Wow, the Fortress hasn't changed a bit since the last time I visited four years ago.  Wish I could say the same for myself.  It's a struggle just to get out of bed now, let alone trudge across the Artic wastes and climb up to the doorway with a birthday cake.  Nearly forgot my access code again.  I don't think I'll be able to make it the next time February 29 rolls around.

Time to light the candles, perhaps for my last time.  "Happy Birthday, Kal-El... and thank you."

I've been meaning to write this for quite a while: In the early 2000s my (now late) oldest brother gave me, (along with my copies of "Secret Agent X-9: The Alex Raymond Collection" and "Batman from the '30s to the '70s", which he had borrowed 20 years before), the then-recently-published book named above. I was no longer a comic book fan, having lost this interest to Shakespeare, world history, and baseball analysis, but I did collect them in my early late teens and early twenties--my favorites then were Batman, an interest engendered by the TV show, and the LoSH, but I largely forgot about them after moving out of my parents' house.

Oddly, I had occasional, recurrent, vivid dreams of finding a store on Chapel Street in downtown New Haven (no, I'm not a Yalie) that sold old comics, probably based on a used bookstore I frequented on Whitney Avenue where I bought some when I was 21. As the years progressed, so did the dreams, moving from frustration at not being able to successfully purchase comics, to gradual, eventual, success. I also had a recurrent static dream of sneaking into someone's treehouse/clubhouse to find comic books and no one to bother me while I read them.

So, "Superman in the Sixties". I didn't like it.

This is not a fun book. The 2 longest stories are "The Last Days of Superman", in which (SPOILER WARNING, with lots more to follow) Superman suffers immensely from Kryptonite poisoning throughout while believing something called "Virus X" is killing him, and "Superman's Returns to Krypton", in which circumstances trap him on his original home planet right before it's due to explode and kill everyone he meets (his parents; actress Lyla Lerrol, with whom he conducts a necessarily doomed love affair). Fun stuff.

The opener, which is, logically enough, "The Story of Superman's Life", was OK, but the chaser, "The Last Days of Ma and Pa Kent", tells how Supes' beloved step-parents die of a tropical disease which frustrates all his efforts to save them--this is only the second story in and already we're knee-deep in tragedy.

Others include "Superman's Mission for President Kennedy", in which Supes encourages Americans to exercise more at the behest of JFK, whom artist Al Plastino depicts in the splash as a giant smiling-but-spectral figure of the then-freshly-murdered president, and "The Sweetheart that Superman Forgot", which chronicles another doomed relationship with a woman whom our hero meets while suffering from amnesia, said woman last seen weeping over his presumed death (it's a long story), while he bitterly regrets never having found Ms. Right. Oh, and don't forget "Superman's Super-Courtship", which details more romantic swings-and-a-miss with the misses, (in one case, a Missus), and "The Impossible Mission", wherein Superboy fails to save the life of Abraham Lincoln.

There are more uplifting Superman stories here: Edmond Hamilton's "The Showdown between Luthor and Superman", Leo Dorfman's "The Superman-Batman Revenge Squads", a few others, but a lot of these are just major downers, the kind a chronic depressive like me rarely read comics for--comics (says Bully) (it's a website) should be fun!

So, a few years later (2006), when I asked myself what I could buy at the newly opened local Borders Bookstore that would just give me joy, I realized it was comic books. Then I discovered that DC was reprinting most of their '60s stuff and I started collecting them: Showcase Presents JLA, Metamorpho, Green Lantern.
But not Superman. He was kind of a pill.

Six months later, while theretofore fruitlessly browsing, wondering what to get next, I decided to give in and give "Showcase Presents: Superman Volume 1" a try.
"Hey, these stories are fun!"
So I bought the second volume, and "Showcase Presents: Supreman Family", and "Superman in the Fifties" and "SP:Superman 3". And I realized that I was now a big fan and started looking for websites where I could discuss these with other fans (I was on the internet now) and discovered STTA, and here we are; gotta make dinner, no more time to talk, just wanted to get this done, before I did.

Same here. If there's any mysterious event in the neighborhood, my wife checks Facebook to see what it was. Our scout troop has a webpage, but it's rarely updated; my wife tells me what's going on because she saw it on Facebook.

90% of the blogs I used to enjoy are dormant or offline now because Facebook is easier for the owners, and reaches more people.  Local businesses that once had to hire web designers to build them a webpage now just start a Facebook page.

Meanwhile my typical web browsing session involves visits to less than five sites, and I'm the last to hear about anything.  But hey, when there's something *good* to hear, maybe I'll regret the arrangement.

True. But is it possible to interact with other human beings without it?

In my town, the schools, the police, the fire department, and the town offices all make their announcements on Facebook.  Is school canceled due to inclement weather?  Check Facebook.  Is there a water main break in town? It is announced on Facebook. Town meeting livestream is on Facebook. Scout troop schedule and updates are posted to Facebook. etc, etc, etc.

A very sorry state of affairs.

Facebook is a sewer and you're better off out of it.   

I always viewed JLA/Avengers as a sort of apotheosis for Perez' career because, to me, he was the ultimate "crossover" artist, equal parts Marvel and DC.  Put Neal Adams or Don Newton on the Avengers or Dan Jurgens on Captain America or Thor and they were still "DC artists" to me, anyway.  Get John Buscema or John Byrne to draw Superman and they were still "Marvel artists drawing Superman."  But Perez?  He straddled the line perfectly, drawing glamorous, "pretty" faces and figures like Curt Swan, but often in dynamic, powerful poses like Jack Kirby.  Complex fictional technology, believable spaceships, beautiful women, martial arts action, idyllic domestic scenes, tender romance, he could do it all. 

I put all this in a tribute to George on my blog (http://davidmorefield.com/rip-george-perez/), but for me it was always obvious Perez genuinely *loved* comics, and it definitely came through in his work.  All the glitz and showmanship in the world is no competition for drawing from the heart, and George had a huge one.

Crummy week, indeed.

I bailed on Facebook about 9 years ago, and I've never regretted it.  But I guess that's where STTA was all this time. LOL

I'm willing to try and resurrect the message board as time allows.  I'm very much a semi-Luddite.  For me, the internet peaked in the mid-90s and I'm still pretending "social media" never happened.

Nightwing, are you still on Facebook?

Since Facebook recently deleted the Superman Through the Ages! Facebook page, I guess I'll be posting stuff here instead.

Nice to see there are others.

And many thanks for posting the link to your blog.

Yesterday, Facebook took our "Superman Through the Ages!" Facebook page offline.

I know this can happen when someone flags the page, I'm not sure if that is what happened in this case.

The last post I made was on April 30, posting David Morefield's Neal Adams Wallpaper, in memorial of Neal's recent passing.

This is what happens when automated corporate AI-bots take over the world.

Here is our new Facebook page: http://superman.nu/facebook/

 

As if the loss of Neal Adams wasn't bad enough, we also lost George Perez today. Perez was a seminal artist for both DC and Marvel. His most famous work is, of course, DC's reboot Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985. He also worked with Marv Wolfman to revitalize the Teen Titans in the early eighties and on Marvel's Avengers and even drew the DC vs. Marvel crossover in 2002. He also helped write and drew Wonder Woman's reboot in 1987. He was a legend. This has not been a good week for comic fans.