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From WOODSTOCK to THE BANANA SPLITS, from SGT. PEPPER to H.R. PUFNSTUF, from ALTAMONT to THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY, GROOVY is a far-out trip to the era of lava lamps and love beads. This profusely illustrated HARDCOVER BOOK, in PSYCHEDELIC COLOR, features interviews with icons of grooviness such as PETER MAX, BRIAN WILSON, PETER FONDA, MELANIE, DAVID CASSIDY, members of the JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, CREAM, THE DOORS, THE COWSILLS and VANILLA FUDGE; and cast members of groovy TV shows like THE MONKEES, LAUGH-IN and THE BRADY BUNCH. GROOVY revisits the era’s ROCK FESTIVALS, MOVIES, ART—even COMICS and CARTOONS, from the 1968 ‘mod’ WONDER WOMAN to R. CRUMB. A color-saturated pop-culture history written and designed by MARK VOGER (author of the acclaimed book MONSTER MASH), GROOVY is one trip that doesn’t require dangerous chemicals! (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • Digital Edition: $13.95 • ISBN: 9781605490809 Diamond Comic Distributors Order Code: JUL172227

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CREATING THE FILMATION GENERATION Hailed as one of the fathers of Saturday morning television, LOU SCHEIMER was the co-founder of FILMATION STUDIOS, which for over 25 years provided animated excitement for TV and film. Always at the forefront, Scheimer’s company created the first DC cartoons with SUPERMAN, BATMAN, and AQUAMAN, ruled the song charts with THE ARCHIES, kept Trekkie hope alive with the Emmy-winning STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES, taught morals with FAT ALBERT AND THE COSBY KIDS, and swung into high adventure with TARZAN, THE LONE RANGER, ZORRO, HE-MAN, MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, live-action shows SHAZAM!, THE SECRETS OF ISIS, JASON OF STAR COMMAND and others. Now, LOU SCHEIMER tells the entire story to best-selling author (and RETROFAN columnist) ANDY MANGELS, including how his father decked ADOLF HITLER, memories of the comics of the Golden Age, schooling with ANDY WARHOL, and what it meant to lead the last all-American animation company through nearly thirty years of innovation and fun! Profusely illustrated with PHOTOS, MODEL SHEETS, STORYBOARDS, PRESENTATION ART, looks at RARE AND UNPRODUCED SERIES, and more—plus stories from TOP ANIMATION INSIDERS about Scheimer and the story behind Filmation’s stories!

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CONTENTS

Retro Interview Superman Director Richard Donner

Issue #3 | Winter 2019

Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Mornings Aquaman in Animation

67 18

Departments

Retrotorial

Too Much TV Quiz

Retro Food & Drink Funny Face Drink Mix Collectibles

Retro Television Irwin Allen: Voyage to the Bottom of… the Barrel?

RetroFad Afros

Scott Saavedra’s Secret Sanctum Sea-Monkeys®

Retro Games Atari’s 1979 Superman

Retro Travel Superman Celebration – Metropolis, Illinois

The Oddball World of Scott Shaw! Amazing Spider-Man and Incredible Hulk Toilet Paper

Ernest Farino’s Retro Fantasmagoria Fantastic Fanzines

43 13 31

grew up with

Super Collector Superman and Batman collectibles, by Chris Franklin

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ReJECTED RetroFan fantasy cover by Scott Saavedra

RetroFan™ #3, Winter 2019. Published quarterly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: RetroFan, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 112 Fairmount Way, New Bern, NC 28562. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Four-issue subscriptions: $38 Economy US, $63 International, $16 Digital Only. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Superman, Aquaman, and the Joker TM & © DC Comics. Sea-Monkeys® TM Transcience LLC. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2018 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. ISSN 2576-7224

Director Richard Donner made me a better person. So did actor Christopher Reeve, star of Superman: The Movie, Donner’s landmark motion picture of late 1978 that created the modern superhero film franchise (even though he didn’t realize that’s what he was doing at the time). In late ’78, Americans were drowning in a rising tide of cynicism fomented by years of civil unrest, a recently ended unpopular war, and the ultimate betrayal imaginable, a dishonest U.S. president who resigned in disgrace. Truth was forgotten, justice seemed reserved for, well, no one, and the American Way could only be found when watching flickering reruns of Leave it to Beaver. Pulsating disco lights, a sexual revolution, recreational drugs, and an emerging “Me” culture were there to numb our senses, but as the Seventies were drawing to a close, gyrating dancer Tony Manero was about the closest thing we could find to a hero. What a perfect time for Superman to rescue us! As you’ll read in the interview following, “verisimilitude” was director Donner’s philosophy for his presentation of the Superman mythos, an acceptance of and adherence to the authenticity of the source material. Yet Donner’s Superman movie didn’t assume that everyone shared Superman’s apple-pie values. Remember how Margot Kidder’s Watergate-blunted Lois Lane scoffed at Superman’s declaration of his mission to “fight for truth, justice, and the American Way,” retorting

that he’d be fighting “every elected official in the country”? That didn’t deter the Man of Steel. “Never lie,” he politely admonished her, Reeve delivering the line with superhuman conviction. Reeve’s and Donner’s Superman wasn’t dragged down into the mire with the rest of us to make him “relatable.” The actor and director not only made us believe a man could fly, they convinced us that a man’s behavior could fly above the norm. It’s that interpretation of Superman (and Clark Kent, minus the bumbling) after which I’ve tried to pattern my conduct, and I know it positively imprinted many of you as well. While I’ve got his ear, I’d like to thank Mr. Donner (and, in spirit, Mr. Reeve) for his timeless, invaluable contribution to not only cinema but to Americana. Last issue, I reluctantly bid farewell to columnists Ernest Farino and Martin Pasko, both of whom had to step aside to attend to other matters. Good news! Ernie’s back this issue, and Marty’s returning to these pages soon as well. In the meantime, new columnist (and super-designer) Scott Saavedra is back this issue, alongside Andy Mangels and Scott Shaw!, and in issue #5 we’ll introduce another regular voice to this magazine in a new column by—oh, I’ll save that announcement for next issue. Also on board this ish are guest writers Robert Conte, Glenn Greenberg, and Super Collector Chris Franklin, for another groovy grab bag of the crazy, cool culture we grew up with. Superman TM & © DC Comics.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow CONTRIBUTORS Robert V. Conte Michael Eury Ernest Farino Chris Franklin Glenn Greenberg Andy Mangels Scott Saavedra John Schwirian Scott Shaw! DESIGNER Scott Saavedra PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Neal Adams Scott Awley Steve Dolnick Scott Eder Mendy Harris/Metropolis Chamber of Commerce Heritage Comics Auctions Richard Klemensen Brian K. Morris William and Lori Nichols Luigi Novi Karla Ogle/Superman Celebration Martin Pasko Jim Rash Bob Rozakis Rose Rummel-Eury Morgan Siebert/Super Museum Yolonda von Braunhut Pete von Sholly VERY SPECIAL THANKS Richard Donner Jeff East Bill Mumy

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Richard Donner The Man Who Made Superman Fly

Richard Donner (center) and crew members in 1977 on location in Manhattan, doubling as Metropolis, during the filming of Superman. This photo appeared in DC Comics’ All-New Collectors’ Edition #C-62 (Superman: The Movie). © Warner Bros. Superman TM & © DC Comics.

Conducted by Glenn Greenberg Remove Superman: The Movie (1978) from Richard Donner’s filmography and he would still be the man who directed The Omen (1976), The Goonies (1985), and all four Lethal Weapon films (1987– 1998). An impressive list, to be sure. But with Superman, Donner became the father of the modern comic-book superhero movie, through his vision of taking the subject matter seriously—though not without a healthy dose of fun and humor—and giving it a real-world aesthetic, a grandeur, and a respect that the genre never really had before.

On a film where so many things could have gone wrong, Donner got so much right, from bringing in his friend, screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz, to rework the screenplay (which had gone through drafts by Mario Puzo, David and Leslie Newman, and Robert Benton), to hiring composer John Williams to create what just may be his greatest movie score ever, to casting Christopher Reeve in the title role—and, just as importantly, Margot Kidder as Lois Lane. Any one of those elements could have made Superman a decent film. All of them combined made it a bona fide classic, the RetroFan

Winter 2019

Retro Interview: Richard Donner

Rare photo from the version of Superman II you didn’t see! While shooting Superman, Richard Donner shot additional footage intended for Superman II that went unused after Donner’s severance from the franchise and Marlon “Jor-El” Brando’s lawsuit over film percentage profits. This image hailed from the Brando collection and was auctioned by Heritage in 2006. © Warner Bros. Superman TM & © DC Comics.

RD: No way. No way, José! I mean, I did it. It’s done. It’s done, I did it. I did it then because it was a long time ago, but my life has taken different turns and… no. I did it. I would not go back. Plus, it’s a different world today. It’s very dark and bleak and somewhat “unhopeful.” Whereas I always saw it as anything but dark, anything but bleak, and very hopeful. And that’s the way I look at life today, too. all cite your Superman movie as the major influence on them when they did the Batman movies and Wonder Woman and all of the stuff that Bryan Singer did on the X-Men. Can you just describe how that makes you feel to know that they’re all looking to you for guidance? RD: It just means those three terribly bright, creative people have good taste. [laughs] I don’t know. I mean, when you make a motion picture, your internal being is in that picture and you’re exposing a lot of yourself to an audience and you have no idea who they are and what they are, and you do your best to make a piece of entertainment in some way. And sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don’t. And I’ve been really fortunate. I’ve been very lucky. How does it make me feel that they claim it as a picture that influenced them? It makes me very proud.

you wrote with Geoff Johns a few years ago (published in Action Comics #844– 846, 851, and 855–857, and Action Comics Annual #11)? RD: Well, Brainiac. There was a little bit of Brainiac that was going to be in it, but no. Tom and I had some really great thoughts. Because he was also a good director. And what we were going to do was, we would write the next one [II] and I would direct that, and we’d do the third one and Tom would direct that. And so on, for as long as it lasted. But the producers [Alexander and Ilya Salkind] didn’t see our relationship to the films as we did, so I was not brought back.

RF: You’ve said in the past that that had you been able to finish Superman II, you would have been interested in doing a Superman III, a Superman IV. Had you worked out any ideas for those movies, in terms of storylines or stuff that you wanted to see? Did any of them get worked into those Superman comics that

RF: Is there a possibility that you would have any involvement in a future Superman movie project? Has there been any talk about that? RD: Today?

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Winter 2019

RF: But Brainiac was definitely a villain you wanted to tackle. RD: Well, one of the villains, yes. I mean, I felt there was a different way of approaching it, but the intellect of Brainiac was very exciting.

RF: Yeah.

RF: Right. You kind of anticipated another question I was going to ask you. Do you think your version of Superman, the version in Superman: The Movie—do you think that version could get made today? Because looking at the way Warner Bros. has handled Superman in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, he’s much more glum and troubled and just not as optimistic and as fun. Do you think there’s still a place for your vision of Superman? [Interviewer’s note: This interview was conducted shortly before the release of Justice League, which made a notable effort to shift the movie portrayal of Superman to a somewhat more traditional, optimistic depiction.] RD: Oh, definitely! I would have him run against the president. Because you’ve got such an evil villain for him to go against, it would be kind of fun to do. Where are you, Superman, when we need you? RF: [laughter] This is going to require a little bit of self-reflection, but in your own estimation, why is this film still so beloved and so influential all these years later? RD: Good question. But, I mean, I don’t know. I can’t tell you what turns the rest of the public on. I’m a fan of very hopeful things. In most of my movies, there’s hope at the end, there’s a feeling of “feel good.”

Retro Interview: Richard Donner

RF: Except maybe The Omen. RD: Well, even The Omen—remember when the kid smiles in that last close-up of him, he turns to look towards the camera and gradually smiles? RF: Yeah, of course! RD: It’s like he’s saying, “Did you really just see a movie? Am I real? Is this silly? Or am I the Devil and I’m going to go on in life as the Devil here on Earth?” The smile on the kid’s face at the very end told that story to me. Did you ever see a movie called BlowUp (1966)? RF: Many years ago. RD: Well, at the very end of Blow-Up, there’s a scene at the park and they’re playing tennis, but there’s no tennis ball, and the tennis ball gets hit over the fence, but it’s not a tennis ball, and the lead, a great actor [David Hemmings], he goes over, and [the tennis players] are pointing towards him, “Please throw us back the tennis ball,” but there’s nothing there. But he looks at them, and looks at the ground, and he bends down and picks up the ball that’s not there and he throws it back over the fence. Well, that was the same thing with me for the end of The Omen—what’s the

reality of all this? I saw The Omen as a mystery-suspense thriller and it was all circumstantial—there’s no such thing as the Devil… all those crazy moments just happened and they came together to make a movie. RF: I guess I saw it when I was so young that I took it very much at face value. So that’s what stuck with me. RD: That was the success of it. It certainly wasn’t my interpretation. RF: Getting back to Superman, what role do you think John Williams’s score played in making the movie such a success? RD: It was a telling moment for me when the first piece of music John played with the London Symphony Orchestra was the opening credits, and when “Superman” zoomed across the screen, you could hear the music say “Su-per-man.” It was just like, “Oh, my God, he put the English language in the score.” It was just such a brilliant score. I have always been extraordinarily lucky working with composers. Just before that, I had Jerry Goldsmith on The Omen and he got the Oscar [for Best Music, Original Score]. And then I had John Williams. Everyone, they all have been amazing. I don’t have the best ear for music, so when I do hear music, it either instinctually works or it doesn’t. I can’t tell you why it doesn’t or why it does. It just either feels right or it doesn’t. And for me, I’ve been so fortunate, and John was probably one of my biggest fortunes.

RD: Here’s what happened. We were in Canada finishing the film and we were getting ready to decide on composers, and I had, of course, just on the picture before, worked with Jerry, and he had gotten the Oscar for it. So I called Jerry and I asked him if he would be interested and he said he’d love it. So I discussed the material and then the picture got delayed—we were stuck up in Canada with the weather and I got a call from his agent that he was no longer going to be available by the time we were done. So it broke my heart. But the next best person in the world to me was John. I went to John and I explained the situation and he said he would very much like to do it. And so I committed to John. And then I lost John because of time—and I got Jerry back. And then I lost Jerry again and I got John back. So at one point I was going to ask them for one to play with one hand and one to play with the other, and do it together. RF: [laughter] That would have been something! RD: As it turned out, I could not have been luckier. I’m sure Jerry would have done just as magnificent a piece. But there’s nobody like John Williams.

RF: I just watched the movie again recently and that music, it just sends a chill down your spine, and the way it works with your visuals—it’s just a perfect marriage. RD: I thank you and I thank him. RF: Jerry Goldsmith at one point was supposed to work on the movie, wasn’t he? Superman director Richard Donner in 1977 and in 2017. 1977 photo © Warner Bros./DC Comics. 2017 photo courtesy of Richard Donner.

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RETRO FOOD & DRINK

The

Saga Move Over, Kool-Aid Man, There’s Some New Fruit in Town! by John Schwirian actually created them for my daughter, Jill, who was about four years old at the time,” Silverman wrote in a post on the Retroland website in 2013. “My nickname for her was Freckle Face—and from that beginning, all the characters just fell into place. Needless to say, my daughter—and all her friends—had a wonderful time playing with the names, and pretending to be the characters.” That’s how the jingle went in the early television commercials— While Silverman sketched out the initial designs for the characters, and it was true. Kids really found Funny Face fun to drink! Of the final art used on the packages was drawn by Lowell Herrera course, zany characters and great mail-away premiums didn’t hurt (1921–2015). any, either. The original six characters (and flavors) hit the stores in 1964, In the early Sixties, Kool-Aid was the undisputed powderedconsisting of Freckle Face Strawberry, Goofy Grape, Loud-Mouth drink-mix king. However, consumers were unhappy over the Lime, Rootin’ Tootin’ Raspberry, Chinese Cherry, and Injun Orange. amount of sugar used in the preparation of a pitcher of KoolDon’t remember the last two? That’s because they were replaced Aid. In an effort to combat this dissatisfaction, companies were the next year by Choo Choo Cherry and Jolly Olly Orange. Reports searching for a substitute for sugar, an alternate that arrived in are mixed as to whether there were complaints from the public the form of an artificial sweetener named sodium cyclamate. or if it was strictly an internal decision, but Chinese Cherry and Pillsbury processed sodium cyclamate into the product Sweet*10 Injun Orange were deemed in 1962, which allowed them inappropriate and offensive. to create foods that could “At the time,” Silverman be advertised as “sugar free” explained, “I was naive enough and “artificially sweetened.” not to realize that the names With sugar eliminated, moms Chinese Cherry and Injun approved and sales rose on Orange could be hurtful to these products. Chinese and Native Americans. My sincere apologies, at A Funny Face for Every this late date, to anyone I Taste offended.” Encouraged by the promise Pillsbury employed an of Sweet*10, Pillsbury decided aggressive marketing strategy to challenge Kool-Aid with its to launch the new drink mix. own powdered drink mix. In While the Kool-Aid Man had 1963, Pillsbury hired Campbell Look at the mugs on these mugs! From the collection of John Schwirian, Funny Face mugs. (FRONT ROW) Goofy Grape, Freckle to represent every flavor of Mithun Advertising to design a Face Strawberry, Lefty Lemon. (CENTER ROW) Choo Choo Cherry, Kool-Aid, Pillsbury provided face for its product. Inspired by Jolly Olly Orange, Loud-Mouth Punch. (BACK ROW) Chug-a-Lug different cartoon characters his daughter, Creative Director Chocolate, Rudy Tutti Frutti, With-It Watermelon. © Brady Enterprises. for each flavor, making it Hal Silverman dreamed up easy for children to spot their the Funny Face characters. “I Funny Face is fun to drink, The one to drink when you’re having fun! Funny Face is fun to drink, Fun to drink for everyone!

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Winter 2019

ANDY ANDY MANGELS' MANGELS' RETRO RETRO SATURDAY SATURDAY MORNING MORNING

King of the Sea and Animated TV by Andy Mangels

Welcome back to Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning. Since and the underwater monarch has become an animation regular— 1989, I have been writing columns for magazines in the U.S. and and butt of a thousand repetitive punchlines in the 50-plus years foreign countries, all examining the intersection of comic books since. But how did the King of Atlantis begin his reign on Saturday and Hollywood, whether animation or live-action. Andy Mangels mornings and beyond? Let’s dive in… Backstage, Andy Mangels’ Reel Marvel, Andy Mangels’ Hollywood Heroes, Andy Mangels Behind the Camera… nearly three decades of The First Splash reporting on animation and live-action—in addition to writing Only five DC Comics characters have been published non-stop many books and producing around 40 DVD sets—and I’m still since 1941: Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, enthusiastic. In this new RetroFan column, I will examine shows and Aquaman. Created by artist Paul Norris (with writer Mort that thrilled us from yesteryear, Weisinger) for More Fun Comics #73 (Nov. exciting our imaginations and 1941), the Golden Age Aquaman was capturing our memories. Grab some originally just a water-breathing, fishmilk and cereal, sit cross-legged talking hero partial to an orange shirt leaning against the couch, and dig in and green pants, plus boots, trunks, and to Retro Saturday Morning! gloves, while under the sea’s surface. In “Aquaman, swift and powerful Adventure Comics #260 (May 1959), the monarch of the ocean! With ability to Silver Age Aquaman’s origin was told, summon and command all creatures recasting the hero as half-human and of the deep! Aquaman, who with half-Atlantean whose human name was his teenage ally, Aqualad, guards Arthur Curry. In Adventure Comics #269 and defends all that lives in the sea (Feb. 1960), he acquired a sidekick youth against the forces of evil! Aquaman, named Aqualad, and in the following King of the Seven Seas!” So blared (TOP) The water-logged Aquaman logo, model month, he became a founding member sheets, and screen captures of Mera and Aqualad. the announced on September 9, 1967 of the Justice League of America, from (BOTTOM) A licensed “promotional cel” sold by when Aquaman made his television their first appearance in The Brave and Filmation. Aquaman TM& © DC Comics. debut. Readers had already been the Bold #28 (Feb.–Mar. 1960). Aquaman reading his adventures for 26 years, became the king of Atlantis in Aquaman 18

RetroFan

Winter 2019

The introduction of Mera in Aquaman #11 and a rare inside cover ad for The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure from Adventure Comics #362. TM & © DC Comics.

#11 (Sept.–Oct. 1963); in the same issue, he met and married a gorgeous redhead named Mera, an underwater queen from an alternate dimension! In the fall of 1965, Filmation, a relatively new animation company, swung a deal to create The New Adventures of Superman cartoons. The studio was founded by animators Lou Scheimer and Hal Sutherland, and disc-jockey-turned-producer Norm Prescott. Filmation was a scrappy young company, and they got the Superman job by tricking National Periodical Publications (the Sixties’ name for DC Comics) editors Mort Weisinger and Whitney Ellsworth into thinking they were far bigger a company than they were. The New Adventures of Superman premiered on CBS on September 10, 1966, running two Superman shorts and one Superboy short each 30-minute installment. The show was an immediate hit, and helped change the emerging Saturday morning television culture by being both an adventure show and featuring licensed characters. In December 1965, with Superman a hit, Filmation made a deal with National to develop even more of their heroes for animation. “DC actually asked us to do Aquaman, but I wasn’t convinced the network would buy it without seeing a pilot,” said Scheimer in my interviews with him for the 2012 TwoMorrows book, Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation. “He wasn’t as famous as Superman or Batman. So we did a beautiful looking pilot titled ‘The Great Sea Robbery,’ which I think we retitled and used when the show was played. Nothing like it had been on the air. The undersea stuff really looked interesting, and it was visually fascinating.” The pilot got the notice of CBS executive Fred Silverman, and in early January, CBS and Filmation announced that Aquaman would begin in Fall 1967! In March 1967, The New York Times did a piece on Saturday morning animation; in it, Norm

Prescott talked about Filmation developing Green Lantern and Green Arrow, and announced the title of the new series as Superman Hour of Adventure. The Times published the first public image of the animated Aquaman and Aqualad astride their seahorses. When it debuted in September, the new show was finally called The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure. The show included its own opening credits with all of the heroes, as well as secret code segments in between episodes. Each hour included six sevenminute adventures: two Superman, two Aquaman, one Superboy, and one “guest hero.” For that last segment, although DC heroes such as Green Arrow, the Doom Patrol, B’wana Beast, Plastic Man, Metamorpho, the Blackhawks, the Metal Men, the Challengers of the Unknown, and Wonder Woman were all considered and designed for animation (by Wes Herschensohn or Jack Ozark), only a quintet of concepts made it into production for three shorts apiece: The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom, Teen Titans (including Aqualad), and Justice League of America (consisting of the just-mentioned adult heroes and Superman).

Making Waves

The Aquaman shorts were broken down to 36 episodes, each very faithful to the comics of the time. This largely had to do with the scripts coming from National/DC. Allen “Duke” Ducovny executive produced the series, and also served as National’s press agent. “National really wanted to provide the writers because they felt

Rare production art by Filmation showing Aquaman watching the Blackhawks fight aliens, used in development of neverproduced Blackhawks adventures. TM & © DC Comics.

RetroFan

Winter 2019

Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning

Character models for Aquaman, Mera, Aqualad, and Tusky, by Filmation artists. TM & © DC Comics.

that gave them more control over the stories,” said Scheimer. “That was fine with us as long as the stories worked for animation. We could do things that they couldn’t do in live action, which is why we had so many more super-villains and aliens and superpowers, but there were still limitations because of the time we had and the budget.” Among the writers on TV’s Aquaman were Oscar Bensol, George Kashdan, Bob Haney, Denis Marks, and Richard Sandler; Kashdan and Haney already worked at National, and both had written Aquaman comics! Aquaman co-creator Mort Weisinger story-edited the series. Despite this close connection, canon changes were made for television. Aquaman’s telepathic powers with fish were used, but the hero also gained the ability to create hard-water balls to throw concussively (a power held by Mera in the comics). Mera was not Aquaman’s wife in the series, and was presented as Atlantean rather than other-dimensional. Aqualad had no civilian name or telepathy, and was called various nicknames by Aquaman, including “Tadpole,” “Squirt,” “Minnow,” “Sardine,” and “Shrimp.” Instead of his pet octopus Topo, Aquaman befriended a walrus named Tusky (who soon reappeared in the comics following his sole previous appearance in Adventure Comics #108, Sept. 1946), although Aquaman and Aqualad still rode giant seahorses

(LEFT) Marvin Miller, the voice of Aquaman. (RIGHT) Jerry Dexter, who voiced Aqualad. 20

RetroFan

Winter 2019

named Storm and Imp. Atlantis was present, but its inhabitants were air-breathers, kept alive in an undersea dome by an oxygen extraction plant. Aquaman villains Black Manta, the Fisherman, and Starro were used, in addition to new villains Vassa, Queen of the Mermen, the Brain, Mephisto, and others. Filmation animated the entire series “in-house,” meaning no work was sent overseas. Voice recording was done on Fridays at Ryder Sound Service in Hollywood, directed by Norm Prescott. Ted Knight, a Filmation staple, was the show’s narrator, and voiced almost all of the villains. Of the rest of the four-person voice cast, Scheimer recalled that “We tried out a bunch of voices for Aquaman. We auditioned: Lennie Weinrib, who later did a lot of stuff for Hanna-Barbera and Sid and Marty Krofft, not to mention, us; Rich Little, who was a popular impressionist at the time; Ed Prentiss, who had been radio’s Captain Midnight; Jack Lester, who had been radio’s Sky King; Keith Andes, the voice of Hanna-Barbera’s Birdman; Shep Menkin, the voice of The Lone Ranger’s Tonto; Rick Jason, an actor from Combat!; Tol Avery, an actor and hypnotist; Arnold Moss, who was a radio guy and Shakespearean actor; Dane Clark, who was kind of a character actor, but who hadn’t done any voices; and Jim

Filmation’s Norm Prescott, Hal Sutherland, and Lou Scheimer, c. late 1960s.

Mills, Bruce Hays, Larry Alexander, and Lin Johnson. Auditioning for Aqualad were Sam Riddle, Bob Diamond, Patrick Regan, Huckleberry Finn film star Eddie Hodges, and sportscaster Gil Stratton. And here’s a bit of a surprise; we also auditioned at least one woman to play Aquagirl instead of Aqualad! “We finally settled on Marvin Miller [for Aquaman], who was really famous for doing a show called The Millionaire. He had a great baritone voice, and he did a lot of commercials. Aqualad was Jerry Dexter. He was a nice-looking blond kid, as I recall. I say ‘kid’ because he was younger than Marvin, but I think Jerry was older than I was. He was also the host of Good Day L.A., a local morning talk show on KABC-TV. I don’t remember much about Diana Maddox, who played Mera, except that she was British.” Marvin Miller is most famous to genre fans as the voice of Robby the Robot in the classic science-fiction film, Forbidden Planet (1956).

Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning

Working with a low budget on time as it would make your eyes go crazy! FAST FACTS Superman (originally $36,000 per episode Some scenes would have it, and then it and upped to around $50,000 for the new would fade out, and in other scenes you’d series), Filmation had created a “stock bring it in. Seven minutes of it would be AQUAMAN animation system,” scenes of Superman too much, though.” No. of seasons: One flying or Aquaman swimming or other Aquaman’s water-throwing powers No. of episodes: 36 often-repeated moves, which allowed for existed for two reasons: first, they gave Original run: September 9, 1967– previously done animation to be reused. the artists something more visual to September 4, 1968 (CBS) The system was similar to cost-saving work with; and second, because parental Reruns: Fall 1968–Fall 1969 (CBS) moves by other animation studios who groups had been mounting attacks on produced limited animation, such as action-adventure cartoons for promoting Hanna-Barbera. “Nobody in the business violence and endangering children with PRIMARY VOICE CAST could really afford to put full animation “imitable behavior,” the water-balls were AQUAMAN into characters for television because of not something kids could copy, nor were Marvin Miller: Aquaman the budgets and the delivery speed, but I they excessively violent. Jerry Dexter: Aqualad think we really solved the problem first,” Diana Maddox: Mera, Queen said Scheimer. “Eventually, we even began Reaching the Shore Vassa to create the stock material before we The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure Ted Knight: Narrator, Imp, even wrote the stories: close-ups, long debuted on September 9, 1967 on CBS from Tusky, Black Manta, the shots, running, walking, talking, flying, 11:30– 12:30, up against a new show called Fisherman, and other villains swimming…. Aquaman had a lot of stock George of the Jungle and The New Beatles on material added too. No one had ever ABC and The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show done that before, but it was a matter of and Top Cat on NBC. Superman/Aquaman necessity, and, actually, we ended up with a better show because was soon certified by both Arbitron and Nielsen as being the we could afford to do that stuff extraordinarily well.” highest-rated show on Saturdays, with an 8.9 rating! Due to the majority of the series being set underwater, National/DC gave the show very minor promotion in the Filmation developed a different visual style and look. “I think it pages of its comics. In Aquaman #36 (Nov.–Dec. 1967), Bob Haney was Erv Kaplan that developed some of that unique look,” said debuted a trio of villains—Torpedo, Magneto, and the Claw—who Scheimer. “We could do some really interesting stuff visually and also faced Aquaman in some of his animated episodes. The cover colorwise, and it didn’t have to be like the world up above with us touted “The King of the Sea is now King of TV!” and an interior trying to reproduce reality. Aquaman was a much more visual show blurb read, “Only from the sensational new TV adventures of the than Superman as far as the use of color and the watery effects.” one and only undersea super-hero, Aquaman…” An interior backcover ad promoted the series and the live-action Batman. Only two The underwater effects were achieved in an unusual way, later issues included a cover blurb, however. according to Scheimer. “We would rub stuff like baby oil on a Despite high ratings for Superman/Aquaman, as 1968 dawned, clear piece of acetate. And then, when we shot the animation, we Filmation had prepped a new animated Batman series, dovetailing would put the oily acetate closer to the camera lens and move it at perfectly from the end of the live-action show on ABC. CBS had a different speed than the background. We did not do that all the

(LEFT) When Aquaman moved into the Sunday slot as its own series to make way for Batman on Saturdays, DC Comics ran this ad in its comics. (RIGHT) Filmation model sheets showing how Aquaman swims underwater. TM & © DC Comics.

RetroFan

Winter 2019

MONSTER MASH

The Creepy, Kooky Monster Craze In America, 1957-1972 Time-trip back to the frightening era of 1957-1972, when monsters stomped into the American mainstream! Once Frankenstein and fiends infiltrated TV in 1957, an avalanche of monster magazines, toys, games, trading cards, and comic books crashed upon an unsuspecting public. This profusely illustrated full-color hardcover covers that creepy, kooky Monster Craze through features on FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine, the #1 hit “Monster Mash,” Aurora’s model kits, TV shows (SHOCK THEATRE, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, THE MUNSTERS, and DARK SHADOWS), “MARS ATTACKS” trading cards, EERIE PUBLICATIONS, PLANET OF THE APES, and more! It features interviews with JAMES WARREN (Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella magazines), FORREST J ACKERMAN (Famous Monsters of Filmland), JOHN ASTIN (The Addams Family), AL LEWIS (The Munsters), JONATHAN FRID (Dark Shadows), GEORGE BARRIS (monster car customizer), ED “BIG DADDY” ROTH (Rat Fink), BOBBY (BORIS) PICKETT (Monster Mash singer/songwriter) and others, with a Foreword by TV horror host ZACHERLEY, the “Cool Ghoul.” Written by MARK VOGER (author of “The Dark Age”). (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $11.95 • ISBN: 9781605490649 Diamond Order Code: MAR151564

SWAMPMEN

MUCK-MONSTERS OF THE COMICS SWAMPMEN dredges up Swamp Thing, Man-Thing, Heap, and other creepy man-critters of the 1970s bayou, through the memories of the artists and writers who created them! Features interviews with BERNIE WRIGHTSON, ALAN MOORE, MIKE PLOOG, LEN WEIN, FRANK BRUNNER, STEVE GERBER, STEVE BISSETTE, RICK VEITCH, GERRY CONWAY, VAL MAYERIK, JOE ORLANDO, MARTIN PASKO, JIM MOONEY, JOHN TOTLEBEN, TOM YEATES, KAREN BERGER, JESSE SANTOS, MICHAEL USLAN, MIKE KALUTA, ROY THOMAS, and other, with a new FRANK CHO cover! (192-page trade paperback with COLOR) $17.95 (Digital Edition) $9.95 ISBN: 9781605490571 Diamond Order Code: MAY141629

TwoMorrows.

10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA

The Future of Pop History. Phone: 919-449-0344 • E-mail: store@twomorrows.com Order online at: www.twomorrows.com

THE BEST OF

THE TERRIFYING SEQUEL:

Since 2000, FROM THE TOMB has terrified readers worldwide, as the preeminent magazine on the history of horror comics, with stellar writing and intensely frightening illustrations from the best talent in the industry. Produced in the UK, issues have been scarce and highly collectible in the US, and here’s your chance to see what you’ve been missing! This “BEST OF” COLLECTION compiles the finest features of FROM THE TOMB’s ten years of terror, along with new material originally scheduled to see publication in the NEVER-PUBLISHED #29. It celebrates the 20th Century’s finest horror comics—and those they tried to ban—with a selection of revised and updated articles on BASIL WOLVERTON, JOHNNY CRAIG, RICHARD CORBEN, LOU CAMERON, RUDY PALAIS, MATT FOX, ALVIN HOLLINGSWORTH, plus publishers including ACG, ATLAS, EC, FICTION HOUSE, HARVEY COMICS, SKYWALD, WARREN, HOUSE OF HAMMER, A-BOMB COMICS, CANNIBALS, and others!

Just when you thought it was safe to walk the streets again, FROM THE TOMB (the UK’s preeminent magazine on the history of horror comics) digs up more tomes of terror from the century past. IT CREPT FROM THE TOMB (the second “Best of” collection) uncovers Atomic Comics lost to the Cold War, rarely seen (and censored) British horror comics, the early art of RICHARD CORBEN, GOOD GIRLS of a bygone age, TOM SUTTON, DON HECK, LOU MORALES, AL EADEH, BRUCE JONES’ Alien Worlds, HP LOVECRAFT in HEAVY METAL, and a myriad of terrors from beyond the stars and the shadows of our own world! It features comics they tried to ban, from ATLAS, CHARLTON, COMIC MEDIA, DC, EC, HARVEY, HOUSE OF HAMMER, KITCHEN SINK, LAST GASP, PACIFIC, SKYWALD, WARREN, and more from the darkest of the horror genre’s finest creators!

FROM THE TOMB

(192-page trade paperback with COLOR) $27.95 (Digital Edition) $9.95 • ISBN: 9781605490434 Diamond Order Code: AUG121322

IT CREPT FROM THE TOMB

(192-page trade paperback with COLOR) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $10.95 • ISBN: 9781605490816 Diamond Order Code: OCT171887

RETRO RETRO TELEVISION TELEVISION

Irwin Allen the Barrel?? by Michael Eury Do you recycle? Irwin Allen sure did! Not empty mustard jars and dog-eared magazines, but film footage, props, costumes, sets, music, sound effects… and ideas. In Allen’s world, cutaways of imperiled ships such as the Seaview nuclear sub or the Jupiter 2 spacecraft might be seen again and again in later episodes. A furry creature that once elicited a “Danger!” warning from a vigilant Robot might later double as an abominable snowman terrorizing seamen. A viewer watching Land of the Giants might experience déjà vu once spying a Lost in Space set he remembered from a couple of seasons ago. A fuzzy headdress that looks like Fred Flintstone’s Water Buffalo Lodge hat might be cannibalized to transform a chimpanzee into an alien pet. A classic children’s novel—Swiss Family Robinson—might be reimagined as a futuristic clan cast adrift in the cosmos. Bill Mumy, the prolific child actor of the Sixties who became famous as Lost in Space’s boy genius Will Robinson, told me that Irwin Allen’s mantra was “Time is money.” According to Mumy, “Irwin was impressive. Part Barnum and Bailey, part Cecil B. DeMille. He came on the set everyday. Tapped his watch,” policing his budgets by keeping the trains running on time… and by reusing resources. Some might accuse Allen of voyaging not to the depths of the ocean, but to the bottom of the barrel with his chronic salvaging. But kids of the Sixties were utterly fascinated by the four

fantastic television programs he created and produced: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants. We weren’t very discerning back then, and most of us didn’t notice that the gillman from Voyage later returned as an extraterrestrial in LIS. Those of who did notice didn’t care. We were swept away by the razzle-dazzle of it all. And no one could razzle-dazzle quite like Irwin Allen.

Voyage from the Big Screen to the Boob Tube

Irwin Allen (1916–1991), a college dropout, built a career as a Hollywood magazine editor, radio producer, and gossip columnist before turning to film production. In 1953 he directed his first film, The Sea Around Us, which he also wrote and produced. This Technicolor documentary relied heavily upon stock footage (in this case, of maritime expeditions), a cost-cutting measure that would become an Allen hallmark. Allen adapted the idea from another source, an acclaimed novel by marine biologist Rachel Carson. As stated on Carson’s website (rachelcarson.org), “The Sea Around Us became an overnight Irwin Allen—the Sixties’ TV sci-fi visionary—calling the shots on the set of the disaster flick The Towering Inferno. Towering Inferno © 1974

20th Century Fox Film Corporation. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com).

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Winter 2019

Retro Television

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea TM & © Irwin Allen Properties, LLC/20th Century Fox. Lost in Space® TM & © Legend Pictures, LLC. Time Tunnel TM & © Irwin Allen Properties, LLC/20th Century Fox. Land of the Giants TM & © Irwin Allen Properties, LLC/20th Century Fox.

bestseller in 1951 [spending 86 weeks on the New York Times seemed a bit too starched as Admiral Harriman Nelson. With him bestseller list] and made Rachel Carson the voice of public science was Robert Sterling as Captain Lee Crane. Admiral Nelson was in America, an internationally recognized authority on the oceans, the film’s Jor-El, the disparaged scientist who believed he could and established her reputation as a nature writer of first rank.” save the world from the fiery skies that threatened to snuff out As an academic, Carson was reportedly dissatisfied with Allen’s life by firing a nuclear missile from his atomic submarine, the presentation of her material. Who could blame her? Allen’s flair for Seaview, into the source of the threat. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea showmanship made a spectacle of the documentary’s conflicts, co-starred a big-name cast including Joan Fontaine, Peter Lorre, such as a tussle between an octopus and shark—the kind of fun, Barbara Eden, and teen heartthrob Frankie Avalon, who crooned schlocky stuff he’d be serving TV viewers a decade later—and he the movie’s theme song (“Come with me, come with me, on a wrapped up the film with a dire climate-change warning about the voyage to the bottom of the sea…”). melting polar caps (in 1953, when An Inconvenient Truth’s Al Gore Allen recycled Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea to television with was only five!), concluding with a cryptic the 1964–1965 season as an hour-long “The End?” graphic. Audiences ate up adventure program airing on ABC. In FAST FACTS that schmaltz, which echoed the same true Allen form, many of the movie’s type of Cold War/Red Scare cautions props, sets, and costumes were hosed Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea found in many UFO movies of the day, off for the TV series, which was set in the `` No. of seasons: four (one black and Allen’s film won the year’s Oscar® for near future of the Seventies (Seasons and white, three color) Best Documentary. Three and Four would be set in the `` No. of episodes: 110 Allen continued to work on a variety Eighties). Walter Pidgeon had flown `` Original run: September 14, 1964– March 6, 1968 of pictures, but two soon followed that the coop, replaced by Richard Basehart `` Network: ABC exemplified his fascination with the as Admiral Nelson, who spent much of world around us… and its dangers. His the early episodes smoking cigarettes Lost in Space documentary The Animal World (1956)— (in a submerged nuclear sub!). Enlisted `` No. of seasons: three (one black “A Billion Years in the Making”—thrilled as the new Captain Lee Crane was and white, two color) audiences with its images of wild beasts David Hedison, recycled from the cast `` No. of episodes: 83 (much of it stock footage), and included of Allen’s 1960 movie, The Lost World `` Original run: September 15, 1965– a dinosaur stop-motion sequence by (Hedison was offered but declined the September 11, 1968 creature-creator Ray Harryhausen Crane role in the Voyage motion picture, `` Network: CBS (whose work will appear in the next issue presumably needing to rest up between The Time Tunnel of RetroFan). In The Lost World (1960)— Allen-helmed creature chases). Too bad `` No. of seasons: one “Like No Other Adventure on Earth!”— Allen didn’t recycle another Lost World `` No. of episodes: 30 Allen cribbed from the Sir Arthur cast member, Jill St. John, for Voyage. `` Original run: September 9, 1966– Conan Doyle novel for a monstersImagine how she would have enlivened September 1, 1967 running-amok movie rife with giant the close-quartered, Keds-wearing `` Network: ABC spiders, creepy cannibals, and more male crew of the Seaview. (Enlistment Land of the Giants Jurassic jaws. would’ve skyrocketed, no doubt.) Next up, Allen produced, directed, Allen wrote and directed the `` No. of seasons: two and co-wrote the 1961 sci-fi/adventure pilot episode, “Eleven Days to Zero,” `` No. of episodes: 51 `` Original run: September 22, flick Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, a pulse-pounding Cold War thriller 1968–September 6, 1970 starring former Screen Actors Guild which reintroduced the movie’s sub `` Network: ABC president and wooden action hero and (recast) crew and set a dark original Walter Pidgeon, whose shirt collars course for the series. It opened with 32

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Retro Television

VOYAGE TRIVIA

`` The second episode, “The City Beneath the Sea,” was a reusable concept for Allen: A few years later he produced an unsold City Beneath the Sea TV pilot, and in 1971 he brought TV viewers City Beneath the Sea as a two-hour movie-of-the-week (which later had a theatrical release).

Ellison photo: Pip R. Lagenta/Wikipedia Commons

a bang—literally—in a surprisingly violent shoot-’em-up scene where Admiral Nelson barely escaped an assassination plot that wiped out the Seaview’s original captain and others. The Seaview’s mission was to combat a rogue nation that was attempting ecological terrorism, and this S.P.E.C.T.R.E.–like group nearly thwarted our heroes at every turn and almost killed the pilot episode’s guest star, a pre-Green Acres Eddie Albert. Despite the grimmer tone of the pilot, “Eleven Days to Zero” managed to feature an almost-comical battle between scuba divers and a giant octopus. Another Allen-ism on view multiple times in the first episode—and in episodes to come, as well as in other Allen productions—was what is known as the “Irwin Allen rock-androll,” where the on-screen actors would stumble from side to side of the set as the camera tilted, simulating underwater attacks from depth charges (or giant sea monsters). The confines of its undersea set notwithstanding, Voyage was usually a “guest star of the week” show. Many notables set sail on the Seaview in the first season, including Edgar Bergen, Yvonne Craig, Jill Ireland, June Lockhart, Robert Duvall, and Leslie Nielsen. (You might say that Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was like The Love Boat, minus the hook-ups and Julie, your cruise director.) As the show progressed during its second season, the Cold War villains disappeared and Voyage settled into an entertaining, kid-friendly “monster of the week” formula, with the Seaview crew encountering aquatic beasts, ghosts, aliens, dinosaurs, an evil brain, a lobsterman, an ancient alchemist, and even a werewolf. In Seasons Two through Four, name guest stars weren’t a staple but still dropped in on occasion, with Victor Buono, John Cassavetes, Robert Loggia, Don Matheson, Carroll O’Connor, and Malachi Throne among them (can you name the two TV Batman villains on that list?). Vincent Price enjoyed a scenery-chewing turn as the underhanded puppet master Professor Multiple. Although the pilot was filmed in color, it was aired in black and white, and the remaining firstseason episodes were also in black and white. The show switched to color with Season Two, introducing new tech, the standout being the show’s resident “hotrod,” the crowd-pleasing Flying Sub, a garishly hued yellow minisub that exploited the show’s transition from its monochromatic beginnings. It was designed by art director

`` Using the pseudonym Cordwainer Bird, sci-fi master Harlan Ellison penned an early episode of the show, Episode 5, titled “The Price of Doom.” `` Season Two’s episode “The Sky’s on Fire” recycled the plot and much footage from Allen’s 1961 Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea movie. `` Parts of the Seaview set were borrowed for the Penguin’s sub for the 1966 Batman movie. `` Richard Basehart provided a voiceover on the Allen sister show Lost in Space, reading Shakespeare in the LIS episode “The Derelict.”

William Creber, known for the crumbled Statue of Liberty at the climax of Planet of the Apes (“You blew it up!”), and for other Allen productions. Season Two also featured a redesigned Seaview interior set. During its first (grittier) season, the show aired on Mondays from 7:30–8:30 p.m. With Season Two, ABC moved it to

Kids could dip into their favorite waterlogged show (sorry, Flipper) through a variety of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea products, from View-Master reels (featuring this illustrated booklet), trading cards from Donruss, and a Seaview model kit from Aurora. Voyage to

the Bottom of the Sea TM & © Irwin Allen Properties, LLC/20th Century Fox. Cards and Aurora box courtesy of Heritage.

RetroFan

Winter 2019

Retro Television

the Spindrift’s castaways were the size of action figures. The planet was, more or less, a giant-sized Earth—its people drove cars, spoke English, watched TV, bet on horse races, and listened to music, just like the rest of us, only 12 times bigger—although the giants’ society was under a strict totalitarian government. The Earth-like setting of Land of the Giants spared producer Allen an unwieldy costuming budget. Still, it was television’s most expensive program of its day, its special effects commanding a cost of $250,000 per episode. Gary Conway, whose perfectly styled haired defied any disaster Irwin Allen could chuck at him, headed the cast as handsome Captain Steve Burton, with Don Marshall as his copilot and Heather Young as his flight attendant. The passengers: an engineer (Don Matheson), a socialite (Deanna Lund), a kid (Stefen Arngrim) and his dog, and the sneaky Dr. Smith, I mean, Alexander Fitzhugh (Kurt Kasznar), a suspicious character whose motivations kept the others, and viewers, guessing. Typical plots involved the miniature castaways running from super-sized inquisitive kids, snoopy scientists, preying animals, and a government agent on a mission to find them. Filling these roles were no end of guest actors, some recycled from earlier Allen series (Lee Meriwether, Robert Colbert, Jonathan Harris, Whit Bissell), and others, faces familiar to Sixties TV and movie junkies (Michael Ansara, former Opie Taylor Ronny Howard, William Schallert, Alan “Skipper” Hale, Jr., and Vic Tayback, years before he would be told to kiss Flo’s grits). Look closely in the Season Two episode “Collector’s Item” and you’ll spot perhaps the wildest example of stock footage repurposing in an Allen production, as Stately Wayne Manor from Batman is seen. Land of the Giants’ stars acted amid giant props, shimmying over or ducking under enormous books, phones, cameras, outstretched hands, and doors, on a far-flung world where pushpins were deadly weapons and scotch tape was a tool of bondage. All of Irwin Allen’s productions put his actors through their paces, the Giants cast being no exception. They performed many of their own stunts, and on-set injuries were not uncommon. (Imagine how sore your ribs would be after being poked by a giant pencil eraser.) Another common special effect on the show was the matte shot combining the miniature people and the towering ones, or the tiny Earthlings juxtaposed against colossal critters like death-pecking chickens. CGI-raised viewers of today might find Giants’ special effects primitive at best, laughable at worst, but kids of the Sixties were awed by them. For us, those poor little people were in constant danger. Many of the young boys 38

RetroFan

Winter 2019

Aurora’s Land of the Giants model kit, based upon its box’s terrifying portrait of tiny Earthlings wielding a safety pin to fend off a striking rattler, painted by magazine and book cover artist Harry Schaare. Murphy Anderson reinterpreted Schaare’s painting for a 1968 comicbook ad promoting the model. Land

of the Giants TM & © Irwin Allen Properties, LLC/20th Century Fox.

(including me!) in the audience had crushes on the series’ lovely Lilliputian ladies—Lund’s Valerie Scott and Young’s Betty Hamilton, both decked out in miniskirts, colorful tights, and go-go boots—even though their male co-stars didn’t seem to notice their beauty and charm (I guess it’s tough to think about dating when you’re dodging giant tweezers). Because of Land of the Giants’ exorbitant budget, pairs of episodes were often shot back-to-back, reusing the same props. Giants’ ginormous costs led to its collapse, and it ended with its second season.

The Master of Disaster

After Land of the Giants, Irwin Allen wasn’t quite done with television. He co-wrote, directed, and coproduced the 1971 telefilm City Beneath the Sea, one of his greatest television recycling efforts, where he reutilized the idea from an earlier pilot pitch and employed sets, props, and a few actors from his TV series. Then he moved back into motion pictures, being dubbed “The Master of Disaster” once his star-studded blockbusters The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974) rocked theaters and ignited the disaster movie craze. Allegations of plagiarism against Irwin Allen have surfaced over the years, particularly over similarities between Lost in Space and a similar concept called Space Family Robinson (see sidebar). Yes, each of Allen’s four Sixties TV shows were inspired by other material—in addition to LIS being Swiss Family Robinson in space, Voyage was Jason and the Argonauts in a sub, Time Tunnel had several forerunners, and Giants borrowed shamelessly from The Incredible Shrinking Man. But what made each of them memorable was their presentation, bigger-than-life astonishment packed with human drama and socio-political commentary that no one could deliver quite like Irwin Allen. Special thanks to Martin Pasko and Bill Mumy. Portions of this article, including the Mumy interview, appeared in edited form in the book HeroA-Go-Go: Campy Comic Books, Crimefighters, and Culture of the Swinging Sixties by Michael Eury (TwoMorrows, 2017).

RETRO GAMES

The

Secret Origin of Atari’s 1979

Superman! by Robert V. Conte

And so read Atari’s solicitation describing the forthcoming release of the first official video game featuring a superhero—Superman! As you’re probably aware, Superman was the inaugural superhero, gracing the pages of the debut issue of Action Comics in 1938. The blue-and-red costumed crimefighter from a doomed alien planet, wearing a stylized “S” inside a yellow crest emblazoned on his chest, broke ground in various media. Since the Forties, this “costumed action hero” starred in radio dramas voiced by Bud Collyer, animated cartoons produced by Paramount and Fleischer (later Famous) Studios, a live-action television show starring George Reeves, and thousands of licensed merchandise items. True to form, the time would come for Kal-El, the Last Son of Krypton, to take his place in the world of a brandnew entertainment medium... Coin-operated game giant Atari, known throughout the Seventies for its pinball machines and blockbuster video games like Breakout, Pong, and Tank, revolutionized the home-entertainment industry when its Video Computer System (VCS) appeared in 1977. Although not the premier video-game console to feature an interchangeable cartridge system (Fairchid’s Channel F, Magnavox’s Odyssey 2 and Bally’s Professional Arcade aka Astrocade were also available), Americans of all ages were already familiar with Atari

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Retro Games

When Richter was given sole credit for the package’s image on 2016’s Art of Atari (Dynamite Entertainment), it caused controversy among longtime comic collectors. Why weren’t the artists who actually drew the Man of Steel on the Superman Atari box art properly acknowledged? Perhaps it was an oversight, as none of the Atari artists were properly recognized until the release of the book. Longtime comics original art dealer Scott Eder (www.scottedergallery. com) says, ”[It’s] simply a classic case of ‘by Richter after Swan, Oksner, and Adams.’ In today’s world, artists and musicians sample from their mentors and colleagues all the time. When they do, it’s important the source material and creators receive the acknowledgement they deserve.” Although Swan and Oksner have passed on, Adams (www.nealadams. com) is alive and well—still working with DC Comics and other companies Legendary comics artist via his Continuity Studios in Manhattan, Neal Adams in 2013. New York. When shown the Atari © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Superman box art, his position was clear: Commons. “Curt and Bob were dear friends of mine and their work is clearly evident on this cartridge box,” says Adams. “While it seems someone certainly juxtaposed my artwork over theirs to create this product, Atari did not illustrate Superman here. We did and should be credited accordingly...” Before the release of Atari’s Superman, the closest children could “become” the Man of Steel was by wearing homemade

Originally marketed as a Special Edition, some copies of Superman came with a highly collectible wallet attached to the back of the box. The wallet’s art, a Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson image, appeared in the upper corner of early-Seventies’ issues of Action Comics and was regularly used for merchandising throughout the decade. Courtesy of Robert V. Conte. TM & © DC Comics.

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Winter 2019

Available titles for the Atari VCS, 1979. Note that Superman retains its character’s recognizable logo. Superman TM & © DC Comics.

playsuits, T-shirts with the “S” emblem, or official Halloween costumes. Now it was a whole new level of pretend in the advent of the digital age; Atari’s Superman empowered the player to become the character that fans from previous generations could only dream about—Superman! The game sold in unprecedented numbers and remained in print far longer than anticipated. Although Atari and DC Comics collaborated on other properties including the comic-book series Atari Force and the ill-fated SwordQuest video games, Superman was, surprisingly, the only established DC Comics character that was adapted into a video game for the Atari VCS/2600. In 1984, WCI sold Atari, closing the door on future subsidiary collaborations with DC. (Parker Brothers later adapted The Amazing Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk for the VCS through an arrangement with Marvel Comics.) In 2017, the Guinness Book of World Records awarded Superman for being the longest-running video-game protagonist in history— another first for the Man of Steel. On its 40th anniversary of release, Atari’s Superman will be remembered for several reasons, now including having the first-ever video game box featuring legendary comics artists whose talent contributed archetypical images of the Man of Steel that remain amongst the most popular in pop culture history.

ROBERT V. CONTE is a pop-culture historian who has written, edited, packaged, and brokered over 2,500 projects. Armed with his vast memorabilia collection, he utilizes his expertise on officially licensed products, including Godzilla, KISS, and Sesame Street. Conte’s projects include Art of Atari (Dynamite Entertainment), Star Wars: The Original Topps Trading Card Series (Abrams ComicArts), and his autobiographical memoir, My KISS Story. www.robertvconte.com

SCOTT SAAVEDRA'S SECRET SANCTUM

The

Amazing SeaMonkeys® Then & Now by Scott Saavedra

Humbug is a funny little word. Perhaps most associate it with the character Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. To the British, it is also a hard candy. To knowledgeable comic-book fans, it is the name of the magazine Harvey Kurtzman founded after leaving his signature creation, MAD. But for those of us who love the convergence of history and popular culture, humbug brings to mind P. T. Barnum, the great showman. Humbug is all about deception. In Barnum’s mind, humbug in the service of entertainment was a virtue, not a vice. Now, if you’re wondering what humbug has to do with Sea-Monkeys, the immensely popular, 60-year-old novelty originally sold through comic-book ads, then step right up, my friends… I have a story for you. Phineas Taylor Barnum lived and breathed humbug, never meeting a fact he couldn’t paper over with something more interesting and colorful so long as it brought in (paying) customers to his various museums and exhibitions. When Barnum

promoted his Fejee (Fiji) Mermaid, a sea-creature that wasn’t actually a sea-creature, he used questionable advertisements to excite the public. The beautiful, half-naked mermaid illustrated in his advertisements showed something quite different from the hideous, dried-up, half-fish-tail, half-death-grimaced monkey actually on display. The exhibition was a huge success. It’s not that Barnum absolutely had to employ humbug—the true story of how this creation of an anonymous Japanese fisherman made its way to Barnum wasn’t boring, it just wasn’t enough to bring in the crowds. It would be a lesson not lost on entrepreneurs in the decades that followed. Especially those, it seems, who created and sold novelties via comic-book ads. Harold von Braunhut, a former Merchant Marine, possessed an entrepreneurial spirit and a flair for humbug. And while his name may not be on the tip of everyone’s tongue in the manner of P. T. Barnum’s, they likely know his most enduring creation… wait for it… RetroFan

Winter 2019

THE ODDBALL WORLD OF SCOTT SHAW!

Oddball Comics

The Amazing Spider-Man & the Incredible Hulk Toilet Paper

by Scott Shaw! Okay, it’s time for full disclosure. When I was a kid, I did much of my funnybook reading while perched on a toilet seat. Too much information? Very possibly. In the comic-book industry, there’s a rumor that the noted science-fiction agent and comic-book editor Julius Schwartz once said, “Reading a comic book should take about the same amount of time as taking a good dump.” If I get the point of that proclamation, I seriously doubt that I was the only kid around who used the family bathroom as

a library. I even knew lunatics who read comic books while taking a bath—but to an obsessive kid like me, that sort of behavior seemed vastly more taboo than reading Uncle Scrooge while pooping. What if you dropped your funnybook in the tub? Disaster was waaay too possible there. But reading funnybooks on a porcelain throne with no one there to interrupt you? Pure nirvana… until Mom or Dad threatened to pry off the locked bathroom door’s hinges to gain access.

Box front for The Amazing Spider-Man & The Incredible Hulk Toilet Paper. All product photos and toilet paper scans accompanying this article courtesy of Scott Shaw! Spider-Man and the Hulk TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

RetroFan

Winter 2019

Anyway, back in the days when new comics were a dime and old comics were a nickel-apiece-three-for-adime, they were considered to be “disposable” media. Maybe not as disposable as toilet paper, but eventually, the two collided and fortunately for us, The Amazing Spider-Man & The Incredible Hulk Toilet Paper was the result. And talk about a wipeout! “Presenting an all-new, action-packed Toilet paper inventor Joseph C. confrontation Gayetty. (Thank you, sir! What between Marvel’s would we do without you?) mightiest superstars!” Yes, it’s the Amazing Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk together in an original, never-before-reprinted-anywhere comicbook story drawn by the great Marie Severin, who Roy Thomas calls “one of the most underrated people in the history of comics”! What’s so !?#%?!! Oddball about that? Well, there is the fact that “The Gamma Gambit!” is printed on special two-ply novelty toilet paper! As Smilin’ Stan Lee might proclaim, “Hey, it’s gotta be more absorbent than Excelsior!” The first documented use of toilet paper was in early medieval China during the Sixth Century. Modern toilet paper, as introduced in America in the form of “medicated” sheets, was invented by Joseph C. Gayetty in 1857. Ten years later, his competitors began to sell their un-medicated product of rolls of soft paper. During the 1870s, perforated, soft toilet paper on cardboard rolls began production by a variety of sources. By the turn of the century, when indoor toilets became more widely used, the popularity of flushable toilet paper greatly increased. And in 1935, our population breathed a simultaneous sigh of relief when Northern Tissue issued a “splinter free” toilet paper. Various other improvements have been developed over the years… including printing words and images on the toilet paper itself. That is an “improvement,” right? Little is known about the first commercially available toilet paper featuring printed images or words, but rolls have been featured at auctions bearing the image of Adolph Hitler, or with such slogans as “Wipe out Hitler,” “Government Property,” and “Now Wash Your Hands, Please.” These indicate that printing

on toilet paper has been around since World War II. Considering the circumstances, putting the image of the Enemy on paper that you’ll put in the worst place on your body is absolutely understandable. But we were at war. Mentions of bathrooms and toilets in polite society continued to be considered crude until the Sixties, when bathroom humor seemed to become acceptable and even hip. Kanrom, Inc.’s Jokes for the John (1961), More Jokes for the John (1963), and even Jewish Jokes for the John (1967) were tall, thin books were an extreme case of this Oddball porcelain popularity. Each book had a tiny chain to attach it to your toilet’s flush-handle. Other than that, the book had nothing to do with plumbing; each was full of mild “dirty” gag cartoons and mild “dirty” jokes in text form. They were uniquely and hugely—if inexplicably—popular. (Kanrom, Inc. was also the publisher of Mort Drucker’s JFK Coloring Book and Sergio Aragonés’ Fanny Hillman — Memoirs of a Jewish Madam and Sam, the Ceiling Needs Painting series of books!) But back to toilet paper (as if we could ever be far away from the stuff for long): With the lowering of standards and rise of technology, it’s much easier to manufacture image-festooned TP than ever before. There have been toilet paper rolls boasting wellknown images (authorized and otherwise) of politicians, public figures, sports teams, insects, and presidential Tweets. And there are now myriad websites that offer custom toilet paper printing, with the option of having a friend—or enemy’s—picture appear on the final product. However, The Amazing Spider-Man & The Incredible Hulk Toilet Paper wasn’t created to disparage those characters, but to celebrate them. (I think that Marvel Comics was hoping that comic fans would horde the TP rolls as collectibles and never actually use them as intended.) And who better to do it than writers Jim Salicrup and Michael Higgins, and cartoonist Marie Severin, three Marvel stalwarts who were very familiar with both superheroes. Editor/writer James “Jim” Alexander Salicrup began working at Marvel Comics as a paid intern at the tender age of 15. Working his way up through the ranks over 20 years, Jim became an editor there, overseeing such top Marvel Title: The Amazing Spider-Man & The titles as Fantastic Incredible Hulk Toilet Paper Four, The Amazing Issue Number: None Spider-Man, The Cover-Date: 1979 Uncanny X-Men, Publisher: Oh Dawn! Inc. The Avengers, Cover Artist(s): John Romita, Sr. and Marvel (“Hulk” clip-art penciled by Herb Trimpe and inked by Dave Cockrum)

(INSET) Kanrom, Inc.’s Sixties bathroom humor book Jokes for the John.

RetroFan

Winter 2019

ERNEST FARINO’S RETRO FANTASMAGORIA

To paraphrase Mr. Thatcher reading a memo from Charles Foster Kane (above): “I think it would be fun to publish a fanzine!” Of course, Citizen Kane himself had far greater ambitions than publishing a fanzine, but the spirit is the same. And “fun”? That’s the idea, anyway. The reality can sometimes be quite different. Fanzines—a fan magazine—have a long history and span many genres.

articles was back in the early Eighties (I think): Screaming at the unsuspecting customer from across the top of the front cover was the banner headline Read About the Man Who Drove Ann-Margret From Hollywood! Fond of Ann-Margret, I pulled the magazine down from the newsstand rack and thumbed through it, only to find that it was literally an article about… wait for it… her chauffeur. But, as the saying goes, they got me to look! Of course, whenever a celebrity—especially the sexy actresses—hit the big time, the magazines pounced, both Professional Fan Magazines responding to and feeding the frenzy. It’s hard for some of us to The movie fan magazine goes back to the beginning of the relate to today, but the big news in the late Fifties and early Sixties movie industry itself, and in its heyday in the Forties and Fif ties was the scandal involving singer Eddie Fisher, who divorced wife crowded the newsstand racks with hundreds of titles primarily Debbie Reynolds (after they had their daughter Carrie Fisher) as covering gossip surrounding movie stars (i.e., more than film a result of his having an affair production itself). with Elizabeth Taylor, which Some magazines bridged spilled over into the tumultuous and blended the worlds of relationship between Taylor fandom and mainstream press, and Richard Burton and— and in the sci-fi/horror field well, the Kardashians have there were occasional issues nothing on these folks. Peyton like Mystery magazine with its Place and Valley of the Dolls star “novelization” of King Kong by Barbara Parkins was quite the Edgar Wallace back in 1933. Even cause célèbre during this time, producer Merian C. Cooper and and even former First Lady leading lady Fay Wray seemed Jacqueline Kennedy rocketed to enjoy the advance publicity. from the pre-Dealey Plaza Some titles, like the tranquility of “Camelot” with her notorious Confidential and elegant televised tours of the Uncensored magazines, delved White House to lurid “Jackie-O” into often salacious celebrity tabloid tales. gossip, a calling nowadays Celebrity fan magazine taken over by reality television King Kong’s Fay Wray and Merian C. Cooper, with the 1933 edition of Mystery magazine featuring the Kong novelization. attention reached a zenith and online blogs. My favorite in 1966–1967 when the of all of these gossip magazine 58

RetroFan

Winter 2019

quintessential sex symbol Raquel Welch burst upon the scene in her One Million Years B.C. fur bikini. Having been considered in 1962 for the role of Mary Ann in Gilligan’s Island (ultimately played by Dawn Wells) and with her first major film, Fantastic Voyage, yet to be released, Welch’s contract with 20th Century Fox locked her in to a tale of cavemen vs. dinosaurs. Reluctant to do the film, Raquel rationalized that hip, “mod” Carnaby Street in swinging London might be some compensation to doing a “dinosaur movie” that no one would ever see anyway. Of course, the reality was just the opposite. Posing for some impromptu pictures in her cave-girl costume while on location in the Canary Islands, the publicity machine caught fire back home. In 1970 Raquel told Playboy magazine, “It was truly a spontaneous thing, a lot more real than something contrived. Everybody was saying, ‘Who is this girl?’ and I kept gaining momentum. When I got back to London [from the Canary Islands]—pow!—all the newspapers and magazines were running pictures of me every day.” She told Ted Newsom in the Hammer documentary Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror (1994) that “I became a target because I was ‘Miss Body Beautiful’ and the nubile girl. And that makes you very much that sex-symbol thing. The worst possible mantle to wear. You’re unintelligent, you can’t act, you’re going to disappear overnight. But the reaction by the public to the publicity was totally different. I became this sort of ‘drop dead’ fabulous chick. I thought, ‘Wow! This is powerful stuff. What do I do to live up to it?’ It made me extremely nervous and uptight.”

Early Fanzines

Such was the power of the fan press. And Raquel Welch fighting Ray Harryhausen’s dinosaurs circles us back to the sci-fi/ horror fanzines, which is my primary interest here. Fanzines in the comics field are far reaching, and include simple efforts or more polished works like the comics industry overview Rocket’s Blast

Comicollector. The amazing comics artist Wally Wood created his own high-quality comics fanzine witzend, often featuring his sexy space girl Sally Forth. There have been dozens and dozens of great fanzines over the years, going back to the Thirties and Forties (perhaps even earlier), and there are even Facebook groups devoted to fanzines. Future Famous Monsters of Filmland editor Forrest J Ackerman was an early proponent of the fan press. “Forry” was instantly hooked on science fiction when the October 1926 issue of Amazing Stories jumped off the newsstand and called out to him (as Forry would often relate), “Take me home, little boy—you will love me.” His life changed forever and he became devoted to “sci-fi,” a term he later coined himself based on the then-popular “Hi-Fi” (High Fidelity) LP record albums in the music field. Hugo Gernsback, editor of Amazing Stories and considered “the Father of Science Fiction,” had included full addresses in the letters column and Forry and others began contacting one another. Sometimes the in-print correspondence would erupt into feuds (Forry even tangled with H. P. Lovecraft), but Forry gained friends the world over and eventually published his own fanzine VOM, or Voice of the ImagiNation. Ackerman was Ray Bradbury’s first agent and published Bradbury’s first story, later suggesting that Ray present his Mars based stories in a collection that became The Martian Chronicles. He became friends with Ray Harryhausen, Robert Heinlein, A.E. van Vogt, Robert Bloch, and Isaac Asimov. And comic books’ Julius Schwartz. Also through the letters column in Amazing Stories, “Julie” contacted Mort Weisinger and in 1932 he and Weisinger and Allen Glasser started the first science-fiction fanzine, The Time Traveller. Julie went on to represent Henry Kuttner, Leigh Brackett, Eric Frank Russell, Otto Binder, and even Robert Heinlein. He sold 75 stories by Robert Bloch, including the memorable Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, and in 1939 sold Bradbury’s The Pendulum

(TOP) Rocket’s Blast – ComicCollector #64 (1968). Cover art by John G. Fantucchio. (CENTER) Wally Wood’s witzend #1 (1966). (BOTTOM) Wally Wood’s witzend #2.

RetroFan

Winter 2019

COMICS MAGAZINES FROM TWOMORROWS BACK ISSUE

BACK ISSUE celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through a variety of recurring (and rotating) departments, including Pro2Pro interviews (between two top creators), “Greatest Stories Never Told”, retrospective articles, and more. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

BACK ISSUE #106

ALTER EGO

ALTER EGO, the greatest ‘zine of the ‘60s, is all-new, focusing on Golden and Silver Age comics and creators with articles, interviews and unseen art. Each issue includes an FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) section, Mr. Monster & more. Edited by ROY THOMAS.

ALTER EGO #154

COMIC BOOK CREATOR

COMIC BOOK CREATOR is the new voice of the comics medium, devoted to the work and careers of the men and women who draw, write, edit, and publish comics, focusing always on the artists and not the artifacts, the creators and not the characters. Edited by JON B. COOKE.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #18

DRAW!

DRAW! is the professional “How-To” magazine on cartooning and animation. Each issue features in-depth interviews and step-by-step demonstrations from top comics professionals. Some issues contain figure-drawing instruction nudity; Mature Readers Only. Edited by MIKE MANLEY.

DRAW #35

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR celebrates the life and career of the “King” of comics through interviews with Kirby and his contemporaries, feature articles, and rare & unseen Kirby artwork, showcased in dynamic full-color! Edited by JOHN MORROW.

KIRBY COLLECTOR #74

ALLEN BELLMAN (1940s Timely artist) interviewed by DR. MICHAEL J. VASSALLO, with art by SHORES, BURGOS, BRODSKY, SEKOWSKY, EVERETT, & JAFFEE. Plus Marvel’s ’70s heroines: LINDA FITE & PATY COCKRUM on The Cat, CAROLE SEULING on Shanna the She-Devil, & ROY THOMAS on Night Nurse—with art by SEVERIN, FRADON, ANDRU, and more! With FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

Career-spanning discussion with STEVE “THE DUDE” RUDE, as he shares his reallife psychological struggles, the challenges of freelance subsistence, and his creative aspirations. Also: The jungle art of NEAL ADAMS, MARY FLEENER on her forthcoming graphic novel Billie the Bee and her comix career, RICH BUCKLER interview Part Three, Golden Age artist FRANK BORTH, HEMBECK and more!

Fantasy/sci-fi illustrator DONATO GIANCOLA (Game of Thrones) demos his artistic process, GEORGE PRATT (Enemy Ace: War Idyll, Batman: Harvest Breed) discusses his work as comic book artist, illustrator, fine artist, and teacher, Crusty Critic JAMAR NICHOLAS, JERRY ORDWAY’S regular column, and MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ “Comic Art Bootcamp.” Mature Readers Only.

FUTUREPAST! Kirby’s “World That Was” from Caveman days to the Wild West, and his “World That’s Here” of Jack’s visions of the future that became reality! TWO COVERS: Bullseye inked by BILL WRAY, and Jack’s unseen Tiger 21 concept art! Plus: interview with ROY THOMAS about Jack, rare Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER moderating the biggest Kirby Tribute Panel of all time, pencil art galleries, and more!

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SUBSCRIPTIONS ECONOMY US Alter Ego (Six 100-page issues) $65 Back Issue (Eight 80-page issues) $76 BrickJournal (Six 80-page issues) $60 Comic Book Creator (Four 100-page issues) $43 Jack Kirby Collector (Four 100-page issues) $46 RetroFan (Four 80-page issues) - NEW! $38

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RETRO TRAVEL

Welcome to Metropolis The Home of Superman by Michael Eury

The Metropolis of Superman lore is a bustling environment with glistening skyscrapers that pierce the clouds—just like its high-soaring protector from Krypton—and whose streets attract a never-ending barrage of attacks from mad scientists, alien invaders, and vengeful supervillains. The Metropolis of the real world—nestled at the southeastern corner of Illinois, U.S.A., the last stop in the American South before it gives way to the Heartland—has no skyscrapers. It’s a rustic postcard of small shops and modest homes that haven’t changed much over the years, populated by the kind of good-natured folks you’d find in a John Cougar Mellencamp song. But this Metropolis has its own Superman—two, if you count the giant Superman statue in the center of town—and once a year, its streets are overrun with… well, mad scientists, alien invaders, and vengeful supervillains—plus more Supermen than you can shake a red cape at. Metropolis, Illinois, is a city of 6,500 residents, but during the second weekend of each June it is flooded by a torrent of visitors (and event staffers) in electric blue Superman T-shirts, in town for (TOP LEFT) This colorful sign, repurposing Neal Adams art from the cover of Superman #252, greets visitors as they enter Metropolis. (TOP RIGHT) One of the Super Museum’s many, many exhibits spotlights a collection of Superman original and specialty artwork. (BOTTOM) A Daily Planet vintage car, parked in front of the museum. Unless otherwise noted, all photographs in this article are by Michael Eury. Superman TM & © DC Comics.

the annual Superman Celebration, a unique, extraordinarily fun hybrid of a community festival and a comic-con. There’s a lot to see in town during the Superman Celebration, from the Super Museum, statues of Superman and Lois Lane, and a procession of food and street vendors vying for your attention… but it’s the legion of Superman masqueraders that catch your eye, as countless fun-seekers rush to the annual event dressed as the Man of Steel (pick your favorite version—from 1938’s Action Comics #1, to the Henry Cavill movie Superman, to every incarnation in between, they’re here). You’ll find Supermen in every size, gender, and ethnicity imaginable, from uber-fit fashion models to muffin-topped grandpas to special-needs youth to chain-smoking stringbeans. And joining the many Supermen are cosplayers garbed as Supergirl (in several variations, including the Seventies’ hotpants version!), Superboy, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Lex Luthor… plus characters outside of the Superman Family, virtually everyone from Ant-Man to Zatanna.

The Origin of Metropolis

The Metropolis, Illinois, of yesteryear looked not up in the sky for a bird, a plane, or a Superman, but to the riverbanks. Its advantageous position on the majestic Ohio River, just across from Kentucky, attracted French settlers during the mid-1700s, who displaced the region’s Native-American population and erected Fort De L’Ascension during the French and Indian War. That fort was destroyed and rebuilt on several occasions, eventually bearing the name Fort Massac in honor of the Marquis de Massac, France’s Minister of the Marine. The fort was immortalized in RetroFan

Winter 2019

RetroFan #3