Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Murphy Anderson Week: "Brother for a Day!" by Bates, Swan, and Anderson

Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! We're back with day two of our week-long tribute to Murphy Anderson! Today we're gonna dig on yet another of Ol' Groove's faves, "Brother for a Day!", a very cool Private Life of Clark Kent back-up from Superman #256 (July 1972). Written by Cary Bates and penciled by Curt Swan, Anderson's slick inks made Zeena, the Tiger-Woman a most memorable character for Young Groove--was that costume dynamite or what? And check out that bratty kid, Mickey Moran. It'd be a miracle if he grew up to be someone we'd marvel at, huh, man? What Ol' Groove also most remembers (besides Zeena) is getting this particular ish of Superman in one of those three-packs you used to find in grocery stores. (Oh, the other two mags in that pack? Batman #244 (!) and Mister Miracle #10. What a find, huh?)








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5 comments:

  1. NobileNovember 3, 2015 at 3:52 AM

    One of the zaniest stories ever! The jungle girl, the annoying brat, the galaxy communication van (a.k.a. Clarkmobile) and Clark's "Chekhov's hat"! This story had it all.
    Including the Swnaderson magic. Was this the first "Private Life" feature?

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  2. TEXNovember 3, 2015 at 5:16 PM

    Wow. That's the first time I've ever read that story. It's loads of fun. What great pencils! Murphy Anderson is one of my faves, especially when he's inking Gil Kane's pencils. They really made magic together. He will be missed.

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  3. TCNovember 5, 2015 at 9:49 AM

    Superman never looked better than when drawn by "Swanderson," one of the best pencil-and-ink teams ever. In fact, when Jack Kirby was doing Jimmy Olsen's self-titled comic book in the early 1970's, DC assigned Anderson to ink the heads of Jimmy and Superman/Clark Kent, to keep their appearance consistent with the way they looked in the other "Superman Family" comics.

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  4. AnonymousNovember 5, 2015 at 10:36 AM

    Not 100% sure, but the "Private Life" back-up strip may have started with Superman #253 or #254. IIRC, the "World of Krypton" series was the second feature between #233 and #251. (#252 was a 100 Page Super Spectacular edition, with Golden Age reprints.)

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  5. The Groovy AgentNovember 5, 2015 at 2:19 PM

    This is actually the third "Private Life..." feature. The first one appeared in Superman #247, the second in issue #254.

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Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


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