Super Heroes: Cookies!!!!

I'm not sure exactly how I got my hands on this, I wasn't one to bug my parents for things at the store (mostly, because I knew I'd never get anything!), and I know I didn't buy it myself. Oh well, I'm glad that I kept this part of the box. The cookies, didn't keep for long and the collector card was soon thrown out. Not a big fan of the Penguin, I suppose.

These product endorsements of the 1970's really have shaped my view of DC Comics characters. Nowadays, I really want to see a well-told collection of stories focused on these core characters. It's probably close to impossible because it always seems that one or more of these characters is being "revamped" or "killed" or "replaced." Guess, I'll just have to create and write those stories myself.

My list of my picks for core characters and what's been done to them nowadays:

-Superman: has been revamped about 20 times or so in recent years. Every creative-team has to "mix things up." Yawn. The original Superman died this year in the Infinite Crisis debacle. The Superboy of Earth Prime is murderous lunatic who rips off the heads of other super-heroes. Great job, DC. Way to show off your super-characters as role models.

-Wonder Woman: has she been replaced? Not sure, her monthly comic has only come out three times since May or so, anyway, I forget.

-Captain Marvel (Shazam): has been deemed in need of a total "makeover." i.e. a complete, unrecognizable makeover written by some guy who was on the Real World. "Captain Marvel isn't selling. So let's make him into a generic magic character who fights demons! And oh yeah, let's kill a character that's already dead (the old wizard Shazam), replace him with Captain Marvel and give him white hair, and then make Captain Marvel Jr. the new Captain Marvel and give him hipster facial hair! Oh yeah, put Mary Marvel in a coma. And more demons and more sassy characters who are "cool."

-Batman: just make him a total psychotic jerk who drafts plans to murder other super-heroes, just in case THEY go rogue.

-Robin: I have no idea. There have been a bunch of Robins.

-Aquaman: decide that he can't have a happy life ever and then replace him in his own comic-book with some character who has practically the exact name and then make sure you give the old Aquaman a squid-face, yeah, a SQUID-FACE!

-Batgirl: she gets shot in the back by the Joker, otherwise she's still pretty cool leading the Birds of Prey from her wheelchair as Barbara Gordon.

-Supergirl: introduce about a dozen different new versions of her, the newest one is a fifteen year old girl who wears a Kleenex for a skirt and tries to have sex with Nightwing, the original Robin now grown-up. She now feels comfortable posing for Maxim magazine.

-Plastic Man: give his character his own funny book that gets lots of critical acclaim but gets cancelled because not enough readers buy it. A sad commentary on the state of comic-book readers.

-Hawkman: I have no idea where to start here. His character has been "revamped" soooo much, even I, one of the biggest DC geeks, has no clue how to explain Hawkman to anyone. Who is he??? I dunno. What's his story? Does anyone know for sure? Nope!!!!

-Green Lantern: his city was NUKED! Then he went insane and murdered almost all of the other Green Lantern characters! Then he became a super-villian who tried to wipe out history!!!! Then he died!!!! Then he became some kind of ghost!!!! Now he's alive again!!!!! What????

-Flash: died and was replaced, then the replacement just "died" or something, and was replaced by a kid who's all of a sudden now an adult, just like in the soap-operas.

-Atom: his wife killed another super-hero's wife and now he disappeared and has been replaced!

-Firestorm: this is getting monotonous-killed and replaced.


Man, do I miss classic stories- thank god, for my reprint books and back issues!!!!

Hawkman's Internet Pen-Pal!

From a book I've been reading lately, "Chip Kidd (Work: 1986-2006) Book One":



Hahaha! Ohmygod, I can't stop laughing at this!!!!

First of all, I should tell you, this picture is from a book that's an auto-biographical album of sorts put together by world-famous book designer, Chip Kidd. His work is pure genius and anyone who gets him to design for them is blessed. "What has this got to do with comics?" some of you may be asking. Well, Chip has been doing a bunch of work with DC Comics in the last couple years designing covers and layouts for books about their super-heroes. He did the covers and layouts for each of the trio of books written by Les Daniels about the history and cultural impact of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. With Art Spiegelman (Pulitzer author and artist of "Maus") he wrote and designed "Jack Cole and Plastic Man" (with a real plastic book cover!). He was also the man in charge of "Mythology: the DC Comics Art of Alex Ross," a beautifully photographed collection of Mr. Ross' artistic output towards my favorite super-heroes.

Well, this is all to say that Chip Kidd, through the nature of his work, has many varied connections. A couple years ago, he asked Daniel Clowes (one of my favorite all-time comics creators: writer and artist of independent comic "Eightball" and creator of "Ghostworld") to do a mock-up of "Bizarro Comics", a anthology book featuring stories written and drawn by "alternative," non-mainstream comics-people. Anyways, Dan Clowes put this cover together, but DC Comics ended up rejecting it! I've always wondered how DC Comics characters would look under the hand of Mr. Clowes, and now, years later, I finally get to see. Man, each panel is effing hilarious!!!!

Aquaman Money!

If there really were super-heroes would we put their images on our money?

Super Powers: Aquaman

In 1984 Kenner Toys put out the Super Power line, a group of action figures based on the great characters of DC Comics. It wasn't until a year later when I found a copy of Super Powers #1 (the second series drawn by the late, great Jack Kirby) that I realized there was a toy line too. Their ads were on the back of every DC Comic that summer. The novelty of these action-figures that they weren't just figures that stood there and did nothing. These had "super-powers" that would present themselves when you squeezed the figure's legs or arms together. Superman punched. Green Lantern raised to his arm to aim his power ring at you. Aquaman made swimming movements!

Each character figure came with his (or her, in the case of Wonder Woman) mini-comic book.

On each package there was a collector card that you, if you were a dumb kid and not some hardcore, nerdy collector, would cut out and read. Look at this great artwork!!!

Some facts about Aquaman!

I couldn't believe how lucky I was to have an action-figure of my favorite hero and character. My little Aquaman kind of became a little plastic idol for me. How devout I felt! It's weird though, I can barely remember getting him. My memory is hazy, I vaguely recall getting him at some drugstore in some other town miles from home. Must...wrack...brain...

From Leaf Candy: The Secret Origin of Aquaman

1980. Kay-Bee Toy Store in the East Towne Mall. One of the semi-annual trips to the big city of Madison from little ol' Beaver Dam. Imagine my glee when my little sister and I were actually allowed into a toy-store instead of being dragged into some stupid shoe-store or that woman's clothing store that had the worst problem of discharging the most menacing static charges ever. Then imagine seven year-old me when I found this display:


Ohmygod! Packages of gum with mini-comics featuring the secret origins of DC super heroes! I HAD TO HAVE THEM! After all my years of watching the Super Friends I was finally going to find out how all these heroes got their starts. But when I asked for some money (a real rarity, since my parents had us trained never to ask for anything, ever.) I was told I could only get one. So with 63 cents in hand I got this one:









What a story! Whenever I watched the Super-Friends I always wondered about Aquaman. What was he like outside of the group? How did he get his start? Now I knew! And how romantic! Aquaman was the product of a love affair between a lighthouse keeper and the woman he saved on a dark and stormy night! This comic formed the basic shape of my idea of love for years to come. And the artwork! Even at the age I was, I knew this was top-notch. Now that I'm older and know more about comics (i.e. I'm a nerd) I've narrowed down the artwork to these three artists: Romeo Tanghal, Dick Giordano, or Jose Louis Garcia-Lopez.
Anyways, this was the start of my Aquaman fetish. Although, anytime my family would go back to the mall in Madison I would race past all the other shoppers to Kay-Bee to see if they had anymore of the other characters' mini-comics for sale. I would never find anymore there and I would often daydream about them knowing there were more secret origins to discover. Thanks to Ebay many, many years later, I finally got my hand on the rest. But upon closer inspection, none of the others were as well written or drawn as Aquaman's. I got the gem of the group!

Batman and Wonder Woman Etch A Sketch Action Pack

Like I mentioned before, when I was young (way back in the 1970's and early 80's) it never occurred to me that super-heroes were featured in comic-books you could buy at the local drug or grocery store. They were characters on tee-vee. So when I would catch them on anything else other than the tube I would be astounded. You could imagine me on Christmas Day circa 1980 when I opened up a box with an Etch A Sketch accompanied by this Super Heroes Action Pack! This set had my imagination racing for a long time!






This last one really got my curiosity. Robin interacting with someone other than Batman???? He had to save Wonder Woman before his mentor. I just thought of the possibilities there!!!!

Super Heroes: "The Secret of the Sinister Lighthouse!"

Here's a scan of the first comic book I ever had! It's basically a Super Friends mini-comic that was a giveaway in boxes of Post cereals that were shipped out in 1980. Mine came from Honeycomb! (Years later, the smell of its sweetness was still lingered upon the comic.)
I remember reading and re-reading this comic over and over again. I used to go through the comic and tally the number of times each character was drawn into the story. Aquaman was used quite a bit (nine times), I thought, and quite effectively too!
How lucky I was to get this comic. My family was poor, and it would have never occured to me to go and buy comic-books. Super-heroes were characters I could follow on the tee-vee on Saturday mornings for free. Thank you, the powers-that-were in 1980 at General Mills and DC Comics that put this giveaway mini-comic together and slapped them into the cereal boxes of poor wretches like me!

Aquaman at the Post Office!

As I was sending something off (um...to no one in particular) at the post office today I finally decided to purchase the set of stamps commemorating DC Comics super-heroes that came out this last summer. All my favorites are on it! Here's a pic I found of them on the web (I scanned them in, but thought I'd get in trouble for posting them on the net, since they're considered legal tender...):


Here, though, is a scan of the backside (pause), that I was incredibly happy and surprised to discover:


A pop quiz on these DC legends may be given at any moment- so read up!

Okay, now that you read all the mini-bios on Superman, Hawkman, Wonder Woman, etc. I have to impart upon you all my giddiness for what I found next at the post office! Wow, oh wow!!!!! It was like a dream, slow-motion and all, I was completing my transaction and I kinda turn to the left, and there up over on the far wall are a bunch of matted pictures, and this was one of them:

Whoop-whoop! My soul lit up on sight- Happy Day!!!! It's drawn by either Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Dick Giordano, or both. I know both of these men were the masters of DC's promotional art of the late 1970's and early 80's. Any product: t-shirts, stickers, lunchboxes, beach-towels. Their art was what you saw. I love it!
Extra bonus! This, what I think is an envelope, is on the bottom of the matted picture (scanned separtately cuz my scanner isn't big enough). It has the postmarking of the stamp, this case Aquaman; but what I'm really grooving on, again, is the art!!!!! This is my idea of what comic art is all about. Crisp and fun!