How did Rod Gillies accomplish this feat? He used LEGO bulldozer treads to operate the scrolling skyline. They alternate between one and two-brick widths to give the assembly flexibility.

Link -via Make

As it gets closer to Thanksgiving, some of us look forward to the public spectacle of giant balloons floating through NYC streets that is the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

This vintage shot from the 1940 parade shows a simpler balloon version of the Man of Steel taking his place in the parade. Boy, parade balloons sure have come a long way!

Link

Apparently Australians love their comic books so much that they’ve decided to start issuing license plates with images of DC superheroes, like Superman and Batman, printed on them. This means that the Australian motor vehicle department is officially the coolest on the planet! When are we going to get license plates that prominently display our geek love?

Link

Jessica and Jonathan Carroll tied the knot in true super hero style, although DC comics might be surprised to see Superman marrying villain Harley Quinn, as the two appeared at the nuptials. Read all about it and see more wedding photos at Geeks Are Sexy. Link

In 1938, writers Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster sold the rights to one of their characters — some guy by the name of Superman. DC wrote them a check for various services, $130 of which was for Superman. Siegel and Shuster split the profits between them. Not bad for a day’s work, eh?

That check, pictured above, be auctioned in November. And hopefully for more than its original value.

Link | Photo: Gerry Duggan

Herbert Chavez of the Philippines loves Superman so much that he’s had numerous cosmetic surgeries to make himself look like the Man of Steel (or some popular versions of him). Specifically, he’s had chin implants, rhinoplasty, lip injections, and hip implants. Aquaman, for unknown and probably unknowable reasons, never gets this kind of adoration.

Video -via blastr

Which is the Real First? Historians May Never Agree

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.

Making Comics Super

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.

For a short while, superheroes dominated the marketplace, creating what historians call the Golden Age of Comics, but after WWII ended, it wasn’t long before the public grew weary of the infallible characters. Comic publishers started dropping superhero titles and instead began publishing more Western, sci fi, crime and horror comics. By 1952, the superhero trend was so dead that practically all the hero books were out of print with the exception of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Unfortunately, this ended up being the end of the industries hey day.

Won’t Someone Think Of The Children

True crime and horror comics may have been incredibly popular with comic book readers in the fifties, but for parents, these titles were seen as a devastating attack on their children’s innocence. When Dr. Frederic Wertham released his book, Seduction of the Innocent, blaming comic books for causing “maladjustment” in the children of the day, parents became even more alarmed and more organized. Soon enough, distributors were refusing to sell comics, schools were holding comic book burnings and the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency started to take an interest in comic books. By the mid-1950’s, 75% of comic publishers had been forced out of business. It wasn’t long before industry heads realized that if they wanted to stay in business, they had to start censoring themselves.

In September 1954, the main publishers formed the Comics Magazine Association of America and their leader established a strict set of guidelines for publishers to follow, known as the Comics Code Authority. The CCA seal was affixed to all comics that met their guidelines and soon it became impossible to get a distributor to carry any title that didn’t bear the CCA mark.

CCA rules banned the use of the words “horror” or “terror” in a comic’s title. Vampires, werewolves, walking dead, ghouls, etc. were prohibited. Women had to be drawn without any exaggeration of their physical qualities. While “crime” was allowed to be in the title, it had to be in a smaller print than the rest of the title. No acts of seduction could be featured in any way. No drug use could be portrayed. And, when crime was shown, those committing the offenses could not display any gain from the act.

Interestingly, one classic comic book, Mad, was able to circumvent these rules by switching to a magazine format after the CCA was enacted.

Rules Are For Squares

As the sixties counter culture started to expand, a new movement in comic books was quickly born, eschewing the CCA in favor of sex, drugs and violence. The first underground comic was Frank Stack’s 1962 work, The Adventures of Jesus. In order to escape harassment in his bible-belt home, Stack published the title under the name Foolbert Sturgeon.

Many of the comics used the word “comix” on their covers to help identify them as being non-mainstream. The “X” was also a way to indicate that the content was made for adults. Rather than being delivered to newsstands like traditional comic books, these commix were mostly sold through head shops. Unfortunately, this also ended up putting an end to the movement in the mid-seventies as legislators started cracking down on the sale of paraphernalia and the head shops were closed. This meant mail order was one of the only ways for people to order the underground titles.

Loosening The Noose

Fortunately, mainstream publishers took notice of the success of the underground comics and in 1971, the CCA was revised to allow for sympathetic depiction of criminal behavior and corruption among public officials, the suggestion of seduction, vampires and werewolves.

It wasn’t long before Marvel started to push the boundaries of the remaining rules. The same year, the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare approached Stan Lee and asked him if he could include a few story lines that would warn kids about the dangers of drug use. Lee agreed and wrote a special three-part Spider Man story that included someone being saved by the hero after falling off a building because he was high and one of Spider Man’s friends was revealed to be a drug addict. Lee tried to get the issues approved, but the CCA administrator was sick and the acting administrator refused to let drug use be shown in the issues.

Having the U.S. government on his side, Lee published the comics anyway and despite lacking the CCA approval seal, the issues sold well and were praised by critics. The media coverage embarrassed the CCA and soon the code was revised to allow the depiction of drug use if it was present as a vicious habit.

The End of A (Censorship) Era

As the years passed, comic books began to take a dark turn and became increasingly gritty and many were intentionally printed for adult readers. As a result, fewer and fewer titles bothered to seek CCA approval. By the 2000s, advertisers no longer cared whether or not the issue was approved or not and new publishers didn’t bother to join the CCA no matter how light-hearted their material was.

In 2001, Marvel withdrew from the CCA in order to establish their own ratings system that was based on potential age groups for each comic. In 2010, Bongo Comics quit using the code and in the beginning of 2011, so did DC, opting to use a similar system as Marvel. A day after DC quit, so did Archie Comics –the last publisher still using the code, and with that, the code became defunct.

I know a lot of our readers are comic book fans, so those of you who have knowledge in the area, do you have any good trivia to add? Or even some favorite moments from your favorite comic books?

Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, Mental Floss #1, #2

Artist Jason Welborn mashed up two of your favorite movie heros in this poster, featuring Clark Kent as agent 007 in The Man with the Kryptonite Gun. It’s part of collection of DC Comics/James Bond mashups featured at Draw2D2. Link -via @johncfarrier

You've probably heard about how Google is enforcing a "real name" only policy for Google+ social platform (dubbed "Nymwars" and ably covered by Boing Boing).

Here's what the excellent webcomic Joy of Tech think about the whole kerfuffle (Google vs the Man of Steel? Great Scott!): Link

You may have heard the term “the New 52″ thrown around recently and thought to yourself “the new 52 of what?” Well, your days of wondering are over, cause their coming your way this September! “The New 52″ is DC Comics unprecedented overhaul and relaunch of 52 of their most popular, and world renowned, comic book series. From Superman and Action Comics to Batman and Detective Comics, to obscure titles like Swamp Thing and Creeper, every title is starting over, and they have never looked better! Check out the DC Comics website to learn all about how your favorite costumed crimefighters are going back to square one with style.

Link -via ComicsAlliance

Love your iPhone, but wish it had a homier feel? Never fear – now you can use your best needlework skills to cozy up your case. For just $18, you get an embroidery-friendly case, plus embroidery thread in the appropriate colors to make whichever design you choose. You can also just use their grid paper to make your own design, if you want to take your DIY-ness to the next level. I think the kitties are hilarious, but you could also go more geek-like with Mario or the Apple or Superman logos.

Link via Design.org

Superman Be The Hero Apron – $20.95

Are you on the hunt for the perfect gift for a super man in your life? You need the Superman Be The Hero Apron from the NeatoShop. A real man of steel knows his way around a kitchen!

More Be The Hero Aprons available.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more super Kitchen Stuff.

Link

A simple but hilarious 3-panel cartoon by Matan Blumenblat and Aviv Or, cartoonists Israel. Once again, Clark Kent needs to discreetly change his outfit.

Link (Google Translate) via The Mary Sue

The backyard is safe again, thanks to Tiny Justice League! HGTV fan kamila1 submitted this cute photo of Supertot (9 month old) and his trusty companions Batdog (9 years Lab) and Wonderdog (e years Australian Shepherd): Link – via Quiddity

Are you looking for a wallet worthy of Superman? Well, look no further. You need the Superman Mighty Wallet from the NeatoShop.  This baby is made from Tyvek. That means it is tear-resistant, water-resistant, and recyclable (see more Mighty Wallets).

Be sure to check out all the super Wallets & Coin Purses available at the NeatoShop!

Instructables user Britt Michelsen has lately been experimenting with fluorescent materials, including riboflavin. She decided to use it to make a food that looks like kryptonite. Michelsen made a mold out of aluminum foil, cooked riboflavin into sugar, and poured it into the mold. The result was a glowing candy that looked quite like the lethal substance in the Superman mythos.

Link via Make

Previously by Britt Michelsen:
Pixelated Trash Can
“You Killed Kenny!” Doorstop

A short fan film by veteran Disney animator Robert Pratt. After the credits, he explains how this cartoon came about. Link -via Metafilter

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!

DC Comics published one of the strangest comic books ever, Superman vs. Muhammad Ali in 1978 and reissued it last month. NPR’s Glen Weldon interviewed journalist Chris Klimek about the matchup of the century. Here’s the setup:

No sooner does reporter Clark Kent stumble across Muhammad Ali shooting hoops in Metropolis’ “inner city ghetto” than an despotic alien named Rat’lar appears to talk intergalatic trash. Specifically, Rat’lar is Emperor of the warlike Scrubb race, and he challenges earth’s champion to fisticuffs. If said Earth champion loses, Earth will be destroyed. If said champion wins, Earth will be spared.

The question: Who will be Earth’s champion? Superman claims the right, but Ali points out — quite rightly — that Superman is a Kryptonian, not an Earthman. Rat’lar isn’t having any of this Terran shilly-shallying — he’s got minions to yell at, and that fist of his doesn’t shake itself, after all — so he orders the two men to decide the issue by duking it out in 24 hours’ time.

It gets stranger as it goes. Link -via mental_floss

io9 has a gallery of 1988-2000 arcade games like Superman, Spiderman, and more. The only one I remember is the 1992 X-Men 6-player monster machine.

If you were sentient during the early 1990s, chances are you (and five of your closest friends) wasted an afternoon at this game’s massive cabinet. Not only was Konami’s X-Men a hoot to play, it also provided a hilariously idiosyncratic take on Marvel’s favorite mutants. For example, Wolverine spoke with an Australian accent, Colossus had a spark attack, Juggernaut carried a bazooka, and Magneto’s broken English is the stuff of legends (see: “WELCOME TO DIE,” “I AM MAGNETO MASTER OF MAGNET,” “KILL YOU YOU ARE DEAD,” “COME X-CHICKEN”).

18 other examples/commentary at A Brief History of Comic Book Arcade Games

The transaction was conducted through the auction site ComicConnect.com. Stephen Fishler, the co-owner of the site and its sister dealership, Metropolis Collectibles, orchestrated the sale.

Fishler said the seller was a “well-known individual” in New York with a pedigree collection and the buyer had previously bought an Action Comics No1 of lesser importance.

“It [Action Comics No1] is considered by most people as the most important book,” said John Dolmayan, the comic book enthusiast and dealer best known as the drummer in the rock band System of a Down. “It kind of ushered in the age of the superheroes.”

Link via Comics Alliance | Image: Comics Alliance

(edit by Alex) Previously on Neatorama: World’s Most Valuable Comic Books

He pushes the stalled vehicle off the railroad track, runs back to his motorcycle, and is only inches away from getting hit by the train.

Reader comment: Elias says, That happened in Argentina. Here is the video from the security camera.

Link (animated gif) – via Metro

If I had a Christmas tree, this would be one of the ornaments on it.  It just makes sense (Spidey Sense?) that the Webslinger would be hanging out there.  Get a load of this and other superhero tree-trimmers at Walyou.

Link.  Photo from appaloosa‘s Flickr stream.

Image:Chris Sims

Chris Sims of The Invincible Super-Blog created a gallery of Facebook status updates for superheroes at Comics Alliance. Among the featured heroes are Batman, Green Lantern, Spider-Man, Daredevil, and The Punisher. Sims works in a comic book store, so he knows of what he writes.

Link via Urlesque | Writer’s Blog

We conjecture that all of Superman’s powers come from His ability to alter the inertial mass of objects in His immediate vicinity or with which He is in personal contact; although the mechanism is unknown.

Link via io9

Image: flickr user chanchan222, used under Creative Commons license.

Aquaman, Flash and Spider-Man round out the groomsmen. Ten bridesmaids will be Amazon warriors — in comic mythos, Wonder Woman is an Amazon princess — with spears, togas and sandals.

Two weeks ago, LaFore and Lucchese made an emergency trip to Jersey, down and back in one day, to tweak her costume.

“Paramount to having a successful wedding is having the bride feel pretty,” he said.

He and volunteer carpenters built a Fortress of Solitude altar in a rented warehouse space in Portland. They’ll be married by Kieschnick’s father, dressed as Jor-El, Superman’s dad. Part of the script borrows from Kryptonian wedding vows. The couple will break character to say, “I do.”

The two met while working on a theatrical production in Oak Ridge, Tennessee seven years ago. They have been planning the wedding for 18 months. Link -via Fark

(image credit: Amber Waterman/Sun Journal)

Update: See more at Tony and Srah’s wedding blog. Link (Thanks, Tony!)

Official Website

Man Not Superman (text version)

Via io9

Los Angeles-based artist Mike Kelley brought the bottle city of Kandor from the Superman comic series to life. If you don’t know, Kandor is a Kryptonian city miniaturized by Brainiac and kept in a bottle by Superman:

The exhibition of new works by Mike Kelley at the Jablonka Galerie features sculptures, lenticular lightboxes, and videos related to the fictional city of Kandor, the capitol of Superman’s home planet Krypton. According to the Superman mythos, Kandor is the only remaining vestige of the exploded Krypton, and the city is preserved, in a reduced state, in a bottle in Superman’s possession. Interestingly, the image of Kandor was never codified and the numerous representations of it in the comic book throughout the years vary widely in appearance. In this exhibition Kelley reconstructs ten unique versions of Kandor, with its enclosing bottle, which, despite obvious differences, purport to depict the same city.

John Struan over at Super Punch has more pics and a video clip from the
exhibit: Link – Thanks John!

Only with your taxpayer dollars can Lex finally destroy Superman. Please call or e-mail your representatives in Congress and ask them to rescue the troubled LexCorp.

Flickr user fengschwing (of The Darling Downs blog) posted a collection of Superman’s various S-shield logos from his collection of action figures. Who knew that the Man of Steel is also quite fashionable? Link – via Super Punch

1 & 2. Action Comics #1 (June 1938) and Superman #1 (1939)

This is it, the comic book Holy Grail, the one that introduced the world to Superman. The cover bears the famous – if somewhat crude – drawing of Superman smashing a car against a rock. Written and drawn by Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster, the comic introduced Superman as "Champion of the oppressed, the physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need!" The last survivor of the doomed planet Krypton (duh), Superman could "leap 1/8th of a mile; hurdle a 20-story building … raise tremendous weights … run faster than an express train … and nothing less than a bursting shell could penetrate his skin!" Superman was so popular, he became the first character to get his very own comic book. Superman #1 hit newsstands in the summer of 1939. The Man of Steel has held up pretty well, you could say.

Action Comics #1
Cover price in 1938: 10¢
Estimated top value today: $350,000

Superman #1
Cover price in 1939: 10¢
Estimated top value today: $210,000

3. Detective Comics #27 (May 1939)

Less than a year later, an artist named Bob Kane decided to create a caped superhero of his own, one much darker, more mysterious, and more "human" than the squeaky-clean Superman. His creation: Batman. Unlike the campy ’60s TV version of the character, the Batman in this first issue was a dark, vengeful crusader who stalked the night (he watches as a bad guy plunges into a vat of acid), presaging the hero’s reemergence in the 1980s in The Dark Knight Returns. Perhaps this darkness was a reflection of the dread of war looming on the horizon in 1939? The cover proclaimed, "Starting this issue: The amazing and unique adventures of THE BATMAN!" and promised "64 pages of action!"

Cover price in 1939: 10¢
Estimated top value today: $300,000

4. Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939)

In 1939 a comic book house called Funnies Inc. approached pulp fiction publisher Martin Goodman with a proposal to provide him with ready-made comic book artwork. All he had to do was publish it. Seeing the kind of cash Action Comics and others were raking in, he agreed, and Marvel Comics was born. The first issue introduced three legendary Marvel characters: the Sub-Mariner of Atlantis, prince of the Deep; the Human Torch (a different Human Torch than the one that would become part of the Fantastic Four 22 years later – let’s not get them confused); and Ka-Zar the Great, a man who lived in the jungle among apes (strangely similar to another popular ape man whose name had a lot of teh same letters).

Cover price in 1939: 10¢
Estimated top value today: $250,000

5. Batman #1 (Spring 1940)

After appearing in 13 issues of Detective Comics, Batman and his new sidekick – Robin the Boy Wonder (introduced in Detective Comics #38) – were so popular, they got their very own comic book. Batman began as a quarterly, but that wasn’t enough for fans. Neither was a bimonthly. So, before long, readers could get a new Batman adventure every month. The first issue introduces two of Batman’s most legendary nemeses: the Joker and Catwoman. More than 63 years and over 600 issues later, Batman is still fighting villains – as well as his own demons – on the streets of Gotham City.

Cover price in April 1940: 10¢
Estimated top value today: $100,000

6. All-American Comics #16 (July 1940)

How many times has this happened to you? Man finds alien metal lantern. Man makes ring out of lantern. Man presses ring to lantern. Man has incredible superpowers over everything. Except wood, obviously. That’s the story in All-American Comics #16, a book published tangentially under the DC Comics umbrella. When regular guy Alan Scott made his ring, the superhero created was, of course, the Green Lantern. The idea of an everyday schmoe just lucking into superhero-ness proved incredibly popular. A similar idea struck gold in 1962 when a young nerd named Peter Parker got bitten by a radioactive spider (see below).

Cover price in 1940: 10¢
Estimated top value today: $115,000

7. Amazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962)

The word bubbles on the cover say it all: "Though the world may mock Peter Parker, the timid teen-ager … it will soon marvel at the awesome might of … SPIDER-MAN!" And writer Stan Lee (pseudonym of Stanley Martin Lieber) and artist Mike Steve Ditko could not have been more right. Spider-Man was the first comic book hero to be a regular teenager, going through the same thigns his readers were dealing with: shyness, insecurity, a crush on a pretty girl, and trouble with the popular jock (Flash Thompson). No wonder people of all ages are still true believers.

Cover price in 1962: 12¢
Estimated top value today: $42,000