Watching the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, I'm seeing commercials with Olympic athletes who, according to disclaimers at the bottom of the screen, don't even use the products they're endorsing.

Why do I feel I've seen this all before?

Booster Gold #2 (1986)

In my "Secret Origin of Booster Gold" interview with Dan Jurgens, Booster's creator describes his inspiration this way:

Much of Booster was inspired by the '84 Olympics when I saw an athlete described as having an endorsement contract without ever having won a medal. Many of the BG ideas were already in place but that sort of galvanized it.

The years might roll by, but Booster Gold and the forces of commercial opportunism and social insecurity that drive him and his misadventures are as relevant as ever.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: dan jurgens interviews olympics

On Wednesday, I showed you this panel created by Steve Lieber for the June 2021 issue of Teen Titans Academy #4:

Seeing that panel, Cort Carpenter realized that the Booster Gold headshot looked incredibly similar to one he had commissioned from Lieber last year (previously shared with Boosterrific.com on October 19, 2020):

They do look alike, don't they? My first impression was that Cort's commission was a study used for the new work, but closer inspection makes it clear that Lieber used his earlier black and white commission as the foundation for the new piece of digital art. Just to make it clearer, here's a gif of the two pieces overlaid:

Isn't that cool? You can even see where Lieber erased his signature when adding color. Cort's commission is now a piece of original comic art. How often does that happen?

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: commissions cort carpenter fan art steve lieber teen titans academy

This week DC released Bizarro Comics: The Deluxe Edition, which is a collection of two earlier collections, Bizaro Comics and Bizarro World. Booster Gold makes a very brief cameo in the former:

Granted, that panel might not be significant enough to encourage you to buy a $50 book, but it's not the smallest Booster Gold appearance this week. That honor belongs to Teen Titans Academy #5:

No, he's not Red X. (At least, I don't think so.) Look under the "W" on the bulletin board. That golden hair couldn't possibly belong to anyone else!

To prove I'm not crazy (about this), here's the better look at the bulletin board we got in last month's previous issue:

Thanks to Logan for bringing that panel to our attention. I can't imagine a Booster cameo getting much smaller than that.

For the record, that's not the only Booster in Teen Titans Academy #5. Blue and Gold appear twice in this house ads, once in the Infinite Frontier promotion that's now on it's third week, and once in Director Bones' newest Multiversal Monitor.

These house ads appear in all of this week's books. You might think it's silly to buy comics just for the ads, but a Booster booster's gotta do what a Booster booster's gotta do.

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: advertisements bizarro logan peterson teen titans academy