In Boosterrific.com's never-ending quest to catalog every Booster Gold appearance in a DC publication, I recently perused several issues of DC's pre-Previews solicitations, Direct Currents. Many of the early issues include interviews with DC artists. The artist interviewed for the "People At Work" column in issue #8 (August, 1988) is Dan Jurgens.

The article -- presumably written by Paul Kupperberg -- includes a brief biography, including the facts that Jurgens was inspired to read comics by the 1966 Batman television show, and that his first work for DC on Warlord resulted from a chance meeting with Mike Grell at a comic book convention. It even contains a bit about the origin of Booster Gold. But the part I found most interesting was this paragraph:

"Then there's next year's ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN ANNUAL, which I'm co-writing with Jerry Ordway and pencilling. 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."

We know it was never released, but how close did DC come to publishing The Blue and the Gold series teaming Booster Gold and Blue Beetle?

It's worth noting that there was no Adventures of Superman Annual released in 1989, and that no Adventures of Superman Annual shares writing credit between Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway (though both contributed to Action Comics Annual in 1989 and several issues of Adventures of Superman). So it seems that DC was being very flexible with their schedule in the late 1980s.

Clearly, this requires a little more research. Tomorrow we'll look for clues in Justice League letter columns from the 1990s.

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It's Memorial Day weekend, traditionally the beginning of the summer movie season, also known as the season of comic book movies and runaway movie merchandising. May we never forget the grandfather of summer movie merchandising: Star Wars, which opened on Memorial Day weekend 34 years ago.

Han Solo, meet Booster Gold. (Real heroes wear collars!) This creative smash-up has been brought to you by grasshopperis777 (Robert Oden, Jr.) via deviantart.com.

Enjoy your 3-day weekend, nerf herders.

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When I was running the rare art pieces last week, I excluded the following piece because it was not strictly commissioned by DC comics. That doesn't mean it isn't worth mentioning.

The above image of Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Guy Gardner, and Fire at the beach by Neil Vokes and Rich Rankin was published in the fanzine Amazing Heroes Swimsuit Special #1 (June 1990). This image may seem a little odd now, but remember that swimsuit specials were all the rage in the 90s. The highlight of the image is probably Beetle's swim trunks, though your mileage may vary.

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Unless you only get your Smallville news from the blog here, you've probably seen the Booster Gold/Blue Beetle Smallville screenshot that exploded all over the web (including here in the blog comments and in the forum -- twice!) yesterday. Based on the fact that the image is now on every comic website, it seems that people are generally pretty excited about this. Too bad that doesn't translate into comic sales.

Other than the glasses, it looks pretty good, yes? Very 52, as expected. (I will politely refrain from commenting on Mobile Suite Beetle there in the background.) Booster portrayer Eric Martsolf and Geoff John shave plenty to say about their Smallville version of Booster Gold over at TVguide.com. You can read the full article -- sorry, no more pictures -- here.

UPDATE 03/30/2011: Mike Furlong has added a link to more pictures in the comments below. Thinks Mike.

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Ah, Cartoon Network, you mess with my head again. Friday night's episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold was advance teased as an episode featuring the Birds of Prey. But what actually aired was "The Menace of the Madniks," a Booster Gold episode in which Booster and Batman argue over which hero is really Ted Kord's best friend. This Boosterrific episode was scheduled to air next week, giving me some time to warn Booster Gold fans about it. Curse you, Cartoon Network, and your unreliable scheduling!

"The Menace of the Madniks" is a bit of a continuity nightmare, really. The episode re-writes Ted's death as a heroic self-sacrifice to stop a missile, merges aspects of Blue Beetle I and II, and renames Steve Ditko's chaotic Madmen the "Madniks," probably to avoid any confusion with the more familiar Madman comic character by Mike Allred. The biggest flaw in the episode is that it whitewashes the legacy of the Blue Beetle by portraying Ted Kord as a saint, ignoring the hijinks that made the character so popular in the 80s & 90s.

Despite these changes, it's a very fun episode. (Are there any Brave and the Bold episodes that aren't?) I highly recommend it.

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