It’s past time for another entry in our semi-regular series on current and former Lubbockites who’ve worked in comics, cartooning, and animation. We’ve already taken a look at Dirk West, Alex Ross, and Jim Smith — and since we’re getting closer and closer to the Lubbock Comic Book Expo on May 2, let’s take a look at someone who’s currently living in Lubbock: Will Terrell.

Terrell is a comic book artist/writer and a teacher living in Lubbock.  He was the founder of the Lubbock Sketch Club and has worked as a professional comic book artist for several years.  His professional credits include colorist on Disney’s “Gargoyles” comic book series from Slave Labor graphics and “The Goblin Chronicles” from Ape Entertainment and Archon Comics.

Will got his start in comic books publishing mini-comics through his small-press company “Lucid Comics” from 1997-2003 and now works primarily as a freelance illustrator and creator. And don’t forget you can check out his website for more of his artwork.

And he’s got a new comic he’s hoping to debut for this year’s Expo! “SuperZeroes” is, as Will describes it, a “romantic-superpowers-adventure-comedy about growing up strange in an average world.” It’s about four high school pals from West Texas who discover that they have strange powers, and how that complicates their lives.

There will be a lot more West Texas and Lubbock artists at the Expo, and a ton of them, like Will, are going to have tables to sell some comics and draw some sketches. You should make plans to stop over at the Lubbock Civic Center on Saturday, May 2, to say hi.

I had an unusually busy week, which meant far less time than I normally get for surfing the ‘Net. So I didn’t find out ’til this morning that Dave Arneson, the guy who co-created “Dungeons and Dragons” with Gary Gygax, died back on April 7.

David Lance Arneson, who helped trigger the global phenomenon of role-playing games as co-inventor of “Dungeons & Dragons,” has died at the age of 61.

A statement on the game’s official Web site, wizards.com, said Arneson died Tuesday evening “after waging one final battle against cancer.”

Arneson “developed many of the fundamental ideas of role playing: that each player controls just one hero, that heroes gain power through adventures, and that personality is as important as combat prowess,” the statement said.

I’m a bit bummed that I didn’t even know that Arneson was ill. Gygax died just a little over a year ago – that seems like a really short space of time to lose both of the guys who created the modern roleplaying game.

Hats off, folks.

It’s been another crazy week — and an unusually busy one for me — so it’s time we all got to blow off some steam with some weekend relaxation — and as always, a quick dose of FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Today, we’re going all the way back to October 1941 in Captain America Comics #7 (reprinted in last week’s Captain America Comics Special #1) by the great Jack “King” Kirby and the almost-equally-great Joe Simon. Here, we see Captain America planting his star-spangled fist somewhere about halfway through the skull of one of the Toad’s goons.

That’s violence that’ll get you to stand up and salute.

I have lots of books I could review, but I really want to start out with the best comics of the week.

Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade #5

Linda Lee gets her secret identity as Supergirl busted again when a time-traveling Supergirl from the future accidentally reveals everything to Linda’s former best friend Lena Luthor. Meanwhile, Supergirl’s evil clone Belinda Zee gets a hand in realizing her true destiny as “Supergirl #1” by the evil principal. Belinda starts turning her schoolmates into Bizarros, Lena mind-controls the rest of the students and helps Lex Luthor break out of jail and ambush Superman. Belinda gets hold of Supergirl’s communicator that she uses to talk to her mother back on Argo, but gets a nasty surprise when the woman she recognizes as her mother doesn’t recognize her at all. And the teachers at school all reveal their secret identities.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Holy guacamole, was this one fun. Belinda Zee and Lena Luthor finally go full-on villain, and it’s completely hilarious. The time travel stuff was a bit out-there, but it’s a small price to pay for stuff this awesome.

Secret Six #8

Even for a book as offbeat as “Secret Six,” this is an unusually offbeat, weird, and funny issue. Scandal goes grocery shopping and runs into a tall, gorgeous redhead named Liana — the stripper/Knockout-lookalike who she met at Jeanette’s casino. There is a great deal of chemistry there. Meanwhile, Jeanette insists that Deadpool go on a date with her, but he’s nervous about her intentions, so he wants a chaperone. Though Ragdoll is extremely eager to come along, Scandal proposes a double-date — with one caveat: Deadpool isn’t allowed to kill anyone. So there are tangles with a vengeance-seeking neo-Nazi, a bunch of arrogant fratsters dressed as the Blackhawks, and even more neo-Nazis, plus an all-girl band dressed as Power Girl, the most focused bathroom tryst ever, and much more, including the infinitely-wonderful glimpse we get into Ragdoll’s “Tiny Titan”esque dreams.

Verdict: An extremely enthusiastic thumbs up. A very funny issue, with outstanding dialogue and excellent action. “Ragdoll Dreams” is probably the standout moment, but there’s really not a single weak moment in this entire comic. My only regret is that Nicola Scott wasn’t on board to draw this issue — but even then, fill-in penciller Carlos Rodriguez does a wonderful job with the characters here. Seriously, if you didn’t pick up this comic this week, go back to the store and get one now. You won’t regret it.

DC Showcase Presents Ambush Bug

I broke my personal rule designed to limit my comics spending when I saw this one in the store, partly because I was amazed that DC would put out a Showcase focusing on Ambush Bug, partly because Ambush Bug’s pseudo-adventures are very funny, and partly just because I’d always wanted my own copy of 1983’s DC Comics Presents #39, starring Superman, Ambush Bug, and the Legion of Substitute Heroes.

So what do we get here? We get Ambush Bug’s early appearances, when he was just a lunatic teleporter tormenting Superman, but these quickly give way to Keith Giffen’s wonderful and continuity-free Ambush Bug miniseries, specials, and stocking stuffers, with guest-starring roles for Cheeks the Toy Wonder, Jonni DC Continuity Cop, Argh!yle, Quantis the Koala Who Walks like a Man, Scabbard, Mitsu Bishi, the Ambush Bug from Japan, DC editor Julius Schwartz, and of course… DARKSEID.

There aren’t a whole lot of actual plotlines going on here — most of it is just an excuse for Giffen and his co-conspirators to write a bunch of funny gags about comics. They may not be in color, but this is gonna be the only place you’ll find all these old comics for so little dough.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I count 478 pages of classic Ambush Bug comics for less than 20 bucks. Go pick it up, dawg.

By now, everyone knows that prices of most of DC’s and Marvel’s comics are going up from $3 to $4 — a fairly significant increase, especially during a bad economy. DC, at least, is trying to do something to soften the blow for readers — they’re bringing back the backup feature. There will be more pages per issue, with an extra, shorter story after the regular story.

So far, it looks like Blue Beetle will appear in the back of “Booster Gold,” Manhunter in “Batman: Streets of Gotham,” the Question in “Detective Comics,” the Metal Men in “Doom Patrol,” and Ravager in “Teen Titans.” Black Canary and Captain Atom may be picking up backup features in other comics.

On the bright side, DC is going with characters who already had enthusiastic fan bases, which is going to be appealing to fans who were unhappy with the cancellations of “Blue Beetle” and “Manhunter” or who wish popular but little-used characters like Renee Montoya had a bit more exposure.

But on the other paw, the main features will probably end up getting shortened to make space. Creators who are used to telling their stories with 22 pages may have to get everything done in 18 pages or less.

And of course, a big issue is whether backup stories can succeed. While a lot of DC’s heroes got their starts as backup characters, comics that have backup stories in them are not always very popular — they were accepted and common in the Golden and Silver Ages, but since then, they haven’t tended to be popular with readers.

At any rate, DC deserves a gold star for trying to make the price increase a bit more palatable for cash-strapped readers. Marvel has ended up looking like the bad guy here — first, they increased their prices before DC did (though the increase was probably inevitable for both companies — and don’t be surprised when both companies eventually increase prices on all their books, instead of just a few), and second, they didn’t offer anything extra to along with the increase — no extra pages or backups, just an extra buck out of readers’ wallets.

So whatcha think? Are the price boosts a good idea? Will backup stories make you more likely to accept the increased costs?

Captain America Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1

This is the first of a series of comics Marvel is putting out to commemorate their 70th birthday. And I gotta say, I love the cover, with Cap and Bucky beating the snot out of Nazis, plus that retro “Timely Comics” banner — for those of you who aren’t as up on comics history, Timely was Marvel’s original name.

Anyway, our main story is written by James Robinson, one of my favorite comics writers, with illustrations by Marcos Martin. It tells a story of Steve Rogers before he became Captain America, when he was a skinny 4-F reject, heartbroken that he won’t be able to serve his country. But by blind luck, a murdered fed pushes a mysterious jewel into his hands, and Steve is on the run from a gang of Nazi saboteurs. He manages to elude them, even manages to kill a couple of them. He even pulls off some fancy stunts with a garbage can lid that suggest that Cap’s later shield-throwing abilities didn’t come from the super-soldier serum.

And there’s a followup story, a reprint from Captain America Comics #7 in 1941 by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Far from the battlefields of WWII, it details Cap and Bucky’s battle against a villain called the Toad as he tries to ruin the Brookly Badgers baseball team by killing off the players. It’s a decent story, but I kept getting distracted by the villain, who despite being called the Toad, wears a costume that looks like this:

Siiiigh. You almost wish they’d just called him Batman. (Dig the jawline on his lowlife henchman, though)

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Simon and Kirby reprint is a great bonus, but the main story really is excellent. Steve’s dejection at being rejected by the Army is really well done, the chase through New York is excellent and thrilling, and the framing sequence — Cap and Bucky preparing for a paratrooper jump over Europe — is also very good. Gotta love the way 4-F Steve manages to take out so many Nazis, even if he gets winded and banged-up in the process. And of course, there are very few things, either in comics or in the real world, that are more awesome than beating the heil out of Nazis! This is just a plain wonderful comic from beginning to end.

Wonder Woman #30

Genocide is torturing Etta Candy, Zeus has resurrected Achilles to serve as his warmongering peacenik ambassador to the Earth, and Wonder Woman beats up on Cheetah, mashes the Secret Society’s headquarters, and gains Dr. T.O. Morrow as a new (though probably temporary) ally.

Verdict: Ehhh. It seems fairly well produced, but I’m just colossally bored with this whole storyline.

For decades, we’ve all known that we had to guard against the day when robots would rise up against us and destroy all humans. If Sam Waterston has taught us anything, it’s that robots are everywhere, and they eat old peoples’ medicine for fuel.

Well, it looks like things are getting worse, ’cause there are now robots that can conduct their own scientific experiments. No, not just as tools for human scientists — they can actually come up with new experiments based on previous experiments they’ve performed.

Two teams of human scientists Thursday unveiled their work with robots that not only perform experiments, but also come up with new ones. The prototypes tackled physics and biology problems that require simple, repetitive experiments, proceeding by trial and error to uncover knowledge, according to studies published in the journal Science.

These robots don’t look like R2-D2 and C-3PO from Star Wars. They look like van-size computers, but with robotic arms to do tasks that would otherwise be done by human assistants.

“The prospect of using automated systems as assistants holds vast promise,” David Waltz of Columbia University and Bruce Buchanan of the University of Pittsburgh say in a journal commentary. Robot scientists could “increase the rate of scientific progress dramatically, (and) in the process, revolutionize the practice of science,” they write.

“Scientists should be using their brains rather than their hands,” says computational biologist Ross King of the United Kingdom’s Aberystwyth University, who led one robot effort. Adam, the team’s $1 million prototype robot scientist, reports new findings about yeast genes in one of the studies. The robot can start more than 1,000 biology experiments a day over a five-day period.

King’s team manually confirmed the biochemistry results that explained the genetic workings of yeasts, which have eluded researchers for decades. “There is a lot of work to do, even in creatures we think are well-understood,” King says.

Sure, sure, it sounds great. They’re performing repetitive experiments so humans don’t have to do them. They’re helping to advance science. They’re discovering stuff about yeast, which could lead to better-tasting bread. But dangit, once you start teaching ’em science, it’s only a matter of time before they’re building new bodies made out of adamantium and trying to kill off the Avengers.

Yet another week has come and gone, and it’s time for the two days of the week that make the rest of them worth sweating through — and that means it’s time once again for FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Our pain-packed panel for this week comes from Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s classic Jack the Ripper thriller From Hell, Chapter 8, collected into a single volume back in 1999. Here, we see Sir William Gull taking his knife to Kate Eddowes.

Hmm, not our usual light-hearted fisticuffs this time, so we’ll just leave it at that, along with the wish that everyone has a far better weekend.

Justice Society of America #25

What. A. Train wreck.

Evil Pink-Ponytailed Mary Marvel gets unpowered Billy Batson to say her name, thus turning him into, I dunno, Evil Captain Marvel Junior? Evil Black Adam Junior? Evil Mary Marvel Junior? I don’t know, but he’s evil and stuff. Isis, meanwhile, has turned into a total mass-murdering villain. Atom Smasher turns in the most overwrought, hackneyed and ridiculous narration ever. Flash and Billy Batson’s father go to a place called the Rock of Finality, which is basically the Evil Rock of Eternity, where the Seven Sacred Virtues of Man are chained up and where the wizard Shazam has been turned into a stone statue. Black Adam finally turns on his crazy “family” and helps free Shazam, who repays the Marvel Family and the Black Marvel Family alike by taking their powers away and turning Teth-Adam and Adrianna Tomaz into statues. As for the rest of the Justice Society, everyone decides that everyone gets to remain on the team, which is the lone bright spot for this comic.

Verdict: Thumbs down. This was absolute garbage. I figured they’d try to hit the reset button on the Marvel Family, after the disastrously awful way DC has treated the characters over the past few years, but I never imagined they’d actually go and make the situation even worse. The explanation that “Black Adam’s powers are inherently corrupting” is insultingly simple-minded, and Shazam’s harsh treatment of everyone suggests that Geoff Johns has a spectacularly poor grasp of the character. The whole thing is just a complete embarrassment.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #4

In the latest issue of Mike Kunkel‘s all-ages take on the Captain Marvel mythos, it’s Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel vs. Black Adam and the Seven Deadly Sins of Man. Unfortunately, Cap and Adam find themselves completely unable to harm each other. Forced to adopt a very complicated strategy, Billy and Mary use their magic lightning to defeat all the Sins but Selfishness, then convince Adam to go to the Rock of Eternity to drain the power of the imprisoned Sins. This leads to Adam and Selfishness battling for the Sins’ power, giving Billy the edge he needs to take them both down.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice, cute, and funny. Billy’s tactics are a bit byzantine, but still pretty entertaining.