The End of the Year (Didn't I Do This Last Year?)

So, here we are, end of the year once again.

This has been a very interesting year; very different but not too much.

Let's go over some highlights (and/or lowlights) of this year.

The Journey

 While the 11th of November of obviously an important day of it year, it also holds another special significance to me.

Two years ago today I woke up feeling slightly invigorated; the day before as I was heading into downtown Calgary, I got an eagerly anticipated phone call.
The job interview I went in for a week previously had been successful and I had the job.

How the Sausage is Made

 It's been almost a year since Marcelo, Carl and I released "The Partner", a fan-comic based off of Batman: The Animated Series. Marcelo and I had done one five months previous as a small tribute to the late Kevin Conroy, but this was the first time we were telling a real story.

For me, the big thrill of this cover was our names at the top

"Here's to Survival"

 

Behind the Scenes

It almost sounds a bit strange for me to actually say it out loud but for the past year, I've been making comics.
Certainly not on a professional level but at the same time, I take it seriously and get a lot of joy out of finishing a script.
Recently I've found that as I get close to the end of a story, my writing becomes a lot more intense; it's almost like the final 100 meters of a marathon.

The Partner

 

Project Manager or Enfant Terrible?

January was a huge month for me, writing wise. 

I realized a lifelong dream and teamed up with a great to release our fan-comic/tribute to Kevin Conroy (A Big Fan). I also got to work on writing three other scripts for fan-comics that I'm hoping to get published this year. In fact, I know at least one of them will because right now, Marcelo is hard at work completing the artwork on our next story which is titled...well, I'll leave that part out for now.

A Big Fan

 

Kevin Conroy (1955-2022)

For an entire generation-and probably more-Kevin Conroy WAS Batman.

I'm sure people have their favorites like Michael Keaton, Adam West or Ben Affleck but for me and probably millions of people all over the world, Kevin Conroy was everything we wanted in a Batman.

He may not have had the physicality (Not needed in the medium of animation) but his voice gave you the presence of Batman; he let you know that THIS is what Batman should sound like and it affected how we actually read the comics. Go to any comic convention and ask someone "Who's voice do you hear in your head when you read Batman?" and nine times out of ten, people will answer "Kevin Conroy".

Whether it was an episode, animated movie or video game, the quality never mattered because you knew that if it was good, Kevin playing Batman was the cherry on top. And if it was of a...lesser quality, you always knew that he was going to be the best thing in it because he always gave it his all.

And what was so wonderful about him was you never got the feeling from him that he disliked the character or the impact he had on people. He was constantly on the con-circuit, signing autographs for fans and going to panels and I can't say I ever heard a bad word about him.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 he volunteered in a soup kitchen and when it was revealed WHO he was he had no problem breaking out his Batman voice for anyone in attendance.

Kevin Conroy was not the Batman we deserved but I, and countless others, will be forever grateful to him for being the Batman we needed.

As Bruce Wayne once told Terry McGinnis in Batman Beyond, the same applied to Kevin Conroy: "It's not [being] Batman that makes you worthwhile; it's the other way around."

Movie Review: Batman & Bill (2017)

 

Life is unfair and a lot of times, not everyone gets the credit or recognition they deserve. Ask anyone at a comic convention the question, "Who created Spider-Man" most people are going to give the name "Stan Lee" as the only answer. If you prompted them to name anyone else, chances are they would draw a blank, unaware of this brilliant artist named Steve Ditko.

Bill Finger was in his own way very similar to Ditko; there aren't many photographs of him, few interviews and chances are most people are unaware that Bill Finger is co-creator of one of the most iconic heroes in all of fiction: Batman