2010-2011 The Justice League of America 100 Project charity art by Charlie Adlard

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Given the hubbub over Tony Moore suing Robert Kirkman for some of that sweet Walking Dead money (smart on his part to wait until AMC was firmly entrenched and the matter worth pursing,) I thought it might be a good day to spotlight the artist of nearly a hundred issues of that book, Charlie Adlard.

It really isn't a surprise that Adlard is enough of a Batman guy to place the rest of the team under his wing, but it is a nice surprise to see his JLA all in full figure and looking solid in color. I'm so, so glad Adlard didn't do any hacky Zombie JLA crap like one might expect from Arthur Suydam or Sean Phillips (or not...)

In late 2000, a consortium of comic publishers came up with the idea to create a financial safety net for comic creators, much in the same fashion that exists in almost any other trade from plumbing to pottery. By March of 2001, the federal government approved The Hero Initiative as a publicly supported not-for-profit corporation under section 501 (c) (3).

Since its inception, The Hero Initiative (Formerly known as A.C.T.O.R., A Commitment To Our Roots) has had the good fortune to grant over $400,000 to the comic book veterans who have paved the way for those in the industry today.

The Hero Initiative is the first-ever federally chartered not-for-profit corporation dedicated strictly to helping comic book creators in need. Hero creates a financial safety net for yesterdays' creators who may need emergency medical aid, financial support for essentials of life, and an avenue back into paying work. It's a chance for all of us to give back something to the people who have given us so much enjoyment.


ALL 104 JUSTICE LEAGUE #50 ORIGINALS…NOW ON DISPLAY!

Please enjoy this gallery of ALL 104 original Justice League of America #50 Hero Initiative covers!

Hardcover and softcover versions of a book collecting all the covers will be available in December, 2011. AND all the originals will be auctioned off according to the following schedule:

• December 3, 2011, Meltdown Comics, Los Angeles, CA: Display of all 104 covers and auction of first one-third
• Jan. 20-22, 2012, Tate's Comics, Lauderhill, FL (Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area): Display of remaining covers and auction of second one-third.
• Feb. 17-19, 2012: Orlando MegaCon, Orlando, FL: Display and auction of final one-third.

All covers will be sold via LIVE AUCTION on-site at the venues above. If you cannot attend but wish to bid, proxy bidding is available.
Contact Joe Davidson at: yensid4disney@gmail.com
Deadlines for each grouping are below, and each cover carries a minimum bid of $100.

Special thanks to Firestorm Fan for the notice!

The Flash: Rebirth #2 (July, 2009)

Barry Allen had turned up alive after nearly a quarter century of comics had passed him by while trapped in the Speed Force. Unbeknownst to him, a plan was established amongst his friends and family for just such an occurrence. For instance, his former superior at the Central City crime lab, Captain Desmond Frye, was notified by Iris Allen that her husband was back from his stint in a "witness protection program" and ready to return to duty. How was that possible? "Wonder Woman used her government connections to account for your absence over the last several years... The Justice League assumed you'd want to pick up where you left off." It would have been simple to allow Batman to be the one waving that magic wand, as he'd done to create the Diana Prince identity at the Department of Metahuman Affairs that established those "government connections," but it was nice that the Amazing Amazon got credit for the solid instead.

"Dead Run" was by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver.

1995 DC Comics Wonder Woman Book "Dump"

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This is a post I've been meaning to do for a while now. When I was a retailer at my first shop, I promoted the William Messner-Loebs/Mike Deodato Jr. run pretty hard. "Bad Girls" were in fashion, so sales of the book were climbing steadily. Unfortunately, both creators jumped ship to work on Marvel Comics' The Mighty Thor, and John Byrne took over the book. While I wasn't thrilled with the change, DC Comics provided me with a swell bunch of promotional materials, so I made use of them. The most interesting was this Wonder Woman Counter Dump, a one piece cardboard unit made to display comics directly on a counter top (preferably near the register for maximum POP appeal.)



When left completely flat, the piece is about the length of two comic books, so Diamond Comic Distributors must have shipped them in outer boxes (meaning the meter-ish long boxes that hold two more boxes of two stacks each for a total of four stacks of comics.) I must have folded mine in half for storage, since the Wonder Woman symbol is pulled loose at the perforation (and pretty banged up in the scan as a result.) The backdrop is a metropolitan skyline, but whenever I recall this piece, it's as a dystopian cityscape. John Byrne had decided to move Wonder Woman from Boston to a fictional stand-in for San Francisco called Gateway City, hence the bridge. However, he drew the city as something of a Metropolis/Gotham hybrid with towering skyscrapers and Roman centurion statues that stops dead at the water. My memories then perceive the city as falling apart like the Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes, because of the inorganic divide, muddy coloring, and the erratic, asymmetrical, crude buildings that look like they've been chewed on.



The back of the dump is solid maroon, featuring the stands retailers were meant to pop out to support the dump.

The front section was a shot of Wonder Woman flying against a better colored and rendered set of buildings (note another centurion.) Byrne's following had been thinning in the Image period, so (and I can't imagine such an egotist admitting it) he was clearly experimenting with a busier style reminiscent of Todd McFarlane. While not as pleasing to the eye as his prime material, it was a lot more interesting than the hacked out work he would start churning out for Marvel later in the decade (pioneered in the second half of his three year run on Wonder Woman.) Is it just me, or does she kind of look like Anna Paquin*?

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Diana is wearing a short-lived, simplified version of her costume with extended bracelets and two large stars on her briefs. If you look a bit below her feet, you can see the fold line where the figure was meant to protrude from the backing to hold at best a half dozen comics for display. Despite my criticisms of Byrne, this was a nifty piece, so I never had the heart to punch out the white spaces around Diana and fully assemble it. Besides, this dump was made from cardboard thinner than a backing board, so it would have been torn to shreds within a few weeks. Instead, I folded it face-out and put it inside a sturdy Wizard Magazine dump through about #104. Sales spiked with Byrne's early issues. I probably lost some "Bad Girl" subscribes, but I picked up mainstream super-hero ones, so in the end things evened out. I figure the promotional materials helped a lot!

*An unlikely model, as she was only about 13 at the time. Ugh, I'm old.

The Huntress #3 (February, 2012)

Moretti's yacht docked at Torre Annunziata, and was met by a squad of polizia cars squarely in the gangster's pocket. Huntress looked on. "They're protecting Naples' biggest mobster? This country is totally corrupt." Huntress beat up on some cops with more silly trick crossbow bolts, so that she could sneak aboard the boat to eavesdrop. Shame she didn't have a parabolic device handy, instead of the weaponized Nerf products. This led to Huntress calling her exposition device reporter acquaintance, who connected comments about "the Chairman" to Hassan, an oil sheik from Kufra. All those trafficked girls were another national export of the Magreb [sic] breakaway state. Hassan and his sons were negotiating asylum as their country was being overtaken by the Arab Spring.

In a cute if forced moment, Helena stared down a pair of dogs. "Never was much of a dog person. More of a cat person."

At the ancient ruins of a gladiator arena more valuable than the lives of anyone present, Huntress defaced the historic architecture as a distraction while breaking up a clandestine meeting between young Ibn Hassan and local authorities. Huntress beat up some more stooges, shooting a plain arrow through one guy's arm. Huntress was seized from behind by a large bodyguard wearing a ghutrah, who called himself "the Lion of Kufra." The guy was strong, but a nerve pinch finally took him out.

In an interlude during that match, Ibn Hassan escaped to Moretti's yacht. Meanwhile, the senior Hassan was back in Kufra, screwing dissidents' daughters while working out the final details of screwing his country before screwing off to Italy. Just so everyone knows he's the baddest bad guy...

"Crossbow at the Crossroads: Part Three" was by Paul Levitz, Marcus To and John Dell. It wasn't the exact same plot as #1 like #2 was, but was still very much like whole chunks of the video market for action movies in the heyday of VHS. Huntress fought someone with a bit of sand from a land of sand, but he was nothing special. This mini could be retro cool if it were sexy or funny or amusingly bad-- anything but strictly perfunctory. The art is consistent, though I'm not as high on it, probably because I'm so disdainful toward the dull, thin story being depicted as endlessly spinning wheels.

New 52's Day

• Aquaman #4 (February, 2012) @ Justice League Detroit
• Green Lantern Corps #4 (February, 2012) @ DC Bloodlines
• Stormwatch #4 (February, 2012) @ The Idol-Head of Diabolu

2010-2011 The Justice League of America 100 Project charity art by Ramon Fernandez Bachs

Click To Expand & Enlarge


The was already a good drawing of the Magnificent Seven, but highlighting my two favorites (oh... and Batman... I guess...) makes it that much better.

JLA 100 Project

• Tom Mandrake @ The Idol-Head of Diabolu
• Mike Kunkel @ Justice League Detroit
• Alan Davis @ Power of the Atom

In late 2000, a consortium of comic publishers came up with the idea to create a financial safety net for comic creators, much in the same fashion that exists in almost any other trade from plumbing to pottery. By March of 2001, the federal government approved The Hero Initiative as a publicly supported not-for-profit corporation under section 501 (c) (3).

Since its inception, The Hero Initiative (Formerly known as A.C.T.O.R., A Commitment To Our Roots) has had the good fortune to grant over $400,000 to the comic book veterans who have paved the way for those in the industry today.

The Hero Initiative is the first-ever federally chartered not-for-profit corporation dedicated strictly to helping comic book creators in need. Hero creates a financial safety net for yesterdays' creators who may need emergency medical aid, financial support for essentials of life, and an avenue back into paying work. It's a chance for all of us to give back something to the people who have given us so much enjoyment.


ALL 104 JUSTICE LEAGUE #50 ORIGINALS…NOW ON DISPLAY!

Please enjoy this gallery of ALL 104 original Justice League of America #50 Hero Initiative covers!

Hardcover and softcover versions of a book collecting all the covers will be available in December, 2011. AND all the originals will be auctioned off according to the following schedule:

• December 3, 2011, Meltdown Comics, Los Angeles, CA: Display of all 104 covers and auction of first one-third
• Jan. 20-22, 2012, Tate's Comics, Lauderhill, FL (Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area): Display of remaining covers and auction of second one-third.
• Feb. 17-19, 2012: Orlando MegaCon, Orlando, FL: Display and auction of final one-third.

All covers will be sold via LIVE AUCTION on-site at the venues above. If you cannot attend but wish to bid, proxy bidding is available.
Contact Joe Davidson at: yensid4disney@gmail.com
Deadlines for each grouping are below, and each cover carries a minimum bid of $100.

Special thanks to Firestorm Fan for the notice!

2011 Wonder Woman art by Timothy Green II

Click To Enlarge


Also check out DCnÜ Wonder Woman art by Timothy Green II. She looks like a crazy pissed off Xena-fied bitch, which per Carol A. Strickland, is exactly right. That given, I've passed on buying the first Azz/Chang arc in hardcover, so we'll see if they can sneak into my buy pile a few months on as a heavily discounted paperback...

Timothy Green II

• Aquaman @ Justice League Detroit
• Deathstroke @ DC Bloodlines
• Martian ManHunter @ The Idol-Head of Diabolu

2010-2011 The Justice League of America 100 Project charity art by Mark Bagley

Click To Expand & Enlarge


"We want our book back!" Bagley was drawing the title during its "former sidekicks and c-listers" days, so it stands to reason he might have welcomed Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, Batman and Wonder Woman!

In late 2000, a consortium of comic publishers came up with the idea to create a financial safety net for comic creators, much in the same fashion that exists in almost any other trade from plumbing to pottery. By March of 2001, the federal government approved The Hero Initiative as a publicly supported not-for-profit corporation under section 501 (c) (3).

Since its inception, The Hero Initiative (Formerly known as A.C.T.O.R., A Commitment To Our Roots) has had the good fortune to grant over $400,000 to the comic book veterans who have paved the way for those in the industry today.

The Hero Initiative is the first-ever federally chartered not-for-profit corporation dedicated strictly to helping comic book creators in need. Hero creates a financial safety net for yesterdays' creators who may need emergency medical aid, financial support for essentials of life, and an avenue back into paying work. It's a chance for all of us to give back something to the people who have given us so much enjoyment.


ALL 104 JUSTICE LEAGUE #50 ORIGINALS…NOW ON DISPLAY!

Please enjoy this gallery of ALL 104 original Justice League of America #50 Hero Initiative covers!

Hardcover and softcover versions of a book collecting all the covers will be available in December, 2011. AND all the originals will be auctioned off according to the following schedule:

• December 3, 2011, Meltdown Comics, Los Angeles, CA: Display of all 104 covers and auction of first one-third
• Jan. 20-22, 2012, Tate's Comics, Lauderhill, FL (Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area): Display of remaining covers and auction of second one-third.
• Feb. 17-19, 2012: Orlando MegaCon, Orlando, FL: Display and auction of final one-third.

All covers will be sold via LIVE AUCTION on-site at the venues above. If you cannot attend but wish to bid, proxy bidding is available.
Contact Joe Davidson at: yensid4disney@gmail.com
Deadlines for each grouping are below, and each cover carries a minimum bid of $100.

Special thanks to Firestorm Fan for the notice!