The ultimate multi-tasker, no one since Wally (The Flash) West, The Freakin' Fastest Man Alive!, has anyone been so prominent a member of not one, but two, DC Universe organizations...

Labels: Mr. Terrific

Just wanted to take a moment to appreciate the work of Bob Oksner who passed away Feb. 18.

It's funny how you percieve things. For many, Bob Oksner was the guy who drew those DC Jerry Lewis comics or did those beautifully rendered Superman covers.

To many, he was the man who created DC's Angel and the Ape.

To many, he was the man who drew the pretty girls such as Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane or Supergirl on DC's covers throughout the Sixties and Seventies.

Admittedly, growing up I knew him as the guy who inked Ambush Bug.

Later, thanks to the internet and eBay, I came to know him as the the man who produced some of comics' most beautifully understated imagery. There's just something there to this man's work that just does it to me. Even while portraying the heroine in peril, Oksner embued Lois Lane with a subtle grace and dignity missing in her many Superman appearances.

In Supergirl and Mary Marvel's solo appearances in the pages in SHAZAM!, he was an artist who well knew how to capture between a woman and a young lady.

In the pages of Ambush Bug, he knew well how to make something completely stupid look elegant and that is what made him an artist truly deserving of recognition no matter where or how you found him.

Labels: Bob Oksner, Lois Lane, Supergirl

"I'm gonna try an experiment. I'm gonna name my kid Bruce Wayne Sanders and see whether or not I raise a superhero or a serial killer."

Labels: Batman

Labels: Mr. Terrific

Labels: Supergirl, Superman

I feel like a buxom young woman in a red one-piece and hooker boots.

That's what I want but for now let's talk about comics.

(Rimshot!)

Yes. I feel like Donna Troy.

I mean it in the sense that it took me nearly two weeks to wrap my head around something Kyle (Ion) Rayner did.

Did I just read that in Ion #10, Kyle finds himself in the Wildstorm Universe inside The Bleed, eventually meeting Capt. Atom, wearing The Monarch armor while fighting Daemonites and referencing the nuclear explosion in Bludhaven and towards the book's end, Kyle goes back to the DC Universe to to vanquish the denizens of the Tangent Universe.

My head hurts and it feels like old times and the old times felt good.

Labels: Kyle Rayner

Labels: blogs, Entertainment Weekly, Wonder Woman

Very little seems to make me happy, nowadays. Oh, sure, sipping brandy from the skull of an enemy is refreshing every now and then but should one do so everyday, it simply becomes pedestrian.

That's why I'm a firm believer in every once in a while doing one's self a kindness. Last month, I decided to indulge myself a bit and bought myself something I've been lusting after since the days of my mis-spent youth.

Growing up in the '80's, my pimping powers having not yet manifested themselves, all that seemed to float my boat was comics and toys. So imagine my happiness when publishers started doing comics about toys.

Last month, I treated myself to my Holy Grail of toy comics and went and purchased a copy of DC Comics Presents #47, the epic first meeting of He-Man and Superman!

How was it?

The mechanism used to get these two together was contrived and the only thing more awkward than the dialogue was a duck with hooves but dammit, it was worth the price I paid for it for these five simple panels alone...




Truer words have never been written.

I can only imagine what could have happened had I gotten my hands on this comic twenty-five years ago. My little head might have exploded and a cure for "Restless Leg Syndrome" would have been found amongst my ruins.

Jittery folks' loss. Blogging's gain.

Now, having read this in my mid-thirties, the only thing that could possibly have made this comic anymore cooler would be G.I. Joe's Snake Eyes jumping out of my closet, playing the opening riff of "Walk This Way" while Salma Hayek, Halle Berry, Kristen Bell, Rosario Dawson & She-Ra wrestle naked in a kiddie pool full of baby oil to see who'll have sex with me the longest and the hardest.

Yup. Awesome indeed.

Labels: Masters of The Universe, Superman

Labels: Batgirl, drugs

I found myself in a bookstore the other day because... well... occasionally, I do read some things other than comics. Like Maxim, Black Tail, Out, Bowhunter Monthly, Tuesdays With Morrie.

After a while I found myself in the fiction section and there it was big as day, a huge display touting author Jodi Picoult's works. Here's the bubble I operate in, I immediately thought, "Hey, that's the woman who'll be writing Wonder Woman... someday. I wonder if DC will send us any promotional stuff?"

That's when it occured to me, of course DC will send us promotional stuff. They always do. We'll put it in our great big window like we did with the smallish poster announcing Brad Meltzer as Justice League writer and the civilian population (non-comic book readers) will pass it by simply because it hangs in a comic book store window.

Do I sound frustrated? I am because, once again, I'm expected to sell product from an acclaimed author. If history is any indicator, all the people who make the decisions will probably give us is house ads in the comics they publish and 11" x 32" posters.

Wish me luck.

I do not envy the writer who can move hundreds of thousands of books who comes to the comic business. Your work is definitely cut out for you here.

When noted author Tad Williams came to DC Comics to do "The Next," it was done with practically no promotion on DC's part. DC left us, the retailers to sell this book largely through word of mouth to the customers we already have.

How many of his fans from outside of comics will hear it from DC Comics that he's writing Aquaman for them?

As someone who worked in both book and comics retailing, I am constantly perplexed in the methodology in which both sell books. In the book business, a publisher will give a writer with buzz will have his or her books plastered all over publications such as People trumpeting the arrival of their latest work.

Not so much here in the comic book biz, you may receive a house ad, if you get anything.

Seriously, if I had a dollar for every time I showed someone a Peter David comic and had them say, "He writes comic books? I love his Star Trek stuff."

Is it too much to ask for an "experiment" like placing an ad in Entertainment Weekly or People letting "civilians" know that a best-selling authors like Picoult & Williams are being paired with iconic characters like Wonder Woman & Aquaman?

I'll be the first to tell you I don't know much about DC's specific marketing & advertising budgets but what I'd like to see is less reliance on my having to generate word of mouth in order to sell a comic featuring a best-selling author.

Thoughts?

Labels: Wonder Woman

Labels: Batgirl

Months after it happened, fans of "real" music are still searching for answers.

"It was horrible! Horrible! All I could do was listen! They made me listen!"-a CD reviewer who wishes to remain anonymous.

I'm Roy Raymond, Television Reporter and next on "You Are Wrong!," we will present to you, an expose' that will blow the roof off of the music biz.

For years, the record and CD sales have seen a steady decline.

What's behind all this?

Most think it's due to the dilution of "realness" ushered in by today's CD & radio executives' creating music that values aesthetic over actual content.

"You Are Wrong" has obtained exclusive footage from a source known only to us as "J. Blood." "J. Blood" is not a rapper or an entertainer but mainly, as he puts it, "a very concerned citizen of this planet Earth."

Fair warning: the footage we are about to show you contains disturbing and often graphic language so those with small children may want them to leave the room.


Reporter (standing in front of a gigantic hole in the ground) : I can't believe they sent us to film a damned hole.

Cameraman: Well, it is a fine damn hole.


Reporter: What was that?!?

(Suddenly, two demons climb from the hole, dancing and singing and waving their hands in the air like they just don't care.)

Reporter: Jim! Are you getting this?

Etrigan The Demon (Emerging from the hole, rubbing hands together in glee) : Today will be a good day.



A&R exec: You promise this guy will go platinum?

Etrigan: I assure you, this demon is of Hell's lower caste, with a knowledge of rhymes, vast. Know this, I am no liar. Who knows better than a demon how to spit hot, hot fire?

A&R exec: This demon got a name?

Etrigan: Kevin Federline.

Labels: Demon