THIS JUST IN: ANNIVERSARY EDITION

A lot of stuff is keeping my Alex Ross art collection growing, let me introduce you to the newbies!
For comic books and comic-related things I got: TOP ROW: The 2008 San Diego Comic-Con Sketchbook, signed by Alex and limited to 500; Comic Book Marketplace #110 a magazine that includes an interview with Mr. Ross and The 2008 SDCC souvenir book which reprints a poster of the Legion of Super-Heroes, Alex did a while ago. BOTTOM ROW: Fanboy Magazine #2, Batman #676, Superman #675 and Justice Society #15.

By a fantastic shot of good luck I purchased at Toys & Comics (my local comic-book store) this great Battle of the Planets litho from Dynamic Forces. It rocks! I'll have it framed soon!

Something rarely seen, if ever, on eBay is this gorgeous American flag with Uncle Sam (from the DC/Vertigo series) ripping it to shreds. This item is SOOO hard to find that I consider myself one of the lucky ones who have it.

To almost complete my 2008 SDCC loot (I still need the Barack Obama poster), I was able to get this limited edition Flash Gordon action figure that was only available at the Con and it comes with a sketchbook signed by Ross, which is the prize of our little contest.

HAPPY 1st ANNIVERSARY!!!

That's right! A day like today, September 3rd, 2007 this blog started and now a year later we've gathered over 16,000 visits from all over the world, this may not be much by some standards, but it means a lot to me, thanks to all of you guys who visit, leave comments and drop me a line or two to my e-mail, where I've made new friends who are fans of Alex's art as well.

Therefore, to celebrate our First Anniversary I've decided to launch a CONTEST, that's right, nothing fancy just to show my appreciation to you guys. What do you have to do in such contest? Easy, you just have to design a logo for this blog. It will go on our header, which is currently a little plain, I know.

CONTEST RULES:
1. The logo MAY or MAY NOT contain Alex Ross' logo (below), or images of Alex Ross' art, and;
2. It should use colors that don't clash with this blog's light yellow and red pallet of colors (i.e. NO pink)).

The contest will be open to all visitors of this blog from any part of the world, starting today Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 until Friday October 3rd, 2008. Two designs will be chosen and submitted to a poll on this very blog, so all visitors can vote for the best design (I'll explain this after Oct. 3).

PRIZES:
First Prize - 1 (one) Flash Gordon Sketchbook from this year's San Diego Comic-Con signed by Alex Ross (pictured above). Along with this prize comes the bragging rights of having your logo design on top of this blog, with the credit you deserve.

Submit your entries to: alexrosscollector@gmail.com
I made this Alex Ross logo with as much knowledge of Adobe Illustrator as I have. You're welcome to use it or improve it if you like.

LOTS OF INTERVIEWS

New interviews with Alex Ross and articles have popped up all over the internet, dealing mostly with his run on DC Comics' JSA and all his Kingdom Come characters and with the Project Superpowers-related mini-series about Black Terror that follows this hero from the pages of that series' volume 1 to 2009's volume 2. The interviews come from Newsarama, Comic Book Resources and Wizard.

To read the Newsarama.com interview click here.
To read the Comic Book Resources interview click here.
To read the Wizard Universe article click here

SEPTEMBER CALENDAR

LES DANIELS' BOOKS

Les Daniels is a famous writer, author and ad hoc comic book historian. Among his many works (which we'll deal with on this post) are true accounts of the history of how the most famous characters, mostly from DC Comics, became the icons we know and love today.

DC COMICS - A Celebration of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes: This wonderful, oversized book is a very in-depth look at DC Comics. Its origins as National Allied Publications through the success of its movie an TV properties up to Smallville. Its a very informative book and gets you acquainted with the creators of all the great eras in comics, such as Siegel and Shuster, Carmine Infantino, Jack Kirby, Denny O'Neil and more guys who helped shape this industry. The cover is a little dull, sure, it's the big three and they're awesome, but still the purplish backdrop doesn't help bring out the characters' heroism, they're just posing in a kind of stiff way, but my main complaint is still the background.




SUPERMAN - The Complete History & SUPERMAN - Masterpiece Edition: These are 2 of a kind. The first one contains, as the name implies, Supes' complete history from Golden to Modern Ages, in a very cool tome featuring new art by Alex, reproducing the original pose from issue #1 of the Superman Comic from 1939 (top). The "Masterpiece" one is a giant box (below) with a huge bounty for fans of Big Blue and Alex Ross' art (hey, that's me!) Its contents are: The Les Daniels' history book, but only the chapters about the Golden Age, a reprinting of Superman #1 and a classic Superman doll designed by Alex, sculpted by Joe DeVito and painted by Chris Ware (right).





BATMAN - The Complete History & BATMAN - Masterpiece Edition: These 2 books' contents are pretty similar to the Superman books. The masterpiece edition this time contains a reproduction of Batman #1 and a figure of the classic Bob Kane Batman, designed by Ross and Chipp Kidd (the author of Mythology) and sculpted by Joe DeVito (below).






WONDER WOMAN - The Complete History & WONDER WOMAN - Masterpiece Edition: This is the last in this series of books. You know the drill, the complete history has 2 pieces of art which you can see below (left & right) in which Alex tries to re-interpret the myth of the Amazon sent to "Man's world" in one and then honors an old vignette (right) by fleshing it out with his art. There's also the figure, designed and sculpted by the usual suspects, Alex, Chipp and Joe. I don't know which Wonder Woman comic is reprinted here, my guess is issue #1. If you own this box, I'd appreciate your help in clarifying this matter.


IN MY COLLECTION: I only have the DC History book.
Note: The photos of the Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman figures were originally published in Mythology, photographed by Geoff Spear

NEWSARAMA INTERVIEW!

Prestigious comic-book and entertainment news site Newsarama.com has published an interview with Alex Ross in which he tells Matt Brady his thoughts on his Kingdom Come storyline being told in the pages of Justice Society and the experience of writing and painting one of the specials (right). Here's an excerpt:

"I knew that I wanted to make sure in this project – as I was trying to reclaim the world of Kingdom Come to some degree, that if you were going to see a flashback to events that took place in that world, it would be done by me. "

Read more here

NEWS: NOVEMBER ROCKS!!!

November is going to be the biggest month of 2008 for all of us, collectors of the art of Alex Ross. We have an early Christmas with 10 covers and new action figures. Read on!

For the SUPERMAN titles, along with October's issue 681 (left), November continues the crossover in Action Comics #871, Supergirl #35 and Superman #682. The first 3 issues join together to form that cool image of the kryptonians flying over Metropolis.






















Just like on the Superman titles this month also brings 2 awesome issues of Batman #682 and 683 with the amazing mirror-like covers, showing 2 aspects of the character as you can see above.


With the JSA titles, along with our regular issue #21 (not pictured), there are 3 new Kingdom Come Specials (left to right) Magog #1, The Kingdom #1 and Superman #1. The last one has the special treat that, not only does it have its cover by Alex Ross - like the other ones - it's fully written AND painted by him. That's right! he does it all on this issue!!! Isn't it great?

On the action figures front, yes, our prayers have been answered! Behold series one of the Justice Society of America action figures based on Alex Ross' designs. This is the perfect complement for our Kingdom Come and Justice figures. Batch one contains: left to right: Starman, the Golden Age Flash, the Golden Age Green Lantern and Sandman. WARNING: These figures are do NOT come out in November, they are just solicited in this month, they come out in April, 2009.

And that's just on the DC Comics front, expect issue #6 of Avengers/Invaders from Marvel Comics (left) and a new issue of Project Superpowers Vol.2.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA NOVELS

This series of paperback novels came out a just a few years ago. The authors are well-known comic book writers. Nearly all of these covers by Alex Ross have a motif, they feature a close-up view of a character's most visible and recognizable costume part such as Batman's cowl, Wonder Woman's bracelets or Green Lantern's ring. The only exception would be the JLA book which features all the heroes. The books came out in the following order:

BATMAN: THE STONE KING by Alan Grant
WONDER WOMAN: MYTHOS by Carol Lay
THE FLASH: STOP MOTION by Mark Schultz
JLA: EXTERMINATORS by Christopher Golden
GREEN LANTERN: HERO'S QUEST by Dennis O'Neil
SUPERMAN: THE NEVER-ENDING BATTLE by Roger Stern

IN MY COLLECTION: Only the last 2 books.

ENCYCLOPEDIAS

THE DC COMICS ENCYCLOPEDIA: Originally published in 2003 by DK Publishing this super handy guide to all things DC is a great reference for old and new fans alike, it has amazing illustrations and data on every DC character from A-Z. Now the cover (above-left) is just amazing it features the DC heroes and villains posing for a company photo which is kind of funny to have The Joker in a picture between Batman and Wonder Woman. And even though the poses make some of the characters look a bit stiff, it is breathtaking nonetheless. Check out the full cover art below.
UPDATE: The publisher is reissuing this encyclopedia, with new and expanded information, later this year and along with it comes a new Alex Ross cover which you can see on the right.


THE MARVEL ENCYCLOPEDIA: Marvel decided to update their Marvel Universe handbook in 2002 and came up with this encyclopedia also published by DK. Now this one was called volume one, others followed but none with Alex's art. This volume features a very simple looking cover of an angry Hulk and a swinging Spider-Man but in reality, the cover features lots of Marvel characters in one of those George Perez-esque covers, Alex is so fond of doing, which you can see below. Now this cover looks awesome, there's a lot of action to it, but I'm not very fond of the color palette Mr. Ross uses on this one, it uses too much magenta-neon colors which make a few characters look weird, like Wolverine and Doctor Doom across the top of the art.



IN MY COLLECTION: None of these books are part of it, but I do have a poster of the cover of the Marvel Encyclopedia.

MYTHOLOGY

THE DC COMICS ART OF ALEX ROSS


















Writer Chip Kidd and photographer Geoff Spear brought us this amazingly wonderful book which is or has to be, in my humble opinion, the cornerstone of every collection of Alex Ross' art, along with Wizard's Alex Ross - Millennium Edition Special. This tome, published in 2003, truly honors its title, not only does it deal with those mythological heroes but it's also THE guide for the art of Mr. Ross at DC. It has EVERYTHING! I mean that, whenever I'm doing research on some of his art for this blog I turn to this book. Also, apart from having those wonderful front and back covers (left and right respectively) on the dust jacket, it also has a magnificent George Perez-like wraparound cover beneath that with the image you see below of all the DC heroes versus all the DC villains.



Not happy with all these goodies, well there's more, like a Robin origin told in the same 2-page spread style of the oversized books AND a new Superman - Batman team-up story written by Kidd and fully painted by Alex, some of its art can be seen below.


After the success of this book in it's hardcover version, came the obligatory, and cheaper, paperback edition (left) which reprints all the material we've already talked about with a new cover which isn't as great as the original one, this one makes Superman look like a robot or something. Then came a revised or special edition in 2005, this one had more art, to cover what Alex did during the next years such as some justice sketches, we can call it a revised and expanded edition. The cover reprints an image from a very popular poster of the JLA. What's also cool about this edition is the inclusion of a Shazam paper doll painted by Alex for this edition only, so you can play with it. (NOTE: DO NOT play with it! It's NEW art by Ross! What are you thinking?!?!?!)


Finally, people enjoyed the Superman and Batman covers so much, that DC asked Alex to continue the trend of these in-your-face poses, for posters and lithographs. Below - Left to Right: Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and The Flash.