Thursday, June 30, 2011
Boosterrific Analytics 2011
This time last year, I reported on the keywords that were bringing people to Boosterrific.com. This site gets quite a few more hits daily now versus one year ago (averaging about 3 to 1 now over then), so let's take another look at Google Analytics and see what else has changed in a year.
- boosterrific
- booster gold
- boosteriffic
- boosterific
- booster gold jacket
- booster gold fansite
- jli pose
- broderick booster gold
- www.boosteriffic.com
- eurocrime elongated man
There are two things to learn here. One, "Boosterrific" is hard to spell. Two, a lot of people out there are still really curious about Eurocrime. Maybe DC needs to look into rebooting an Elongated Man series.
Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: analytics eurocrime google
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Booster Gold Gets Wired
Booster Gold was referenced in a recent post on the Wired.com Geek Dad blog. In fact, a reference to Booster Gold was the opening hook for Corrina Lawson's article "An Open Letter to DC Comics, Part 2: Are You Really Trying to Appeal to New Readers?":
After leading with the above edited image of Rip Hunter's infamous chalkboard, Lawson goes on to make her argument about DC's reboot in part by pointing out the relative obscurity of Elongated Man and Jason Todd. I'm a big Booster booster and no fan of DC's reboot plans, but if those two characters are your definition of obscure, you might not want to lead off your argument with a reference to Booster Gold.
Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: corrina lawson geekdad wired.com
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
New DC Books for Its Younger Audience
So far as I am aware, there are two internet journalists regularly writing Booster Gold-centric articles. One is Russ Burlingame, who most of you probably know from his "Gold Exchange" columns over at Comic Related. The other is Vaneta Rogers of Newsarama, who last week posted a new interview with some other familiar Booster Gold-related names, Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, on their upcoming DC Retroactive: Justice League of America - The '90s #1.
Nrama: What Justice League characters are the focus?
DeMatteis: It's the classic team. Fire and Ice. Beetle and Booster. Max and Oberon. J'onn and Guy. If you're looking for any kind of character growth from these guys, look elsewhere. It's the usual idiocy and mayhem.
Giffen: If people are huge fans, it's the JLI they know and love. You'll recognize it right away.
Before DC heads into the digital future, they are celebrating their moronic past. Sometimes it's best not to ask too many questions. You can read the whole interview at Newsarama.com.
Comments (3) | Add a Comment | Tags: comicrelated.com j.m. dematteis keith giffen newsarama.com russ burlingame vaneta rogers
Monday, June 27, 2011
Happy Birthday, Dan Jurgens
Today is the birthday of the one-and-only Dan Jurgens, creator of Booster Gold and soon-to-be writer of the first-ever Justice League International #1. This year, Jurgens turns the magic number at DC: 52! Let there be cake!
Form more information about Jurgens and his upcoming plans for the JLI, check out his 3-part interview with John Babos over at insidepulse.com: part 1 (JLI & DC), part 2 (Green Arrow), part 3 (Booster Gold).
Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: dan jurgens insidepulse.com john babos justice league
Friday, June 24, 2011
Whatever Happened to Blue and Gold, Part 3
After reading an interview in 1988's Direct Currents #8 with Dan Jurgens and searching through the letter columns in early-1990s Justice League America comics (part 1 and part 2 of this series, respectively), I decided that it was time to go straight to the original source and ask Dan Jurgens about the fate of The Blue and the Gold series that he was once so excited about.
BOOSTERRIFIC: Looking back, I came across a copy of DC's DIRECT CURRENTS promotional flier which featured an interview with you in it's "People at Work" segment (DIRECT CURRENTS #8, August 1988). In that interview -- interviewer unknown, though Paul Kupperberg gets writing credit -- largely promoting your work on FLASH GORDON), you mentioned an upcoming project:
"And, of course, the one project I'm really excited about is something that DC's still got in the planning stages, called THE BLUE AND THE GOLD, a new series starring Booster Gold with the Blue Beetle. They've gotten real popular as buddies in Justice League International, so I think a book co-starring the two of them is a natural. It's going to have that unique JLI flavor to it."
Clearly that book never materialized. Do you remember anything about this planned series, such as how far into development it might have gotten or what finally prevented its publication?
DAN JURGENS: Yes, that was definitely on the board a couple of different times. There were, I think, three different times when we were just about to start working on it and then something would come up that prevented us from doing so. Generally, I think it was my overall workload, or an idea to hold it off for another event or something like that. I think there were even some points where we were going to try to tie in with a specific JL event, and then I got too busy to do so.
It's odd, because it was everyone's intention-- DC included, to actually get it done.
BOOSTERRIFIC: You state that the delays may have been cause by your workload. Was this book -- presumably an ongoing -- your idea, or did an editor at DC assign you this project? Did DC never consider handing the project off to another writer/artist?
DAN JURGENS: It's impossible for me to answer the question of what DC might have considered, but I don't remember any discussions of another creative team. We did play around with the idea of someone else writing the book-- Mike Carlin-- for awhile, which would have been a lot of fun. We probably thought of it more as a mini-series because that was a good way to introduce a book at the time.
But I was really, really busy with a lot of stuff-- and any window I had to fit it in seemed to open and close in a hurry.
BOOSTERRIFIC: During the several years where there was a possibility this thing would go to market, was any actual work -- scripts or art -- done, or did it never make it out of the planning stages?
DAN JURGENS: No scripts or art were ever done. Lots of conversations and ideas and we got as close as thinking we'd be starting in the next three or four weeks, but something always came up. I couldn't tell you what each of those events might have been, however.
Comics were like that then. In terms of planning, things were a bit more loose than they are now. We'd often have those, "let's do this!" types of conversations that would sometimes become a reality, other times not. There have been several times when I was part of a project that I truly thought would happen, but for whatever reason didn't. Or would kind of morph into something else.
BOOSTERRIFIC: I was surprised to see you mention this project in 1988. For awhile it was promoted in the letter column of the Giffen/DeMatteis JLI. You may not remember, but I would be interested to know at what point you recall this project being finally cancelled (or at least so far on the back burner that no one discussed it anymore)? Was the window of opportunity closed for this project by the time you took over as JLI scribe in 1992 (at which point you wrote/drew Booster and Beetle monthly)?
DAN JURGENS: The project wasn't ever cancelled, so much as it simply didn't happen. If there's no true, official start, you can't cancel it after all. We had the best of intentions but it just didn't materialize.
I do think that by the time I took on JLA that we sort of saw that as a Blue and Gold vehicle, especially since it was such a good opportunity to tie the book into the "Death of Superman" story.
So that's that; the story of The Blue and Gold series that almost was. Boosterrific.com offers a hearty thank you to Dan Jurgens for his time and generosity in indulging us with an interview about a comic book he never worked on.
Comments (4) | Add a Comment | Tags: blue and gold dan jurgens interviews
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