In
the News (Almost)
 Sorry
Gort! Didn't See You:
Thank
goodness that whole Roswell thing is finally cleared up. According
to reliable news sources (Weekly World News, and possibly
CNN), the crashed saucer's "black box" has finally been
decoded. Turns out we shot the poor beggars down. (My bad!) "The
contents are deeply moving," said a top, and very respectable
scientist
we'd trust in a second if only they were allowed to tell
us his name — which (dang it!) they're not. This scientist,
however, tells us that during "those desperate final 190 seconds"
the aliens "even manifest a belief in a superior being."
(Our "Insider Correspondent" claims to have read
the entire transcription and says it can be boiled down to: "Holy
S**t! The sodding bastards hit us!"
 Fan
Warning:
Kirstin,
of "Watch With Kristin," is reminding her readers to go
out and vote for their favourite (and least-favourite) shows. It's
time again for the Tater Tops 2003 (previously known as the WandAwards)
and on Friday, June 27, the winners of the Golden Tater will be
announced. I'd tell you how to vote but, well ... Kristin didn't
seem to provide that information. However, you can find out what
you're missing here.
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Profiles:
 Superman's
Unacknowledged Father?
Lester Dent
(October 12, 1904 - March 11, 1959)
 Dent
is best known, for those who know him at all, as the man who created
Doc Savage.
Dent
originally intended to become a banker, but, while attending business
college in La Plata, Wyoming, learned there was more money to be
made in telegraphy. He finished up his courses and took a job with
Western Union in 1924. A year later he moved to Ponca City, Oklahoma
where he was employed as a telegrapher for Empire Oil and Gas Co.
There he met Norma Gerling whom he married that August. In 1926
he took a job with Associated Press where he discovered the potential
of writing for the pulps when a co-worker succeeded in selling a
story. Shortly afterwards, Dent had moved to New York with a $500
a month drawing account writing solely for Dell Publishing.
 Not
long after he was approached by Henry Ralston, creator of The Shadow.
Ralston, now an executive with Street and Smith, had just come up
with a new character, Doc Savage, and thought Dent was just the
man to write it. He was right. Along with being one of the best,
and most prolific, hack writers of his generation, Dent was also
a man of adventure and loved learning new things. He got his first-class
radio operator's license, built his own Ham radio set, passed the
tough exams for both electrician and plumber, earned his pilot's
license, and climbed mountains. He brought all of his varied expertise
into the stories with the result that Doc became a believable all-round
expert.
The
Doc Savage Magazine ended publication in 1949, Dent continuing to
write mysteries and westerns up to 1958. In February, 1959, he suffered
a heart attack and died later that year on March 11.
The
Superman Connection
One
of our glorious Heritage Minutes shows the origins of Superman.
In it, a young Joe Shuster (half cousin of comedian Frank Shuster)
is boarding a train to leave for the United States and excitedly
tells his aunt about the new cartoon character he's created. Very
stirring. Also incredibly wrong.
Shuster
was only 7 when he moved with his family to Cleveland in 1923, and
it was ten years later, in 1933, that he would meet Jerry Siegel
with whom, according to the official story, he invented Superman.
But
a funny thing also happened in 1933. In March of that
year the first issue of the Doc Savage Magazine was published, the
first in a remarkable series about a remarkably strong man, dedicated
to fighting injustice, with his own Fortress of Solitude located
in the Arctic.
An
incredible coincidence? Or did two 17 year old boys pick up a copy
of the popular magazine and take the idea one step further?
_________
(There is a good history of Superman
at Redboots (with, of course, no mention of a Doc Savage connection)
and an interesting account of when "Superman
Worked at the [Toronto] Star". The Eighty-Sixth
Floor is one of the best Doc Savage sites on the Web.
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