Showcase - FA Online

Robert Kanigher

On the fifth anniversary of Steve Whitaker’s death, we present for the first time the 1989 interview he and Tim Bateman conducted with legendary comics scripter and editor Robert Kanigher.

Showcase Presents Green Lantern 5

They have the back cover blurb right on this: it’s the run of Neal Adams Green Lantern & Green Arrow issues, nearly 350 pages, that will sell this. They call it one of the “most celebrated runs by a creative team in the history of comic books,” and they’re right – except it was also the run that led to the cancellation of the series because of dropping sales, after which GL became a backup story in broken runs in Flash.

Showcase Presents The Witching Hour 1

Who writes the blurbs for these things? This features art “from a host of comics legends including Alex Toth, Bernie Wrightson, Jack Sparling, Pat Boyette and George Tuska,” a selection that slips steeply away from the legendary. In case you think that really is the best list they could pull, here are a few more artists featured inside: Kirby, Adams, Infantino, Gil Kane, Cardy, Morrow, Williamson, Sekowsky, Wood, Grandenetti, Aparo. I think I’d have mentioned one or two of those ahead of, for instance, George Tuska.

Showcase Presents Justice League of America 5

This collection, reprinting JLA 84-106, 1970-73, is not one of the better periods for the JLA. I love the team and several of its members, but it has to be faced that it has had plenty of crappy periods. After the charming and fun, if very trivial, early stories by Fox & Sekowsky, by now it is trying to be more Marvel and more ‘relevant’ as the term was then.