Top Ten Comic Characters

Wow, this was alot harder than I expected and it took me a few days to finalise this list which surprises even me by some of the characters included and omitted. I perused some encyclopedias and my accessible comics to make ensure I considered as wide a range as possible. I found that alot of the characters I liked were purely because of their costumes or I had liked them in the past but they're so messed up now, I've lost much of the fondness I have them.

Considered male characters included Booster Gold, the Marvel and DC Captain Marvels, Captain Britain, Cypher, Doc Samson, Dr Fate, Gambit, Guardian (from Alpha Flight), Havok, Jesse Custer (Preacher), Nighthawk and Wonder Man while females rejected included Chance Falconer, Power Girl, Rogue, Saturn Girl and Supergirl. While I read very little superhero stuff now, there was still no candidates from other fare I've enjoyed (such as Bone, A Distant Soil, Aldebaran/Betelgeuse, etc) so with no further ado, here's my personal top ten:

10: Hank Pym. While Marvel completely cocked up the character with that stupid spousal abuse crap in the early 80s, I always enjoyed Pym as Ant-Man, Goliath and especially Yellowjacket. His character has been rescued somewhat over the last decade and I wish he was allowed to show the potential he holds as a Richards/Stark/Banner-level intellect.

9: Nick Fury. I never liked war stories so Sgt Fury held no interest for me but as Marvel's premier spymaster, Fury has proven to be tough as nails and always one step ahead of the enemy.

8: Nova. I loved Nova as a kid (not realising for years that he was a basic Green Lantern/Peter Parker hybrid) and was really happy when he returned in the New Warriors. Despite his current success as Marvel's premier space hero, my favourite treatment of him was during the second year of New Warriors.
7: Rick Jones. Loyal and brave (but often flawed), Rick has moved beyond the eternal sidekick role (to Hulk, Cap, Cap Marvel and Rom) to shine as a character in his own right. The recent Peter David Captain Marvel series relied less on the title star than Rick, currently running around as the idiotic A-Bomb (will somebody please just stop Jeph Loeb?)
6: Pre-Crisis Superboy. Although I appreciate his art now, I hated Curt Swan's Superman stories as a kid as he seemed so fuddyduddy and old. Then I discovered Superboy: a younger, fresher take on the character who palled around with a bunch of cool pals in the future. The pre-Crisis version remains a fond favourite, despite me having no particular affection for his older counterpart.

5: Blue Beetle. I had picked up the first six or so issues of his DC revival but of course it wasn't until Giffen & DeMatteis worked their comedic magic that Blue Beetle (together with best pal Booster Gold) blossomed into a beloved fan favourite character. I can live with the horror of Countdown To Infinite Shite due to the unofficial fact that's running around alive after being rescued in a Booster Gold arc.


4: Donna Troy. There's many attractive heroines but as a kid, the New Teen Titans was one of the first superhero titles to really invest its characters with personalities and Donna Troy developed into a warm, independent person loved by everybody without ever being too sweet and saccharine. Afflicted with a confusing post-Crisis history, the character remains true to the personality created by Wolfman and Perez.

3: Jack Knight. I hold the Starman series as one of the best superhero series ever, a complete career of a reluctant hero running throughout its run, Jack developing from a slightly rebellious and selfish but likable character into a true hero, maturing to heal longstanding family wounds before retiring to start his own family. (I'm looking forward to the upcoming Starman#81 even if Jack's not in it!)
2: Wally West. First as Kid Flash and then as the first protege to officially take on their mentor's role (as the Flash), I grew up with Wally as he developed from something of a right wing hothead to a more laid back Lothario and into the assured family man that he is today. I always loved the Kid Flash and Flash costume though I'm not sure about the new post-Flash:Rebirth mask, but he remains a favourite character and the most interesting Flash.
1: Cyclops. I've banged on about why I like Cyke before so it's no surprise that he came in at #1, the only easy choice in the whole top ten.

Anime Shun

Well, TV's still a no go zone for the most part (although I still enjoy the new Enterprise shots in Star Trek:TOS and found myself quite getting in to Misfits) so, exacerbated by the snow here and the lack of concentration to read anything substantial, I've been forced to look to mt DVD collection for entertainment.

I found myself enjoying Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro and Howl's Moving Castle from the famous Studio Ghibli company in Japan and mostly enjoyed other works of theirs I managed to catch on E4 (and other than the original Solaris ferreted away in the middle of the night, when was the last time E4 had any interesting new movies on?). As a result, I picked up four Ghibili movies from a cheapie DVD shop in Wolverhampton as you can usually never find them under £10 each. I later searched on eBay and took a risk by ordering a boxset of 18 Ghibli movies from Malaysia. Pirating is rife in that territory but the pic supplied made me hope it was worth the gamble: for the just slightly less than the price of a single UK Ghibli film, this boxset contained 18!

Luckily, it seems to have payed off as the four-disc set is great (and not a pirate!). The 18-film set contains every Ghibli release (other than the comic-strip based My Neighbours The Yamadas, which I wanted to avoid as it looks so ugly anyway) but includes studio founder Hayao Miyazaki's pre-Ghibli films LupinIII: the Castle of Cogliostro and Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind, right up to the latest film, Ponyo, which is the only film on disc four.

The other films are spread out across the first three discs and contain multiple dialogue and subtitle tracks. Due to the amount of data crammed onto each disc, the prints used are not always as crisp as the UK prints but are generally just as good. With a Disney film, you know what the tone will be but not so with Ghibli. There are the child friendly fantasies like Ponyo, Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbour Totoro, slightly more mature fantasies like Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle, adventures like Laputa: Castle In The Sky and Porco Rosso and non-fantasies like Only Yesterday, I Can Hear The Sea and the moving Grave of the Fireflies (a film you know ends badly from the opening sentence but is still powerful at the end).

I found myself surprised by how much I enjoyed Nausicaa (mainly because I always associated it with the intolerant food-labelling Fabio Barbieri, who loved it which put me right off) and Ponyo (which just seemed kiddie fare) but I still can't get into Castle of Cogliostro, a 1979 crime caper than tears at my patience. I doubt I'll sit through the testicle-morphing of Pom Poko again though as it swiftly runs out of direction).

For anybody who thinks anime is all cyberpunk or Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh/Gormiti /Beyblade competition arena bash 'em ups, this is a great way to sample some of the lesser known but more widely respected animation from Gojira's homeland...

Free Beer!!!

Earned some free beer today as a thanks for doing a (full colour Copic marker) pic for somebody at work, which I won't post as I don't really like the results...but you can't argue with free beer!

Posted above though is a piece I AM fairly happy with (or as happy as I tend to be with my stuff). I was asked to do a combined family portrait which is to be copied and given as Xmas gifts to the relevant family members. I love drawing people so sounded fun: Carolina e-mailed me a bunch of refs and I was off...

I got the refs late on Sunday afternoon and the failing light by that time presented a challenge. As this was for a few people, I wanted to take my time and get this right. I had the visual in mind (after being given the basic concept) and began with the heads: the likenesses would take the most time, everything else being relatively easy. After doing Carolina and her boyfriend Neil's heads, I realised I wasn't going to have room and had to rethink things.

Starting over, I pencilled, inked and grey-shaded with the Copics each head individually. I managed to do about five before the failing light meant I had to switch on the light and abandon work due to shadows from the light ahead.

The next day, I came up with a way around this: I lay my pad on my lightbox and used the light from that to balance out the shadows from above and voila, I could draw again! It wasn't all easy though as the refs were jpegs so I threw them on a memory stick to put into my digital photo frame so that I could comfortably work from that rather than the PC monitor. Keeping the frame in position was tricky but I eventually completed all the heads...

...except one, which I had missed as I had misunderstood the request so I stopped work to add the extra head onto the memory stick to work from. Once this was finished, I roughed in the sledge, pencilled the bodies, inked them all and finished with the dog before completing the whole thing with a quick gloss over with the markers.

I wasn't sure if Carolina would like the finished pic as I felt some likenesses were better than others but thankfully I think she did. Job done and another possible two request for the office to follow this weekend (the thought of which I shudder at as I may have to brave the Xmas shopping hordes, brrr!!)

Xmas Time, Mistletoe & Whine

Well, the festive season is well and truly upon us and I'm starting to have the same ambiguous feelings about it that I do each year.

Religious origins aside, I like the basic modern concept of Christmas: a time to relax and unwind with those you want to be with and forget your everyday worries for the briefest of moments. I enjoy the process of picking out gifts (though I do it early enough to avoid the hell of Xmas shopping in December) and the glimmer of kitschy decorations (not that I'd have them at home) ((though I have to confess to the guilty pleasure of wandering around town earlier this week in my lunchbreak with Carolina as she searched for Christmas chintz to deface, um decorate our workspace)) but for some reason, I always get depressed at this time of year.

Maybe it's because of the constant barrage of images of fun and cosiness, but I always end up feeling isolated and kind of fed up with the whole thing by the time the 25th eventually rolls out. Maybe this is why the season tends to be the suicide peak of the year: or maybe it's just the annual churning out of Morecambe & Wise, The Snowman, So Here It Is Merry Christmas and It'll Be Lonely This Christmas...

Random Roundup Resurrection

Blimey, it's been a while since I posted. Still getting my head around some personal issues so not been up to too much so here's some random happenings...

While I await the returns of Lost, Heroes ans Smallville (look above for some of the characters in the newly promoted JSA Smallville telemovie: Dr Fate looks excellent!), some minor channels have been rebranded. I can now catch two episodes a night of Two And A Half Men on Viva, Moonlighting on CBS Drama and Star Trek on CBS Action (Sunday marathons!). This is the original and best series but with new FX shots, mainly of the Enterprise and the planets it orbits. Some of these shots are stunning but they still have dodgy phaser effects and the retro hairdos/fashions (although sometimes this works, as Sally Kellerman is still stunning in a 40-year old episode). Updating these effects is a weird decision as a result of this, but I'm just happy enjoying the Enterprise shots (though I prefer the movie Enterprise).

One other show that I'm watching is E4's Misfits, the Heroes-meets-Skins mashup of a bunch of youths serving community service inheriting superpowers after a storm. I wasn't sure if I was going to like something where all the main characters would be ASBO horrors but I've found it quite enjoyable and unexpectedly laugh out funny in places. Not a great show but fun and well-produced so I'll stick with it.

Not been doing much drawing but have done a few requests here and there, like the one above. I've become quite smitten with the grey Copic markers I've been using (although the main one I use has already run out). I wouldn't use them for everything but I like the results you can get with them. I plan on getting some flesh tones and doing a couple of test headshots (Erica Durance and Kristen Bell, I'm considering you!)...

I'm finding I've been buying less and less from the big comic publishers and more stuff slightly off the beaten track. I still can't get into manga as a whole but enjoyed the two books by Sonia Leong that I picked up at BICS and have been picking up a few more Cinebook editions after BICS and seeing as how they are now prominently stocked at Nostalgia in Brum. The high business action shenanigans of Largo Winch have been enjoyable but future editions will be single volumes. Currently each edition contains two volumes, one setting up a threat and the second resolving it, so spreading the individual volumes in separate editions may affect how effectively they read. Still, I've got the next edition of my fave Cinebook series, Aldebaran/Betelgeuse, waiting for me to read on my day off this week...

Blowin' Through

Well, it's been a while since I posted, what with , well, I won't get into "what with" and my concentration level is woefully low at present but here's some stuff I've done lately for one project or another...

Gordon's Alive!!!

Way back at the dawn of time--which for me was the 70s--I was definitely a kid of the Star Wars generation. Only 6 when it came out, the space opera phenomena loomed heavily over my childhood and so did its' influence. In the wake of its success, the BBC began regularly screening the great Flash Gordon serials starring Buster Crabbe and the movie came out the same year as the Empire Strikes Back. The Filmation Flash Gordon animated movie and series aired around the same time so I grew up with a great affection for the character. However, like many fans of today's popular comic characters, I had never read any Flash's printed adventures.

I knew Flash's original Alex Raymond-drawn strips were considered classics but were unavailable to me back then. I enjoyed Dan Jurgens' 1989 Flash Gordon miniseries for DC but the title sequence of the live action movie, featuring lovely clipped Raymond images set to that infamous thumping theme tune, made me want to search out the original strips.

Then in 2003, Checker Books started a seven volume set of hardcover full colour landscape format reprints of Raymond's work on the series on glossy stock, starting from the strip's debut in 1934 to its creator's departure in 1944. I snapped the first volume straight up and it has to be said that I was fairly disappointed. These crude pages had none of the grace I saw in the movie title sequences and the plots became quickly formulaic (Flash and co stumble into a new domain, lead uprisings against Ming while fighting bizarre monsters , Dale becoming jealous of any woman glancing at Flash, etc) but there was enough improvement throughout the first back that I continued with the second. Thankfully I did because when Raymond hit his stride in later years, the art becomes beautiful.

Despite becoming more popular than the Buck Rogers strip that it was created to directly compete with, the Flash instalments do suffer when read in chunks rather than in weekly instalments. They were never meant to be read this way though as they were created as disposable entertainment before the strip hit big.

Daily strips followed for Flash intermittently but his main home was the Sunday sections. The strip continued happily enough following Raymond's departure but received a real shot in the arm when famed Captain Marvel Jr artist Mac Raboy took over in 1948. In the wake of the Checker books, I sought out Dark Horse's four-volume set of black and white reprints of Raboy's run, averaging five years worth in each edition. To be fair, the stories are less clunky than the earlier episodes but become similarly repetitious as Flash leaves Mongo (Raymond first had Flash leaving Mongo to temporarily return to earth during World War II) and joins a space agency to travel across the galaxy. As with Raymond's work, Raboy's work elevates the strip into something graceful and beautiful and even though Raboy's final episodes were not as polished as his earlier work (the artist continued working on the strip until he succumbed to cancer in 1967), it's still pretty great throughout.

When George Lucas was developing Star Wars, he clearly based Han Solo's design on the Al Williamson spacemen in the 1950s EC sci-fi comics (which themselves often featured likenesses of Buster Crabbe as the hero). Williamson's work on the Empire Strikes Back adaptation was a revelation to me, his naturalistic style in stark opposition to the Marvel house style and dodgy Carmine Infantino that had preceded it. Williamson had been a huge fan of Flash Gordon and loved drawing those types of strips the best.

As a fan of both Williamson and Flash Gordon, I was chomping at the bit for Flesk's recent collection of every piece of Williamson Flash Gordon art, from the King comics of the 60s, rare advertising and portfolio art, the sumptuous adaptation of the 1980 movie and the 1990s Marvel miniseries. Reprinted on glossy large format pages, the art is a joy to behold, especially the art for the movie adaptation: shot directly from Williamson's originals, the ornate panel ,bleeds carry on further than the crudely printed originals issue allowed and the high quality scans even enable the reproduction of the ink washes used instead of featuring solid blacks, feeling like a true reproduction of the original art and an insight into a master's finished work.

All of this has been leading to the recommendation that if you truly appreciate comic art, do yourself a favour and buy the Williamson Flash Gordon book and you won't be disappointed (though don't expect much of the scripts!)