Catching up with Vertigo

Posted by Bob Greenberger on February 14, 2012

One of my goals during the semester break was to complete reading the growing stack of comics on my night table. While it took me longer than I expected, I actually caught up on every periodical on hand. I had been working hard to stay close to Flashpoint then the New 52, but it meant the Vertigo titles were stacking up, forlorn and whimpering.

I like many of the titles and appreciate that all of them have different tones and voices, set largely in their own worlds, allowing for greater personal perspective. The line has waxed and waned and is poised for refreshing in the coming months as a number of their longer running books wrapped up.

The Vertigo books, more than the DCU titles, cry for collection. Some of that has to do with the sometimes erratic publishing schedules but also the fact that none of them are meant to be read in single-issue installments. Just about every book I read was a chapter in a longer arc that was clearly intended to be collected.

Editorially, I object because it makes the books inaccessible. If any DCE titles needed recap pages, it was these books, especially if there were more than four weeks between issues, which happened a lot. As a result, it meant my sitting and reading four to six issues of each title made for a far more satisfying reading experience. Apparently writing done-in-one stories just isn’t the Vertigo model.

Creatively, the most consistent of the books remains Fables which continues to find new and interesting ways to use the fairy tale characters of our childhood. Bill Willingham deserves all his praise for the sustained effort, along with kudos for letting others play along. Chris Roberson did some marvelous work with his Cinderella miniseries. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Me and The Art of Ramona Fradon

Posted by Bob Greenberger on February 7, 2012

Growing up, I always recognized that Ramona Fradon’s artwork was different, curvier and softer in many ways than Gil Kane or Carmine Infantino. But you couldn’t help but like her open, appealing storytelling and characters. Her artistic touch on Metamorpho and later Super Friends were perfect while she was badly miscast on things like Freedom Fighters and even selected issues of The Brave and the Bold.

From the legion of writers and artists working in the first two generations of comics, Ramona was one I had never had the chance to meet or speak with. It was therefore serendipitous when Dynamite Entertainment invited me to edit The Art of Ramona Fradon which is a visual showcase for her work and was an extended conversation between the artist and fellow creator Howard Chaykin. Chaykin spoke with her on numerous occasions and the raw transcript needed to be shaped which is what I did. But in researching her career, I realized there were pockets of work Howard never explored and other gaps that needed filling in. (And speaking of Chaykin, my overdue The Art of Howard Chaykin retrospective is finally on press and should be out in the spring.)

I was tasked with calling her myself and conducting a supplemental interview so I found myself spending about ninety wonderful minutes with Ramona last year. She was gracious and displayed a pretty good memory so those gaps filled in nicely.

It was easy, then, to take the various transcripts and edit it into a pretty coherent chronology of her life and career. The book took time to assemble given the hunt for illustrations from across her career but the work is done and I see it now being solicited in the current issue of Diamond reviews.

If you grew up on her work and want to get to know the artist, I strongly suggest you get this for yourself. I’m certainly proud of having worked on this, honoring Ramona and her work.

After the cut is the complete press release with additional details. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

ElfQuest, Dissed by Warner Bros, Deserves Better

Posted by Bob Greenberger on January 26, 2012

I’ve been a fan of ElfQuest pretty much since the day Phil Seuling visited the Starlog offices with a bunch of swag. He would come up and hang with the publishers but always drop off some product he was handling through his Seagate Distributors and one day there were some issues of this magazine-sized black & white comic about elves that I had really only heard about.

I read the books and were hooked, going on to cover the series in Comics Scene, and befriending Wendy and Richard Pini. They wrote a guest editorial for me, provided me with news as the Starblaze color collections were being produced and got along just swell. We’d see one another at conventions and eventually acquaintances became friends. Once, I ran into Richard on the ferry ride from Connecticut to Lon Island as we both headed for I-Con. I introduced him to Kate and some time later, he sent me a complete box full of ElfQuest trades, which Kate and then her friends devoured.

Years later, DC Comics acquired the rights to ElfQuest, both archival and new material. Since we’d start with reprints, it fell to the Collected Editions department to manage and since I knew the creators and property best, I suddenly became their editor. We had a jolly time together and brought our shared passion to not only turning the classic story into four handsome Archive volumes, but also creating new stories to further the saga. It was a stretch of the rules, but I was allowed to edit the new material as well and that was a rewarding experience, with people who cared deeply about storytelling and clarity in the process.

All along, they had hoped the deal with DC meant the parent Warner Bros would succeed where numerous other studios failed. ElfQuest was ripe for animation but for whatever reason, it never took off. With the success of Lord of the Rings on screen, everyone was scrambling for the next great franchise. New Line bet on The Golden Compass, Twentieth Century-Fox took a gamble with Eragon, and so on. None succeeded. And ElfQuest was left dormant and in time, disinterest among many DC execs meant the property was neglected and eventually the deal ended.

Oddly, about the time DC stopped living in the World of the Two Worlds, the parent company finally bit. They optioned the property and there was great excitement and hope.

This week, it seems, those hopes were officially snuffed out when Warner passed on the property. They were once more focused squarely on Middle Earth, feeling it had the only elves they could want which is odd coming from a company that owns more superheroes than most people can count.

Wendy, Richard, and the elves deserve far better and it’s a real shame Hollywood has yet to figure out how to successfully bring the charming Leetah, dashing Cutter, and their friends (and foes) to a wider audience.

Remembering Joe Simon, Jerry Robinson & Ed Barreto

Posted by Bob Greenberger on December 15, 2011

This has been a lousy week or so for comic book professionals and fans alike. In a very short span of time, we have lost of our earliest pioneers in the field and another fine artist, who I personally enjoyed working with.

Joe Simon was there pretty much at the beginning of the comic book industry. His collaboration with Jack Kirby made the pair stars and perhaps the first creators to be wooed from one company to another with their names emblazoned on covers. Simon was editing Timely’s comic line when he and Kirby created Captain America and created a sensation. DC wooed them away and they leapt after publisher Martin Goodman reneged over promises. They were better treated at DC but even so, they wanted to be their own masters and set out to do comic on their own. As a result, they created the romance comic genre. Simon on his own continued to write, draw and edit for numerous publishers, helping create the only competitor to Mad that had staying power. When he returned to DC in the late 160s and again in the early 1970s, his stuff was distinctive although it finally appeared to be a little out of touch with the current readership.

Simon has never shied away from continuing to mentor others and produce new works, writing no less than autobiographies that shine a light on those early days. That Titan is collecting the Simon & Kirby works is a testament to their variety and creativity.

I personally met Joe on a few occasions but never really got to know him or do any work with him but his loss is still keenly felt.

Jerry Robinson, though, I did meet more than once and we got to know one another during the production of Batman Cover to Cover. He was warm and gracious, willing to tell me stories he’s told countless times before. His work with international cartoonists and fighting to protect their freedom to publish their works is perhaps the least recognized accomplishment in an illustrious career, but could also be considered more significantly than creating the Joker.  Again, this is a man whose career is more than any one character or publisher. Like Simon, his life story was recently recounted for posterity while his history of the field has been rightly republished. He was a gentle giant of a creator, preserving the field’s early days and passing the knowledge forward. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

The Stan Lee Universe is Out

Posted by Bob Greenberger on November 11, 2011