posted April 19, 2003 10:57 PM            

First, I love Andersons's inks on Infantino. The detailed shading on page 75 realing makes the rain feel right. I live in Oregon; rain is what we know. Iris also looks particularly fetching when Anderson inks.

Concerning the Kid Flash stories, I'm trying to determine how old he is. He's awfully short (but so are Robin and Aqualad at this same time). He can't be in high school yet, if I had to guess. A question for you contemporaries of Wally: was it common to wear a tie to school? A decade later, when I'm in school, it sure wasn't. And who are the guys caricatured as beatniks in the splash on page 155? They don't look much like the other characters in the story.

We get to see the debuts of the Weather Wizard and Trickster; the Rogues Gallery is almost complete now. These debuts didn't seem as formidable as we saw in V1. the Trickster, in particular, seemed like a half-baked concept. I never thought much of him anyway, based on his '70s appearances. Maybe he was always 2nd rate?

Another question for you slightly older folks. In the Weather Wizard origin, he is shown escaping from a train. When would this seem outdated? At what time would the origin story need to change to make the escape from a bus or some other vehicle, to make the story contemporary? Or was it already dataed in 1960?

posted April 20, 2003 02:17 AM               

Yes she does, doesn't she?
Anderson was always my inker of choice over both Infantino and Kane during the '60s. I thought, and still think, that his pencils were nice, but not exceptional: a bit stiff in the figure department, and his design sense--both in page layouts and in the design of objects--is OK, but kind of ordinary, whereas the added kick he added to Kane's and Infantino's pencils as an inker was something I'd always look forward to seeing.
I actually preferred almost anyone over Giella as an inker--Giacoia and Sachs were just fine as far as I was concerned. Not special, the way Anderson was, but they didn't give me the impression I often got looking at a Giella-inked page that there was something missing.

Concerning the Kid Flash stories, I'm trying to determine how old he is. He's awfully short (but so are Robin and Aqualad at this same time)....A question for you contemporaries of Wally: was it common to wear a tie to school?...

I was in high school from 1959 to 1963, and we wore ties to school. No jeans either. They would have liked to make us wear uniforms. It was a Catholic school, of course, but the Catholic Church's foothold in North Carolina was so feeble at the time (it was one of SIX Catholic high schools in the whole state) that the desire to keep a low profile and the wish not to cost parents money for uniforms brought them to the compromise of ties and no jeans for boys.
The kids I knew in public school at that time didn't have to wear ties, but a few did.

...the Trickster, in particular, seemed like a half-baked concept. I never thought much of him anyway, based on his '70s appearances. Maybe he was always 2nd rate?

I always liked The Trickster, but he was kind of a lightweight. Compressed air shoes...

Another question for you slightly older folks. In the Weather Wizard origin, he is shown escaping from a train. When would this seem outdated? At what time would the origin story need to change to make the escape from a bus or some other vehicle, to make the story contemporary? Or was it already dataed in 1960?

I don't know about how law enforcement transported prisoners in the late '50s, but I travelled on trains a few times during that period, between my home in North Carolina and my dad's family in Philadelphia. There was still good passenger service in a lot of the country then.
However, my impression is that John Broome may already have been living abroad by this time, and train service pretty much everywhere else has held up much better than it has here.

I'll have to pick up Volume 3 when I go the shop this week. The two volumes so far have been a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the Rogues.[/B]

posted April 20, 2003 04:18 AM            

As for the Trickster, although I liked the concept of the character just fine, I usually thought that the stories that featured him tended to fall a little flat, although I can't really tell you why.

About ties in school back then, except for the year I spent in Catholic school, I never wore one. In the wake of the comics code though, DC always made an effort to appear to be upstanding and "set a good example" etc., so maybe Kid Flash's "little gentleman" dress code was an extension of that. Also, I do recall that it was more commonplace for trains to be used for transportation back then, although I was only 10 years old when that issue came out.

Lastly, I just have to go on record as saying that "The Secret of the Sunken Satellite" in Flash #109 (Archive Vol. 2) is one of my all-time, favorite Flash stories. It's so ridiculous that it's fantastic. I absolutely loved the Maugites, and was thrilled to see that someone at DC felt the same way and put the picture of them at the top of the foward page.

posted April 20, 2003 07:22 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by NecessaryImpurity:
Concerning the Kid Flash stories, I'm trying to determine how old he is. He's awfully short (but so are Robin and Aqualad at this same time). He can't be in high school yet, if I had to guess.

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Given how rapidly DC compresses the timeline these days, its really hard to tell how old Wally was when he became Kid Flash. If I had to venture a guess that works with continuity, I'd say Wally was around 10 or 11 when he became Kid Flash. 12 at the most.

I still remember the DC SPECIAL SERIES #11 - FLASH SPECTACULAR wherein Wally graduated from high school. It came out in the late 70's when DC was initially experimenting with the dollar format with specials.

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Martin Maenza

posted April 20, 2003 01:30 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by mcmaenza:
I still remember the DC SPECIAL SERIES #11 - FLASH SPECTACULAR wherein Wally graduated from high school. It came out in the late 70's when DC was initially experimenting with the dollar format with specials.

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I remember that too, and taken with Dick Grayson's graduation in 1969, means Wally must be 1 or 2 years younger than Dick. In the "Dynamic Duo Archives", Dick is clearly in high school, and will graduate within 5 years, but he's still a full head shorter than Batman. By the time I was 16, I was within 2-3 inches of my full height (6 feet), which is why I believe that the various sidekicks are drawn shorter and younger than the eventual storylines say they ought to be.

posted April 20, 2003 04:01 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by NecessaryImpurity:
I remember that too, and taken with Dick Grayson's graduation in 1969, means Wally must be 1 or 2 years younger than Dick.

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That's about what a number of us figured it to be as well. Dick has about two years on Wally. Add to this that Dick was probably a well-advanced student, he might have double up on classes in high school and started college a bit earlier.

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Martin Maenza