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Post by Icctrombone on May 29, 2023 5:42:05 GMT -5
I accept the depictions of women by Ditko and Kirby as pretty in their own style. Frank Quietly draws the ugliest women in comics. Hands down.
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Post by zaku on May 29, 2023 9:05:38 GMT -5
We all have a clear image of Superman's parents as quintessential farm people, but I've found that it's a fairly recent take on the characters. I read some pre-Crisis Superboy stories and Pa Kent runs (with Clark) some kind of general store in Smallville. In a dialogue they mention that they used to have a farm but then moved to the town.
Does anyone have any details of how/when this happened?
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 29, 2023 11:19:09 GMT -5
I accept the depictions of women by Ditko and Kirby as pretty in their own style. Frank Quietly draws the ugliest women in comics. Hands down. Agreed! I've never understood why people think Quietly is good... every woman he draws (and most of the men) look like they've been in a years long battle with an eating disorder and are losing.
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Post by tarkintino on May 29, 2023 12:33:05 GMT -5
I know beauty is all in the eye of the beholder and all that, but yeah...surprised that some people have such a problem with Ditko's women. ...well, the panels might have something to do with it...
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Post by Cei-U! on May 29, 2023 12:52:39 GMT -5
We all have a clear image of Superman's parents as quintessential farm people, but I've found that it's a fairly recent take on the characters. I read some pre-Crisis Superboy stories and Pa Kent runs (with Clark) some kind of general store in Smallville. In a dialogue they mention that they used to have a farm but then moved to the town. Does anyone have any details of how/when this happened? The Kents as storeowners came after their days as farmers. I don't have time to dig out a specific story, but it was explained somewhere--possibly in the '80s New Adventures of Superboy title, but don't quote me--that the Kents remained on the farm until Clark was ready for school (and understood the importance of keeping his powers secret) then moved into Smallville and opened their store. But they were farmers in the original syndicated strip, in the radio series, in the first movie serial, and in the 1942 Deorge Lowther novelization.
Cei-U! I summon the cash register!
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Post by codystarbuck on May 29, 2023 13:34:44 GMT -5
I believe it is discussed in Action Comics #500, which is a big trip through memory lane, for Superman, before facing a scheme by Luthor, involving the new Superman Museum, which starts the whole nostalgia trip. It is also mentioned in the first Elliot Maggin novel, The Last Son of Krypton, that the Kent's bought the general store and moved into town. That story has Albert Einstein, incognito, visiting the general store, under the previous ownership, then observing the Kents, as Jonathan haggles over the price of a new tractor. Einstein tells Jonathan that he has a tractor for sale, for much less and gives him an address to meet him, to see it. This leads the Kents to being in the right place, at the right time, for baby Kal-El's rocket to land on Earth. Later, Lex Luthor comes into the store, after creating a protoplasmic life form, wanting to celebrate, but the old owner is there, looking for an old ledger. He sells Lex some pipe tobacco (it was supposed to be the 50s) and recalls the last time he sold that tobacco (Einstein).
The basic reason was to have Superboy more directly involved in Smallville, in his stories, and give it more of a town feel, like the tv shows of the era. When Superman was revamped, Byrne kept the Kents as farmers, since he was never Superboy. He still went to school in Smallville and it was the nearest town and the place to hang out. It also better reflects actual rural life, than some of the old stuff, in my opinion. I grew up in a little farm town, in Central Illinois (Niantic). It existed to store farmer's grain, provide them with a store, for necessities, feed and seed, farm implements, a place to bank, and a school to educate their kids. That was pretty much it. The farms that were close to the town would come there for groceries and school and church and those that lived further away went to the next closest town (Illiopolis, about 5 miles down the road). We had a little general store; but, by the mid-70s, inflation had killed a lot of their business, beyond basic necessities or emergencies. Most of the townspeople would drive to Decatur to do any major shopping and the bulk of their groceries. You'd never mistake the town for something like Leave It to Beaver, though, as it was never big enough to have the same amenities in the town. We didn't even have a police chief, as we depended on the Macon County Sheriff's Department for law enforcement. Heck, my back yard ended at a fence, which separated our property and our neighbors from a neighbor's farm and field. We'd hop the fence to go play at the neighbor's and to retrieve balls that flew over there.
My grandfather lived on an even more remote farm, in southern Illinois, near the town of Olney. He had to go into Olney for necessities, which was a short trip. Olney was big enough to have traffic lights and police and also was the home to a community college and a hospital, as it was the county seat for Richland County, not too far from the Indiana border. So, my cousins, who lived on another farm, just outside Olney, had closer access than we did for things like comic books and even a movie theater. We had to go into Decatur, which was nearly 20 miles away.
By contrast, Illiopolis had a larger grocery store/hardware store combo (and a newsstand, with comic books) and a chemical plant, that was then-owned by the Borden company. During WW2, there had been a munitions plant there, and there were still some storage bunkers sprinkled around the area, including the land of one farmer, who I used to work for, in the summer, walking beans (going up and down the rows of the field, cutting out weeds). he showed it to us, one time. Basically, a concrete "garage", with earth thrown over the top of it (the roof was rounded), with grass growing out of it. He used it for storage. Illiopolis also had a bowling alley and restaurant and a little ice cream place; plus, they didn't have a "dry law", like Niantic did and their store sold beer and wine. Our local store closed up, by the 80s and they couldn't get a buyer until the town repealed the act and let them sell beer and wine. That was sometime in the late 90s. They also had a pizza oven, basically like a 7-11 style convenience store, vs the old store, which had a butcher shop with it.
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Post by zaku on May 29, 2023 14:57:38 GMT -5
Thank you Cei-U! and codystarbuck ! You know, I really prefer Kents as farmers. It's also interesting how similar the post-Crisis version of Superman is to the 1978 film. No Superboy, no General Store in Smallville. I think even at the level of characterization there are some similarities
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Post by badwolf on May 30, 2023 9:38:19 GMT -5
I accept the depictions of women by Ditko and Kirby as pretty in their own style. Frank Quietly draws the ugliest women in comics. Hands down. Yes, as much as I love Quitely's artwork in all other respects, this is true.
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Post by zaku on May 30, 2023 10:45:30 GMT -5
Thank you Cei-U! and codystarbuck ! You know, I really prefer Kents as farmers. It's also interesting how similar the post-Crisis version of Superman is to the 1978 film. No Superboy, no General Store in Smallville. I think even at the level of characterization there are some similarities I wonder how much the movie influenced the Post-Crisis Reboot or simply they were similar because they both wanted to streamline the character.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 30, 2023 11:36:40 GMT -5
Thank you Cei-U! and codystarbuck ! You know, I really prefer Kents as farmers. It's also interesting how similar the post-Crisis version of Superman is to the 1978 film. No Superboy, no General Store in Smallville. I think even at the level of characterization there are some similarities I wonder how much the movie influenced the Post-Crisis Reboot or simply they were similar because they both wanted to streamline the character. I think, in both cases, it was more to present the Hollywood idea of the Midwest as simply farm country and to present the idea that Clark grew up in good old fashioned wholesome farm country...traditional values, simple people, etc. I liked how Lois & Clark poked fun at that idea in an episode, where Lois is staying with the Kents and says she needs to send a fax and acts like the Kents wouldn't know what it is and Martha offers her theirs, telling her that a farm couldn't operate without one. It was the first time I saw anyone in Hollywood recognize that farms are filled with the latest technology, whether it is in their farming implements, communications, entertainment, or records-keeping. Farms are major operations; but what would city slickers know?
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Post by Ricky Jackson on May 30, 2023 11:44:57 GMT -5
Ha, yeah I was that city slicker kid who was envious during summer visits in the 80s to my farm-living relatives because they all had satellite TV with tons of cool channels I couldn't see any other time
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Post by codystarbuck on May 30, 2023 20:50:30 GMT -5
I grew up in a farm town, though not on a farm. Our back yard ended in a fence that separated our property (and our neighbors) from a farm. The farmer's son was in my older brother's class and he always had way cooler toys than we did. My grandfather farmed, as did one uncle and my cousins had way cooler toys and they had satellite, long before my town was wired for cable. Farming is good money and farmers spend it on technology and luxuries, after the expenses are paid.
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Post by berkley on May 30, 2023 22:03:34 GMT -5
I accept the depictions of women by Ditko and Kirby as pretty in their own style. Frank Quietly draws the ugliest women in comics. Hands down. Yeah, I think that's what it comes down to really, how you like the style of the artist in general.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2023 23:26:33 GMT -5
If I was going to start reading some Adam Warlock stories, is the better starting point the Roy Thomas-era or the later Jim Starlin? I really like the first few issues of the Marvel Premiere run. After that, the creative teams keep rotating in and out, leaving Warlock with a series made mostly of fill-in stories with no overarching vision. Folks often tend to miss Incredible Hulk #176-178, which was focused more on Adam Warlock than on Hulk, and which was also pretty darn memorable. I read Marvel Premiere #1 & #2, as well as the Incredible Hulk issues. I found the Hulk issues really great. There is something in those Bronze Age Marvel Comics that I really love. Appreciate all the help my friends.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2023 0:54:48 GMT -5
The Kent General Store gets a reference in the 1982 Fisher Price Book & Tape set Superman: From Krypton to Metropolis. It felt like part of the mythos to me because I expect that was my first exposure to the idea:
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