MB25: Super Friends #28

Super Friends #28 (Jan 1980)

cover: Ramona Fradon & Bob Smith (signed)

title: "Masquerade of Madness"

writer: E. Nelson Bridwell

penciller: Ramona Fradon

inker: Vince Colletta
letterer: Ben Oda
colorist: Jerry Serpe

editor: Julius Schwartz 

BLB: Aquaman

Here is another in my ongoing series of reviews on the 1968 Big Little Book series. You can find others by clicking on "BLB" at the bottom of this post.

This time, to help celebrate Aquaman's "birthday" on January 29 I want to talk about one of my favorite BLBs, Aquaman in Scourge of the Sea, written by Paul S. Newman and published in 1968. It is number 17 in the 1968 Big Little Book series. It follows Space Ghost but is before Daktari. Does anybody here even know and/or remember Daktari?

September 8 in TV History

 September 8th is one of those seminal dates in TV history. Like the date that I Love Lucy made its debut (October 16, 1951) , or the date when David Janssen found his wife's murderer on The Fugitive (Aug 29, 1967). In fact, today is an important date for two separate groups of nerds.

Paul Norris RIP (1914-2007)

graphic by Rob Kelly (art by Paul Norris)

 On December 5, 2007, the creator of Aquaman, Mr. Paul Norris, passed away. He was 93 years young.


Paul Norris was a staff artist at National Comics in 1941 when he was assigned a new back-up strip in the pages of MORE FUN COMICS #73. Norris had already made something of a name for himself by illustrating The Sandman and Sandy, the Golden Boy. Well, in this issue Mr. Norris made history! Aquaman made his debut in this issue, cover-dated November 1941. And although this was before the United States had entered World War II, Aquaman was already protecting refugees from Nazis!

Norris only stayed on the character he co-created for less than a year, but he set the tone and style of the character that has endured for more than seventy years.

I thought I had a copy of the whole story, but I could not find it to scan it for this article. So I'm including pages I *could* find. And I am now intent on tracking down a reprint copy of this issue! 

I did not know that Paul Norris was born in Greenville, Ohio. I've been to that town quite a few times! Next time I go I will have to visit the city hall and try to get them to create a real Aquaman museum or something!

Rest in Peace, Paul Norris

 ...and thank you! 

For another point of view on Mr. Norris' passing, please read my buddy Rob's Paul Norris obit on The Aquaman Shrine from 2007.

 

 

Happy Birthday, Ramona Fradon!

Ramona Fradon was born on October 2, 1926. She was the main artist of AQUAMAN while he was in ADVENTURE COMICS in the mid-1950s, stopping when he got his own title in 1961. Then later she was the main artist on THE SUPER FRIENDS in the mid-1970s. The Super Friends, of course, were Superman Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman.

I had the distinct pleasure of meeting her at last year's New York City Comic-Con, where I purchased an original drawing from her and had her sign my copies of SUPER FRIENDS. She was definitely one of my favorite artists, and I wish her another happy and healthy birthday!

Happy Birthday, Ramona Fradon!

 an original piece of art I commissioned from her homepage

the original I bought last year at the NYCC

The Debut of The Super Friends (9-8-73)

On September 8, 1973 The Super Friends, a show that changed my life, made its debut on ABC-TV.

When I first saw The Super Friends, which consisted of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Robin, and Aquaman, I was floored. I think I had seen the Filmation Superman, Batman, and Aquaman cartoons by then. If not, then I knew of them. I had definitely seen the George Reeves Superman and Adam West Batman television shows. However, with this series I came to the eye-opening realization that all of these characters existed in the same universe! If you grew up only watching George Reeves or Adam West, you wouldn't know there were any other super-heroes in their worlds, let a lone a group of them like the Justice League (or Justice Society). They had been totally independent and isolated characters.

After September 8, I knew that this was not the case.

Thanks to The Super Friends I hunted down actual comic books with these characters. I found my first Justice League of America comic-book and promptly subscribed, never ever missing another issue. From there entire universes of imagination were opened up for me. I've been reading comics and watching super-hero cartoons for the forty years since.

 

Although Wendy and Marvin were nobody's favorites, they were of their time. Scooby-Doo, Funky Phantom, Speed Buggy, Captain Caveman, etc ALL had young adult protagonist, for example. After they left we were given super-hero sidekicks who were, at the very least, more logical than two kids and a dog. The first season of SF begat The Wonder Twins, The Legion of Doom, Global Guardians, and, arguably, The Super Powers action figure collection. Each of those promulgated in-numerous after effects on their own.  If The Super Friends had not been a success, do you really think we would have had all of the super-hero goodness we have now? So in a sense, we can credit The Super Friends with the flame that eventually became our entire Super Hero Pop Cultural Phenomenon. And just like the comic book JLA has been given credit for helping to create the Marvel Universe (Marvel's publisher saw the success of the JLA and told Stan Lee to create something similar; he came up with The Fantastic Four), The Super Friends can be credited with creating the environment where Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, The Fantastic Four, The Hulk, and all the other Marvel projects from the Seventies onward could find success.

Sure, there is a dark side to this story. The idea that Aquaman is useless outside of water can be traced back to millions of kids growing up watching him not do anything important in later Super Friends seasons. However, in the first season he was always ALWAYS portrayed as viable and important. In fact, in several episodes he saves the lives of his fellow members. So unfortunately it was the laziness of later writers that made Aquaman into an "also-ran." Besides, his notoriety is a two-headed sword: is it better to be known as a very specifically powered (possibly useless) character, or not to be known at all? I'm not going to argue this point, but it is something to think about.

In the meantime, I'm off to watch an episode or two of The Super Friends in my Super Friends t-shirt. Have a great day!  Here's the opening sequence, and watching it today still gives me goose bumps. Hell yeah, Super Friends!! :-)

Why Aquaman Memorabilia?

I don't remember why or how I started collecting Aquaman things.

All I know for sure is that I still have a list that I made when I as about 13 of all the various Aquaman things I had, plus other things I knew about but hadn't acquired yet.

the actual list I made of stuff I had...circa 1980 or so

I suppose I must have seen some article about somebody who collected Superman or Batman, or maybe Mickey Mouse or Barbie. Somehow, it must have occurred to me from seeing something that I could collect things made out of Aquaman. Nobody else in my family collected anything that I remember...certainly not the same way that I ended up collecting Aquaman stuff! I probably saw something and that made me think that I could "handle" Aquaman; after all, unlike Superman or Batman who seem to have new stuff on sale every week, Aquaman only has so much devoted to him. I must have thought I could actually write up a list of stuff he had appeared in, and then go out and try to get them all!

The sad thing is that recently, with the ascendency of MARVEL, there is more junk for "minor" characters like Iron Man, the Hulk, and Thor than there ever was for Aquaman! The Sea King really needs a movie or TV tie-in to make him popular again.

One of the first things I had of Aquaman was the MEGO action figure from 1975. I had all of these dolls at one time, and kept most of the ones that didn't break until I was an adult. When I had a child of my own I made the difficult decision to trade these toys to an internet salesman for brand-new Star Trek dolls and an awesome Dragonheart dragon. To take the place of the actual toys I bought a few books about MEGO. So now I can look at the photos in them and think, "I had those toys!"

The oldest Aquaman item in my collection can be interpreted in one of two ways: the item that I have had in my possession the longest, or the item that is actually, chronologically oldest. I'll tell you about both of them.

The item that I have had the longest is the Big Little Book Aquaman Scourge of the Sea by Paul S. Newman. My parents bought a whole slew of these when my brother and I were little. I can still remember my father reading this or Batman, the Lone Ranger, Major Matt Mason, Daktari, or the Fantastic Four to me as bed-time stories. I have lost most of the other books we had in this series, but I managed to keep the Aquaman version. He got his own book because this came out in 1968, the time of the comic-book craze in general and the Superman-Aquaman cartoon series in particular.

The chronologically oldest item I have is a copy of Adventure Comics #269 cover-dated February 1960. I once had a dream to buy and own every comic that Aquaman appeared in, but as I got older I realized that these comics were only getting more expensive. Besides, reprint collections started printing the stories, so I didn't need the actual issues. Still, before I gave up I managed to pick up a copy of this comic. The lead story is Superboy and Krypto, but the back-up is "The Kid From Atlantis!' featuring art by the great Ramona Fradon. Yes, this is the debut of Aqualad!

Now that I'm older, instead of trying to collect "stuff," I'm more interested in collecting "stories." I go to a huge garage sale or auction house and find a DC Post-Card Book I had no idea even existed, so I buy it. Or I go to the bookstore to buy a new CD and happen to find a new storybook called I Am Aquaman. Or I go to comic-book conventions and try to meet the creative people behind these fabulous adventures. I have now met and chatted with such famous people as the afore-mentioned Ramona Fradon, Neal Adams, Paul Levitz, Art Baltazar, Peter Tomasi, John Workman, and the most-recent Aquaman artists Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, and Rod Reis.  It's been my pleasure to meet these people. For an Aquaman fan it doesn't get any better than this.

the original Ramona Fradon art I bought

from her at last year's NYC comic-con

Aquaman Is My Hero

Aquaman is my hero.

I am a Japanese translator at an American automobile company. I'm not an engineer; I can't fix any of the machines or run any of the tests. I'm not a quality specialist: I can't analyze a faulty design and make suggestions to fix it. Yet in my own small way, I like to think that I am important.

Usually I'm content to stay in the background. I don't have a big red "S" or a big bat on my chest to call attention to myself. I want to go in, help out, and step aside. It's not about the glory.

Most of the time, most people don't even notice I'm there. I get left off meeting invitations and email lists. Then a whale will beach itself, or a  document will need translating, and suddenly I'm everyone's first call.

I make it look easy. I don't explain my tricks or use pseudo-science to get my job done. I do what has to be done and say what has to be said. I have a killer right hook and a  wonderful vocabulary.

I have the respect of the people I work with and the curiosity of the masses. "Yes, but what does he DO?" is asked all too often about me by people who simply do not understand. I am a friend, a colleague, and a peer. Co-workers ask for me by name. They know that they can count on me to get the job done. I'm not about magic rings and spider webs. My goal is communication. If you haven't communicated, then I've failed. And I don't like failure.

I don't get angry except under extreme conditions. If I do get angry, you had better step aside. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

I have a loving wife and we have a wonderful child. I had a young man as an exchange student a few years ago who thinks of me as a surrogate father and a the big brother he never had.

I'm not always the first person you think of, but I will always do what needs to be done. I'm not afraid to step up, to ask for help, or to step aside and get the work to somebody more qualified.

Sometimes you can work without me. Sometimes you don't need me at all. And sometimes, I'm the only person who can get the job done.

And Aquaman is my hero.

(Based on an article originally published in THE AQUAMAN CHRONICLES # 13, Sept 2004)
Illustration is by the author, based on a photograph of diver Greg Louganis by Annie Leibovitz

Happy Birthday Jose Luis Garcia Lopez!!

March 26 is the birthday of one of the most talented artists to ever work in the comic-book industry, the one-and-only Jose Luis Garcia Lopez (praise be his name!).

Senor Garcia-Lopez was born in Spain, then moved to Argentine when he was five years old. He has worked professionally as an artist since he was in his teens; he sold some of his first US work to Charlton when he was 18 years old! He moved to the US at the end of 1974. He started doing work for DC Comics such as "The Private Life of Clark Kent" or issues of  THE JOKER. I remember him also doing various back-ups and Superman things, but I was never a huge Superman fan. Then he started working in the Batman universe, and I started taking notice. He did wonderful work like this DETECTIVE COMICS cover that became a poster.


In the early 1980s Senor Garcia-Lopez was asked to create a Design Guide for licensing purposes. It was a "style" book for marketing and also for other (new) artists to know how to draw the DC line of characters. From all of these poses have come the vast majority of DC licensing in the past 30 years! In fact, because of this work I was able to strike up a conversation with Senor Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (praise be his name) himself!

It was at the Baltimore Comic Book Convention in 2011. My friend Rick and I had driven to Baltimore the night before to attend. We were staying at the Sheraton, but the Convention was at the Hilton (or vice-versa?). So I was making my way over to the Convention after breakfast and held the door open for an older gentleman. Now I have to say, I had no idea who he was at the time; I was simply being friendly. If you've never been to a convention I'll tell you this: it seems like there are two types of people there: those who are happy to be there, and those who are frustrated or angry or unhappy to be there. I'm always one of the happy ones because 1. I can remember when there weren't any conventions to go to at all! and 2. I live and work in a "normal" environment, so I'm in a great mood when I'm surrounded by like-minded geeks and nerds! I am just so gung-ho to be there that I try to share the happiness. So anyway, I held the door open for this older gentleman, knowing he was either an artist or a vendor or a fan like me. I, of course, had an Aquaman t-shirt on. We chatted on our way to the convention site and it became obvious that he was an artist. He thought we had met before (do I have one of those types of faces? haha) and I told him that it was the first time I had been East for a convention. When I said that my favorite character was Aquaman, I pointed at my shirt. He then said, "Oh, I drew that."

the t-shirt in question

I'm sure my mouth dropped open, at least a little bit.

"Y-you...you drew this?" Obviously I then realized who he was.  I stammered out a reply. "I....One of the reasons I'm here is to see and meet you, Senor."

"Well, I'll be at my table all day. Come by and we'll chat some more."

And he walked in to the hall, leaving me to walk to the "general admission" line. Floated, I should say, as I was definitely on cloud nine!!

Later that day when there weren't so many people in line to meet and greet with him I did stop by and we did continue our chat. I reminded him who I was by pointing at my t-shirt (HIS Aquaman) and asking him how his day had been. There was no sign on his table about him doing sketches, so I didn't even think to ask him. Instead I had him autograph a few of my comics (LEGACIES, shown below, featuring my favorite, Aquaman, of course!). When other fans started to show up, I moved on. I was very very happy.

A few hours later as the convention was winding down and I was in line to get somebody else's autograph, the guy in front of me and I struck up a conversation. When I told him about meeting and chatting with Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (praise be his name), HE told me that he had gotten an original pencil sketch of Robin from him for only ten dollars. TEN DOLLARS!!! He showed it to me and I nearly flipped out. It was beautiful!! Anybody remember those "I could have had a V-8?!" commercials when the actor slaps his forehead in stupidity? THAT was me. By this point it was too late to go back, but I knew that the next chance I got I would get a sketch.

Fast-forward to Baltimore Comic-Con 2012. One of the reasons I decided to make the trip at all was to get a sketch from The Master. After I verified that he would be in attendance again, I decided to return. On the day, I got back in line to meet Senor Garcia-Lopez again, and this time I brought my copy of Modern Masters Vol. V. THIS time, I got an original pencil sketch of Aquaman, reproduced here. It is still one of the treasures in my collection of Aquaman goodies. Plus it's a hell of a story.

As you probably guessed, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (praise be his name) is a soft-spoken, friendly man. I hope that someday I will get another chance to meet him. In the meantime....I have my sketch, my memories, and my t-shirts.  Thank you, senor, for your incredible talent!!

Happy Birthday, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez!

 One of the Aquaman Style Guides. Look: the first pose is the same as the one on my t-shirt! 

 The greatest illustration of Classic JLA 

(except for Hawkwoman getting blocked by her husband's wings)

  This one is for you, Shag! 

My copy of this has my Aquaman sketch on the inside front cover. :-) 

My copies of these two issues have autographs on the inside where 

Aquaman and the Justice League and Teen Titans appear, 

as drawn by The Master. :-) 

My current favorite t-shirt....check out ALL of the 

Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez goodness!! 

Happy Birthday, Bob Haney!

When I first started reading comics back in the early-mid Seventies two of my favorite books were THE BRAVE & THE BOLD and MARVEL TEAM-UP, published by DC and Marvel, respectively. Both featured their "star" characters, Batman and Spider-Man, teaming-up with different co-stars every month.  To a new fan as I was these books served as wonderful introductions to dozens of characters I had never heard or seen before. Or, sometimes, they featured characters that I had seen in JUSTICE LEAGUE or AVENGERS and wanted to see more of.
At that time the writer of B&B (as it was called) was a gentleman named Bob Haney. He was also the main writer of WORLD'S FINEST, which featured Batman teamed with Superman. I read both of these books regularly and after awhile began to recognize Mr. Haney's rather unique writing style. He would create his own sense of "reality" (if I can use that term when talking about super-heroes, haha) and ignore what had gone before. His most famous example was creating The Super Sons, the sons of Superman and Batman. These characters appeared only in the pages of WORLD'S FINEST, and were basically created to represent the Counter-Culture or Youth Culture that was strong in the early Seventies. Obviously, Batman and Superman were not married and didn't have any children, but that didn't bother Bob Haney! Their wives, the sons' mothers, were only shown in silhouette and never addressed by name.

I later learned that Bob Haney had much to do with two of my favorites: Aquaman and The Teen Titans. He added such famous characters to the AQUAMAN world as Ocean Master, Black Manta, Dr. Vulko, and Tula. He did even more for the Teen Titans: he helped create them! He put Aqualad, Robin, Kid Flash, and Wonder Girl together in their first adventures. The rest is history.

Sure, Bob Haney created his share of stupid characters (Mad Mod, anyone?). But he also created Metamorpho, the Element Man (co-created with artist extraordinaire Ramona Fradon). So that should count for something.

For all the Bronze Age goodness that Bob Haney gave us, I want to celebrate his life. March 15 would have been his 87th birthday. Unfortunately, Bob Haney passed on in 2004.

Happy Birthday, Bob Haney! 

The first appearance of Aquaman's Arch Enemy, Black Manta

created by Bob Haney & Nick Cardy

Originally Speedy was not a Teen Titan and Aqualad was. 

When Bob Haney left, they switched. :-(  

Metamorpho, the reluctant hero

I came to appreciate this unique character after I was older 

The first issue of B&B I can remember buying...

note the Teen Titans reprint on the upper right!  

One of Haney's "controversial" Super-Sons stories. 

This one features a guest appearance by Robin, 

the semi-grown up Wonder! 

One of my favorite B&B issues...

I had never seen The Metal Men before, 

but I liked them after reading this story

Another "controversial" Haney story: 

Plastic Man is an alcoholic bum, and Batman 

needs both Plas and Metamorpho to solve a 

simple murder mystery. 

Still, somehow it works...

I just didn't understand WTH the Super Sons were. 

Several years later, I found I wasn't alone, haha! 

 

Bob Haney in his later years perusing 

a TEEN TITANS Archive edition