It's January 26th, so let's all wish a happy birthday to my (and your!) favorite Batgirl, Cassie Cain!
Panels from Batgirl v.1 #33 (December 2002), script by Kelley Puckett, pencils by Damion Scott, inks by Robert Campanella, colors by Jason Wright, color separations by Digital Chameleon, letters by John Costanza
But the fact is, before her incarcerated assassin deadbeat dad tells her this, Cassie has no idea when her birthday is. Barbara Gordon (Batgirl 1.0) comes up with an idea for giving Cass a birthday, and Batman agrees. (Batman concerning himself with such things as birthdays? Where are we, in the Silver Age?!?)
When Cass visits her dad, professional killer David Cain, in prison, she's head over heels at seeing him!
She's got an message and a question. The message is from Batgirl, and the question is from her. Oh, don't give her those blank looks, Cain. Do you want her to repeat the question?
So. in the end, it's a matter of choice. Choose your identity. Choose your birthday. Choose your father figure. Yeah, like you wouldn't pick Batman for that last one.
Whenever it is now, Happy birthday, Cassie. But make sure you get her something she likes.
Panels from Tiny Titans #33 (December 2010), script by Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani; pencils, inks, colors and letters by Art Baltazar
Panels from Batgirl v.1 #49 (April 2004),
script by Dylan Horrocks,
pencils by Rick Leonardi,
inks by Jesse Delperdang,
colors by Jason Wright,
letters by Clem Robins
Panels from Detective Comics v.1 #336 (February 1965), script by Gardner Fox, pencils by Sheldon Moldoff, inks by Joe Giella, Photoshopped by yours truly
Panels from "Recipe for Revenge!" in Batman v.1 #26 (December 1944-January 1945),
script by Jack Schiff,
pencils and inks by Jerry Robinson,
letters by George Roussos
There's something familiar about the front page of the New York Daily News for January 16. Hmmm...I can't quite put my hoof on it...
"New York's Hometown Newspaper?" Well, maybe on boring old Earth-1218. But in the DC Universe. I'm guessing that Clark Kent's lawyers were in touch with the Daily News there, until Clark remembered he shouldn't let people know he's Superman. In this universe, I doubt that Time-Warner will be litigious about this pastiche of their flagship superhero—they're too busy instructing Dan DiDio and Jim Lee to publish 104 different comics starting in June. Hey, maybe we'll finally see that Aquaman series they've been promising us. What? There already is one? ........ Golly, I hadn't noticed.
Say, what do you think this newspaper front page would look like in the Marvel Universe? I think it would go...A little something like this:
I'm just sorry it couldn't be the New York Smashers going to the Super Bowl.
Panel from Batman Confidential #23 (January 2009),
script by Andrew Kreisberg,
pencils by Scott McDaniel,
inks by Andy Owens,
colors by Allen Passalaqua (?),
letters by Jared K. Fletcher
A couple weeks ago, on January 7, was the centenary birthday of one of my favorite cartoonists, Charles Addams, which as usual, I found out about thanks to a Google Doodle...
...which, since he died in 1988, he didn't draw. (Although, with Charles Addams, you never know.)
Anyway, it inspired me to pull my Chas. Addams books off the shelf and spend a pleasant and spooky afternoon re-reading them.
After I shivered my way through Homebodies and Nightcrawlers and Favorite Haunts and Black Maria I wanted to read even more. Right there, right then! I'm an instant gratification bull. Since I'm a big fan of reading books, and, yes, comics on my Apple iPad (because at my size, it's like seeing an IMAX movie), I dialed up the number for Amazoning Dot Company on the ol' BullyPad and I was pleased to see you could get some of the more recent themed collections for the Kindle. Hey-O! Download instantly? Well, I'm a mite impatient, but I suppose I could wait for instantly if I make a special effort to be patient.
Hey, look, you can download a sample of the book! Great! I've bought cartoon and graphic novels formatted for the Kindle, and the quality of the images often greatly varies. Let me download the free sample so I can see if I want to buy the entire book! (I had to have my pal John help me with that because first, he has the credit card, and second, for some reason it's hard to activate the touch-screen by tapping with a woolen hoof. I'm sure the iPad 3 will remedy that oversight.
An instant later (see?), a sample of Happily Ever After ran in through the door and hopped into my iPad, ready to read. (I think that is the way it works. It's pretty fast and you don't really see it happening, just like when Barry Allen takes the last donut that Hawkman had his eye on at the JLA meeting 22,300 miles above the earth.) Here's the first page of the Kindle sample:
Here's page two. Pugsley!
Page 3 is the second title page. Just in case you forgot what you were reading. On a real book you can just look at the dust jacket, so this is handy on the Kindle.
It's getting exciting now! Here's pages 4 and 5.
And here's page 6. It is the final page of the preview file.
Huh. That was...pointless. Let's try another sample, for Simon & Schuster's Chas Addams Half-Baked Cookbook, shall we? (Yes, let's!)
The sample file for Half-Baked Cookbook
is four pages long and consists of the title and copyright pages.
Well, ya get what ya pay for, huh? Seriously, I'm not pointing my fingers at Amazon on this one, because I've recently downloaded sample files for several other non-cartoon books and I've gotten sizable previews that let me read just enough to find out if I wanted to buy the book. The free sample of Stephen King's new novel 11/22/63 had so many pages in it that for most authors that woulda been the whole book! (And it did its job: I couldn't stop reading and immediately bought the Kindle ebook.)
Publishers set the limit of what percentage of a book you can see using Amazon's "Click to Look Inside" feature, so I'm wondering if the same is true for Kindle samples. If this is true, then I need to get in touch with Simon & Schuster as soon as possible and tell them they need to include at least a couple pages of cartoons in their sample so we can check out the scan quality of an illustrated book. I shall call my good pals Carly Simon and Wayne & Schuster and ask them to do something about that.
So, I didn't buy the books on Kindle and Simon & Schuster lost out on a sale. Get with the twenty-first century, guys! In this fast-as-the-Flash-but-with-fewer-supervillains technology of today's Y2K12, you have to keep up with the pack or risk being left behind. Charles Addams was pretty clear on that same point.
Two-page spread from Booster Gold v.2 (November 2008), script by Chuck Dixon, breakdowns by Dan Jurgens, finishes by Norm Rapmund, colors by Hi-Fi, letters by Sal Cipriano (Click picture to Booster-size!)
L: World's Finest #176 (June 1968), pencils and inks by Neal Adams
R: World's Finest #302 (April 1984), pencils by Ed Hannigan, inks by Klaus Janson (Click picture to Frank Miller's-ego-lets-him-think-he-did-this-first-size)
Panels from The Batman Strikes! #15 (January 2006),
script by Matthew K. Manning,
pencils and inks by Wes Craig,
colors by Heroic Age,
letters by Travis Lanham
Email me:
