Jughead says hello

Just thought I'd share this con sketch of Jughead that I acquired for my wife several years ago from Stan Goldberg. I apologize in advance for the quality of the image. The art is framed and I was unwilling to take it out from behind the glass to scan it.

The sketch is from '87.

One last Spidey for the year

Yesterday was my daughter's 17^th birthday, and we went into NYC to celebrate, while she was there she spotted this Spidey figurine, and picked it up for me.

Here he is holding my straw. Pretty cool, eh?

(Not) the Avengers Trailer

Saw this today and had to re-post it...



Hilarious!

Apparently it's still Christmas!

This seems to happen every year, someone (usually me) forgets to give a gift for Christmas/Chanukah. This year I was the recipient of a lat gift rather than the one who forgot.

Oh, and if you can read it, yes, that says “Toasted Marshmallow” Body wash...

Toasted Marshmallow?!? Seriously?

Coffee time

Ahh, I love the smell of Spider-Coffee in the morning...

Wülf Girlz appearing soon in the War of the Independents

A couple of years or so back I “lent out” my Wülf Girlz characters to appear in appear in Dave Ryan’s War of the Independents. Well, Dave has finally gotten past all (or at least most of) the really tough hurdles, and the book is off to a flying start, with the first issue out, the second issue soon to appear and the third issue wit me along as the scripter.

My Girlz will appear in issue four or six (I forget which), but I’m really having a good old time with not only the concept, but with the whole “scripting” part of that last sentence. The Girl;z are already part of a trading card set (published by RZG Comics, and on a poster of an uncut card sheet, very cool stuff.

Pretty cool, eh?

Have yourself a Spider-Little Christmas

Christmas has come and gone; Chanukah has come (and is still here), and yet the Spider-gifts remain...

I have two other sets of Spidey-cups, so now we can have hot coco (or coffee) for 6.

Technically this is a Marvel, rather than a Spider gift, but it still works for me.

Real Superheroes on the Prowl

Presented without comment...

SALT LAKE CITY — Red Voltage and two of his masked crime-fighting colleagues were approaching an intersection here in Utah’s capital on a recent evening, walking night patrol on foot, when a car suddenly slowed next to them. The night was bitterly cold, laced with a wispy stew of fog that might or might not conceal a thousand dangers. The car’s window rolled down.

Read the rest here;

Have yourself a Marvel Christmas!

First night of Chanukah gift

We don’t exchange gifts every night of Chanukah, but when we do, it is wonderful.

Watch Sam Raimi's Original Green Goblin FX Test

OK, now this is really cool, follow this link to watch Sam Raimi's Original Green Goblin FX Test.

It is wickedly awesome and makes you wonder why Raimi didn't go with this version of the Goblin Mask instead of the hideous thing that actually wound up in the movie.

This version is so much better.

Ah well.

While over on Amazon...

Hey, Kids I now seem to have my own Author's page over on Amazon.com, check it out!

Seriously, How cool is this?

Hey, Wait, I almost forgot!

Apparently I completely forgot to mention that Captain America: The Official Index to the Marvel Universe, to which I was a contributor, has been released as a trade paperback.

Seriously, how cool is this?

And then there’s this...

Apparently there is a brand  new ad campaign that is occurring in Mozambique, that is being orchestrated by Associação da Luta Contra o Cancer (ALCC) that is using the comic book characters Wonder Woman, Catwoman, She-Hulk, and Storm to promote self-examinations for breast cancer prevention.

The ad copy states:

Nobody’s immune to breast cancer. When we talk about breast cancer there are no women or super women. Everybody has to do self-examination monthly. Fight with us against the enemy and, when in doubt, talk to you doctor.

I just have to wonder if the suits at Marvel  and DC signed off on this campaign.

Subway, digital comics

Talk about being behind the news cycle curve, the other day I stumbled across these four online comics. All four DC Comics were produced in association with Subway restaurants. These comics feature Superman, Green Lantern, and Batman, and other members of the Justice League, as well as several famous athletes who are fans of Subway. In addition to the four eight-pagers (which were apparently inserted into the center of all DC comics back in June), there are two 3D motion comics staring Ryan Howard and CC Sabathia who stand with Green Lantern and the Justice League against the villainous Darkseid.

In the first comic Michael Strathan, Justin Tuck, and Ndamukong Suh help the JLA rescue Aquaman from Black Manta and Ocean Master while in Hawaii to play an exhibition game.

Issue #2 has Carl Edwards and Blake Griffin join the heroes to stop a gorilla invasion lead by Grodd, the intelligent gorilla from Gorilla City, a hidden city in the jungles of Africa.

The third digital comic has Nastia Liukin, Michael Phelps, and Apollo Ohno coming to the aid of Batman who has been set upon by Mr Freeze and Solomon Grundy.

In the the fourth and final comic Laila Ali, and Subway pitchman Jared, Fogle help the JLA during an attack from the Manhunters.

In all four of the digital comics as well as in the two chapters of then motion comic, the athletes are all chowing down on Subway sandwiches and touting the energy boost that such a healthy meal gives them. All of the comics have the various athletes visiting a Subway restaurant and mention specific sandwiches and ingredients by name (Avocados come up as an energy supplement quite a bit).

All-in-all, these comics are lighthearted and fast-pace, as the intent is to deliver an entertaining comic story while plugging the product, which all of them do quite neatly. Perhaps the only plot point which many fans took issue with was in issue #1, where Aquaman was apparently ambushed and knocked unconcious while swimming off Hawaii. Given that Aquaman is not only the DC King of the Seven Seas, he is the strongest while in water, so this seems to be a bit out of character for him.

Still, that aside, the comics are fun, and downloadable/printable from the web. While not part of the original comic run, during December 2011, Subway is offering two of their 6" subs (Cold Cut Combo and Meatball Marinara) for just $2.00 to all patrons as a way of showing their appreciation for their patronage.

These comics, as were the recently released JLA/General Mills comics tend to be collector items for comicbook aficionados. Thankfully, DC & Subway made the comics downloadable and printable so that fans can hang onto a copy for themselves.

Back in July, Subway teamed with DC to produce a series of six lunch bags that tied into the then-released Green Lantern movie.

The 6" $2.00 Subway offer can be found here.

Have yourself a Super Christmas!

When superheroes go bad...

Could someone please explain to me why people do this? If you are going to rob a bank, why dress up as Spidey, why not pick a real bad guy, like Doc Doom. or someone? And why does it always seem to be Spidey that they pick?

A man wearing a mask and sweater bearing “Spider-Man” designs robbed a Fort Washington bank Wednesday, police said.

The man entered the BB&T bank branch in the 9400 block of Livingston Road around 3:18 p.m., displayed a handgun and passed a note to a teller demanding money, according to the Prince George’s County police.

I’ve got to tell you that it really irritates me. I really hope that he gets caught and his cellmate has a Green Goblin fetish.

Why so Serious?

Good by, Jerry Robinson...

The X-Men Family Tree

I found this online and just had to repost it:

Cool, eh?

Breakfast is nothing short of Super!

Hey there kids, I just wanted you all to know that I just recently acquired the fourth copy (issue #1, actually) of the General Mills, Justice League of America mini-comic. After purchasing a bunch of boxes of specially-marked cereal (including Breakfast, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, CoCo Puffs, General Mills, Golden Grahams, and Honey Nut Cheerios).

I was able to acquire the elusive comic on ebay for a reasonable amount., now I have the whole set. An in-depth review of the series itself can be found on Examiner.com.

We stumbled across this series completely by accident, which makes us fortunate, but you would think that either General Mills or DC would have done a better job of promoting the series.

Ah well, what are you going to do? This is why we must remain ever vigilant.

Enjoy kids!

Steve Bissette writes about Rick Veitch

I first met Steve Bissette probably 30something years ago at at comicbook show in New Hampshire that was being hosted by a very good friend of mine named Mark Ernst. Shortly after this Steve announced that he was releasing Taboo, and trading on the fact that I had met him (and had the foresight to have gotten his number) I pitched a story about it to Amazing Heroes. Well AH was interested, but, as Steve had the reputation to not be anything close to the fastest artist in the world, he was no wheres near ready to publish.

In fact, it took him a full year to get to the point where he was ready to publish. Well, my editor, Kim Thompson, was understanding, and told me to keep after Steve, and whenever Steve was ready to publish,, he would run the story. So I would regularly call Steve every month or two until he was ready. Then I wrote the story, which eventually wound up as a cover story in AH.

For several years afterwards whenever I would meet Steve, he would be extraordinarily friendly to me, introducing me to all of his friends and being quite nice to me. I never really understood why, until some 10 years after the publication of the article, Steve said to someone, “Bob was the first one to write about Taboo.” Suddenly the light went on in my head (hey, I never said I was very bright).

Flash forward another 20 years and I again reconnected with Steve (who has long since left comics and is now teaching in Vermont), on the Internet. Well, as it turns out, Steve wrote a book (he’s apparently written a few, actually) about Rick Veitch’s decades-old comic/Graphic Novel, Brat Pack. Well, Steve sent it to me and I recently read it and posted my review of it over at Examiner.com (where I write about comics and movies).

Well, the book is an amazing look at not only Brat Pack, and what went into influencing Veitch to create that marvelously subversive tome, but Bissette’s book Teen Angels & New Mutants, is an enlightening expose of the entirety of the pop culture landscape that surrounded his and Veitch’s growing up and becoming part of the comicbook community. Steve’s book is currently available (as are updated graphic volumes of Brat Pack), and we strongly urge you all to check out both of them.

Comicbooks published by my friends

Back in October, when I was attending the New York Comic Con I acquired several comics, some of them were produced by some very good friends of mine. I'm just now getting around to posting about it (sorry guys, life sometimes gets in the way).

In No particular order, here they are:

Andrea Grant’s Minx is continuing the tale of a a woman who walks the in-between spaces between the “real” world and the dreamscape that is just a shadow and a whisper beyond the veil of what we see.

By her own admission, Andrea has been working this comic for some 10 years, and has, over the past few years, issued a number of iterations of this comic as it has evolved. It is lyrical, engaging, and totally original. Andrea is a wonderful renascence talent that simply commands the space around her.

Check out her comic, you will be amazed.

A second comic that deserves your attention is Hell’s Blood #3, by Hector Rodriguez, and published by Guild Works Production.

Hector is just another average teen living in a small town in Massachusetts, However his whole life changes one day when his grandmother dies and he himself is relentlessly pursued by horrific monsters that are generally only seen in our nightmares. Soon, Hector finds himself fighting for his very life against an army of hell-spawned creatures that are led by a magma-spitting, fire-haired werewolf who threatens to bring about man's darkest fear to a terrible reality the return to Earth the demon known as Olosi (Satan) himself!

Hector is not only the artist who illustrated this powerful story but the storyteller himself. This issue (as was issue #2) was scripted by Chris Buchner. As each issue has been published, you can not only see the improvements to Hector’s art, but the story itself grows and deepens as we are drawn further and further into the world of Hell’s Blood.

In addition to this issue (and the first two), GWP has issued a combined copy of both of the first two issues in a single package. We strongly urge you all to pick up all iterations.

All of which brings us to a pair of stellar comics from our very good friends over at Atlas Unleashed. The Adversary #3 (by the incomparable Jim Webb) and Crimson Rose by Mark Mazz, Grey Williamson, and N. Steven Harris.

Webb’s Adversary which continues the story of a demoness who has managed to overthrow the reigns of her demonic lord and master (Beelzebub). These days she fights the demons she used to serve. While serving the minions of Hell she was one of its top warriors, now  she battles on the side of Heaven.

In this second issue she goes up against a demon named Belial who has possessed  a fallen priest, in order to lure Adversary out in the open in order to kill her. Only, things don’t go quite the way Belial (or Adversary) planned. It is a fun book to read, and this chapter delves deeper into the character of Adversary.  Jim is a delightful storyteller, making this book a Must Buy for readers.

Next up from Atlas Unleashed, is a preview con book entitled Crimson Rose. The comic that AU presented at NYCC is a fully-rendered penciled version of the comic without dialogue. While this may sound like “not quite” a comicbook, don’t think like that. Grey’s fully-detailed pencils are powerful and are fully-capable of telling a story without the need of dialogue.

Further, by presenting the pencils in this fashion, AU has given us the unique opportunity to see how intense and through Grey’s pencils actually are. Plus it certainly whets our appetite for the completed package.

Personally, we can hardly wait.

Also of note for this issue is the powerful cover by our good friend Chris Torris. We have to admit a personal bias towards Chris’s work as he was the penciler for our own relaunch of our own comic, Agent Unknown (Renegade Press) — the first story of which appeared in CAG #7, and the follow up is slated to appear under the AU umbrella. Any way, Crimson Rose looks like a very interesting book, and we are looking forward to the full version.

well, these were just a few of the comics we acquired at NYCC, and over the next several weeks as we approcah the end of the year, we will be posting about the other, so stay tuned.

Spidey says Smoking is bad

Several years ago Marvel published a special pro-social comic in conjunction with the American Cancer Foundation (ACF) staring Spider-Man, Luke Cage, and Storm (from the X-Men). that extolled the virtues of stopping smoking. Well, I acquired that comic back when it originally appeared but the other day the ACF set up a boot at my workplace and were passing out copies of the comic (now with a brand new cover).

Needless to say, I'm a sucker for these comics, and couldn’t pass up acquiring a new copy. The original cover is off to the left over here while the new cover is below. The interior of the comic is the same and it is discussed in detail over on Spiderfan.

Enjoy kids, and yeah, Spidey sayd “Don’t Smoke!”

Frank Miller on OWS

A pal of mine, Wess Huffor created this parody based on comments made by Frank Miller. It was so funny that I thought I'd repost it.

Pretty funny, eh?

The War of the Independents #3

Hey look, how cool is this...

The Diamond art listing for issue #3 of he War of the Independents.

Title: The War of the Independents #3
Plot & Art: Dave Ryan
Cover art: Todd Nauck
Flip cover art: Chris Giarrusso
Script: Robert Sodaro
Colors & Letters: Wilson Ramos Jr.
Imprint: Red Anvil Comics
Rating: All Ages
Format: Comic (32 pgs)
UPC: 609224530005
Price: $2.99
The Story: The War of the Independents raves across the multiverse, and in this issue the supermen are on their way to Norway to locate the fabled hammer, belt and gloves of Thor, the legendary Norse god of thunder. Meanwhile the villain, Maldestrak — a being of godlike power who is pure evil , and bent on the utter destruction of all forms of life — arrives there first acquires the magical items as well as their incredible power; then proceeds to kick everyone’s butts. Guest stars this issue include the Tick, Atomica, Karma and El Gato Negro, as well as many others.

Yeah, that's very cool...

There's a Superhero in my Cereal

That's right kids, Superheroes in my breakfast cereal. A short while ago I brought to you collective attentions that General Mills (in the form of several of their cereals) were producing — in conjunction with DC Comics — a series of four Justice League mini-comics that were getting packed in the cereals.

Well, I’ve already acquired three of them, the third of which was just today:

So now I have issues 2-4, hopefully I’ll acquire issue #1 soon, then I can read them in order.

This particular comic came in a box of Coco Puffs. Other GM cereals in the promotion include Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Golden Grahams, Honey Nut Cheerios, Lucky Charms, and Trix.


Personally, I love these types of comicbook giveaways, and have an extensive collection of them (to be sure, most of them are Marvel comicbook, and most of those comics star Spidey s still I’m an equal-opportunity comicbook collector, and try to acquire as many of these as possible.


Well, That’s where I am right now, and perhaps either later today or sometime tomorrow I’ll get the chance to look for the missing comic. In the meantime — Breakfast!

And now, another quarter is heard from...

A short time ago I wrote about how I acquired a couple of Marvel comics produced for the various Triple-A baseball teams. Well, apparently, it is not just Baseball that (Marvel) super heroes go well with, but football as well. I recently came across this 1970 Giants/Cardinals program that also features several Marvel superheroes.

Check it out.

Pretty cool, eh?

An early Christmas gift

Just got the word from “Grim” Jim Main that my Christmas tale of mirth and mayhem (Santa and the Angels) will be appearing in his Santa-Themed issue of *PPFSZT! #34. How cool is that?

My story Slabbed, just showed up in *PPFSZT! #33, which Jim is telling us is literally flying off the shelves (no really it is a vampire, bat thing with actual wings I’m told, so you’'d best have some cloves of garlic on hand).

That issue has been written up over at examiner.com, so we are hoping that the additional exposure of the comic is helping launch Jim’s funnybooks into the stratosphere.

Well, as we’ve been telling folks, Jim has been publishing quite a number of our stories lately including Regret (The Attic #1), Too Much Coffee, Man! (*PPFSZT! #28), and Tea Party (*PPFSZT! #30).

Rest assured folks, that there are a whole bunch more stories of mine waiting in the wings, over at Main Enterprises, so keep knock, knock, knocin’ on Grim Jim’s door.

Avengers gone bad

We saw this the other day when a friend posted it, and well, it is so wrong that; Stan help us; we just had to post it.

Yeah, we felt the same way after watching it as well.

Occupy the DC Universe

Territorialism, superhero style

Super heroes for Breakfast

General Mills is currently offering custom edition DC comicbooks in specially-marked boxes of several of their cereals; including Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Golden Grahams, Honey Nut Cheerios, Lucky Charms, and Trix. The DC comics all star the company’s mainstay, the Justice League. The comicbooks are packed inside the cereal boxes. There are four comics in the series, and each comic is a 24-page mini comic.

Currently we have two of the four, and will be searching for the others throughout the rest of the promotion.

Online versions of the comics can be seen here.