This week's gonna be a little light. All the cool kids will be at the Superman Celebration in Metropolis, Illinois from Thursday, June 7 through the 10th. Special guests will include John Glover and Cassidy Freeman from Smallville, and the Superboys of two generations -- John Rockwell and Gerard Christopher -- along with comic artists George Perez and Terry Beatty as well as other writers like Bruce Scivally and painter Trevor Hawkins and many, many more.
There will be parties, Q&As, autogrph sessions, auction, costume contests, re-enactment of the radio program, live skits, and more. For more information, head on over to www.supermancelebration.net and I hope to see you there.
Anyway, as a result, I'll probably only have one blog entry this week. I'll be back to two or more next week when I've recovered.
One thing that impresses me when I go to Metropolis is the range of creativity in its myriad forms. First of all, it takes a lot of creativity to assemble one of these affairs. Guests have to be selected, contacted, cajoled, negotiated, and then imported to this town of 6,500 that'll several times that number of people during the best four days of the year for some people.
Then there are writers who've done historical books on Superman and other pop culture icons or the writers of the comic books and movies. We've also gotten artists who've worked on the Superman titles or used him as a muse for their own work.
A large draw every year are the actors. Since I've attended the Celebration since 1999, I've met actors from Broadway, TV, and the films as well as actors who've appeared in other shows such as Batman, The Incredible Hulk, and SHAZAM!
I'm not above dropping names of the amazing creative people I've met ... however, I would regret omitting any names.
One demographic that seems to be taking over the Celebration, much to my delight, is the growing number of costumers who spend a lot of time and re-creating the look of their favorite media heroes or heroines. I've read many times where some Hollywood designer, with millions of dollars at their disposal, might claim that a comic book or video game costume might be impossible to recreate and not look idiotic. Then on any given weekend of the year, there's a costumer who's replicated the look flawlessly and for a fraction of the price.
(An aside here: in reading about the costuming community, you may have heard the hobby referred to as "cosplay." My friend Ned Cox once explained to me that he viewed the replicators of the Oriental manga and anime [their comic books and animated shows ... see how educational this blog can be?] as "cosplayers" while the more Western world-based characters were portrayed by "costumers." It seemed like a reasonable idea at the time and I fully concur with it now)
And not only do the costumers take pride in their threads, they also make sure they, themselves, stay in shape to resemble their favorite characters. Also, a great many of them visit hospitals, military bases, and appear at various charitable functions in costume. To me, that's a whole different level of heroism that we all should aspire to.
But I will say that the costuming bug may bite anyone ...
Uncle Dudley Marvel ... real and unreal!
So if I don't blog at you later this week,I'll continue my dissertation on creativity next week.
So what's your next-favorite creative outlet? Discuss!
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