The Phantom: Original Art For Sale!

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

If you've ever wanted to own a piece of original art from The Phantom comic strip, now's your chance.

My pal Terry Beatty is having an art sale and he's listed a bunch of Phantom Sunday strips on his site and they're just beautiful. Terry pencils and inks the strip these days, and he does a great job. The black-and-white comic strips have a very noir quality to them. Even if you have no interest in buying them, run over to Terry's site and have a look at some gorgeous art anyway.

You might just change your mind.

[Artwork: A panel from The Phantom, illustrated by Terry Beatty]

Terry Beatty on The Phantom

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

Do you know who's now drawing The Phantom on Sundays?

Terry Beatty (you might know him from Ms. Tree, or Batman Adventures or Return To Perdition or any number of cool things).

His first Sunday debuted on January 29th, written by Tony DePaul and colored beautifully by an old pal of mine, Tom Smith.

It's not yet a permanent gig, but Terry posted on his blog that King Features Syndicate "is quite pleased with my first five Sunday strips."

Good for Terry, good for The Phantom, and good for the fans. That first strip of his is killer.

[And, of course, if your newspaper doesn't carry The Phantom, please contact them and request that they sign up.]

[Artwork: The Phantom by Terry Beatty, © King Features Syndicate]

Weekend Reading: Superman, Archie, Talbot, Niles & Scrooge

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Movies, DC Comics,

Is this a superhero-free weekend at the movies? X-Men First Class was last week, next week is Green Lantern. Are we mask-free for a few days?

No, because the powers in Hollywood have decided there can be no nerd gap in the relatively short summer season and have given us Super 8.

Go see it right now, and then come back and click some links:

Superman: If you’re at all interested in the new DC reboot coming up, legal eagle Jeff Trexler at Comics Beat has a fascinating post about the wrangling that’s gone on between the Superman creators and DC’s corporate parent over the years and how it’s affected publishing decisions.

Superman II: And Daniel Best at 20th Century Danny Boy unearths a great selection of early correspondence between various DC Comics people and Jerry Siegel. It’s great reading.

Superman III: Comedy writer Ken Levine (M*A*S*H; Almost Perfect; Volunteers) weighs in on the new Superman.

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Superman, Archie, Talbot, Niles & Scrooge