Or should I say Last Two Weeks in the Batcave? We’re back! CCXP was great, if anyone cares to know. As foreseen by the great Oracle of the Batcave, not to be confused with Barbara Gordon, my nose went to hell and back. Thank God bats rely on their hearing and not their sense of smell. I got to talk to some of our very dear artists such as Bernard Chang, Eddy Barrows, Joe Bennett and Marcio Takara, A brief wrap up can be found after our very special Gothamite of the week.
Some really big news have been coming up while yours truly was gone. I mean, a street being named after Bill Finger in New York is indeed quite big, isn’t it? And then there was Lego Batman being chosen as Best Animated Feature by the Detroit Film Critics. Director Chris McKay, who will also be directing the Nightwing movie, thanked the choice with a “Hope to shoot there soon…” This, obviously, had people running around, screaming and tearing their clothes off as if it were confirmation that Blüdhaven will be filmed in Detroit. I’m not saying it won’t, but he’s also not saying it will, so let us keep our cool. At least until February, when we will be getting some concrete information about the progress of the feature. Then we can all lose our heads.
By the way, I’m purposefully ignoring all Batfleck rumor mills for the time being. Too much drama.
BATMAN
Tom King, Mikel Janin, Clay Mann, Joelle Jones, Lee Weeks
The holiday season also means we are now going through award season, and Tom King is out to catch ’em all. EW had him as Best Writer of the Year, and also his and Mitch Gerads’ Mr. Miracle as Best Comic of the Year, and he was also nominated for IGN’s Best Writer. I guess congratulations are due.
And since we’re here, let us talk about 2017 in Batman. The one scene by King that will always have a special spot in this Robin-loving fangirl’s heart is the Batburger sequence. Our favorite fast food chain is due to return to the pages of Batman, even if for one panel only. It will still be quite some time until we see it, but meanwhile we’ll have Batman #37 coming out this week, closing the Superman part of Super Friends. Issue #38 will be a one-and-done, and King has given us the first look of TIM SALE’s variant for the issue. Right in the Dark Victory feelings.
King also revealed a new villain who will be coming up in issue #39: The Gentle Man, as designed by JOËLLE JONES.
BATMAN: WHITE KNIGHT
Sean Gordon Murphy, Matt Hollingsworth, Todd Klein
It is a rare thing to see these days, but the sales for White Knight are growing for every issue that comes out. With each issue getting sold out faster and faster, if you did not manage to get a copy of issue #3 a second printing is on the way. Have one of MURPHY’s pencils to console you while you wait for it to hit stores, my dear bat.
BATMAN: THE DARK PRINCE CHARMING
Enrico Marini
On my road to self-knowledge I’ve come to realize that painted art will always be held higher in my heart than line art, so I do get a fuzzy feeling in my heart every time ENRICO shares one of his early concepts for Dark Prince Charming.
DARK NIGHTS: METAL
Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Francisco Plascencia
If White Knight is currently popular, what can I say about Metal? Most of the issues related to the event are going now to their THIRD printing, with Red Death reaching its FOURTH. That’s right, four printings. Once it comes out – and it will come out for sure -, the omnibus of this insanity will sell so much, I’m not even kidding. DC might even let Snyder do a post-credits scene. I’m not even gonna try to summarize it, I’ll just quote the whole thing:
“Like DB [Darkseid Baby] him hitchhiking in his godwave goggles. Some trucker is like, damn, you’re the ugliest garden gnome I’ve ever seen. Dbaby adjusts his goggles. Red flash. Truck pulls away. Now with Omega symbol mudflaps.”
Brilliant. I miss Baby Darkseid.
DARK KNIGHTS RISING: THE WILD HUNT
Grant Morrison, Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson, Doug Mahnke, Ivan Reis
Recently, Morrison did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on Reddit. You’ll all forgive me for the slight misplacing, but I had to fit some Grant Morrison gold somewhere – and it does relate to Wild Hunt. Somewhat. The whole thread is a bit long but worth reading if only for the moments like the one above. And yep, that is Reddit in Portuguese.
Among the multitude of answers, the writer confirmed that he would have happily kept Dick Grayson as Batman for five years., only bringing Bruce back after quite a long time. The most commented answer though is an eternal question that surrounds the first Boy Wonder: Kory or Babs? According to Morrison, “It has to be Batgirl ultimately. the sexy model version of Kory has way too many issues for happy-go-lucky Dick Grayson to deal with.” He also confirmed once again that next year DC will be releasing Wonder Woman Earth One vol. 2 and Arkham Asylum 2, in which he will be working with Chris Burnham.
But taking it back to Wild Hunt, Grant says that the creative process for the issue was that “He [Scott] sent me an outline and I wrote a story then passed it back to him to mess with. I’m looking forward to seeing how it comes out.” I second that.
BATGIRL
Hope Larson, Chris Wildgoose
Batgirl is soon to be going through some change in the creative team, at least on the artist front. CHRIS WILDGOOSE shared a panel from his last Batgirl issue, saying goodbye to the character. He says:
“I literally just handed in my last piece of work for Batgirl. It’s been a fun, tough ass kicker of a year but working with the Batgirl team has never been anything less than a privilege. Big, big love to them all. Thanks for keeping me propped up and pencilling this past year on my first big gig.“
NIGHTWING
Tim Seeley, Javier Fernandez, Sam Humphries, Bernard Chang, Marcelo Maiolo, Klaus Janson, Phil Jimenez, Kyle Higgins, Trevor McCarthy
Another title undergoing a change of creative team is Nightwing. Two weeks ago we said goodbye to Fernandez and to Seeley, and this week we welcome Sam Humphries and Bernard Chang. On the occasion, TIM SEELEY gave an interview to 13th Dimension where he talks about his 3.5 years writing Dick Grayson. That sure is a long time, and as he himself put it “Dick is one of my favorite characters. You can’t work on him for three and a half years without him becoming that, y’know?” The acrobat sure is a charmer.
But worry not, Nightwing is in good hands. A LOT of art has been emerging from the guys who’ll be working on the title. Starting with BERNARD CHANG, sharing his insane drawing process of making layouts, reverse drawing over them, and then flipping the paper and drawing on the other side.
Moving on to PHIL JIMENEZ, who will be doing issue #39 and did this “lunch time sketch” of Dick in his Discowing uniform. I repeat, this is a lunch time sketch.
And then there is JORGE JIMÉNEZ, who is working on some variant covers for Nightwing. This past week he posted his variant for issue #37, along with the final version colored by ALEJANDRO SANCHEZ, and also a little peak of another cover he’s working on. Those two are going to take over the world, I’m telling you.
RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS
Scott Lobdell, Dexter Soy, Marcio Takara
Just to clarify things, I was not the one to crop this image. Dexter, you naughty boy.
BATMAN AND THE SIGNAL
Scott Snyder, Tony Patrick, Cully Hamner
After the final orders for Batman and the Signal #1, SCOTT SNYDER is happily pleased with the outcome. “Basically, the orders for BATMAN and the SIGNAL #1 have come in way higher than we expected – thank you so much.” And if you’re wondering if the Robin Gang will be showing up in the book, TONY PATRICK does not know it either. He has absolutely noooo idea.
HONORARY MEMBERS
Whenever MARCUS TO attends a convention we can all expect an influx of Bat-Family commissions. A ton of Nightwing, a million of Tim, your casual Bat-Damian, sprinkled with some Bat-Bruce, and a Red Hood on top, making it a full Bat-boys reunion.
GOTHAMITE
We’re navigating some new waters with this week’s Gothamite. We’ve had cosplay, fan comics, posters, but this is the first time we’re featuring a Fan Film. Yes sir, and a very well produced and acted one.
We are all always eager to see live action interpretations of the stories we love. With the ever-growing slate of movies Warner claims to be producing, most of us might even live to see the day our favorites comes to live. Even so, there is still no white-streaked, revenge-thirsty Jason Todd on sight for the big screen. With that in mind, I present you Red Hood: The Fallen. In the film, Jason goes after the Joker, seeking revenge after the death of Bruce.
Written and directed by Toby Bajrovic with Simon Arblaster playing Jason, the short is almost reaching 2 million views on YouTube. A sequel is in production, and you can follow the progress on their Facebook page.
A BRAZILIAN COLONY OF BATS – THE CCXP ADVENTURES
Some of you might know, some of you might not know, but there are a lot of Brazilian artists working on the Bat-titles. Eddy Barrows, Eber Ferreira, Adriano Lucas, Márcio Takara, Joe Bennet, Joe Prado, Ivan Reis, Marcelo Maiolo, Rogê Antônio, Rafael Albuquerque, Diógenes Neves (does Deathstroke count? I’m counting it). And there is me, Brazilian extraordinaire, writing this piece of stunning literature every week. Point is, I got to talk to much of these guys on CCXP. I went on my own, with no press credentials, and we spoke in Portuguese, so no recordings for y’all. This is a through-the-funnel-and-the-sieve summary of the con, otherwise my fangirlishness would bleed through and turn this into a full essay on why comics are amazing.
Let us start with the only non-Brazilian artist of the Bat-bunch, BERNARD CHANG. Sweetest guy on Earth. For the people out there mourning him leaving Batman Beyond, he’ll still be working on the covers and character designs. And on that matter, I got the chance to see first hand some of his designs for new characters both for Beyond and Nightwing – that includes Guppy, the guy with the shark head. He was also the absolute best and told me some details of what is to come in Nightwing #36; all top secret – at least until this Wednesday. I was instantly hyped, and I have some stupidly high expectations when it comes to the original Boy Wonder. Here is Bernard and his lovely Batman pencil case, adding maskless Dick to this incredible character turnaround which will be hanging on my wall as soon as I get a proper frame.
Then there was the Detective Comics team: MARCIO TAKARA, EDDY BARROWS and JOE BENNETT. Those guys I only had a brief conversation with, especially EDDY who only went to the con on one day due to his deadline for the upcoming Detective Comics Annual. I asked the three of them whether or not they would be staying on the title, and all of their answers were negative. Eddy might be going to a bigger project inside DC, Joe had a contract set with Marvel, and Marcio needed a breather after finishing his Red Hood issue. I also got to ask Marcio the million dollar question: which was his favorite to draw on Detective. And no, the answer was not Batman. He said he loved drawing Clayface, Batwoman, and Cass Cain, whom he says should have her bat and her ears back. We’re all with you, Marcio.
Some of the names I mentioned were not there, some are just too big to get a real conversation going – there ius always this monstrous line to Albuquerque and Ivan Reis, so that was a big no for me. I also had a long conversation with DIÓGENES NEVES about his work on Deathstroke and how it is like to work with Priest and his black panels all while he drew a Nightwing for me. Am I predictable for my requests? Slade Wilson is not exactly welcome in the Batcave, though, so I’ll just leave that conversation for when I’m not underneath Wayne Manor.
