Tag: comics Page 1 of 2

Hi All Podcast 6

On July 17, 2026

In 2026, Blog, Blog writing, Childhood, College Classes, Comic Books, Fullerton College, School, Taking Classes, Writing

Hi all,

A dozen or more of us were standing in line in the football field, and it wasn’t even the field at our High School. Tomorrow would be graduation day, and today is rehearsal.

Before we could get into the rehearsal line, some of us had to get into this smaller line that slowly moved and approached a corkboard standing off to the side of the field with several pages pinned to it. Each of us came up to it and searched for our names.

The girl in front of me, and myself, were desperate to find where our names appeared on this board. Because, only then, would we find out if we were graduating high school or not.

As I’ve told you, I struggled through school. All my classes effected by my struggle to read. Each year was better, but it was still hard. When an assignment called me to read chapter 6, 7, and 8, of a science book, or literature tome, the more pages I had to get through the harder it got.

There were classes I wanted to enjoy, but even those were hard.

And yet…

My Green Lantern

By Kevin

On August 13, 2025

In 2025, Blog, Blog writing, Book Illustrator, Comic Book Artist, Comic Book Reader, Comic Book Writer, Comic Books, Comic-Con

Hi All,

Of all the super heroes I have read about, my favorite is the Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott.

And, of course, he was one of the 100 super heroes that appeared in the DC Blue Ribbon Digest comic that started my love of super heroes from the very beginning. Alan Ladd Scott (the middle name actually referencing actor Alan Ladd) first appeared in All-American Comics #16 and then became a founding member of the Justice Society of America in All-Star Comics #3.

Missing San Diego This Year

By Kevin

On July 22, 2025

In 2025, Agent, Auditions, Blog, Blog writing, Book Illustrator, Comic Book Artist, Comic Book Reader, Comic Book Writer, Comic Books, Comic-Con, San Diego Comic Con, Taking Classes, Voice Acting, Voice Over, Webcomic, Writing

Won’t be at San Diego

This is the second year in a row (not counting Covid) that my wife and I won’t be attending the San Diego Comic Con International.

I’m really disappointed in this, but it comes down to finances. Though I still have a “Pro-Badge” (thank goodness to illustrations I’ve done for Airship 27 Productions), and we can’t afford the hotel rooms down there.

Attending the San Diego Comic-Con each year was a high point in my life since high school (if not earlier). The city itself has a special place in my family’s life, but became all the more so once I started attending Comic-Con.

I attended every year for at least twenty years, while my family enjoyed the sites of the city. I enjoyed the con itself, and did my best to get to know the companies and my fellow artists and writers.

That would not be easy, as I am a terrible introvert and very shy. Trying to talk with people and company representatives. I know I am my own worst enemy when it comes to presenting myself to others. But I didn’t give up and kept going to con every year.

As I’ve told you in a previous post, through school I met up with a professional comic book artist and became his assistant for about a year or so. It was a great learning experience. He was working for Image Comics at the time, and so I did background illustrations for several of his books, as well as doing color compositions for them as well. This got me my first professional credits and it also got me my very first Professional Badge to attend San Diego Comic Con.

I even pitched our webcomic FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY there one year and got a positive response (see previous post).

I’ve had a professional badge ever since. From continuing to do comic work, animation script, our webcomic, and book illustration.

When my wife (before we were married) first moved down to the Los Angeles area, I invited her to go to Comic-Con with me only weeks after she first arrived. I probably shouldn’t have done that. I basically through her into the deep end of the pool with San Diego as her very first Con. We should have started off with one of the smaller local Cons. But she survived, and kept coming with me every year since. Receiving her own pro-badge, the very next year after working in animation.

We’ve both had our pro-badges ever since. We’ve attended every con, not counting Covid, since.

She now as a Master in Library and Information Sciences, and one year recently she got to attend San Diego with me and spent most of the time at the San Diego Library where some special panels were going with SDCC.

As I’ve been training and doing auditions for Voice Acting over the last several years, I’ve been enjoying going to Voice Over related panels at the Con as well. I’ve never had the courage to do one of the Live Reads at the Bang Zoom panel (BZ being a Voice Over recording studio that specializes in Anime, I have taken several classes with them). Plus, the one panel we love to attend every year (at both SDCC and Wonder Con) hosted by Writer/Director Mark Evanier called Cartoon Voices where professional Voice Actors are the panels, and after talking about their own careers (and Evanier talks about the history of animation voice acting), they put on a cold read of a script that he has provided. It is always fun, especially as they change their voices with each new line of dialog.

There are a lot of other VO panels this year, and I’m really sorry I’m missing them all.

We still love going to this Cons, WonderCon has become far more affordable since it is nearby and we can take public transit part of the way.

God willing, we will both be working professionally again soon and renew our badges for next year. Hopefully, I’ll be attending as a Professional Voice Actor next year.

Journey to a Newsstand

By Kevin

On July 8, 2025

In 2025, Blog, Blog writing, Comic Book Artist, Comic Book Reader, Comic Book Writer, Comic Books, Uncategorized

I just did something I haven’t done in over forty years:

I bought a comic book at an actual newsstand.

Lover on a Shelf

By Kevin

On June 13, 2025

In 2025, Author, Blog, Blog writing

I feel like I have been cheating on a lover.
A few months ago I walked into a bookstore (that chain store, you know the one) to explore while I waited for my wife to get off work.

Favorite Reading

By Kevin

On May 10, 2025

In 2025, Blog, Blog writing, Book Recommendation, Comic Books, Comic-Con, Uncategorized, Writing

When I was a young kid, elementary school age, as mention in a previous post, I had trouble reading. My parents took me to a special extra-curricular study place called The Reading Game.

It is no longer there. The building torn down and replaced by a multi-use apartment complex for students and others from the nearby University.

Reading their remedial booklets went on for many money, I no longer remember how long I attended there.

Then one day I picked up a comic book (I’ve already written about How I got that first comic), and it all changed. I was enjoying reading.

My parent’s asked the instructor if it was okay for me to be reading comics. The response was simple. If he’s reading, done stop him. Encourage him. And so, I have been reading comic books my entire life.

The next thing that got me further into reading was a series of books called: Choose Your Own Adventure. They were fantastic, especially as you could read it three or four times and get an entirely different story each time. Probably the only regular books I checked out of the school library.

(My relationships with libraries is a story unto itself.)

Comics would remain my mainstay reading content.

The reading material assigned to me in class, continued to be a struggle, hard to remain focused on whether it be elementary, junior high, or high school. It would be these outside sources, especially comics, where I could grow and learn.

If I could read something at my own pace, I could enjoy it. If it was an assigned book or chapter, I’d force my way through it but it was always a struggle, and I didn’t always learn anything from it unless the topic was of great interest to me and brought me enjoyment.

I’d later learn to enjoy doing research, but I had to find something interesting in it, something that was fun, in order to devote that much time to it. Otherwise, it was a real struggled.

The first real novel I thing I read was HG Wells’ The Time Machine.

I eventually discover the short stories and novels of Ray Bradbury. Then I found the essays of Harlan Ellison. So you know my creativity and learning process was growing.

Again, it would take an interest to get me to start and then complete reading of a book.

I remember reading a Shakespeare play in high school and enjoyed it, followed by Arthur Miller’s play the Crucible. Probably reading these in script format was probably easier than a full out novel.

During college and friend introduced me to two book series. Since I enjoyed Watch Doctor Who he thought I would like Douglas Adam’s Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Which resulted in my writing several stories for class in Adam’s voice. I don’t think my teacher appreciated it.

He then introduced me to Steven R Lawhead’s Pendragon Cycle. Looking back, I am still surprised by how fast I read through these books. They were heavy novels (figuratively and literally). I greatly enjoyed the books.

Over the years I would become more and more of a reader, but finding the books that appealed to me, that I enjoyed wasn’t always easy. The number of books I have read, per year, has been relatively few.

Sometimes it was the type of book, the type genre.

“So, what’s your favorite fiction genre?” – Here we are back at this question again, remember my last post.

As to Genre, I think the answer is the same as my “Doctor Who” answer previously:

I will admit I don’t like Horror, but when it comes to the rest of the genres.

“I like the one I am currently reading.”

I grew up on super hero comics, which lead into science fiction and fantasy, and especially mystery/detective fiction. Plus, over the last decade or so I’ve discovered a love for romance novels.

The first romance books I read were fantasy romance, about dragons.

Then I discovered a series called Once Upon A Con by Ashley Poston, starting with Geekerella. Telling a story that took place around a Comic Con, you had me, but these were fantastic stories, and I’ve been all of Poston’s books since.

Because of Poston, I’ve discovered other great romance authors.

Since the start of this year, I have read more books than I have in any full year I have ever had, and they were all Romance novels. Sure, they were all light novels, but still, it’s quite different for me.

Will Romance remain my Favorite Genre? Probably not, I’ll shift back to Mystery and Fantasy, Science Fiction, and shift back around again.

Looking back that the little kid I was, I am still so surprised by how much I am currently reading.

Reading is fantastic. Enjoy it.

Everything Built to this FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY

By Kevin

On February 5, 2025

In 2025, Animation, Blog, Blog writing, Childhood, Comic Book Artist, Comic Book Reader, Comic Book Writer, Comic Books, Comic-Con, San Diego Comic Con, ToastMasters, Toastmasters 4 Writers, Toastmasters Speech, Uncategorized, Webcomic

My career in comic has been a long and slow journey, but from the very beginning as a child I was creating my own super hero characters.

My first character I created was called… Captain Combo <cringe, I know> – I tried to draw a character that was partially every character I knew in the DC Universe – The Superman Shield, the bat symbol, Flash’s lightning bolt, the Dr. Fate’s helmet with Dr. Mid-Nite’s goggles, and so forth. It was really silly, and long before I discovered the android Amazo which was basically the same thing.

Education of Reading Comics

By Kevin

On January 15, 2025

In 2025, Blog, Blog writing, Childhood, Comic Book Reader, Comic Book Writer, Comic Books, ToastMasters, Toastmasters 4 Writers, Toastmasters Speech, Writing

When I was young, during my Elementary School and Junior High years, I was struggling with reading. It was recommended to my parents that I should take further classes and have special tutors. One such tutor was in an after-school period on campus, while another one was off campus at a place called “The Reading Game.” These tutors helped me, but there was other help that I received that would improve my education.

It was during this period of time I first discovered comic books, as mentioned in my previous post, and I was regularly reading them… and I was reading them not just looking at the artwork (and I’ll tell you about the artwork and artists in a later post).

One day when my parents are having a ‘parent/teacher’ meeting with my special reading tutor to talk about how I was doing. They brought up the fact that I was reading comics, and asked if this was a good thing or should they take the comics away to have me read “real” books.

Prayers and Concerns

By Kevin

On January 8, 2025

In 2025, Blog, Blog writing, Los Angeles, ToastMasters, Toastmasters Speech

Hi All,

Hoping to have the next installment of my blog related to comics and super heroes tomorrow, but this morning we evacuated our apartment out of precaution because of the fires burning near us.

Please Pray for all those who have lost their homes and businesses, and that everyone else is safe and able to return home when the areas are safe for them.

Thank you all.

Kevin

Influences to Glory – Writers and Artists

By Kevin

On January 6, 2012

In Uncategorized

Earlier today I was in the midst of a Twitter conversation that brought up our earliest comic book influences.

Every artist, and writer, has their influences. Not all of us will agree as to who the greatest or the worst, the most dynamic, narrative, or the worst is. But we all know who influences us.

For me, it goes nearly to the very beginning of reading comics. I had already read through a digest reprint of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #100 (written by Len Wein, another important influence to me), which introduced me to the world of the DC Universe that wasn’t the SUPER FRIENDS of Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Here was not only the Justice League of America, but also another team that called themselves the Justice Society of America. As a little kid, all I knew was that these were alternate takes on what I thought were well-established characters.

Over the next few months I would beginning to pick up other comic books. One comic was THE NEW TEEN TITANS by Marv Wolfman and George Perez. The second was an issue of ALL STAR SQUADRON written by Roy Thomas and among many artists was Jerry Ordway.

These two books would truly build my view of the DC Universe. The Teen Titans very ‘science fiction’ based modern stories with highly detailed artwork, while All Star Squadron showed heroes in the midst of World War II and had heroes with magic based powers.

For a while I believe that Earth 1 took place in the modern day, and Earth 2 in the 1940s, so that even when they did a cross over story they were coming from two different points in time. I soon learned that wasn’t true.

Anyway, back to my influences.

For writing, I couldn’t have picked any better writers to follow than Marv Wolfman and Roy Thomas. Yes, I’ll hear people mention who they believe are better with more complexity to their writing, but for me these two men were the foundational influence to me that everything grew from.

Where Wolfman knew who to emotionally grab me in one story and then tell great actions sequences in the next, Thomas knew how to handle dozens of characters sometimes at once. Thomas also knows everything about what I was learning to call the ‘Golden Age’ of comics, and spent time in every issue telling something about it all.

Because of Roy Thomas and the All-Star Squadron, I quickly became infatuated by Golden Age, and I saw out reprint books of the original stories (there was no way I could afford the originals, but I found the stories I wanted).

As with most young comic readers I soon began to create my own characters. But I didn’t want to create them in my modern world. I didn’t fit in a New York that I saw through George Perez’s detailed art. I created my characters influenced by Jerry Ordway that I felt had a more ‘realistic’ style. His faces were and are great.

(Imagine my thrill later when Ordway was hired to ink Perez’s work on CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTH. The two were so perfect together.)

(SIDE NOTE: I would also discover in the back issue bings the John Byrne issues of FANTASIC FOUR, and I bought as many as I could afford over several years of collecting. The greats of these were those where Byrne’s art was inked over by Jerry Ordway.)

So I’m creating my own characters, refining them, turning them into something more than just sketches on a page. I gave them names, and origins, not just the basic how they got power origins, but why and who the characters are with out powers.)

I was looking towards Roy Thomas and his interpretation of the Golden Age, that I began to emulate.

Three characters that I developed the furthest were The Torchlight, Speedstar, and a heroine I called FLYING GLORY.

I have written stories about all these characters, and as you all know, I took FLYING GLORY the furthest.

I’ve told the story already as how publishers were interested in a FLYING GLORY comic, one really liked the story that I told, but eventually it became clear that I couldn’t sells a Golden Age story when I was pitching it.

So with the help of Shannon Muir I updated the Flying Glory character, made her the granddaughter of the original and gave her a group of friends that supported her. THE HOUNDS OF GLORY.

Our webcomic FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY, currently celebrating its 10^th Anniversary of being online. Everything that I put into a script I owe to Marv Wolfman and Roy Thomas, and each panel of my art is so greatly influenced by Jerry Orway and George Perez (though I’ll never be able to draw hi details and crowd scenes).

Thank you Mr. Ordway, Mr. Perez, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Wolfman for you have made me the comic book professional that I am today.

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden

Four Names of Professional Creativity