A little something different today for Booster Gold #21. Rather than show you the page that's my favorite — probably page 6, but I like Ty Templeton inking Dan Jurgens so much, it could be just about any of them — I'm going to showcase the page I think is the most interesting. Page 21:

As I said, I love the art, the beautifully naturalistic posing, musculature, textures, and expressions. But what makes this page so interesting to me is the layout.

Since Booster Gold is the first to speak in panel one, he's on the left. As a rule in English-language comics, speech balloons should be read in order from left to right (following the visual scanning tendency imparted by our left-to-right language construction). Therefore, it generally follows that in American comics, the first speaker should appear on the left side of the panel. In this case, that's Booster, who Jurgens the artist cleverly puts in the long cast shadow of the evil alien mastermind. So far, so great.

The alternating tight close-ups in panels two and three follow in the familiar tradition of the cinematic Western showdown between gunslingers, with Booster playing the white hat cowboy against the gloating villain. The allusion to a gunfight is especially apt given Booster's charged wrist blaster and accompanying death threat. That's a bluff, of course, but the alien hopefully doesn't know that.

And then there's panel four. By the same rules as panel one, the first speaker, Booster, should be on the left. But there's extra reason to put Booster on the left here because Booster was established on the left in panel one. Sequential art and cinema follow many of the same rules, one of those being the convention that speakers shouldn't abruptly swap positions during a scene. Cinema calls this the 180-degree rule. While this rule can and sometimes should be broken, doing so always calls attention to the violation, which is unwarranted here. So it might seem that panel four is following all the rules. But it's also wrong.

From the position of the reader, when the alien Rangor tells Booster Gold to "look," he points behind Booster to the left. In sequential art, where each panel represents a specific moment in a sequence, Rangor is essentially pointing the reader backwards in time. The figures in the panel should be posed such that Rangor points to the right, visually guiding the reader's eye to the issue's big reveal on the story's last page.

In the original publication, this is especially egregious as page 21 was printed on the left side of a two page spread!

When the issue was reprinted in Booster Gold: Future Lost, DC had the good sense to revise this so that page 21 was printed on the righthand side. The reader has to turn the page to uncover the surprise ending. It's a big improvement.

While we're here, I'd be amiss not to call attention to the contribution to these panels by colorist Gene D'Angelo. The first panel is a primarily an unsettling orange. Then each panel becomes progressively cooler in color temperature — pink, light blue, dark blue — as Booster's hot-blooded threat is chilled by the villain's machinations. It's a very nice touch (that looks even better with Jurgens' pyramidal layout).

Did I say this wasn't my favorite page? I might have to rethink that.

Booster Gold comics: even when they're bad, they're good!

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: dan jurgens favorite pages gene d'angelo sequential art ty templeton

Bad news first: DC's June 2023 solicitations are out at aiptcomics.cpom, and there's not a Booster Gold to be seen. That's 4 months and counting of no predictable appearances. This new "Dawn of DC" is looking less and less golden.

(Over the weekend, TwinCitiesGeek.com reported that Dan Jurgens has "started writing another Black Label project for DC" that "will be coming a little later yet this year." Seems unlikely that it'll be a Black Label Booster Gold story, but who knows?)

On the brighter side, while Booster is on hero hiatus, Boosterrific.com is better than ever thanks in no small part to J, who has spent an inordinate amount of time hunting down errors in the annotations and book details. Together, we're making things right that once went wrong.

Why, just this weekend, J discovered that the site was missing (count 'em!) two different Justice League Unlimited reprint volumes that contain Booster Gold adventures. Oops!

Shame on me for missing those, but hearty thanks to J for all the hard work. Booster boosters everywhere owe you a debt of gratitude. Keep up the good work!

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: aiptcomics.com black label dan jurgens j justice league unlimited solicitations twincitiesgeek.com

BleedingCool.com reports

DC Comics has announced 2023 editions of the following books: Creature Commandos, Batman And Son, Booster Gold: 52 Pick Up, The Authority Book One, Batman And Robin Vol 1: Batman Reborn, and Wonder Woman: Paradise Found.

It's great that 52 Pick Up is getting a new printing, but it makes me wonder whether that's happening just because it finally sold out on Amazon following the recent announcement about Warner Bros' latest plans or whether its story (by Geoff Johns) will be the basis for James Gunn's show.

Based on Gunn's "Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters" announcement, I've been assuming that his Booster Gold show will be based on Jurgens' original run, which is collected in The Big Fall and is also sold out on Amazon. But no reprint announcement for that one yet.

So Johns over Jurgens? Or am I reading too much into this? Probably the latter. If Gunn's previous work is any indication, the television show won't hew too closely to any previously published story.

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: 52 pick-up big fall bleedingcool.com dan jurgens geoff johns reprints

Big announcement today about our favorite hero coming to HBO! Says the press release:

The story will center on Booster Gold, a washed-up athlete from the future who travels back to the present in hopes of becoming the greatest super hero of all time. Instead of chasing criminals, however, his main priority is chasing fame and money. But Booster Gold discovers that being a hero takes more than just a megawatt smile, and that the future doesn’t happen without first protecting the present.

Oh, wait. Sorry. That one was from the press release from 2011 when Booster Gold was coming to SyFy. Obviously, that one never materialized. I'm sure this new one by *checks notes* James Gunn is totally better and will really happen this time.

Don't let my snark fool you. I'm pleased as punch that Booster might be finally coming to a... whatever screen it is you can watch HBO Max on. Tablet? Cell phone? That seems appropriate for Booster.

You can see for yourself Gunn's announcement of DCEU "Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters" — which one is Booster? God or monster? — on Youtube.com, and you can read a pretty good write-up about what all it entails on Variety.com. In both Gunn describes the upcoming Booster story as:

Booster Gold is one of comics really popular cult heroes. He is a fascinating guy. He is a loser from the future who uses future technology to come back to present day and become a superhero so that people will love him. It is basically a superhero story of Impostor Syndrome on an HBO Max series.

That does sound like an angle that HBO would want to tackle. And I don't disagree with that take on the character, although I might have worded it a little differently. Personally, I prefer how Booster's creator Dan Jurgens described his hero to Russ Burlingame at ComicBook.com:

With a character like Booster, who's more complex that many people realize, clarity is essential. Many writers have made the mistake of treating him like an idiot, which he most certainly isn't. It's just that his journey from problem to solution sometimes gets a bit tangled up, which is what happens to most of us in our own lives.

Heck, that might be the best, most succinct description of Booster Gold ever. Nobody gets him like Dan does.

If the ten different projects Gunn mentioned are released in order, it sounds like we shouldn't expect Booster Gold sooner than 2025. We've all got plenty of time to get excited.

Thanks to all who made sure I knew the news.

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When you visit your Local Comic Shop this week, you'll see a lot of Booster Gold!

Not only is Booster inside Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #6 (as visible in the preview at AIPTComics.com), he's also on the cover:

As is increasingly the case at DC, there are several covers to this issue. Officially, that one is being called the "Cvr A Daniel Sampere & Alejandro Sanchez" Cover. You may have seen it recently in the DC house ad promoting this month's Dark Crisis tie-in issues.

Speaking of multiple covers, Booster is also appearing on several covers of Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special #1:

Officially the "Cvr A Dan Jurgens & Brett Breeding Gatefold Cover"

Officially the "Cvr C Ivan Reis & Danny Miki Funeral for a Friend Variant"

You may have seen the wraparound cover in recent DC Nation columns promoting this month's "90's Rewind" tie-in issues. It's so nice, it's also being reused on the Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special #1 "Cvr F Memorial Dan Jurgens & Brett Breeding Bleeding Bag Premium Polybag Variant"!

How many of these comics are you going to buy to make Skeets happy?

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: aiptcomics.com alejandro sanchez brett breeding covers dan jurgens daniel sampere danny miki dark crisis death ivan reis new releases previews superman