Superman Day at the World’s Fair, 03 july 1940

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Ray Middleton makes his debut as the first live action Superman (yes, yes, I know, see my notes below) on 03 July, 1940, appearing at +/- 1:20 in the video below. You can also spot DC owner Harry Donenfeld riding an elephant at 1:04 and Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel with DC co-founder Jack Liebowitz at 2:25.

As I seem to be in a “comment on an ages-old mystery” mood today, I’ll wade into the 83-year-old “was it Middleton or someone else in the suit” controversy and, while I have no conclusive evidence, I’m going with it being Middleton in the Super-suit: especially in the video, the facial structure /length looks similar to the picture of Middleton (Middleton is on the right in the second photo (source) below, taken the same day) and the nose bears a striking resemblance in both photographs below. And, while Superman’s hair is parted on the opposite side as Middleton’s, shifting the part from one side to the other could (again, I’ve no conclusive evidence, only a practical knowledge of how stage actors work) part of a performative effort to obfuscate Superman’s “secret identity,” given that Middleton doesn’t wear glasses and organizers would, indeed, want to give the kids a great show.

Nevermind that no one, to my knowledge, has come forward in the 83 years since that day to claim that it was them in the super-suit, something that seems far more of a stretch than an actor puffing up his chest and parting his hair in a different direction for a one-day-only performance.

That being said, I’m happy to be proven wrong and one day learn the real identity of the unknown and uncredited Superman, but we’ll consider these to be my two “it’s Middleton” cents thrown into the pot. Either way, what wonderful footage.

HOW TO FIND ZODIAC (Kobek, 2022)

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As with Kobek's series as a whole (the first of the duology, MOTOR SPIRIT, is quite excellent – and I do recognize that I might have done a disservice by reading them so far apart from one another), there are two books in HOW TO FIND ZODIAC: one, an utterly compelling examination and portrait of not only the pre-internet internet of fandoms and fanzine culture but of the collision of that culture with right-wing, anti-government ideology and Cold War paranoia; the other, half a portrait of a deeply disturbed man, Doerr, one whom I could readily believe would commit a reign of terror to prove his own unappreciated genius to the world – I do agree, wholeheartedly, with Kobek's portrayal of the killings as the late 60s, pre-internet equivalent of today's mass shootings (if Zodiac were active now, he'd be livestreaming) – but still only half a portrait: I wanted to know more about Doerr, beyond the screeds and personal ads, the married father with a secret double (or, perhaps, triple) life. Maybe that was intentional, maybe not, but I was, nonetheless left wanting more, hoping that, eventually, we'd get to it. We didn't: the final page left me with the impression that I had read half of a book, a deeply-drawn and exceedingly well-researched portrait of half of a person - but then again, maybe I didn’t take the title of the book literally enough.

That being said, while Kobek's theory is, by far, the most compelling one put forth, I never had that oh shit / eureka / evidentiary moment that fully convinced me that Doerr was Zodiac (though the sketch, devoid of glasses with added mustache, came pretty damn close). Perhaps I missed something – or perhaps the other half of the book, the missing half, would finish the job?

quiet virtual walks for therapy and fascination

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Thanks to this morning's Recomendo newsletter, I've become addicted to "quiet virtual walks" through cities on YouTube. My favorite channels (so far) are Nomadic Ambience (worldwide fascinations) and Virtual Japan (walking Tokyo at night, among other Japanese and worldwide locales). And, while they can’t fill the commonwealth-sized hole in my soul, I've found quiet virtual walks of Boston (via The Table and Virtual Stroll) to be therapeutic doses of nostalgia for the city I called home for a decade (and in which I whiled many hours via solitary city walks at all hours of the day and night).

shelf permanence / "consumption platter"

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Two episodes into Max's DC documentary (quite good and worth a watch, BTW) and something Jeanette Kahn (I believe) said about trade paperbacks, that they were designed as permanent additions, kept on a bookshelf, struck me: as I've been growing and refocusing The (comics) Collection, I've simultaneously shifted away from purchasing trade paperback collections and towards purchasing the original issues (RONIN, CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, Moench / Jones BATMAN, ALIAS, SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE... etc etc...).

A desire, I think, to have comics' permanence be in their original, serialized form, to bring permanence to something designed (especially in earlier years) to be impermanent...

Among the things I've come to appreciate about the otherwise untapped potential of digital comics (which I'll be ranting about until my dying day, I mean come on) is that I can use those subscriptions (DC, Marvel, Comixology – DSTLLRY is next, definitely) – in this, my "back issue / library building" phase of collecting – to see not only what's going on in current comics (Zdarsky's BATMAN is about the only thing I read regularly and I love Ryan North's FANTASTIC FOUR) but use the digital versions as my reading copies while the originals live in their mylar sarcophagi in a manner not dissimilar to how I collect Blu-Rays and vinyl: more often than not, I leave the discs sealed and use the streaming / digital version (the trade-off for not fucking up the discs themselves being lowered quality) as my primary consumption platter.

All of this being my version of stockpiling food in my bunker for the inevitable day that streamers decide that everything should be a tax write off and delete themselves as soon as you watch it once.

Among the notes in my someday maybe are reorganizing bookshelves to have all physical media – books, comics, vinyl, CDs, Blu-Rays, etc etc – alphabetized by author and living next to one another in the truest reflection of my influences and passions.

FLEECED OF THEIR WARES (moduS ponY, 2023)

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Sonic delights and explorations that wouldn't be at all out of place in a Wes Anderson stealth video game which, given my adoration for both the scores of Wes Anderson films and stealth video games, is indeed a compliment. So good.