Year-end interview with ComicNews.info

Before I get to the meat of the post today, let me take a brief, but unavoidable digression. 

Go ahead, click on the picture and you’ll see what it is and what it has to do with being a funny book fanatic. Go ahead. Click away. I’ll wait until you see it. I’ve got no comment here, except to say a quick “thank you” to fellow fanatic and good guy John Nee (until recently a VP at DC Comics) for pointing this out through Facebook. You may as well click on it if you haven’t already, I’m not going to spoil the surprise in this text. But feel free to comment below … is this one of the signs of the apocalypse? All I can think is … WHY?

Miscellaneous Monday: Dec. 29, 2008

FANATIC QUIZ QUESTION OF THE WEEK

From the following list of reasonably well-known artists, which TWO (and only two) didn’t do any work on Malibu’s ULTRAVERSE.

Norm Breyfogle, Steven Butler, John Byrne, Howard Chaykin, Joyce Chin, Dave Cockrum, Terry Dodson, Dave Dorman, Dave Gibbons, Cully Hamner, Jim Lee, Rick Leonardi, Rob Liefeld, Aaron Lopresti, Kevin Maguire, Andy Park, George Pérez, Mike Ploog, Darrick Robertson, Walter Simonson, Barry Windsor-Smith, M.C. Wyman.

ANSWER TO FANATIC QUIZ QUESTION FROM LAST WEEK

Creatures of the Id #1 was published in the summer of 1990 by Gary Reed at Caliber Press. The book was the creation of Michael Allred and featured the first appearance of Madman (as Frank Einstein). You can find a brief (?) history of Caliber Comics if you…

CLICK HERE

 

FANATIC BLOG OF THE WEEK

Mike Deodato starts with Santa Claws

I promise, this will be my last tribute to the holidays, but I didn’t want to hold this story until next year. It has been documented a few places, but most people probably don’t know that I wrote the first comic book that was illustrated by superstar artist Mike Deodato Jr.

SANTA CLAWS written by R.A. Jones & me

I’ve already mentioned that my original career choice was comic book writer, even though I’ve never written a complete comic story that was published. While my love of comics and the industry has never wavered, my time at Fantagraphics Books showed me that my talents could best be put to use on the business side instead of the creative side. 

That fact didn’t keep me from getting the itch to write occasionally. So at an editorial meeting at Malibu, I pitched my idea for a little horror story for the holidays called SANTA CLAWS. The editors liked it enough that it got a green light and I sat up nights at home coming up with a plot. Clearly a one-shot idea, it had no real hope of going to series or selling huge numbers.

Dale Keown: “ASK THE DWO” Answers

Another great question for ASK THE DWO this week, this one focusing on Dale Keown and Aircel Comics.

PATRICK asks:

Aircel's SAMURAI #1 (1986)

Dave. I was going through some original artwork and I fell across some original Dragonforce Dale Keown pages, wondered what ever happened to Aircel Comics out of Canada and a wikipedia search or two later and read that Mailibu Comics were gained the Aircel titles through some financial troubles with Barry Blair. What can you tell me about the Aircel books? Dragonforce/Dale Keown (at the time) was one of the main reasons that I wanted to become a comic illustrator. Do you think Samauri or any of those titles will ever see daylight again?

DWO answers:

Your fanatic Christmas gift: Mike Ploog monster action!

Mike Ploog and Christmas will always be connected in my mind. Keep reading to understand the three reasons why.

Classic Ploog: Werewolf by Night #14

Is there anything cooler than a Mike Ploog-drawn monster? I think not. You can probably make a case that there are many things JUST AS COOL, but for something to be MORE COOL is close to impossible. During his long-ago tenure at Marvel Comics, Mike Ploog got a chance to draw a lot of monsters: Man-thing, Werewolf by Night, Ghost Rider and Frankenstein most prominently. For me, when Dracula crossed-over with Werewolf by Night, it was HORROR COMIC HEAVEN.

My friends all find it ironic that my blog (to date)  has primarily been about things that I remember from my careeer in comics. The irony? Well … frankly … I’m infamous for having a pretty terrible, sketchy, random-access memory. So it is at this point that I have to admit I don’t remember the details of how Mike Ploog came to work on an issue of the Ultraverse title SLUDGE with writer Steve Gerber. No one is really surprised.