By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

Neal Adams changed how comic books were drawn in America.

I still remember the first time I saw his artwork. It was in the late 1960s, and I was familiar with the major artists at the bigger companies, the A-listers all…

When this column debuts, I should be enjoying a family vacation in Italy and France.  I’m taking a break from everything- work, softball, household chores and even comic books.  It seems appropriate that “Fluit Notes” takes a break from comic books as well.  Therefore, in this week’s column and next, I’ve written about one of my favorite television shows.  It’s time to get…

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

Archie’s Kevin Keller is a first in a lot of ways. He’s the first openly gay teenager in Riverdale. He’s the first Archie character to spin off into his own eponymous miniseries. Heck, that four-issue miniseries is itself a first for Archie Comics; they’ve never done one before.

 …

O.K., folks---time’s up!  Put down your pencils and hand your papers in.

Actually, I was quite impressed with the posters who chimed in with responses.  Out of all ten questions, only one wasn’t correctly answered.  At least, not with the absolutely, positively proper answer.  However, even that one was kinda sorta gotten right.  I’ll speak more on that…

The other day, I watched part of a Burn Notice marathon.  USA was highlighting episodes of its popular series in anticipation of a prequel movie about supporting character Sam Axe.  It was the middle of the afternoon and I had nothing better to do so I sat down and watched for a while.

            I got part of what I was looking for.  Bruce Campbell was a lot of fun…

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

Green Lantern, who gets his first big-budget movie June 17, was my favorite DC Comics superhero as a child. Given the loving care lavished on the character in recent years, he’s my favorite once again.

Hal Jordan was introduced in1959, at the beginning of the space age. He was allegedly based on Chuck Yeager, the legendary test pilot, and everything about him was sleek, cool and hip.…

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

X-Men: First Class, the X-movie that premiered June 3, has been getting rave reviews. But it can be confusing to anyone familiar with the characters – because it’s not THE X-Men origin, it’s AN X-Men origin.

Specifically, it’s the origin…

As some of you may remember, I used to post blog entries here, shortly after we fist moved to the Ning site. Some of you may have noticed that after awhile, I stopped.  Since no one asked me why I stopped, I assumed that this was not a matter of general interest, and so never offered any explanation for the stoppage.  However, it's something that has been on my mind on-and-off ever since, and so I'm posting today - not, I hasten to add, in hopes of provoking a clamor for me to start…

Avengers Initiative Vol. 1-4: Basic Training, Killed in Action, Secret Invasion, Disassembled

by Dan Slott, Christos Gage, Stefano Caselli and Steve Kurth

There’s a conundrum at the core of Avengers Initiative that the series rarely resolves.  The basic premise is that young heroes are required by the government to train at a special facility in…

As promised, at the end of last year, this Silver-Age Challenge covers Marvel Comics.  Frankly, coming up with ten interesting, suitably difficult, Google-resistant questions proved to be a lot tougher than I expected.  I had set my target time for posting a Marvel quiz for June of this year, roughly six months following my DC quiz, and I felt, certainly, that ten decent…

Howdy, Legionnaires!

We've been on the Ning site for a while now, and I think it's time to assess if it's doing all we like, and what improvements we can make. I've had a couple of ideas buzzing around in my head for a while, and I'd like to run them by you.

1) GROUPS

When we started the Ning site, we Moderators were kinda baffled as to what to do with the "Groups" function. They looked to be redundant to the way material would naturally arrange itself…

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 44-50

by John Jackson Miller and Brian Ching

Once upon a time, Knights of the Old Republic was one of my favorite series.  I was wrapped up in the adventures of Zayne Carrick, the Padawan learner who was framed for murder by his own Jedi teachers.  I was captivated by his forced exile, enthralled by the cast…

By Andrew A. Smith

The bid by Archie Comics to become a bigger player in pop culture keeps expanding, buttressed this month by the first comprehensive history of Archie and the company that bears his name.

Craig Yoe’s Archie: A Celebration of America’s Favorite Teenager (IDW,…