I'm Right Again Dot Com

An Unincorporated Division of The Anonymous Anything Society - June 26, 2013


    SUPERMAN

    Up in the sky!  look! It's a bird, it's a plane! Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. It's Superman!

    I may not remember all of this perfectly, but it was sometime in the summer of 1936 that one of my innumerable second cousins, Ray Richardson, Junior, who bore the nickname of "Puny," contacted me just as I was about to tune in the adventures of "Little Orphan Annie" on radio station WGN in Chicago. Though he was of slight stature, Ray, Jr. was the only true genius of our immense clan (children can be so cruel!). He wanted desperately for me see a comic book he had bought at a local drugstore that stocked all matter of reading material - from 10-cent pulp novels (I'll explain these later), to the first "Pocketbooks."

    Though we had a library endowed by steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, in Marion, the County Seat of Williamson County, Illinois, it was twelve miles away and the best word I can think of to describe its literature at the time is "venerable." Just great, if you dug Dostoyevsky, Jack London or Mark Twain. If you were into Hemingway, Steinbeck, Dos Passos or one of those, one had to put their name on a very long queue sheet and wait, and wait.  I've long since thought that the Librarian, "Miss Shush," favored certain favorite borrowers; possibly single, female high school teachers or an attorney or two who frequented the nearby county courthouse and the spouse of the local dentist; our Intelligencia.

    The three elderly sisters who owned Hampton's Drug Store, one of whom was a licensed pharmacist, catered to less exalted tastes. "Pedestrian" is a good adjective to apply, if you grasp my meaning. The latest pulp* novels, known earlier in the century as "Dime Novels," were flagrantly displayed in Hampton's Drugstore, for all to see and sample.

    Invariably, Mystery Tales had lurid covers, graced by terrorized young women in disheveled attire. Others had daredevil airmen wearing long scarves, twirling in World War One dog-fights, with twin machine-guns blazing from their biplanes - and of course, all manner of strong horsemen-cowboys, whose aim with a "six-shooter" was absolutely perfect.

    Then overnight, came comic books. These were the outgrowth of a secondary market for newspaper cartoonists.

    "Puny" first called me on the telephone - we were on the same "party line' - absolutely beside himself with excitement. Some genius had come up with "Action Heroes," much apart from the Popeyed, Krazy Kat, Blondie and Lil' Abner people of the "Sunday Funnies."  These new characters were well drawn, proportionally correct, and with all of the attributes and much more, of our pulp fiction favorites. Superman was here to fight all that was bad, using his super powers.

    I would like to imagine how Ray Junior kept that first successful effort of writer Jerry Siegal and artist Joe Shuster, a couple of Cleveland teens, locked away from dirty fingerprints and the ravages of time, but I know what actually happened. We pestered the Hampton sisters until the second issue of Superman appeared, and the next and the next, as well. We saved none. Instead, an entire second-hand trading market in comic books immediately developed. It exists to this day.

     Within a couple of years, "The Strange Visitor From Another Planet" was on the radio. I learned much later that Bud Collyer, the voice of Superman, was never allowed to use his real name in connection with the character.

    Soon, one film actor after another came along to portray the man who had been sent to earth as a baby from the planet Krypton by his scientist birth-father - before Krypton was somehow obliterated.  I think most of us would pick Christopher Reeves as our favorite throughout the several mutations - including the latest, a Henry Cavill. There have been more Lois Lanes than I care to count.

    It didn't take long for an entire roster of superhero copycats to appear -  Batman and Wonder Woman, among them. The True Icon among all of them has always been Superman, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for the Metropolis "Daily Planet."

    I was prompted to write this after perusing what I consider one the finest blogs in cyberspace. "Bedlam Farm," is the beautiful construction of the versatile Jon Katz. I'll say no more, except to mention a few things he had to say about the latest "Man of Steel" movie: "The Ultimate American Hero - good, powerful, battling evil, always victorious... (is now being portrayed) in an explode-a-thon for 14 year olds...with trite space ships (under the control of) "oversized alien invaders."

    I interpret his review as a warning: If you go to the multipleplex, expect to see Superman in "War of the Worlds" or déjà vu, all over again. Again.

    Our final comment: Perhaps it's time for a mammoth dose of Kryptonite to bring an end to the first and greatest comic book hero and the seemingly inexhaustible gold mine of young minds for "B Movie" makers to exploit.   

If you wish to read more, Jon is a wonderful, contemplative writer and photographer, with much to see and feel.  Enjoy a quiet moment at  http://www.bedlamfarm.com

73,

Phil Richardson, Observer and Story Teller.

Many thanks to Jim Bromley of Glendale, Arizona who started an Archive of some of my blogs. Please click on http://www.arizona-AM.net/K7OS

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Footnote. Pulp Novels where called that because they were printed on very rough, lowest-grade, and consequently  the lowest-priced pulp wood paper obtainable. Publishers usually paid writers by the word, perhaps a penny or even less for each. I knew a writer who could turn out a book a month - all of them featuring "cowboy" heroes. The author, who lived in my small Midwestern town, had never once been west of the Mississippi River. He was however, an expert on western lore and could write a page or two about the size and makeup of a pair of spurs, for example. 

Water Dream e-book A cautionary tale by Philip Richardson

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