Aquaman Shrine Interview with Mike Grell - 2009

Now that we've had the chance to look back at then-newcomer Mike Grell's work on Aquaman in Adventure Comics, let's talk with the man himself!

Mike, over the course of his four decades in comics, has been the writer/artist of such well-regarded books as The Warlord, Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, and Jon Sable Freelance, but he got his start drawing the King of the Seven Seas:

The Aquaman Shrine: How did you end up with the Aquaman assignment?

Mike Grell: It was the classic "How did you get into the business?" story--I had gone out in '73 to attend the New York Comic Con. And in my portfolio I had a bunch of samples, and I was expecting to show a comic strip while I was out there, and I couldn't even get an appointment.

Nobody was interested in action-adventure stuff, and I learned that the con had almost nothing to do with comic strips, it was all comic books. But while I was there, I ran into Irv Novick and Allen Asherman. Irv was a terrific guy and an amazing artist, and Allen was Joe Kubert's assistant at the time.

They both looked at my stuff and were very encouraging, and Irv told me in no uncertain terms to get my carcass to Julie Schwartz's office. Unfortunately, I had to get on a plane later that day, so I went home, and I ended up corresponding with Allen, staying in close contact, and then I decided just make the big break--I packed up and moved to New York.

AMS: Wow.

MG: Yeah. So I went to Julie Schwartz's office pretty much cold, and I had my Encyclopedia Salesman's pitch down all prepared--"Good afternoon, Mr. Schwartz, can I interest you in this deluxe 37-volume set of blah blah blah..."

AMS: [laughs]

MG: And if you get interrupted you have to go all the way back to the beginning, "Good afternoon Mr. Schwartz...", and that's exactly how far I got. I said "Good afternoon, Mr. Schwartz" and he said "What the hell makes you think you can draw comics?"

I dropped my portfolio on his desk and said "Take a look, and you tell me."

AMS: Whoa!

MG: Yeah [laughs]--cocky. I hadn't read that book about bumblebees not being able to fly, all right? So, he looked at it and called Joe Orlando in. By now I had told this guy my story, and he told Joe this moved with his wife and his dog, and he was looking for work, and is there anything you can give him?

Joe looked at the stuff very carefully and said, "Yeah, come on into my office." And he gave me my first assignment, which was the Aquaman story, "As The Undersea City Sleeps." Steve Skeates was obviously into alliteration at the time.

And it was the launch of my career. It was one of the biggest breaks I ever got.

AMS: Wow.

MG: Joe was terrific to work with, he was very encouraging. I worked on the story--it was only seven or eight pages--but I worked my brains off on it and brought it in the next week.

And Joe was such a great guy to work with--he immediately gave me another assignment, but before I got to the finish, he also sat me down and gave me a drawing lesson. Several, in fact. When I turned in that [first] story, I became known as The Guy Who Drew Aquaman Mooning The Audience.

The very first page, I didn't show the hero's face, I had him mooning the audience. So I caught flak for that, and then later on in the story, I drew him sitting on the throne, but had his body slumped too far down, and Julie Schwartz pointed out that [Aquaman] looked like he was sitting on a toilet. [laughs]--and he was right!

Fortunately, the power of the story for the audience overcame the shot of Aquaman sitting on a toilet.

AMS: That was something I wanted to ask you about--when you look at that splash page, it doesn't look unusual or anything, it looks great. So, when someone like Joe Orlando tells you that, do you say to yourself "I don't agree with that, but I'll do it, because it's Joe Orlando and I have to" or did you agree with him at the time?

MG: No, I was paralyzed! I was terrified I was going to have to redraw the entire page. But Joe left me off the hook--he said "It's a good page, so we're going to let it go, but be aware if the Comics Code Authority comes back you're probably going to have to redraw it", but they let it pass.

AMS: It's one of the things that's remarkable about those pages--there's a lot of impressive moment. Not everyone draws Aquaman when he's swimming so that he really looks like he's swimming--his head is at the top of the panel, his feet are at the bottom, but in your pages he's coming in at every angle, he's coming in upside down, and to me it feels very much like this is a guy underwater. This is not a guy rooted to the floor. It seems like you had a handle on the character.

MG: Well, maybe not a handle on the character, but a handle on the swimming part. I loved to swim when I was a kid, and to me swimming is the closest to flying as you can get.

When I've gone scuba-diving over some choral, or even in a lake, where you can see the bottom, and you can turn every which way, you feel like you're suspended over the Earth, and it made a big impression on me.

AMS: One of the things I feel like you can see in the pages, is how much effort you were putting into them--there's a scene where Aquaman is looking at a monitor, and you've got the glow from the screen casting a shadow, and part of Aquaman is darkened by zip-a-tone. Did you feel like you really had to knock these pages out of the park?

MG: Oh, absolutely. When someone gives you your first assignment you want to do your absolute best.

In those days, I had just come from working in commercial art, and we used a lot of zip-a-tone, so it was pretty common. But once I got into comics, I soon realized zip-a-tone created a lot more problems than it solved--the combination of the dot pattern of the zip and the dot pattern from the various color plates could crate a moray effect, and would give you weird things going on that would make blobs and blotches on the drawings so that went by the wayside very quickly.

AMS: Did you have much interaction with Steve Skeates?

MG: I only met Steve later on, after I had done a couple of issues. I ran into him at the [DC] office, and we had a cordial relationship.

I was amused at some of the stories he told, Steve had a story for just about every situation, and he had written so many he was a great yarn-spinner. He was always cordial with me and enthusiastic.

I know that he had worked with Jim Aparo [on Aquaman], and I couldn't hold a candle to Jim.

AMS: Yes, he certainly seemed to have an amazing relationship with Jim as writer and artist.

MG: Yep, and that happens now and then. You get guys who just seem to click together, and so it becomes very strange when there's a change up, and I thought, considering all that, Steve was very supportive of me and I had a good feeling when I worked with him.

AMS: That Aquaman back-up feature only ran three issues, and then Aquaman got promoted to the lead-spot [in Adventure Comics]. Do you remember at the time, was that anything they had offered you, or might have offered you, or did not come up at all? Because obviously the stories were pretty popular, since they bumped Aquaman to the front of the book so soon afterwards.

MG: It never came up with respect to me, because by that time I had already gotten the assignment to do The Legion of Superheroes. And Julie Schwartz was keeping me busy with all the back-ups I could handle.

AMS: Yeah, The Legion of Superheroes is enough!

Something else I've always wanted to ask an artist who's had to deal with this--as an artist, how frustrating was it to draw Black Manta, a character with no facial expressions. That's got to be pretty tedious, having to draw that big orb in every panel!

MG: Again, I have to give a lot of credit to Joe Orlando, who took me aside. Joe was really my mentor in many ways, and he told me about "acting on the page."

And what he meant by that was the difference between emotion and action. And we were talking, and he said back in the old days of silent movies, most of those actors came from the stage, where all the action and the gestures has to be really big because you are playing to the people in the back row of the balcony, and on a comic book page, what you want is something more subtle, like a movie or a TV show--a modern film, where you can convey emotions with a raised eyebrow.

Sometimes you can't do that, so you have to go back to the bold gesture. So doing Black Manta, the challenge became how to convey the action and the emotion through his physical posture. And that was a great lesson.

When you look at a page in a book where people are posing, if they're just standing around in organized poses, the large-team superhero books are a good place for that--or should I say a bad place for that, because you have four or five people in a panel, they've all got to fit in there some way.

That's enough of a challenge, and many times the artist can't quite figure out what these people should be doing.

That was one of the things I always admired about the work of Curt Swan. When he had to draw an office scene with Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, whoever, a bunch of people standing around a water cooler--they're all doing something. They were all unique--all those figures look like people look when they're standing around a water cooler.

Being able to come up with those interesting poses, and still convey the action and the meaning of what's going on is tough. As an artist--and I can speak from both sides of the coin here--as a writer its one thing to put things on a page, but as an artist you have to consider not just what the scene is, but what the dialog is, because you're like a film director. You're everything--you're the casting director, you're the cinematographer, the director, and you have to play all the parts.

AMS: So maybe the best sample story DC could give to prospective artists is Black Manta invading the offices of The Daily Planet, and that's your test--a guy with no face attacking a bunch of people standing around a desk! "If you can make that work, here's a book."

MG: [Laughs] Yeah, absolutely.

AMS: Now, you mentioned you were going the comic con with an adventure strip. That was The Warlord, correct?

MG: It was a comic strip called The Savage Empire, which evolved into The Warlord.

AMS: Now, I see more similarities between an Aquaman strip and Warlord than any other DC character--its a fantasy world, you've got more room for crazy monsters, as opposed to, say, Metropolis.

MG: Absolutely.

AMS: So when you were working on Aquaman, was there anything in that influenced you, that showed itself later in The Warlord?

MG: Oh, I'm sure the cities in Atlantis look very similar to some of the cities in The Warlord, because they both sprang from the same kind of influence. In The Warlord, the world in the center of the Earth--Skartaris--had been settled by survivors of the Atlantean cataclysm. And so their culture translated into the architecture into the cities, the same kind of look, the same kind of a feel, so I didn't have a problem in terms of creative integrity translating one over from the next.

AMS: You mentioned going to the con with an action-adventure strip, something different than DC was publishing at the time. I remember reading about the term, was it Julie Schwartz or Joe Orlando that coined the phrase "The Grellverse" that was the universe Mike Grell's characters existed on?

MG: The question always came up as to which version of Earth The Warlord took place in. I always fought against crossovers, and never did any crossovers with the DC Universe. Later, when I did The Longbow Hunters and the Green Arrow book I never did any crossovers, either. When Green Lantern appeared, it was as Hal Jordan, because I was trying to make Green Arrow fit into the real world.

And there were some questions that were raised, because at some point there were people who wanted to play around with The Warlord setting, and Julie Schwartz said "We have Earth-1, Earth-2, Earth-Prime, and Earth-Grell."

AMS: [Laughs] Yep, that was it--"Earth-Grell!"

MG: And he had some logic behind it--Earth-Prime is the world we live in, we know the world isn't hollow. We know that for a fact--its solid all the way down there. Earth-1 was Superman's world, and he had already drilled through the center of the Earth, the magma core, all the way through, and he never found Skartaris.

And by extrapolation it sure can't be Earth-2, so its got to be some other Earth, so he said Earth-1, Earth-2, and Earth-Grell.

AMS: That's pretty good--you get your own world!

MG: There you go! And I adhered to that as strictly as possible. Of course, as soon as I left the book, they brought in the superheroes.

AMS: What are you working on now? You're writing a new Warlord series, right?

MG: Yes. I'm doing the scripts and the covers for new Warlord series, and I'm going to be drawing a few issues down the road, and that ought to be a lot of fun.

I've got another project with an old friend, Mark Ryan, called The Pilgrim, and that's running on ComicMix.com. And in my spare time, I'm finishing up a re-write of a screenplay I did for [Jon] Sable.

AMS: Well, Mike, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

MG: Great, Rob. Take care.


It was a real thrill to get to talk to the legendary Mike Grell. I thank him so much for his time, especially when you consider what a blip his Aquaman work was in his long, celebrated career. He was a genuine pleasure to talk to, friendly and engaging, and it made for what I think is one of the best interviews we've ever had on The Aquaman Shrine.

You find out more about Mike and his work on his official website, MikeGrell.com, you can read his new series The Pilgrim over at ComicMix.com, and if you'd like to commission Mike to do an original illustration (like the sweet Aquaman piece you see above), go to CatskillComics.com!

Special thanks to Stephen Legge for helping set up the interview with Mike.

Adventure Comics #437 - Feb. 1975

Comics Weekend "A Quiet Day in Atlantis"

Mike Grell is back for this, his third and final Aquaman story, but Steve Skeates has been replaced by Paul Levitz:

Aquaman was zapped by Black Manta, of course, who watches from the safety of his Manta Ship.

He orders his crew to follow Aquaman's unconscious body into the pit, but it gets caught in a web of seaweed.

Aquaman wakes up, in time for the Manta Ship to blast some rocks above him, causing them to crash down on him, trapping Aquaman in a small cave carved into the rock wall. He goes looking for an escape:

...I love that octopus just sitting there, in the darkness. A nice touch by Mike Grell.

Aquaman talks to some finny friends and learns that the cavern leads out to an open sea farm, and after some more searching, he finds his way out.

Unfortunately, its not that easy:

Aquaman isn't strong enough to free himself, so, still wrapped in one of the creature's tentacles, he swims toward it at full speed, making a hard turn at the last second. The resultant *snap* breaks the tentacle off (ouch!), and Aquaman manages to escape.

But the day's not over. On the way back to Atlantis, he's in the right place at the right time to rescue a young girl who carelessly runs in front of a giant mechanized harvester.

He saves the girl, returning her back to her mother. He then collapses from exhaustion, waking up back in his royal chambers:

...with its humorous ending, this story reminds me a bit of the kind of story you might have seen in one of the Aquaman Filmation cartoons.

I like how Black Manta is regarded as sort of a permanent thorn in Aquaman's side, and you can work him into a story like this and have it just be a sub-plot.

That purple creature reminds me of the sort of icky beings Basil Wolverton was creating for Plop! covers around this same time. I imagine he (it?) was pretty mad at Aquaman, for snapping one of his arms off like that.


And that was it for Aquaman's second run in Adventure Comics. Of course, he would return in just a few issues, this time as the lead, drawn once again by The Man, Jim Aparo.

Adventure editor Joe Orlando was rotating different back-up features behind The Spectre main feature, so I think we can assume Aquaman was the best received, since it was he--not The Seven Soldiers of Victory, not Captain Fear--who got the promotion once the ground-breaking Spectre series ended.

Mike Grell had clearly proved his mettle to DC's editors, since he started receiving more and more assignments from this point on.

Tomorrow, as promised, we'll talk with Mike, about how he landed this assignment, what he thought about it, and where his career went after Aquaman. Be here!

Adventure Comics #436 - Dec. 1974

Comics Weekend "The King is Dead; Long Live The King!"

Steve Skeates and Mike Grell return for a second Aquaman adventure in Adventure, this time with an extraordinarily unusual opening splash panel--Aquaman smashing open his own head!:

We then flash back to see how we got here--in the royal chambers of Atlantis, Aquaman is being introduced to a android duplicate of himself(!), which will--ideally--free the King of Atlantis to attend to more important royal business.

Aqualad and Mera are also present, but Aqualad doesn't like this development. So he strolls outside:

The Bugala (last seen in Aquaman Vol. 1 #47) begins to attack Aqualad, something Aquaman becomes aware of via closed-circuit TV. He heads out, leaving his android duplicate to handle its first job.

He tries to use his telepathic powers on the Bugala, but it doesn't seem to work. With the wave of its hand, the Bugala sends Aquaman spiraling down onto the coral below.

Aquaman passes out briefly, waking up just in time to see the Bugala attacking the city. He swims past it, slipping to Atlantis' protective dome. Surprisingly, he heads straight for his android duplicate, smashing it open, and we're back where we started.

Aquaman reaches inside the android's head, pulling out some sort of controller, smashing it to bits.

Once he does that, we see the Bugala teeter and fall over, leaving Aquaman to go after the real bad guy:

...of course Black Manta was behind this! It was either going to be him or Ocean Master.

On the letters page, editor Joe Orlando mentions that next issue will feature the last Aquaman installment, so it seems that this was always intended as a trial run for the character, not an ongoing one.

Adventure Comics #435 - Oct. 1974

Comics Weekend "As The Undersea City Sleeps"

After many years away, Aquaman returned to Adventure Comics (okay, Weird Adventure Comics), the title that would become his on-and-off (x4) home for the 1970s. This back-up feature would be produced by an interesting hybrid of talent--old Aquaman hand Steve Skeates, and newcomer (to comics) Mike Grell, whose unusual method of storytelling would be evident from the first panel of the first page:

Aquaman and Manta tussle (as they are wont to do), and it ends with Manta releasing some sort of inky-black cloud from a piece of equipment, temporarily blinding Aquaman.

By the time Aquaman frees himself, Manta has escaped:

Later, we see a group of hooded sea farmers tending to land. Suddenly, a group of projectiles fly overhead, releasing a wave of chemicals.

Once it hits the farmers, they are all knocked out, and we are left with Black Manta, having arrived in his Manta Ship, to laugh at his victory. But, of course, ist not that easy:

Aquaman has the drop on Manta, and knocks him about. He orders Manta to tell his men to get back into the Manta Ship, which he does.

Aquaman then sends out a telepathic signal to his finny friends, as he and Manta continue to fight. Manta wonders why his men haven't fired on Aquaman, and we see that they planned to, except they have their own problems:

A solid start to the new Aquaman back-up. The story is so short (a mere seven pages) there's not that can go on, but it does tell a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end, a lost art nowadays.

Grell's art--while nowhere near what he would achieve later on--is also solid. Some of the poses are phenomenal (like the first panel of the first page, and the last panel on the last, above), and you really get the sense that Aquaman is in water, not bound by gravity.

Be here tomorrow for the second chapter!

Adventure Comics #437 Ad - 1975

This is a humble little quarter-page ad that ran for Adventure Comics #437, the final issue to feature the Aquaman back-up drawn by Mike Grell.

Normally, I wouldn't post something so simple on a Monday (when I like to go for the big stuff), but this is the kick-off to what I'm informally calling Mike Grell Week.

The three-issue Aquaman back-up that ran in Adventure Comics #s 435-437 is the only Aquaman run in the title that we've never gotten around to covering here on the Shrine. Its memorable for being mostly written by one of Aquaman's greatest writers, Steve Skeates, and being Mike Grell's first professional assignment in comics.

So I thought we'd really do it right, and profile each of the three issues over the next three days, culminating on Friday with a brand-new interview with Mike Grell himself! Be here, it'll be good!

Aquaman (Vol.6) #73 - Nov. 2000

Comics Weekend "Power Game"

The concluding chapter of the adventure in Skartaris starts off with Mera imprisoned by the evil Volgos:

We see that Travis Morgan is trapped too, both of them held down by these creepy glowing, tentacled creatures.

We learn what just happened: the possessed Aquaman attacked Morgan, and Mera went after Volgos.

Hitting him with her hard-water powers, she temporarily knocks him out, and we see under the creepy helmet its...Mongo Ironhand, the wizard friend of The Warlord's! Morgan insists he is being controlled by Volgos, too, and then Mera was dragged off by Machiste and Mariah.

Mera is happy to see Arthur return, but:

Volgos orders Machiste--who is struggling to free himself from Volgos's magical grip--to go and kill Travis Morgan!

A world away, Tempest is searching the mysterious pit, and he finds a small glowing crevice. He lifts a rock to uncover it, and is discovered by three silhouetted creatures, who grab Garth and drag him into a swirling pit!

Meanwhile, Mera feels something strange start to happen--she finds herself free of her bonds:

Mera frees Morgan, and then they run into Machiste, who comes to kill them. But Morgan delivers a powerful blow, knocking Machiste off his feet.

A few moments later, we see Machiste return to Volgos's chamber, where he still has Mongo Ironhand and Mariah imprisoned. He asks Machiste if the intruders are dead, and Machiste answers by freeing his friends! He is no longer under Volgos's control!

Morgan threatens to shoot the Volgos-controlled Aquaman, but Volgos isn't afraid, since he knows that will kill Aquaman.

But Arthur, his mind still active, grabs Morgan's gun intending to shoot himself, and Volgos in the process:

Hey, have some respect Morgan--Aquaman did just defeat Volgos.

As the group leaves, they see where Volgos has gone--into the body of one of the giants waiting outside his lair, and he tries a more direct approach--smashing them with a giant fist!

Aquaman has Mera use her powers to propel him into the giant's eye, where he stabs the glowing crystal that seems to house Volgos's power. He shatters it, finding a limp body of Volgos inside. He grabs it and jumps off to safety.

Moments later:

...a nice wrap-up to fun adventure. I like how Aquaman used his mental powers to get out of the main jam, an aspect to the character I like seeing utilized.

Plus Mera gets a lot to do, and we're reminded what a great team they make. If Classic Aquaman comes back to his own title, I'd love to see him and Mera reunited permanently. It just works.
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Not only do the Super Friends take on Starro the Conqueror in the newest issue of DC Super Friends (#12, out this week), but this comes with a DIY mask of the Sea King!

Everyone go out and pick up the issue, if you don't already get the series--its a lot of fun, and you get Classic Aquaman in every story!

Aquaman (Vol.6) #72 - Oct. 2000

Comics Weekend "Worlds Apart"

Tempest is hot on the trail of the "mystical disturbance" he's been sensing the past few days:

Accompanied by Rodunn, they find the spot where Arthur and Mera were last seen before they disappeared. Garth doesn't know what's going on, but he's assured its something bad.

Meanwhile, on Skartaris, Aquaman and Mera are being informed by Travis Morgan about Valgos, who Morgan calls "The Greatest Enemy Skartaris has ever known." Valgos is a tyrant and a murderer who uses sorcery to get what he wants. We see evidence of that when the giant beings our heroes have stumbled upon attack!

Morgan tries a direct approach, while Aquaman saves people from being trampled. At the same time, Mera tries to tip one of the giants over with her hard-water powers:

Temporarily escaping, Morgan and Aquaman have it out over who's in charge. Mera reminds Morgan that Aquaman is a King, in charge of more territory than every head of state on Earth combined. The Warlord agrees to go along, uneasily.

Meanwhile, back in "our" dimension, we see Vulko dealing with problems of state in his king's absence. The U.N. Ambassador wants to meet with Arthur or Garth, and is none too pleased to learn they are both absent.

We find Garth and Rodunn still searching, and they come across a giant glowing pit. Tempest is going in.

Back in Skartaris, Aquaman, Mera, and Morgan make their way to Valgos's hangout:

They try a two-pronged approach, with Morgan scaling the fort's face (literally), while Aquaman and Mera try to swim underneath it.

They make their way in, and are attacked by two friends of Morgan, Machiste and Mariah, who seem to be under the control of Volgos, as well as a giant hooded bad guy who seems to be doing the controlling.

Machiste attacks Aquaman, and Mariah attacks Mera (redhead on redhead action!). Aquaman tries his best to match Machiste fist to fist:

The head bad guy calls an end to the fighting, and uses his powers to manipulate Aquaman's hand, causing him to lose control of it!

We find Morgan finally having made his way in, and things are not good:

There's trouble back home as well, as we see a mysterious figure sneaking into Dolphin's bed chamber, and they seem to have plans for the baby Cerdian:

...to be continued!

I love that moment with Machiste where Aquaman is going on and on and Machiste basically tells him to shut up. Priceless.

Be here tomorrow for the concluding chapter of Aquaman and Mera lost in Skartaris!
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Speaking of Aquaman comics (and we always are), the third volume of Showcase Presents: Aquaman is out this week. It reprints Aquaman (Vol.1) #s 24-39, plus Brave and the Bold #73, and Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #115, all for a measly $16.99.

I'm going to assume, since this is the third volume of Aquaman reprints, that the series is selling well enough to keep going past this, so that means in Volume 4 we'll get to the Steve Skeates/Jim Aparo run on the book, which--incredibly--has never been reprinted in any sort of complete form before.

I'm glad to see this series is continuing, and glad to see so much Classic Aquaman is out for people at a (very) reasonable price!

Aquaman Shrine Winds Dardo Award!

I have been honored with one them there "Dardo" Awards (the ones the young people are always talking about), given out by bloggers to other bloggers who the original bloggers think are running great blogs. Got it?

Anyway, what I call "The Rob Kelly Family of Blogs" was gifted with two different Dardos--one for The Aquaman Shrine (awarded to me by Jon Knutson of Random Acts of Geekery, and then again by Shag Matthews of Once Upon A Geek), and one for I Am The Phantom Stranger, awarded to me by "Chris Bankrobber" of the blog When Is Evil Cool?

So now its my job to spread the love, and award the Dardo to five other blogs I think are really cool. Ok, so here goes:

Gorilla Daze - run by Allan Harvey, this blog covers all kinds of weird ephemera in the world of comics. No overarching theme to the blog, its just a lot of fun.

By Ken Levine - a blog by Big Time TV writer/director/producer Ken Levine, who has worked on series like Frasier, Cheers, and M*A*S*H. Great insights into the world of Hollywood, all done with razor sharp wit.

And Then I Wrote... - a blog by Big Time comics and book writer Paul Kupperberg, who offers us daily glimpses into the life of a professional writer. I'd love the blog even if I didn't know Paul and call him a friend.

Siskoid's Blog of Geekery - Siskoid manages to post more in one day on one blog than I do on all my blogs combined. Covering comics, TV, movies, DVDs, games, and lots more, plus a seemingly neverending examination of Star Trek in all its forms.

Sitcom Diablo - From the man who brought you Plaid Stallions, comes this blog covering TV--mostly bad TV--in all its myriad forms. Brian's writing is fall down (well, fall out of chair) funny, so I'm glad we get two doses of his humor a day on teh internets.

So those are my Dardo Awards! Thanks to Jon, Shag, and Chris for mine! Eat, blog, and be merry!

Valentine's Day Card - 1980

With Valentine's Day falling on a weekend this year, I figured today would be a good time to post this other 3D Valentine's Day card, which folds open to reveal the sweet, sticky Valentine's Day message.

Like the other 3D card I posted, this one is drawn the great Dick Giordano, the perfect artist for stuff like this.

What girl could turn this down, I mean really?

Super Friends Bean Bag

I am not fortunate enough to own something as cool as a Super Friends bean bag.

Luckily, F.O.A.M. member Brian Heiler was nice enough to send me this catalog shot of it, so we can all enjoy its bean baggy goodness.

This was one of those weird hybrid Super Friends logos, with Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and Batgirl added in by a different artist. (Oh, how that must have made Alex Toth happy)

I gotta find me one of these one day.

Aquaman at Wegman's

This...unusual store display is located in the Mt. Laurel, New Jersey Wegman's supermarket.

A while back, a friend told me they saw this in the store, and the next time I was there I went looking for it, but never did. I thought maybe they got rid of it until F.O.A.M. member Glenn Walker sent me this photo, so obviously I was just not eagle-eyed enough. Thanks Glenn!

This shot of Aquaman shows up more and more when a single illustration of the Sea King is needed for some piece of merchandise--its quickly becoming the stock Aquaman art of the new millennium.

AquaSketch by Chris Giarrusso - 2009

As promised, here's one of the sketches I picked up at the NY Comic Con over the weekend.

I'm a big fan of Mini-Marvels, and I'm glad that Marvel has expanded them into their own digest-sized books. I buy every one of them, and enjoy them, and then have the added joy of giving them to the various kids I know.

Chris never gets to draw any DC heroes (in the comics, at least), so I love seeing the King of the Seven Seas done in his style. How adorable is this??

New York 2009 Comic Con Report

Today will be my report on the New York Comic Con, which just wrapped up yesterday!

The NY Comic Con folks were generous enough to grant me a "Press" pass, so I figure the least I can do is talk about the show and my experiences at it (I would do it anyway, even I paid to get in, but shhh, don't tell them that!)

Anyway, last year when I showed up to get my credentials, they had no record of me, so I didn't get an actual badge with the Shrine's name on it.

Luckily, this year things went more smoothly, and I got handed an official badge with the five magical words on it--"Rob Kelly", "Aquaman Shrine", and "Press." Ya-hoo! I would've bought one of those old-style Press hats from 40s movies, if I had thought of it. (I passed my pal, F.O.A.M. member, and fellow comics blogger Glenn Walker on the way in, who kept me from wandering the bowels of the Jacob Javitz Center, looking for the Press Room).

I got there around 1pm on Friday, and unfortunately the massive crowds had already started to gather. My main "targets" for Aquaman sketching duties were Brian Bolland and Jose Luis Garcia Lopez. Both of them being meticulous artists, I had doubts they'd even be doing sketches, but I thought I'd ask.

And it was here that I ran into the first of many signs that the show was going to be packed--by 1pm, Bolland was already basically filled up with sketch requests. I asked him if he did commissions by mail, but he politely said no, thereby ending my chance to get a Brian Bolland sketch. They said something about starting the list over on Saturday, but I figured unless I sat at Bolland's table at 9am, waiting for him to arrive, the sketch list was going to be even longer that day, so I moved on.

Next was Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, who was not yet at his table. As I was waiting, I ran into fellow blogger and F.O.A.M.er Richard Bensam, who is a wonderful person to walk a con with (not everyone is good at it, from my experience). I spent the first few minutes bitching to Richard about already feeling like I got to the con too late, so he accompanied me back to Lopez's table, to see if he had arrived.

When we got there, he was just setting up, pulling things out of his portfolio, and I didn't want to get in his face before he even sat down, so Richard and I wandered off for a moment. When we returned, there was already four or five people in line, so there weren't my moment! (Turns out Jose wasn't doing sketches, so I didn't really miss my chance)

We then ran into Paul Kupperberg, Patron Saint of the Aquaman Shrine (don't tell his Rabbi), who graciously took me over and introduced me to comics legend Len Wein, giving me the chance to thank Len for doing an interview with me for my JLA Satellite blog.

One of the things I noticed at the con were how many people--even on Friday, the traditionally quiet day--came to the con in costume. Now, as many regular con attendees know, many of these costumed con-goers are women, usually dressed in some sexed-up version of their favorite superheroine.

There was one woman I saw walking the con floor dressed as Supergirl, and she was, frankly, just about perfect--pretty much a walking, talking comic book drawing come to life. But even though I admired how perfectly put together her look and costume were, I'm shy about asking someone like that to pose for a picture--it feels a little pervy to me, asking some young woman to pose (who am I, Irving Klaw?), so I generally just walk on by.

Asking these guys to pose was more my speed:

...I mean, how many Solomon Grundy fans can there be out there? As you might guess, I'm a fan of the "B" characters, so when I see someone love Kid Flash so much they make a homemade costume, it makes me smile. (Later, I saw these same two on Saturday, which made me want to ask the Grundy guy, did he sleep in that outfit, or wash it all off and put it all back the next day?)

I went back to my sketch hunting, and came across the table of Chris Giarrusso, the artist behind those great Mini-Marvels strips and books. I asked him to do an Aquaman sketch for me, the result of which will be seen here tomorrow.

I wandered around Artist's Alley some more, and managed to make arrangements with two other favorite artists of mine to do Aquaman sketches, but I'm keeping those names a secret for now--I like still having a surprise or two here on the Shrine!

One of the nicest moments of the con for me was when I visited Kevin Maguire's table. After talking to Kevin (whose work I've always loved), Richard and I started to walk away, when a dapper-looking man walked past, and Kevin yelled out "Hey! Isn't that J.M. DeMatteis?"

In fact, it was, and he turned around to say hi to Kevin. I stopped in my tracks and waited, because J.M. DeMatteis, in addition to being a superb writer, has been another comics pro who has been extraordinarily generous with his time towards me and my blogs, having done two interviews with me for the Shrine (see sidebar) and one for JLA Satellite.

I waited until he was done talking to Kevin, then introduced myself. When he saw my badge, his face lit up, and he said something to the effect of "Wow! Great to finally meet you!" We talked for a few moments, then I got him to autograph a copy of Adventure Comics #475 I had with me, which features his first Aquaman story:

We shook hands and departed, and I felt elated. J.M. DeMatteis was happy to see me--me? Someone who read the above comic off the newsstand at age nine?

Later, Richard introduced me to the blogger known as Redhead Fangirl, who is as sweet in person as her blog persona. She looked over my sketchbook and we talked about famous redheaded comics characters. I couldn't help but think when I made an Insect Queen joke and she laughed, where were women like this when I was single?

I visited my friend Geoff Grogan, who I first met at last year's con when he was selling his treasury-sized book Look Out!! Monsters, which I admired immensely. He has a new series out now called Nice Work, set in the 1960s and all about the Rat Pack and JFK, and I picked up the first trade. We spent most of the time talking about treasury-sized comics, a topic I never grow tired of discussing.

After stopping by the legendary Joe Staton's table and picking up a Scooby-Doo commission for my nephew, it occurred to me that my sketchbook, in my attempt to collect fantastic pieces of artwork all within its covers, has become a little too beloved an artifact for me now to feel comfortable giving it to anyone to keep overnight, which is pretty SOP for most of the comics pros I seek sketches from.

Having a book with originals by Aparo, Cardy, Infantino, Fradon, Hamilton, Staton, Austin, Gleason, etc., is simply too precious to me to leave with anyone for too long, so now I have to resign myself to mostly getting sketches on separate pieces of paper and then adding them to the book. I just can't bear to leave my baby with strangers!

By this point it was around 5pm, and I had to head back. I made plans to meet up with Richard again the next day and headed back to the Port Authority to make my way out of the city.

The next day, the Saturday crowds made the Friday ones look like a matinee of The Spirit. Every single aisle was packed within an inch of its life, and as we all know, not everyone is as polite as we'd like them to be. Just getting from one end to the other was a grueling ordeal, at least for me.

There were even more amazing self-made costumes on display, and I got a little more comfortable asking for pictures. Like when I saw these two:

I mean, that Catwoman...wow. Just getting in that thing must have been a feat of engineering.

(Looking back at this picture, it occurs to me I probably weigh more than both these women combined. Note to self: hit the WiiFit when done writing this post)

There was also this amazing two-some:

Not only did the Chewbacca stand about seven feet tall, but the guy playing Han Solo managed to keep the perfect bored smirk that Harrison Ford had all throughout Star Wars. Well done, fellas(?).

I always like to try and get a sketch by one artist who I've never heard of, just from spotting their work and liking what I see. I did that again this year, with DC Comics inker Derek Fridolfs. While DC seems to just use him primarily as an inker, he has a style that to me looks like a cross between Paul Pope and Bruce Timm, and I liked it immediately. I told him if he ever did the pencils and inks on a book, I'd buy it regardless of the story.

Bonus was that he was fast, doing sketches as you watched, so I actually got him to the piece in my book, and I was thrilled with it. It will show up here soon!

Around this time, I ran into F.O.A.M. member Vince Bartilucci and his charming wife Billi. Having never met Vince, or knowing what he looked like, it was up to him to spot me, which he did when he some guy clutching an Aquaman sketchbook to his chest. He flagged me down and we talked for a few minutes, and compared our con experiences. He even bestowed on me a small Aquaman-related gift, which will be the subject of a future post.

Shockingly, he then tried to steal my sketchbook and make a break for it! But luckily Billi stopped him:

Good catch, Mrs. B! (Btw,...like my Batman TV show-esque angle on the photo?)

I stopped by Geoff Grogan's table again. I had read the first half of his Nice Work trade Friday night and liked it, so I came back to pick up the second issue. It felt good to be able to go right back to someone and tell them you liked what they did, and were back for more.

By this point, the crowds were really started to get to me, so I decided to make my way out the door. But I wanted to run into Richard one more time, and I did, by the TwoMorrows table. Richard shamed me into admitting I had not even been to the other side of the Javitz Center, to see the other half of the con I was attending! I was like the Comic Con equivalent of one of the SoHo snobs.

Richard wanted to take me to the table of a dealer whom he thought might have some good Aqua-Swag, and on the way we stopped at the Mattel booth and saw some amazing new figures making their way to Targets all over this, er, great land:

I'm excited to see a Tala figure--the first Phantom Stranger-related character for the JLU line--plus the addition of Super Friends Apache Chief, Samurai, and Black Vulcan--wow! Meanwhile, Cyborg apparently suffers some technical difficulties.

I also got shots of the new History of the DC Universe Aquaman figure, a JLU-styled Aquaman but featuring the original costume, as well as a line of mini-Brave and the Bold features, including Aquaman and Black Manta! As Richard pointed out, when is Ocean Master going to get some injection-molded love?!?

Finally we got to the dealer in question, and while they didn't have any Aquaman stuff I didn't have (except for a Mint Yellow Card Aquaman, which I wasn't even going to ask about), it was here that I made my traditional, one-per-con Useless Purchase.

I guess one could argue every purchase at a con is a useless purchase, but go with me on this. Every con, I buy something that catches my fancy, that, in that moment, I really want, even though it doesn't tie in to any specific collection I'm maintaining (Aquaman stuff, Bob Dylan bootlegs, treasury-sized comics, etc.). And this time, it was this:

I've always loved Ray Harryhausen's movies, and I still remember my Dad taking me and my sister to see Clash of the Titans. So, for whatever reason, a foreign-carded Perseus figure was exactly what I wanted at that moment. (Note to all my friends: if you ever see a carded COTT Charon figure, please pick it up for me. I desperately want a "Death's Boatman" action figure!) Anyway, the price was right, and I clutched my newest con prize to my chest.

Somehow, Richard and I made it through the throng to a relatively quiet spot where we talked about Human Civilization's genetic need to hunt, and how that still manifests itself, all these eons later, even when looking for action figures. It was all very high-falutin' considering we were at an event featuring people dressed like Darkwing Duck.

By this time, I decided to head out, and made my way home. Another successful comic con has come and gone!


There was a point around 2002-2005 where I didn't attend many comic cons. The friends I had gone to SDCC with weren't around, and I hardly knew anyone at local shows. I wondered if going to cons at all was something I would just phase out of my life.

But now thanks to my blogs (mostly The Aquaman Shrine), I now get to meet up with lots of people, get to shake their hand and say hello, and make a connection beyond the 1s and 0s of the internet. It truly is a marvelous thing, and now I look forward to each and every comic con I can go to.

Next year's New York show isn't until October 2010, which seems like a long ways away...