The Return of Uncle Sam

So DC did something cool last week - or at least they *may* have...for within pages of Blackest Night 8, there was one panel with, lo and behold, Uncle Sam in it.

Now, I don't think he's been officially MIA, but wasn't the last time we saw Uncle Sam in Final Crisis when he was declared CORRUPTED? (Which strikes me as quite the clever meta-commentary by Grant Morrison, if indeed that's what it was...)

Prior to that, Uncle Sam was in the (imo) horrible Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti. I think that only lasted, what? 7 issues? This was (for the most part) not the same Freedom Fighters reintroduced back during the Bronze Age, but felt more like an Authority knockoff, only about 8 years too late to really capitalize on that whole gravy train.

Before US&TFF, the original DC versions of the Freedom Fighters (as introduced by Len Wein and Dick Dillin back in Justice League of America 107) were decimated as part of events leading up the Infinite Crisis - one of those random acts of Superhero Snuff that DC seems to like to use at the drop of a hat.

I wonder if Uncle Sam's appearance in a Blackest Night 8 (a comic that had a huge fan service ending) might be a sign that he might get another shot at a series that would be more befitting the character? Here's an idea - take James Robinson off of JLA (which doesn't seem like a good fit for him ,does it?) and put him on a The Golden Age or New Frontier type of project with the Freedom Fighters. I don't know if that combination would really work, but it's worth a shot.

Enjoy today's free comics!

[ National 28 ]

[ Police Comics 10 ]

Lost Universe: The Shooter

This article is another one of Caine's explorations into the Lost Universes of defunct companies. You can read other Lost Universe articles here. - Jim

Today we'll be focusing on another archetype; The Shooter, Gun Singer, Armored Hero. I don't know that anyone would argue with me if I stated that Frank "Punisher" Castle is probably the purest distillation of that archetype in comic book form (Cable being a close second). What's interesting about Frank, a character who's been around long enough to have multiple "takes" from lots of different creators, is that he's often known specifically for just that: Shooting. Where as some of the same characters built from "The Shooter" Archetype are almost known for what they do when they don't have a gun.

The "Lost Universe" publishers embraced "The Shooter" archetype, maybe it was a sign of the times, the industry, or the fact that several of the most popular characters being published were gun toting characters. Whatever it was, there were lots of them. Many publishers put out more than one.

VALIANT: BloodShot
"Angelo Mortalli has become the ultimate killing machine. His memories were erased and his blood was infused with microscopic computers called nanites. These nanites allow him to heal wounds quickly, dominate electronic devices, and fully control every aspect of his body to maximize his physical capabilities. A modern-day Frankenstein, he wages a one man war — taking out the mob, the police and his covert government creators — in his struggle to find out who he was and what he has become."~wikipedia


I don't think it would be a huge stretch to label Ninjak as a shooter as well (but I'm saving him for another archetype).

btw - There is a rumor that there might be a Bloodshot movie in the works with Kick-Ass Director Mathew Vaughn purportedly eyeing the character as his next movie. This might open up the door for more Valiant characters to appear in movies.

ULTRAVERSE: Warstrike
Brandon Tark, millionaire by day - mercenary by night, put on an armored costume with lots, and lots of weapons to function as Warstrike. Like The Punisher and Bloodshot Warstrike is often armed to the teeth. Unlike them Warstrike is an "Ultra" with the ability to see alternate time lines depending on his course of action. As an added bonus, causing much drama, Warstrike was addicted to this phenomenon he called "Being on the wire". I wonder if they have a twelve step program for seeing the future and choosing the most dangerous version of it?

Much like Valiant had an "in between" character that could also be labeled "Shooter" the Ultraverse also provided us with Solitaire (again, I'm thinking of another archetype for him).

FIRST: Grimjack
"John Gaunt, alias Grimjack, was born in The Pit, a slum area of the pan-dimensional city of Cynosure, where both magic and technology, humans and aliens intermingle. His mother, Anya (née Laughton) died in childbirth. John had two older brothers, Nick (nicknamed "Young Nick" and named after their father, "Old Nick") and Jake. His father married Anya's sister, Maite (nicknamed "Mouse") and they had one child together, Joe. Joe was the only of his brothers for whom John cared, and he vowed to Mouse that he would watch out for him.[1] Old Nick had one brother, Jack. Young Nick hated and resented John, blaming him for the death of their mother, the only person who loved him. Throughout John's life, Young Nick manipulated their father into hating John in hopes that he would kill John."~Wikipedia

The one "Lost Universe" publisher who embraced "The Shooter" the most? That would be Darkhorse's Comics Greatest World. On top of several solo characters (Mecha, Rebel, Ghost, X, Barbwire & more) there were entire teams of shooters: The Pit Bulls (undercover armored cops), The Wolf Gang (street gang of meta hoods defending their turf), and the members of the super hero team: Catalyst: Agents of Change were always shooting at everything as well (Mecha & Rebel being members).

CGW: Ghost
Elisa Cameron is dead. That doesn't mean her troubles are over with though. She's still tied to the living in Arcadia, including her sister and alcoholic parents. On top of the real life dragging her down her corporeal self is driven to do one thing: kill those who are responsible for ending her own life (a fact that is later disputed if you read the entire series) & she's got twin .45 to get it done with. If the premise alone doesn't thrill you, Elisa crossed over with everyone from The Shadow to Batgirl.

CGW: Barb Wire
"In Steel Harbor, a bombed-out wreck of a town, thrill-junkie Barbara Kopetski - better known as "Barb Wire" - is a bar owner and part-time bounty hunter (in order to pay for her bar, The Hammerhead). She is skilled in many areas, but excels in combat-related abilities. While she has a brother and several allies, she is essentially a loner, although this is something which is uncomfortable for her to think about."~Wikipedia

CGW: X
"X, whose law is that one mark means a warning, the second one death, takes on a collection of business, law, mob, assassins and politics. This includes characters such as Mayor Teal and Police Commissioner Anderson as well as the Llwellyn brothers, their hired assassin named Gamble, Mob boss Carmine Tango and highly connected army officials."~Wikipedia

Have a great weekend,

Caine

Ross Andru and Spider-Man

To me... the "ultimate" Spider-Man comic was when it was drawn by Ross Andru.

Although I greatly enjoyed Spider-Man by both Romitas... when started reading the tales of the Amazing Spider-Man in the 70s... it was beautifully drawn by Ross Andru.

I was a little too young when John Romita was drawing the book... so although I saw some of his work years later... the definitive Spider-Man to me was as he was when drawn by Andru.

Although JRJR also did a great job on Spider-Man... especially when inked by Jim Mooney.

But given the choice... I would still pick Ross Andru as the definitive Spider-Man artist in my book.

Not just because of the way that he drew Spider-Man... but also because of how he drew the whole cast in the comic.

It also was the time of some of the coolest villains ever... the Tarantula, the Cyclone, Mirage, the Grizzly.... okay... maybe not the Grizzly. Even back then I thought the Grizzly was a pretty crappy villain.

Although one of my favorite comic from Andru has to be Amazing Spider-Man #153, although it has none of those cool villains. Don't ask why... I still can't explain it today.... but I loved that comic.

I also loved his backgrounds... especially his cityscapes as Spidey was swinging above the city.

And let not forget the Spider-Mobile. ;)

It cracks me up just thinking about it.

I also discovered some of Spider-Man's more classic villains during Andru's run like Mysterio, the Kingpin, the Scorpion. Although to me, they were all brand new characters since it was my first time encoutering them in them comics.

I most especially loved the first time I saw Doc Ock (Amazing Spider-Man #157). Loved the cliffhanger with Spidey falling to his death on the last page. Although, many years would pass before I was finally able to read the conclusion of that story.

Strangely enough.... I don't have that many comics by Andru. As a kid, I got some of his Spider-man work... some Marvel Team-Up... and a few Wonder Woman issues.

But through the years... from time to time I find some gem that Andru did in his carreer.

For example when I got the Marvel/DC Crossover Classics TPB, I got quite a kick from reading the Spider-Man/Superman tale masterfully pencilled by Andru.

More recently... I got the Essential Punisher Vol.1 with a few cool Andru comic... some of which even featured Nightcrawler and some of the X-Men from way back then.

So from time to time... I can still treat myself with some "new" Ross Andru comics that I have never read before.

When that happens... life is good. ;)

Special Note from Jim - Pierre sends his regrets that his duties at work this week prevented him from preparing a tribute to Dick Giordano another great artist from the Bronze Age who passed away a few days ago.

Baffling Mysteries at DC

Note to Free Comic Downloaders - Feel free to skip my musings if you are looking for today's free comics.

Mystery 1
The DC Red Circle Revival

So it looks like I wasn't the only one who thought the Red Circle revival by DC wasn't well thought out, as DC has recently announced they are going to cancel both The Shield and The Web with issues 10.

As of issue 6, both comics were selling at or below 6,000 units. With 4 more issues to go before they get to 10, I think we are going to see some history making low issues sales.

For the past couple of weeks, I was wondering exactly what was the plan with these books, but thanks to a sideways comment from the guys at the Mayo Report Podcast, I think I've figured out what happened here.

I think DC licensed these characters quite some time ago (possibly under Paul Levitz' watch) and the time span of that license was going to expire soon - without DC ever exercising their right to publish some comics with the characters - which would have meant DC paid some money for nothing.

Enter the hastily thought out JMS Red Circle revival. I also suspect the terms of the licensing deal must have guaranteed a certain amount of issues were published (else wise, why would DC continue to put on 4 more issues of books that are already selling at ridiculous levels?)

I don't expect to ever get a verification of this theory, but it strikes me as a likely explanation.

Mystery 2
How will DC become number 1 Comics Publisher?

Recently at a ComicsPRO conference in Mephsis, Dan Didio confirmed that DC was going to try and overtake Marvel as the number one publisher of comics by changing some internal policies(?) that will allow them to green light more projects quicker. If find this interesting for two reasons:

One, in the past, it has seemed like SOP for DC to discount sales numbers by proclaiming that their main concern was quality, not sales. What's behind the change in priorities? Is this Diane Nelson acting on Time Warner's desire to heighten the profile of their precious superhero IP?

Two, I wonder how is DC realistically going to achieve this goal. What exactly will more comics really do for them? If they use the same MO they've used over the past year on some new titles, I don't expect to see much of a change. Over the past year, DC launched a couple of revivals of some of their older characters (Nemesis, Azrael, Doom Patrol, Warlord, Human Target) as well as titles with completely new characters (Great Ten, Magog, Red Robin) Of the comics I just mentioned, only 2 are selling above 15K (the statistical break even point for a comic book.) The rest are selling in the 10 - 5K range.

So, if DC add 10 - 20 new mid list titles to their offerings in an attempt to flood the market and push Marvel out of the top spot, are retailers going to reach deep into their coffers and buy equal amounts of the new titles in hopes that they might sell better than the past year's mid listers? Or is DC just going to dilute the sales of their existing mid list titles?

So, unless something major changes, I don't see DC reaching that goal. Which might look bad when you get around to your yearend appraisal.

Anyway - enough of those baffling mysteries - enjoy these!



[ Baffling Mysteries 11 ]



[ Baffling Mysteries 13 ]

- Enjoy!

Comics on the iPad

In honor of the nice folks over at Comic Zeal using our comics in some of their recent news update we here at the Flashback Universe thought that you'd like to be informed & updated on the subject of comics on the iPad.


COMICS: Reading


COMIC ZEAL
"The iPad is just perfect for Comic Zeal, there was never a question that I’d be creating a version of Comic Zeal for it. There are three things I’d like to address today, first I’d like to take you through the Comic Zeal 4 interface, then we’ll talk about importing comics and we’ll talk about upgrading and versions last."~comiczeal



They go on to explain..

"Comic Zeal 4 is able to read CBZ,ZIP,CBR and RAR files natively. So you can just fire up SyncDocs on your PC or Mac, drag in a whole bunch of CBZ files and import them into Comic Zeal. Comic Zeal will still need to process the comics and resize the images, although they’re now 60% larger than they were before. This process is going to be optimized and tweaked once we get our hands on a real iPad. At the moment we have no idea how long it will take to process the comics and it could be that on release, using Comic Zeal Sync is still the best option."

CBR
"CBR News reached out to many players from across the downloadable comics sphere for early reactions to the news of the iPad and found many responses as to what the next step for publishers and content providers will be. Although one thing was generally agreed upon, fans can expect everyone to get..."~cbr

NEWSARAMA
"As Apple announced it's iPad device today, Comics by ComiXology, the leading iPhone application for buying and reading comics, already has an interface for the bigger iPad screen in development."~newsarama

WEEKLY CRISIS
"In theory, the iPad, and the slew of alternatives in the pipes, has a lot of potential for changing the comic book industry. Currently, there are multiple comic book related apps available for the iPhone that can be ported over to the iPad at launch. These include the likes of comiXology and Robot Comics, among others."~weeklycrisis

BRAIN STORM TECH
"Now that we’ve all seen the iPad and debated its design merits, let’s cut to the chase: This thing will rise or fall on content. If Steve Jobs can get a bunch of cool books and apps on the thing, we’ll want one. If not, we won’t. Where will His Steveness get some of those books? I say the same place he’s gotten so many movies and TV shows for iTunes in the past: Disney."~brainstormtech

CRAVE
"One of the key features of the new Apple iPad is the introduction of Apple's new iBooks application, which promises to be both an e-book reader and a storefront for digital books. This obviously leads to a comparison between the iPad and that other famous e-book reader, the Amazon Kindle. But it seems to me that the only real advantage the iPad might have over the Kindle is that it's in color, which doesn't make much of a difference with simple black-and-white text. But what about books that depend on color, art, and illustration? Indeed, what about graphic novels and comic books? Is the iPad the perfect platform for digital comics?"~crave


COMICS: Making


We've covered different" digital tools", available now here & here, that should be known to any up and coming comic book creator. With the iPad on the way here are a few more that could, hypothetically (we don't have an iPad to test our theory), aid you in creating, marketing, & delivering comics on the iPad from start to finish:

CLICK METER:
Web analytics is important to keep track of your websites. ClickMeter is a link tracking tool that focuses on tracking links for your website so that you can monitor relevant clicks. This app quickly sees which of your links are more efficient in driving incoming traffic to your site.

FLIXTIME:
Creating your own video or photo slideshow is a cool way to share your pictures with friends, family, readers, fans, and sponsors. Flixtime is a web app that lets you create videos from photos in just three easy steps. All you need is to choose your photos, upload a tune, then click render to create your video.

PICMELEO:
There are a number of excellent image editors online and Picmeleo is no different when it comes to ease-of-use and number of features. It is a light-weight photo editor that lets you crop and scale images, adjust color and brightness and apply various filters.






COMICS: Devices




The iPad isn't the only name in the game. There are lots of tablets, some out now, some slated to come out this year, others still in development. The "wordle" above names but a few of them. We've blogged about upcoming tablets here & here on the FBU before. You really can't scan the internet without running into it.

MASHABLE:
"The Apple iPad cat is officially out of its bag, but it’s not going to be the only tablet game in town. There are a number of other devices out there..."~mashable

WIRED:"We’d be naive to think manufacturers were twiddling their thumbs while Apple pimps out its iPad. Sure enough, there could be as many as 50 tablet devices from competing..."~wired

Really the only question unanswered is when and how are DC going to get in the Digital Comics game? Do any of you have any ideas or theories? What about thoughts regarding comics on a "pad" or "slate"? Will the bigger screen enable more of you to enjoy comics digitally?

We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Have a great weekend,

Caine

Good Designs vs Bad Designs

There is a very simple rule in animation...

More lines = More difficult/time consuming to animate

Less lines = Less difficult/time consuming to animate

Simple isn't it??

"More lines" could be replaced in the equation by "more shapes" or "more details".

But to keep the discussion simple... lets agree to use "more lines" in the conversation.

So animating designs with "more lines" will mean more resources needed to animate those designs.

More time.

More manpower.

And ultimately.... more money.

If cost is not an object...  knock yourself out and make your designs as complex and detailed as you wish.

But sadly for most projects.... that is rarely the case.

As time goes by... resources are more and more limited to make animated project.

You are expected on a production to do more and more with less money and less people then the project before.

 And that very reason is one more reason why it drives me crazy that Bruce Timm and his gang keep on redesigning their characters.

They had developed through the years a style that was beautifully streamlined, that was made up of "less line", that was perfect for animation.

But for their direct to DVD projects... they keep on going for designs with "more lines".

They keep on doing the same mistakes that Marvel did with their animated projects in the 90s.



The Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is a perfect example of that. 

And what puzzles me is that Bruce Timm is even aware of all the mistakes that Marvel did.

To quote him from Comicology issue #1:

"But I don't want to build myself up by slamming anybody else, but they (Marvel) make some really wrong creative choices on the shows, everything from the art direction to the voice casting."

So it drives me even crazier knowing this to see the Timm gang repeat the same mistakes.

But I understand that it does not all depend on Timm. They have at least half a dozen producers who seem to want to have a say in the creative process. Listen to the commentaries of the JL: New Frontier DVD movie... you will see a perfect example of that.

And that is without counting the various suits in the Warner and DC offices that most likely do try to also have a say in the process.

For years... the Timm style was a perfect example of a style with "less lines". It was a perfect example of the right way to do animation.

The Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is a perfect example of "more lines" that makes the animators job next to impossible to do properly. It is a perfect example of the wrong way to do animation.

And the crazy part is that it is essentially the same people.

The JL: Crisis on 2 Earths fall somewhere in between.



Then again... I am sure that some people look at the Superman/Batman: Public Enemies DVD and think that it is well made.

I often see people who will look at low end animation production and think that it is well animated.

I foolishly sometimes try to give them a basic animation course to try to explain some of why I think it is poorly animated. ;)

But too often it is a futile exercise.

It is like showing someone a blue wall and asking them what color they are seeing. If they answer you that it is a green wall.... not much you can do to explain to them that what they see is not "green".... it's "blue".

Essentially... if they cannot see it for themselves.... not much you can do to make them see it.

But being a foolish fool... I sometimes try nonetheless to help people see the "blue wall". ;)

But enough design blogs for now.... I am starting to sound like a broken record. ;)

Plastic Man and Phantom Lady

Two things I'd like bring to your attention today. The first is one many of you may be familiar with already, but faithful reader/commenter GACN has suggested I remind everyone that the greatest source of free digitial Golden Age comics on the internet is GoldenAgeComics.co.uk.

Not only can you find an amazing wealth of public domain comics at GAUK, but the messageboards are populated by the nicest fans of Golden Age comics you are ever gonna meet!

The other thing I wanted to alert Golden Age Comic fans to is the recently published Marvel comic The Twelve: Spearhead. This comic features some familiar faces from both the Golden Age and the Bronze Age.

While it induldges in a fair amount of Ultimate Universe styled Ultraviolence, it has quite a number of nice personal moments among the characters. Best of all, it's a self contained story (what a freaking brilliant idea - why isn't this done more often?)

I'll be honest, I wasn't a real fan of some of the JMS The Twelve mini-series. Some of it was interesting, but I find his take on modernizing Golden Age heroes seemed to follow the standard procedure of making them more grim and gritty - you get the feeling that if JMS had been the writer on M.A.S.H. then every episode would have been exactly like the series finale episode.
I'm not opposed to bleak stories but a steady diet of them starts to get boring.

Well, normally, all this would be introductory build up to today's free comics which would be related somehow. No chance on that as the Marvel stuff is not in public domain. However, I do have some awesome new scans I recently found. I think credit for these scans goes to either flatterman or X_Shadow, but I'm not entirely sure (the sfv file didn't have a lot of information in it...) If you know the original scanner of these issues, please drop me a line or post a comment.



[ Plastic Man 24 ]



[ Phantom Lady 01 - Ajax version ]

- Enjoy!