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--randy

What I’m reading and/or Watching

I picked up a few books at the shop last week…I was hoping to pick up some stuff this week as well but nothing new caught my eye.

Goon #20. Honestly, I go on about this book so much it’s getting creepy… this book is the cat’s pajamas.

BPRD 1946 #1: I’ve been picking up BPRD off and on for a while now. Amazingly, I’ve never read an actual Hellboy Comic… I’ve got to get around to picking up a trade. Anyway, BPRD 1946 is drawn by my former Marvel Bullpen buddy Paul Azaseta… he’s an amazing artist who should be on a major full-time gig… check this one out if you can. He’s like Alex Maleev without the Photoshop. Which is a good thing.

JLA Classified #20. I picked this up on a whim just because it was draw by John Byrne and written by Roger Stern. I know people tend to like Byrne’s “old stuff”, but when I flipped through this one at the shop Superman and Wonder Woman were fighting a big ass monster. So I figured it couldn’t be all that bad. I gotta say, after reading it I was pleasantly surprised. It was a nice old-school story with a bunch of action. I’ll pick up the next issue.

And I picked up the Batman book I lettered. Just to show off. ☺

Stay tuned.
--Randy

Books I Lettered But Didn't Read Until Now Review #4

Peter Parker Spider-Man Volume 4: Trials & Tribulations
Writer: Paul Jenkins
Artist: Mark Buckingham

In this latest installment of “Books I Lettered But Didn’t Read Until Now” Reviews I give you Peter Parker Spider-Man Volume 4: Trials & Tribulations. Written by Paul Jenkins with art by Mark Buckingham.

The first story in this trade titled: “Heroes Don’t Cry” was lettered by Comicraft, a solid story that harkens back to Roger Stern’s classic “Kid Who Collects Spider-Man” from Amazing Spidey #248. (1984) Jenkin’s version tells the story of a young African-American boy named Lafronce. Lafronce is a from a broken inner-city home and it’s his fantasy that he’s Spidey’s secret sidekick that gets him through seeing his mother drugged out of the couch. It’s a solid story with good heart and a nice albeit predictable ending.

The second story in the book was a really fun tale called: Snow Day. An old-school Spidey vs. The Vulture story… if you see this single issue (#37) in a 50-cent bin, pick it up, you’ll enjoy it.

After Snow Day story yours truly takes over the lettering chores.

As I look at my work in the book I can see how I was transitioning from being a pretty crude, inexperienced letterer to one who was beginning to figure this whole lettering thing out. It was around this time that Chris Eliopoulos was brought into the now defunct Marvel Lettering Department to whip us into shape. I was by far the letterer with the least experience in the department and looking back it was the best thing that ever happened to me as a letterer. Chris really took my work to more professional level.

My first story was a really odd one called “The Big Question”. This is the one story you can skip. It involves yoga. Go figure.

The trade rounds out with some good stories about Peter dealing with Aunt May now knowing that he is Spider-Man. Although with Brand New Day or One New Day or whatever they’re calling that train wreck over there now, I don’t know if Aunt Man knows he’s Spidey anymore. Nevertheless, Jenkins did a really nice job of taking the reveal and spinning a nice yarn about Peter and May’s relationship. He mixed in a few flashbacks to great Spidey stories and threw in some good action as well.

But really for me, the highlight of this book was the art by Mark Buckingham. He really draws a great Spidey with a clean old-school look.

All in all this trade was a decent read. So if Marvel’s current treatment of your favorite wall-crawler leaves your scratching you head. Pick this one up.

--Gent

New Comix in '08

Pilfered this from Dean Haspiel’s always-great blog…. It’s a link to Heidi MacDonald’s “The Beat” blog where she got a bunch of creators from all walks of comicdom to plug what they’ll be up to as well as what they’re looking forward to in the New Year. Check it out HERE.

As for me…. I’m looking forward to getting back in the saddle and getting some new LazyComix!! Seriously I suck, I really need to get going, but hey, it’s called LazyComix for a reason. As for other folk’s work Jacob Chabot told me there will be another Volume of The Mighty Skullboy Army…. There’s some new stuff coming from Jeffery Brown that I’m sure will kick-ass. The best mainstream comic on the stands in All Star Superman so I’m hoping that’ll continue to come out this year. I’m digging Bendis’ Powers right now…. Of course there’ll be more of The Goon from Eric Powell as well. Plus who knows how many surprises.

Stay tuned.
-Gent

Happy Birthday Stan Lee!

Happy 85th Birthday today to “The Man” himself… Stan Lee! What is there to say about Stan that hasn’t already been said? He’s the architect of the Marvel Universe. Sure he had some help along the way from legends like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, but at the end of the day it was Stan’s enthusiasm that hooked people on Marvel Comics.

As a reader, he made you feel as if you were part of a secret Marvel club. From the nicknames in the credits (Jack “King” Kirby, “Jazzy” John Romita, “Happy” Herb Trimpe) to the amazing “Bullpen Bulletins”, reading a Marvel Comic in those days was a blast. I’d often flip to the Bulletins and Letter’s pages before I’d read the actual comic.

So go on out and read a good ol’ Stan Lee comic. Hell, Stevie Wonder could throw a cat in a comic shop and hit a dozen books that either written by Stan or created by Stan.

Thanks, Stan… here’s to 85 more.

--Gent

Goings On

Boy, life sure gets in the way of this little mindless comic blog. In the past few weeks, on top of moving I switched jobs and starting freelance lettering again. So while things got crazy for a bit they’re settling in again.

As you can tell by the previous post I’m letting for DC Comics and I’m loving it. The change of characters and just general atmosphere really reinvigorated lettering for me. As I said earlier, I didn’t expect to get all jazzed about working on Batman but it was really one of the coolest gigs I’ve ever had. Since then I’ve worked on Detective Comics and Gotham Underground as well. This weekend I lettered Booster Gold. A book I know nothing about but it just the act of working on something new makes a huge difference.

In other news I picked up Ultimates Volume 3 #1 last week. New Joe Mad art. Can’t lose, right? Wrong. Mad is better than ever but the coloring just ruined the book for me. It was so bad I was startled by it’s awfulness. So bad I couldn’t believe they let the book go to the printer looking like a dark, muddy and completely overpowering mess. As a letterer you accept taking a backseat to the rest of the team. People don’t buy books for lettering and they don’t buy books for coloring either. People are buying that book for Joe Mad… not for the coloring. I’m hoping they’ll release a penciled version of the book, but we’ll see. Maybe next issue will be toned down a bit.

If you haven’t read all of Randall Issue One, you can read it in it entirety here… go check it out if you missed it over at Pixelstrips.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned… more NYComix are in the works as well as new Randall.

--Randy

I'm Batman.

For 7 years I lettered primarily Marvel comics and about a year ago I left Virtual Calligraphy to pursue other things and to see if I could make it “on my own.”

This past week I started doing some freelance work with DC Comics and I’ve already got a few books from their Cartoon Network line under my belt. But tonight I started work on my first Big Book.

Batman.

For the first time in years I feel like a giddy fanboy.

Check out my first Solo Lettering work in Batman #672
Written by Grant Morrison; Art by Tony Daniel and Jonathan Glapion
On Sale December 26, 2007

--Gent