Before we leave the Silver Age behind for the Bronze Age feeling of the '70s, let's talk a post or three to talk about OTHER manifestations of Krypto during the preceding decade. It's not all comics, folks! Case in point, Superboy/man merchandise that used Krypto. Extra special! Like the model kit above that features the two Kryptonian heroes finding a baby dragon... Is that FROM something? I can't place it. Here's the ad, with artist's rendition:
You know, I'm not even sure what a "hobby kit" is or how much assembly and paint is required. Moebius has since reissued Aurora's 1966 original, so you can get this at reasonable prices.
Any action figures of Krypto during this era? Sort of. Look at this handsome (in)action pup!
He's from the Captain Action line from Ideal, treated as an accessory for your Superman doll.
Hey, I'll take it! It also came out in 1966, a big year for Krypto!
Meanwhile, across the Pacific, Japan was selling these Superman watches with Krypto on the display board, but not on the timepieces themselves.
False advertisement, Kenritsu! Not that you'd want to see their idea of Krypto on the amateurishly hand-drawn watches themselves.
Going further West from that point, what do we make of this Chinese marvel from Hong Kong?
It's like a whole other country out there! But then... so was the Silver Age.
Comments
more on Silver age:
I'm reading the last JLA issue of '61 at present. I realised that with an amused narrator it would sound remarkably similar in word choice and flow to the original Batman TV series. This isn't SO MUCH because they were trying to be funny but mainly because it was for 10 year old kids. This follows the era Philip K Dick and Murray Leinster wrote radio sci-fi for "X minus One" so it really catches that style.
Ironically, I tried reading the first issue of the highly acclaimed Grant Morrison JLA from the 90's and just found the narration and dialogue in the first few pages too hard going... and the creamy, textureless photoshop colouringmakes me metaphorically lose my dinner every time. If I can't have halftone dots, can I at least have an approximation of natural media?
Putting my brain back into the ten year old space and returning to the silver age after a few pages really showed where the magic is... reading it when you were ten. I love the silver age! It's in truth DC's pinnacle, whether adults can enjoy it or not is a separate issue, at least it was written in a literate manner.
Incidentally, in the weekend, having digested Gadot's Wonder Woman flick, went back to see BVS... and with a fuller context it's EVEN BETTER. When the oevre is finished and everything is seen in context it's all going to be an unparalleled masterpiece, mark my words.
Also noticed this weekend in Man Of Steel that the 20,000 year old frozen scout ship had an EMPTY cryogenic pod. S o who WAS THAT prehistoric Kryptonian stranded on earth?
I can't help but feel the artist isn't working with the writer though.
Reading the Silver age stuff it never occurred to me how GOOD the artists were... I always thought that level of quality must be the bottom line, yet today we have artists who are much more spectacular, and others who would never have made the grade in the silver age.
The art has a profound effect on how you feel about a character even when you treat it as a background for the words, as I do...
[Subjective/emotional experience:] Same for the reason I love the silver age above all(admittedly those films weren't REMOTELY silver) and yet this guy preferred the 90's as his favourite era:
https://fourcoloursandthetruth.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/the-great-comic-book-cull-of-20102011-part-14-dc-comics-the-justice-league/
The above article caused a bit of a "subjectivity" crisis in my thinking because his subjective experience of the SAME comics was quite different from mine.
HOWEVER, I think pure objectivity is almost impossible because even our facts have "intangibles" attached to them which sway our judgement, (for example, I never saw Snyder's other works and don't want to. Would they change my thoughts of his later works? Peter Jackson was also responsible for "Meet The Feebles" which is the only movie I desperately wish I could un-watch, yet parts of LOTR were still pretty good.)
I wonder even if objectivists are more subjective than they think. A quick google of Objectivism says that it's a philosophy which believes in absolute truth in spite of our reasoning, that some things will always be good, some things will always be evil. However, even Mr Spock would have to make decisions "subject to available data" which means he has to be, to a degree, subjectivist, so the greatest fictional objectivist has to admit partiality.
Holding to non-negotiable classification of Good and evil only becomes a problem in how you react to evil... do you non-negotiably execute someone for dropping litter?
Ah! The subject opens TOMES of thought.
BUT I suspect you were applying Objectivism to the films in a different way from my currrent train of thinking. How do YOU see these as objectivist?
PS, I can't wait til your review of this weeks Doctor WHO! I had QUITE a difference subjective experience with this one.
Snyder's 300 was fine, but his Watchmen showed he had no real vision except reproducing images I already owned in comics form, without really understanding the message behind any of the works. If you really want to do yourself harm, watch the misogynistic Sucker Punch.
I've only ever pressed lightly on the surface of philosophy, so I'm not familiar with Rand.
A quick skim over her Wikipedia entry strikes me how quickly a description of a philosophy about "reality" becomes heavily theoretical!
Ach, anyway, the world which involves Krypto toys is the one I like the most.
Bring it on, O Siskoid!