While there is one more episode of The Overlooked Dark Knight hitting in April (check that out on Tuesday, folks) I wanted to announce the plans that Andy and I have for the show to celebrate Batman’s 80th birthday. Not content to just devote a single month to the Caped Crusader’s entry into octogenarian status, we’re going to devote an entire year’s worth of episodes to looking at Batman stories from all eras that are either overlooked (hence the name of the show) or are just too cool not to cover. We’ll also be doing special episodes, like the one devoted to the 30th anniversary of the 1989 Batman film, as well as off beat episodes, like the one where we choose what issues of Detective Comics we would choose for a big, hardcover collection.
The party starts on May 19th. Click on the link above to listen to the trailer and feel free to share it on your social media feed or podcast! We would sure appreciate it.
This past Labor Day weekend (the first weekend of September for those outside of the US and Canada) is usually spent at cookouts or other celebrations unless you have to work, which is kind of ironic when you consider the holiday is supposed to be about celebrating the hard working men and women of the world. Other people use this weekend to gear up for college football season. For my wife and I Labor Day weekend has meant one thing since 2001.
DragonCon.
For those of you unfamiliar with DragonCon it’s…insane. Ostensibly it is a four (technically now five) day science fiction/fantasy/anything remotely geeky convention that exists over five host hotels in the middle of Atlanta, Georgia. Describing what DragonCon is can be a bit tricky because it means different things to different people. Officially it’s a fan driven convention, meaning that fans put the programming together and run the show. For some people it’s a chance to come and show off their cosplay skills. For others it’s a chance to hang out with friends and like minded people and celebrate whatever fandom you are into. For a lot of people it’s a place for geeks to come and get hammered.
Your mileage may vary.
For the past few cons I’ve been getting more involved on the presenting side of the con, which mainly involves being on panels either as a speaker or a moderator. This past year (2018 for the future people) was a busy one and four of the twelve panels I was a part of involved Superman. I also got to do something I have never done before.
Appear on television.
Fox 5 Atlanta sent a reporter named Paul Milliken to DragonCon on Friday morning doing several segments for the morning show Good Day Atlanta and the focus of several of these segments was Superman’s 80th birthday. Greg Euston of DragonCon’s media relations team reached out to me a few weeks before con and asked if I would like to be a part of one of those segments. And that’s how this happened.
A few things about what you just watched.
The Superman cosplayers were great. Before this segment was shot another cosplayer dressed as Princess Leia from Return of the Jedi walked by with her service dog, who was dressed as an Ewok. Suddenly five huge men dressed as Superman melted over this dog. It was adorable. They were also great guys as well. We chatted a bit after the segment and I ran into them a few times over the weekend. Their costumes were impressive as were their physiques.
Paul is a really nice guy. We chatted a bit before and after the segment and he’s very genuine and put me at ease. I’ve was a bit nervous but talking to him and getting a sense of what he was looking for before we went live was the best thing that could happen.
The guy running the camera looked like Jared Leto circa My So-Called Life. This really doesn’t have anything to do with anything but it was one of the observations I had that morning.
Alex Sinclair was another nice guy and I had the pleasure of moderating a panel he was on the next day.
The fact that you can see me in the background looking at my phone later in the video is embarrassing.
Anyway, that’s my television appearance. It was cool. I’m glad it happened.
Well…it’s a new beginning for the Fortress at any rate. Plans are in motion to bring this blog back online with regular posts in the near future. It might take a few weeks but between having some episodes of From Crisis to Crisis in the can and mapping out some new features plus getting some old features up and running again I should have this place back to a five post a week schedule.
I hope everyone had a great holiday season and New Years. It was relatively low key here at the Fortress but I got some fun Superman stuff for Christmas which I’ll be sharing soon. I know it’s been dark around here for a long time but I’ve got the green crystal back in the chamber and between the 20th anniversary of the Electric Blue Superman and a few other things I’ll have plenty to discuss.
Especially around June…when a celebration will begin.
A celebration marking three decades of a certain someone collecting the Superman books.
My review for this issue should be up over at the Superman Homepage so my full thoughts and feelings on this comic are over there. If you missed the review or you were on the fence about this book or if you were totally turned off because of the writer I am going to politely ask you to put all of those feelings aside and give the first issue of this series a chance. I was completely and utterly disgusted with Max Landis’ Death of Superman video from a few years back but he completely nails the idea of a young Clark Kent coming to terms with his abilities.
Seriously. This book was good. You need to read it.
On December 9, 1993 my mother lost her battle with cancer. She was originally diagnosed with breast cancer in August of 1991 and after six months of chemotherapy and radiation we thought she had it beat. During the summer of 1993 the cancer came back. She fought the best she could but six months later we lost her. I was seventeen at the time and can honestly say that her death was one of the hardest things I ever had to face and even though I have now lived more years without her than with her in my life I still miss Mom everyday.
Because of how Mom died I am sensitive to those that have either fought cancer or had a relatives or friends fight the disease so when the opportunity to be part of a fundraiser to support the Winship Cancer Institute in Atlanta I had to to take it. Here’s the press release for the DCTC Podcasts Cancer Research Fundraiser.
DC TV PODCASTS: CANCER RESEARCH FUNDRAISER ON MAY 16!
Podcasters assembles to fight cancer in a live marathon event.
Friday, May 8, 2015 – The DC TV Podcasting Family is teaming up with Winship Cancer Institute to fight cancer on Saturday, May 16, 2015.
The Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University is dedicated to the integration of innovative clinical and basic science research with outstanding patient care for the prevention, treatment and control of cancer. We here at DC TV Podcasts couldn’t be more proud to be partnering up with Winship for this very important cause.
Here is how you as a listener can help and participate on Saturday, May 16, 2015 while also enjoying your favorite DC television podcasts for Arrow, The Flash, Gotham and Supergirl.
The podcasting fundraising event will be hosted via Mixlr atmixlr.com/dctvpodcastsand will begin at 11 AM PST/2 PM EST. The event will feature the great minds of DC TV Podcasts with hosts from Quiver: The Green Arrow Podcast, The Flash Podcast, Legends of Gothamand Supergirl Radio. The event will roll from 11 AM PST/2 PM EST into the evening with all four individual shows. The marathon will then conclude with a special DC TV Podcasts Assemble show featuring hosts from all four podcasts.
Here is the following schedule for when all the live shows will begin:
Quiver Podcast at 10 AM PST(1 PM EST) – 12 PM PST(3 PM EST) with Michael Cohen and TBA host.
Legends of Gotham at 12 PM PST (3 PM EST) – 2 PMPST (5 PM EST) with Bill Meeks and Anne Marie DeSimone
The Flash Podcast at 2 PM PST (5 PM EST) – 4 PM PST (7 PM EST) with Andy Behbakht, Amy Marie and Lauren Gallaway
Supergirl Radio at 4 PM PST (7 PM EST) – 6 PST (9 PM EST) with Rebecca Johnson and Special Guest Michael Bailey (Host of From Crisis To Crisis: A Superman Podcast)
DC TV Podcasts: Assemble Show at 6 PM PST (9 PM EST) – 7 PM PST (10 PM EST) with Andy Behbakht, Michael Cohen, Rebecca Johnson, Bill Meeks, Anne Marie DeSimone and more TBA.
Starting today, as well as during the marathon, head over to DCTVPodcasts.com/Fundraiserto find out how you can make a donation to Winship.
We at DC TV Podcasts hope to see you in the live chat and enjoy all the exciting programming that we have in store for you. Nothing would make us happier than our listeners donating to this important and great cause and joining us at DC TV Podcasts in helping the Winship Cancer Institute continue researching ways to defeat cancer.
Any podcasts that are represented on DC TV Podcasts are fan podcasts and are not affiliated with DC Comics, Warner Bros. TV, DC Entertainment, The CW, CBS and FOX.
About Winship:
Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University is located in Atlanta, Georgia. Its history dates back to 1937 and since then, it has earned a reputation of not only being a state-of-the-art facility for cancer treatment, it is also a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center, allowing for research in the areas of bone marrow transplantation, breast cancer, head and neck cancer, lung cancer, brain cancer, and many others. For more information, please visit winshipcancer.emory.edu
About DC Television Podcasts:
DC TV Podcasts is a podcast circle that features a collection of high-quality and popular podcasts that are devoted to DC Comics television series including The CW’s Arrow and The Flash, FOX’s Gotham, CBS’s upcoming superhero drama Supergirl and more! Join the hosts of Quiver, The Flash Podcast, Legends of Gotham and Supergirl Radio every week for the best news, commentary and opinions about these comic book shows.
I was very honored that Rebecca asked me to be part of this fundraiser. I don’t do this often but if you can listen in to the marathon that would be great but it would be even better if you could make a donation. I don’t support causes often but this one is really close to my heart. Be sure to tune in all day Saturday but especially from six o’clock to nine o’clock Eastern Standard Time to listen Rebecca and I talk about Supergirl. It’s going to be entertaining and it going to be for a good cause. It’s the best of both worlds.
A few weeks ago (or months…I have no real sense of time anymore) I wrote about the fact that I wasn’t covering the latest Superman solicitations as they are released anymore. That doesn’t mean that I won’t discuss something in those solicits if catches my fancy. Well, the December 2013 solicitations just hit and something definitelygot me excited.
SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL VOL. 8 TP
Written by PAUL KUPPERBERG, JOHN BYRNE and ROGER STERN Art by JOHN BYRNE, TY TEMPLETON, GEORGE PEREZ, MIKE MIGNOLA, JERRY ORDWAY and others Cover by JOHN BYRNE
On sale DECEMBER 31 • 240 pg, FC, $16.99 US
Superman’s 1980s adventures continue with the introduction of Checkmate, plus appearances by Wonder Woman, Man-Bat and others. Collects ACTION COMICS #598-600, SUPERMAN #16-18 and ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #439-440.
I am very excited to see the actual solicitation for this book. I wrote about it when someone pointed out to me that it was available for pre-order over on Amazon in a post you can find here and then went on to speculate what future volumes could contain, which you can read about here and here. Part of me was pretty sure that this trade would never actually be solicited but here it is. I normally don’t do this sort of thing but I am going to once again ask if you want to see this book make it to print (because sometimes a collected edition will be solicited and due to low orders not be released) and if you want to see future volumes of this line come out then you need to pre-order the book either through your local comic shop or, if you buy your books online, head on over to the Superman Homepage’s Amazon store and order it through there. I haven’t decided how I want to buy it yet but you can be sure this book will be on my shelf soon after it is released.
A few nights ago I was checking my e-mail and saw a link in the daily Superman Google alert I (and so many others) have set up concerning a Kickstarter campaign trying to raise money to produce a documentary about Superman Lives, the Tim Burton/Nicolas Cage film that was supposed to come out in the late nineties but didn’t. This movie that never was is widely considered by Superman fans and non-fans alike as a bullet we all dodged because all of the concept art and pictures and such that have come out associated with it indicated that this would have been a disaster and for the most part I was in agreement with them. I mean the picture of Cage being fitted for the costume that has made the rounds recently doesn’t look all that bad, but otherwise I didn’t like what I had seen from the production art. Then I watched the video that was associated with the campaign.
Now I am not suggesting that this film should have been made because frankly I think Tim Burton should not be allowed within a hundred feet of anything associated with Superman. While I still like 1989’s Batman my opinion of Batman Returns has soured over the years to the point where it is now my least favorite of the Bat-films mainly because it’s a Tim Burton movie not a Batman movie Tim Burton directed. You can do different things with Superman but Burton’s sensibilities are wrong for the character. I am not suggesting that he is a bad director because I like a good number of his films. I am suggesting he was a bad choice for the Man of Steel.
However…
Jon Schnepp, the guy behind this proposed documentary, has a real passion for the subject. His enthusiasm is evident and I love that he wants to go all in on this movie. I may not have wanted Superman Lives to be made but Jon did and I would LOVE to see him get this film going. So check out his official Kickstarter page and throw a couple of bucks into the pot if you can. I don’t normally post about these campaigns but I really believe in this one. Help Jon out so we can get what promises to be an extensive and fun look at the Superman movie that never was.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: DC ENTERTAINMENT NAMES EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Judd Winick to Serve as Editor-in-Chief of DC Comics
(New York, NY and Burbank, CA) DC Entertainment, founded in September 2009 to unleash the power of the DC Comics library of characters across all media platforms, has named the final member of the newly-established executive team. Judd Winick, who has been named Editor-in-Chief of DC Comics, joins Jim Lee and Dan DiDio, Co-Publishers of DC Comics, and Geoff Johns, Chief Creative Officer of DC Entertainment. Diane Nelson, President, DC Entertainment, made the announcement.
“With the addition of Judd Winick, DC Entertainment’s new creative ‘dream team’ is complete,” said Nelson. “This announcement continues and underscores DC’s legacy as the ultimate destination for creators. We’ll benefit enormously from the experience Judd brings to the table, while re-energizing the direction and focus of the company. I’m excited and honored to have Judd, along with the rest of the executive team, with me at the helm of DC Entertainment.”
Judd Winick is a comic book and comic strip writer/artist known for his work on such comic books as Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Outsiders, and Pedro and Me, as well as his 1994 stint on MTV’s The Real World: San Francisco. Winick’s most recent writing credits include: Batman, Titans, The Trials of Shazam, as well as upcoming issues of Power Girl and Justice League: Generation Lost.
So, the grand pooh-bahs of DC are finally named and I just have one thing to say about it.
This is awesome.
Seriously. I dug the heck out of Winick’s run on both Green Lantern and Green Arrow and he seems to have a good handle on the DCU as a whole. I mean sure he tends to repeat himself in terms of dialogue and character design and then there are the complaints that Winick will either reveal a character to be gay or give one of them HIV but that’s just the man’s style and if we can’t get on board with that then we may as well stop reading comic book altogether.
I for one welcome Winick in his new role and am really excited to see what DC Comics has in store for us. This has definitely marked my return to reading DC as a whole.
