I've probably mentioned this before, but I gave up on watching television almost a decade ago, and those last few years mostly consisted of setting my VCR to record Gilmore Girls. It really helps me to get out several reasonably timely blogs, but it also sets me apart from a lot of pop and geek culture. For instance, I'm vaguely aware that FOX finally pulled together a more general audiences friendly X-Files redux called Fringe, and apparently part of that involved merging it with Sliders, based on Geoff Johns' comments on this DC: The Source blog post...
A month or so ago, I was fortunate enough to take on the job of Chief Creative Officer. That meant I was charged with bringing out characters out of the comic book pages and into the vast world of television, film, animation and video games that is DC Entertainment. One of the first calls I got was from the director of the Fringe season finale – writer/producer/director Akiva Goldsman. He was shooting a scene in an alternate world where things weren’t exactly like ours. Where even the smallest details were somewhat off. Including the comics. Together with executive producer Jeff Pinker, Akiva wanted to showcase an array of DC Comics that could’ve been... He wanted them to be as authentic as possible. Something only the hardcore would really recognize. We all came up with some ideas. That’s when Hank Kanalz came in…
I assume this is the same Hank Kanalz who wrote some of the very worst comics of the '90s for Rob Liefeld, who is now Vice President and General Manager of WildStorm Productions. Kanalz was involved with directing the few artists who remained loyal to Wildstorm after it was gutted by DC Comics toward reinterpreting old DC covers within this alternate universe. Aside from the surprisingly novel The Death of Batman polybagged 75th issue, these were all covers that have been "homage'd" so often, even throwing someone as random as Jonah Hex into Kevin Maguire's 1987 Justice League cover layout had already been done, by Maguire himself, in 1992's Justice League Europe Annual #2...
Anyhow, beyond my never wanting to see a Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 riff again (itself a lift from John Byrne's X-Men #136,) this was a reasonably well executed lot. I'd say Carlos D'Anda, Juvaun "JJ" Kirby and Larry Berry produced the best of the lot. You can see the rest here, and perhaps wonder like I did whether George Pérez will see any money from his background being stolen wholesale.
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