A Photographic Memory #5
eidetic • /aɪˈdɛtɪk/
Superman, Toothpaste, and Time Travel
I feel the need to talk a bit about Superman.
Before I gravitated towards The Amazing Spider-Man, there was always Superman, but in reality this fascination began with an unlikely hero called Shreddieboy. This particular character appeared on Malted Shreddies, my favourite breakfast cereal as a six year old. I avidly followed his adventures on the back of the box, rendered beautifully by some of the best comic artists of the time, including Ron Embleton, Frank Langford, and I believe, (judging by the image below), one of the Dan Dare artists from Eagle. To emulate this boy hero of mine, I used to tuck a hand towel into the neck of my t-shirt as a cape and balance precariously on the windowsill, dreaming of flight. (It’s okay, it was only the ground floor). This was the 1960s, and most likely before I’d discovered the Batman tv show.
I didn’t encounter my first Superman comic until 1967, which I’ll discuss a little bit later, but my fascination with The Man of Steel was reignited years later with the advent of Richard Donner’s epic film, Superman The Movie, in December of 1978.
By October of the following year there were iron-on Superman ‘S’ symbols on sale in the department store where I worked as a Display artist, and I decided that I needed a Superman costume for the impending Allders Visual Merchandising Halloween party. Such a costume was not something you could buy in those days, but with the advent of Disco, Lycra and Spandex were readily available, so with my limited sewing abilities, and iron-on logos, I made my own. For me, there were a couple of things wrong for this look. Firstly the lack of muscles, and secondly the fact that I had a mustache. This was a bit of a 70s trend for guys, but I had terrible acne at the time, and it helped to conceal it. That’s my excuse anyway.
The Halloween party was a great success, and hosted by our boss, Shirley Wilkinson at her apartment. Paul the Punk decided to really freak her out by coughing up blood as a result of biting on a couple of fake blood capsules. I’m glad I managed to capture the look of sheer horror on her face!
Before we’d ventured in from the street we took the opportunity to utilize a British telephone box for Clark Kent’s transformation into Superman, and I handed my camera to one of the team to get the shots.
You’ll believe a man can fly!
I mentioned toothpaste in the title of this post, and this was the reason. Anne Maclean and her brilliant Maclean’s toothpaste costume. The entire Display team were an incredibly creative crew, and there were some amazing costumes that I need to find and scan sometime.
The best way to view the past is to invent it.
Skipping waaaay forward to 2002 (this is still relevant I promise), I’d left working for 2000 AD after 13 years and I’d decided to continue working on an art project of my own. A project I called Alternity, utilizing a technique I’d decided to call Transchronography. This involved painstakingly fusing my own photographs with antique photos and carte de visite’s that I’d been collecting over the years, to create images of an alternate history, via time travel and parallel universes. (I’ve mentioned this before but, y’know - recap!)
Having completed a few of these, and giving myself a ridiculously tight deadline to complete even more, I decided to have an exhibition in West London to showcase the project. I was also really lucky to have Grant Morrison volunteer to read a piece on the night, inspired by the images that I’d sent him, plus an amazing live music performance by the musician, Ysanne Spevack (aka Mee). This was destined to be a really interesting event.
I decided to dedicate the show to the enigmatic, Arthur the Lighthouse Keeper who’d encouraged me as a child to follow my dream to work in comics, of whom I’ve written about previously.
As nervous as I was to see if anyone would turn up, I was pleasantly surprised on arrival to find the place rammed with the most amazing variety of guests.
After wine and conversation, the low hum of Ysanne’s synth signaled the beginning of the live event, and everyone crowded into the gallery to watch and to listen.
As I stood there absorbing Grant and Ysanne’s performance in awe, I realized I was having something that the author, Spalding Grey referred to as a ‘perfect moment’. I began to contemplate that this moment would not be happening if I hadn’t taken the Lighthouse Keeper’s advice to follow my dream to work for Marvel Comics, which in turn led me to a career at 2000 AD, the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic. I wouldn’t have met Grant, or dated his sister Leigh, who’d encouraged Grant to come down from Glasgow and stage a happening... and a happening it truly was.
As I absorbed the moment, I remembered that I’d been told of a totally off the wall technique by my Marvel UK and 2000 AD colleague, John Tomlinson, whereby using your mind’s eye, you send a positive message back in time to your younger self as some sort of encouragement.
So, right then and there I decided to experiment and send this perfect moment back to another much earlier perfect moment. This was me at the age of eight, sitting outside a friend’s house in Carshalton, on a beautiful hot summer’s day, staring in wonderment at the very first glossy, colourful copy of a Superman comic that I’d ever seen. Something about that comic embedded itself in my consciousness. The blue, yellow and red of Superman, the Go-Go check banner and of course, the logos. I’d never seen anything like it, and it meant something incredibly important to me.
The following day I decided to return to the gallery and photograph the installation as it was with no one around. As I was taking the shots, something caught my eye as it sped past the widow. I spun around, instinctively pressed the shutter, and without a second thought, continued with the gallery shots.
The next day I went along to my local photographic shop in Chrisp Street market to collect my prints, took them home and sat at my desk to check them through.
Gallery photo...
Gallery photo...
Gallery photo…
… and suddenly the hairs on my arms stood on end. In the middle of all the shots was this!
It’s like the message came back!
13 years later, I found myself living in California, sitting at my desk at DC comics, and staring at my office door, which somehow resonated.
A short while after I’d settled in, there was an internal contest for staff to submit photos of their younger selves dressed as their favourite hero. I submitted my British phone booth photograph from 1979 and was extremely lucky to win the first prize, which was a bespoke drawing by our boss, and truly amazing artist, Jim Lee.
My Man of Steel related luck didn’t end there, I finally got the chance to design a new Superman publication in the shape of the Frank Miller and John Romita Jr. series, Superman Year One,
and design and photograph these DC Rebirth advertisements, featuring Superman…
… and my other favourite DC hero, Wonder Woman, utilizing Liam Sharp’s beautiful Diana Prince portrait.
Anyway, that’s my little story, and thinking back to how it all began, it just goes to show what impact Malted Shreddies breakfast cereal can have on your life!
Superman and Wonder Woman © 2024 DC Comics
Shreddieboy © Nabisco/Nestlé
A couple of shoutouts:
Having mentioned Liam Sharp, he has a terrific Substack on this link that you really should consider visiting if you haven’t already.
I was surprised to discover that Shreddieboy was even mentioned on the web, but there’s a presentation about the comic strips here on YouTube.
If you want to see Grant Morrison and Ysanne Spevack’s Alternity performance, you’ll find it here.
That "Eagle" artist is, in fact "The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire" artist, Don Lawrence (from Ranger and then Look and Learn inter alia). Brilliant blog Steve.
Well that was a lovely surprise, on several levels! We start with Don Lawrence, my mentor (99% sure that’s his work on the cereal packet!) and end with… my work! Thank you! That really was an amazing ad.
But also, your Superman suit is exceptional, and the phone booth shot is utterly inspired!
It doesn’t end there either! In Photoshop’s infancy I conceived of an ‘alternate past’ project, called ‘Alternation’, where two pasts collide to create a merged future, with impossible artefacts. I just never had the wherewithal to pull together the event I imagined, but I do still have a few of those artefacts. Maybe I’ll post about it one day!
As always, it was a joy to read this. :-)