Brandon Routh: from the best Superman cosplayer to the Superman actor.
2003(age 24) Superman cosplayer for a halloween party.
2006(age 25-26) Superman in Superman Returns.
2019(age 39-40) Kingdom Come Superman in Crisis On Infinite Earth.
What’s next?
He will be a delicious silver fox.
I wish he could be Superman again before it’s too late. And of course, I’d love to see his version of Superman in his 50s.
There were no Superman over 50s. Oldest Superman was George Reeves. He was 44 y.o. when he was Superman for the last time. Christopher Reeve was 35 in Superman IV.
Brandon Routh is currently 42 years and 6 months old. So he could be the oldest Superman. I want to see middle aged Superman.
It’s time for a silver fox Superman in skin tight spandex suit!
Brandon Routh: from the best Superman cosplayer to the Superman actor.
2003(age 24) Superman cosplayer for a halloween party.
2006(age 25-26) Superman in Superman Returns.
2019(age 39-40) Kingdom Come Superman in Crisis On Infinite Earth.
What’s next?
He will be a delicious silver fox.
I wish he could be Superman again before it’s too late. And of course, I’d love to see his version of Superman in his 50s.
There were no Superman over 50s. Oldest Superman was George Reeves. He was 44 y.o. when he was Superman for the last time. Christopher Reeve was 35 in Superman IV.
Brandon Routh is currently 42 years and 6 months old. So he could be the oldest Superman. I want to see middle aged Superman.
“I love the (Kingdom Come Superman’s) shorts. The cut, that was great. Beacuse I don’t like Superman without underpants. I’m sorry. That’s strange to me.”
Brandon Routh on the Kingdom Come Superman suit from Crisis on Infinite Earths
Hell, yeah. His Superman is perfect because he’s got the red unperpants on the outside, contrary to today’s superhero costume design trends. There’s no one looks greater in that proud red underpants than Brandon Routh.
PROOFS ⬇️
Love the fact that Brandon Routh, Superman himself, loves Superman’s underpants.
My first ideas for Mar'i was her having short hair because Damian accidentally cut most of it of. So decided to draw our little starshine with short hair because she’s cute >:0
I’m truly sorry for letting this blog abandoned, a lot has happened in the last months, im back with some digital art made in Procreate, in the wake of The CW event #CrisisOnInfiniteEarths , I wanted to draw a lot more character but I hadn t the time, hope you like it
Comic books! They’re great. Movies based on them are popular! They’re fun to read, and fun to talk about! But how do you do that?
First, start by double majoring in English and Visual Art.
I’m kidding, but knowing how to talk about literature and art semi-intelligently is your first step. Know what stuff like color theory, lighting, negative space, narrative coherence and character development is, and how to recognize good examples of that, basic stuff. You might even want to learn some theatre terms like the fourth wall, since that might get broken, and you’ll want to know how to talk about it!
Captain Atom breaks the fourth wall in Pax Americana #1 (with bonus fourth wall breaking from Ultra Comics #1 too). Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
Next, learn some comic terms!
Art and writing are easy, but what about stuff specific to comics? Floppies are the individual magazines that springs to mind most immediately when you hear the term “comic book,” also called issues. Trade paperbacks are softcover books collecting multiple issues, usually comprising a complete story arc in ongoing comics. Ongoing comics are serialized comics with no set endpoint. These are usually superhero comics like Superman, which run basically forever and tell a multitude of stories by many different writers and artists, or but can also include a long-running series of an original property by a single writer/artist team, like The Walking Dead. Limited series or miniseries are serialized comics, but usually only for a few issues to tell a single story. And perhaps most importantly, what’s the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel? In “””””technical””””” terms, a graphic novel is a comic book publishing a complete, non-serialized story all in one go. So, Watchmen is not a graphic novel, since it was serialized initially, while The Killing Joke is. However, it’s best to avoid the term graphic novel altogether since comic book describes what you’re talking about just as well and doesn’t make you sound pretentious.
Watchmen #1. Despite commonly being referred to as a graphic novel, it is not, due to being published as individual serialized issues originally. It also heavily relies on the serialized issue format for a large portion of its storytelling, making its designation as a graphic novel problematic, to say the least. Alan Moore, David Gibbons, and John Higgins.
Wonder Woman: Earth One, a true graphic novel. Grant Morrison and Yanick Paquette.
We’ll come back to that strikethrough in a bit, but first let’s go over some terms for the insides of comics. Panels are the boxes on the page, the gutters are the white space in between.
Kyle Rayner explains and points out panels and gutters in Omega Men #12, while leaning on the fourth wall. Tom King and Barnaby Bagenda
Panel-ING is how the panels on the page are laid out, basically the narrative structure of a page. Splash pages are the big, single panel pages showing one cool moment.
Splash page from Kingdom Come #3. Mark Waid and Alex Ross
Coloring is how the page is colored (which yes, is important to the comic!), and the colorIST is the guy who does the coloring (and no, it’s not as easy as it sounds). We’ll take a slight detour here to explain all the different art jobs. The penciller is essentially the “main” artist, whose art is the baseline of the comic, generally following from the writer’s (self-explanatory) script. The inker then takes the penciller’s work, and adds the blacks in ink. This creates the illusion of depth and lighting. Then the colorist (see above) takes it and adds their colors, which in turn adds more depth and reinforces and adds to the illusion of lighting. There may occasionally be a layout guy, who does a rough sketch of how the panels and basic actions will be laid out on a page. If layouts are done, they’re usually by the writer to give the penciller a rough idea of what they want, but very rarely there will be a separate person doing layouts. These art guys can be three guys (one for each job), two guys (penciller does their own inking), or one guy (penciller does everything). Finally, this finished product gets passed on to the letterer, who takes the dialogue from the script and adds it in the lovely speech bubbles and text boxes we’re used to.
An inked but uncolored page from Hellboy: Conqueror Worm #2, Mike Mignola.
A color process by Moebius
Now that we’ve covered the bits and bobs of the jargon of comics, let’s return to that strikethrough from what feels like ages ago but was probably only a couple minutes. As a reminder, it was about not sounding pretentious. This paragraph might end up filled with a lot of “don’ts,” which I’d hoped to avoid, but hopefully we can make it through together without too much trouble and mental anguish. As I said earlier, avoid the term graphic novel. It does have a real meaning, but in practice it’s essentially used by adults to avoid having to say they read comic books. Consider: do we try to mask our enjoyment of any other medium by using terms of another medium? Do we call music albums listening novels? Or paintings still movies? All this to say, DON’T BE ASHAMED TO SAY YOU READ COMIC BOOKS! Other adults won’t care, and those that do aren’t worth your time. Beyond that, “pretentious” can be a little more vague. Basically don’t be a snob about genre either way, and ESPECIALLY don’t be a snob about companies. Superhero comics can be great! So can indies! So can all-ages! DC and Marvel both have quality works to offer, as does Image, Dark Horse, Fantagraphics, BOOM!, Dynamite, Humanoids and even Avatar! Of course, which works are quality is a matter for the very conversations I hope you use this post to have, we’re not here to make value judgments.
Now, for quite possibly the most important part of being able to talk about comics like you know a thing or two about a thing or two: ACTUALLY READ COMICS
Shocking, I know, but as with any interest, if you want to talk about them in any sort of high-level critical discourse (or just a casual discussion, whatever makes you happy), you need to actually consume a fair bit of it. Wikipedia and movies ain’t gonna cut it here. But what do you read? Comics seem so hard to get into, after all. Well never fear! No one is expecting you to read all 900+ issues of Action Comics in order to know a thing or two about a thing or two. Just read a wide variety of writers, find some you like, and become familiar with their work. Odds are good that you’ll find something to talk about with somebody. I won’t recommend any particular works in this post, since I like letting people form their own opinions and learn on their own, but here are some writers and artists with whom you generally can’t go wrong, and I won’t even say what’s good about them. Almost every creator has their off days, however, so don’t write off a creator if you stumble upon one of their more lackluster works. Anyway, the creators:
Moebius
Grant Morrison
Alan Moore
Brandon Graham
Neil Gaiman
Frank Miller
Frank Quitely
Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez
Goran Parlov
Héctor Germán Oesterheld
Mike Mignola
Greg Rucka
James Stokoe
Jack Kirby
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Nicola Scott
Denny O’Neil
Evan “Doc” Shaner
Bill Watterson
Cliff Chiang
Robert Crumb
Christopher Priest
Greg Pak
Mike Carey
Kurt Busiek
Tom King
Mark Russell
Steve Lieber
This of course is but a small sampling. If you’re trying to get more into comics, don’t be afraid to ask for recommendations! I sincerely hope this primer helps you in your journey, and I hope you read some great comics!
