Falling for Superman

On 26 September 1938 -- a little over eighty-two years ago as the crow flies -- issue six of Action Comics (cover-dated November of that year) featured the Superman story "Superman's Phony Manager" (full disclosure: that title didn't appear in the original issue and has been applied retroactively). Action Comics was an anthology and Superman …

Noncomics: Superman – Last Son of Krypton

In the 1970s and early 1980s streaming a movie was called "reading the novelisation" (except in America, where they instead had novelizations, with a zed, which they pronounce as "zee"). Every major movie -- and an awful lot of minor ones -- was given a second life in the form of a prose adaptation. And …

Oddities: Superman coasters

So, remember those X-Men coasters I featured last year? Well, guess what? That's right, you guessed correctly, even though there's a pretty big clue in this post's title... Today we're looking at Superman coasters! But these are no fantasy, no careless product of wild imagination, no beermat-like cardboard discs churned out as a cheap promotional …

Rusty’s Reviews Round-Up

To save you literally whiles of searching through this blog, here are all of Rusty's reviews in one place! Updated: 3 July 2021 Comics: The Bank Street Book of Science Fiction -- 7 Feb 2020 Batman Monthly -- 26 Jun 2020 Battle Picture Weekly -- 2 Jun 2019 Bea -- 15 Aug 2017 Boy's Cinema …

Pocket-Money Comics: Batman Monthly

You'd think that for a relatively recent comic (say, from the late 1980s) it would be easy enough to track down all the info. But not so! The publication life of London Editions' Batman Monthly is annoyingly vague. The majority of the evidence suggests that it ran for fifty-six monthly issues, then it was relaunched …

Oddities: Superman’s Boots

When I was younger (which doesn't narrow things down much: until now I've always been younger) I used to draw -- or rather colour -- Superman's boots with a yellow stripe around the top, the same yellow as his belt and the blobs on his chest's S-symbol. The angle of the top of the boots …

Oddities #20191101

A somewhat personal oddity this time, though I guess it's not necessarily all that odd... This is the bag I was given in Forbidden Planet in Denmark St., London, on Tuesday May 25th, 1982. It was my first ever visit to an actual comic-book store, so naturally I kept the bag because I was a …

Oddities #20191018

Today's oddity is a piece of comics promo... a double-sided newspaper/poster given away in 2012 to promote the then-upcoming Before Watchmen series. Younger readers might not recall the ire that this series raised. Watchmen was a ground-breaking and beloved twelve-episode maxi-series created by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and John Higgins. It was collected as a …

Noncomics: Making Superman’s Shield

For a change, today's article isn't about something created by someone else... this is a vanity project! (In stark contrast to the pure altruism that drips from every other article on this blog...) If you're a regular reader of this blog you'll likely be aware of my interest in logos and symbols, particularly when it …

Noncomics: Superman: The Man of Steel – A Which Way Book

This 1985 paperback book opens with a warning: "Do not read the pages in order. If you do, the story will make no sense at all." Ah, the noble "choose your own adventure" experience! Game-books like this were all the rage back before we had convenient interactive electronic entertainment. The book looks like a proper …