Hey Kids, Comics! @ Bookends Bookstore

The signing at Bookends Bookstore in Ridgewood, NJ was a smashing success! We had almost a full house and there were lots of questions about us, comics, and the book. Me and my guests and fellow essayists Paul Castiglia and Ed Catto signed lots of books, followed by a nice celebratory dinner afterwards.

Bookends treated us great and said that if (when!) we do HEY KIDS, COMICS! Vol. 2, they'll have us back!

Hey Kids, Comics! Signing - 11/30/13

Hey Kids! You should know that I will be doing my first in-store book signing at Bookends Bookstore in Ridgewood, NJ!

The signing will be on Small Business Saturday, November 30, at 2pm. Joining me for the event will be Hey Kids, Comics! essayists Paul Castiglia (Archie) and Ed Catto (Captain Action, The Bonfire Agency). Come by and pick up a copy of the book and get it autographed by all three of us!

HEY KIDS, COMICS! Free Sampler

For a limited time, you can download a PDF of film critic Elisabeth Rappe's HEY KIDS, COMICS! essay "I Was A College Comics Reader" for free via this link! Take a read and I bet you'll want to read more, more, more!

HEY KIDS, COMICS! at the 2013 New York Comic Con

I am thrilled to announce that I will be doing a signing with two of my Hey Kids, Comics! essayists Ed Catto and Paul Kupperberg at this year's New York Comic Con!

The signing will be at the Captain Action booth on the main show floor: Booth 226, at 1pm on Friday, October 11th.

Stop by and pick up a copy, and get it signed by all three of us. In addition, Hey Kids, Comics! essayists Paul Castiglia and Kevin Dilmore will also be at the show, and they will be happy to sign your book as well! Be there!

Hey Kids, Comics! ON SALE NOW!

Today's the day! Literally years in the making, Hey Kids, Comics!: True-Life Tales From The Spinner Rack s now available on Amazon and Create Space!

Hey Kids, Comics!: True-Life Tales From The Spinner Rack retails for $17.99, and is 262 pages of chills, spills, laughter, tears, and adventure. Featuring these scintillating secret comic book origins:

• Hey Kids...THUD! by Sholly Fisch 
• Four-Color Timelines by Chris Ryall 
• Hey Kids, Science! by James Kakalios 
• I Was A College Comics Reader by Elisabeth Rappe 
• The Thrill of the Hunt by Robert Greenberger 
• Portals to Other Dimensions—Ten Cents Each! by J.M. DeMatteis 
• The Weekly Pilgrimage by Ed Catto 
• My Encounter by John Zakour 
• The Catalpa Tree by Steve Skeates 
• The Black Cat and the Gentleman by Roxanna Meta 
• Of Sand, Sea Nettles and Surplus Furniture: My Secret Origin by Glen Weldon 
• Comics Are For Everyone! by Jill Pantozzi 
• Living A Comic Book Life by Javier Hernandez 
• Secret Origin by Steve Englehart 
• Where Creatures Roam by Mike Howlett 
• Blood The Page! by Richard Harland Smith 
• Uncle Bob by Tim Schlattmann 
• In Brightest Day, In Blackest Waaugh! by Kevin Dilmore 
• Little Stephen and the Mysterious Magazines by Stephen DeStefano 
• Comics on Infinite Minds by Marc Tyler Nobleman 
• Comics Don’t Cause Nightmares by Aaron Scott 
• “An All-Star Collection of the Greatest Super-Stories Ever Published!" by Paul Kupperberg 
• “Here’s A Superman for That Detective Comics…” by Jim Beard 
• The Great Wall of Comics by David Galassie 
• Growing Up On Bash Street by Dan Whitehead 
• Lost and Found by Erika D. Peterman 
• The Comic Book Baron of New Jersey by Doug Slack 
• Secrets of the Big Box by Shaun McLaughlin 
• The Magic of Comics by Doug Zawisza 
• Confessions of a Comic Book Thief by Mark Wheaton 
• Steel-Hard Skin by Evan Narcisse 
• 1976 - A Christmas Odyssey by Neal Patterson 
• All in Color for (a Nickel or) a Dime! by Craig Wichman 
• Spirit of ’74 by David Morefield 
• Intersecting Panels by Paul Castiglia 
• The Field by Tim Neenan 
• Mahalo, Keniki by Alan Brennert   
• No Careless Product of Wild Imagination… by Chad Nance

Punctuated with vintage photos, Hey Kids, Comics! is a must for any comics fan or student of pop culture history!

Click below to get your copy of Hey Kids, Comics!: True-Life Tales From The Spinner Rack today!

Hey Kids, Comics! On Sale Now on CreateSpace!

For those of you can't wait for it to appear on Amazon, Hey Kids, Comics!: True-Life Tales From The Spinner Rack is available now on Create Space!

Hey Kids, Comics!: True-Life Tales From The Spinner Rack retails for $17.99, and is 262 pages of chills, spills, laughter, tears, and adventure. Featuring stories by J.M. DeMatteis, Alan Brennert, Paul Kupperberg, Glen Weldon, Jill Pantozzi, Chris Ryall, Sholly Fisch, and more, Hey Kids! is a must for any comics fan or student of pop culture history. Learn the true-life secret origin stories of how people from all walks of life became die-hard comic book fans!

Get your copy of Hey Kids, Comics!: True-Life Tales From The Spinner Rack today!

The Composite Superman and Me

Dan Hunter The Composite Superman had a profound effect on me, and my love of comic books and classic DC heroes. Not familiar with him? Neither was I until one fateful Bicentennial Day in the '70s. The character had first appeared in World’s Finest #142 (June 1964) and was brought back for World's Finest #168 (August 1967).

I was into superheroes when I was a child but my knowledge and interest in them was stirred mostly by the Mego action figure line--and the shows I watched on television.

By the time I was seven, the Shazam!/Isis Hour was in full swing on Saturday mornings. I loved the Super Friends cartoon. And I was watching repeats of the Adam West Batman and The Adventures of Superman every day after school. In addition, Lynda Carter had just started donning her legendary Wonder Woman costume. Although my brother collected Marvel comics, I had never paid much attention to them.

I grew up in the Bronx, New York. To get away from the stress of urban life, my family would take our old ’66 station wagon with the wood paneling on the sides and drive upstate to a town with the unfortunate name of Plattekill.

The ride was fun but I was always susceptible to boredom. This was the "country" after all and I wasn’t used to it. Dirt roads, rural houses, wooded areas, and Daddy Long Legs that looked straight out of the Hardesty family home in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

We stopped at a small convenience store on the way during one trip in the summer of 1976. I walked in and after picking out some candy, I was struck by a huge rack full of comic books. Since he was my favorite, my eyes naturally focused on anything with Superman.

There was an anthology title called Super-Team Family #6. It was one of several that were bought for me that morning. But I quickly became entranced with a villain in the first tale. He was the Composite Superman and his look was literally a blending of both Supes and Batman. Very cool. The story was called The Return of the Composite Superman and it was a reprint of World's Finest #168.

It concerned Joe Meach, a Joe Shmoe loser whose life had been saved by Superman and was then given a job at the Superman Museum as a caretaker. Bitter about his station in life, Joe's future would change drastically when he was struck by lightening and endowed with the powers of all the Legion of Super Heroes.

Although he had lost his abilities in the original adventure (World's Finest #142), Joe regained them with the help of the evil and vengeful alien Xan, who created an artificial lightening bolt in order to transform Meach once again into the Composite Superman. As in the earlier story, these powers were obtained through miniature statues of the Legion that had been donated to the museum.

Seems there was a glitch in their design. The duplicator machine used to create them…also duplicated their characteristics and strengths. The electrical charge caused by the lightening would transfer those abilities to one person. Oops.

I loved the setting of the Superman Museum, with the colorful statuettes of the Legionnaires. I adored the green skin coloring of this villain, taken from Brainiac 5. And best of all, I got a kick out of the extraordinary cunning and strength of the Composite Superman.

After all, he had the ability to inflate into a large ball (Bouncing Boy), change shape (Chameleon Boy), turn into a giant (Colossal Boy), stretch (Elastic lad), and even divide into three (Triplicate Girl). He seemed indestructible and unstoppable. He might even beat Superman, Batman and Robin this time around. Especially since he was also as strong as Supergirl.

"I'm greater than Superman and Batman put together! Soon, I’ll destroy them, just as I’m destroying their statues!" So boasted the Composite Superman as he demolished the museum’s monuments to the super duo. It was an unnecessary act of malevolence that always bothered me for some reason.

And yet even at a young age, I recognized the poignancy of this character. There was something sympathetic about him that made me sad about his demise at the end. In fact, he died a hero while saving his sworn enemies from an energy blast fired by Xan’s Magna-gun. Super-Team Family #6 included the original 1967 cover, an intriguingly deceptive illustration of Batman, Superman and Robin decking their alter egos with the tagline, "Will the real super-heroes stand up? Or are they through?"

Most kids at the time didn't think to save most of their comics and I was no exception. However, I held on to that issue of Super-Team Family for years. I'd read the story over and over. I was obsessed with it. (Incidentally, the issue's other story was a reprint of a fine mystery starring the Marvel clan.) Sadly, Super-Team Family was not particularly successful and lasted only fifteen issues.

The tale of the Composite Superman helped solidify my idolatry of the Man of Steel. How far did I take it? When I was nine, my mother (my very own Ma Kent!) made me a Superman costume, complete with long red cape and secret pouch. One day, I wore the damn thing to school UNDER my clothing. I was proud that nobody knew my secret or exposed me…even when I went to the bathroom so I could unbutton my shirt a little and take a peek at the ‘S.’ Kids do the darndest things.

My comic collection long gone (sold to buy records when I was thirteen), I started re-buying everything I could find in my early thirties. In the course of this resurgence, I attended a convention with some friends. We went out to eat and the conversation turned into onto of those über-geek discussions: who is your favorite, who can beat whom, etc. When it got to the subject of villains, the usual suspects came up: Lex, Bizarro, Joker. It was my turn.

"The Composite Superman, hands down!"

I was met with stony silence. No one really knew who he was. It was then that I realized the villain who had entranced me for three decades was merely a bit player in the Superman universe. It dawned on me. I had gotten into comics because of an obscure villain in a reprint of an eight-year old story…that was a sequel to a book published four years before that. Oh well.

But I also felt a sense of pride and ownership. Perhaps myself and only a few others have ever cared for the Composite Superman. Fine with me. I've always marched to the beat of my own drummer anyway.

Over the years, I've collected everything I could find on this most awesome bad guy. And that's not hard. There wasn’t much to get other than a few comics (including a mini digest reprint) and two figures from DC Direct. I also managed to get a decent custom Mego, somewhat crudely done but worth every penny. 

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that CS had been revitalized for a two-part story, once again in World’s Finest (#283/284, September/October 1982). This time, Xan himself took on the identity of the Composite Superman after escaping from prison. Apparently, CS even made a cameo on Justice League Unlimited at one point. So there is some kind of fan base out there.

Every now and then, I whip out my Composite Superman stories and thrill once again to the exploits of the almighty villain who came close to destroying Superman, Batman and Robin.

Here's to you, Joe Meach!

HEY KIDS, COMICS! True-Life Tales From The Spinner Rack

I am proud/thrilled/overjoyed/pick a superlative to announce that Hey Kids, Comics!: True-Life Tales From The Spinner Rack will be published next month by Crazy 8 Press!

As many of you know, this has been a long time coming, and I'm really looking forward to working with the fine folks at Crazy 8 (one of whom is writer/editor Robert Greenberger, who has a story in the book) on making Hey Kids! a reality.

There are some details still to come, like cost and just how and where you can order a copy (Hey Kids! will be available as both a print and e-book). Keep an eye on this space, and that info will be coming soon, as well as details about Hey Kids!-related convention appearances!

I'm also thrilled to finally be able to release the full list of contributors and their stories:

• Hey Kids...THUD! by Sholly Fisch 
• Four-Color Timelines by Chris Ryall 
• Hey Kids, Science! by James Kakalios 
• I Was A College Comics Reader by Elisabeth Rappe 
• The Thrill of the Hunt by Robert Greenberger 
• Portals to Other Dimensions—Ten Cents Each! by J.M. DeMatteis 
• The Weekly Pilgrimage by Ed Catto 
• My Encounter by John Zakour 
• The Catalpa Tree by Steve Skeates 
• The Black Cat and the Gentleman by Roxanna Meta 
• Of Sand, Sea Nettles and Surplus Furniture: My Secret Origin by Glen Weldon 
• Comics Are For Everyone! by Jill Pantozzi 
• Living A Comic Book Life by Javier Hernandez 
• Secret Origin by Steve Englehart 
• Where Creatures Roam by Mike Howlett 
• Blood The Page! by Richard Harland Smith 
• Uncle Bob by Tim Schlattmann 
• In Brightest Day, In Blackest Waaugh! by Kevin Dilmore 
• Little Stephen and the Mysterious Magazines by Stephen DeStefano 
• Comics on Infinite Minds by Marc Tyler Nobleman 
• Comics Don’t Cause Nightmares by Aaron Scott 
• “An All-Star Collection of the Greatest Super-Stories Ever Published!" by Paul Kupperberg 
• “Here’s A Superman for That Detective Comics…” by Jim Beard 
• The Great Wall of Comics by David Galassie 
• Growing Up On Bash Street by Dan Whitehead 
• Lost and Found by Erika D. Peterman 
• The Comic Book Baron of New Jersey by Doug Slack 
• Secrets of the Big Box by Shaun McLaughlin 
• The Magic of Comics by Doug Zawisza 
• Confessions of a Comic Book Thief by Mark Wheaton 
• Steel-Hard Skin by Evan Narcisse 
• 1976 - A Christmas Odyssey by Neal Patterson 
• All in Color for (a Nickel or) a Dime! by Craig Wichman 
• Spirit of ’74 by David Morefield 
• Intersecting Panels by Paul Castiglia 
• The Field by Tim Neenan 
• Mahalo, Keniki by Alan Brennert   
• No Careless Product of Wild Imagination… by Chad Nance

Thanks to everyone for their patience and support for this book...I know that once you get a chance to read it, you'll see it was worth the wait!

Look Magazine - 1940

This photo was from a 1940 edition of Look Magazine (R.I.P.). I can't exactly tell which issue of Action Comics that is for sale, but I know it's worth a fortune now!

1949 Newsstand

I don't remember when, where, or how I got this picture (obviously clipped from a newspaper of some sort), which is too bad, because it's obviously The Greatest Newsstand In History!

I mean, look at that selection! If I had been a kid and wandered into this place, I would have seriously considered running away and offering the owner to work there for free, on the condition I be allowed to sleep on the floor, lest I let a single comic book go unread. Here's closer shots of the titles:

 

Judging by the cover to Harvey Comics' Humphrey #6 (bottom row of the section closer to the camera), this pic had to have been taken sometime around May 1949. Truly amazing!

And while the pic cuts the rest of the caption off, it seems to say that the romance comics are filed in their own section, independent of the alphabetical hierarchy the rest of the books were subject to. Ooh, icky girl cooties!

You Never Get A Fourth Chance To Make A First Impression

Rob Kelly My Mom is a wonderful person. Kind and generous, she's only ever been concerned with my well being and has always been supportive of whatever it was I wanted to do, both as a child and as a (hollow laugh) adult.

But one thing she cannot, and has never been able to, accept is science-fiction, in any way, shape, or form. Set a movie in Victorian England where everyone has British accents and are repressed, she's happy as a clam. But set a story five minutes into the future she tunes out, and you'll never get her back.

Growing up, I saw every cool sci-fi/fantasy/action movie there was: the Star Wars films, the Star Treks, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Swamp Thing, the Sinbad movies, etc. My Dad, much more able to deal with fantastical premises, took me to the overwhelming majority of these movies, and they remain some of the best memories of my childhood.

Of course, growing up when I did, the Christopher Reeve Superman movies loomed large in my imagination. Superman: The Movie and Superman II were amazing spectacles, with Superman III being...dismal, to say the least. But one bad movie was not enough to dispel my love of the Superman movies, so when it was announced there was going to be a Superman IV, I was thrilled and determined to see it.

Superman IV: The Quest For Peace came out July 1987; I was a month shy of my sixteenth birthday. Still too young to drive myself to see a movie, so, for whatever reason, I ended up talking my Mom into taking me to it. In that pre-historic, pre-internet age, there was no "bad buzz" about the movie, or if there was I wasn't aware of it.

So we sat down to watch the movie, and it didn't take long to realize that, despite the return of most of the original cast (Margot Kidder, Jackie Cooper, Gene Hackman) this was an awful movie. As it continued to run, the horrendous jokes, embarrassing dialogue ("Arrrrrrrrrrr!"--Nuclear Man), gleeful disregard of basic scientific principles, and low-rent special effects made me sink in my seat further and further. How could a Superman movie go so wrong?

By the end of the movie, I dreaded what my Mom's reaction was going to be. She turned her head, and quietly said, "You like this stuff?" instantly classifying all sci-fi/fantasy movies--my life's blood--into the same category as this piece of garbage. I tried desperately to explain to her that, no, I didn't like this stuff, this movie was terrible, but there are others that are...

But I knew it was a lost cause. Whatever slim chance I had to show my Mom that a lot of the stuff I liked wasn't just absurd nonsense was lost, forever. Lex Luthor himself couldn't have plotted a more nefarious plan to discredit Superman in the eyes of the adult world.

Of course, that was decades ago and I've grown up, no longer needing anyone's tacit approval for me to enjoy the stuff I like. And while Mom's horizons have broadened as well, I'm still not taking her to Man of Steel. Just in case.

Hey Kids, Comics! Family Photos

After far too long a period of Radio Silence, I am ready to announce that Hey Kids, Comics! the book will be published later on this year, first as an ebook with a print version following soon after.

There are of course many, many details to come, but the first thing I wanted to mention is how you--yes, you--can be involved!

Accompanying some of the essays in the book are vintage photos of the authors engaged in their first love: comics (as you can see above). I really get a kick out of seeing photos like this (I posed for a few of them myself since comics were so important to me and I wanted everyone to know it, in perpetuity!) so I think they'll add a lot to the book.

But the photos aren't limited to the contributing authors; no, I'd like to include a lot more of them, and that is where you all in come in! If you have a family photo like one of the ones you see above and would like to submit it for possible inclusion in Hey Kids, Comics!, here's what you have to do:

--Send a 300 dpi (or better) scan of the photo to heykidscomicsbook@comcast.net

--The photo must be of you, so you have the legal rights to offer it for publication

--Any file format is fine, but JPG or TIFF preferred

--Please identify who is in the picture, and if possible when or where it was taken


If you have any questions, please email me or "Like" the Hey Kids, Comics! Facebook page and inquire there! Thanks!