The Phantom writer reveals what he was thinking when creating the currently running 2nd Phantom story. Tony DePaul says:
About the Sunday yarn, The Princess of the Songhai, we’re three weeks into it. I could see last winter it was going to be a heavy lift on the art side, so I told Jeff Weigel I’d be happy to not write it and get on to something else if he felt it was too much.
In February or so I asked whether he’d be interested in drawing a cast-of-thousands tale from history, real-life events told in the narrative style that Prince Valiant brings to the distant mythic past, both in the strip’s heyday under Hal Foster and in the tradition carried on today by Mark Schultz and Thomas Yeates.
I’ve always enjoyed how Hal Foster held up the past as past. He’d hang it on the wall as a tableau instead of turning it into the present through the artifice of the flashback. He achieved the effect simply by curtailing speech. If you don’t see the characters speak, you’re psychologically in some other time signature.
I wanted to do something like that, if not in exactly the same way.
Oh, about Jeff Weigel wanting to draw the story or not:
Jeff didn’t quite follow the concept at first, all he heard was Hal Foster and he was more than game. Hal Foster’s my North Star, I don’t care how much work is involved—Yes, I want to draw that story, words to that effect.
The 4-night sailing is meant to be a celebration of popular culture and beloved fandoms – and Comic-Con international has now unveiled which specific stars will be creating unforgettable experiences for fans when the ship embarks from Tampa, Florida, on February 5, 2025.
Cruise Hive has details about already scheduled video stars will join the cruise but we care about the cartoonists:
Like the convention on land, there will also be an Artist’s Alley, which is typically a section of the exhibition area where influencers and crafters make and sell art as a special part of the bigger vendor area.
In this case, this is where cruisers will be able to find big names like Amanda Conner, Adam Hughes, Jimmy Palmiotti, Afua Richardson, Kip Rasmussen, Sarah Myer, and Joe Wos.
You best hope Joe Wos doesn’t release that Kraken during the cruise.
A Conversation with Larry Lieber
Larry Lieber has been a creative force in comics since the 1950s. Best known as the co-creator of Iron Man, Ant-Man, Thor, and Groot, Larry also wrote and drew many adventures of the Rawhide Kid and was the primary artist on the Spider-Man newspaper strip for over 30 years. Larry has also been the editorial director of Marvel’s British division and of Atlas Comics. At 92, Larry is still going strong, and his debut prose novel, Chirps, will soon see publication. Tonight, in this prerecorded conversation with his former assistant, Danny Fingeroth, Larry talks about comics, of course, but also about the movies and books he loves, his new novel, and much, much more.
Pig-Pen is one of the most iconic members of the Peanuts gang, and one of the oldest. Indeed, Pig-Pen has been making readers laugh since 1954, introduced a mere four years after Peanuts first entered syndication. Throughout that time, the famously filthy Peanuts character has been at the center of many jokes. However, arguably none of them can compare to one running gag that’s as old as he is, mostly because it shows just how smart the creator of Peanuts, Charles M. Schulz, really was.
