Anniversaries

Paul Grist was born on this day in 1960 in Sheffield, England. Among his earliest work are a story with a young Grant Morrison called St Swithin's Day, a Grendel story with Steven T. Seagle, and a Judge Dredd story with Robbie Morrison, and he has produced stories for both Marvel and DC. But what we're really here to celebrate today are the works that Grist both wrote and drew, several of which he published himself via his own company, Dancing Elephant Press, in the '90s: Kane, Jack Staff, Burglar Bill, Mudman, Demon Nic.

DC Comics only published two comics on August 31, 2011; Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1, and in doing so it relaunched its entire universe under the brand of The New 52. Intended to be a jumping on point for new readers, decades of continuity was abandoned in an attempt to make the line more accessible, and while the initiative is often remembered for its failures, some of the best DC Comics were published in the five years of The New 52 era.

In the early 1970s, DC Comics attempted to gain the rights to publish comics based on the popular Planet of the Apes franchise. When that effort failed, editor Carmine Infantino asked Jack Kirby to create a comic with similar themes and visuals. Kirby hadn't seen the movies, but he got the gist --- post-apocalyptic, talking animals, animalistic humans, the Statue of Liberty in disrepair. So on August 29 1972, the day after Kirby's 55th birthday, Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth #1 was published.

Artist, author, historian, agent, activist, businessman: Denis Kitchen, born August 27, 1946, has worn all these hats (and a number of others) over the course of his storied career. He's worked with many of comics' finest artists, brought lost classics back into the public eye, written definitive texts on some of the medium's most important creators, and laid the groundwork for countless alternative publishers. On top of all that, he's the founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, an organization that works to ensure full First Amendment protection for comic creators, retailers, and readers.

On this day in 1959, DC Comics published The Flash #110 by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, and introduced the world to a brand new speedster as Barry Allen gained a sidekick in the form of Kid Flash. Wallace “Wally” West was the nephew of Barry’s girlfriend Iris, but over the years he grew from a sidekick to a Titan, to a hero in his own right after inheriting the mantle of The Flash.

it was on this day in 2009 that the stars aligned and a starving fan base finally received the definitive Dark Knight experience it had longed for in the form of Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Born on August 21, 1929, Marie Severin is one of the true multi-faceted treasures of comics, an artist equally adept at delineating humor and high adventure, whose keen eye and innate feel made her one of the industry's preeminent colorists, and whose gift for expressing emotion with a few quick lines led to a three-decade stint as one of Marvel's top artists and designers, working on everything from Doctor Strange to the Muppet Babies.

Who is the Atom? If you said Ray Palmer, or Ryan Choi, or "that guy from the Justice League who changes size," or Brandon Routh on Legends of Tomorrow, you certainly wouldn't be wrong. But there was an Atom who came before all of them. His name was Al Pratt, and while he's not the most well-remembered Golden Age hero, he was an early version of a far-reaching archetype: the unstoppably tough undersized scrapper.

Born on this day in 1967, Brian Michael Bendis is one of the most important and influential figures in western comics in the 21st century. From indie comics wunderkind to top dog at Marvel Comics, Bendis’ career has been expansive and occasionally revolutionary, so today we're taking a moment to celebrate his achievements.

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, the first volume of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series of graphic novels, was published on this day, August 18, in 2004. It introduced the twentysomething Torontonian slacker to the world, and secured Bryan Lee O’Malley a place in the comics canon.