Last weekend was one of the biggest nerd events that hits my neck of the woods every year: Fan Expo New Orleans. This is the single biggest media convention to come to southern Louisiana annually. I’ve gone almost every year, going back to its early days before Fan Expo took over, all the years it was Wizard World New Orleans, and even before that. I have attended with friends, with family, with my wife and son, and I’ve occasionally attended on my own. I’ve been there as a podcaster, I’ve been there as a panelist, and I’ve been there as just a fan. If I thought I could make back the booth fee by selling books, I would like to attend as a professional, but I don’t feel I’m quite there yet. And I fully intend to go to this show every time it comes to town for as long as the universe allows me to make it there.
How could I deny the world this face?
But at the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, it’s not really the same as it used to be.
I know, this is always the refrain of people as they get older. “It’s not as good as it was, the stuff they did when I was young was better, your music is too loud, what’s a SnapChat?” It’s very much a cliche. But just because something is a cliche doesn’t mean thatthere isn’t an element of truth to it. Before it was Fan Expo it was Wizard World, and before that it was a relatively small comic book convention started by a local comic shop owner that slowly built up over a few years. That was in my podcasting days and I attended every one. In the last one, I even got to host a few panels and do an interview with artist Francis Manapul, which was a lot of fun. Then, after this little show started rolling, Wizard snatched it up and made it part of its ever-growing assortment of conventions, like Thanos collecting Infinity Stones. So when I say “it used to be about the comics,” I can say that with authority.
Over the years I’ve watched as the larger shows get more and more consumed by other media. It started with genre movies and television shows, which makes perfect sense. If you make a venn diagram of comic book readers and fans of things like Star Trek and Star Wars, it may not be a perfect overlap, but those circles will likely have very little hanging over the edges. As time went on, though, other things began to creep in. Dr. Who makes a lot of sense. And who doesn’t love things like Back to the Future? Game of Thrones started kind of niche, but it quickly went mainstream. Then you had things like Outlander, which is technically a fantasy show but traditionally serves a somewhat different demographic than most of the other fandoms that were being serviced. The same went for Twilight, but that never stopped actors from those films from appearing. And now, increasingly, we’re seeing the stars of video games like Five Nights at Freddy’s or the voice actors for popular anime when they’re translated into English.
I’m almost certain the only person in this graphic who ever actually worked on a comic book is Kevin Smith. But he hasn’t finished yet.
I need to be clear about this: I do not object to any of these things being added to things like Fan Expo. I’m no gatekeeper. I have always had the mindset of the more the merrier. My sister has attended before, but this year she brought her husband and two kids with her for the first time, and they had a blast. My niece, who’s a huge FNAF fan, made her own costume and got to meet some of her favorite voice actors. My brother-and-law and nephew got to dress up like Ghostbusters and get their pictures taken with movie-quality proton packs. I love that they had so much fun, because I want there to be something for everybody. The problem is that all of this stuff seems to be coming at the EXPENSE of the things that brought me to shows like this in the first place, rather than being there in ADDITION to them.
In the early days, the comic book vendors were a vast swath of the shopping section at this show, but this year I could count the number of booths selling actual comic books on one hand. There’s plenty of people selling toys, of course. Prints. Funko pops. Stickers of dubious legitimacy, from a copyright standpoint. Swords. 3-D printed tchotchkes. Candy. Candles. Soap. And one booth where you could pay $40 to hold a snake, cash only of course. But if you’re there to try to fill in those last three issues of Green Lantern you need to complete your run…well, places like this USED to be where you would want to go, but this year you were kind of out of luck.
Still couldn’t pass up the Fudge of Steel, though.
Once there were publishers at these shows. Not often the big ones – Marvel and DC, I don’t think, ever had any official booth in New Orleans – but at least smaller publishers would make the journey. I don’t think I saw a single publisher booth this year. There were still a good number of creators in artist’s alley, but even there, I think the majority of them were local writers and artists, by which I mean friends of mine. I love seeing them, but I wish that there were other people too.
I don’t want to give the impression that it was a total wasteland, mind you. The legendary Don Rosa was there, making his first appearance in New Orleans in several years, and it was fantastic to talk to him. And plenty of self-publishers were in attendance trying to draw eyes to their books and comics. But I know from experience how tough it can be to snare a potential reader’s eye wandering a convention floor, and for these kinds of comic creators it’s just going to get harder, because as there is less and less comic book content at these shows, there will be less and less reason for their potential audience to attend.
This was pretty darn sweet, though.
What, then, is the solution? Obviously the convention organizers are trying to draw in the guests that will get the most attendees, because that’s how they make their money. But I feel like more of an effort needs to be made to appeal to the comic vendors and creators that helped build these things in the first place. It’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy – they attract fewer comic vendors because fewer comic fans are attending because there are fewer vendors because there are fewer fans. Somebody’s gotta figure out a way to break that cycle.
Oddly enough, in recent years, I’ve found that the smaller the show, the better it is for people like me, people who are there for the comics. Last year, for instance, I went to one of the St. Tammany Collector’s Conventions that are held in Mandeville two or three times a year. They’ve been doing it for a few years now, but for one reason or another I hadn’t been able to attend until last spring, and I was amazed by how great a show it was. The venue was much smaller than Fan Expo, but it was packed to the edges with stuff. There were, of course, the vendors that sold toys and knick knacks, but there were comic books too – so many comic book vendors. I could have spent days digging through all the back issue bins there, and I walked away having spent more money and feeling more satisfied than I have in the last two or three Fan Expos. Not only that, but those local writers and artists, those friends of mine I saw last weekend at Fan Expo? Most of them were there too, along with some media guests, including folks like Five Nights at Freddy’s actors and others. They may not be as big as Fan Expo, of course – they’re never gonna get Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd – but they can get Sgt. Slaughter, and that ain’t nothin’.
And that’s just at that one show. There are plenty of smaller shows across the state all year long. I don’t get to go to all of them, of course. My attendance depends on a lot of things, not the least of which is my wife’s work schedule (because Eddie is a little too wild to take him to something like this on my own), but I know that there are smaller shows coming up in Slidell, Gonzales, Morgan City, and plenty of other places within driving distance. They’re all on my radar, and they’re all going on my calendar.
I know this might sound weird, especially if you remember the column I wrote last summer about how badly I want to attend San Diego Comic-Con some day, but these smaller shows are much more of a haven for people like me than the big shows are. That’s not to say I’m abandoning the big shows. I still like them. I still have fun. I love getting to see the costumes and talking on the panels and hanging out with some of the finest geeks that have ever graced Southern Louisiana. But the smaller shows are better at scratching the itch that drew me to conventions in the first place. I hope Fan Expo and any other convention organizers out there realize this. I hope they understand that bringing in new fans doesn’t have to mean excluding the old ones. And I hope they figure it out before there’s nothing left for the people who brought them to the dance to begin with.
Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. He hopes to see you at one of those smaller shows before the year is out.
It’s the second week of my year-long adventure in reading, watching, and generally enjoying all things Superman. This week, I take a look at the earliest Fleischer cartoons, I watch more of Superman and Lois, and I take my family to Fan Expo New Orleans!
Wed., Jan. 8
Comics:Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite, story found in Superman Vol. 2, #49, Adventures of Superman #472, Starman #28, Action Comics #659, & Superman Vol. 2 #50; Black Lightning Vol. 4 #2 (Guest-appearance by Natasha Irons, aka Steel), Supergirl Vol. 2 #20 (Guest-appearance by Superman)
When you spell “red” with a K.
Notes: I’ve got to be careful with some of these comics. My goal, in this “Year of Superman,” is to spend a little time with ALL eras of the Man of Steel, but every time I go back and look at one of the comics from my formative years, I feel the urge to just go on reading them. I could very easily make this “my year of reading Superman comics from the 90s” if I didn’t show a little restraint and restrict myself to the high points. All that said, I couldn’t possibly do this without reading Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite. As much as the first Christopher Reeve movie made me a fan of the character himself, this is the story that made me a fan of Superman COMICS.
I was relatively new into comics at the time, and if there was one character I followed more than others, at this point, it was Spider-Man. But then something happened which was pretty rare at the time – Superman turned up on the news. After over 50 years, they said, he was going to ask Lois Lane to marry him. I was intrigued and I sought out the five parts of this story to see what was going on. And then I got the next Adventures of Superman the week after. And then I came back for the next week’s Action Comics. And I haven’t missed an issue of any of the regular Superman comic books ever since. It’s a pretty darn impressive streak, if I do say so myself. I also eventually hunted down almost all of the previous comics since the reboot of the character in 1986, so when I say that this era is MY Superman, I mean that as literally as possible for anybody who didn’t actually create the books themselves.
What’s interesting is that the element of this story that got me – and presumably a lot of other people – to buy it is almost a throwaway moment. The bulk of the story involves the Red Kryptonite (only called “Krimson” on the covers) given to Lex Luthor by Superman’s old sparring partner, Mr. Mxyzptlk. Mxy is busy in another dimension – delightfully implied to be harassing the Fantastic Four as the Impossible Man – and he’s going to miss his scheduled tete a tete with Superman. Instead, he gives Luthor the Red Kryptonite – the first instance of such an element in the post-Crisis continuity, and promises it will make Luthor “Superman’s equal.” Instead of giving Luthor powers, though, the rock takes the power AWAY from Superman.
Most of the five issues – four issues of the Superman comics and a crossover with Starman, also written by Action Comics scribe Roger Stern – involve Superman either trying to figure out where his powers went, trying to get them back, or trying to compensate for their loss with things like a suit of powered armor. It’s a nice change of pace, watching a story where Clark has to rely on his brains, resources, and friends rather than the raw power of the Man of Steel. It also nicely showcases the supporting cast Superman had built up around him at the time. Besides the usual merry band at the Daily Planet, we also get to see him with the likes of Guardian, Gangbuster, and one of my favorite side-characters, Professor Emil Hamilton. They’re Superman’s supporting cast as much as the Planet staff is Clark’s, and they serve a similar function in the story.
As for the engagement – it crops up in the last chapter, when Martha Kent calls Clark and asks if he’s bothered to unpack his suitcase since his last trip to Kansas, and there he finds the Kent family engagement ring. He shows it to Lois during a quick lunch at the cafe in the Planet building and proposes with all the romance of saying, “So, you wanna?” Then they get interrupted, he gets his powers back, and on the last page of the issue she accepts. It’s hardly the most memorable proposal in the world, but oddly enough, it feels somewhat appropriate for this version of the characters. These are people who never have time to slow down or stop, whether they’re acting as reporters or as superheroes, and even something as monumental as a marriage proposal has that same kind of mood and cadence. This was the first story where I really saw the character potential in Lois and Clark, beyond just the cookie cutter stereotypes of the Silver Age, and it’s what I’ve enjoyed about them ever since.
TV Episodes:Superman and Lois, Season One, Episode 8, “Holding the Wrench”; Episode 9, “Loyal Subjekts.”
Thur., Jan. 9
Comics: Infinity, Inc. #2 (Power Girl-team member), Superman #5, New Adventures of Superboy #30
Next time, on Extreme Makeover Kryptonian Home Edition…
Notes: (On Superman #5) It’s a hoot to go back and read these early adventures of Superman. In the lead story of this comic, from 1940, Superman is out to cleanse Metropolis of the scourge of…drumroll please…slot machines. In this modern age, when every issue is about stopping a time-travelling alien telepathic computer intelligence from taking over the multiverse and plunging the entirety of humanity into perpetual mind-control and slavery, there’s something darn quaint about a comic where the stakes are “a racketeer is tricking kids into dropping pennies into this rigged game.” It couldn’t maintain an extended run, of course, but I think it would be fun to see a modern writer do a one-off story where Superman gets caught up in trying to solve some problem on a similar level…like an unscrupulous Girl Scout leader hoarding all the good streetcorners to sell Thin Mints or something.
It’s also interesting to note that, while much has been made of the powers Superman GAINED over the years – flight, X-ray vision, freezing breath, and so forth – there are other powers that sort of vanished after a while. In one of the stories in this issue, Superman impersonates somebody by “contorting his features” until he looks like the man – which evidently also includes whitening his hair, getting a receding hairline, and growing a mustache. Thank goodness they eventually moved away from powers like this one in favor of more sensible abilities, such as “Rebuilding the Great Wall of China Vision.”
Fri., Jan. 10
Shorts: “The Mad Scientist” (aka “Superman”) & “The Mechanical Monsters,” Fleischer Studios, 1941
Old-School Cool
When I was a kid, my grandmother had a VHS tape full of old cartoons that she would put on whenever we went to her house. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was one of those compilation volumes made up entirely of cartoons that were (or at least were thought to be) in the public domain, so the distributor could make a quick buck off of them. I didn’t care then and, honestly, I wouldn’t care now. This tape introduced me to the Looney Tunes short “A Tale of Two Kitties,” which I believe is the genesis of my lifelong love affair with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.
But the tape also included several of the old Fleisher Superman shorts, meaning that this is another of my early encounters with the Man of Steel. Looking back on it now, over 80 years after it was made, it’s STILL a blueprint in how superhero stories should be told. The origin is done away with in the first minute of this cartoon, giving the audience everything they need to know to understand the story that’s about to unfold – and remember, this cartoon was made only three years after Superman’s comic book debut, so it wasn’t a given that everyone watching these shorts during their Saturday matinee would be familiar with his origin like we all are today.
Next we have an animation style that’s smooth, fluid, and gorgeous. It looks as good as the best work Disney or Warner Bros were putting out. I’ve heard that these cartoons were supposedly the most expensive animated shorts ever made at the time. I can’t confirm if that’s true or not, but looking at just how good the animation is, I can easily believe it. In one sequence, for example, the titular Mad Scientist shoots his superlaser at a target, only for Superman to swoop in and push back against it, actually punching the laser beam all the way back to the Scientist’s lair. In terms of how physics works, this doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense. But when the animation is this good, you just straight up don’t care.
Finally, let’s talk about Bud Collyer. We all know how good Christopher Reeve was, and George Reeves get a lot of love as well. Tim Daly and George Newburn are frequently talked about for the animated Supermen. But Bud Collyer – who voiced Superman here and on the radio show – doesn’t get nearly enough love, in my opinion. His Clark Kent is high-pitched and a little mealy-mouthed, whereas when he shifts to his Superman persona he drops his voice a full octave and suddenly fills the space with his presence. His Clark/Superman divide is every bit as impressive as that of Christopher Reeve, albeit in a totally different medium.
The second Fleischer Superman short, “The Mechanical Monsters,” is every bit as good as the first. The design of the robots is really impressive, capable of transforming into various configurations to carry out their master’s nefarious tasks. Like Bud Collyer as Superman, Joan Alexander is a wonderful early Lois Lane. She’s got a slight sultry tone at moments, then shifts into mild panic when the robots show up. Moments later, though, she’s going after the robots herself, having overcome her fear and showing us how tough as nails Lois Lane should be.
This short also shows Superman using his X-Ray vision for the first time, and it’s WILD – the pupils of his eyes recede and are replaced by a weird energy. I’ve never seen X-Ray vision depicted this way anywhere else, and it’s crazy, and I love it.
These cartoons are fundamental parts of Superman history. If anyone hasn’t watched them, especially these first two, get out there and find them. They’re all on YouTube, but watching this is making me thirst for the recently-released Blu-Ray remaster of them all.
Sat. Jan. 11
TV Episodes:Superman and Lois, Season 1, Episode 10, “O Mother, Where Art Thou?”, Episode 11: “A Brief Reminiscence In-Between Cataclysmic Events”, Episode 12: “Through the Valley of Death”
And to date, zero percent of the cast members of THIS show have been involved in a cult.
Notes on Episode 10: As I said, this is my first time watching through Superman and Lois, and I’m enjoying it. I’ve been told by many fine superfans of my association that Tyler Hoechlin is the best on-screen Superman since Christopher Reeve, and that’s a pretty massive statement to make. I’m not seeing it yet, but I definitely see the potential here, as I approach the end of the first season. He’s got the right temperament – he’s strong, but gentle, fearless, but kind. He hits all of the beats I want in a Superman, and all that remains is to see if he gets great stories to go with his great performance.
Episode 10, “O Mother, Where Art Thou?”, is not quite giving me those vibes. The show takes pretty wild swings with continuity, including having Kal-El’s Kryptonian mother, Lara Lor-Van, being a scientist behind a project that has the potential to destroy humanity if used the wrong way by her son – not Superman, but rather his heretofore unknown half-brother, who has been hiding on Earth under the name of Morgan Edge. I don’t actually mind the divergences from continuity. I mean, this is a show where Lois and Clark have twin sons and move back to Smallville to raise them, not to mention the fact that John Henry Irons comes from an alternate universe where he was married to Lois Lane. Like I said, wild swings aren’t a problem. The issue I’m having at the moment is that the show is employing two tropes that have been done to death: the Sibling Our Hero Never Knew About, and – a more Superman-specific one – the Evil Kryptonian Trying to Bring Back Krypton By Destroying Earth. Both of these are things that we have seen many, many times in the past, and I’m a little tired of them.
That said, even the most exhausted trope can be revived if the storytellers are good enough, and this show is doing a pretty good job. It may be Lara’s invention that has caused the danger, for instance, but they avoid making Lara herself a villain, showing that her technology has been abused. This episode has a good bit where Lara’s consciousness is “downloaded” into Lana Lang, giving her a chance to have some heartfelt conversations with both Clark and Lois that feel very genuine. As someone who has lost his own mother, I think a lot about the kind of conversations I would have with her if I could, if she was back in this world even just for an hour. I want to talk to her about my child, her grandson that she never met. I want to tell her what my life is like. And seeing Clark having those conversations with Lara – even a Lara riding shotgun in Lana’s body – hits me pretty deep. It’s a powerful scene, and it very much overcomes any reluctance I may have from the stuff that’s a bit more “it’s all been done.”
Notes on Episode 11: As the title of this episode implies, we step aside from the Morgan Edge invasion of Earth storyline to show a flashback of Clark’s early days, including the creation of the Fortress of Solitude, his return to Smallville, and his arrival in Metropolis. I absolutely ADORE the fact that, in this continuity, Superman’s original costume is basically the Fleischer cartoon suit. Even more, I love seeing Tyler doing the “awkward Clark in the Big City” stuff that he doesn’t do as much with the show based in Smallville. And is there any other actor in the world who could get a compliment about the costume and actually sell the line, “Thanks, my mom made it for me”?
This episode, fortunately, isn’t really an “origin of Superman” story, but more of an “origin of Lois and Clark” story. It’s less about him and more about THEM, and that’s what makes it work. Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch are a fabulous pair, and this episode allows for a showcase on them as a couple rather than as parents – which, if there are any parents out there, you know is not exactly the same thing. But as I mentioned a few days ago, when I was reading Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite, I prefer a dynamic where Lois falls in love with Clark rather than Superman. To me, I always see Clark as the real character and Superman just as a name he uses when he’s not using his own. This episode is just touching in a way we don’t always get to see.
Notes on Episode 12: Aw, I was right about John Henry. He’s on our side now. Isn’t that the best?
Wait, what the hell do you mean, this wasn’t the season finale?
Sun. Jan. 12
Today I’m heading out to Fan Expo New Orleans, the biggest convention that hits my town and one of my favorite weekends of the year. It’s also something that will take up most of the day, and tonight there’s playoff football, so I squeeze in my Year of Superman viewing while my wife is taking a shower before we leave. With time being of the essence, I go with the next Fleischer short.
Short: “Billion Dollar Limited”
Notes: In this one, a bunch of gangsters with cool masks and a cooler car plan a heist of a moving train that’s carrying an enormous amount of cash. Lois Lane winds up on the train as well, because she’s Lois Lane and the laws of narrative causality declare that this is to be the case. Superman doesn’t show up until about halfway through the film, when Clark Kent intercepts a report of the train running wild on the Daily Planet teletype machine, and then he flies into action.
Speaking of “flies,” this short leaves me wondering – are the Fleischer cartoons where it was established that Superman actually FLIES, rather than just leaping from place to place, as he does in the early comic books? I feel like I read that somewhere once. I suppose I could look it up, but I’m leaving for Fan Expo in a few minutes. Anyway, the short is great.
Notes Before Fan Expo: Like I said, this is the biggest show of the year in the New Orleans area, and I’m always excited to go, even though none of the things on my schedule are Superman-related. I’ve been invited – as I have for the past few years – to sit in on some panels, one about fantasy movies and another about why we love Star Trek. (In terms of fandoms, Star Trek is a close number two behind Superman on my list.) I was planning to wear a Superman shirt today, just to keep the branding that I’m trying to establish here, but that plan got derailed when I found out Don Rosa was going to be at the show. Rosa, if you don’t know, is a now-retired cartoonist who did some of the finest Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck comics of all time, including the legendary story The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. I’m crazy excited to meet him today, even though I’ve met him before. And just so that this rambling isn’t completely bereft of Superman, I should point out that the last time I saw him at a convention I purchased from him this recreation of the Action Comics #1 cover starring our beloved ducks.
Ain’t it a beaut?
Notes After Fan Expo: I decided that for this convention – and any other shows I might happen to attend over the course of this year – I would document any Superman-related purchases or activities here in the blog. For this show, though, that was a relatively slim prospect. Sad as it makes me, it feels like the larger the convention, the less the actual comic book content, whether you’re talking about vendors or panels or guests. Everything is being consumed by movies, TV, and anime, which is something that makes me sad, and will most likely be a Geek Punditry feature in the near future.
There were a lot of Superman-related guests at this show: assorted Clark Kents including Tom Welling, Brandon Routh, Dean Cain, Tyler Hoechlin, Tim Daly, and George Newburn all made appearances, plus several other actors from different supporting casts, but I’ve never been the sort to chase autographs or celebrity pictures. I did, however, get Don Rosa’s recreation of Adventure Comics #247, the first appearance of the Legion of Super-Heroes, with Scrooge McDuck taking Superboy’s place. From back issue bins, I pulled copies of Superman #250 and #281, and the recent Beetlejuice Beetlejuice variant cover for Superman Vol. 6 #17. And at one of the many candy-making booths, my lovely wife Erin got us a slab of the “Fudge of Steel,” which had a nicely Clark Kentian color scheme.
This was worth the risk of getting hit by one of the many collapsing buildings on any given New Orleans streetcorner.
Mon., Jan. 13
Comics: Justice League of America #13
Trust me, Superman IS in there.
Notes: These early Justice League stories are always fun, in the silliest of Silver Age ways. When the JLA was first introduced, Superman and Batman were often sidelined to make room for the other, less-popular characters, which is pretty much the opposite of what happens in superhero team books today. (Anyone remember that era in the 00s when Wolverine was in four X-Men books and three Avengers titles a month?) Eventually they stopped doing that and began integrating them into the stories more, but that brought up another problem: how do you come up with a menace that challenges Superman without having a villain that could basically turn Green Arrow into putty on the bottom of his shoe? The result were silly stories like this one, where the Justice League is abducted by aliens and essentially made to compete in the Space Olympics against robot duplicates of themselves. This ostensibly has something to do with saving the universe. It’s a good time.
Short Story: “Dateline: Metropolis” by Karen Haber (from The Further Adventures of Superman) anthology
Notes: Despite the unforgivably boring title, I really liked this little story. Lois Lane, her usual news-sniffing nose working overtime – has stumbled on the story of the century. The strange, evasive man in the glasses and bland suits has evaded her over and over again, but now she’s got him nailed to the wall. Now she’s finally going to prove that Superman’s true identity is…mysterious businessman Roger Gunn.
The story is told mostly though Lois’s point of view, with both Superman and Clark Kent playing a supporting role. (In fact, I’m pretty sure that Superman never actually appears in the story at all, but is only mentioned.) But Karen Haber takes the old status quo of Lois trying to ferret out Superman’s secrets and turns it on its ear by changing her target. There’s a devilishly funny charm to this story, as the reader sees Lois rushing from one false conclusion to another, completely oblivious to all the subtle clues that her fellow reporter – with whom she is sharing her “Gunn is Superman” theory – is just as likely a candidate as the weird businessman with a mysterious past and a temperament that doesn’t suffer the existence of a bully very well.
The voice of the story works very well for me too. I don’t know if it was intentional on the writer’s part, but reading this story, I could very much hear Margot Kidder reciting Lois’s lines, Christopher Reeve’s squeaky put-on Clark Kent voice as he tries to reason with her, and Jackie Cooper’s Perry White bellowing at her when she goes too far. This feels so much like a lost episode of the Superman ‘78 series, and there’s something really charming about that.
Tues., Jan. 14
Comics: Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #9, World’s Finest Comics #303, Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #134
Notes on Lois Lane #9:The DC Universe Infinite app is a great resource. You get access to thousands of thousands of comic books covering the entire history of the publisher from the Golden Age to as recent as a month ago, and it’s already been a nice help in my Year of Superman project. That said, there are some pretty substantial gaps in the library, including large swaths of Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane, which is a shame because I would LOVE to go in and do a definitive tally of just how many stories in this ludicrous comic book series involved Lois either trying to reveal Superman’s identity, marry him, or both.
There wasn’t another comic book musician guest star this controversial until Eminem.
The first story in this issue, “The Most Hated Girl in Metropolis,” turns Lois into a pariah when a story she wrote exposing Clark as Superman is printed. Lois claims that she wrote the story over a year ago and discarded it when she found out her evidence was faulty, but somehow it made it to the front page of the Daily Planet without anybody knowing, which raises some serious questions about their copyediting procedure. As she desperately protests her innocence, everyone treats her like Typhoid Mary for six pages until it turns out the whole thing was a ruse to trick Lois before she’s named “girl reporter of the year” on the TV show This is Your Life. This is just one of the many unconscionably cruel jokes played on Lois in the course of this series, and it gets even worse when Superman gets an amnesia victim to pretend to be Clark so they can appear together. Dude, you’ve got robots. You’ve got Batman. Leave people who have suffered brain injuries alone.
In the second story in this issue, Clark has to save Lois from marrying a caveman. I have no notes.
Like the caveman, this panel aged really well.
And finally, in “Superman’s Mystery Song,” Pat Boone tries to make Lois into a musical sensation because he was extremely popular at the time and they figured putting him on the cover would sell a few copies. I have no idea where to look up the sales records of comic books from the 1950s, but if anybody can tell me if this issue did, in fact, experience the Pat Boone Bump, please let me know.
When people call Superman boring, I obviously don’t agree, but I understand where they’re coming from. They’re thinking of comic books from this era, a time when the comics were pretty bland, the stakes were either relatively low or utterly false, and the characters were just sort of plopped into a formula and went through the motions over and over again. This is what happened to the superhero genre after World War II, and it didn’t really start to break out of it until Stan Lee and Marvel Comics changed the paradigm and made it more permissible for superheroes to be – well – interesting. And Superman DID get better in the 60s and 70s. But for my money, the character’s golden age didn’t come until the 80s and 90s.
Thus ends week two, my friends. As I’ve said before, I don’t have a specific blueprint for this little project, but I’m starting to get ideas for “themed” weeks, with things like Superman parodies, time travel stories, Elseworlds, and other things. But I’m certainly open for suggestions. If you have a specific Superman story you’d like me to cover – whether that story is in the comics, a TV episode, or anything else – I would love to hear from you.
It’s that time again, friends. Every year, as July races to a close, kids sharpen pencils for school, and teachers spend an inordinate amount of time and money getting their classrooms suitable to post on Instagram, the geeks of the world converge on San Diego, California for the annual bacchanalia officially known as Comic-Con International. And every year I sit here in Louisiana, gazing to the west, and wishing I could be there with ‘em.
Goals.
It’s a bucket list thing for me, guys. Some day, at least ONCE, I want to go to San Diego Comic-Con. I’ve got a lot of friends who have been – heck, with the pals I have who work in comics, I’ve got a lot of friends who go pretty much every year. I see the posts and I gaze at the photos shared on social media and I think about what it would be like to be there, even though I know it’s not going to happen any time soon. It’s expensive, first of all. Admission to the convention aside, I think about the costs of airfare, food, car rental or Ubers to get around, and hotel rooms (some reportedly going for over $1000 a night on this particular weekend) and I know there’s no way this can be swung on a teacher’s salary in the current economy. Then there’s the kiddo – making this trip would either require my wife to take time off work to stay home with our son or her take off work so all three of us could go together. Going together is my preference, but not really feasible at the moment. So it stays on that bucket list, unchecked, right next to “Play Benjamin Franklin in a production of 1776.”
Also goals.
“Ah, it’s okay Blake,” say some of my friends. “Comic-Con isn’t what it used to be anyway.” And that, at least, is true. It’s been a really long time since Comic-Con was actually about comic books. The media empires have taken it over – movie and TV studios are the stars of the really big panels, and video game companies flock there to shill their upcoming games. And while I don’t begrudge any of them, comics are my real jam, and are what I’d really want to see. I’d rather go to a DC Comics panel than a Warner Bros. panel most days…although if it were James Gunn and company talking about the upcoming Superman movie, it’d be a heck of an internal battle.
Still wanna go, though.
It also doesn’t seem to be quite as big in terms of making news as it used to be. For years in these waning days of July, I would refresh my web browser all day long, waiting for news reports coming from San Diego to tell me what was going to happen over the next year in the world of entertainment. Marvel would unveil whole slates of films there back when such a thing seemed like a wise thing to do, and fans like myself would teeter on the edge of Firefox to see what was coming next. I don’t feel like that happens as much anymore. Studios are so desperate to stay relevant that they squeeze out announcements all year long, often prematurely, very often promising things that wind up never happening. It’s frustrating, to be sure. But in terms of what it does to Comic-Con it’s even worse, as so many of the “big” panels have changed. There’s no longer an opportunity to blow our minds with announcements of what’s to come, but rather just a recap of the announcements that have been made since the last time they recapped their announcements.
Yet I still wish I was there.
It’s not like I’ve never been to a convention, of course. When I was young, I went with my Uncle Todd to a few Star Trek conventions (these don’t really exist anymore, as Comic-Con and its many imitators have become a catch-all for pop culture and cons specific to a single franchise have become much rarer). When the Chicago Comic-Con was still a big deal I did a road trip with my buddies Mike and James. I’ve been to Philly and Houston, and many Wizard World-turned-Fan Expo shows here in New Orleans. And I’ve been to dozens of smaller shows, which are honestly better when it comes to the comic book side of things. Back in April, Erin and I took Eddie to a small show in Covington (right across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans) and it was honestly the BEST show I’ve been to in YEARS when it comes to the number of vendors selling comic books and comic paraphernalia, as opposed to thousands of headshots you could get signed by whatever actors are in attendance. I loved that little show, and I’m looking forward to the next one.
Observe the Native North American Geek in his natural habitat.
But I still feel that COMPULSION to go to the BIG one.
Why?
Because in a weird way it feels like home.
I don’t know if younger readers will get this, because the stigma about being into “nerdy” stuff seems to have largely gone away. With Marvel and Star Wars being so mainstream and things like Game of Thrones and The Boys becoming media juggernauts, things that we used to consider niche entertainment have become dominant parts of the cultural zeitgeist. But when I was in high school in the 90s, I was always made to feel like I didn’t belong because I read comics and watched cartoons. I clung to the things I loved, but often felt the need to hide them, lest I become even more of an outcast than I already was. I’d even quit Disney and Archie comics not because I didn’t like them anymore, but because I let people put it in my head that if I was in high school and reading Uncle Scrooge something must have been wrong with me. If I was seen with a Star Trek novel or an X-Men t-shirt, the reaction quite clearly elicited the same response every time: you do not belong here. High school was a bitch of a place, guys.
I’ve got a core memory of a time in 1993 when Superman: The Man of Steel #22 came out. This was during the whole “Death and Return of Superman” storyline, and John Henry Irons IMMEDIATELY became my favorite of the four potential heirs to the throne. I brought the comic to school with me and, on a break outside, I sat on a bench to read it. And within seconds, a jerk from my PE class yanked it out of my hands because I was such a “nerd,” threw dirt into the die-cut cover, and stomped away laughing.
I can’t help but feel that John Henry would have known how to deal with it.
I don’t remember the guy’s name. I couldn’t pick his face out of a lineup. But I’ll never forget what he did, because you CAN’T forget anything that makes you feel that small.
I look at my own students, and I don’t see that anymore. Oh sure, there are still cliques and groups, there will ALWAYS be cliques and groups, but they aren’t really based on things like what kind of pop culture a kid is into anymore. I see a lot of kids who read Manga (not enough into western comics, but that’s a separate issue), but I never see anyone get bullied for that. You want to pick on a kid for playing video games? Dude, that’s a club whose membership is EVERYBODY. Things have changed and, in this respect at least, have very much changed for the better.
But I come from a time BEFORE those changes, when I only knew two or three other kids in my school who were openly comic book fans, and most of them wound up moving away before we graduated. It was a lonely time.
The first time I walked into a comic book convention, it was like I had finally found my tribe. There were people here who not only wouldn’t MOCK me for reading Superman, but would join me in a spirited debate over the credentials of the Man of Steel, Cyborg, Superboy, and Eradicator, and which of them (if any) were the real deal. There were people here who could ALSO explain why some crew members on the Enterprise wore red while others wore gold or blue. There were people who not only wouldn’t mock me for loving Uncle Scrooge comics, but they would join me in line to get a print and comics signed by Don Rosa, perhaps the greatest artist ever to draw the Laird of the Clan McDuck. (Yeah, I love Carl Barks too, but I said what I said.)
If my house caught on fire I would save my son, and then this. My wife is faster than me, she’s already outside at this point, that’s why I didn’t mention her.
Nobody should ever have to feel the way I felt on that day back in 1993, certainly not because of what they like to read or watch. But I wish that EVERYBODY could have that experience of walking into a room and suddenly feeling like that’s where you’ve belonged all along.
I still get that when I walk into my local comic shop (BSI Comics in Metairie, Louisiana – and I’ll never be shy about giving them the shout-out). I feel that way on Free Comic Book Day, when hundreds of like-minded folks come together to see what’s new. And I feel that way when I attend a show full of people selling, drawing, reading, and talking about comics and movies and TV shows. And even the people who aren’t into the same comics and movies and TV shows as I am are still part of the same tribe, because we know that even if I’m into Star Trek and you’re into Star Wars, we’re still more alike than we are different.
Not like that Stargate weirdo.
So why would I possibly want to go to the big, bloated, past-its-glory-days Comic-Con International in San Diego?
Because in a way that I don’t know if you can understand if you’re lucky enough to never have felt like an outcast, it’s where I feel like I belong. With my people. With my tribe. Just because I’ve never been doesn’t mean it doesn’t call to me like home.
Ah well. Maybe next year.
Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He believes the Great Gonzo said it best when he sang, “I’ve never been there, but I know the way,” and a tip of the hat to Steve J. Rogers for putting that bug in his ear.
Blake M. Petit 