Panel Laughs: GREEN LANTERN: Not A Snowball's Chance In Hal (7)

Arisia and Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern

[via]

YGI Meets The Artisan: Superheroes Done Art Deco

To sate Your Graphic Imagination and its voracious appetite, we're serving up some delicious Art Deco tonight - and it's superhero style, just the way you like it.  Art Deco was big in the United States between 1925 and 1940, making the very popular movement a contemporary of comic books and superheroes, both of which grew up during the same period. Interestingly, Art Deco later became a major influence on the works of Andy Warhol and his fellow Pop Artists, many of whom also drew inspiration from the conventions of comic art and comic book storytelling.

Twenty-four year old Rodolforever is a Mexico-based illustrator and graphic designer who says he's got a passion for comic books. His latest designs - this Art Deco set of superhero movie posters - really capture the look of the Deco movement while portraying their heroes with a modern sensibility. We can't imagine that anyone wouldn't want one of these pieces on their tallest wall; Art Deco Superheroes - or, superheroes for decoration - is aesthetic common sense, plain and simple.  

Find the time to visit Rodolforever on deviant art HERE, where you'll be able to view the rest of his awesome Art Deco series. Among the other designs, the balance of the Batman feature films plus a new one for Iron Man 2. Take a look: your graphic imagination will be pleased!

...7 HOTTEST Comics Properties! ...CASTING LIGHT on BLACKEST NIGHT... The SUNDAY FUNNIES ....NEWS of the BLOG

Dabblers, it's raining outside -- but the heat's turned all the way up at the Springfield Home Office! abbracadabbling's NEWS of the BLOG returns after a two month to-the-day hiatus sporting not just a complete makeover (sorta) but with our new reoccurring Special Report, Top 7 HOT.  Feel the burn!

With help from our friends at icv2.com, we turn our short attention spans this afternoon to the Top 7 Hottest Properties of the Comics Realm. Kind of interesting that only one of our Top 7 represents a direct comic book property -- DC Comics' Blackest Night, the Green Lantern -related crossover event that expanded the character's mythology exponentially and gave fans a storyline where their favorite DC heroes would be fighting legions on zombies -- for months! But most importantly, writer Geoff Johns addressed - and, for DC Comics, at least - offered a solution for one of super hero comics' most dogged complaints: the rationale for how characters return from the dead.   

In the last two decades, DC has killed off and then returned to the living every one of its major characters: Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Aquaman, and per current comics happenings,  the Batman -- sorta.  (Marvel Comics hasn't fared any better, having recently returned Captain America to the land of the living after making real-world headlines with their killing of the 1940's superhero a year and a half ago.)  While the soap opera style deaths of popular heroes can still make for a dramatic (and well-selling) story, their eventual and foregone resurrections become less and less meaningful as time goes on.  Though we'd argue that the killing of Big Name heroes has been more story-centered than ever before, the deaths of characters like Superman and Green Lantern in the past have been the result of their creators reaching creative dead ends. (For Marvel champions like the Avengers' Ant Man, death has been one of the character's morbid ongoing jokes.)

But with Johns' Blackest Night, which plays out its events throughout DC's line of comics, death has been given meaning, and explanations for heroic returns have become integral to story. That's the crucial element here, and Blackest Night's most important characteristic.  Both demise and resurrection of heroes have been imbued with new meaning, and  just as cleverly, the outcome of the blackest night in the DC Universe will also give new opportunity to DC's still-dead characters to once again return to new adventures.  Beyond that, DC will be immediately following up this smash event with a sequel, Brightest Day.  Taking that into account, as well as the cross-merchandising from Blackest Night that has given rise to best-selling action figures, tee-shirts, trade paperbacks and more, all figure in to the rationale for why Blackest Night is our Number One Hottest Property. 

Two collectible card games and three films - including the comics-related Iron Man 2 - make it into the Top 7 Hottest, the most recently released being director Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland from Disney Studios.  The film starring Johnny Depp has earned over $266 million in its three weeks of release, and has beaten records set by Avatar earlier this year. Burton, meanwhile, has already lined up his next two projects -- for one, he'll be teaming up with Timur Bekmambetov, his co-conspirator on the film 9, to produce a film adaptation of author Seth Grahame-Smith's newest book, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  (The writer's other historically-set zombie novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, is already on its way to the Big Screen.)  For the other, Burton will direct a stop-motion animated film based on Charles Addams' original ghoulish cartoon drawings of The Addams Family.   The 3-D movie will come from Illumination Entertainment and Universal Studios, and will bear no connection to former Addams Family movies, the TV show, or the soon to be opening Broadway musical. [via]

We're beginning to understand just how much it really takes to make it into the  Top 7 Hottest, and we hope you are, too.  We also think that's why there's a certain man smiling a big yellow happy-face smile. Did you know who he was when we blogged him yesterday? He's none other than comics writer Alan Moore, father of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and so many other medium-altering works.

While Moore's published comics since the 1986 release of Watchmen, it's Watchmen that redefined what modern comics can be and now, in 2010, what they are. Moore's contribution was to broaden comics' scope, their reach, depth, content, and maturity -- in other words, what is possible in comics, to a great, great extent. Moore's The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic, an entire treatise on magic, its history, and how to employ it (plus a whole lot more), will be published as a 320-Page Super-Deluxe Hardcover by Top Shelf Comics in 2013. (Read all about it HERE.) But it's Watchmen's magical effect - and no coming Magic book -- that still puts Alan Moore among the Top 7 Hottest.

NEWS of the BLOG will continue with Breaking News...next!

Sunday Funnies is back on the comicsblog!! Sure, it's looking a little different in a re-vamped Special Feature format.  But with Funnies have joined NEWS of the BLOG, it's time to embrace change, dabblers.  (What can we say? Corporate takeovers can be a hostile bitch.) We're short but sweet and stayin' that way. This week, we're all about hilarity   straight outta the Top 7 Hottest. Have fun, and stick around for the answer to last week's Funnies' Green Lantern challenge!

Full Frontal

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Off Color

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Light Politics

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Where's Green Lantern?

Answering the question Ryan Dunlavey posed to us last week should be easy for the savvy dabbler (as we like to say): 'Green Lantern' is everywhere -- and every one.  Hal Jordan, a 'Green Lantern', can be found on center stage (as we'd expect), but as Geoff Johns and Pete Tomasi have shown in their respective Green Lantern titles, there are many 'ring-slingers,' and all of them important.  Until next time, viva El Dabbler!

CoMicsMerchant Says He's GLAAD There's No Time Like The Present

As often as we've claimed our day to bring all you comicsblogees brand-new blogs is Friday, we'll make an exception for Saint Patrick's.  And though it may be St. Paddy's, Pay Day (one of our favorite holidays) is so close we can smell the money.  If you can, too,  then this is place you want to be and our resident CoMics Merchant is the dude you need to meet   He's got a knack for the new that'll knock your socks off; he's the merchant with a penchant for spending other people's cash.  Will he succeed putting you in the poor house tonight? Only one way to find out: Let's go shopping - abbracadabbling style!

Just like the awesome Iron Man MacBook Decal we featured a few months ago, this cool Green Lantern MacBook Decal will add a gaggle of green comics color to your MacBook or MacBook Pro. The full-color decal of DC Comics' most famous Green Lantern is perfectly positioned so that your (and CoMics Merchant's) MacBook's apple light gives good glow and makes Hal Jordan's power ring sparkle with emerald energy.  Movie Magic Man's up to his old tricks, but when it comes to Green Lantern, we'll let him work that old black magic anytime he wants. He's even designed the decal to fit 13 inch, 15 inch and 17 inch laptop models -- and we'd bet good money he's got an iPad design waiting in wings.  For just $15, your Mac can become the next member of the the Green Lantern Corps HERE.

Superheroes may rely on masks to protect their identities when on the job, but we all know an MP3 player and headphones serve the purpose even better. Now, Coloud, the 'new name in music', has given us the best of both worlds with these soon to be hot-off-the-assembly-line Marvel Headphones! Coloud's new Marvel-themed headgear features a range of Marvel heroes, from Iron Man and Hulk to Punisher and Wolverine! -- and there's even an X-Men version, so how can we not be psyched? Fans of Daredevil, you're out of luck.  But for everyone else, CoMics Merchant  says Christmas is coming early this year. Get in line and pre-order your MP3's next super-accessory for just $39.99 HERE. 

Alan Cumming - X-Men 2's big-screen, blue-skinned Nightcrawler - hosted the 21st Annual GLAAD Media Awards in New York last Saturday, which you already know is the annual ceremony that honors all forms of media - including comics - which elevate and promote fair, accurate and inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) stories, issues, and people.  Joining fellow GLAAD Award recipients Joy Behar (LMAO co-host of The View) and Ms. Aliens herself, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Kane won this year's GLAAD Award in the Outstanding Comic Book category for her portrayal of Batwoman in the ongoing DC Comics series Detective Comics.

Well, okay, Kate Kane and her alter-ego may not exist (that we know of), but DC's Detective Comics, the longest published series in comics, did earn this year's honor for featuring lesbian superheroine Batwoman in the publisher's flagship title.  That alone wouldn't have been enough for the title to win an award; the book's  creative team of writer Greg Rucka and artist J.H. Williams III  is that magic that's consistently put Detective Comics over the top and earned the series copious amounts of critical attention since the modern incarnation of Kate Kane began headlining the Batman-related book in June 2009.

After nearly a year of headlining Detective, Batwoman nabs GLAAD's award just as she's about to exit the book in order to make room for the return of a back-from-the-past Bruce Wayne.  While a short hiatus may be in her solo future, so's her solo title, which Rucka and Williams will launch later this year. But our CoMics Merchant doesn't see any reason for you to wait to find our what everyone's been so GLAAD that you've been missing. Head down to your local comics shop and find out just how the comic book industry is tackling LGBT issues, as the red-haired spunky Batwoman is about the best example going right now. Insightful -- and a good read with plenty of eye-pleasing pictures thanks to Williams' decorative flare.

With abbracadabbling being the official comicsblog of Present Magic Comics, we're the authority on the power of being present. But living in the moment can be difficult for even the most tempered dabbler among us. Thank goodness for the timely arrival of the CoMics Merchant! He's always watching out for us, and now we'll never have trouble keeping it current thanks to Yanko's Past, Present, Future Watch. The 'PPF' watch is designed to remind its wearer that ‘there is no time like the present’ as it only displays the present time,  with the current time always moving around the dial and always being displayed at the top of the watch in the present time.  

This watch seems like it was tailor-made for followers of our blog, and to all those devoted to the philosophy of Present Magic across the globe. Yanko's tapped into our Flow, but  we almost didn't notice. Our attention's locked on their Fall line-up of watches - three nifty little gizmos that won't tell you what time it is, but what time it will be three hours and twelve seconds down the road.  You know, way too much to look forward to, but just one great $95 wristwatch to buy in the HERE...and now.

SUNDAY FUNNIES: GREEN LANTERN Loses His Green Card

We hope everyone really had a Bat-splitting good time with last week's first edition of our Late-Night Funnies! We missed our deadline this time around, so our apologies for a much abbreviated Sunday Funnies regular edition. But although we do have to be brief, we're not going to leave anyone wanting more. Okay, we take that back -- you will be wanting more, because tonight's just a taste of what to expect this week on the comicsblog.  You may not like everything you'll find in our forthcoming blogs, but it'll all be breaking news, insightful opinion, mixed together with tons of talent and plenty of cool pics.  Of course, we wouldn't do any less for one of our favorite heroes of all time: GREEN LANTERN!!

Ryan Dunlavey's serving up all the funny Sunday enjoyment tonight, and we're honored to have him on the comicsblog. Ryan's a bit subversive, but he's a comics creator and illustrator who's made some siginificant contributions to the industry we all love.  He's won awards for both of his self-published series - reads we know we've learned plenty from - Action Philosophers and Comic Book Comics.  Ryan's also done the artistic stint on M.O.D.O.K.  for Marvel Comics and Diarrhea Dog for Royal Flush - and he turns out a web comic in his free time.   

For this week's Sunday Funnies, Ryan has just one question for all of us: Where's Green Lantern? Do you know? Do you? We sure don't....yet! But we're going to spend the rest of this 'blackest night' looking for him. We hope we do -- but if you don't (losers!) check back Monday when we disclose his top secret location to the world.  Have fun, and let no evil escape your sight! (Remember, when you're on the hunt for ol' Hal Jordan, be sure to right-click the picture to super-size it. Makes these kinds of searches way  easier, don't ya think?)

 

Illustration courtesy of R. Dunlavey 

via his Deviant Art page - here.

Your guess is as good as ours, guys. But if we all have our way, The Sunday Funnies will return in their regular time slot in just seven days! Here's hoping!

Darwyn Cooke's Back with GREEN LANTERN (4 -5/6)

 

Our much-blogged and just-as-much admired Darwyn Cooke ads his touch to two more of abbracadabbling's favorite DC Comics superheroes, Hal Jordan the Green Lantern and the mystical and magical Dr. Fate. Darwyn, we'd love to see them in color!! [via]

 

No1 Comics: Green Lantern in ALL AMERICAN COMICS History

If there's one thing comic book people love, it's comic books with a big #1 on their covers.   A 'Number 1' of anything has always been magical (except when it comes to potty-training, of course) - and where comics are concerned, everyone knows that initial numeral can mean big bucks.   Take for instance Action Comics #1: published back in 1938, this was the comic book that invented superheroes and introduced the world to Superman for the first time.  Given its age, it's also understandably quite scarce - and of the 100 remaining copies of the comic known to exist, 80% of them have been restored to some degree. Those that haven't, well, are valued over $400,000.  In fact, a nearly-perfect copy of Action #1 -- the ultimate rarity and Holy Grail to all collectors -- found in 1966 is now going up on the auction block. If you've got the cash, then we give you full permission to leave -- go right now! - and place your bid.  [For the full scoop and all the Action, go HERE...then spend your half-million HERE.]

Aside from how the fortunate part with their fortunes, Action's value speaks volumes about the mythology* of comic book first issues.  They're (a) worth a lot (b) old and of historical value (c) scarce (d) introduce a major character. Of course, not every major character comes on stage for the first time in a 'Number One' comic book. In fact, today's hero, the very first Green Lantern, is a perfect example of which we speak, but more on him in a second.

'Number One' comic books no longer have the value of their distant ancestors, but they're great places to begin a story,  as most stories usually begin at the beginning. They make great prizes (as every dabbler who played our Winder One-derland last Christmas knows), and they're sweet inspirations for abbracadabbling's latest recurring blog, too. 

*As for why we call it a mythology, the crash of the comics bubble in the late 1980's and early 1990's explains it better than we ever could - more HERE and in a future blog of No.1 Comics!

DC Comics' Golden Age heroes - the oldest and the first of the super men and women, most of whom have modern day successors of the same name - are back in action and as popular  today as they were seventy years ago. While many of these early characters never fully disappeared,  their fifteen minutes of fame had long since been over - until just recently. What's long been true in politics and presidential campaigns now holds for superheroes (and the sales of the comic books they star in): experience - being on the front lines - counts.  Interestingly, the experience and longevity of old superheroes has become meaningful not just in the story lines of younger generation comic book heroes or their titles like Teen Titans and Justice Society of America, but to comics readers as well.  Beyond their worth within DC's fictional-world, the company's first Golden cache of characters are new to younger readers, nostalgia to older ones. For creators, these elder heroes come with enough history to be written well and with enough holes for new stories to now fill.

None of this could be truer than for Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern.  Initially created by Martin Nodell, a young artist who found inspiration in the sight of a New York Subway employee waving a red lantern and a green lantern to conduct train traffic,. Taking that vision and borrowing heavily from the tale of Aladdin, Nodell created a mystical crime-fighter who got his powers from the flame of a strange lamp. Along with his writing partner Bill Finger, Nodell gave Green Lantern his first appearance in All-American Comics #16.

Alan Scott's Green Lantern persona has been much-manipulated over the years, especially as his later-day successor, Green Lantern Hal Jordan, has gained popularity and mythos.  But the modern day Lantern's fame has worked  both ways, too -- with Green Lantern ranking among today's best-selling comic books and a Green Lantern major motion picture due in 2011, renewed interest in the original ring wielder is on the rise.

Reclaimed fame has also been found by Alan Scott Green Lantern's many team-mates of The Justice Society of America, the very first superhero team to be portrayed in comic books.

No better example of the team's current stature could be given than last Friday's two-hour Smallville movie 'Absolute Justice', in which young Clark Kent meets several of the Society members. While mentioned by name, only Green Lantern's ring makes an actual appearance in the episode -- either an Easter-egg or foreshadowing, yet all-together appropriate and nonetheless validating.

The Comic Book Bin has drafted an excellent summary of Alan Scott, The Golden Age Green Lantern's history, which can be found HERE. For fans needing a more detailed biography, we've got that for you HERE. And more information on All-American Comics, which later became part of today's DC Comics, is located HERE. Below, a page from All-American Comics Issue #17 and Green Lantern's second adventure. (Hint: Right-click to make readable!)