We're back from a very relaxing Labor Day weekend and ready to talk 'toons! Believe me when I say that it took a lot of willpower for us to not spend a week disseminating false information about the Disney purchase of Marvel.

Gregg's also got an awesome blog for his unpublished one-shot Starfox's Swingin' Spring Break Super-Special, in which our hero teams up with the other ladies men of the Marvel Universe to try and get Eros's half-brother Thanos a date with Death!

Stephen Mayer: As Dan Rydell from SportsNight experienced a “New York Renaissance,” in which he recollected and indulged in all the city had to offer, I’ve lately been going through a superhero cartoon renaissance. I’ve been watching the new stuff, catching up on what I may have missed over the last few years, and really digging the stuff that I watched during my childhood.

What are your favorite superhero cartoons from yesteryear and today?

Gregg Schigiel: Before we talk ‘toons: Dan Rydell was, while that incredible show aired, was the most likeable character on TV. Also very likable: the cast of NBC’s Ed. But again, not a cartoon and therefore not relevant, but I had to acknowledge my appreciation for your mentioning him and that show. Tip of the hat!

Alright, now let’s talk cartoons.

I grew up in the ‘80s, which is generally considered a dark age of TV animation...with cartoons pretty much serving as commercials. But as a kid I’m pretty sure I didn’t think about it that much. Which isn’t to say I wasn’t discerning. But there were a LOT of cartoons then and I could really go on and on even just mentioning the ones that come to mind, from the obvious to the obscure.

But you asked about superhero cartoons so I’ll stick to that.

I was a Superfriends/Challenge of the Superfriends and Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends kid. There was even a period when one of the local stations played the old Marvel cartoons (with the goofy theme songs), which were essentially what people call “motion comics” today. There was something about those I liked, too.

On the same track of action/adventure shows, I was a G.I. Joe fan. Transformers and Thundercats also would be in the “like” column. I never took to He-Man or Voltron. (And as you’re younger than me, is M.A.S.K. even a thing you know? Because that was kind of cool. What about Silverhawks or Tigersharks (they were like the Thundercats, but underwater)?)

Do Duck Tales or Gummi Bears fit into this category? I mean…they weren’t superheroes per se, but the Gummi Bears DID have powers…and Duck Tales was essentially an adaptation of Uncle Scrooge comics…

I was in high school during what felt like a mini-renaissance of TV animation in the early ‘90s when Batman: The Animated Series and MTV’s Liquid Television (which begat Aeon Flux) hit the scene (and X-Men, Savage Dragon and HBO’s Spawn – but I didn’t really watch those).

Batman: TAS set the bar…high. Especially compared to the terrible Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Hulk cartoons at the time.

Since then…I was at Marvel when Avengers: Unlimited was launched and that…maybe the less said about that the better. Oof, that wasn’t so good. X-Men: Evolution I thought wasn’t too bad; I liked the look of it. Superman was good, but I’m just not that into Superman.

And in more recent history there’s just SO much stuff out there. There’s no way for me to keep up and see everything. Of the stuff I’ve seen, I’ve liked Justice League Unlimited and as I’ve mentioned, I love Batman: The Brave & the Bold. I’ve seen some episodes of The Sensational Spider-Man and that one’s pretty cool (on the other hand, the MTV Spider-Man CGI cartoon I didn’t like much at all – I’m similarly not taken by the new teen Iron Man series of which I’ve seen half an episode). I’ve heard great things about Avatar, but I’ve not gotten into it.

So with my trajectory being more a heavy watcher to lighter watcher over the years, I get the impression that you’ve only increased your consumption over time. So turning to you as more “hip to the scene”, what have I missed? What have I mis-judged? And in the battle of the big two, is there even a contest between Marvel & DC animation, or does the mere existence of Bruce Timm end any debate?

SM: Starting in the way, way back, Transformers was my first love in life. We moved to North Carolina when I was 3 (so summer of ’87) and I still have the commercial-free VHS tapes that my grandpa would tape for me in New Jersey and send down to me as I don’t think my parents ever figured out when Transformers aired down here. I also watched Thundercats and a lot of G.I. Joe. I got to watch stuff like M.A.S.K. and Silverhawks because the video store near my house hand an amazing family section. They’re now located across the street from Acme and even in this world of DVD and BluRay, they still have all of those old VHS tapes going back to the oldest Marvel cartoons (including Spider-woman!).

Sadly I’ve got next to nothing for Super Friends to the point where one of my friends had to explain who Gleek was when he asked me to pick up the Wonder Twins box set for him at San Diego. Same pretty much goes for Spider-man & His Amazing Friends, but I have seen a good bit of that on Boomerang over the last few years.

I would totally count Gummi Bears and Duck Tales. I would venture to add Darkwing Duck and TaleSpin to the mix, even though they came along a bit later.

I think I was in middle school when the Spider-man, X-Men, and Batman the Animated Series were on, so they were hitting me right when the superhero bug was strongest. Rewatching Batman TAS right now, I realize that it was preparing me for a lot of what I enjoy most about comics today. Mike Mignola designing Mr. Freeze. Darwyn Cooke doing storyboards for segments based on Dark Knight Returns. Bruce Timm’s style, of course. Paul Dini’s take on Batman villains (even amongst Morrison’s run and Hush and Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader, Dini’s one-off and 2-parters on Detective remain my favorite Batman stories of the last 10 years).

At the time X-Men had me more excited, probably because the “real” comics looked pretty much the same. Now I can’t even bring myself to buy the DVD sets that they’re putting out this fall. I would still put the theme song at #2 behind Batman TAS. And there’s the phenomenon of Morph, an original hero for the series that was burned into the collective X-Men consciousness of those that watched it despite being killed off in the second episode and returning as a villain.

X-Men Evolution, I agree, was solid and then got really, really good as it went on. Legion of Super Heroes was nice, but I still don’t understand why they didn’t include Cosmic Boy as a member of the core team. I’m just now getting into Teen Titans, but I like what I’ve seen. Batman Beyond was something that I wrote off when it first came out, but I’m now finding stands on its own. Superman, while still being more, as Carly would say, “vanilla” than Batman, really brought up a lot of the characters and concepts that allowed Justice League and eventually JLU, my second favorite to Batman, to be possible.

Since you can’t have a talk about superhero cartoons without mentioning Bruce Timm and the other heroes of Batman the Animated Series like Dini, Eric Radomski, Dan Riba, and Boyd Kirkland, I think we should throw two more names into the mix on the Marvel side, Craig Kyle and Chris Yost. Craig Kyle has produced all of the Marvel direct to DVD movies, Spectacular Spider-man, Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Fantastic Four, and Wolverine and the X-Men as well as writing of episodes and the Ultimate Avengers and Invincible Iron Man movies. Chris Yost has written for pretty much all of those shows. They co-created X-23 on X-Men Evolution and co-wrote the Hulk Vs. movie. They wrote the New X-Men comic together after House of M, which then led into X-Force, where they’re applying concepts like the Mutant Response Division from Wolverine and the X-Men to the mainstream Marvel U as of last issue.

Have you seen any of the direct to DVD movies put out over the last few years from DC or Marvel?

GS: Here’s where my reduced viewing’s gonna come back and bite me. I’ve half-watched New Frontier and Green Lantern: First Flight. And by half-watched, I mean I was working while they were on. I will say that from what I saw and was able to attend to, Green Lantern was pretty sweet. There were a lot of sequences where there was just music and sound effects, so I knew, despite not looking up, there was a lot of action-y stuff going on. I did look up enough though to see a wicked battle with Sinestro and some generally cool stuff happening. I’d like to see the Wonder Woman movie, but haven’t yet.

In the Marvel side…I’ve not seen any of them (shame on me, I know). And a lot of people asked me if I’ve seen the Avengers: Next Generation or whatever it was called because they said there were similarities to the last issue of WHAT IF? I worked on, but I’ve not. I heard the Hulk Vs. movies were pretty rad; action packed. But overall, from trailers and such, the Marvel stuff looks either rushed or rougher than I tend to like animation. I’m not saying it needs to be a Disney feature in its fluidity, but again, Batman: TAS was now over 15 years ago and still looks pretty good, considering it was on a TV animation budget (which I understand is significantly lower than a feature).

Batman Beyond is another one where maybe the timing was off because I just never even started watching it. I know it’s good and cool, but yeah, I let it pass me by.

Then again, I did see the first animated Hellboy movie when they showed that on Cartoon Network, so that’s got to count for something!! Right? Maybe?

Besides Batman: Brave & the Bold, the recent cartoons that have caught my eye haven’t been superhero cartoons…Chowder…I dig that show…though not enough, as it apparently was not renewed.

But since I’d rather not keep talking about all the stuff I haven’t seen, let’s play a little shop-talk/fanboy dream game. So with all the stuff that’s been done, what would you like to see done. A lot of people talk about what comic or character they’d like to see done in live action, but I’m gonna ask what would you like to see done as a cartoon. And, additional to that, how would you want to see it done?

For example, years ago, before there was a Spider-Man movie, I thought it would be pretty wicked if there was a high-quality feature length animated Spider-Man movie which stylistically was based on Todd McFarlane’s run…my theory being that while us comics folks knew it, the lay-person, seeing a Spider-Man with those huge eyes and funky poses and fingers and elaborate webbing…while a pain to animate, surely, would be a game-changer for “civilians” in a way that Batman (1989) and Batman Begins sort of gave people a look at Batman that we in comics have seen for many years.

So, what would you like to see? Characters? TV or Movie? Style? Go!

SM: I haven’t seen many of the DVD movies either. I own New Frontier, and I’ve got Mask of the Phantasm, SubZero, and Mystery of the Batwoman from the Animated Series. I saw Ultimate Avengers when it first came out. That’s it.

I’ve got all the Hellboy animated movies and they’re pretty exceptional. My favorite part is that they added Kate Corrigan to the cast. She’s my favorite character from B.P.R.D. As a quick aside, when I got a Kate sketch from Guy Davis and Baltimore Comic Con last year, John Arcudi, co-writer of B.P.R.D., leaned over and pointed out that Guy didn’t have to worry about my sketch going up on eBay because no one cares about Kate but me. Mike Mignola was also surprised when I pointed out the typo in the Hellboy handbook that would put Kate in her mid 70’s.

And a final Dark Horse bit of toon wonderful, it was amazing that the Amazing Screw On Head got a special, even if it was on Sci Fi.

OK, pie-in-the-sky cartoons.

Casanova or Umbrella Academy – I know that Gabriel Ba’s style is very influenced by his Brazilian comic heritage and other European styles, but I think it’s ripe to be made into a cartoon. It’s not quite as heavy as Mignola, so I don’t think it would need a redesign like Sean “Cheeks” Galloway did for Hellboy, though he takes on those characters were great. If it were Casanova, I think it would work well episodically. Fraction could go completely psychedelic Steranko in every show and the colors on that thing would POP. If it were Umbrella, direct to DVD movies for each arc would probably be more appropriate and get a better reception from Gerard Way’s My Chemical Romance fans than a cartoon on any channel at any time.

Heroes for Hire – it might sound crazy, but I think that this concept would be Marvel’s best shot at a team-up show like Brave and the Bold. Start with Power Man and Iron Fist and play them for laughs. Lots of jokes about Luke’s tiara and Danny’s booties, but with a genuine closeness and respect at the heart. Misty and Colleen could be supporting cast, but every episode it would be great if Luke and Danny teamed up with someone new be it Spider-man or the Thing or Deadpool or Jewel or Machine Man Ms. Marvel or Brother Voodoo whoever. They could also go up against anyone, be it Dr. Doom or Kingpin or a street-level hood or whoever. Luke could be married to an extremely toned down Jessica Jones and they could have the baby Danielle, or they could move on to that and have the naming of the baby be a nice moment later on in the series.

G-Man/Mighty Skullboy Army/Pix – you guys need to team-up for a hero half hour on Saturday mornings! Personally I would picture approximately 7 minute shorts for each concept, 1 for every commercial break, with the order rotating each week so everybody gets to play. Occasional crossovers strongly encouraged.

GS: Ha ha, now you’re just playing to my sympathies! For what it’s worth, I think G-Man and Skullboy could probably support their own full shows, so I’d hate to horn in on them. Though you remind me of a con once where a kid was checking out Chris’ work and suggested to Chris, “You know what you should do? You should go for a cartoon.” It’s become a sort of running thing with us, where whenever we hit a block or a wall, “go for a cartoon” is the suggested solution. Because as I’m sure everyone knows, getting a cartoon on the air’s pretty much a cakewalk.

I’d imagine for my pie-in-the-sky not so much adaptations of existing stories, but new stuff done in an animation. So while it’d be cool to see Umbrella Academy movies, I’d suggest doing a series, maybe even a short-term thing (like they do on the BBC or HBO) of the Umbrella Academy as the academy…like, them as kids being trained/taught by their father, etc. So it’s still in the same visual style, but you’d be getting something new (part of the reason I half-paid attention to New Frontier was that I’d already read it).

That’s a nice idea about H4H, though I’d avoid the self-aware jokes. The tiara and the booties, it’s all part of the show, if you will, and suspension of disbelieve should kick in at that point.

My top pick for an animated series would be LEAVE IT TO CHANCE. Paul Smith’s stuff is already so clean and perfect for the transition. And since the series has sort of gone into limbo, it’s pie-in-the-sky in every way.

Along those lines, I think TELLOS would probably find the audience it was unable to in comics. And Mike Weiringo’s work, like Paul Smith’s, is practically animated right there on the page. It could be like Gummi Bears but less cute and more cool.

I’d like to see any of Kyle Baker’s work done in traditional, hand-drawn animation…be it his Plastic Man or his original material.

And Roger Langridge’s FRED THE CLOWN would be awesome. Come on, BBC!

On a whole other track, I think it would be really cool to see something like FABLES done in the style of an early Disney feature, real smooth and fluid and pretty. With that, you’d take the visual style people are comfy with when it comes to animated fairy tales (Snow White, Cinderella, etc), but telling Fables stories. I’d check that out.

And now it dawns on me how few of these suggestions are actually superhero cartoons. Sure, they’re based on comics, but they’re not superheroes, per se.

So I’d say a Green Lantern Corps show could be awesome (though one could say Buzz Lightyear of Star Command was sort of that). I’d like to think Wonder Woman or Aquaman could possibly, like Tellos, find the audience that seems absent in comics, in animation. The trick with DC stuff is that with Batman: TAS, JLU, and Batman; TB&TB, they’ve covered so much ground so well it’s harder to find that other thing.

On the Marvel side…well, I think The Incredibles showed us what an FF cartoon COULD be, so there’s that. In my Marvel days I’d proposed a book called “Marvel Heroes & Villains” or “The Mighty Avengers”, which would essentially be Secret Wars: The Series. In other words every issue would feature a team of heroes (or the Avengers) and a team of villains (The Masters of Evil) at odds over something. In a lot of ways I was pitching a comic book version of Challenge of the Superfriends, but with Marvel Characters. That could be a fun cartoon.

And if anyone read our Star Comics piece, I’d watch a Top Dog cartoon, no question. That could be the next SpongeBob SquarePants! (though, I also thought Chowder could be the next SBSP and Cartoon Network seems to have disagreed with me)

And now I’m looking over my bookshelf to see what else I can find and I have one more thing to throw out there…an adaptation of an existing story: THREE FINGERS, but Rich Koslowski. That’d be a very interesting thing to see get wide exposure in cartoon form. It’d be like taking the turn Roger Rabbit took and twisting that a few times over.

And maybe with my list of picks it’s clear why I’m not an animation producer…

SM: For minor clarification, I forgot to add that Power Man and Iron Fist would be in their modern costumes, so street clothes for Luke and the collarless shirt for Danny. Picking on their costumes would be a retroactive thing, like “what were we thinking?”

I like everyone you put out there. Over the years I think I’ve already compiled the cast for a Fables live-action movie, but now that you mention it, perhaps that could be something that takes the structure of a movie like Enchanted, where the characters are cartoon in their world or the Homelands and then live action in the real world, and ratchets it up a notch.

Tellos and Leave it to Chance are both awesome ideas.

GS: Having nothing to do with cartoons: I don’t like the street clothes look for Luke Cage. There’s nothing visually interesting about it at all. He doesn’t even have the chain belt! I mean, he’s a Mexican wrestling mask away from looking like Rage…or Bane for that matter. Boring. Veto!

Well, Fables is being developed as a live-action pilot on ABC, so both of us are too little-too late on that front. Though it’d be nice to imagine some big, important muckity-muck reading this and putting the breaks on that pilot because WE hit upon the perfect approach.

Talk about pie-in-the-sky!

Luckily, though, in the likely event that none of our fantasy cartoons actually come to life, at least we’ve got the comics.

Now we just have to get Paul Smith (and James Robinson) to do more LEAVE IT TO CHANCE…

SM: Jermaine has a big LEAVE IT TO CHANCE poster in his kitchen.

Carly had a neat idea when we were talking about the column last night. In a half live-action, half cartoon Fables show, it might be even cooler in the Homelands were live-action and our world was a cartoon, as that would be reality as the characters see it.

As for breaking up the Fables pilot, we can move mountains.

Gregg Schigiel is a cartoonist, illustrator, and writer. He's worked as a penciller and editor for Marvel Comics and an illustrator and cartoonist at Nickelodeon in addition to creating his own characters and books. He's currently writing X-Babies for Marvel with artist Jacob Chabot and writing and drawing Pix: Teenage American Fairy and Safari Junior High, appearing in the back of the G-Man: Cape Crisis mini series from Image. He'll be visiting Acme on October 24th as part of G-Man's Greensboro Cape Crisis as well as the X-Babies #1 Release Party! Check out his website at Hatter Entertainment.com.

Stephen Mayer makes his mama proud by playing board games with the family and rationing his work load on weeks when comics are delayed a day.