Today’s blog is going to be late, and while I thing about what to write I am watching the latest episode of Critical Role streaming on Youtube.
This current story is the latest part of Exandria Unlimited (EXU) about the ancient past of this world told with gaming, role playing games, with Dungeons & Dragons.
It makes me remember a time in my own ancient past.
Tag: DC Comics Page 1 of 2
My previous blog post was officially the last of my Comic Book series for Toastmasters, but I have one more story to tell.
While I was telling you all about my love for the Golden Age of Super Heroes, about Earth 2, the Justice Society, and the All-Star Squadron, one evening I had a dream.
Over the last week I’ve been drawing a pseudo comic book cover based on that dream.
It first began by reprinting newspaper comic strips, and then it illustrated adventure stories had previously been in pulp novels and magazines, then the detectives put on masks and a man could leap tall buildings in a single bound. It was the Golden Age of Comic Books, the Golden Age of Super Heroes.
As mentioned previously, though I had read a few other comics, the first series I was committed to reading every issue was All-Star Squadron. A book that took place during that “Golden Age.”
I would discover and read other books at that time, some Justice League of America, Brave & and the Bold which would be replaced by Batman and the Outsiders, and The New Teen Titans.
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.
“Thank you, God, for bringing Mom and Dad home safely,” my mother would always say as we drove past the hospital. Both her parents had been in a patient there a number of times, and we praised God for them returning home safe and healthy.
That hospital has held many joyful and sad memories for us. Hopefully me being born there was one of the joyful ones.
My father also worked in the lab, and my mom would walk me over to have lunch with him from time to time.
So, what does all that have to do with comic books, and super heroes? Quite a lot, actually, at least for me.
The hospital had a small gift shop where visitors could purchase flowers, snacks, or stuffed animals for the patients they were coming to see. They also had a small magazine display rack, and upon it were a few (very few) small comic books.
These were digest size books that were reprints of other already published books. Most of these digests were done by Archie Comics, about Archie, his two girls Betty and Veronica, Jughead, and the rest.
But every so often there were other digest comics. These were mostly from DC Comics (actually, I don’t remember Marvel publishing Digests like these).
Hi All,
May this New Year be enjoyable and successful for all.
I have several goals for this New Year, mostly focusing on my career, but to start off I’ll be writing this blog and posting twice a week. Which will hopefully be a whole lot better than what it has been in the past. This first blog series is about how comic books and super heroes have influenced my career. This is also part of a Toastmasters assignment, “Writing a Compelling Blog,” which when the blog series is complete, I’ll be giving a speech about the whole experience.
This evening my wife, author Shannon Muir, and I will be attending the 2017 Animation Writers Caucus Annual Meeting and Award Presentation at the offices of the Writers Guild of America in Los Angeles. Events like these have always been special to us because at first it was a chance to meet our creative and literary heroes we have looked up to, then becoming fellow animation writers, and in some special cases becoming close friends.
At these annual meetings we honor a writer who has truly added to the animation industry as a writer and creator. This year our presentation must also be a memorial as the award is being given posthumously to writer extraordinaire and friend Len Wein.The outside world knows him best as the creator of Wolverine and Swamp Thing, but he is so much more especially to a little boy who had to sit for hours in a hospital lobby while his grandparents were being taken care of upstairs.
The hospital chaplain took pity on the little boy who had nothing to do on those old vinyl couches than his homework and so gave me two comic books, Superman and The Flash. They were great, and that gift meant a lot to me, but it wasn’t until I wandered into the hospital gift shop that my life was changed forever.
Along side the magazines the small shop had a few very small comic books for sell. One of which, with the JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA logo on the top and text at the bottom that read “33 Super-Stars in One Epic Adventure!” with dozens of those heroes jumping of the front and back cover, had my full attention. I convinced my mother to give me the 95 cents to purchase this copy of DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #11.
Opening those four-color pages I found myself tumbling into a wonderful world of super heroes. Yes, I knew of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman from television and cartoons, but there were so many many more. Here I learned not only about the Justice League but also the Justice Society of America, and that there was an Infinite number of parallel earths where more heroes resided.
I was definitely hooked and the DC Universe was my playground from then on.
This digest turned out to be a reprint of JUSTICE LEAGE OF AMERICA #100, 101, and 102, about our heroes on a quest to find seven more heroes lost to the ages.
This great story, that put a boy on a quest to discover all the heroes of the golden age of comics, was written by the great comic book author Len Wein. I would soon be reading many more.
(An interested side note is that Len also edited the Blue Ribbon Digest that it was reprinted in.)
I was not the only one influenced by this comic; fellow comic book writer Gail Simone also marks this story as what began her path into comics.
I learned just the other day that Len himself fell in love with comics as a child while he was in the hospital as well. Though for him it was for medical treatment, but he has stated that those comics and super heroes got him through it.
Now that little boy who sat quietly in the hospital lobby wants to pay his respect to the man who sent towards a career as a comic book and animation writer. I honor you Len for all the stories you have brought to the world, and for being a friend.
Thank you.
Kevin Paul Shaw BrodenFour Names of Professional Creativity
This month of August (2017) I am doing a series of sketched based on the career of Comic Book legend Jack Kirby’s career.
I started off with the Blue Beetle because that was the first masked hero that Kirby illustrated. It appeared in a news paper comic strip.
My second illustration is of Sandman and Sandy the Golden Boy.
Ol’ Wesley Dodds tosses away his trench coat, fedora, and gas mask for the bright tights that all the latest heroes were wearing. He also picked up a young Side Kick. Sandy’s shirt changed a little from issue to issue, but here he looks striking like Captain America’s partner Bucky.
Speaking of Cap, the third sketch is of Captain America and based on the cover art of Captain America #1 in 1940.
I hope to continue drawing more Kirby characters through out the month. (I did continue to draw Kirby characters through out August 2017, see my portfolio.)
Hope you enjoy.
The other evening I was watching an episode of SUPERGIRL
<Brief SPOILER>
In this episode SUPERGIRL discovers that Jimmy Olson is the Guardian who has been fighting crime in the streets of her city, and even catching those that escape her.
<End of SPOILER>
Looking at the design of The Guardian’s shield made me think of the creation of the original character.
Jack Kirby created The Guardian in his Newsboy Legion series. In the 1970s he, and they, were part of the Cadmus Project in Kirby’s Fourth World books, but back in the 1940s he was Jim Harper and basically the guardian of these street kids.
As a police officer he did a good job, but felt it necessary to put on a mask to protect these kids all the more. He also carried a golden shield.
It is that shield that is important. Even though he was forced to put on the mask, Jim Harper saw himself as a police officer first, and even his shield was designed to look like a policeman’s shield, his badge. In later incarnations of The Guardian this part him is lost. Many masked vigilantes are forced not only to fight the bad guys, but also the police. For Jim Harper, The Guardian’s role is something much more. He had to be a hero to the Newsboy Legion and the people on the street, but also to his fellow police officers.
Years before Jim Harper put on the golden helmet of The Guardian, policewoman Peggy Allen saw flaws in the regular justiciable system and so put on a costume and became the WOMAN IN RED.
The idea that these police officers saw a necessity to step out of their uniforms to wear masks in order to fight crime spurs a lot of thought and potential stories.
I’d love to tell a story about that original version of The Guardian.
Post Script – The Golden Guardian which I posted for Jack Kirby’s 100th birthday.
Jack Kirby – The Golden Guardian
Earlier in the year I sketched an image of the Golden Age super hero The Guardian in my blog about the character and his use in the TV series Supergirl.
This Silver Age version of the character called The Golden Guardian Kirby incorporated into his Fourth World New Gods story line in the pages of Jimmy Olsen. As part of the Cadmus project this Guardian is what many later versions would be based on. Whether it was in later comics, in the animated series Young Justice, or in Supergirl.
Continuing to celebrate Jack Kirby’s 100th Birthday.
Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity
Silly comic book thoughts (not based on any ‘announcement’ or image released today).
If the modern day Batman was became Ra’s Al Ghul in a similar way to whats happening in the ARROW tv series; he would move the entire League of Assassins to Gotham. They would become Batman Inc. and he’d put at least one member on every street corner.
A week later the Joker would have killed half of them with Joker gas.
…Okay, I’m too tired. Going to bed now.