By this point, comics and cinema/television are naturally associated. However, the connection between comics and other art forms such as theater, music and poetry is harder to make. Perhaps because the "superman" meme was circulating long before Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster fastened it to their creation, the Man of Steel is the notable exception to this. If it isn't a satiric one-act play (Jules Feiffer's
Superman), then it's a musical (
It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman ) or a debut single ("Superman (It's Not Easy)" by Five for Fighting) about Big Blue.
Superman songs are particularly ubiquitous. While the soundtrack to a Batman film or an animated Spider-man cartoon might generate a catchy tune, it's pretty rare to turn on the radio and hear a band, apropos nothing, wailing away about Batman's utility belt, or the emo-ness of Spider-man's relationship with Aunt May. Broadly speaking, Superman songs fall into four, high-school-English-class-like categories:
- Lyrics in which the artist(s) compare or contrast themselves to Superman: i. e., "Superman" by Barbra Streisand, "Superman" by Eminem, "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman" by the Kinks
- Lyrics about Superman vs. Society: i.e., "Superman's Song" by the Crash Test Dummies, "Resignation Superman" by Big Head Todd & the Monsters, "Waiting for Superman" by The Flaming Lips
- Lyrics about Superman vs. Self: "Superman (It's Not Easy)" by Five for Fighting
- Lyrics about Superman vs. Man, such as "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down and "Jimmy Olsen's Blues" by the Spin Doctors in which Jimmy Olsen, driven by his mad crush on Lois Lane, threatens Supe with a "pocket full of Kryptonite"
Like the Spin Doctors song, Ron Koertge's poem "Kryptonite," excerpted from his book Fever, focuses on the repressed hostility of one of Superman's supporting characters. It's free verse written from Lois Lane's point of view: although she's proud of Superman, she sometimes wishes that she had just a little Kryptonite so that "she could/peek down/ his tights/or draw on/ his chest/with a/ballpoint." Blue Q, in a postmodern move, recently released the poem as a minicomic, with art by Roy Fox. Fox collages retro clip art, exaggeratedly off-register color and (thankfully, his use is restrained) Ben Day dots. (By the way, to play Blackwell for a moment: Ben Day dots are so, so over.) It's a style common to nostalgic comics-related projects tinged with prestige, a category that the
Kryptonite, with its high production values and literary pedigree, could very easily fall into. However, its scale and silliness save it: there are moments, such as the spread featuring an earlobe adorned with a sparkling green gem facing a page with a scientific flask — pretty poison — accompanied by the lines "or at least making a/tincture to dab behind/her ears" that harmonize to great effect, making the work more than the sum of its parts.
While a few indy cartoonists have done their own, sometimes very aesthetically successful, deconstruction of superhero comics (such as Josh Simmons'
Batman mini or Jeffrey Brown's Wolverine story), there's something very promising about the way in which
Kryptonite fuses comics and poetry — but then again, the nearly 80-year-old Superman (and by extension, his friends and frailties) has, rather unexpectedly, proved to be a fertile muse.
1 The Batman musical was never produced: however, there is a Spider-Man one in the works, according to Heidi MacDonald.
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"Superman in Popular Music" Wikipedia.org
"What We'll be Thinking about in 2008." Heidi MacDonald. The Beat. http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/12/18/dlisted-be-very-afraid/ Dec. 18 2007.
Batman: the Musical. http://www.freewebs.com/batman_themusical/home.htm De. 18 2007.
Scans copyrights:
Kryptonite [©2007 Ron Koertge]
Kristy Valenti currently works for The Comics Journal and Fantagraphics Books, Inc.
Uncharted Territory is © Kristy Valenti, 2008
