonnie, Fox had The Simpsons and Married with Children. And over on ABC, we had a show that a lot of people feel could have been one of the better versions of The Man of Steel on the small screen. What is it? Someone's in trouble.

This is a job for Superman, right? Pumpin' Out of the Radio was a very respectful remake of a Roberta Flack song from the early 1970s. This version still sounds good from the Fugees. This song killing me softly with his song telling my whole life with his words killing

me softly with his song. But about time we got back to the mailbag. Here's one on top from Madison66 at Gmail who says that they were over to the site this week, ComicMix of course, and saw that Flash Gordon will be coming back to the Sci-Fi channel soon.

How about coming back to comics says Madison, has Flash ever had a successful run there? Well I think so, at least depending on what you call successful Madison. I mean the Flash Gordon strip started out in King Comics back in 1941 and ran for a whole bunch of issues there all the way through 1948. Then I moved over to Dell with some of those four color comics and ran them every couple

years or so. Harvey did a series that was absolutely gorgeous back in the early 1950s and then Gold Key picked it up around 1965 or so. King Comics, the guys that were only found those little plastic bags back in the 60s that you had to dig through the grocery store for.

They did a series that ran for 11 issues, Charlton picked it up after that with some mediocre artwork to say the least and that was another 6 issue that ran until 1970. And then Gold Key picked it up again with another bunch of issues that ran from 1978 to 1979. Probably the most interesting recent Flash Gordon series came in 1988 when DC produced

a version that had Flash as a washed up basketball player who ended up on Mongo. Now the series that Marvel did though is one that you may want to check out. It's been the last appearance of Flash Gordon in comics. That was in 1995. What makes it interesting?

Al Williamson who did the work for King Comics and also did some incredible work on Flash Gordon in the comic book strips, did the artwork on that. There were only two issues of Marvel Comics Flash Gordon so you may want to dig deep to find those. Madison, thank you very much for your note.

We'd love to hear from you as well. You know how to get in touch. We are at podcast at ComicMix.com. Until we meet again, this is WC Fields saying goodnight and I do mean night. Alright here's my advice.

Rest up you're going to need it because next week we're going to start with the very latest assault on your wallet. All the new comics and DVDs coming out. And then we're going to take time to do a little detective work to find a DC comic that is here, gone and now soon to be here again.

Plus we'll run down what everybody thought of Painkiller Jane, The Pathfinder, The Aqua Teen movie and the third season of Doctor Who too. Your comments always appreciated. Drop them on the website of course or write us direct at podcast at ComicMix.com. Talk to you in a couple of days.

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