Everyone say "Happy Birthday" to Adam Beechen, longtime writer of DC Animated Universe comics.

Beechen hasn't written many Booster Gold stories, but he did feature our favorite hero in 2004's Justice League Unlimited #2, where a fresh-face Booster Gold learned to let Superman cheat at cards. (Talk about role reversal!)

Thanks, Adam!

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: adam beechen birthday justice league unlimited

You wearing green today? Booster Gold is.

from "The Greatest Story Never Told" Justice League Unlimited, 2004

That episode celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. My how time flies when there aren't any Booster Gold comics to read!

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: holidays justice league unlimited st patricks day yahooandgoogle12 youtube.com

The Justice League Unlimited episode "The Greatest Story Never Told" was first broadcast nearly a decade ago, but the AV Club is just now getting around to reviewing it. I'm doing much better: I waited only a week before reviewing the review.

Regular AV Club contributor Oliver Sava opens his review by comparing the episode to the Tom Stoppard play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Sava doesn't follow through on this reference, instead turning his attention to other, stronger influences on the episode. However, once mentioned, this comparison becomes worthy of at least a brief exploration.

If you've never seen Rosencrantz — it's a favorite of mine, and I recommend it without reservation — the play is a meta-textural, existential tragicomedy. The misadventures of its protagonists, minor supporting characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet, are informed by the audience's knowledge of their fate in their original source material. By comparing what the audience knows about the protagonists to what they think they know, Stoppard is able to ask a variety of questions about the meaning (or lack thereof) of life. Honestly, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is the highest form of fan fiction.

In a similar way, "The Greatest Story Never Told" is a more enriching episode if the audience is familiar with the character of of Booster Gold. Writer Andrew Kreisberg uses Booster, a character generally perceived as infuriatingly selfish, to define heroism within the DC Universe. What does it mean to be a hero when a common house fire is insignificant compared to a reality-warping magical disaster? Is heroism objective or subjective?

Sava's AV Club review doesn't explicitly call "The Greatest Story Never Told" recommended watching, but any time a televised cartoon for children can introduce deeper subjects for its young audience's consideration, it deserves a look. If it can do so with Booster Gold, it becomes must-watch television.

You can find the full review at AVClub.com.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: avclub.com justice league unlimited oliver sava reviews television

Toy Fair 2012 was last weekend, and as it turns out, there was some Booster Gold related news. Toy News International reports that the final Justice League Unlimited toys ever will be released at Mattel's MattyCollector.com later this year. Included in the final releases will be a 3-pack of Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, and Fire.

This is hardly the first (or even the second) Booster Gold JLU figure, but it seems that it will be the last. If you want your Blue and Gold (and Green Flame!) collection to be complete, keep an eye out for this assortment online this fall.

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: action figures blue beetle justice league unlimited mattycollector.com toy fair toy news international toynewsi.com

More often than not, making a comic book is a team effort. Many artists and editors are generally involved in the process. As a result, what any one artist puts into their work doesn't necessarily make it to publication. Such was the case with 2008's Justice League Unlimited #43.

The issue's story, "Wannabes," was written by Keith Giffen and penciled by Christopher Jones. All Booster Gold fans know who Giffen is, and Jones will be familiar to fans of DC's Cartoon Network-inspired Unlimited Universe comics. Recently, Jones posted his pencils of the last page on his website, gallery.christopherjonesart.com, and the difference between the final product and his rendering is rather remarkable.

The penciled page has considerably more detail on the bulletins around the edges of the panel and a far more engaging design of the main flyer itself, including hand-written tear-off tabs! Though the essence of the panels remains the same, the change to the fonts and layouts make for a less whimsical finish that deprives the page of most of its humor.

In addition to changes on this page, Jones' hand-lettered sound effects throughout the issue have been replaced in the published edition. Why were these changes made? Why would an artist bother to do so much extra lettering if it wasn't to be published? To answer this question, I asked Jones himself:

As I indicated on my blog, I turned in the pencils for this story and then the whole thing was put on hold for a couple of years. Other than hearing that the story was finally being printed, I never got any more information on any behind-the-scenes details on the inking, lettering or the rest of the production.

I like to letter sound effects, logos and things on pages myself, but one thing that can often happen is that the inker won't touch it figuring that it's the purview of the letterer, and then the letterer never sees what I'd indicated with the pencils.

Jones has posted his pencils to the entire story, including a larger version of this page and two other full pages that were part of the original 22-page commission in 2004 but cut from the 20-page final printing in 2008, in his gallery here. If you would like to read more about the behind-the-scenes trials and tribulations of creating comic books, be sure to stop by Jones' blog, blog.christopherjonesart.com, where Jones is very open about sharing his work -- lately on the comic book adventures of Cartoon Network's Young Justice (which is pretty good save for the glaring omission of Booster Gold).

Thanks to Christopher Jones for being so gracious in responding to questions. Also thanks to site-contributor Morgenstern, for calling attention to Jones' penciled artwork.

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: art chistopher jones christopherjonesart.com justice league unlimited