"Patience, young grasshopper." That's what Master Po said years ago. And he was right, too.

I came to know Lauren Montgomery's work through our mutual friend, artist Eric Canete. She and Eric are buds and her name came up, I believe, when we interviewed him back in 2008. I started looking around, found her blog and became an instant fan.

Hit the button and fast forward to February of 2009 at the New York Comic Con. Dwight and I are in an auditorium teeming with geeky fans. We're all waiting for Lauren, Bruce Timm, Michael Jelenic and Gregory Noveck to take the stage.

The convention is holding a panel discussion and a screening of the then, newly animated Wonder Woman movie (Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion). Lauren directed it, Bruce produced it, Michael wrote the script and Gregory was a Senior VP of Creative over at DC. There's maybe 2000 people in the room. It's nuts!

Anyway, the panel goes off without a hitch, audience members get to ask a pant load of questions. As you'll hear, one question in particular that Lauren answered elicited an excited shout from one lone fan. Good times.

Oh, and Wonder Woman was fantastic! If you haven't seen it, you should. Outstanding job by all. It might be my favorite of Montgomery's films.

She went on to direct Green Lantern: First Flight, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths and Superman/Batman: Apocalypse. All for Warner Brothers' direct-to-DVD line and all, equally as good.

Well, after two years of pursuing her, she finally agreed to come on the show for a chat. Finally. Way to show and prove, grasshopper!

What a bright star, she is. What a cool person she turned out to be (seriously). And with the kind of excitement Lauren's generated thus far, I can only imagine what goodness lies ahead from her.

(Green Lantern: Emerald Knights and Batman Year One, but don't tell anybody I told ya).

- SWAiN

Some four years into SiDEBAR, Dwight, Adrian and myself are proud to present our 150th episode. Wow! Aren't you glad you stuck around to see it?!

*Don't answer that.*

And what better way to celebrate a milestone than to feature a talk with the always formidable comic artist, Cliff Chiang (Human Target, Green Arrow/Black Canary, Zatanna).

Cliff was great. We've met him in person twice — once at the Heroes Con in Charlotte and again at the New York Comic Con. Both times he was affable and generous as all get out (he gave me one of those Batgirl/Purple Rain 'album' covers like the one below).

Our thanks to him for coming on the show and chatting. The conversation takes an interesting turn towards the end there, but it's all good. Not your average comic book interview stuff.

"So...so when you drew Batman...that was pretty cool, huh?!"

Nahhh, not average at all. But we hope you enjoy it none the less. Take care!

- SWAiN

Dynamic. Energetic. Classic.

All these words come to mind when I think of artist Norm Breyfogle. 

However, to most, 'Batman' comes to mind at the mention of Breyfogle's name. Norm was THE Batman artist for an entire generation of comic book readers in the late 1980s and early 1990s. We cover all that and more in our talk with him.

Norm details his beginnings as an artistic prodigy in his native Michigan, his discovery by Mike Frederich at the 1984 San Diego Comic Con, and his meteoric rise to penciling the Batman titles (below). This was at the height of 'Batmania' with the release of Tim Burton's titular 1989 movie.

As Norm himself quotes, comics were "berry berry good" to him and got even better with the release of Prime, the flagship title of Malibu's Ultraverse line in 1993.

Conversely, we discuss the lean side of comics freelancing in the years following the bust of the speculative boom of the early '90s. Breyfogle regards his travails to publish his creator-owned project 'Metaphysique', his efforts to garner regular work from his previous publisher DC Comics and the career rebound he's made through independent publishers and freelancing outside of comics.

Then we cap things off with a look at his recent projects, not the least of which is his current stint as an artist for Archie Comics and their line of 'New Look' books for the gang from Riverdale.

-ADRiAN

The fellas and I were as crestfallen as you guys all were at the news of the recent passing of Dwayne McDuffie (February 21, 2011). Not two days prior, I was checking out his post on Facebook concerning the early reviews for the new All-Star Superman DVD. Dwayne wrote the script for the movie and I remember thinking, "That's my man promoting his stuff. Cool beans."

Then suddenly, he was gone.

After much vacillation, we decided to do a short episode to honor Dwayne. None of us here at SiDEBAR knew him personally, so all of our recollections and stories are from our perspective as fans of his work.

A special thanks though to our buddy, storyboard artist Warren Drummond, for sitting in on this one. He did know Dwayne in passing as a friend and a peer, going back to their New York days.

Warren also attended an event Wednesday night at Golden Apple Comics in L.A. that included a heartfelt memorial by many of McDuffie's longtime pals. Warren shares some of that night with us in the conversation.

There's plenty out there on the Interwebs about Dwayne's career, so we won't inundate you with more here. We will say that if you've never read any of the man's comics, go pick some up. He was a storyteller to his core and as Adrian points out in our talk, he lives on through the work.

And hey, if you've never seen an episode of Static Shock or Justice League Unlimited — kick yourself in the ass! That's unforgivable! JLU was brilliant, Static was great fun too, and a healthy portion of the credit for those shows should go to Dwayne McDuffie as a writer, producer and story editor.

A beloved figure like this is already missed, folks. Certainly by his family and friends, but also by a legion of dedicated fans and readers. Our condolences go out to all.

- SWAiN

The All-Star Superman DVD was released on February 21st, sadly, the day Dwayne passed away. It's an adaptation of a 12 issue DC Comics series by the same name — originally done by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely.

Dwayne handled scripting chores for the film version and did a bang-up job, too!