Weekend Reading: Before Watchmen, Mark Waid, Pogo & Ultraverse

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Reviews, DC Comics, Image Comics, Marvel Comics,

Welcome, weekend warriors! The internets have released a bounty of digital delights, so let's check 'em out!

John Rogers (Leverage) talks about his role in Mark Waid’s digital comics venture, and also talks about digital comics in general. John's a very smart guy, so he's well worth listening to.

One of my favorites, SF author Jay Lake (Rocket Science; Mainspring), is profiled in the Sunday Oregonian.

Over at John Scalzi’s Whatever, author Justin Jordan writes about the trade collection of his Image comic, The Strange Talent of Luther Strode, inspired by those Charles Atlas ads in old comics. After reading about it, it’s now something I need to get.

Heidi nails what’s going on over at Disney, with link to Nikki Finke.

David Brothers nails Before Watchmen. I love the phrase “ethical rot.”

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Before Watchmen, Mark Waid, Pogo & Ultraverse

William Overgard: Steve Roper, Mike Nomad, Rudy and Milton Caniff

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

William Overgard was a writer, novelist, and comic book artist who had a long-running gig on the Steve Roper (later Steve Roper and Mike Nomad) comic strip. His bold line and storytelling owed a lot to his idol, Milton Caniff.

Continuing my little series on cartoonists, here’s what Overgard had to say about his work back in 1964. This is pulled from an oversized saddle-stitched magazine from Allied Publications with the creatively-challenged title These Top Cartoonists Tell How They Create America’s Favorite Comics. It featured an introduction by Beetle Bailey’s Mort Walker and was compiled by Allen Willette. My previous entry on Dennis The Menace’s Fred Toole can be found here.

Here’s Overgard:

Click to continue reading William Overgard: Steve Roper, Mike Nomad, Rudy and Milton Caniff

LARRY DOYLE: I Love You, Beth Cooper and Go Mutants!

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Movies,

Larry Doyle is the writer of one of my favorite “novels about high school” in recent years, “I Love You, Beth Cooper.” It’s about to be a big deal of a movie starring everyone’s favorite super-hero cheerleader, Hayden Panettiere, from Heroes. You can catch the trailer at the “I Love You Beth Cooper” website. The movie opens July 10. Chris Columbus, that Harry Potter guy, directed from Doyle’s screenplay and the movie also stars Samm Levine (from Freaks and Geeks), and Alan Ruck (from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Captain John Harriman from Star Trek: Generations), so already it has geek cred with me.

But comic fans might know Doyle because he’s also written for The Simpsons TV show (and all comic book fans must be fans of The Simpsons; I think it’s a law). He also was the writer hired to revive Walt Kelly’s classic comic strip Pogo in the late 1980s with artist Neal Sternecky.

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