Credit Due, Not Yet Paid

Now that Mark Evanier has clarified the issue of on-screen credits for the creators of Spider-Man, let’s go back to the first Spidey movie. As expected, it’s worded exactly the same way.
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Something I haven’t noticed before is the first Spider-Man movie has an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, only tiny bit wider than HDTV’s 1.77:1. The second movie is much wider — or shorter, depending on how you consider it — at 2.35:1.

Spider-Man’s Co-Creator Gets His Due

Spider-Man was not created solely by writer Stan Lee. As correctly credited in all three movies, artist Steve Ditko co-created the character.
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I feature some panels of Ditko’s distinctively eccentric, compelling work here and here. Thanks to Mark Evanier, I know that tomorrow the BBC will be showing a Steve Ditko documentary. I’m hoping it makes an appearance on BBC America. If not, I’ll have to scrounge around the Internet, the way I did to find the BBC Petula Clark documentary.

IMPORTANT NOTE: On Newsfromme, Mark Evanier corrects me on the subject of screen credits. Thank you, Mark!

By the way, anybody who’s visiting here thinking I’m the same Doug Pratt who puts out The DVD-LaserDisc Newsletter, I’m merely a subscriber. That Doug Pratt is over here.

MAD With Greed

Some time back I offered a bit of background behind the face of MAD Magazine’s mascot, Alfred E. Newman. The image of ‘The Kid’ had been around, in one form or another, long before it came to rest in MAD. Recently, while watching a reconstruction of Erich von Stroheim’s epic film Greed, from 1924, I happened to notice this.

Superman in “A Game of Moonball”

In a blog post that was lost in what I’ll call The Great Database Disaster, I made a comment that I’m not ready to buy an HDTV set. I haven’t even decided yet if I want a direct-view set or a front projection unit. Note: I said FRONT and not rear projection. For example, this little gem looks interesting, but oh that sticker shock! A more reasonable choice would be this model.

For now, it’s an academic question, because it’ll be a year or two before I do anything, and the gear will be completely changed by then anyway. But why would I be considering a projector, rather than, say, a plasma or direct-view LCD? Because when I was a kid I had one of these…

…which was my #1 favorite childhood toy. This is the Kenner Super Show. The picture came from an eBay auction I just won. To a great extent, this blog is nothing more than me playing with an updated Super Show. In acknowledgment of this, I will present my favorite slide that I enjoyed projecting on the wall. It’s Superman and Lois Lane, in “A Game of Moonball.”

I have two comments about this 7-panel comic strip that I used to think to myself, whenever looking at it over 40 years ago, shining on the wall.

  1. The red and yellow are reversed on Superman’s “S” emblem
  2. Superman seems to almost be acting as if Lois knows his secret identity.

What I didn’t wonder back then, but I am now, is who did the art? It’s fairly apparent that Curt Swan did the pencils, but I’m not sure of who inked them. At the moment I’m inclined to say Stan Kaye.