Great Comics Blogging Elsewhere

I am elite! Give me warez, dood! Anybody who's been around the internet for as long as I have (15+ years) remembers that phrase from the 1990s. At any rate, I am now a member of the Comic Blog Elite. It's basically a topsite for comics bloggers ranked by visits per day based on a moving average. I'm currently #45 or so over there right now, but that's because I only installed the code a couple days ago; based on my recent traffic I'd guess I'll settle in around #15 or so. But it's also a neat site for discovering some of the newer comics blogs and others that you may not have stumbled across before. I can see I have some blogs I'll have to add to the sidebar.

Winner of the best name for a new blog award goes to Hooray for Wally Wood, which is done by our old blog-buddy, BookSteve and features the art of the creator of THUNDER Agents and Daredevil's red uniform. Wood also did the famed underground poster featuring Mickey Mouse and the rest of the Disney gang acting in a rather un-Disney-like fashion.

Another new blog from an old buddy is the Gil Kane blog by Joe Bloke. Kane, of course, is one of the most significant artists of the Silver Age, known for his "up the nostrils" angles and the greatest punches that comics have ever seen.

Bill Jourdain has an interesting post on the origin of the Batcave in Batman comics. I would add that the Batcave apparently first appeared in the Batman serial from 1943. In addition, there is an interesting story from Detective #205 that Bill (I'm sure) is aware of, in which the Batcave serves as the hideout for Jeremy Coe, a Colonial American with a double identity as an Indian (i.e., Native American). It contains the first mention of Bruce falling into the Batcave to discover it:



Most versions of the legend have Bruce inheriting Wayne Manor from his parents, not buying it as an adult, but that bit of Bruce falling into the cave (usually as a boy) has become an iconic part of the Batman legend.

Robby Reed may be gone, but his blogazine lives on. While reading his archives the other day I stumbled on his review of the just-finished Final Crisis series. Although Robby obviously did not have all the issues at the time he wrote his review, it is absolutely on the money:

At any rate, before purchasing any new DC title in the future, I will inspect each page for evidence of the continuing pornographic destruction of my beloved childhood characters. If I find any, the book goes back on the shelf. Since EVERY book they publish is now like this, that means no more new DC comics for Robby. I will not miss them!

I was at first angry and then puzzled at Final Crisis. It did seem like a giant middle finger to the older fans of comics. But not to worry, now there's the "Battle for the Cowl" series, because of course there's gotta be a new Batman until the old one comes back from the Stone Age.

Some black and white reprints are missing something, as Supermanfan finds out when looking at the story of Superman Red and Superman Blue. That is one of my favorite imaginary stories from the Silver Age.

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, Mark Engblom has a terrific post on one of Superman's forgotten powers: the super-kiss.