{"id":5917,"date":"2012-03-25T10:11:25","date_gmt":"2012-03-25T14:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=5917"},"modified":"2012-03-25T10:11:25","modified_gmt":"2012-03-25T14:11:25","slug":"two-things-i-was-surprised-i-didnt-know-about-comics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2012\/03\/25\/two-things-i-was-surprised-i-didnt-know-about-comics\/","title":{"rendered":"Two things I was surprised I didn’t know about comics"},"content":{"rendered":"

I thought I pretty much knew everything about comics. But thanks to The Superhero Book: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Comic-Book Icons and Hollywood Heroes<\/em><\/a>, I just learned a couple of things more. And in case you didn’t know these two facts either …<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Charlton Comics was created by two guys who met in jail<\/strong><\/p>\n

Charlton was the home of such superheroes as Captain Atom (co-created by Steve Ditko years before he went on to co-create Spider-Man), The Question (where I got my first taste of Ditko’s Ayn Randian pontificating long before I ever encountered his Mr. A<\/a>), and others. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But it all began because someone got arrested for copyright infringement:<\/p>\n

In the early 1930s, Italian immigrant John Santangelo, a bricklayer, was encouraged by a girlfriend to produce a magazine that printed the lyrics to popular songs. His effort landed him behind bars for copyright infringement. In jail, he got a crash course in copyright law, courtesy of fellow inmate Edward Levy, a disbarred lawyer, and they joined forces upon their release to start a legitimate publishing house, Charlton.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which basically means, no copyright infringement—no Watchmen<\/em><\/a>!
\n
\nMetal Men<\/em> was only dreamed up because someone else screwed up<\/strong><\/p>\n

I always loved Metal Men<\/em>, and not just because my wife <\/a>was once name-checked in its pages.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But even as I enjoyed their robotic adventures, I never knew the whys and wherefores of how they came about:<\/p>\n

The strip was created over the course of one weekend in 1962 by writer\/editor Robert Kanigher and artist Ross Andru, to fill the pages of Showcase<\/em> #37, when a previously scheduled feature suddenly fell through.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I love the idea that if not for someone else dropping the ball, we’d never have heard of this superteam. But learning of this circumstance raises an interesting question: Whose screw-up allowed the Metal Men to be born? What writer or artist failed to deliver, creating the circumstance for Kanigher and Andru to do their rush job?<\/p>\n

Anyone know who the culprits were?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I thought I pretty much knew everything about comics. But thanks to The Superhero Book: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Comic-Book Icons and Hollywood Heroes, I just learned a couple of things more. And in case you didn’t know these two facts either … Charlton Comics was created by two guys who met in jail Charlton […]<\/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":[189,188,135,148],"class_list":["post-5917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-charlton-comics","tag-metal-men","tag-ross-andru","tag-steve-ditko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5917","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=5917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}