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There are a lot of people who critique the Disney princesses as being poor role models for little girls. I wonder if they’d change their tune if they were more empowered like the X-(Wo)Men.
Link Via The Mary Sue
Chilean artist Fabian Ciraolo thought it would be fun to show what 80s cartoon characters looked like when dressed up in fancy retro clothes. Is it just me or do the hipsterific outfits and pouty faces of the models make most of the pictures look like pages from an Urban Outfitters catalog set in a cartoon world?
College Humor presents new superheroes for the internet. Or, internet sites as superheroes. Besides Google here, check out the powers of The Facebook, Reddit, Huffington Post, and Google Plus. Link -via reddit
TheBookofBatman tells the tale of The Dark Knight in the style of the bible, showing just how much of a savior Batman is to Gotham City. Finally the religion of comic book nerds has gotten the formality it deserves.
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Did you know September 25 is National Comic Book Day? Did you know that the Comic Code Authority (the censorship code that ruled the comic’s industry for over 50 years) is now completely defunct? It’s a big year for comic books and to celebrate National Comic Book Day, let’s take a look at the rise and fall of the censorship code and the rise of comics in general.
If you’ve ever wondered why so many dramatic titles have all been lumped under the title of “comic books,” that’s because the whole medium started out as a way for publishers to put together compilations of their newspaper comic strips. While historians debate what defines an actual comic book, and thus, what the earliest comic book is, one of the earliest American contenders is 1842’s The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, which was a hardcover book featuring an array of chronological stories about M. Vieux Bois.
The earliest contender for a comic book in the format we recognize was The Yellow Kid in McFadden’s Flats, printed in 1897. The magazine was a reprint of the newspaper strip Hogan’s Alley, which starred the Yellow Kid. Hogan’s Alley was already one of the earliest weekly comic strips and when the black and white, 5×7 inch magazine was released on newsstands, it may have been the first real comic book as well and even featured the words “comic book” on the back cover.
The first monthly comic book was Comics Monthly, first printed in 1922. The magazine would reprint a variety of newspaper comic strips from that month and its success was short-lived, folding after only one year in print.
The first comic book printed in a format we’d recognize and on a monthly basis featuring some material created specifically for the magazine was 1933’s Famous Funnies, which many historians believe to be the first true comic book. The original Famous Funnies was distributed exclusively at Woolworths, but was later sold at news stands for the price of ten cents an issue.
With a number of publishers printing existing comic strips in magazine form, it was only a matter of time before someone started creating original material specifically for comic books instead of newspapers. The first comic book featuring all new material was New Fun, which was printed in 1935 by National Allied Publications, which would eventually evolve into a little company now known as DC Comics.
Once comic books got going, it wasn’t long before superheroes entered the picture. While there are tons of contenders for first comic book, practically everyone agrees that Superman, introduced in 1938’s Action Comics, was the first ever superhero. Interestingly, the character almost never made it into the public consciousness. The creators, Siegel and Shuster tried to pitch the idea to newspaper syndicates for years and had pretty much given up on it when DC editor Vin Sullivan dug their story out of a slush pile and decided to run it as a secondary story in the first issue of Action Comics. Despite the fact that he wasn’t even in the lead story, Superman was featured on the cover and he quickly outshined practically all the other comic books DC had published up until that time. In fact, the term “superhero” comes from Superman and before that, heroes were ordinarily called “mystery men” or “masked heroes.”
These days, Action Comics #1 is arguably the most valuable comic book on the market and of the four comics to ever be sold for over one million dollars, two of them were Action Comics #1 issues.
After Superman’s meteoric rise to fame, it wasn’t long before other superheroes entered the fray, including Wonder Woman, Batman, Captain America, Green Lantern and Aquaman. Of all these characters, Captain America was the first to be given his own book without being tested in other stories first. Strangely, while he’s one of the lesser-known of the classic heroes these days, Captain Marvel was actually the most popular character at the time, outselling even Superman.
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The folks at I Can Has Cheezburger have launched a new site called Superheroes! which gathers funny stuff involving your favorite comic book heroes all in one place. See Spiderman with a baby carriage, Wolverine preparing lunch, and of course, lots about Batman. Link
Even super heroes like to take time for a little recreational skiing! This picture was taken at Sea World in Orlando, Florida during the mid 1970s. Link -via Mostly Forbidden Zone
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When Spider-Man starts inspiring court rules and world-renowned chemists begin taking cues from Donald Duck, you know it’s time to look at the funny pages a little more seriously…
1. Superman Defeats the Ku Klux Klan
In the 1940s, The Adventures of Superman was a radio sensation. Kids across the country huddled around their sets as the Man of Steel leapt off the page and over the airwaves. Although Superman had been fighting crime in print since 1938, the weekly audio episodes fleshed out his storyline even further. It was on the radio that Superman first faced kryptonite, met The Daily Planet reporter Jimmy Olsen, and became associated with “truth, justice, and the American way.” So, it’s no wonder that when a young writer and activist named Stetson Kennedy decided to expose the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, he looked to a certain superhero for inspiration.
In the post-World War II era, the Klan experienced a huge resurgence. Its membership was skyrocketing, and its political influence was increasing, so Kennedy went undercover to infiltrate the group. By regularly attending meetings, he became privy to the organization’s secrets. But when he took the information to local authorities, they had little interest in using it. The Klan had become so powerful and intimidating that police were hesitant to build a case against them. Struggling to make use of his findings, Kennedy approached the writers of the Superman radio serial. It was perfect timing. With the war over and the Nazis no longer a threat, the producers were looking for a new villain for Superman to fight. The KKK was a great fit for the role. In a 16-episode series titled “Clan of the Fiery Cross,” the writers pitted the Man of Steel against the men in white hoods. As the storyline progressed, the shows exposed many of the KKK’s most guarded secrets. By revealing everything from code words to rituals, the program completely stripped the Klan of its mystique. Within two weeks of the broadcast, KKK recruitment was down to zero. And by 1948, people were showing up to Klan rallies just to mock them.
2. Popeye Helps America Survive the Great Depression
Everyone knows Popeye’s secret. Whenever the cartoon sailor is on the verge of losing a fight, he squeezes open a can of spinach, pours the greens down his throat, and uses his supercharged muscles to pummel opponents. But fewer people know that the U.S. government is directly responsible for his dependence on canned vegetables.
In the 1930s, America was mired in the Great Depression, and the government was looking for a way to promote iron-rich spinach as a meat substitute. To help spread the word, they hired one of America’s favorite celebrities, Popeye the Sailor Man. It was a smart plan. In all of the comic strips to that point, Popeye’s superhuman strength had never been explained. But with the government’s campaign in place, Popeye was suddenly more than willing to share the secret to his strength. Sure enough, soon after Popeye took up spinach, American sales of the mighty veggie increased by one-third. Better still, American children rated it their third favorite food, right after turkey and ice cream.
But it wasn’t just spinach the government was endorsing. They were also pushing the merits of canned food. U.S. officials wanted Americans to know that cans were the perfect way to stock up on emergency rations.
While Popeye should be applauded for persuading a nation to eat its greens, he did mislead people a bit. The government’s enthusiasm for spinach was based in part on the calculations of German scientist Dr. E von Wolf, who’d discovered in 1870 that spinach contains iron. When calculating the results, he misplaced a decimal point, thereby making it “official” that spinach had 10 times more iron than it actually did. Not until years later were these figures rechecked. But by then, everyone was downing their spinach, hoping to be as tough as Popeye.
3. Captain Marvel Jr. Saves the Bad-Hair Day
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The X-Men series gave us a whole slew of mutant “super heroes,” many of whom had “powers” that were honestly useless in the fight for truth and justice. That usually meant these characters had a limited run, because how many plots can you write around a hero whose talent is limited to extra skin or translating languages? Take, for example, Kylun, whose mutations meant he could imitate any sound and looked like a lion.
He became increasingly feral as time went on just for something to do, despite that being the exact opposite of what happens when you hang around with people all the time. His one glorious moment came when a squad of “Warpies” assumed his sound-mimicking powers were no threat because they’d never seen Police Academy. His character was such an unemployable failure even in the X-community that his “happy ending” was finding and moving back in with his parents.
Read more about Kylun and seven other strange X-men at Cracked. Link -via Rue The Day
Transport yourself back to grade school -to 30 years ago when this Super Friends Valentine package hit the stores. Pages from the 11 x 17″ book of valentines are scanned big so you can print, cut, and put these simple paper crafts together, such as putting wheels on Batgirl’s Batcycle. Pages and pages are available at Andertoons. Link -Thanks, Mark Anderson!
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#MRVLCATS is a Twitter meme for which artists illustrate Marvel superheroes and other comic book characters as cats. Shown here is Dr. Strange by Adam Koford (who also did the artwork around this page). Agent M works for Marvel comics. He is collecting the artworks on his blog, so you can see all the best Marvel Cats in one place. Link -via Metafilter
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Don’t even think about shoplifting in a comic book store when Spider-Man, The Flash, and some Jedi Knights are present. The super heroes, dressed for International Free Comics Day, detained a man who tried to make off with $160 book at Comic Centre in Adelaide, Australia. Store owner Michael Baulderstone, who was attired as Spider-Man, explains what happened.
“We had about 40 people dressed up as their favourite superheroes to celebrate International Free Comic Day, so he didn’t have much of a choice but to hand the X-Men Omnibus back after a little bit of a scuffle,” he said.
“I’ve had a look at the security footage and it shows Spider-Man running down the corridor of the shop, grabbing this guy, hauling him off.
“Everyone in the store thought it was a play, that it was street theatre of some sort. It wasn’t until I said `Call the police’ that people started to realise.”
Comic Centre and another bookstore encouraged patrons to dress as characters for the event.
“One of the funniest things about the incident was that I called for people to stand near the door and it just so happened we had people dressed as Jedi knights there blocking the exit, the Flash was there at some point too,” Mr Baulderstone said.
Link -via Geeks Are Sexy
Here’s a blog that consists of newspaper headlines that appeared in comic books. The lack of context makes them funnier than they were ever intended to be! Link -via Metafilter
I’ve been neglectin’ mah duties of posting our weekly Bizarro comic (Sorry, Dan!) Well, let’s get that fixed right now.
For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog!
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