by Wayne Markley
This year’s Comic Con 2010 in San Diego California just wrapped up and, as always, it was full of news and events. While most of the news is available on numerous comic book web sites, I thought this week I would take a moment to look at the announcements that were made about upcoming releases and discuss which ones I am looking forward to and why, and a few of which I am not looking forward to.
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by Roger Ash
Recently, my friends Jeff, Kirsten, and I went to see comedian Patton Oswalt here in Madison, WI. Since seating was general admission, we decided to get to the venue early (about an hour and a half prior to the doors opening) so we could get good seats. This paid off as there were only six people in line in front of us. When the doors opened, I made a beeline to the front row in spite of Kirsten calling “Are you serious?” in back of me. My opinion was if we waited in line that long, we were going for the best seats possible. We ended up front row center.
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Tom Taylor is a playwright and the writer of comics including DC/WildStorms’s The Authority and Dark Horse’s Star Wars: Invasion. Now, he’s writing the new Star Wars miniseries, Star Wars: Blood Ties – A Tale Of Jango And Boba Fett from Dark Horse. Westfield’s Roger Ash recently got in touch with Taylor to learn more about this series.
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by Robert Greenberger
It should surprise no one that pulp writer Robert E. Howard read the funny pages. After all, growing up in Texas back in the 1920s, there really weren’t a lot of entertainment options. Historians have discovered a 1923 letter from Howard to Clyde Tevis Smith, a fantasy writer and close friend, dating back to their attending high school together. The letter included what was described as a crudely-drawn, but funny strip involving a caveman’s attempts to woo his girl, who is playing hard to get.
No doubt he would have been surprised and a bit delighted to see that one of his literary creations grew popular enough to merit his own comic strip. While adventure comic strips were already waning as television’s reach grew during the 1970s, there remained blips of activity, especially in the late 1970s and early 1980s as strips based on popular movies and comics were tried out.
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Jim Shooter’s career in comics has been impressive, to say the least. His early work on DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes is fondly remember and he recently wrote a new series of Legion stories. At Marvel he wrote such books as Avengers and Secret Wars. His biggest impact at Marvel may have been his term as Editor-In Chief. After Marvel, he was publisher of Valiant Comics where he wrote Magnus and Solar; and he helped found both Defiant Comics and Broadway Comics. This month, Shooter returns to write Dark Horse’s Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom. Westfield’s Roger Ash recently contact Shooter to learn more about this book and his other upcoming Dark Horse work.
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by Roger Ash
This past weekend, May 16-18, was the first C2E2 (Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo). The event took place at Chicago’s McCormick Place and was organized by Reed Exhibitions, the same people behind the wildly successful New York Comic-Con. Expectations for the event were high due to Reed’s past successes. How did things go? Well, come along and I’ll fill you in as a fan and worker as I was in the Westfield booth this weekend. But first, a slight diversion.
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by Robert Greenberger
You talk about the old Gold Key superheroes and fans will immediately think of Magnus and Solar thanks to their continued appearances via Valiant and later this year from Dark Horse. Some might remember Brothers of the Spear but only the true aficionado could conjure up the Mighty Samson. Gerry Jones and Will Jacobs described the series as featuring “a superstrong survivor on a post-apocalyptic Earth, with decent stories and competent but constrained art from Frank Thorne and Jack Sparling.” The constrained part has more to do with Gold Key’s editorial tastes than the talents of these pros as you will see in the first volume of Mighty Samson Archives, coming this month from Dark Horse.
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Is there a hole in your collection?
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Mark Crilley is the creator of the Akiko series as well as the young adult series Billy Clikk and Miki Falls. This month he returns to comics with his new series, Brody’s Ghost, from Dark Horse. Crilley recently spoke with Westfield’s Roger Ash about this new series.
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