ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 11, 1997 TAG: 9702110048
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: reporter's notebook
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER
I had always pictured comic book artists as working all alone at their drawing boards, away from any corporate influences, creating many of the stories with which I grew up. It seemed the ideal way to work at home, long before the advent of computers and telecommuting. Later I would get a less romantic picture of publishers with stables of artists and writers pumping out the product at the office. So I was delighted recently to interview Blacksburg comic book artist Kevin Sharpe [Current, Jan. 26], who does indeed work the way I'd envisioned.
Inevitably, our conversation touched on the biggest comic book hero of all, and how his publisher is now changing him. The Superman-Lois Lane-Clark Kent triangle worked well for decades, especially for young male readers who felt ignored by girls but just knew, if they could doff their Clark-like images and show their true colors, those girls would fawn all over them.
Yeah, right.
When the publisher killed off Superman in 1992, it was nothing new. That had happened before, and somehow Superman always came back. "A lot of characters don't stay dead in comic books," Sharpe noted.
But this time it became a major media event. The key issue sold all 2.5 million issues in its original printing and was reprinted three times. The comeback came in 1993, with Superman flying high once again.
Now he is the focus of another media blitz: starting next month, he will have different powers (bullets, for example, will go through him instead of bouncing off), a different costume (which looks, from the advance art, like a sizzling blue-tinged bug-zapper), and no cape.
A couple of teen-age boys in Cleveland came up with the original Superman concept (no wonder it appealed to adolescent boys). It hit the stands in 1938 on the cover of "Action Comics" No. 1. The publisher thought the character so bizarre that he ordered Superman off the cover for the next five issues, although he remained the lead story inside. By the fourth issue, it became obvious that the magazine's rising sales were because of Superman. He was soon back on the cover and had his own magazine as well.
Noting that success, a rival publisher quickly brought out Wonder Man (who flew and ignored bullets like Superman, had a skin-tight costume with an emblem on his chest, but - perhaps seeing a half-century into the future - no cape). Superman's publisher sued, but the genie was out of the bottle: next came Master Man, Captain Marvel and a whole bevy of flying invulnerable superheroes (and the occasional superheroine, like Wonder Woman and Mary Marvel).
According to Mike Benton in his book, "The Comic Book in America," there have been more than 1,000 of these superheroes over the last 50 years - Batman, Flash, Hawkman, Hourman, Green Lantern, the Atom, Sub-Mariner, Captain America, Plastic Man, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk and Spider-Man, to name a few. Superman also took on Captain Marvel in court, in a suit which dragged on for some 12 years until Captain Marvel's publisher quit the comics business. In a twist, Superman's publisher acquired the rights to the character decades later and had no problem in adding him to its own lineup of costumed characters.
As mentioned, Superman has died and returned several times in the interim. He has also spawned a radio series, numerous cartoons, two movie serials, four movie features and two TV series (the current one giving Lois top billing). He and Lois have even been married in various incarnations of the super-saga. Now he is changing more radically than ever.
"There are only so many different stories before you get repetitive," Sharpe said in explanation of all the tinkering over the 50-plus years. But even he has his doubts about this latest concept. "I don't think that'll stick. You're going to see him running around with a big red 'S' again," he predicted.
LENGTH: Medium: 71 linesby CNB