Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
I don’t know anything about Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillip’s next comic series, Fatale other than it’s by one of my favorite teams working in comics today, that they’ve never let me down and I love the scary face in the gun smoke.
IFanBoy recently posted their choices for the perfect cast of an adaption of the classic crime comic series 100 Bullets. I think that their choices are excellent…
Dave Wachter returns this week with his take on Sly from Get Carter. I met Dave a couple of years ago and became an instant fan. Dave is a tremendous artist, but more importantly an all-around decent guy. You can see more of Dave’s art at his site. – Craig
Recently CBR.com posted the results of a poll of comic book readers to determine the top 100 Marvel and DC characters. Using just their list of the top 50 for each company, I present my top 10…
10. Namor – 539 points (7 first place votes): There was a summer when I was a kid in elementary school that I thought that Namor was the coolest cat walking swimming. He looked like Spock, was a Prince, could breathe on land and sea. Yeah, Namor was the man.
09. Black Widow (Natasha Romanova)- 452 points (3 first place votes): I’ve read fewer stories with the Black Widow than any of the other characters in my top ten, but I like this character. The first time I really noticed her potential was in a black and white magazine that featured her in a story drawn by Paul Gulacy. Around the same time, Frank Miller put her to good use in Daredevil.
08. Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) – 1495 (17 first place votes). Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams, Mike Grell, Trevor Von Eden and Jock all have worked their riffs on the Green Arrow. I’ve enjoyed all versions… especially those without the trick arrows.
07. Luke Cage – 633 points (3 first place votes): I can still remember picking the first issue of Luke Cage: Hero for Hire off the newsstands, reading it and thinking, yeah, this is how it would in real life if someone got super-powers. When I was in junior high I had a “shop” class and one of the things we had to create were business cards. It had to be for a business that wasn’t real and we couldn’t use our own names. My card read “Blackjack Joey – Hero for Hire.” So you can see the influence that Luke Cage had on me. Bonus points to anyone who can figure out where Blackjack Joey came from.
06. Question (Vic Sage) – 382 points (6 first place votes) Although I never read the original Question stories, I really dug the Denny O’Neil / Denys Cowan / Rick Magyar stories. Add in the covers by Bill Sienkiewicz and you have a top ten character.
05. The Punisher (Frank Castle) – 995 (17 first place votes) I’m talking about the real Punisher. You know the one who appeared in the mini-series and graphic novels by Steven Grant, Mike Zeck and John Beatty. You can throw in a bit of Miller and Romita Jr’s riffs, but count me out when the Punisher becomes a substitute teacher or starts hanging out with Microchip or any other sidekick.
04. Daredevil – 2280 points (71 first place votes): If Frank Miller wrote Daredevil and either he or David Mazzucchelli drew the series, I’d be a lifetime subscriber.
03. Wolverine – 2728 points (54 first place votes) Wolverine during Claremont, Byrne and Austin’s run was the coolest character ever. His biggest fault was he became too popular and was everywhere. Miller’s mini-series was cool. Chaykin has done some neat stuff with Wolverine as well. Unfortunately, too many people tried to work their magic on Logan and I lost interest. I’d still return to read stories about the runt if the right creator took the reins.
02. Nick Fury – 619 points (7 first place votes): I remember buying an issue of Nick Fury: Agent of Shield off the stands when I was elementary school. I’d never seen a comic that looked so cool. Steranko was is amazing. When I attended my first comic convention, the first items I purchased were a complete run of Steranko’s Nick Fury comics [and an issue of his publication, MediaScene]. Someone find a way to get Steranko to do covers for a Gulacy drawn, Doug Moench written Nick Fury series set in the 1960’s. The time is right.
01. Batman (Bruce Wayne) – 6585 points (313 first place votes) It doesn’t matter who draws Batman [Neal Adams, Marshall Rogers, Jim Aparo, Frank Miller, etc.], what kind of stories [funny, serious, set in any time period or genre], Batman works. That has to make him the #1 character… at least in my book.
Today we have the return of Evan Bryce and his riff on Sly as Cobra. I’ve been a fan of Evan’s art for a few years now and we’ve become friends via the internet. We’d met just once at Heroes Con in 2009 and I got a cool Sly from The Expendables sketch.
Evan didn’t make it back to Heroes in 2010 and he wasn’t supposed to be there this year. However he surprised everyone and made the trip. I asked for a Stallone character sketch of his choice and he went with Cobra and threw in the car and cityscape background as a bonus.
Evan is an exciting artist and one to keep an eye on. You can see more of his work at his blog or his Deviant Art site. Plan to spend a while.
AMC has posted up 16 new cast photos for the new season of The Walking Dead. The season two trailer is also now available in HD.
Are you familiar with Ryan Cody’s Icarus?
Want to see more? Then you should consider becoming a backer for Ryan’s Kickstarter project. For four bucks you’ll get a new 22 page full color issue of Icarus each month for four months! Talk about a bargain! There are other levels of support available with bonuses at each level.
Any support you can throw Ryan’s way will be greatly appreciated!
This December, Tito Faraci (writer) and Dan Brereton’s (artist) The Last Battle is finally coming to the US! Already published in many countries around the world, The Last Battle is an 80-page full-color graphic novel set to retail for $7.99 from Image Comics. For more details check out CBR.com’s coverage.
This little animated video of How Captain America Should Have Ended is a hoot. Stick around after the credits for another laugh. “Fence of Fire – Fence of Fire!”
Batman: Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli is a masterpiece. It is (one of my favorites and) without a doubt one of the best received graphic novels ever.
When it was first announced that Batman: Year One was being developed into a feature length animated movie, the idea was to stay true to the story and the art. Animation Magazine caught up with co-directors Sam Liu and Lauren Montgomery who discussed some of the difficulties of adapting the classic tale of Batman’s first year. If that’s not reason enough to click over, they also preview some of the animation art from the film.
SZoner, Gerardo Moreno is back with his version of a new “First Blood″ teaser poster.
Well done, Gerardo! To see more of his art, click here.
I met Billy Fowler at Heroes Con 2010. I hadn’t seen Billy’s art prior to the show, but I really liked the sketches that he was doing. Luckily, I was just able to get on Billy’s sketch list and got a really great take on Sly as Jack Carter.
Billy was at Heroes Con again this year. and this time I scored this very cool Sly as Rocky sketch.
You can see more of Billy’s art at his blog.
Today Jack “The King” Kirby would have been 94 years old. It’s our loss that he’s no longer with us. Yet, he created so many characters universes that we will always have plenty of his art/stories to enjoy.
When I was a kid, I loved Jack Kirby’s work on Captain America, Rawhide Kid and especially Mister Miracle. Then when I got a bit older, I stopped enjoying Mr. Kirby’s output. I had moved on to more mature comics… or at least that’s how I looked at it then. Now I see I was missing out on the work of a legend.
Mark Evanier posted a nice remembrance and video. Bleeding Cool put up a cool Kirby art gallery. It’s nice that Jack Kirby continues to inspire so many.
The amazing Kelsey Shannon makes his return to the SZ Gallery. Kelsey has worked in comics, animation, and film. He can pencil, ink and color. Kelsey plays a mean game of hacki-sack and he’s one of the nicest and most talented people that you could ever meet. Kelsey surprised me with his take on Sly as Captain America. How cool.
I got my first piece from Kelsey, back in 2002. He also surprised me with it! Then I actually got to meet Kelsey at Heroes Con in 2004. At that show he did me, this cool take on Sly as Jack Carter. It’s still one of my favorites riffs on Sly as Carter. I think we’re going to have to get Kelsey back to MegaCon or Heroes and bribe him for more sketches. If I bring big blocks of cheese it might work.
