Top Ten Comic Books DC Could Add to the New 52

According to this article at Bleeding Cool, DC’s New 52 will soon be down to just 45 titles.  Well, obviously a Top Ten is more than seven, but if DC wants to keep it at 52 titles (and disregarding any weekly-book rumours), here are ten characters and concepts that they could consider picking from.

1. Stephanie Brown
2. Cassandra Cain
3. Beryl Hutchinson: The New Knight
4. Red Robin
5. Superman of Earth-23
6. Booster Gold
7. A Ralph Dibney and Sue Dibney comedy-detective book
8. An early-years Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson Batman & Robin book
9. Kamandi
10. Detective Chimp

Top Ten Songs I Sing to My Baby Daughter

To get her to sleep.

1. This Old Man (Knick-Knack Paddy-Whack)
2. There Was a Crooked Man
3. Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star
4. If I Had Words (to Make a Day For You)
5. The Rainbow Connection
6. Ten Green Bottles
7. One Man and His Dog
8. We Three Kings
9. Your Song (by Elton John)
10. The Red Dwarf theme tune

ryallsfiles:

Transformers: Regeneration One #91 by Geoff Senior. Colors by Josh Burcham.

This is just beautiful.  Between this cover and his cameo in Doctor Who, I’m officially declaring it “Galvatron Week”.

Top Ten Kids’ Show Theme Tunes

Specifically, those with lyrics.  Also I’ve disqualified The Real Ghostbusters  as that was a movie theme tune before it was a cartoon.

1. The Transformers (1984)
2. Spider-Man (1967)
3. Teen Titans (2003)
4. Supergran (1985)
5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987)
6. Duck Tales (1987)
7. Scooby-Doo, Where are You! (1969) 
8. Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines (1969)
9. ThunderCats (1985)
10. The Aquabats!  Super Show! (2012)

Here’s a picture of Heat Wave that I sketched quickly and coloured in Photoshop.

Heat Wave is a Transformer, one of the Rescue Bots, which is a line of preschool Transformer toys Hasbro created a couple of years ago.  I bought Heat Wave for my nephew’s second birthday this week, and decided to treat him to a little David Heslop original artwork whilst I was at it.  As his godfather, I feel it’s important to educate him in the finer things in life, and Transformers obviously is one of them.  Also, I like drawing new Transformers.  

Anyway, his reaction upon seeing the toy - it was a fire engine, one of his favourite things, but also a robot - really distilled why Transformers is so effortlessly cool.  Kids love cars, and kids love robots, and these things are both!  At the same time!

Now, my love of Transformers probably started with the cartoon and was supported by the excellent toys, but the fact that I’m still obsessed thirty years later is primarily down to the comics, and almost entirely down to one man: Simon Furman.  Furman wrote Transformers for years, and is responsible for the weight of the mythology that still exists to this day.  From championing second-string characters to redefining the mythology to creating new concepts to killing off fan favourites left and right, it was his comics that made me love comics, and in a wider sense, made me love fiction.  There was something about his rather melodramatic style and hyperbolic turn of dialogue that has always appealed to me, and I think it’s really, really influenced how I write now and the sort of fiction I enjoy.  I mean, when I look at my favourite Shakespeare plays, for God’s sake, I notice the same patterns - doomed heroes fighting till their last breath?  Tragic figures striving for redemption?  The search for humanity within great evil?  Melodramatic and bombastic monologues?  We’re talking Macbeth, Hamlet, Lear, Scorponok, Grimlock, and Galvatron.

I hope little Aleksi loves Heat Wave the way I loved Optimus Prime and Bumblebee in 1984.  I promise if ever I have the opportunity to write Transformers, I’ll try to get Heat Wave into the comic.  And I hope the brand, the toys, and above all the comic, endures for another three decades or more.

Top Ten Moments in All-Star Superman as Represented by a Line of Dialogue

It was Superman’s 75th birthday this week, so to celebrate, here are my favourite moments from my favourite Superman story.

1. “This is how he sees, all the time, every day…”
2. “This is the one.  This is going to change everything.”
3. “Here the choice is simple.  To remain at play within the field of living, fluid consciousness.  Or to turn, and face down evil, one last time.”
4. “Doomed planet.  Desperate scientists.  Last hope.  Kindly couple.”
5. “I love you, Lois Lane.  Until the end of time.”
6. “You’re much stronger than you think you are.  Trust me.”
7. “They will race and stumble and fall and crawl and curse, and finally… they will join you in the sun, Kal-El.”
8. “This is how much I trust you, Leo.”
9. “Brain beats brawn.  Every time.”
10. “I’m Jimmy Olsen!  I look great!”

CITV meets The Aquabats!  Brilliant shoot at the weekend with some terrific kids and the wonderful, generous, hilarious Aquabats.  Thanks to everyone, including the staff at The Cockpit in Leeds!  Will hopefully have some more to say about this later.

Top Ten Moments in the Ghostbusters Movies, as Represented by a Line of Dialogue

1. “I think he can hear you, Ray.”
2. “It just… popped in there.”
3. “There is no Dana, only Zuul!”
4. “Where are you from… originally?”
5. “And the flowers are still standing!”
6. “We be fast, they be slow!”
7. “You can keep the five bucks!”
8. “I seen shit that’ll turn you white.”
9. “She’s a harbour chick!”
10. “You’re not sleeping with it, are you?”

Time is running out for Share a Story 2013!

The competition, which is all kinds of fantastic, closes this week.  You need to get your entries in to us (well, technically to the lovely guys n gals at First Light) by 5pm on Friday. 

I want more entries than last year so if there’s a child in your life aged 5-12, give them a polite kick up the backside and get them to send their entry off pronto.

Remember, if they win, CITV will turn their story into an animation!  They’ll be a legend in their own lunchtime.  There’s no reason not to do it.

Top Ten Quotes from Films I Use in Real Life

No lie, I actually say these things, often in an accent.

1. I instantly regret this course of action. (Anchorman, 2004)
2. Mother puss bucket! (Ghostbusters, 1984)
3. Oh, I hadn’t fought of dat! (Spaced)
4. Uh-oh, Spaghetti-Os! (The Simpsons)
5. Here’s to swimmin’ with bow-legged wimmen. (Jaws, 1975)
6. Blerg. (30 Rock)
7. Well that smells stink-a-whif. (Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, 1999)
8. Great googly-mooglies! (Ghostbusters, 1984)
9. But if a woodchuck could chuck and would chuck some amount of wood, what amount of wood would a woodchuck chuck? (Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, 1991)
10. And that’s the end of that chapter. (The Simpsons)