Tagged: DC

Happy Birthday, Geoff Johns!

Geoff Johns was born today in 1973 in Michigan where the writer himself admits, it is "damn cold." Like so many of us, Geoff had a passion for the creative (screenwriting, graphic design, storytelling, your basic artist jack-of-all-trades stuff) but he got lucky in Los Angeles when after a phonecall, he became an intern to someone fancy schmancy. This in turn led him to a fruitful career as a contributing writer to DC comics, among others. You’ve probably read a couple of issues of The Flash by Johns, he was responsible for reviving Teen Titans, plus he’s got some fun TV credits sprinkled here and there (Robot Chicken!). We’re glad LA was kind to you Geoff Johns and glad that you have return your karma with some pretty fun storylines. Happy Birthday!

Martha Thomases Interviewed!

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  • January 25, 2008

Sure, pride goeth before a fall and such, but we can’t help pointing out this interview with ComicMix VP of Corporate Communications Martha Thomases over at Friends of Lulu.

The interview touches on Thomases’ long and winding path through the comics industry, including one of her best-known roles: Head of Publicity at DC Comics during the "Death of Superman" event. Having served in both an editorial and PR capacity for various publishers, she provides some insight into the way these two aspects of the industry rely upon each other and the reasons they often appeal to similar personality types.

I told stories. I looked at what we were publishing and tried to figure out who would care about those titles, and what was the most effective way to get the word to them. I dealt with the mainstream press, not the comics press, so I looked for human interest stories. After all, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are at least as interesting as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Thomases also chats at length about the changes she’s witnessed in both the comics industry and the role of women in it.

This Is Not My Column, by John Ostrander

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  • January 25, 2008

Editor’s note: Due to a completely unrelated attack from the Ether Bunny, this column was supposed to run yesterday. It’s just as swell today, but if you’re looking for Michael Davis’s column, well, it was run yesterday. However, when you’re done reading this, go read Michael by clicking here. Thank you.
 
There are days when I hate writing, just hate it, and this day and this moment is one of them.
 
Why? Because nothing is working. Absolutely nothing. I have, as of this moment, five different versions of this column in the works including this one. I don’t like any of them. I’m presently reduced to writing about how the writing is not going well. Sad, Isn’t it? Not something in which I’m likely to get a lot of sympathy for, though. I mean, a lot of people have to get up and go into jobs that they may not care for. They do it day in, day out, week in, week out, month in, month out and so on. Maybe they don’t ever get to love their job. I mean, I make my living writing comics. That should be fun, right?
 
Not today. Today I’m in hell.
 
Most days I really do love what I do. I get paid pretty nice for it. I have a really quick commute, from the kitchen into the back bedroom, which serves as the office. We had friends who lived with us for awhile and, in the morning, I’d wave to them as they went to work and announce I was beginning my commute, too. And then I amble away. They recently allowed how they wanted to kill me at those moments. I knew that. It was part of the smug job satisfaction.
 

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Jamal Igle Talks Teen Titans

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  • January 24, 2008

55tt2x-4292109No stranger to drawing the up-and-coming among DC’s superheroes, Jamal Igle takes a turn on the publisher’s premiere teen team with Teen Titans #55.

In this interview with The Pulse, Igle discusses how to avoid playing favorites when you’re working on an ensemble book, but still names the characters he looks forward to drawing and the characters he’s, well… "still getting a handle on."

He also provides some insight about the ways in which the characters resemble ladies he once dated.

I have to admit out of the current roster my two favorite characters to draw are Ravager and Kid Devil. KD has a great visual look but as far as character traits, Rose Wilson is such a wild card type character. She reminds me of girls I dated in the past, someone who is searching for her place in the world. She was raised in a brothel until Slade Wilson found her, and then he used her and abandoned her. So she tries to hard to be difficult and provocative. I’ve seen it so many times.

Seriously, though… Who hasn’t dated a girl or two who grew up in a brothel, was rescued by a deadly mercenary, trained to become his heir, gouged out her own eye as a form of tribute and eventually decided to reform and become one of the good (albeit somewhat psychopathic) guys?

J’Onn J’Onzz, Martian Manhunter, Marked For Death?

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  • January 23, 2008

plea_00-8922793After Rich Johnston named J’Onn J’Onzz and Aquaman among the characters slated for termination in DC’s Final (Infinite Countdown to Identity Earths) Crisis event, creator Michael Netzer has begun a campaign to save the green-skinned shapeshifter.

Netzer has drafted a letter to DC and posted it on his website along with a petition to save the character and testimonials from comics fans. He’s even created several banners and other images to promote the cause.

Right around the middle of the letter, he even offers up his creative services as the character’s future caretaker:

And so… in the spirit of the image I produced to illustrate this plea, I’d like to offer my services as an artist to help revive the Martian Manhunter again, as I did back in 1977, and prevent the possibility of his untimely death… and to do it within an upcoming project of your choice for DC Comics.

While neither the certainty of J’Onn’s death nor the ability to halt any existing plans for his demise at this point are certain, there’s something to be said for the support the character is receiving from Netzer and other fans. On the flip side, a quick Google for "Save Aquaman" campaigns doesn’t seem to register any hits.

 

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Keith Giffen on DC/Wildstorm: Dreamwar

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  • January 20, 2008

dcvsws-cv2_r1_solicit-6794036Good news for fans of Keith Giffen’s run on Legion of Superheroes: He’ll have another chance to play with the team this April, when DC/Wildstorm: Dreamwar hits shelves. The six-issue miniseries will pair Giffen with artist Lee Garbett (Midnighter).

Newsarama has an interview with Giffen about the series, the inevitability of a brawl whenever heroes meet and the relevance of the miniseries in the greater DC and Wildstorm Universes.

Legion of Super-Heroes is a concept that always exerts this weird type of siren song to me. I swear, I’m walking around, going "I’ve got to touch them again." And I wind up back toying around with them. This is something I thought would be interesting to play around with. I haven’t dealt with the characters for awhile. This is an opportunity to go in and remind people of my take on the characters without violating anything that’s gone on since I was on the book. And that’s fun. It’s fun to play around with those characters again. I’ve got a fondness for the concept.

The Swamp Thing’s Saga Continues With New DVD

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  • January 18, 2008

Since his debut in 1971, Swamp Thing has remained the king of the hill when it comes to comics’ heroic muck-monsters. Granted, there hasn’t been too much competition in that category, but there’s something to be said for the fact that DC’s sad story of a scientist-turned-swamp creature has spawned not one, but two feature films, as well as a relatively successful television series. On January 22, Shout! Factory will release Swamp Thing: the Series on DVD, collecting all three seasons of the Swamp Thing television series that aired on USA Network from 1990-1993, with the episodes organized in the order they were intended to be viewed.

Comics2Film has a discussion with Dick Durock, the actor who donned the Swamp Thing costume for all three live-action iterations of the character, providing some explanation of how he got roped into wearing the monster suit and why he stuck around for more… much more, in fact.

"The costume of course was zip-on and zip-off, but all the appliances and the makeup had to stay on. In the first feature it took close to four hours. In the second feature it took close to two hours. By the time we did the series, which ironically was by far the best makeup and costume, we had it down to about 45 minutes," the actor said.

"But it was still tough. At the end of the day you’re wearing eighty pounds of wet latex, plus all the chemicals on your face. It sure isn’t sunglasses and autographs, I’ll tell ya."

Also of note is the late-paragraph mention of a new Swamp Thing film in the works, with a script by the character’s creator, Len Wein.

Heck, it can’t be any worse than Man-Thing, Marvel’s 2005 quest to <a href=”

their swamp monster to the big screen, right?

 

 

Rick Remender on End League, Fear Agent, Atom and More…

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  • January 18, 2008

fearagent19-4142424Over at Comic Book Resources, Rick Remender chats it up about his critically praised, post-apocalyptic superhero saga The End League, as well as his other post-apocalyptic saga, the creator-owned Fear Agent series.

"I guess I’m a bit bleak in my worldview. That and I always tend to make sure Earth is in a state of shit,” quipped Remender. “I like post-apocalyptic stories, what are you gonna do? I like hopelessness. It brings out the grit inside a character. Might as well get right to it and see how someone reacts when faced with a stacked deck and insurmountable obstacles. In my shitty opinion, that’s the good stuff. Unlike most books of this nature, these characters are all dealing with the prospect of real extinction that’s always waiting around every corner.”

The eternal optimist, eh? No fear, though. Remender goes on to discuss his work on other projects big and small – literally – including his run on DC’s Atom, as well as an upcoming Ultraman-meets-Truman Show project (his description, not ours) titled Gigantic.

 

Our Declining Years, by John Ostrander

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  • January 17, 2008
And every fair from fair sometime declines
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d
 
That’s Shakespeare. Sonnet XVIII – or 18 to those of us who don’t want to bother with Roman numerals.
 
Will is talking about the inevitable decay and decline of beauty in the person to whom the sonnet is addressed. For me, however, it is a reminder that everything – EVERYTHING – declines. It’s the power of entropy, folks – everything that is fair and/or beautiful, that is strong, must inevitably lose what is fair, strong, beautiful. It arrives sooner – by chance, as Will says, by accident – or later – by the accumulation of days but it must arrive.
 
That includes nations and brings me to a principle consideration of mine about all the candidates, Democrat and Republican, now vying for the post of Chief Executive of these Unites States. Which one is best equipped to deal with its decline? 
 
Decline is inevitable, to begin with. Every nation, every empire, on top of the heap has fallen off that pinnacle. Every. Single. One. It is a historic inevitability that we will also slide as well. I’m betting on sooner rather than later. Here are my reasons.
 

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Superman beaten by WGA strike?

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  • January 16, 2008

It’s beginning to look like the WGA might have accomplished what years of evil scheming and diabolical machinations were never able to achieve: the death of Superman.

According to Variety, "nothing is happening" with Superman: Man of Steel, the planned sequel to 2006’s Superman Returns. The writers’ strike has proven to be yet another, very large nail in the coffin of Warner Bros. plans for a new Superman franchise, as the picket lines halted studio production shortly after the screenwriters for the 2006 film, Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, opted out of the sequel. No screenwriters are currently tied to the project, and even the return of Superman Returns director Bryan Singer to the helm of the sequel remains uncertain.

From Variety:

"For now, the next Superman auds will see on the bigscreen will not be Brandon Routh but a younger Superman among a cast of youthful DC superheroes in George Miller’s The Justice League. That movie likely will not be shot, however, until after the WGA strike is resolved."

At this time, Warner Bros. has moved Superman: Man of Steel back to a tentative 2010 release.

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