{"id":5479,"date":"2008-12-03T23:08:47","date_gmt":"2008-12-04T04:08:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=5479"},"modified":"2012-02-10T22:12:09","modified_gmt":"2012-02-11T03:12:09","slug":"patricia-highsmith-smashes-spies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/03\/patricia-highsmith-smashes-spies\/","title":{"rendered":"Patricia Highsmith smashes spies"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent Washington Post<\/i> article about Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley Under Ground<\/i><\/a>, the reviewer mentioned in passing about the author of Strangers on a Train<\/i> and The Talented Mr. Ripley<\/i> that “after graduating from Barnard, Highsmith supported herself writing for comic books.”<\/p>\n

Am I the only one who did not know this?<\/p>\n

I guess so, because according to Highsmith’s Wikipedia entry<\/a> (and we all know that Wikipedia is never wrong):<\/p>\n

Living in New York City and Mexico between 1942 and 1948, she wrote for comic book publishers, turning out two stories a day for $55-a-week paychecks. With Nedor\/Standard\/Pines (1942-43), she wrote Sgt. Bill King stories and contributed to Black Terror<\/i>. For Real Fact<\/i>, Real Heroes<\/i> and True Comics<\/i>, she wrote comic book profiles of Einstein, Galileo, Barney Ross, Edward Rickenbacker, Oliver Cromwell, Sir Isaac Newton, David Livingstone and others. In 1943-45 she wrote for Fawcett Publications, scripting for such Fawcett Comics characters as the Golden Arrow, Spy Smasher, Captain Midnight, Crisco and Jasper. She wrote for Western Comics in 1945-47.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So this seems to have been more than just a brief fling.<\/p>\n

That information on the non-fiction narratives of famous people sounds very specific, so I’m assuming that I could track them down if I wanted to. But do we know exactly which issues of fictional superhero adventures she wrote? Those sound far more intriguing.<\/p>\n

I can’t find this information online (well, maybe I could, but I’m not having much luck), so if anyone can point me in the right direction, please pipe up!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent Washington Post article about Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley Under Ground, the reviewer mentioned in passing about the author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley that “after graduating from Barnard, Highsmith supported herself writing for comic books.” Am I the only one who did not know this? I guess so, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,158],"class_list":["post-5479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-comics","tag-patricia-highsmith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}