Chris Reeve as an Old Superman (We Wish!)

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More of 1997's Cracked Super!

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Boy, wouldn't you love it if we COULD somehow see Chris Reeve as an Old Superman!

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I think he would find this funny, too.

Cracked Super #13!

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This four-page satire dates from summer 1997, and Cracked magazine’s Cracked Super #13. The issue is just chock-full of dumb things making fun of super-heroes, including this little tale of a certain super-hero returning from the dead six months after a slugfest with a certain bone-encrusted alien critter.

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Note the Don King cameo on page three!

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New Link to Howl-oween

This is my compilation of fun and spooky sounds and music for 2009. Here's a link to it in Megaupload.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BO61ZRNU

In a few days I'll share a few more, such as Man & Girl from UNCLE and other fannish fun.

Hope you enjoy!

Happy Memories of Childhood

A couple of months ago I was awake in the middle of the night and a melody came to me. When i woke up I decided that memories of childhood would ge well with the melody.



So I dredged up some fun and fond reminiscences of growing up on Cornell Drive in Bartlesville. But "Cornell Drive" had the wrong number of syllables to match the repetetition at the end of each line, so instead my golden land of memories is named Pennington Hill.



The name of our housing addition is Pennington Hills.



Anyway, I sent my mom a copy, describing it to her as a love letter to the wonderful childhood she and Dad had provided me.



I didn't know she was going to send it in to the newspaper!



Anyway, please feel free to remember, if you can, a time when everybody knew everybody and you could roam the neighborhood freely, even after dark. Because all Mom had to do was throw the window up and shout your name down the hill.

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Superman Under the Green Sun!

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Well, we can tell from the splash panel of this great two-part novel that Superman is in a bit of a pickle. The dictator of this crummy little planet has taken away all his super-powers!?! How?
Well, while on our summer vacation, Superman was just flying around in space when he came across a planet full of beautiful people. However, for some reason the folks he noticed didn’t seem to be aware of the great saurian beast bearing down on them. After he has dispatched the beast, he lands and introduces himself, learning to his shock that everybody is blind!


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They’re not a naturally sightless race. No, the evil dictator Drago, who has seized power over them, has set off a “blindness bomb” to handicap all who would oppose him. Kall, one of the scientists who opposes Drago, introduces Superman to Aton, twin brother of Drago, who tells how his sibling and his henchman wore goggles to protect themselves while setting off a blinding flash-bomb.

Well sir, that gets Superman’s attention, and he zips off to set ol’ Drago to rights. But the evil creep is ready for him – everybody knows about Superman! – and flips a switch, activating a satellite that interposes a blue lens before their sun. So the sunlight turns GREEN, and Superman is suddenly powerless!

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His fall from the sky mercifully broken by shrubbery, the Man of Steel resolves to investigate further, to help the rebels any way he can. Like Moses, he soon intercedes to rescue a slave laborer, and leads a few slaves in an escape. The man from Krypton commandeers one of the strange robot insects used as personal mounts by Drago’s men. Using it to shepherd the other captives, he follows their directions to the hidden cavern refuge of the revolutionaries. Although safe from Drago, they are short on supplies. Only Superman’s bravery and quick wits enable the fugitives to find food and water.

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However, Drago now knows that Superman is still alive, and launches a wide dragnet. Superman is captured and, in a scene of tortuous exuberance, Drago strikes Superman blind like all the other rebels.

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Soon, like the biblical Samson, the sightless Superman is a slave to an oppressor. What can he do now? Not just his powers, even his eyes are useless. Whipped and driven like the other captured rebels, he’s ready to give up.

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But a conversation with a fellow prisoner, who urges him to take heart because a stranger named Superman is on their side, gives the Man of Tomorrow hope and new resolve. He must carry on – he realizes that he’s a symbol of hope for these defeated few. He – has got to – keep trying! (as Captain Kirk might say)

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He manages to escape by falling into a river and makes his way back to the rebels’ cave. Putting his wits to use, he manages to cross-wire the captured slave-driver’s helmet with the video circuits of the robo-insect. Wearing the helmet, he … can … see!

Well, then. What to do? Why, take down the dictator, of course! Sightless or not, super-powered or not, he’s Superman, and he’s got to try!

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Using his seeing-eye bug, he makes his way into Drago’s citadel and to a certain control switch. He deactivates the blue-lens satellite, and hey presto! Super-powers and eyesight return!

Now for Drago! But the dictator, having seen that the jig is up, decides self-immolation is a better course, and blows up his tower. Superman flies away to his friends, Kall and Aton and the others, along with a relic of Drago’s plans.

You see, he’d intended to force his slaves to rework the contours of the entire planet into his own likeness! When you take a look at the sculpture of Drago’s plan, you can really see how much, by a strange coincidence, Drago also seems to resemble a certain German dictator of Earth’s World War II.

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But then, in a final twist, we see that Superman is not only a super-scientist, but a super-detective, too! A little matter of a missing watch crystal exposes Drago as alive (briefly) after all!
But justice is served after all, and the people are free of domination, and soon their blindness will too disappear, thanks to Superman!

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And after several months, the Man of Steel swoops past the planet, only to find that the terraforming project took place after all – but with a different image than Drago’s!

October Is Howl-oween Time!

The last few weeks I've been collecting and editing a few dozen sounds and songs. Here is the result.

Here is a link to the archive file which contains the CD, front & back cover, disc art (for printable CDs), and a lyrics sheet.

http://www.filefactory.com/file/a0d5fa0/n/Howl-oween_rar

Here are the tracks:

1
Alice Cooper:
Welcome to My Nightmare
2
Sid Frank & James Dukas:
Holidays Halloween
3
Marilyn Manson:
This Is Halloween
4
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown:
Rock 1
5
Dick Dale:
Riders in the Sky
6
Aqua:
Halloween
7
Donald Duck 1937:
Trick or Treat
8
Jonny Quest:
Underscore 1
9
Sheb Wooley:
The Purple People Eater
10
Music for Monsters:
Ghouls Glide
11
The Who:
Boris the Spider
12
Buddy Morrow and His Orchestra:
The Raven
13
CD Creepies:
Frenzy #1
14
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown:
Rock 2
15
Hap Palmer:
Have a Good Time on Halloween Night
16
Nekromantix:
Trick or Treat
17
Jonny Quest:
Underscore 2
18
Stephen Lynch:
Halloween
19
Spooky Music for Spooky Occasions:
Part One
20
Henry Hall:
Here Comes the Boogeyman
21
James Horner:
Something Wicked This Way Comes Main Title
22
George McKelvey:
My Radiation Baby (My Teenage Fallout Queen)
23
Jonny Quest:
Underscore 3
24
Squirrel Nut Zippers:
Hell
25
Ukulele:
Five Little Pumpkins
26
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown:
Rock 3
27
Jack Marshall:
The Munsters Theme
28
Spooky Music for Spooky Occasions:
Part Two
29
Zombina and the Skeletones:
Nobody Likes You When You're Dead
30
Grateful Dead & Merl Saunders:
The Twilight Zone '85 Main Title
31
Mickey Mouse 1929:
The Haunted House
32
Manhattan Transfer:
Twilight Zone
33
Music for Monsters:
Skeleton Dance
34
Space Ghost:
Main Title
35
Bloodrock:
DOA

Join me in getting ready for Halloween, kiddies!

And let me know what YOU think!

Do You Know the Legend of Superman?

If you don't know it, then you are a johnny-come-lately who needs a little serious reading time!

Stay tuned for next weekend, when I'll unveil Howl-oween, my own CD compilation of seasonal fun and (sort-of) scariness.

Have a Super week until then!

A Brief Note

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In celebration of Superman's 50th Biorthday in 1988, DC comics and the Smithsonian put together a traveling exhibit called "Superman: Many Lives, Many Worlds."

One of the stops was at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, OK, where my dad was kind enough to help me travel. We saw all of the various artifacts to be viewd on the reverse (text) side of the poster, and many more!

The thing I remember most clearly for some reason was a huge transcription disc of a Superman radio program. This was a record (like an LP), but much bigger -- about 18 or more inches across! It was huge. It contained a complete radio show, so the recorded discs could be shipped to stations and played "live" at any time that fit the station's programming.

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I'd have another instalment of Super Vacationto share with you tonight, but the abrupt departures of four fulltime employees over the last two weeks has made my free time shorter. Tough to be the boss, eh?

As Heckle and Jekyll used to say, though, "See you next week with a brand new show!"

Thanks for visiting!

Halloween Music: Poe for Moderns

In 1960, Buddy Morrow and His Orchestra, a jazz ensemble, decided to bring some classic American literature to life.

It's certainly swingin', and except for the recitation of some of the poems over themusic, yo might not guess that these charts were "inspired" by E A Poe.

You can check out the whole thing yourself, complete with CD case front & back, and a 4-fold insert that contains the back of the LP.

I LOVE "THE RAVEN" and you will too!

Here's the link: http://www.filefactory.com/file//n/Poe_for_Moderns_rar

See you Friday with another vacation stop!

Bizarro Meets Frankenstein!

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Those wacky Bizarros! They sure messed with Superman’s head on our vacation stop in Hollywood.

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It’s all right there in Superman 143, cover-dated February 1961.

Of course, you know those goofy Bizarros, right? They were created by a “duplicating ray” that was only good enough to produce IMPERFECT duplicates. A new, improved duplicator ray made it possible for them to simply aim the ray at a TV image and instantly come up with a bizarre – err, Bizarro version of their target.

In this way they populated a whole planet with themselves. And all the Bizarro Superman have Superman’s powers, too, along with their grade-school intellect and predilection for wanting to do the opposite of earthly things.

So when Bizarro #1, chief of ’em all, and his family, see a TV ad for the latest in scary movies, he decides he just has to be scarier than those chumps. So he decides to head to Earth and Hollywood to make sure and get his fair share of screams.

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Anyway, Bizarro #1 arrives on Earth and decides to eliminate the competition by scaring up some fun. His first gig is in the Himalayas, where he goes up against the Yeti and wins the ugly stick.

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Next stop, Hollywood! So he dashes into the dressing room of the actor who’s made up to play the Frankenstein monster, and tosses him out the window.

You don’t have to worry, this story wasn’t written by Alan Moore. Nobody dies in it, unlike “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” Superman, swooping by, catches the (unnamed) actor and realizes he’ll need to keep an eye on his duplicate until he figures out what’s up.

Next, Bizarro decides to terrorize some beauteous actresses. But the gals have seen him fly in, and figure that he’s the real Man of Steel in disguise, and smother him in smooches. Hmm, that didn’t work, Bizarro!

OK, how about those cowpokes over there? Maybe Bizarro can put them on the run!

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Err, not so much … They decide to pull their six-shooters and make the “tenderfoot” dance! After the baffled Bizarro retreats, Superman swoops to the rescue, discovering the westerners have accidentally chewed loco weed instead of mint leaves. No wonder they weren’t cowed!

But now Superman knows why Bizarro is on Earth. And he figures he’d better make sure the super-thing gets that scare soon, before somebody really gets hurt!

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Next, Bizarro crashes a movie set where a freak show is setting up, and he sets his sights on creeping out a couple of youngsters there. But, since it’s a friggin’ FREAK SHOW, the kids figure this nice man fits right in.

Whoops, no scares here, either.

So when Bizarro arrives on the Frankenstein movie set and starts tearing it up, the extras and crew figure it’s just crazy ol’ Superman cutting up, until …

Bizarro pauses in mid-smash at the sudden glorious sound of people screaming, and the marvelous sight of the hair standing up on the heads of the film crew. Success at last!

Finally placated, his scary creds reestablished, Bizarro #1 heads home after snagging something to REALLY scare his kids.

Meanwhile, Superman lets us in on how he made the film crew seem petrified. Then he lets them and those luscious actresses in on the joke – it wasn’t good-natured Superman they encountered at all … it was grisly ol’ Bizarro!

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Next week … Well, check back and see!

Superman’s Return to Krypton!

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Our next visit on vacation led to a melancholy adventure chronicled in Superman 141, cover-dated November, 1960.


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It all began with a famous astronomer and a telescope. Professor Galsworthy has seen a strange object in deep space and asks Superman to investigate. To superman’s amazement, the object turns out to be a gigantic living creature, the size of a planet! But despite its size, it can turn and spin on a dime, as the Man of Steel finds when he tries to corral it.

Suddenly it takes another sharp turn, and suddenly Superman realizes he has pursued too fast! He has sped into the time barrier in his reckless pursuit. He pulls out of his power-dive just in time to emerge back into space and time – at Krypton!

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Yes, a strange happenstance has brought him face to face with his doomed world, whose environment immediately saps his super-powers and barely letting him arrive to ground safely.

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Now begins an adventure of the Man of Tomorrow, in the past, that is full of irony, joys, heartaches, and strange coincidences.

Immediately, he’s taken for an actor in a Kryptonian "emotion-movie" space epic filming nearby his landing point. He joins the cast and first sets eyes on a beautiful blonde girl, evidently the star of the movie.

After correcting an equipment malfunction of their rocket that nearly causes a crash, Kal-El takes his day pay and walks the streets of Krypton as in a dream. How can he be here? Isn’t this all dead and gone? Yet here he is.

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He knows that one day – perhaps very soon – Krypton will explode into a billion fragments, killing all its inhabitants.

And, if he too is on Krypton, does that not mean that his days, also, are numbered?

Such musings are interrupted by the realization that two famous scientists are about to be married – and it’s possible for him to attend!

Yes, Kal-El makes it to the Palace of Marriage in time to actually view his parents’ exchange of vows!

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Soon he has found a way to make their acquaintance, and before long has become a research assistant to the great scientist. But fame casts a wide net, as he finds when his employers, Jor-El and Lara, invite home a dinner guest – the blonde bombshell actress Kal-El had seen from afar during filming! And now, with Lyla Lerrol introduced to Kal-El of Krypton, the stage has been set for our great tragedy.

And, to the renowned actress, something is strangely attractive about this odd actor named Kal-El.

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[Sorry to ruin the moment, but notice that in the very first mention of the actress’s name, it’s misspelled! Lyla’s last name, of course, is Lerrol. But in this panel it’s spelled, wrongly, as ending in an “R” – Lerror – which is, of course, wrong. This was corrected when the story was reprinted in Superman in the Sixties.]

It’s all too much for Kal-el. He dashes away from the dinner party, tormented by feelings of desire for this woman, who had to have died long ago. But she seems so alive! And attracted .. to him!

Brought together again on the set of the space epic, Kal-El tries to keep his distance from the star. Until – a wild animal breaks loose and bears down upon the helpless actress. Only a little Earth-style ropin’-and-wranglin’ will save her.

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And once the beauty has been saved from the beast, what more natural reward for her hero than … love’s first kiss?

The die has been cast by fate. Lyla Lerrol and Kal-El have been thrown together by the very twisting of time and the wrenching distortion of place. So Lyla, swept off her feet, and Kal-El, stoically knowing Krypton’s fate, dash headlong into a love whose thunder out-shouts the flame falls of Krypton.

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But time crawls on, and soon Kal-el must pretend to be surprised by Jor-El’s announcement that Krypton is doomed to die. Against hope and against history, he helps Jor-El construct a space-ark to try to ferry at least a few Kryptonians to a safe planet like Earth.

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But fate is once again laughing up its sleeve at Superman, for the space-ark has been constructed in Kandor, just in time to disappear into Brainiac’s ship under the alien robot’s shrinking ray.

With the last hope of escape gone, Superman bravely resigns himself to the final months of his life in Lyla’s arms. At least he has found the love of his life, he reckons to himself.

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He throws himself into work with Jor-El in the meantime, and after a close call involving an avalanche, decides to take the final step, and he proposes marriage to Lyla, who of course accepts. Why not make the most of what life they have left?

Next day, when shooting on their space movie has recommenced, Kal-El is inside the rocket ship when a freak accident occurs. A strange flame-breathing Kryptonian beast escapes its wranglers, and in its frenzy expels huge amounts of compressed flam into the puny motors of this prop rocket.

Although the craft was only designed for sub-orbital flight, this immense power-boost actually propels the ship out into space, leaving Lyla behind to mourn the loss of her Kal-El.

And once the rocket leaves the red solar system, super-powers return and Superman bursts free. Should he return? He’s already been shown that he can’t escape fate. Krypton is doomed, and he can’t save even the woman he loves.

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And so, to Earth, where suddenly this entire life-shattering episode seems almost a dream. This is his reality now, this Earth, with the weaklings called Jimmy, and Lois. At least he has a second home.

Listen to Supermusic!

In an older post I mentioned this compilation CD I assembled just for the fun of it.

Now you, too, can take geeky, cheesy, nerdy delight in hearing the theme from SuperPup or the long version of The Superman Animated Series theme.

Here's the link to an archive folder that includes the music, these CD insert front-and-backs, and art for the disc:

http://www.filefactory.com/file/ah41gc6/n/Supermusic_rar

Please let me know what you think! Also, since this is my first try at such things, let me know if the link doesn't work!

If enough of you folks like the idea, we can share some themes from Star Trek and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. too. Who knows?

On a Desert Island with My Gal

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The fifth instalment on our summer vacation took Superman and me to an uncharted isle, where Lois Lane’s dreams came true, as she became …

“Mrs. Superman”!

It’s all laid out in Superman 124, cover-dated September, 1958.

As Clark and Lois are helicoptering back from a foreign assignment in the Flying Newsroom, a giant meteor appears from space and grazes the chopper blades. The two are forced to bail out over a small, uncharted island, while the meteor plummets past them into the open caldera of the island’s volcano.

They make it down safely, and Clark suggests they split up to look for help. They’d seen a village from the air, so they make separate paths in search of it.

Clark, of course, merely intends to slip away and change to Superman so he can swoop to the rescue. Oops! He can’t get airborne. He feels woozy. He uses his super-vision to discover *choke* that the meteor in the crater contained Green Kryptonite, and the now-pulverized Green-K dust has created a cloud over the island. Some has gotten into the aquifer too, so he can’t tunnel out either.

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Superman is … stuck on a desert island with Lois Lane!

Well, why not make the best of it? He confesses his identity to Lois, showing off with a few super-stunts, and pops the question. He can make with the muscles on ground level, even if he can’t fly them back to civilization.

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The chief of the island’s village agrees to wed them, after a suitable week’s wait. So during that week, Supes builds a honeymoon cottage. http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/oo152/MarkAAlfred/Super%20Vacation/S12404.jpg

Suddenly, there’s a rumble underground, and to his shock, the Man of Steel discovers that the Green K meteor has sunk into a volcanic crevice, far enough underground that its influence is gone. He’s free! http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/oo152/MarkAAlfred/Super%20Vacation/S12405.jpg

Except for that little wedding that’s planned for later this same day. Hmmm.

Time for a little Super-Trickery. Before long, Superman has created enough “imitation super-powers” gadgetry for Lois to deduct that he’s just been Clark all along. Superman – that heel! – must have put Clark up to this, just so she would leave the Action Ace alone! And sweet Clark was conscience-stricken enough to come clean before taking advantage of her by actually letting the wedding happen.

Boy, that worked out great! As the reporters are rescued by a passing ship, Lois is friendly with Clark and mad at Superman – maybe now she’ll leave him alone for a while, he hopes – until they make it back to the Planet and Lois decides that perhaps Superman planned their little island getaway so that the mobsters she’d just exposed couldn’t track her down.
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Hey, Superman – care to give a girl a lift to her next scoop?

Next week, our vacation itinerary will take us to a planet long lost in time and space, for a little family reunion. Get out your red sunglasses!

But in between ... check back early in the week for a post about an anthology of Supermusic -- and links to download to burn your own copy!