October 10, 2006
Ten Years After

   Howdy, all! Sorry I've been away for a while. I've been merrily busying myself on future issues of DC's 52 series with (Last Planet Standing artist) Patrick Ollilffe, who happens to hail from my native Pittsburgh. It seems that we've now become one of the rotating art teams by an editorial matchup (no, they didn't use "E-harmony"), and we're both quite happy with the results! We're both wrapping up week 32, and will be ready to start another week right after that. Since Pat seems to trust my abilities, he's been pouring more into his pages, adding ambitious rendering and extra details that will keep raising the bar of artistic quality that you've come to expect from 52 (I should write copy for DC solicitations, huh?)

   Pat & I began working together on JSA: Classified #5-7, then 52 week 19 which came out recently, and by the time our next 52 issue, week 26 comes out, I'll be at the Wizard World show in Dallas, Texas promoting it November 10-12.! This will be my first convention since Megacon, plus my first Texas show, and I plan to hobnob all three days with everybody like I was shot out of a cannon! I'll be located in Artists Alley along with David Finch,Greg Horn and others. For more info, see http://www.wizarduniverse.com/conventions/texas/aa.cfm

   What I've been reading lately:

   Plastic Man Archives Vol. 8 - Plastic Man reprints were rare for many years, but have now been made available, and I really thought, never having been exposed to Plas for any significant amount of time, that I'd lose interest by volume 3. Wrong-O! Creator Jack Cole, with a couple of top-notch assistants named Alex Kotzky (a previous Milt Canniff ghost artist and strip artist on Apartment 3-G) and Jack Spranger (an old pro from the Eisner/Iger shop) kept turning up the zaniness every episode, with more visual gags in nearly every panel! A typical story has Plas racing across town by stretching his legs, taking long strides while hapless Woozy Winks tries to keep up. The second panel, shown here, had me laughing out loud! Note the woodpecker trying to peck at Plas' leg! There's a lot of incidental sight gags that you could miss if you don't look closely. This was many, many moons before the term "Easter Eggs" was coined for hidden stuff on DVDs.
   The foreward is by celebrated curmudgeon Harvey Pekar and it's a cold shot of water to the face to read Harvey wax poetic about how great the Cole Plastic Man was! My only critisism is that Harvey incidentally mentions that DC is halfway through reprinting the Cole Plas stories, so now I'll be looking at future volumes as the wind-down to a brilliant comic, although this is no indication that the quality will fade. These volumes are the only hardcover Archives/Masterworks that I will need to get all volumes. There are other reprints I'd love to get, such as The upcoming Thomas/Buscema stories in Avengers Vol. 6, but I may pass, since I already have them in so many formats, and the Plas Archives provides exclusive content unearthed since original publication, half a century ago.

   Also reading:

   Justice Society trade paperback Vol. 1 - After you've taken a long, incredulous look at the stunningly-detailed Brian Bolland cover (is there any other kind of Bolland cover?), you'll find a collection of JSA stories of 1940's characters living in the '70's. The revival of All-Star Comics in the age of Elton John, Charlies Angels and CB radios must've seemed quaint at the time, but for the most part, the stories still hold up, in no small part to one of the contributors: The legendary Wallace Wood.

   Most of these stories were inked or pencilled AND inked by Wood, and it's amazing what a masterful finisher he was on whoever he was inking, whether it be pencillers as Ric Estrada, Rich Buckler or Keith Giffen, the final result was a consistent eye-pleasing Wood finish (not to be confused with an eye-pleasing teakwood finish on a boat). It's kinda fun to spot the reused poses on Wood's solo issues. By the '60's, he'd developed a handful of favorites poses that I'd seen in Daredevil, Thunder Agents, etc. Superman of Earth-2, standing between two massive ston columns, brings the house down in a classic Dynamo pose. The book wraps ups with a few stories featuring the kinetic art by Joe Staton and Bob Layton.

   While I'm writing about the passage of time, I have to share some thoughts I had the other day about how '06 has seemingly breezed by. 1996 was Ten Years Ago! Eep! If you have your geezer alert button by your side, play at home if you remember these events, ten friggin' years ago:

   *SNL - All new cast was blasted by fans and critics at the beginning. Who was this Wil Ferrell guy anyway? History repeats itself.

   *Beatles Anthology - finally! We Beatle fans had to endure crappy bootlegs recorded for us by fellow enthusiasts. I wished the DVD's were sold at the time, as I'm stuck with VHS and refuse to follow the George Lucas model of buying the same story in several formats every few years.

   *South Park hit the ground offending everybody and anybody (including myself at times!)

   *The original members of Kiss reunited for a tour and plane fares were so low, that I spent a mere 100 bucks for a round trip to see them at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena with my cousin Sean and friends.

   *Superman's wedding! Ten years already? The first multimedia event for a superhero: On TV, Lois & Clark married as would the comic book's Lois & Clark, with many Superman creative & editorial staff in attendence. I know fifty year anniversary is Gold, twenty-five Silver, but what would a ten year Kryptonian anniversary call for, gift wise? Red K - The kind that changes Supes to wacky creatures for 24 hours? I know the late '80's Spidey/Mary Jane marriage occurred in comics, newspaper strips and...a baseball game, but it was hardly the media event as Lois & Clark, who had a highly-rated show that a non-comics-reading audience was also watching.

   *Tiger Woods turned pro and quickly became a household name.

   *Marvel's Heroes Reborn - The first clearcut break from established continuity, paving the way for many characters to be reimagined for the internet age, allowing creators to either tap into continuity or start fresh, for good or ill. It had to happen eventually, as certain Marvel character's origins were tied to the Cold War. I must admit, I'd love to see a Hulk or Iron Man movie done as a period piece during the age of Krushchev, beatniks (Rick Jones could be a Dobie Gillis daddy-o). See DC's The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke for what I mean.

   *The greatest shock ending in a comic in years - the last page of Thunderbolts #1! This jaded fan never saw it coming and somehow Busiek, Bagley and the rest (as they say on Gilligan's Island-what's with the Bob Denver references this week?) kept mum that these great new heroes were classic Marvel villains with a makeover and a mission!

   *On the downer side: The Atlanta Olympic Park bombing. Karen and I lived nearby, and were at the exact spot the bomb resided two hours before it went off, which was chilling, to say the least. We took the train home after 11:00, went home, straight to sleep. exhausted, blissfully ignorant of the explosion until I was awakened by Karen screaming "NOoooo!". I thought I was in a horrible nightmare, trying to come to my senses. Fact of the matter was, it WAS a nightmare come true at the time. Over the course of the following week, many native Atlantans and guests rallied downtown as a show of unity, determined not to let the bombing dampen the Olympic experience in our town.

   *Finally, on a personal note, Karen and I took in a stray abused dog with matted fur and a cowering nature that we'd wanted to rescue for months. This dog, who we knew we'd name Gromit if he'd just let us protect him, preferred the cold winter to human companionship. Thankfully, our neighbor, a retiree who did a lot of volunteer social work, eventually managed to coax this limping poodle/bichon mix to her home. She brought him over to us, knowing of our interest, and after a few weeks of TLC, Gromit became the ruler of the house and never looked back. Soon as I got a collar on him, I couldn't resist quoting Wallace from The Wrong Trousers: "Looks like someone owns you now.".

   Gromit's a little slower and grumpier these days, and his eyes aren't as good as they were, but he's still a great companion for walks and has learned to put up with his perky "sister" Valentine who litterally runs rings around him. Happy anniversary, pooch...
 
 
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