Saturday, April 4, 2020

Zatanna and Blade



Today marks the Tenth Anniversary of this blog!  When I made my first post on April 4, 2010, I figured I would set a goal for myself to make 500 covers.  Well, here we are a decade later and there's 3,424 covers on the blog with more to come! I truly appreciate all of the enthusiasm from visitors  and support from Patrons - you have helped to keep this daily project going!

We know Marvel has found a great new cinematic Blade in Mahershala Ali, but who will play Zatanna when JJ Abrams gets his Justice League Dark-based DC movies going for Warner Brothers?  I imagine that will be a very desirable role with plenty of actresses interested in portraying the magician.

21 comments:

Davejonz said...

Happy anniversary, Ross and mega congratulations. Your blog is brilliant. Many thanks. Blog long and prosper.

Davejonz said...

Forgot to say, lovely cover. I much prefer Zatanna's costume here, with the top hat.
...and I see Zatanna is about to take her hat off to you, too. Very appropriate.

Jim Burrows said...

If I may be so bold, WOW! Just EFFing Wow! Ten years! 3,424 covers! To say nothing of creating the whole Wonder Woman Loves Cap and Danvers Twins memes, among other. Fabulous!

Ten more years! Ten more years! ;-)

Across Crossovers said...

I hope one day to be able to see DC's magicians meeting Lee Falk's equally great creation: Mandrake the Magician.

Mandrake met with Superman in #2218 and Doctor Strange in #1866 and as a participant in Defenders of the Earth against the Defenders in #874.

Mandrake is worthy of allying himself with Doctor Fate, Zatanna - and even his father, Zatara, whose similarity with the magician is undeniable -, John Constantine and even Etrigan The Demon.

With all merit and applause for the Tenth Anniversary, perhaps we will see among the coming 3,424 covers.

Ross said...

Thanks guys!

B Paganini, the blog keeps flagging your comments as spam when you include so many hyperlinks, that's why your comments don't appear.

Detective Tobor said...

Ross, The Metal Men, led by TIN, join with us in congratulating you for doing so much with a special hobby interest that inspires the rest of the world.

With Z appearing on Smallville a couple times, at least WB has a good model to follow for the big screen (when they finally can).

Bob Greenwade said...

Happy Decennial, Ross! It's been loads of fun coming along with you on this ride, and even helping now and then with ideas that you end up doing. Like Jim said: Ten more years! Ten more years!

For casting Zatanna, I think Chris .R. Notarile found the perfect Zatanna when he cast Mariah Maison for his Zatanna fan film. She looks the part perfectly, is a very good actress, and handles the backwards speaking smoothly.

@Dave: If you watch the above-linked piece, I think you'll be happy to see that Z wears almost exactly the outfit shown here. It also happens to be my favorite, in part because it lacks the decolletage that was added later. (When a woman has great curves, why distract from it by showing a bunch of skin?) In this picture, it actually looks to me more like she's trying to keep her hat on while she's moving, but I like your interpretation better just on principle.

@Tobor: Zatanna's second appearance on Smallville included an element that I thought would make for a great series around the character: before her father died, he had a fit of bitterness and cursed a large number of objects that then found their way across the country, and now Zatanna had to go around to collect them. It would've made a great spinoff, and I still think it could work in the Arrowverse.

@Ross: I just had a thought about Zatanna, wherein she goes through Alice's looking-glass and finds that her magic doesn't work on the other side!

Reg Aubry said...

Congratulations and Happy Anniversary! You brighten my day, every day, envisioning what never was but surely could be. Best of health to you and yours, and may you reign for another ten, another 100, another 1000 years! Thank you, Ross!

Unknown said...

I've been looking at your blog every day fr over 2 years now, every cover I've seen is great!
Happy 10th!

Jay Johnson said...

Once I check my mail in the morning, STF is the first site I go to. Congrats and keep them coming.

As for Zatanna, back in the day I thought Jaclyn Smith of Charlie's Angels would be perfect. Today, I would go with somebody more fit and not quite as curvy, maybe Katrina Law of Arrow and Hawaii Five-0.

Anonymous said...

Great cover! Just... wow!
Blade is one of the few characters that was better in the movies than in the comics. I still liked the comics, but the movies were awesome. I really wish there were more than just three. Also, if my oldest daughter was just a bit older, I would enjoy sitting down and watch the trilogy with her.
Ordinaryguy2

Alec Semicognito said...

Congratulations! You are the master of your craft.

Bob Greenwade said...

Off topic: I was just working on a new novel, and a passing comment that I wrote in a conversation led to a team idea. The members are Zorro, Pecos Bill, the Tin Woodman, Sir Lancelot, Tarzan, and Tom Thumb (optionally Mowgli and/or Paul Bunyan). The place where all these people live is called Legend Valley, and while the team is just hypothetical in the book, there's no reason STF couldn't show us what the Guardians of Legend Valley would look like.

Daviticus said...

So...ten years, huh? Cool. ;)

Chuck said...

Congratulations on a decade! So many winning combinations, it's hard to pick favorites ... I will say I always love the 100th Super-Spectacular issues and can't wait to see what Issue 3000 looks like.

Glad you didn't ape the recent practice of combining numbering of various runs and magically resulting in an anniversary issue, although that *would* be a fast way to move from #3000 to #3600. :)

Carycomic said...

First of all? Happy Anniversary! :-D

Secondly: is that Rachel Van Helsing trying to hide behind Blade's legs?

Last, but not least: did you know that, at the height of the Comics Code Authority, Marvel wasn't allowed to use the word "zombie" in their color magazines? So they wound up using the word "zuvembie" from an HPL story!

P.S.@ Bob Greenwade: I like the "Alice In Wonderland" suggestion. In a situation like that, it might be one of the few times her magic could be enacted in normal (forwards-spelled) English!

Horsefeathers said...

Hold on to your hats kids, it's showtime! After 10 GREAT years in the making Ross is now ready for his.....11th year. Outofsight!!

Anonymous said...

@Horsefeathers: "Making things with Lite-Brite!"

Anonymous said...

Congratulations! It has been so fun to follow the posts through the years. Your talent in creating these covers is only matched by your imagination!
Hoping for ten more years. Carry on Soldier.

Brother Kellymatthew said...

What no Sharp Answers that are straight to the point and cut into the Heart of the matter?

Carycomic said...

@BrotherKellyMatthew: okay. How about this? If Blade played electric guitar for a rock band (like, say, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kids), would he plug it into a "vamplifier?"

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