Gareth S. Young - - 1000 Trillion Suns

I was tagged on twitter by the awesome Mollie Wallace  @readheadreader  to share 20 Facts with you all. No idea why...but I have learned not to question such things. If you want to check out Mollie's answers go  HERE . And then come back to check out mine. 1. I have 6175 comic books in my collection. I counted them...and bagged them...and filed them. Yes, it took forever. 2. I can't stand the texture of sandpaper or the sound it makes rubbing against wood. It gives me goosebumps...and not in a good way. And yes, I was terrible at woodwork at school. 3. My middle name is Shannon. It's a family surname (great grandmother on my dad's side of the family), as opposed to a girl's first name. My dad also has Shannon for a middle name. 4. Despite being born and raised living no further than about a mile from the sea, I'm not the biggest seafood person. And don't even get me started about sushi...blerg! And, although my dad used to fish, I never really got in...

...Kirby! Jack "King" Kirby is one of the single most important people in comic book history. Unfortunately, many people still haven't heard of him. I hope to rectify that here. Marvel Masterminds What do The Fantastic Four, Uncanny X-Men, Hulk, Thor and Iron Man have in common? You are correct if you said they are all Marvel comics. If you said they were all created by Stan Lee, you're only half right. The legend goes... Stan Lee would come up with ideas, basic outlines and tell them to Jack Kirby. Kirby would then go away and draw a comic book based on that idea. Once he was finished, he'd give the comic back to Lee who'd fill in the dialogue and speech as he saw fit. Often Lee would have no idea what he'd get back from Kirby and has been quoted as saying it was like doing a crossword puzzle, trying to figure out what story the pictures were telling him. Later, the idea of credit became the subject of bad blood between Kirby and Marvel...

...Hughes! AH! Adam Hughes is an American comic book artist, primarily known for his pin-up style art and his extensive work as a cover artist on a large number of comic books. Including long runs on Wonder Woman and Catwoman. Cover Artist Hughes has no formal art training. He learned his trade alongside other artists as he picked up work, first with independent publishers and then DC comics. His intricate style didn't lend itself well to the quick turnaround required for monthly comic books, so Hughes concentrated more on cover work and in the late '90s began a four year run doing cover art on Wonder Woman for DC, while also doing covers on Tomb Raider for TopCow, establishing himself as a much sought after cover artist. Sexy or Sexist? On top of his cover work, Hughes started designing statuettes for Sideshow collectibles, the first of which - Mary Jane Watson (Spider-man's girlfriend/wife) - caused a huge stir because many thought it was a...

...Groot! Cashing in In 1996, barely twenty years ago, Marvel was in big financial trouble. In an attempt to cash in on their large inventory of characters, they made several licensing deals with different movie studios. Universal snatched up the Hulk, Fox grabbed the X-Men and Fantastic Four, and Sony bid highest for the Spider-man rights. Several lackluster movies were made over the next few years and many of the rights reverted back to Marvel. Hulk, Punisher, Daredevil and Blade foremost amongst the returning heroes. Marvel comes back to life By 2008, Marvel were on a stronger footing and ready to attempt a launch of their own movie studio. Since the licensing of Marvel's big guns (Spider-man and the X-Men) was still owned by other companies, Marvel decided to use Iron Man to launch the studio. Not only was Iron Man a huge success, but Marvel enjoyed a long string of successes after it, including a little known property set in space called Guardians of the...

...Fredric Wertham! From the mid-50s until the early 2000s, almost every comic book carried the Comics Code Authority logo on its cover. The CCA was formed in 1954 as an alternative to government oversight in the comic book industry after a U.S. Congressional Inquiry into the comic book industry. The formation of the CCA began fifty years of censorship in comic books and it was due, in no small part, to one man: Fredric Wertham. Seduction of the Innocent Wertham was a psychiatrist and author and in the early 1950s he turned his attention on what he saw as the detrimental effects of comic books. In those days, crime and horror books were prevalent in the industry, alongside the super-hero comics that are more recognizable today. Wertham's book "Seduction of the Innocent" described images of violence, overt and covert sexuality, crime, and drug use, that he claimed encouraged children to emulate. While horror and crime comics did have their fair share of ...

...Daredevil! DD by Alex Maleev Created back in 1964 by Stan Lee and Bill Everett, Daredevil has been a staple of Marvel comics line-up almost constantly since then. Although for a time in the early 1980s it almost went the way of the dodo... Yes...DD originally wore yellow! Miller Faced with declining sales during the 70s, DD was on the verge of being canceled when Frank Miller joined the team as artist. Shortly after being handed the writer job too, Miller embarked on turning the "sightless swashbuckler" into a dark anti-hero. Roger McKenzie was the first writer to bring the dark tone to Daredevil, but Miller intended to push the character further than many were comfortable with. Original fans were disappointed in the new direction, but new fans came in droves. Much coveted DD vol. 1 #181 - The "death" of Elektra Miller's reinvention of Matt Murdock included many new elements: Stick (blind mentor), The Hand (ninjas), Kingpin becoming...

...Black Bolt. The Inhuman Royal Family If you're a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you might have heard last year's movie release announcements and wondered about the movie called "Inhumans." If you've been watching the TV show Agents of Shield, you will have a better idea who this strange group of superhumans are. Black Bolt Black Bolt, or Blackagar Boltagon to give him his full name, is the King of the Inhumans. Originally appearing in early issues of Fantastic Four, Black Bolt is a man of few words, or, to be more precise, no words. Black Bolt's power is in his voice and so powerful that even a whisper can cause destruction. So the stoic leader of the Inhumans must communicate through hand signals or via a spokesperson. Black Bolt and Medusa Black Bolt's wife, Medusa, often acts as spokesperson for the King which actually gives both characters a very deep and more interesting connection. Medusa is a powerful leader in h...

Comic books! Okay, technically C is for comic books, but I'm going to spend the next month blogging my way through the alphabet and talking about comic series, characters, or creators along the way. So, where was I? A is for... ...Alpha Flight The Alpha Flight team was created in the late 70s by legendary X-Men artist John Byrne. Initially, the Canadian super-team were introduced to battle the X-Men and take their Canadian berserker - Wolverine - back home to Canada, however, a few years later, Marvel approached Byrne to write and draw the team in their own ongoing series. Thirty years ago, whilst on vacation, in Florida, in a mall, in a bookstore, I found a selection of Marvel comics on a rotating wire rack near the back of the store. It was here I picked up the first comics of what would become a thirty year collection. One of those comics was Alpha Flight (volume 1) #45. What I enjoyed from the get-go was the hugely diverse and exciting group of characters in the ...

Next year, Captain America celebrates his 75th birthday. No doubt the comics will celebrate this in fine style, and it's just been announced that ABC, the television wing of Disney, will be showing a 1 hour  75th Anniversary Special . Later in the year there is, of course, a third Captain America movie -  CIVIL WAR  - to be devoured by the fans. And all of this is great. I'm a fan of comics, movies and Cap, so I'm on board for all of it. What is interesting though is how OLD all of this comic book stuff is. DC's Holy Trinity There's a lot of excitement for DC's upcoming Batman versus Superman movie and the first "on screen" appearance of the Big 3  - Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman - together in one movie. Warner acquired Time Inc. in 1989 and with it, DC comics. About ten minutes later, a Batman movie was announced. That it's taken more than 25 years to get the Big 3 together is baffling to me. Supes, Bats and WW are three of the...