Page-by-Page Through Action #305

This wonderful comic book is cover-dated October, 1963.  As we pass through its pages we'll be having an everyday experience.  Comic books had an average paid circulation of over 240,000 issues, and kids were learning through the world around them about right and wrong, good guys and bad guys.

What greater good guy could there be, than Superman?

 Another great, evocative piece of cover art by the great Curt Swan.  You can tell that the three guys in the foreground are crooks.  Number One is using a decadent SOLID GOLD ZIPPO to light up.  Guy Number Two is waving around a valise full of greenbacks.  And Number Three is waving around Gold Kryptonite, one of those harmful isotopes from Superman's home planet.  This stuff can remove a Kryptonian's powers permanently, leaving them subject to revenge attacks from the scores of evildoers they've jailed.

Just now, while bloviating, I noticed an anomaly on this cover.  WHERE IS THE PRICE?  There should be "12¢" somewhere across the top of the page.

The text for this page sets out to examine what is a received truth for DC's superheroes.  Everybody knows why a Secret Identity is needed!  It's too, umm -- I mean, to make sure that, well, ummm ....

I guess we'll read the story and see!

This public service announcement covers some topics of outdoor life that should be common sense, but often forgotten, such as the fisherman in the middle row, who took off without any way to find the path back to his campsite.  You laugh at semi-literal babes-in-the-woods behavior like this.  You tell yourself YOU would have more common sense than this ... until you go outside in the morning to your car ... only it's been stoel out of your driveway, because you LIKE A MORON left it runnig with the key in it, to warm up.

Our splash page heralds the arrival of another great story by Leo Dorfman, visualized by penciler Curt Swan and (possibly) inker George Klein.

The terraces of frightened onlookers were appropriated for my portmanteau art for October 2015's Blog-o-Ween.

Lex Luthor, while hating Superman, is also an astute student of pop culture, given that he quotes Jackie Gleason's signature line, "How Sweet It Is!" which Gleason first introduced earlier this same year in the film Papa's Delicate Condition.

Join us Wednesday for a few pages that begin this story, as we travel page-by-page through a wonderful bit of American life from the bright side of the 1960s.