Metropolis has always been a very mobile city.  Joe Shuster, the co-creator and original artist of Superman, modeled the city on Toronto and Cleveland.  DC Comics, the publishers of Superman tales for all these years, have moved the city between Delaware and New York.  If you’re driving on Route 24, you’ll find Metropolis in Illinois about halfway between Nashville and St. Louis.  They have a giant Superman statue and a Super Museum.  For generations, Metropolis has described a place in the heart where a person can dream of the right thing and have the power to do it.

Jerry Siegel dreamed of writing for the pulp magazines of his day.  Fresh out of high school, he hooked up with Joe Shuster and the pair began producing comic strips.  They had some minor successes before their creation Superman appeared on the cover of Action Comics #1.  The character was an instant success, soon spreading to newspapers across the country.

The duo spent the next ten years watching their creation grow into a commercial juggernaut, appearing on radio, in movie serials, and on every little thing imaginable.  Most of the money from these off-shoots went into the coffers at DC Comics’ corporate predecessor.  In the mid-forties, Siegel and Shuster initiated the first in a periodic series of lawsuits with DC (or related entities) over the use of their creation.  It took a public relations campaign upon the release of the first Christopher ReeveSuperman film for Time Warner to award Siegel and Shuster a $35,000 annual honorarium and permanent credit on all Superman media.

In Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book, Gerard Jones chronicles the struggles of these two creators, along with many of the other people responsible for so much of what appears on the modern silver screen (such asSuperman Returns).  For a much more intense take on the wrongs that were perpetrated in the name of comic book capitalism, see Rick Veitch’s The Maximortal.

June, 2006

Thirty-five years ago this very moment, you would find me on a bicycle peddling madly up Lancaster Drive on the way to Wedgewood Plaza.  The bike was metallic green, which was cool, but not as cool as the banana seat bikes which were appearing in the neighborhood.  Entering the outdoor plaza by the hidden bike-safe entrance, I weaved around the bowling alley (originally groovy pool tables soon supplanted by groovy video games), passed by the cinema (one screen where I hid under my coat throughout Jaws), and pulled up in front of Gray Drugs.  At about the third aisle, the owners perched a tall rotating metal rack filled with comic books.  They cost ten cents, then twelve, twenty, and beyond. My allowance allowed for the purchase of one comic book because of the additional expenses that accumulated during a week (candy and baseball cards).  The store employees might hover, but they never rushed the selection process.  My inclination went toward the most number of pages, though a good cover could win out.

On Saturday, May 6, I will once again ride my metallic green bicycle (still no banana seat) to my neighborhood comic book shop.  And I don’t need to bring any allowance (quite a relief considering the inevitable weirdness of having that conversation with my parents).  It’s Free Comic Book Day!  For five years now, the comics industry has supported their retailers and customers with this promotional bombshell.  You show up at the comic shop and they give you a comic book printed just for the occasion- maybe even more than one, maybe you pick…  It’s free!  Everything from the Archies to the X-Men are possibilities, alongside a bushel full of independent and downright creative titles.

Local participating stores include Comics Etc., Rochester (473-7150); Hammergirl Anime, Rochester (475-9330); All Heroes, Rochester (865-9113); Lost Worlds, Macedon (315-986-7858); Collector’s Choice, Brockport (637-8556); and Joe’s Comics, Geneseo (243-4240).  Be sure to call ahead for hours, directions, policies, and whether or not a metallic green bicycle is required.

April, 2006

We thought it might be enlightening to consult a committee of the newest generation of manga-maniacs.  They’ve been raised on Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Hamtaro, and Hello Kitty and live at a time when manga is in their public library and anime is on their television.  Our komikku coffee klatch consisted of: Duncan, 11; Rose, 11; Aaron, 9; and Tess, 9.

So, let’s talk a little about manga.

Tess: Cool.

Rose: Yes!

Tess: It rocks!

Aaron: It thoroughly rocks!

Tess: It’s confusing when you have to read it backwards, but you get used to it.

Rose: I think it’s sort of like American comics, except you read it right to left, instead of left to right.

Aaron: They’ve got chibi!

Rose: They’ve got a lot more variety.  I don’t know for sure, but all I’ve seen of American comics, they’ve been like…

Tess: Superheroes.

Rose:  Yeah.  And this has got different things.  You’ve got ninjas.  You’ve got demons.  You’ve got people going back in time.  I think comic books and manga are different.  Because comic books, most people think of magazines.  Manga, you think of novels.

Aaron:  Yea, books.

Tess: All the American comics that I read are male superheroes that aren’t defeated and they’re never defeated and they’re great and mighty.  I’d rather read about real fighting (bow and arrows and swords and stuff), not like superpowers (where you can lift anything).  That’s boring.  I haven’t read any American comics that are about female superheroes.  They’re always Superman and Spiderman.  The Fantastic Four have one girl.

Duncan: I think the manga is better, partly because I like the style more.  And also there is a better storyline.  It’s not just sold for publicity, like some way to get money like a lot of American comics are.  The people who draw manga actually think up a good storyline.  They don’t have different storylines throughout the comic.  The person either makes it come to a close or they just keep making it.  They just keep on going.  It’s more like you’re reading fifty books of it to come to an actual conclusion which is about four chapters per book.  Not like just three for Superman and it takes a little bit less for one.  You’re getting one chapter whereas in manga you get four.  It’s like you get more out of it and it actually follows a storyline.  You don’t have bloop and bloop and bloop- three comics for one set of stuff and then another three for a completely different story and then you’re teleported somewhere else.  It’s just got a better setup to it.

Rose:  American comics are usually about superheroes and there’s not very much variety.  With manga, you’ve got everything.  And it’s not based on stories completely that have already been done.

Aaron: I like manga better because it has better stories and cooler pictures.

Tess: Most of the books take place in Japan

Aaron: Sometimes they take place there.

Rose: Yes, or related to it or someplace somebody made up.  Like Inuyasha, one of the main girl characters, she comes from modern-day Japan and she goes into a portal which transports her to the feudal-era… of Japan.

Who’s your favorite character?

Rose: In Inuyasha, it would probably be Sango or Miroku.  Sango is a female who is a demon exterminator and she’s got this big, huge boomerang that she can actually use.  She comes from the village of demon exterminators.  You first encounter her where her brother has been taken over by the evil guy named Miroku.  And her brother kills her father and everybody else.  And while this is going on, their village is being attacked by other demons.  So, everybody is killed except …

Tess: Sango.

Rose: Sango.  So, I think that’s really cool.

Aaron: Oh, yeah!

Rose: And then she’s got a demon pet that looks like a two-tailed cat demon that starts out really small and cute and it can get bigger.

Rose: And then there’s Miroku who is a Buddhist monk with questionable morals.

Tess: Very questionable morals.

Rose: ‘Cause he’s got a curse that was inflicted upon his grandfather called wind tunnel which is this hole in his left hand.

Tess: Right.

Rose: Yea, right, okay.  So, if he unleashes it, it can suck anything in, except for these poison wasps.  So, once he gets old enough, the thing will swallow him up which happened to his grandfather and father.  So, he has to have a baby to pass on the line.  So, every time he comes across a beautiful woman, he asks her to bear the baby.  It’s kind of funny because they always reject him.

Aaron: Kakashi from Naruto and the Azumanga Daioh biting cat.

Tess:  I like Kikyo.  She died and then she was brought back to life again and then she almost died and then she got brought back to life again.  She died again and got back to life again.  She sort of keeps dying and then being brought back to life.

Rose: She should be dead like three times.

Tess: She’s a priestess and she hates Inuyasha.

Rose: They kind of have a romantic background.

Aaron: Eeehhh…

Tess: They used to like each other, but then she thought that he did something that was really bad, so she killed him.  Well, she put a hundred year curse on him.

Duncan: I have very many favorite characters.  My first one of them is Naruto.

Aaron: Gahh!

Duncan: You haven’t read Volume 29.  As the story progresses, he gets better.  You know that lightning thing on his hand?

Aaron: What lightning thing?

Rose: You’ve read beyond everybody, okay?

Duncan: It’s in Volume 4.

Aaron: I’m on Volume 3.

Duncan: Ohhh, as the story progresses, he get’s really strong and powerful.  I also like Orphen from Orphen.  He’s a sorcerer but he was trained by the leader of the Tower of Fangs which is where the sorcerers train.  He’s more powerful really than any other person at the Tower of Fangs, but he’s on work-for-hire because he’s broke.

 December, 2005