Dark Bilious Vapors

According to my usually impeachable sources, today is the 66^th anniversary of one of the great icons of American popular culture: Superman, who debuted in the first issue of Action Comics, dated June, 1938. However, it's possible (nay, even probable), since the cover date of magazines tends to be a "sell by" date rather than an actual date of publication, that Superman actually hit the newsstands in March or so of 1938. No matter, today's as good a day as any to wish Superman a happy birthday.

If you're curious as to what Superman's debut was like, you can find a number of scans of Action Comics No. 1 on the web; here's one. I find the back cover especially interesting; it's a full page ad for Johnson-Smith, legendary purveyors of "Things you never knew existed, and other items you can't possibly live without." Nice to know that as things change, some things still remain the same.

And I suppose that means that it's as good a reason as any to dust this link off: The Adventures of Seinfeld and Superman As I said when first mentioning this, I'm not a big Seinfeld fan, but this is pretty cute, even if it is an AmEx commercial.

Len on 06.01.04 @ 07:53 AM CST