Terry Moore

Terry Moore is the writer/artist mainly known for the long running black and white series "Strangers In Paradise." For the majority of its run Terry published the series himself. Image published it briefly before Moore took it back under his Abstract Studios imprint to publish himself. I admire what Terry did with SiP, but I ended up not as a big fan of the series at the end as I was at the start.

His newest creation is "Echo" another self published black and white comic. This comic is fast becoming one of my favorites. From what I've read he's structuring it to last around 18 issues. I find myself eagerly awaiting each new issue. And one thing he seems to have been able to do is keep up on a schedule for the book, which a lot of other self publishers still have trouble doing.

Terry is also taking over the writing chores on "Runaways," a series published by Marvel that Brian Vaughn created and more recently Joss Whedon wrote. I usually wait for the hardback volumes of the series to come out, I have the first two and thought the series really good. I'll be looking forward to Terry's take on the characters.

And finally he is doing "Spiderman Loves Mary Jane" comic. Which I might just have to check out, since he seems to be on such a roll lately.

Preacher and Swamp Thing Coming In Hardcover

From San Diego Comic Con: Preacher and Swamp Thing will be collected into hardback reprints. Hopefully they'll do like they are currently doing with the Starman collection. This is great news, as I've been holding off on buying the trades hoping that something like this would happen.

Impact Comic Characters Back

From San Diego Comic Con: DC Comics announced it would be bringing the old Archie Comics superheroes into the DC Universe. Actually this will be DC's second attempt at doing something with these characters, after their failed !mpact line from years before. J. Michael Straczynski will be introducing the characters in the pages of The Brave and the Bold.

Who Will Rule Again

From San Diego Comic Con: Ok, I was wrong. The "Who Will Rule" teaser was about Vulcan and the Shi'Ar against Black Bolt and the Inhumans in a new mini series War of Kings.

Cloak & Dagger Return

From San Diego Comic Con: Valerie D’Orazio better known for her blog Occasional Superherione will be writing a new Cloak & Dagger mini series. I've never been that big a fan of this duo but I really enjoy Val's blog and look forward to seeing what she does with the story.

Legion Coming To Smallville

From San Diego Comic Con: Writer Geoff Johns will be bringing the Legion of the Super Heroes from the 31st Century to ours in the television series Smallville. This is interesting, Smallville is one of my favorite shows and I have enjoyed the way that they have been introducing other super hero characters into the show.

Everyone figures that this series will end when Clark finally becomes Superman. How about turning it into Metropolis than and showing his start as Superman? I really hate to see this show go off the air and I fear it's closing in on its run.

Gaiman On Batman

From San Diego Comic Con: Neil Gaiman is going to write a two issued Batman story entitled "Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader?" It is slated to come out at the start of next year. Andy Kubert will do the artwork. This follows shortly after the ending of the current Batman R.I.P. storyline, so does it mean anything?

Whedon and Cast Talk Dollhouse

From San Diego Comic Con: Nothing really new to report about Joss Whedon's new show Dollhouse, but he was there with Eliza Dushku (‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’) and Tahmoh Penikett (‘Battlestar Galactica) to talk about the show. I just wish I had been there as this is the show that I'm most looking forward to in the coming season. It will be on Fox in early 2009. Let's hope Fox gives it more of a chance than it gave Firefly.

Milestone Joins DC Universe

From San Diego Comic Con: Milestone Comics will merge itself into the DC Universe. The Milestone Comics were created in the 90's by Dwayne McDuffie, Christopher Priest, Denys Cowan, Michael Davis and Derek T. Dingle. Milestone Media was a separate company but DC Comics published the new series. At that time the Milestone universe was also a separate universe from DC, but they still had a few cross overs. Now the Milestone Universe will be part of the DC Universe.

Vertigo Crime Imprint

From San Diego Comic Con: Vertigo Comics will publish a sub imprint called Vertigo Crime that will feature black and white graphic novels in hardcover. The first two titles announced were Dark Entries by writer Ian Rankin and Werther Dell'edera as the artist. The next one is Filthy Rich by Brian Azzarello and Victor Sankin.

Kevin Smith on Batman

From San Diego Comic Con: DC Comics announced that Kevin Smith will be doing a Batman mini series featuring a former Green Arrow villain that Smith created when he worked on that series,
Onomatopoeia.

Barry Allen Returns As Flash

From San Diego Comic Con: DC Comics announced that they are bringing Barry Allen back as the Flash in a mini series entitled Rebirth. The creative team is Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver, the same team responsible for Hal Jordon being brought back as Green Lantern. Where that leaves Wally West they wouldn't say. I'm not really sure how I feel about this. I'm not reading too many DC Comics now, but I will probably be interested in at least picking up the first issue of this mini series and see how it goes.

New On Going Agents of Atlas Series

From San Diego Comic Con: Marvel announced a new ongoing Agents of Atlas series to be written by Jeff Parker.

Who Will Rule?

From San Diego Comic Con: Marvel's teaser for their next Big Event was the tagline "Who Will Rule?" From what little they said of it sounds like they're gearing up for a battle with the Gods of the Marvel Universe.

Darwyn Cooke Adapts Parker

From San Diego Comic Con: Darwyn Cooke is going to adapt the Parker crime novels by Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) for IDW Comics. The four novels he is adapting are The Hunter (aka Point Blank), The Man with the Getaway Face, The Outfit, and The Mourner. The first issue will come out in late 2009.

Martha Washington Omnibus

From the San Diego Comic Con it was reported by the artist Dave Gibbons that the entire Martha Washington storyline plus extras will be collected in a one volume omnibus. Martha was a character created by Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons for Dark Horse Comics in 1990. The first mini series was Give Me Liberty, followed by Martha Washington Goes To War, than a one shot called Happy Birthday Martha Washington, followed by another one shot Martha Washington Stranded In Space and than a final mini series Martha Washington Saves the World and ending with a one shot Martha Washington Dies. All this plus extra art and notes from Dave Gibbons will be included in this new edition.

News From San Diego

San Diego is where the big news is announced from the Comic world. Over the next however many posts I will talk about what I find exciting from the world of San Diego and what I find interesting that they've talked about. Don't look for a complete round up of news from the con here, you can go to Newsarama or CBR for that. I just want to point out what I will be looking foward to.

San Diego Comic Con

This is the weekend for the San Diego Comic Con. The last one I went to was 2002. The first one I went to would have been in the late 80's. I remember the year that the Chicago Con (the real Chicago Con, before Wizard bought it) was just a weekend before San Diego. I ended up going to Chicago and than spending the week inbetween with my friend and artist Terry Pavlet and than heading to San Diego. That was the year that I did the Christmas issue of Quantum Leap for Innovation Comics. George Broderick, another friend, was an editor there. In fact I think I was the one that alerted George to the fact that there was a comic book company in his neck of the woods in Wheeling West Virginia.

The first San Diego Con I went to was when I met Sam Kieth. We had talked before, on the phone, but met in person for the first time. We shared a room with Wendi Lee and her boyfriend at the time, another artist that did some work for Eclipse Comics (I'm sorry I can't remember his name now). We were staying at the Hotel San Diego, not exactly in the best area of town. If I remember right across the street was an area where the local winos hung out.

That first con George Lucas came to the con. He had the con people put a different name on his name tag, like that would hide the fact of his identity. Everyone at that Con knew what George Lucas looked like. But at that time the Con wasn't invaded by Hollywood like it is now. You'd see a few Hollywood types, but they were there mainly as fans, not pushing anything. At that time Hollywood, like most of the rest of the world, didn't think appearing at a comic convention would help push anything.

To me the first cons seemed big, but compared to what San Diego is now they were small. The last one I went to six years ago was huge. It's interesting, it can be fun, but it's not a comic book convention anymore. It's a lot more than that.

Zot

Zot was written and drawn by Scott McCloud, better known now as the guy that wrote those books about comics, back in the '80's and published by Eclipse Comics. The first ten issues were in color, than the series went to black and white. I remember buying the comic when it first came out and liking it. Eclipse, Pacific, First, all these were new companies, opening the comic field up to an exciting time.

This book collects all the black and white issues of Zot that were written and drawn by Scott McCloud. The first ten, color issues, are not collected. McCloud refers to them as his learning curve for Zot. And there were two issues of a fill in drawn by Chuck Austen that is not included. But what is included is some great comics.

This is a great month for comic collections. American Flagg is finally supposed to come out. Bill Loebs' Journey is also supposed to be out this month.