Comics Artist Jackson "Butch" Guice Dead at 63, Tala Ashe Nominated For A Tony Award, and More News
A round-up of news that I haven't been able to cover in full recently.
In Memoriam: Butch Guice, 1961-2025
Jackson “Butch” Guice, a comic book artist famous for his work on Action Comics and Micronauts, has died. He was 63 years old. My friends at Comic Book Club have provided Mr. Guice with a great write-up.
Ironically, I spent much of my afternoon writing a story for Comic Book Club about “The Death and Return of Superman,” arguably the defining work of Guice’s long career. My heart goes out to his friends and family.
A mutual friend recalled Guice as “a great artist and an even better person,” and I can’t think of a better way to be remembered by those you loved.
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Star Tala Ashe Nominated For a Tony Award
Tala Ashe, a stage and screen actor most recognizable for her role as Zari Tomaz and Zari Tarazi in DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, has been nominated for a Tony Award.
Ashe was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play, for her part in English. While I didn’t get to see it on Broadway due to personal conflicts, I did see English off-Broadway in 2022. Tala was brilliant in it, and the play itself was marvelous. If you have the opportunity to see it, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Ashe’s competition in the category comes from fellow nominees Jessica Hecht (Eureka Day), Marjan Neshat (Ashe's co-star in English, who was also terrific in the show), Fina Strazza (John Proctor is the Villain), and Kara Young (Purpose).
Ashe and the rest of the Legends of Tomorrow team previously won the ComicBook Golden Issue Award for Best Ensemble Cast, which is surely just as coveted as the Tony. Last year, English earned a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
28 Days Later Is Coming to 4K For Some Reason
28 Days Later, the modern horror classic from filmmaker Danny Boyle, is getting a 4K release, complete with a collectable steelbook.
Why do I say it’s getting the upgrade “for some reason?” Well, because the picture isn’t going to get any better than it already is. The movie was shot on a fairly primitive, prosumer digital camera.
Unlike film, which is a physical object in the world and can be upscaled by photographing it with better scanners, digital production is more or less trapped at the level where you captured it. No version of 28 Days Later is going to look any better than the DVD, because that’s the resolution that this (all-digital) movie was recorded for.
I actually talked about this almost exactly a year ago at ComicBook.
Fans are bracing themselves for an AI-upscaled catastrophe, drawing comparisons to recent Jaws sequel Blu-rays and James Cameron’s offerings.
Image Comics’ Revival is Coming to TV, and the Trailer Just Dropped
A new TV series based on Revival, the Image Comics series from writer Tim Seeley, artist Mike Norton, and colorist Mark Englert, is coming. It has been in and out of development for so long that one could be forgiven for forgetting all about it, but the trailer just hit YouTube, and it looks pretty great.
Melanie Scrofano of Wynonna Earp fame is the star, and she’s not only a great actress, but a delight to interview, so I hope I get to cover this show. You should check it out, because it’s on SYFY. If you remember what happened with the network’s Krypton and Deadly Class, they were both pretty terrific shows…but cancelled far too soon.
Other great comics folks to support:
•Comic Book Club
•iFanboy
•Off-Panel
•Word Balloon
•Comic Book Couples Counseling
Other recent stories to check out from Russ Burlingame:
•Cleveland Guardians Announce Superman Night In the Stadium
•Legends of Tomorrow Fans Are Holding a Virtual Convention
•Oni Press's Free For All #1 Features Bonus Content by...Me!
Buy ECV Analog Books:
•Best Movie Ever: An Oral History of Deborah Kaplan & Harry Elfont’s Josie and the Pussycats
•Getting the Fin Right: The Collected Savage Dragon Interviews vol. 1 (with Gavin Higginbotham)
•A Legend In His Own Time: A Fast-Forward Guide to the Greatest Hero You’ve Never Heard Of (with Kevin Allen)