Wizard 26 October 1993

[@MarioRSFilipe]

24:16 Jim you may not know the Chris Halls pen name, but I'm sure you know him by his real name, Chris Cunningham, the director of the "Come to daddy" and "Windowlicker" Aphex Twin music videos (among many others), one of the three originals from the Directors Label series. He did interiors in one of the chapters of the Judge Dredd storyline, Judgement Day (written by Garth Ennis), and it's the spitting image of Bisley art.

[@Uploadingvirus]

When I wen to San Diego in 1997, there were huge lines for a signing by Marc Silvestri and some other image guys, but no one was in line for Sergio Aragones, so I went up and chatted with him for a while and he drew me a sketch of Groo. A really nice, funny guy and one hell of a cartoonist.

[@AntoineDennison]

At 38:00 my Hulk sample page is in the lower left. That was my first published art. Good times, good times...

[@CartoonistKayfabe]

Sweet! Thanks for letting us know. It's amazing how many artists Wizard first published. - Jim

[@jcoriha]

Ostrander/Mandrake The Spectre remains my favorite comics of the 90s

[@michelfiffe]

One of the charms of George Pérez art is seeing the amount of characters he lovingly squeezes into a page. Crisis on Infinite Earths is his masterpiece, but since you dudes aren't DC guys, you'll get a similar hit from the first half of Infinity Gauntlet. Any random issue of Teen Titans from 1982-84 is fun to look at, too. GIFFEN: Spectacular Spidey 120, "Hell on Earth" DC Graphic Novel, and Legion of Super-Heroes #s 307-310, where he does his best Von Eeden. This is all just *for starters* -- hit up Ambush Bug's first mini if you're feeling it.

[@CartoonistKayfabe]

I thought you might have some insight on this one! Thanks, pal!

[@rand0me]

​@@CartoonistKayfabe There's also his run on Avengers with Kurt Busiek as well as the crossover JLA/Avengers they did. His Wonder Woman relaunch is also beautiful to look at.

[@RobertNorton12013]

GodDAMN i get excited when you post these. Love you guys....

[@brettharris8339]

G'Day guys, as always great stuff ! Mark Chiarello was indeed the DC art director for ages, from memory he was the brainchild behind Wednesday Comics and that incredible Solo anthology series

[@Uploadingvirus]

Best Perez imo is his run on Teen Titans with Marv Wolfman in the 80s.

[@amedeomodigliani4389]

One of my most respected and revered English Professors had nothing but praise for ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ and said he read it as it came out. We also had an in depth conversation on Steve Ditko, Neal Gaiman, and Alan Moore- with my professor saying that his Novel ‘Jerusalem’ was one of the best he’s ever read.

[@toomieornot2me436]

Giffen's run with DeMatteis on JLI, especially the first 12 or so, it's the best run on JL imo.

[@andykuhn9798]

Not sure if you guys remember but at some point, Bruce Timm was announced as a part of the legend group. I think he was going to do an offbeat superhero book called, The What! Very sad that this book was never produced. The world need all the Bruce Timm comics it can get.

[@antgto]

I read portions of Crisis on Infinite Earths as a child, but didn't read it from beginning to end until adulthood. I rather dig it, and when I drunkenly retold the story to some friends during SF beer week some years back, it actually scored us free brew. So there's that.

[@robsacchetto7709]

Once again, I've gotta say....Guys, I'm utterly inspired by your acumen, and love for the medium...!!!! Been holding off on doing the work for my second graphic novel, but tuning in to your episodes has really helped me overcome the anxiety of 'getting over' with the fans again! Soon to re-release my first, and about 20 pages into the second graphic novel...150 pages is, as you guys know, SCARY AF! :) Cannot thank you enough for the inspiration and just plain old fantastic entertainment! BEST WISHES!

[@thebladespawn]

I remember the marriage proposal comic and its splash page better than the comic itself. Thanks for the nostalgia trip!

[@davideking]

The art and storytelling in Legion 1-5 is not Giffen's best. In interviews he says he was burned out after drawing a giant legion poster with every LSH hero and villain and he left the series after those five. The best Giffen Legion stuff is the period just before that new #1 issue, something like LSH #300-#313 and the 1989 series where he's inked by Al Gordon. I think his art looks really good in the Wally Wood's THUNDER Agents series from Deluxe in 1984, it's on baxter paper. You could also try Ambush Bug and the Graphic Novel Hell on Earth which is really strange looking -- both of those also include swipes of Jose Munoz art. All of these comics are in your nearest bargain bin. PS I did a comic about Giffen and the Trencher style that's coming out this fall in But Is It Comic Aht magazine #2, hope you'll check it out

[@CartoonistKayfabe]

Can't wait to see your comic about Trencher! That's good news! And thanks for the Giffen recs. - Jim

[@manleycartoonist]

I traded my first appearance cable for $75 worth of comics with a friend. One of those was an early graphic novel collection of Frank Miller Wolverine. I think I made the right choice.

[@thargro13]

Haha. I scanned every page of Sachs and Violens while working at IDW. Not my favorite day in the office.

[@xcornmuffinx]

I'm a published horror author, I have a collection and a bunch of anthologies around. I also did a weird fiction picture book drawn and written by me. It's hard to get a real scary story into a comic because a lot of scariness of horror is in what you can't see and what you imagine. It's why a lot of horror books turn into bad horror movies, because showing the monster is usually the worst thing (especially if it doesn't look so great). It often ruins the whole thing. You really have to work hard to keep everything mysterious and scary in a visual medium. That being said, horror doesn't have to be the same kind of monsters and murder. There is a wide variety of horror that can be adapted and done quite well. Horror does come in many forms. Speaking of Jim Shooter, I re-read "The Weird" recently and even in 1988 when that came out, Jim Shooter was misusing 80's slang, like an old dude trying to be down with the kids.

[@tiberiusweaver-zeman2520]

The Weird trivia: the newscaster character who interviews Superman is named Lance Armstrong.

[@djdustat]

Awesome guys!! Love these 🙌🏻

[@DaddyRich71]

Awesome as ever, but you totally skipped the ad for the Morrison/Capullo run on Spawn. It was great to watch Capullo's art improve.

[@ZacharyCallen]

That John Ostrander picture is too great. He looks like a mortician on a date.

[@itszackempire]

This right here is the first issue of Wizard I ever got!

[@juanayala4540]

Mine too

[@bigstefan]

Boots Of The Oppressor! Jesus Christ. I read this in the Splatter anthology, disturbed me greatly. Stood out next to the less serious strips in there. Some Creepy stories scared me as a kid - one about some disfigured kid who lives on a fairground comes to mind. And an old 70s or 80s DC horror short about a mad lady who chased a living teddy bear around a house with endless corridors. And another really old strip about alien hunters who shoot humans and put their heads on the wall.

[@andyristainodraws]

that keith giffen trencher stuff always reminds me of Michael McMahon's stuff on "the Last American"?

[@ThrashCrow]

The story Ed told about Aragones getting work at MAD knowing no English is actually the story behind Antonio Prohías the cartoonist for Spy vs Spy

[@russworks2882]

I remember hearing about the revamp of DC's big three from someone who'd worked there. Frank Miller and Steve Gerber made the proposal for a line called Metropolis Comics, and I believe Marshal Rogers was going to draw a Batman book. This preceded Crisis, but it makes you wonder if the proposal gave DC the idea to restart everything. Gerber had a Hawkman proposal that he ended up turning into a Marvel Epic series called Void Indigo. The graphic novel and single issue of a proposed series were too violent and twisted for dealers and distributors who bitched and screeched until Marvel killed the book..

[@joeanderson9045]

25:30 Jesse Delperdang was a Kubert student. I met him a few times in Keokuk, IA.

[@andybrining]

(Almost) Three years later... Jim, did you ever get a chance to check out that Chiarello-painted Batman & Houdini book? Its a personal favorite.

[@JustinCoyote]

That same real war story kinda scared my young mind too

[@Uploadingvirus]

did anyone know anyone who actually bought Defiant comics new off the rack? I think my local shop didn't even bother racking them after first issues. I never knew anyone who copped to buying them ever.

[@MattHall]

Wow, I have part of that Boots of the Oppressor serialized in some horror anthology, didn't know the whole thing was reprinted. Definitely a difficult read, but I'd love to see how it ends.

[@OscarVG17]

I'm a big fan of Giffen, moreso of his writing. But I would say it's more of an acquired taste. If you're into it, you're really going to love it (that would be me) but I can see it's not for everybody. Obvious reccomend would be his JLI/JLE run, which is more about making you like the characters than actual grand storytelling, but damn if the team working on those titles didn't make me like Blue Beetle, Rocket Red, Fire etc.. Something I would thought to be unimaginable beforehand. I liked his Legion of Superheroes 5 years later run , if felt really different and interesting than what I was used to. I felt his art started becoming more distinct with this run as well. And a personal favourite, which was cancelled way too soon imo, Reign of the Zodiac written by Giffen with Colleen Doran art. I pretty much think most all of Perez' books look great, he was basically an artist I followed on whatever comic he was working on. Some of the stand-outs are New Teen Titans with Wolfman writing, a comic which rivaled Uncanny X Men in sales at the time and righly so imo. A good and fun superhero comic. His Wonder Woman run where he basically builds the character up after the Crisis. Amazing art with good writing, ends up becoming one of the character's iconic runs. Hulk Future Imperfect, an amazing comic all round. Avengers vs JLA; if you can't get excited about Perez drawing the JLA AND the Avengers together, you might as well see a doctor straight away. Because that ain't right.

[@toomieornot2me436]

LOSH #4 death of Karate Kid. One of the best deaths ever in all of comics. Bendis stole it when he killed off Hawkeye in Disassembled. At least it was really similar to what happened.

[@josenieves7514]

Y'know Ed must think you're hot stuff when he adds "MFing" as a middle name...

[@matthewallison]

It was always a joke that Dick Clark never seemed to age over the decades he was on TV. I'm guessing Layton had a youthful look...or many, apparently.

[@jabbajuju]

That Darrow joint was released in Heavy Metal... March 1985 issue

[@belgiumwillconqueru]

Hey Ed, if memory serves the book you were talking about with the caulking gun rape scene was called Brought to Light, with work by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz, edited by the late Harvey Pekar's wife Joyce Brabner. It was a disturbing book for sure. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brought_to_Light Weirder still, I remember a short comic by Kyle Baker from National Lampoon or one of the other magazines where he contributed short comics at the time where he kind of made fun of how poorly the book had sold and that Pekar had recently been diagnosed with cancer.

[@CartoonistKayfabe]

Nah. It's called "Real War Stories". www.amazon.com/Real-War-Stories-No-1/dp/9998588839

[@jaybee8764]

Alan Moore=Ceremonial Magick whereas Chaos Magick=Grant Morrison

[@ettecnal]

You guys mentioned Crisis. I have it, and I haven't been able to get past the first twenty pages. I've understood it to pretty much be required reading for comic book readers, but it's always just been super boring to me.

[@TerryParr]

Todd Nauck did go to Art Institute of Dallas.

[@robintwiddy4246]

Release the crow pics Jim!

[@gmosphere]

I wonder how wizard will cover the death of Kirby when he dies in about 4 months after this was published

[@sleeptrust]

You need to have Fiffe on here to talk DC comics - you guys don't know what you're talking about here. Crisis blew my mind when it came out. Art still holds up! George Perez beat Chap Yeap any day Eddie P.! My favourite George Perez books - Crisis, New Teen Titans and Wonder Woman.

[@ShogunZIlla]

Prime gets ROASTED from 6:18