New York City's Cooper Union was the scene for “Get Super Lit,” a unique extravaganza of comic art projected bright and funny on a wide film screen, voice acting, and musical accompaniment. The live comics reading, held Saturday April 30 as part of the PEN World Voices Festival, was curated by Jeff Newelt, Heeb magazine comics editor and editor of the online Pekar Project, with assistance from Winslow Porter and Michele Reznik.
Introducing the program, Newelt asked the audience to consider that while fans of comic art often insist that comics are not just about superheroes, nonetheless superheroes span the creative spectrum, in memoirs, graphic novels, and adapted classics. “Arty gems” he dubbed them. Newelt’s message: don’t be defensive when it comes to superheroes.
With that key thought in mind the next ninety minutes offered a stellar line-up of artists, writers, and musicians: Nick Bertozzi, Kate Beaton, Benjamin Marra, Michael Kupperman, Ludovic Debeurme, Dean Haspiel, R. Sikoryak, Kevin Colden, Newelt (with a posthumous homage to Harvey Pekar), and Mike Dawson. Each writer/artist ran with his or her own intriguing take on Newelt’s animating idea.
While Bertozzi combined superheroes and opera in Dali-esque, melting images to depict a power-hungry inventor in “Call My Lover Modok!,” Beaton took Superman out for a new spin around the block. Imagining an ambitious Lois Lane determined to make her name in the competitive world of journalism, Beaton drew her literally on the doorstep of a great scoop—a presidential interview at the White House. But first, Superman swoops down and plucks Lois from what could only be harm’s way. She objects, to no avail, and is thwarted from notching her professional coup.
Differing approaches to superhero hagiography were exhibited in Marra’s “U.S. Agent vs. the Terror-Saur” and Kupperman’s “Holiday Frolics.” In the former, it’s altruism-be-damned, as operative John Walker hunts down a terrorist dinosaur while lusting for a rich bounty promised him by the U.S. government. Kupperman’s superhero is Jungle Princess, aka Miss Champion, editor by day of “Big City Fashion.” When the delicate ecology of a pristine wilderness is jeopardized, she leaves the magazine in the hands of her trusted aide, Miss Forgerie. With her boss away saving the world, she peels off a mask and reveals her true identity as arch-villain, Senior Citizen. She transforms the glossy mag into a haven for cemetery plot offers, medical device circulars, and denture cream ads. As the final showdown takes shape between the fashion-obsessed young and the elderly, unwilling to relinquish their privileges, the audience cracked up at the improbable hilarity of this scenario. Much of the mirth was doubtless fueled by the fact that Kupperman had slyly spotlighted some of our own society’s looming demographic conflicts.
A pleasant interlude was offered in the blues-inflected guitar stylings of Ludovic Debeurme, the percussion and singing of partner Fanny, and Debeurme’s weirdly beautiful comic creations. They featured wrestlers wearing unitards that in fact shared just one polymorphic body, like conjoined comic twins. Set against the backdrop of Fanny’s arcing vocals and Debeurme’s funky licks, a heady atmosphere was conjured.
Taking the mic, Newelt announced a special bonus: his performance of “Harvey Pekar Meets The Thing,” a story by the late master. Newelt explained that he and Pekar had worked together before Harvey’s 2010 death, and added that he’s now completing the edit of Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland, illustrated by Joseph Remnant, due out this year from Zip Comics. Newelt justified his voicing of the famously raspy and irascible Harvey by reporting, “I used to imitate Harvey to his face, who’d say, ‘Quit imitating me, man. It’s like you think it’s funny but you’re really annoying me.’ But he kind of liked it, so I feel okay doing it.” In the story, “the guy who’s lumpy and orange” is worried he has no future at Marvel. “I’m pretty sure they’re going to can me.” Thing has heard that Harvey will soon be retiring as a file clerk at the VA Hospital and hopes Harvey will recommend him for the job. Harvey tells Thing he’ll have to take the civil service test, and promises to put in a good word for him.
This winsome story of a superhero’s preoccupation with his economic insecurity, joined with Pekar’s legendary reportage on everyday life was a perfect mingling of the day’s themes: that superheroes are all around us, and being super, or having a superhero at your beck and call, doesn’t make all your problems go away.
Philip Turner is a longtime editor and comics reader. As a bookseller in the 1980s, Turner was pleased to have Harvey Pekar as a regular customer in his Cleveland bookstore.
