elisabeth gehrlein

What unknown force is threatening DC Editorial? Read on...

Here’s a behind-the-scenes bit of fun for all you Sourcers out there. As one of the most fun editorial tasks yet, I’ve spent the past two days running up and down the hall getting pictures of some of our editors. They all seem to be pretty scared of…something… Can’t be Halloween-related at this point, right? So what’s going on here?

For instance, here’s Mike Carlin and Rachel Gluckstern, looking very unhappy about whatever’s going on over Mike’s desk:

Maybe it’s the same thing that’s about to hit Harvey Richards in the head:

Janelle Siegel is doing a pretty good job keeping it at bay:

While Mike Marts isn’t so lucky – it’s coming right at him!

Sean Ryan and Wil Moss are doing the smart thing and high-tailing it out of here:

Which – oh, man – gives it a clear shot at me. Look out, me!

Welp, looks like it passed me by, considering I’m still here typing. And I think I know where it went – straight for Eddie Berganza and Adam Schlagman:

That’s gonna be trouble. As soon as we can actually see what it is, that is….

Until next time – wish us luck!

Tags:

adam schlagman, eddie berganza, elisabeth gehrlein, harvey richards, janelle siegel, Michael Marts, mike carlin, rachel gluckstern, sean ryan, wil moss

Matt Idelson takes you inside the SUPERMAN offices

Much of today has been devoted to wrapping up WORLD OF NEW KRYPTON #8, which is a pretty crazy issue. James Robinson, Greg Rucka and Pete Woods are introducing the Thanagarians to the series, and where the Thanagarians go, can bloody skirmishes be far to follow? One thing that’s complicated matters on this issue is Pete’s shoulder injury (I know, I know, I’m not supposed to give the opposing team info on our players’ injuries!). Happily, the always-joyous Ron Randall has swung in to save the day, with some beautiful, dynamic pages that’ll leave you saying “Pete who?” Since Ron is still working on his pages while I’m writing this, I’ll just have to leave you to be wowed later, and share a Pete/Nei Ruffino-produced peek instead.

Since one eye (of my three) is always looking ahead, that means steadily working on ACTION #882, which gets sent to the printer next week. #881 just came out a couple days ago, launching the four-part “Hunt for Reactron” crossover with SUPERGIRL #45 and #46, and I think it turned out pretty darn stellar. Usually when you tell a multi-part story, the buildup is almost inevitably more fun than the payoff, but not in this case (-whew!-). Sterling Gates and Greg have really done some amazing work here together, and between them and Pére Perez (ACTION) and Jamal “Shorts” Igle (SUPERGIRL), this arc is something I’m really proud of. ACTION #882 is pretty intense in places, but the finale in SG #46 is nothing short of majestic. Can you tell I’m pumped? Here, I’ve even included a sneak peak or two!

I end up having to pull away from ACTION to deal with two important developments. First, my manservant, Wil Moss has noticed that our main Thanagarian player in WONK #8 has a costume inconsistency. Nothing, and I mean nothing gets by this guy! Happily, he’s since contacted Pete, Ron and Nei, and a solution has been agreed upon. Then James comes through with a large portion of WONK #9, a story that stars a very peeved Jemm, Son of Saturn (remember him?). Man, this is good stuff.

At last, I return to proofing the lettering for ACTION, even as a question comes in from Fernando Dagnino, our fabulous penciller of SUPERMAN #693. Seems Fernando needs clarification for one scene involving the Parasite, and where he should be positioned on the page. Easily answered (and believe me, few things in this job are!). Sorry, ACTION. I’ll pay attention to you now.

Bing! Editor Liz “Don’t Give Me A Nickname, I Don’t Do Nicknames” Gehrlein has just sent over Geoff Johns’ latest script, for ADVENTURE #3. Hmmm. It looks thick. I’ll save this for the train, so I don’t repeat last night’s mistake, where I tried to balloon pages of Geoff and Gary Frank’s third issue of SUPERMAN: SECRET ORIGIN. Here, I’ll let you judge for yourself:

Pretty messy, huh? Stupid train. Well, at least the art’s gorgeous. Anyway, by this point I’ve gotten through the proofing for the lead story, but I have to put off going over the Captain Atom co-feature (part 4, for those of you keeping score) for our weekly Superman writers’ conference call. Poor ACTION…

Without going into any details, today’s call focuses on the happenings in the books come next summer, and how best to get there in the books that come out in the spring. Yesterday, we resolved a major point of concern that Dan DiDio had, and man, the ideas have really been flowing freely today as a result. Sometimes it really is fun knowing things before everyone else does.

Finally, after more work on WONK, some back and forth with the amazingly talented LaDronn (who’s doing the variant cover for WONK #12 as a bookend of sorts to his variant on the first issue), and a typically bizarre conversation with James about a special book that’s coming out in January, I turn to see that the sun has gone down. Guess I’ll be reading Capt. Atom over the weekend… but to end on a cheerful note, here’s a page from the story, by the ridiculously gifted team of CAFU and Bit. Have a nice weekend!

Tags:

action comics, Cafu, elisabeth gehrlein, Greg Rucka, James Robinson, matt idelson, pere perez, pete woods, sterling gates, supergirl, Superman, Superman: World of New Krypton, wil moss

A slew of art and news from Editor Elisabeth Gehrlein

Happy Friday, DC Nation! Elisabeth Gehrlein here, DCU editor of…well, a really nice range of titles. One of the things I love about my current slate of books is how varied they are – I’ve got everything on my plate from JONAH HEX to TINY TITANS, with ADVENTURE COMICS and DOOM PATROL and WONDER WOMAN in between. So every day is a genre-bending journey where one minute I could be thinking “Where did those penguins get rocket packs in the first place?” and then suddenly a colorist calls with this disturbing question: “What color should I make the fragments of his shattered legs?”

To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, I’d like to show you some of the fantastic stuff that has crossed my desk recently.

Let’s start with WONDER WOMAN, where Aaron Lopresti’s beautiful covers are a joy to get in my inbox every month. Here’s a sneak peek at the cover for #39, first in sketch form and then with full tonal work:

Oh, and I just got an email from Tony DeZuniga, co-creator of JONAH HEX, who is hard at work on the art for the Hex hardcover graphic novel, due in-store next spring. Tony and writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti have teamed up before on Hex, and here’s what the results looked like:

I thought you might like to see some of Tony’s work-in-progress, though. Here are three pages of his roughs from the hardcover, also written by Jimmy and Justin, that tell an awesome little story all their own. That story is “Don’t mess with this man while he’s drinking.”

Moving on to ADVENTURE COMICS, where Francis Manapul and Brian Buccelato are turning out some gorgeous variant covers. Here are Francis’s inks for the #2 variant:

And then Brian takes Francis’s lovely ink washes to a whole new level with his color. Here it is with color and all:

Sticking with variant covers for a minute – you’ve seen the Matthew Clark/Kevin Maguire jam variant covers for DOOM PATROL issues #1 and 2 in previous posts. I love these covers very much, so I wanted to show you the final one for issue #3, starring Negative Man and a Metal Men obstacle course. We’ll start with Keith Giffen’s layout, and then there’s Kevin Maguire’s inks, Matthew Clark’s pencils over Kevin’s inks, Matthew’s and Kevin’s inks together at last, and finally the color by Guy Major.

Oh, and speaking of DOOM PATROL, remember that thing about the shattered legs? Yeah. When BLACKEST NIGHT comes to Oolong Island, things do not go well for the Chief. These wonderfully creepy cover pencils for issue #5 by Justiniano tell the tale:

Writer Keith Giffen’s comment? “Well, he won’t be getting far on foot.”

Yeesh.

But let’s end on a lighter note, shall we? TINY TITANS! This month in issue #20, Art Baltazar and Franco answer the age-old question, “After you win the Eisner for Best Publication for Kids (AW YEAH EISNER!), where oh where do you put the award for safe-keeping?” Well, where could be safer than Wayne Manor?

OK, I think I’ve spilled enough beans for one day. More to come next time – stay tuned!

Tags:

aaron lopresti, adventure comics, art balthazar, doom patrol, elisabeth gehrlein, francis manapul, franco, gail simone, Geoff Johns, j.m. dematteis, jimmy palmiotti, jonah hex, justin gray, keith giffen, kevin maguire, matthew clark, tiny titans, tony dezuniga, wonder woman

How about some Aaron Lopresti WONDER WOMAN art?

Where's it from? What does it mean? We're not sure, but it sure looks pretty. What say you, Wonder Woman Editor Elisabeth Gehrlein?

"I hold this truth to be self-evident: Wonder Woman punching a giant in the face really hard makes a cool two-page spread. Am I wrong?"

Not at all. Not. At. All.

Tags:

aaron lopresti, elisabeth gehrlein, gail simone, wonder woman

A day in the life of SUPERMAN Group Editor Matt Idelson

Ooh, look! Sun! I’d forgotten what that looks like. Neat. Today is a bit of a mad scramble (what else is new?). We’re wrapping up the lettering on ACTION COMICS #879, which means a lot of emailing back and forth with letterer Rob Leigh. He’s come up with what I think will be a stronger method for the English subtitles to all the crazy Kryptonian speak going on in the book. And if this doesn’t work, we’ll just start throwing sound chips in the book!

Also on the lettering front, Jared Fletcher, the man of many nicknames, has delivered the first round of lettering for SUPERGIRL #43, and man, he’s done a great job. We asked him to do something slightly different here for Kara’s narrative, and he’s knocked it out of the park. The whole issue is somewhat of a departure, and definitely a pallet cleanser after a few months of asking, “Who is Superwoman?” I swear, Sterling and Jamal are getting exponentially better by the issue! One guy who’s not getting better is Jon Sibal, and that’s only ‘cause he couldn’t possibly get any better. The fact that he’s crazy in a good way just adds to the joy of working with him. And Wil tells me that Jon tells him that he’s inking the last page of the issue right now. I love it when a plan comes together.

Just got a couple of new pages in from Javi Pina for the upcoming SUPERMAN ANNUAL (#14 for those of you keeping score at home). Man!!! I’ve worked with Javi before on a few occasions, but this is far and away the best work I’ve ever seen him do. James challenged him with a heck of trippy story, and I’m already dying to see what people think of the finished book. Well, August will be here before I know it.

Spend a few minutes chatting with Wil about a new costume we’re having designed for… well, don’t want to give that away here, in case anyone is actually reading this thing. The main design is coming along nicely, and we’re at the stage of small tweaks in order to put a wrap on the thing. This is going to be very, very cool.

Hmm. It’s 3. I should eat something, but what? Right, what I always eat—oatmeal. 10 minutes and a burnt tongue later, I’m back in action. Associate editor Sean Ryan brings by a couple of rate requests for me to sign. These are the forms by which we set up page rates for artists, writers and so forth. He’s been bringing me an awful lot of these lately. I’m starting to suspect he’s hiring childhood friends or something. I’ll have to talk to him about this.

Engage in a quick conference call with Wil and Greg Rucka about some costume designs going on there—next week is the start of July, and that means beginning work on our covers for the books that come out in December. Yes, we actually do plan ahead that far. Actually, in the case of the Super-books, we’re planned through the end of 2010. In fact, I take this blessed opportunity of basking in Greg’s phone aura to confirm when the Super-writers will engage in our next weekly chat—next week looks iffy. Something about a holiday. We’ve got a lot of work to do before we all meet up in San Diego in the days leading up to the convention, putting a lock on a few dangling items for 2009 publication so we can spend the time in sunny CA (indoors, ‘natch) planning in great detail the first half of 2010 and as much of the 2nd half as we can squeeze in.

Oop. Just missed a message from James Robinson. He’s included an odd comment on one of the profile pieces for August’s SUPERMAN SECRET FILES. My, he’s in a jaunty mood. It seems we’ve missed some important elements in the costuming of a non-superhero character, and he’s absolutely correct. He’s also got an idea for the inclusion of some characters normally outside the realm of Superman for next year’s stuff, and ways to maybe spin them out into something of their own afterwards. No wonder he’s so jaunty.

I mark the 4:00 hour by sending my lettering notes on SUPERGIRL #43 to writer Sterling Gates, and then remember he’s on a plane to Dallas for a convention. –Sigh- my day is empty without some correspondence from Sterling. Oh, well.

I settle instead on talking to Pete Woods, who’s juggling putting together a map of Kandor for the SECRET FILES while drawing the next issue of WONK (World of New Krypton). Man, he just gets better and better, and his design sense is incredible! He’s done an amazing job in less than half the series with really establishing New Krypton as a world, with all sorts of different sets and locales.

The feeling begins to return to my tongue just as a new batch of pages arrives from Gary Frank for SUPERMAN: SECRET ORIGIN #2. There really aren’t adjectives that I can apply to Gary—he’s in his own stratosphere, and I feel stupidly lucky to be working with him and Geoff on this project—it’s simply incredible. Geoff seems pretty happy with the pages, too, and I’m glad to have an excuse to give Gary a call, even if most of our conversations steer towards the insanity of Italian politics. (Don’t ask.)

I’m in the middle of typing up some notes on SUPERGIRL ANNUAL #1 for the mysterious colorist who only goes by the name “Blond” when Liz Gehrlein drops off two more jaw-droppingly cool profile pages by Francis Manapul for SECRET FILES. Ab-so-lute-ly stunning! This is going to be one special Secret Files. This reminds me that I need to turn in pages from artist Matt Camp, who’s illustrated a seven-page story that James wrote for the book. So many balls in the air, so few hands…

And then the next thing I know, it’s 6:00, time to close up shop, blow out the candles, and be thankful another day that I didn’t set my office on fire.

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