Gold Key Got It Right!

In 1964, Gold Key put out a one-shot TV tie-in for Jonny Quest. It's a straightforward adaptation of the first episode, "Mystery of the Lizard Men." The interior art is an interesting combination of good and ... eh ... OK.

Some panels appear to be almost tracings of film cels. Other are a lot looser "interpretations" of the characters.

Here's the interior front cover.

The script is not word-for-word, however. For example, in the final minutes when Dr. Quest's computer "Unis" suggests "Laser experiments by foreign powers," Dr. Quest responds, "In my primitive way, I arrived at the same answer, Unis!"

And the TV episode's final scene, the return to the beach, isn't present in the comic. Instead, in the last panel Race and Jonny lead into a text piece about the Sargasso Sea that appears inside the read cover, thusly:

There was never a second issue from Gold Key. Not until 1986 and Comico's brilliant run did Jonny Quest return to comics.

See you after the weekend!

Ha-Ha, Very Funny (not)

Did you know that, in April 1968, Superman met Jerry Lewis? The proof is right here!


One of the dumb things about this issue is that the cover features some Cagliostro-looking goon with an oversized Tommy gun has caught Jerry wearing a Superman costume. But it can't be Superman's real costume, because you can see an imitation -Boring Superman flying past in the background.





However, the story inside contains Jerry finding and wearing THE COSTUME. And the bad guy that finds Jerry wearing it is none other than the greatest criminal mind of our time, Lex Luthor.

Wouldn't have that made a better cover?

Of course, in the story that genius Luthor is so stupid that he thinks that Jerry Lewis REALLY IS Supes's identity. So much for that great criminal mind, huh!

The art is a creepy mix of Jim Mooney-meets-Al Plastino. And the writing is a quality that makes me think that it was written by somebody full of derision for anybody above a first-grader's critical faculties.

Anyway, as Carole King sang, you've got to take the bitter with the sweet. Or, in this case, the dumb with the daring!

It Was Thirty Years Ago Today ... Sort Of ...

Thirty years ago, America celebrated its Bicentennial! Woo-Hoo!

At DC, Superman "saluted" it with a big oversized reprint of old Tomahawk stories, "hosted" by Superman. Seeing as how Tomahawk was so influential in American Independence and all.

Ain't the cover art great? My first guess was Fred Ray as the artist, but I don't know.

The first couple of pages feature Superman in his fortress, tuning in his time viewer, through which he "watches" the Tomahawk tales.

The Superman art is by Saint Curt, but the inker (unnamed) wasn't *quite* in sync with catching the right line to ink.

Stay thankful for the privileges and responsibilities of American life! As they say, the American way is the worst system on Earth ...except for every other one.

Super Solutions

Here are the answers to all those *brainbusting* puzzles from last week. As I said earlier, they came from the 1981 magazine-style Daily Planet published in conjunction with the release of Superman II.

My dear friends, pray for me. In my viewing-in-order of the 14-disc Superman DVD set, next in line is Superman III. Pray that I emerge with a little consciousness intact.

A Couple More Super-Puzzles

These are very difficult, but I know you guys can figure 'em out.

Answers to this week's trio of brainbusters Monday!

More Superman II stuff -- Puzzles!

The 1981 issue of the Daily Planet, besides text stories complementing the film Superman II, also had small items used as filler. In between the phone-booth ads and the Classifieds, there were a few puzzles. Here's one, a Super acrostic.

Answers to follow, in a few days after I've posted all three puzzles!

Superman II Now Available!

Well, we had an interesting time Friday evening trying to buy a copy of the big ol' 14-disc Superman DVD super-set! We knew Target was sold out. So we went to Best Buy. They were out. So we went to Circuit City. They were out. So we went to Wherehouse. They had it!

The first thing I dug out was the Donner Superman II. Boy Howdy, it's a corker! Just about every plot hole was filled, except...how does Clark Kent walk back to the Fortress?!?

You can quibble about the resolution ... but that's the original ending. As originally written, the turn-back-the-world sequence was to end Superman II.

In honor of the new, original Superman II, for the next few days we're going to share excerpts from a magazine-sized release of the Daily Planet, from 1981. Here's the cover, and an editorial from Perry White.

Super Jazra!

This is the latest pride and joy to join our family, 3 1/2-year-old Jazra. Being a member of our Super Family, you might have guessed how she dressed for Halloween.

Well, guess no more!

Santa Claus Is Coming on a Stairway to Heaven

I wish I could re-do and re-record music the way Weird Al does. Or, like a group called Fleming and John, who do a KILLER version of "Winter Wonderland," to the tune of Led Zeppelin's "Misty Mountain Hop." Here's the link for that. It's GREAT! http://www.flemingandjohn.com/audio/winter_wonderland.mp3

Anyway, if I could re-perform a song for Christmas, I would re-record "Stairway to Heaven" with these words, adapted from "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."

Santa Claus Is Coming on a Stairway to Heaven
You’d better watch out, you’d better not cry,
You’d better not pout, and this is why:
Santa Claus is coming to town
When he gets there he knows if the doors are all closed
With a nod he can get down the chimney

There’s a sign by the plate but he wants to be sure
For you know cookies can be so fattening
Up the stairs in a room there’s a father who snores
Sometimes all of our gifts are misgiven

And it makes me wonder

And it’s whispered tonight, if we turn out the light
Santa’s reindeer will walk on the rooftop
And a new day will dawn for those who sleep long
And the children will echo with laughter

You know he sees when you’re asleep
And then he knows if you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So just be good for goodness sake
And if you listen very hard
You’ll hear the sleighbells ring at last
And you’ll see hoofprints in the yard
Then you’ll believe he’s come to town

And you know that Santa’s coming to town

More Superboy TV

Here is another small selection from the Superboy "TV Syndication Publicity Packet." One of the images is some more TV Guide-type ads & images that were provided. Local syndicators could cut-and-paste preprinted days and air-times into the little white flag in each ad.

The other image shows an example of some of the "autograph-quality" photos also enclosed. This photo has plenty of room at the top for your local station to paste its own logo or call letters above the Superboy Poster.

To the right you'll see the covers to the boxes that contained "Superboy Radio Spots." These three-inch boxes contain reel-to-reel tapes. No, I haven't heard them! No reel-to-reel tape recorder in this house.

The Superboy TV Series

No, not the one-shot pilot made in 1956 or so.

Season One of Superboy, starring John Haymes Newton (in his only season), started in 1989, and for Seasons Two through Four, starred Girard Christopher, ending in 1992.

A kind friend, Mark Barragar (aka Ranger Roger aka the King-Sized King), was nice enough to make a "Superboy TV Promo Packet" available to me.

Here are a few of the images seen in the promo packet.

The packet contains episode summaries, paste-in TV Guide-type ads, and other stuff. More tomorrow!

Super Pretzels

As the more mature of us may recall, 1988 was Superman's 50th Anniversary. Among the celebrations was the completely cheesy but fun and touching TV Special, now in release as part of the Superman movie 14-disc edition.

Another fun and silly celebration was the production of cans of Superman Pretzels! That's right, campers. The can was about 6 inches around and about 11 inches high. It was covered with comic cover reproductions.

The bottom and the top of the can are featured below, along with what those antique preztels look like. Although a lot have fragmented, I've circled some of the ones who still have their S-shield shape.

No, I haven't tasted one lately.

Happy Thanksgiving!

(with semi-sincere apologies to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons)

The Making of Star Trek

Once upon a time, when some of us were in high school and junior high, there was this TV show that was SO COOL. It was called Star Trek, and it was about the future. It had adventure and fun, and cool aliens, and a neat spaceship.

If you went into your local Git-n-Go or 7-11 or such, you might have found this book on the paperback spinner in September 1968.

This is the cover of the first edition.

Yes, new, fat (400+ pages) paperbacks with dozens of photo pages DID sell new for 95 cents.

This was, and is, a treasure-trove of fun and interesting facts and maybe-facts, with the advantage of presenting its information (100% accurate or not) while the whole idea was still new and fresh, before the overlay of decades of wishful thinking and mythology started to tint recollections.

One of my favorite memories of reading the book at age 12 is the discussion of network sensors' objections to the marvelous draperies that exposed acres of ripe womanflesh. It says something like, "NBC would allow a costume to reveal the TOP of a woman's breast almost down to the aurolae, but showing the underside of the breast was verboten. Perhaps they believes that moss grew under there."

This, the first printing, is so "fresh" that, in the back where you have episode titles & cast credits, the 3rd season isn't included, because it hadn't happened yet! Later editions, besides changing the cover, also included information for the 3rd season.

Byrne & Smallville, Be Damned!

Once there was a wonderful age, a wonderful time to be a wide-eyed innocent American child. A time when I was young enough to take at face value the strict right-and-wrong values shown me in comic books and TV shows featuring upright guys (and gals too) who strove mightily to protect my chance for an innocent childhood.

During this time, DC Comics had a character called Superboy, whose comic book featured "The Adventures of Superman When He Was a Boy!" And, it made sense. Because (although I didn't know it) way back in Superman's origin story we were told that even as an infant he had mighty muscles.

And yes, during this more innocent time, we weren't thinking about Super-Projectile Diarrhea, or what if Superbaby gave Ma Kent a BIG HUG. No, these were cute stories where things were resolved quickly, and we were shown a world where -- although evil existed -- other people were helpful and good-natured, unless their actions proved otherwise.

As Elliott S. Maggin put it so very wisely, "There is a right and a wrong in the universe, and most of the time the choice is not difficult to make." After all, most of the time our life decisions are not as complicated as those depicted in movies or on TV. The characters in The Unit may have to decide whether to let someone live or die, but for you and I, it's pretty easy to see the right and wrong in letting somebody in front of us merge onto the highway, or holding the door open for somebody.

These books are little, 20-page children's books that were published in 1980, when execs at DC were trying to extend the life of the Superboy character wo a further generation. However, by now most buyers were probably nostalgic types like me.

Remember, you have choices. Do right! Help other people!

3D Superman!

This oversized comic was published in 1953. My copy is missing the Super Glasses, so I have to use the Batman 3D Glasses I have from my Batman 3D comic.

You can decide for yourself (if you have some red-green 3D glasses kicking around) how effective the images are. For me, the ocean wave looming over Metropolis at the bottom of this page is pretty scary!

I understand that Curt Swan, premiere Superman artist, felt that this comic was whre he really began to hit his stride in drawing Big Blue.

Stories contained are

"The Man Who Stole the Sun!" -- art by Swan, the source of the page shown here;

"The Origin of Superman!" -- art by Wayne Boring;

"The Man Who Bossed Superman!" -- again with art by Curt Swan.

Also of note is that the inside covers of the book aren't covered with any ads or other material, they're just *gasp* empty and white.

Great Jazz-Classical Music

If you are amused or enraptured by Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, and you're not a *gasp* literalist, then you should know this music! If you look it up on Amazon, it was re-issued on CD in 1990 and credited to the "101 Strings."

But as you can see from this, the original cover, the performers are the Video All-Stars, a likely pseudonym for somebody or other. The performing group has lot of woodwinds and brass, players probably NOT featured in the "101 Strings" ensemble.

The subtitle for Scheherajazz is "...for Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Band." It's a wonderful take on the piece!

And as for the girl on the cover...va-va-VOOM!

An Interesting Book

This is a fun book. Read it with a grain of salt, and you too can "leap career obstacles in a single bound."

Well, maybe not, but Alan Axelrod does a pretty good job of doing what you might guess -- adapting aspects of the Superman mythos as traits to emulate at work.

Some of them are really important, like knowing right and wrong, and sticking to what's right. Others may be less so -- emulating Clark Kent's fashion sense as a newsman at WGBS in the 1970s or as Dean Cain in the 1990s.

But still, a fun book still to be found on closeout tables at a bookstore near you.

Plus, as an added bonus, you get a great example of the "Curt Swan fingers" on Perry White's right hand, as seen here!

Anybody Remember Reel Wild Cinema?

This show was on USA network around ten years ago, always in the overnight hours. This one-hour show featured host Sandra Bernhard talking trash about trash cinema.

Most times we'd have interviews with cult directors or stars.

The main wonderful feature of this show was the footage from various cult or Z-grade films and short subjects. They edited out the good stuff so we could enjoy only the BAD STUFF.

Lots o'fun, friends. Too bad you can't buy the series on DVD. Probably getting the rights to all the various properties would be not only expensive but super-complicated.

I'm gonna have to burn my dubbed-from-TV VHS copies onto DVDs pretty soon, before they deteriorate!

A Silly Earth Shoe Story

You know, it's amazing how easily some people, sometimes, will take something as believable, when it's really not. I'm not talking politics or religion, just a silly statement that -- with a little consideration -- would be laughed out of the ball park.

Example in point: About twenty years ago I had a pair of Earth Shoes (see yesterday's entry) that I wore when working the overnight shift at Coastal Mart (gas/convenience store). Once in a while, if I were in transit from stocking or sweeping to the cash register, a customer might notice my shoes and comment on them.

I'd always stop and turn my shoes sideways so that the customer could see that they were in fact, "genuine" Earth Shoes, and that the heel part really rode lower than the front of the foot.

"Y'see how the front of my foot is higher than my heel when I have these on?" I'd ask. Yup yup, the customer would reply.

"Well, you see, when I wear these Earth Shoes, if you measured my height, I'm actually shorter with them on than when I'm barefoot," I'd say. Hmmm, the customer would reply.

"See?" I'd say, turning the shoe again so they could see that the heel was (again) lower than the front. "You see how the heel is lower? That's why! The heel is lower than the front of my foot, so when I have these on I'm actually shorter than when I'm barefoot."

At this point, most customers would nod their heads and say, "Huh. Cool!"

And then I would try to keep a straight face until they left.

See you Monday, Super-Friends!