Cautionary Comics

I loved comics when I was a kid.
As a child, no one considered comic books to be 'collector items'; unsold newsstand copies were often re-bundled and sold in discounted bulk packages of three books, usually for less than the price of one 'new' comic .

Many of these bundles passed through my trembly young hands.

On the outside, there would be copies of titles like Amazing Spiderman and The Incredible Hulk, which anyone with any sense would recognize as 'real' comics, but the third book, the one hidden on the inside, would often be utter shit.
Richie Rich?
Archie?
Ptooey, my young self said. Those are kid stuff.
The worst of all were the dreaded "Girl Comics", such as SGF Lois Lane, (#13 shown):

It was distressing to watch otherwise cool dudes like Superman and Green Lantern act like total dumbasses just because there was a woman in the story...that could never happen in real life,could it?

Not to me.

I mean , c'mon Superdude. Your girlfriend is wearing a metal block on her head while she packs a suitcase.

Even I can tell that this is a bad sign. I am not exactly Super, but I'm smarter than the Man of Steel.

Shave my head and call me Lex.




Years later, I learned how these semi-absurdist spin-off comic stories were created- it seems that the artists and writers at DC comics had become somewhat bored with the whole "Superman Family" and coming up with interesting stories for characters like Jimmy Olsen, Krypto and Lois Lane had turned into a real chore. Every 30 days they needed a new story and the guidelines of that era were very confining.

To challenge each other- and to keep their jobs, which things like TV and rock 'n' roll were starting to endanger- the artist would often produce a cover such as the one above, hand it to the editor, who would then pick a hapless, desperate writer and say: "here's the cover- write the story."

The idea was to create illustrations so ridiculous that it would be impossible to construct a narrative around them; the writer would then labor to produce a script that would somehow 'tie-in' with the cover.

This artist/editor/writer arrangement worked for many years.

Next, we see SFGLL #133, a full one hundred and twenty issues later. For ten years, a new story, month after month after month...Alan Smithee did a lot of the work, often using pseudonyms.


Note to Superdude: Ten years is a long time to stick with someone who needs Global Rescue every 30 days.
A little PMS is one thing, but Lois is literally melting a city here.

At least stand up.

Maybe it's Superman's fault. Lois wouldn't keep getting get into these binds if it wasn't for all the attention Superman was getting- and if he wasn't so busy being Super, maybe Lois would realize that he was just mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent after all.

He is afraid to tell her who he is because he is afraid she will leave him once she finds out how ordinary he really is. This is a valid fear.

She, on the other hand, is fooled by the thick-framed glasses that Clark Kent uses for a disguise. This sort of inattention to detail is not such a good trait for an investigative reporter, but it's all too common in reality nonetheless.

My Superadvice would be to take the glasses off and say hello. If Lois melts the Earth, there is always Earth Two or even Bizarro World.

It's better than the Fortress of Solitude.