Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, by Glen Weldon (2013)

A few weeks ago, we looked at Glen Weldon’s delicious The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture.  We enjoyed it so much, we moved onto Weldon’s earlier book on the world’s first superhero, Superman: The Unauthorized Biography.  With Batman, Weldon had hoped to put nerd culture into some type of larger perspective; his Superman book is less ambitious, but more focused and successful a production.  If you are a Superman buff, it is highly recommended.

We here at The Jade Sphinx have always much preferred Superman to his darker counterpart.  This is a prejudice we suspect that Weldon shares, as his book on Superman is relentlessly amusing, affectionate and reverential.  Superman’s creators, Siegel and Schuster, says Weldon, saw their creation as quite simply, the ultimate American: a Gatsby who’d arrived on a bright new shore, having propelled himself there by burning his own past as fuel.  The Old World could no longer touch him, and now it was left to him to forge his own path.  Throughout the book, Weldon’s prose seems charged with a powerful nostalgia for a simpler, and perhaps wiser, America.  One that still believed in heroes and other symbols of hope; and, we suspect, one where childish delights were viewed in perspective by adult fans, and not with the soul-crushing scrutiny of today’s Perpetual Adolescents.

One of Weldon’s strongest passages concerns science fiction writer Larry Niven’s 1971 essay on the possible outcomes of Superman having sex with Earth women.  The essay, Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex, made excruciating (and amusing)  conclusions, and it can still be found and makes for great reading.  But Weldon places this now 45 year old work in contemporary perspective:  The gag, of course, is the deadpan, painstaking manner in which Niven lays out his thought process.  This is where you end up if you take this stuff too seriously, he seems to say: killer sperm from outer space.

Looking back on Niven’s humorous essay today, it’s impossible to see it as anything but a chilling harbinger of the high-level weapons-grade nerdery that would seize comics in the decades that followed.  All too soon, legions of fans and creators adopted Niven’s let’s-pin-this-to-the-specimen-board approach and proceeded to leach humor and whimsy and good old-fashioned, Beppo the Super-Monkey-level goofiness out of superhero comics, leaving in their place a punishing, joyless, nihilistic grittiness.

Weldon sees Superman as an ever-changing figure, who always reflects a constantly evolving America.  The New Deal crusader of the late 1930s is different from the patriotic boy scout of World War II, and very different indeed from his Jet Age counterpart.  What Weldon sees as the core of Superman is not his persona, but his motivation.  And that is, simply, that Superman always puts the needs of others over those of himself, and he never gives up.  That is the definition of a hero.

Weldon also posits that Superman has long ago transcended the various media that deliver him to us: he has become an idea that is bigger than the comic books, cartoons, TV shows and movies that feature him.  It is an idea that has weathered 75 years, and Weldon predicts that will last at least another 75 more.

It is this protean quality that makes Superman much like Sherlock Holmes, Dracula or even Ebenezer Scrooge: each generation can find something new and vital to say about him, and, in doing so, say something about their own era.

Fortunately, Weldon is also laugh-out-loud funny.  We had the giggles paging through most of this book.  Here he is on the sexy aesthetic of Legion of Super-Heroes artist Mike Grell: Detractors have dinged Grell’s designs for their Ming-the-Merciless collars, bikini bottoms, and pixie boots (and that’s just on the men) – and it’s true that in some panels, Legion HQ crowd scenes seem more like the VIP lounge at Studio 54, but his designs made the book look like nothing else on the shelves.

Here he is on Superman writer Marv Wolfman’s prose: Wolfman proceeded to slather on the pathos, gilding the emotional lily so fervently it makes Dickens’s death of Little Nell read like an expense report. 

It would be hard to imagine a better guide through Superman’s complex history, and we look forward to hearing from Glen Weldon again.

Batman Breeds Thoughts on Culture High and Low, Along with Musings on the Current Cultural Crisis

Yesterday we looked at Glen Weldon’s wonderful new book, Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture, and that got us to thinking.  (Before we get to thinking, though, let’s reiterate that Weldon’s book is quite terrific and highly recommended.)  Is Batman art?  And is a deep engagement with Batman (or other facets of Nerd Culture) a worthwhile endeavor?

Before we start exploring, let’s set some ground rules.  We here at The Jade Sphinx have given serious consideration to pop fiction and film, along with kiddie books.  We have also examined literary, artistic and musical works by great masters.  Clearly, we think that pop fictions are worthy of serious consideration … but the mistake this discussion often makes is equating serious consideration with serious art. 

But that is not the case.  Kiddie lit and pop fiction can be crafted with varying degrees of artistry, but that does not necessarily make it art.  Oh, it can be art, but it does not transmute into art simply through virtue of its examination.  A doctoral thesis on Batman, for example, may result in a diploma, but the intrinsic quality of our pointed-eared friend and the body of work about him remains unchanged.

Now, the call to canonize kitsch is a relatively new phenomenon.  From the 1930s through the 1960s – a time of unprecedented media saturation – junk art for children was enjoyed by children.  In what seems was a more innocent time, there were whole industries creating art for children: comic strips and books, movie serials, radio shows, animated cartoons and hosts of literary options created expressly for everyone from beginning readers to teenagers.  Adults could sometimes dip in an appreciative toe to remember the sweet currents of youth, and may even enjoy much of the material, but to become an avid consumer of such was a sign of feeble-mindedness.

Pop fiction for adults also fully realized (and embraced) its limitations.  One well remembers Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s dedication to his 1912 novel The Lost World (a masterpiece of its kind): I have wrought my simple plan/If I give one hour of joy/To the boy who’s half a man,/Or the man who’s half a boy.  That lovely and poetic preamble is suitable for so much that came before and after, everything from Fu Manchu and Tarzan, to James Bond and Indiana Jones.  Good pop fiction can be terrific stuff: insightful, bracing, engaging and amusing.  It is not to be sneered at; nor, however, is it to be overestimated.

We are not saying, to be clear, that it is impossible for a piece of genre fiction or popular entertainment to elevate into the realm of higher art.  Wind in the Willows, The House at Pooh Corner and Peter Pan are magnificent books, transcending the designation of mere kiddie lit to soar to literary heights.  And one need only to think of Poe, of much of H.G. Wells and Robert Louis Stevenson, of Graham Greene or Dashiell Hammett, to realize that many classic novels could also be shelved in the genre sections of your local bookstore.  But, again, such company doesn’t elevate a genre en toto.

But over the last few decades what has changed in the culture at large is a flight from adulthood and complexity, from the challenges of great art and great beauty, and a retreat into comfortable and childish enthusiasms.  Worse than that, consumers of pop culture are demanding that attention not only be paid, but that entry to the Canon is fair and just.  And, in so doing, they debase the wonderful raw power of pop fiction, and the innocence of kiddie lit.

In the 1990s, I was frankly amazed at the adult craze for Harry Potter books.  This is in no way to say that these books were bad, but they were written for children, and a deep identification with them signifies a lack of seriousness.  Worse still, as more and more adults read them, the books lost more and more of their grounding in a child’s world, ending with what was to be the Gotterdammerung of kiddie books.  It became almost impossible to read the last novel in the corpus and remember that it all started with some kids playing ball from atop some brooms.

Much the same thing for adults who obsess over Batman.  It is adults (of questionable maturity) who have demanded the darker, brooding, psychopathic Batman.  It was the same adults who have consigned the sunnier, smiling, and more optimistic Superman into oblivion, insufficiently violent or complex and now hopelessly passé.

What these adults playing with children’s toys forget is that amusements made for children cannot bear the weight they wish to impose upon them.  We are supposed to move on from the amusements of our youth to more challenging, complex and elevating fare.  Enjoy them as palette cleaners, but then get onto the main meal.  The answer is not to make Batman relevant to adults (an impossibility), but to embrace the challenge of real adult art. 

And, again, read and look at what you want.  But a steady diet of aesthetic and cultural junk is much like a steady diet of junk food: it will significantly impair your physical and mental health, greatly diminish your quality of life, and, in the long run, it will kill you.

Now, we make our children’s entertainment for adults.  I can think of few more damming condemnations of us as a culture and as a people that we actually make Batman or Superman movies that are so violent … that children cannot see them. Stop for a moment and ponder how … impossible that would have been as little as 50 years ago.  The idea of a “serious” Batman movie would have been met with well-deserved derision.  But not today.  The cheapening of our culture since the 1960s (and the concomitant tenets of aesthetic relativity), have made this dumbing down not only possible, but inevitable.  The highest grossing films of the year are blockbusters based on 40 year old superhero comics.  This lack of adulthood has poisoned our language, our music, our political discourse. 

This corruption has bled into everything.  For example, in the just-released Against Democracy, a political screed published by Princeton University Press (!), author Jason Brennan breaks the body politic into three classes:  hobbits, hooligans and vulcans. 

Hobbits…?  Vulcans...?  Really?  Is that what 21^st Century adulthood has become?

I love pop fiction.  And when pop fiction is working on all cylinders, it can be wonderful, terrific and … art of a kind.  But it’s like a twinkie: I’ll eat them, but it’s not my sole diet.  And if the very notion of adulthood is to survive, we have to get back to the business of serious art, or our emotional, intellectual and philosophical selves are finished.

Tomorrow: James Bond – it aint art, but nobody does it better.

The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture, by Glen Weldon

We should start, as most any writing about Batman must start, with a confession.  As I write these words, I am wearing a Batman watch.  And, perhaps more to the point, I own two pairs of Batman socks.

Batman socks.

I know.  I know.

So it is with more than a touch of self-awareness that we read Glen Weldon’s funny, insightful and lacerating look at Batman and Batfans, The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture.  If you are going to read only one book about Batman and the fanatical devotion he inspires, make it this one.  Weldon is the perfect guide through the world of Batmania: erudite, accessible, and more than a little snarky.  Even if you have only a fleeting interest in either Batman or the hermetic world(s) of fandom, you will find this book irresistible.

Weldon shares my sense of discomfort, as well as my submission to delicious junk.  While Your Correspondent has railed against cultural decay with a Batman watch on his wrist, Weldon looks at his toy reproduction of the 1960s Batmobile upon his desk, and wonders what his hardworking grandfather would make of a 45 year old man gloating over a Battoy.  Weldon justifiably dubs us The Lamest Generation, but the good humor of the jest does not sponge away the indictment.

Weldon works his way through the gestation of Batman, showing the many influences he co-opted en route to his final realization: The Shadow, Dick Tracy, and more than a bit of Flash Gordon.  He also takes a no-prisoners stance on the contribution of Batman “creator” Bob Kane (1915-1998), who, it seems, did little more than come up with the name.  Then, stealing art and layouts and harnessing the talents of various writers (and more gifted draughtsmen), Kane managed to mint a fortune in coin through his creation and ceaseless self-marketing. 

Weldon is crystal clear in his assertion that, as conceived, Batman is a protector of Moneyed Interests; it is not just tenor and tone that made early Batman the antithesis of Superman, but inherent philosophy, as well.  Kane, a poor Jewish boy from the Bronx, dreamt of a world of socialites, supper clubs and celebrity, and Batman delivered that to Kane in spades.  Oddly enough, Batfans tend to find Batman more “relatable” than Superman, arguing that most anyone can become like Batman though application, discipline and hard work.  Weldon dismisses those risible fantasies, arguing that one of Batman’s key superpowers is his incredible wealth.  Without it, the entire world of Batman would be impossible.  (Left unsaid: the strange irony that Superman has steadily diminishing cultural currency in a world of growing economic inequality.)

Weldon manages to touch upon every era and incarnation of Batman, from grim avenger in his first-year, to smiling scout master in the 40s and 50s.  His affection for the 1960s Batman television series is sincere and well-placed; and he chronicles how much of the Batman material to follow in comics and movies are a response against that show and its astonishing success.

The 80s saw the most dramatic change in Batman: he was more than just a grim avenger of the night, but an out-and-out violent psychopath.  The comics grew increasingly dark and nihilistic and, strangely, this is the stuff that hardcore Batman fans seemed to relish the most.  Batman fans were serious, and Batman was serious, and what better way to demonstrate seriousness of intent than a wallow in testosterone-driven, adolescent nihilism?  Or, as Weldon so wonderfully puts it:

What these fans saw when they looked at Batman was the object of their childhood love legitimized.  It was as if Winnie the Pooh had escaped the Hundred-Acre Wood and run amuck on the mean streets of New York.  Where he brutally mauled Piglet.  And ate Christopher Robin’s face off.

Because that would be real.  That would be badass.

His assessments of the Batman films are largely spot-on, though Your Correspondent disagrees with his dismissal of Tim Burton’s Batman Returns (1992), an arch gothic fantasia that seems to get better every year.  Weldon finds most of the Batman films of a piece – all rather dark and somber, but not necessarily good.  His affection for the animated Batman series is as great as his love for the 1960s show, though motivated by different aesthetics.  Weldon finds the animated Batman series to be the perfect fusion of obsessive, fannish desires, and the good, uncluttered story-telling necessary for non-obsessives.  More importantly, the animated series gave Batman back to the children, an audience that the comic book industry turned its back on long ago.

Weldon argues that Batman is very much an inkblot, and readers and viewers see in him what they bring to him.  He also posits that Batman changes with the times, and that the Batman of each succeeding era is both a reaction to, and a comment on, the times that generate him.  (In this regard, Batman is very much like Sherlock Holmes and Dracula – a core idea that can be continually reinterpreted in changing times.)  It is this protean quality that has ensured Batman’s longevity; and it is a crucial fact that hardcore Batfans seem to miss.

The key beauties of Weldon’s book are his chronicle of fannish reactions to each new incarnation of Batman, and how the Internet harnessed fannish power to be a powerful cultural force.

Weldon calls fans Nerds (a handy shorthand), and non-fans Normals (not quite so felicitous).  Nerds see the object of their affections as a deep and murky pool in which they happily swim, looking for inconsistencies, searching for new insights in the darker eddies, and creating little fiefdoms within the turgid waters.  Normals want to swim in a clean pool in which they can see bottom, then get on with their normal day.

For Nerds, Batman (or Star Trek or Dr. Who or ….. insert the nerdish obsession of your choice here),is more than a comic book and movie property, but a way of life, a religion.  And while they delight in his cross-cultural (and out-of-fandom) successes, there always remains an undercurrent of resentment.  A Nerd loves indiscriminately, but jealously.  Weldon argues that when mainstream culture appropriates a source of Nerd-love, he feels as if someone is telling HIS joke in a roomful of strangers, telling it badly, and still getting a better laugh.

Filmmakers now attempt Batman at their peril; as scripts, costume choices and plot points will be endlessly debated and the film judged (and often executed) on the Web before it’s released.  The proprietary feeling Batfans have for the Caped Crusader has been largely responsible for the manner in which the character has been stewarded over the last 35 years or so.  In short, the fans have been making the creative choices, and most of them have been dire.  Weldon believes this is finally beginning to correct itself as greater diversity in fandom is leading to a wider range of “acceptable” Batmans … but time will tell.

Perhaps my sole criticism of this involving and amusing book is that Weldon chronicles the rise of fandom, but fails to put it into any kind of perspective.  The first Comic-Con in 1970, for example, had some 100 attendees.  In 2015, that number was 170,000. What happened to us as a culture and a people to drive those numbers up so high, and what does it mean today to be a fan of anything?  And if we all love junk … do we have any passion left for weightier material?  Has online technology enabled us to trap ourselves in a perpetual adolescence?

Tune in tomorrow [same Bat-time, same Bat-channel; sorry, can’t help it] while we try to answer some of those questions.

Ollie’s Odyssey by William Joyce

Many artists reach a plateau and stay there, revisiting the same themes or visions, never expanding, never stretching, never evolving with their work.  And then there are those lucky few artists – which includes writers, graphic artists, musicians and performers – who continually grow, develop and stretch their capabilities.

Into that happy few we must count author, illustrator, animator William Joyce (born 1957).  After creating some of the most beautiful picture books of the 1990s, Joyce then branched off into his other love, filmmaking, and helped design a number of memorable films (including Toy Story), before branching out into production himself.  He also started the company Moonbot to make apps, games, animated shorts – anything, in fact, to which he could harness his storytelling genius.  Located in Louisiana, Moonbot is a human-scale Disney, where talented artists, writers and filmmakers create the next generation of children’s classics.

His first love, though, remains books.  He started a series of picture books and prose novels that detailed the origins of such childhood myths as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny called The Guardians of Childhood, and he has now served up a new original novel with illustrations, Ollie’s Odyssey.  It is his most daring and interesting prose novel to date, and a significant demonstration of his ever-increasing capabilities.

Ollie’s Odyssey is all about a kid named Billy and his special relationship with his toy, a ragdoll his mother made named Ollie.  During a wedding party, Ollie is kidnapped by the minions of an evil toy, the demented clown Zozo.  Billy must sneak out of his home at night and trace his lost friend, a journey that leads him to a deserted underground carnival, to a confrontation with a horde of menacing reconfigured toys, and to a final battle royale led by Ollie and some odds and ends who form a junk army.

In outline, it would seem as if Ollie’s Odyssey would be just another kid’s adventure story.  But Joyce uses this framework to write a deeply moving tale about growing up, the inevitability of change, loss and, perhaps most important, the power of memory.  Rather than a stock villain, Zozo has become twisted through the loss of his beloved ballet dancer-doll.  He is a tragic-villain, fully formed and compelling enough for the most adult fiction.  Similarly, Billy and Ollie fear changes to their friendship as Billy ages, and Ollie wonders what becomes of toys that are no longer loved.  The coming end for their partnership does not mitigate in any way the love they have for one another, but it does add a tragic dimension unusual for kiddie fare.  Joyce also talks about resurrection and rebirth during the junkyard sequence, where now useless bric-a-brac takes on new life and new identity to help Ollie and save Billy.  It is a stunning juggling act: Joyce has written a profoundly moving and emotionally resonant novel in the guise of a children’s book.

Just as Joyce has previously illustrated his picture books with dazzling watercolor work, and then branched out into both line drawings and computer illustration, Ollie’s Odyssey tests his versatility with a series of charcoal drawings – a medium he has not used in his published work before.  The illustrations of Ollie’s Odyssey are unlike those of any of Joyce’s previous work, and fit the overall emotional tenor of the story beautifully.  Charcoal brings a gritty, tactile sense to this tale of fuzzy friends and frayed castoffs that would be missing from glossier modes of illustration.  He also used the paper upon which he drew to great effect, allowing what would normally be the white ‘tooth’ of the paper to soak up computer-added color.  The book is also beautifully designed by Joyce with chapter heads in bold red crayon, and different colored papers representative of different characters and scenes. 

As with much of Joyce’s oeuvre, his latest book can be savored by adults as well as children. A man who loves popular art immoderately (and wears that love on his sleeve), Joyce peppers Ollie’s Odyssey with echoes of titans and works that come before.   Attuned readers will catch bits of filmmakers Todd Browning and Lon Chaney, hints of the classic Universal Monsters with a touch of The Island of Lost Souls, a healthy smattering of Ray Bradbury, and shout-outs to everything from the original King Kong to Batman Returns to The Magnificent Seven.  Indeed, the final image of the book is a direct rift on John Ford’s mighty ending for The Searchers … and one wonders if Joyce is writing for adults who have kept their inner child alive and well, or if he writes for children who will one day make more adult connections.

Ollie’s Odyssey is a bigger, grander, more ambitious book than anything that Joyce has attempted before, and he rises to the occasion splendidly.  It is certainly the finest of his prose novels, and one cannot but wonder what this protean talent has in store for us in future years.

While we are delighted that Joyce has spread his abilities into so many different areas, it is perhaps in books that devotees get the fullest distillation of his talents.  His written and illustrated works are the least collaborative of his output, and capture his philosophy best.  That view of life has been changing and evolving over time – that William Joyce names his protagonist Billy is surely no accident – and if the man himself can emerge from the crucible of experience with his sense of wonder intact, what is he not capable of?  And what, he asks, are any of us not capable of?  It’s that sense of possibility, that childlike sense of limitless adventure, that the world is filled with things to delight each and every one of us, that is the essence of Bill Joyce.

Ollie’s Odyssey is highly recommended to kids, old people, and everyone in between.

Batman The War Years: 1939-1945, Edited by Roy Thomas

This stunning companion volume to Superman The War Years: 1938-1945 is equally satisfying to buffs of vintage comic books and antiquated super heroics.  Once again, comics historian Roy Thomas provides a thoughtful and provocative introduction, as well as overviews of each section, sharing historical context and insight into various editorial decisions taken at the time.

Batman The War Years: 1939-1945 shares the same powerful design (this is one beautiful book), and also contains about 20 original comics, covers and newspaper stories.  While much of this material has been reprinted elsewhere and more authoritatively, this volume provides an excellent overview of this period in Batman’s life.  It is also a delicious look at the world of comics during the War years -- if you are interested in the world of 1940s heroics, look no further.

While Superman could not obviously join the war effort because of his superpowers (how could writers, even in the realm of comics, maintain a fraction of plausibility when Superman could end the war in moments?), Batman and Robin were excluded by virtue of their secret identities.  Beneath the cowl and mask, Batman and Robin were mere mortals – their efficacy as crusaders would be lost.  Additionally, as masked vigilantes working largely at night, they were invaluable to the home front, tracking down spies, saboteurs and Fifth Columnists.  (One wonders what Robin discussed with his friends during recess…)

When not battling Nazis and “Japs,” Batman and Robin had more recherché adventures, such as preventing Atlantis from allying with the Nazis or appearing before the U.S. Senate to provide hardened criminals a chance to work on the war effort.  (Even the Joker contributed his own brand of twisted genius against the Axis Menace; your ideology is uniquely twisted if the Joker finds it objectionable.)  I must confess that I was delighted by the selection of stories, and charmed by the fearless storytelling.

Several writers and artists contributed to these tales, including Batman creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson, Dick Sprang, George Roussos, Don Cameron and Jack and Ray Burnley.  And the stories and art have not been altered to appease our Politically Correct times, so if you like your vintage entertainment unadulterated, look no further.

Finally, a brief word on the Batman to be found in this volume.  Few figures loom larger on the pop cultural landscape than Batman.  But it’s important to remember that Batman, like Superman before him, are not fictional constructs created – and closely held – by an individual author.  Rather, these are corporate entities, fashioned to morph and change over time to remain culturally relevant.  There has been much hoo-haw over the years about which depiction of Batman is the truest or most correct, but such an idea is silly and pointless.  The Batman of the War Years is already dramatically different from the earlier Batman of the late 1930s, who will also be different from the Batman of the 1960s, and the 1980s.  There is no correct representation of Batman, as Batman is, more correctly, a representation of his times.

The Batman in this book is a smiling, scout master Batman who was friendly, capable and accessible.  If you are looking for the psychotic bully that is popular today, look elsewhere.  Despite a world war, global catastrophe and real challenges here on the home front, the America of the 1940s was a much more optimistic place than the America of 2016.  There’s a reason it’s called The Greatest Generation, and that optimism and can-do attitude in the face of extraordinary adversity may well be the reason.  Perhaps it’s time we got Bat to basics…

Hollywoodland (2006)

Our recent trip to the New York Historical Society and our glimpse of the costume George Reeves (1914-1959) wore during his titular stint on The Adventures of Superman (1952-1958), got us thinking about that noteworthy and rather sad talent.

There are many today who sneer at Reeve’s performance as Clark Kent/Superman, most of them too young to have seen the show during its original run, or even in reruns.  A quick view at the comments section of science fiction junk-news site www.io9.com, for instance, would reveal pimply basement-dwellers labeling Reeves as creepy, fey, lightweight or overweight.  This is, of course, a sad commentary on contemporary science fiction buffs.  In a world where Superman films are grim, ponderous affairs, where superheroes are treated with a weight and reverence denied even the greatest of literary classics, certainly the talents of a man like Reeves would be unwelcome. 

However, sometimes it’s the times, and not the levels of artistry, that are off track.  Reeve was the perfect Superman for what was fundamentally a different (and better) America.  In the absence of identity politics, and buttressed by an intelligent and informed middle-brow, middle-class, it was possible to attack comic book material with both sincerity and fun without slipping into pretention and flummery.

Reeves was a player with an easy smile (indeed, a high-octane smile), a gentle demeanor and a true Everyman accessibility.  His Superman was decent, kind, concerned and engaged.  He was also distinctly American, back when American idealism and values actually, to some degree, existed.  One well remembers Reeves as an angry Superman chasing away a mob of rednecks who wanted to murder some rather child-like people from the Earth’s core.  “You’re acting like Nazi Stormtroopers!”

Better still was Reeves’ take on Clark Kent.  Rather than the high-voiced milquetoast heard on radio, and later essayed by his successor, Christopher Reeve (1952-2004), Reeves’ Kent is a confident, capable investigative reporter, more than equal to most any occasion.  One often wondered why Superman was needed at all – with this Kent on the job, things were already on track for a just resolution.  (This is essential if one is going to understand Superman rather than, say, Batman.  The benign, decent and crusading Clark Kent is the real human being, and Superman merely the disguise.  Batman, though, is the real human being, or what is left of one, and Bruce Wayne merely a convenient fiction.)

The great tragedy of Reeves was his untimely death, deemed a suicide, though clouded by mystery to this day.  This incident has haunted many Baby-Boomers for decades, (for instance, Frank Dello Stritto writes about it eloquently in his recent book, I Saw What I Saw When I Saw It), and has fueled the speculations of countless armchair detectives.

So it is no surprise that Hollywood would eventually attempt to tell the story itself.  The resulting film, Hollywoodland, written by Paul Bernbaum and directed by Allen Coulter, is a hit-and-miss affair, but it does manage to remain affective and poignant.

To tell the story, Bernbaum creates a fictional frame to tell the actual facts: a down-on-his-luck private eye named Louis Simo (Adrien Brody) is hired by Reeves’ mother (Lois Smith).  She is convinced that Reeves would never have killed himself; Simo takes the case to win back the affection of his ex-wife (Mollly Parker) and son (Zach Mills). 

The trail leads him into the world of Hollywood high-rollers Eddie Mannix (Bob Hoskins), general manager at MGM, and his wife Toni (Diane Lane), who was Reeves’ longtime lover.

Brody is miserably miscast as the gumshoe, a part more suited to the melancholy talents of someone like the late Robert Mitchum (1917-1997).  (The framing device of Simo never really takes off, either, and one wonders why Bernbaum thought it necessary.)  Hoskins maintains a dangerous edge of menace and animal cunning … it would be an intrepid (or stupid) man who tangled with him.

Lane is nothing short of magnificent as Toni Mannix, a bottomless pit of doubt, need and self-pity.  Her hungers and humiliations are uncomfortably real, and it’s stunning for an adult actress to allow herself to appear so naked and vulnerable.  Why this performance wasn’t considered Oscar-worthy is a great injustice.

However, the film belongs completely to Ben Affleck (born 1972), who plays Reeves in flashback.  While not as winning or innocently charming as Reeves himself, Affleck successfully channels the late actor’s nonchalance, his easy manner and his doughy sensuality.  An inherently decent man in an indecent place, Reeves’ life spirals out of control as he loses his career, his self-respect, and his own self-image.  It’s a complex and ingratiating performance, and Affleck has never been better.

Finally, the reason Hollywoodland works so well is the reason so many superhero films are disappointing: this film relies upon complex human relationships and often contradictory emotional attachments.  It’s an internal drama, rather than an empty spectacle, and it details the inner turmoil of a real super man.

Superheroes in Gotham at the New York Historical Society

The oldest museum in New York City is also one of its finest: The New York Historical Society.  This terrific venue on the Upper West Side just across the street from Central Park routinely creates stunning exhibitions, all of them in some way connecting to New York.

The museum also regularly provides film shows (the life’s blood of any museum – there is nothing better for cultivating a crowd of ‘regulars’), free lectures, and special events and days for children; it is, in short, as much as a cultural center as an exhibition space.  The smartest museums have come to realize that even the finest exhibitions draw only so many people; it is continuing programs and attractions that drive membership and attendance, and the NYSH has managed this balance with a savvy mix of dignity and razzmatazz.

There is a terrific show at the NYHS right now that shouldn’t be missed.  Regular readers of The Jade Sphinx know of our interest in the history of comic strips and comic books, as well as our soft-spot for those Titans in long underwear, superheroes.  Deftly curated by Debra Schmidt Bach and Nina Nazionale, Superheroes in Gotham argues that superheroes and New York are inseparable.

The show opens, of course, with the first and greatest of them all, Superman.  Created by youngsters Jerry Siegel and Joel Schuster, Superman’s adopted base of operations, Metropolis, is clearly a stand-in for the Big Apple.  (In fact, some of the earliest stories are set in New York, rather than Metropolis.)  We move quickly onto Batman, where Gotham City is certainly New York’s seedier sections, at night.  (An old DC Comics editorial guide used to insist that writers think of Metropolis as New York around Rockefeller Plaza, and Gotham as New York, under 14^th Street.)

The show then charts the rise of heroes who are explicitly New Yorkers, including Brooklynite Captain America, Queens-boy Spider-Man and Iron Man, with his Manhattan home and Lone Island offices.

For a small show (three good-sized rooms), Bach and Nazionale have densely packed their treasures.  On hand is the original costume of George Reeves (1914-1959), worn during his run on television’s The Adventures of Superman (1952-1958), as well as Julie Newmar’s Catwoman suit from the series, Batman (1966-1968).  There is stunning production art created for the Batman series, original drawings of Superman by artist Schuster, pages of original Spider-Man art (by controversial artist Steve Ditko), as well as Jerry Siegel’s typewriter, incubator for the very first superhero stories.

Also on hand are original animation cells, film posters, schoolbooks featuring doodles and/or finished drawings by comic artists while still schoolkids themselves, and a host of other treasures, including the Batmobile used by Adam West (born 1928) in the television series. 

It’s not surprising that the genre was born here in Gotham.  This Metropolis was the home to many of its creators; in fact, of the first generation of creators, Will Eisner (1917-2005), Stan Lee (born 1922), Bob Kane (1915-1998) and Bill Finger (1914-1974) had all attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx.

The exhibition underscores beautifully how essential to the overall myth of the superhero New York City has become.  Larger-than-life heroes need a suitably large background canvas, and New York has so often been shorthand for the grandiose, the dramatic and, sometimes, the absurd.

There is also a raw energy on hand here that comics (and superheroes) no longer seem to possess.  It is as if the cauldron of the Great Depression, a gleaming art deco city (home to the world’s tallest building), and a still-possible American dream galvanized a legion of First Generation Americans to actually create our myths for us.  These have since been corrupted into mere corporate commodities, made slick and unmemorable by loud, over-produced films and stridently-seeking-relevance comic books.  But that crude power found in the original works is astonishing to behold.

If comics and superheroes are both as exciting and oddly poignant to you as they are to us, then this is a show not to be missed.  It runs until February 21, and more information can be found here:  www.nyhistory.org.

Some Notes on the Christmas Spirit

A Christmas Illustration By William Joyce, Holiday Artist Deluxe

Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy 2015 to all of our friends and readers.

We here at The Jade Sphinx are in the Christmas spirit – and have been for several weeks now, despite the fact that our neighborhood, our city and our country seem to be in a fairly dire place.  Our lives are very disrupted and in constant flux….

But we are still in the Christmas Spirit.  But, at this late date, just what does the Christmas Spirit mean? 

Well … I’m one of those people who is always predisposed to be happy.  I’m a happy man.  And, though I’m most happy at Christmas, I don’t think that’s quite the reason.

I think, for me, being in the Christmas Spirit is being aware of our time and the experience of being alive, and then enjoying it.  Being aware of passing time encourages you to be grateful for the many blessings that you have, for still being alive, for realizing that the world, no matter how terrible things sometimes are, is full of wonders and marvels.  It means reconnecting with the young person that you were, and seeing the world through the eyes of a child.  Of realizing possibilities, of feeling joy, of remembering that we are all human beings who are somehow inter-connected.  And of being happy – even when you don’t want to be.

In short, Christmas is a time for recognizing the miracle of our lives.

And, to be honest, I simply adore all the things that come with Christmas.  I love Christmas trees.  I love Christmas music – both traditional carols and popular Christmas songs.  I love the decorations and the garland and the mistletoe.  I love tinsel.  I love the traditions that are hundreds of years old that are briefly given life once again, only to immediately fade from our modern world.  I love the way people change and the kindnesses and recognition of the season.  I love the whole thing – it’s the centerpiece of my year.

Christmastime is an oasis.  An oasis not just in the course of the year, but in the course of our lives.  In the course of 2014 we did many things.  But Christmastime is a period that is completely removed from that bustle of activity.  It is a brief moment when people really do seem to be of good cheer, and to recognize one another and to live, too briefly, a little differently.  For me personally, it's a moment to reconnect with my sense of wonder, because wonder throbs through Christmastime like a powerful current hums through a high-power cable.  And, more importantly, it's a moment for me to realize that I'm alive, and that's a pretty terrific and wondrous thing.

We will resume blogging in the New Year!  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Batman says, "and I don't smell!"

We Visit Barnes & Noble

When your correspondent lived on the Upper West Side of New York, one of the happiest places on earth was the Lincoln Center Barnes & Noble.  Many an hour (and many the dollar) was spent there in satisfied bliss.  Few things are more wonderful than browsing the stacks of a major bookstore, discovering new authors, or finding books by already beloved names. 

Being Barnes & Noble, there was also an extensive remainder section, for those interested in cheap books (and who isn’t?), as well as one of the most elaborate children’s books sections in the city.  What bliss.

Sadly, that Barnes & Noble was closed to make way for a Century 21, a clothing store.  Sigh.  I suppose we must have clothes, too, but they are a poor substitute for books.  (Indeed, one must be careful before some entrepreneur creates wearable books…)

After moving uptown – aesthetically and culturally the greatest mistake of your correspondent’s life – bookstores became scarcer.  It was only by zipping through other parts of town that I could dip into the Union Square Barnes & Noble, or, better still, Books of Wonder in the West Village or the Strand in the East.  (Both stores should be consecrated, and rest on hallowed ground.)  So, it was with a great deal of anticipation that we prepared to head to the Barnes & Noble on West 82^nd to hear a talk presented by the authors Grand Opera: The Story of the Met.  The presentation was wonderful.  Sadly, the bookstore was not.

Though I am willing to admit that I am cranky and out of touch, I was amazed at how bookstores have morphed and degraded into high-end junk shops.  Don’t believe me?  Well, there on the parlor level of what is now, probably, the flagship B&N store, book-buyers can select Batman, Superman or Green Lantern figures.  Fortunately, Dickens doesn’t take up too much space.

Nearby, there are rows upon rows of Party Games.  Beyond that, Jigsaw Puzzles.  Standing silent sentinel in a center aisle are Star Wars light sabers and Dr. Who toys.  Not to mention a whole section of This Season’s Must-Play Games.

The café on the top floor does a brisk business, and yards of space has been cleared away to make room for a Nook kiosk, to sell the Barnes & Noble Kindle knockoff. 

And room for actual books shrinks…

I know that the book world has changed, and that the Internet and books to download have altered the landscape forever.  Bibliophiles and aesthetes are a dying breed, and New York’s book-culture is a shadow of its former self.  (New York was once the epicenter of the book world; no such place exists any longer.)  But we here at the Jade Sphinx are always too well aware of what we lose with every technological gain.  And the death of the hard-copy book trade – which was, for all intents and purposes, just abandoned by both the industry and book-buyers – may be a cultural and intellectual blow from which we may never recover.

While I love Manybooks.net (and own two Kindle devices), there is less serendipity book-shopping online than there is in a physical bookstore.  How many readers have browsed through the stacks only to find just the ‘right’ book ‘magically’ fall into their hands?  Or, have run into authors, neighbors or other interesting people?  (Two of the most interesting conversations I’ve had in bookstores were with actors David Warner and Richard Thomas, both of whom I ran into at the now-gone Lincoln Center Barnes & Noble.)  Or make a realization paging through a random volume that left shockwaves rippling through life for years to come?

Better yet, who does not get a thrill running a hand over a new book, holding it close and inhaling its heady ink and new binding smell?  Or marveling at brightly colored illustrations in a new children’s book?  Or just being surrounded by books – a sensation both sensual and homey.

Geraldine Brooks wrote:  for to know a man's library is, in some measure, to know his mind.  As the once-great bookstores of our once-great cities recede before dwindling away completely, can the same be said for our minds?

The Lone Ranger Riders Again!

This week, we will abandon our usual Fine Arts mandate to observe the 80^th anniversaries of several glorious examples of American Pop Culture.

So as not to disappoint usual Jade Sphinx readers who expect a certain amount of grousing about the deplorable conditions of the world in which we live – let me take this moment to pour the mixture as before.  At one time, American Pop Culture was a great and glorious thing: though made to be disposable and never with the pretentions of High Art, occasionally Pop Art created things of great and lasting beauty.  The Great American Songbook, for example, was art of the most popular kind … and may end up being our sole, enduring legacy.   Movies, too, when they were made for adults and weren’t special-effects laden pap made to sell toys, were also Pop Art of a significant and lasting kind.  All of this, of course, was before the rot set in.  Today, “disposable” is perhaps the kindest thing that can be said for the rancid and diseased corruption crafted to amuse the groundlings in our movie theaters and in front of their television sets.  The fall from Cole Porter to rap music, or from Ernst Lubitsch to J. J. Abrams is a precipitous one – and quite possibly fatal.

But as potent as music and movies were in the 1920s-through-1960 or so, so were pulp magazines and radio drama.  Many people today consider pulp magazines to be the precursors of comics, but that’s an oversimplification of a more intellectually challenged time.  In fact, pulp magazines were monthly novels and short story collections – already more demanding of even the most casual reader than comics – and the magazines could be devoted to western stories or science fiction or romance or detective tales or the recurring adventures of a single character, like The Shadow or Doc Savage.  (More on Doc later this week.)

Similar to the pulps and equally important was radio drama.  Before television, people sat around their radios … looking at them.  Radio was truly a theater of mind because gifted actors and often brilliant sound effects men were utterly invisible to the listener.  It was the art of the radio writer to create landscapes out of the airwaves and people them with compelling stories and captivating characters.  Unlike the spoon-fed tosh found on any (most? all?) television stations, radio drama demanded from the audience attention, imagination, and most of all, participation.

Few radio icons have left a deeper or more mythic footprint on our subconscious than The Lone Ranger. Created by writer Fran Striker (1903-1962), The Lone Ranger first appeared in 1933 on radio station WXYZ, owned by George W. Trendle (1884-1972), who also claimed credit for creating the Ranger.  The show was an enormous hit – it was geared towards kids, but more than half of the audience was made up of adults.  The show would last on radio until 1954 – but, as is often the case, the Lone Ranger was to ride again in a television show from 1949 to 1957.  The Lone Ranger was also the subject of two movie serials, three motion pictures (with a fourth one on the way), and one execrable TV movie.

The Lone Ranger also was featured in eight novels by Striker, countless comic books and Big-Little-Books, and the daydreams of boys without number, including your correspondent.

Though the mythos has often been tweaked over the past 80 years, the basic origin of the Lone Ranger remains the same.  He was one of a band of Texas Rangers who were ambushed in Bryant’s Gap by the notorious Butch Cavendish gang.  All the other rangers died in the attack; their bodies found by an American Indian named Tonto.

Tonto buried all of the rangers, and also made a fake grave for the surviving ranger, so that Butch and other bad men of the West would not seek him out and finish the job.  As Tonto said, “you only ranger left; you Lone Ranger.”

Donning a mask to keep his identity a secret, the Lone Ranger and Tonto first set out to bring Cavendish to justice.  And when that job was completed, the duo realized that – having no real fixed or official identities – that they could…. well, as various announcers for the series said, With his faithful Indian companion, Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early Western United States. Nowhere in the pages of history can one find a greater champion of justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. From out of the past come the thundering hoof-beats of the great horse Silver. The Lone Ranger rides again!

The Lone Ranger is a remarkable creation for a number of reasons.  First off, Striker and company obliviously hit some kind of nerve in creating a kiddie show character that so resonated with adults.  To understand the Lone Ranger’s popularity at the time with both children and adults, think of our contemporary obsession with Batman – and then realize that the Lone Ranger was even more popular in his prime.

I suspect that one of the reasons for this is that the Ranger was his own man in his own time.  He had no secret identity (at least, not once his life changed so dramatically), he had no hideout or regular supporting cast, he had no superpowers that rendered him ridiculous.  And, more importantly, he had freedom.  The Lone Ranger and Tonto ride the West without thought of the necessities of making money or advancing careers or of the real needs of wives and children.  They were free men in a seemingly more free time.

They also were equal partners.  Most people unfamiliar with the actual radio or television series believe Tonto was a monosyllabic stooge; but actually listening or watching the series would dispel this notion.  Tonto was the Ranger’s superior in woodcraft and outdoorsmanship, and was an excellent scout and information resource. More often than not, it was Tonto who did the initial reconnaissance and told the Ranger who and where the villains could be found.  It was also a true friendship – both men cared for and loved each other.  (As is often the case with these long-lasting sagas, there is some debate as to how the two actually met.  The adopted story is that they were boyhood friends and it was chance that brought Tonto to Bryant’s Gap after the ambush.  Each man calls the other Kemo Sabe, which means “faithful friend.”)

Another key, I think, was the duo’s famous mounts, Silver and Scout.  Tonto rode Scout, an incredibly capable paint horse, but the Ranger rode a magnificent white stallion, Silver.  The Ranger rescued Silver when the horse was beset by an enraged Buffalo, and then Silver would never leave his side.  The Lone Ranger also used silver bullets, and the overriding theme of silver helped underscore the character’s sense of purity.

Most famously, the Ranger had a very strict moral code.  The Lone Ranger never took a life, never shot to kill, never took unfair advantage.  Today, a concept like that would never fly, when even the most innocent of family movies have a high body count.  But these were different times and a different America – a more aspirational land when we wanted people to emulate rather than feel smugly superior.

I had the great good fortune to interview Clayton Moore (1914-1999) who played the Lone Ranger on television and in two feature films, around the time he wrote his autobiography, I Was That Masked Man.  Aside from being an amusing and intelligent man, the thing that stuck most with me was how he felt the Ranger had changed his life.  While no saint, Moore spoke candidly of how he tried to “live up to” the Ranger and his ideals.  The stories of Moore taking his role very seriously are legendary – a particularly amusing one can be found here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFabfnfhIaY.

When closing the interview, Moore, in complete sincerity, asked if I would like for him to recite the Lone Ranger’s Code.  How could I refuse!  Taking a pause, Clayton Moore/The Lone Ranger said:

I believe...

That to have a friend, a man must be one.

That all men are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world.

That God put the firewood there, but that every man must gather and light it himself.

In being prepared physically, mentally, and morally to fight when necessary for that which is right.

That a man should make the most of what equipment he has.

That 'this government of the people, by the people, and for the people' shall live always.

That men should live by the rule of what is best for the greatest number.

That sooner or later...somewhere...somehow...we must settle with the world and make payment for what we have taken.

That all things change but truth, and that truth alone, lives on forever.

In my Creator, my country, my fellow man.

I will be the first to admit that there was as much corn as gold in our Golden Age of Pop Culture.  However… there is something about the Lone Ranger that still resonates, still has the capacity to touch some more innocent and hopeful self.  And I say without shame and certainly without irony that I miss him.

Who was that Masked Man?  He was the best part of ourselves.

We Go to a Comic Book Store

It is completely without shame that I confess I loved comic books as a boy.  (And have been known to read some of them in my adulthood with satisfaction.)  In the 1970s, I regularly read such comics (or black-and-white comic magazines, which were my preference) as The Shadow, Doc Savage, Planet of the Apes, Tomb of Dracula, House of Mystery, Sherlock Holmes (sadly, never lasting more than an issue or two), and even The Hulk.  And, to this day, I have a deep and abiding affection for Superman.  Even as a boy, I thought Superman was the great American success story.  An immigrant raised in America’s heartland, he took our national myth to heart and made himself into the embodiment of all that is good about us.  (I was also beglamoured by visions of his lost planet Krypton, which was often portrayed as a 1930s art deco-inspired wonderland.  If heaven exists and mirrors our expectations, for me it would resemble Krytpon to no little degree.)

Clearly, the argument that reading comics in one’s youth “ruins” one for adult literature doesn’t seem to be airtight.  I distinctly remember reading the Planet of the Apes comics and Balzac at the same time … in fact, I would heartily endorse anything that encourages young people to read at all.

When I was a boy, comic books were available in every corner newsstand, in drug and convenience stores, and sometimes in five-and-dime stores, such as Woolworth’s.  Comics were ubiquitous – read in school lunchrooms, in the park, and often found crumpled at the bottom of book bags or rolled in back pockets.

Then, something strange and terrible happened to the comics industry.  (WHAM!)  A new form of sales – comics direct marketing – changed the way comic books were bought and sold.  Instead of being available everywhere, comics were now sold primarily through comic book specialty stores.  (And today, it’s nearly impossible to find comics anywhere else.)  Where comics were once the common currency of kids everywhere, they became a specialized commodity of interest to only those in-the-know.

The effect of this decision was two-fold.  First, it saved comics when they probably would have disappeared completely in competition against laptops, video games, and other youthful time drains.  However, what it also meant is that the audience changed primarily from all children to a devoted (fanatical!) band of devotees.  And – more significantly – this audience has aged, taking comics with them.  By and large, comics are not for children anymore.

To my mind, saving comics also killed them.  Whereas comics reading amongst children once numbered in the many millions, it now numbers in the many thousands among adults.  In addition, it has perverted perfectly delightful adolescent fantasies – such as Batman or Superman – in the misguided struggle to make them “adult,” an aesthetic miscalculation and intellectual dead end.  If you treat much of this material in an “adult” manner, it often becomes even more risible.  What are the recent Batman films, really, other than Lethal Weapon in a shroud?

These thoughts came to mind as I stepped, on a whim, into a comic book store while visiting friends in Long Island.  There were very few young people on hand – though, I must confess, most were younger than I.  (Not all that difficult a proposition these days.)

The thing that struck me the most is that many (many, many, many!) things on the shelves were recreations of things I saw or had as a boy.  Aurora monster model kits; Sean Connery/James Bond model kits; hardcover collections of Superman from the 1970s; figures from the movie Mad Monster Party? (1967) at nearly $25 a figurine; action figures of characters from the sitcom The Munsters (1964-1966); bendable toys of Huckleberry Hound (1958); a Flintstones (1960-1966) watch …. I could go on, but you get the idea. No one under 50 would have any point of reference for most of the wares on parade.  And it dawned on me … comic book stores really don’t even sell comic books anymore --- they sell tired Baby Boomers the youth they so desperately miss.

If ever there was a recipe for extinction, it would be this.  While comic books still operate to a degree as the research and development arm for bloated, senseless “event movies,” the idea that they are a thriving and viable medium is, sadly, no longer correct.  It’s often amusing and even instructive to revisit the passions of one’s youth, but it’s an awful plan for building an ongoing artistic legacy.