TFMSR 025: My Comic-Con Panel Sneak Peek! …

It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for … the Comic-Con 2023 Schedule is now LIVE! And It’s also the moment I’VE been waiting for: I can now officially announce the day, time, and room number for my Tales From My Spinner Rack LIVE! panel at Comic-Con 2023!

As you can see from the graphic below, it’ll be on Friday, July 21 at 2:00 PM in Room 29AB. That room is located in the upper back hallway of the San Diego Convention Center, the one that has the windows facing the Bay and is south of Ballroom 20.

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Here’s the official panel description:
Fresh off its triumphant premiere at WonderCon 2023, Gary Sassaman (former director of programming and publications, Comic-Con International), brings his weekly blog feature to Comic-Con! Tales From My Spinner Rack LIVE! explores the comics Sassaman fondly remembers from his childhood, presented with equal parts humor and nostalgia and with a ton of images. This time around, he dives into the 1950s & ‘60s series Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen and Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane in an all-new presentation titled “Jimmy & Lois: Still Crazy After All These Years!” Spun out of the hit TV series The Adventures of Superman, these two titles upped DC’s wonky quotient in the Silver Age of Comics!

jack Larson and Noel Neill portrayed Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane on the super-popular (pun intended) Adventures of Superman TV show, first broadcast in syndication in the 1950s.

Yep … Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane, two characters who had their own DC Comics books from the 1950s through the mid 1970s. You can argue that the popularity of actor Jack Larson’s portrayal of Jimmy on The Adventures of Superman TV show was the impetus for his own title, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, which started with the September-October issue of 1954 and was in reality the first new superhero series from DC in a while. Superheroes fell out of fashion after World War II as more realistic genres took over comics, like horror, crime, Western, and romance. Jimmy’s own title lasted 163 issues until 1974, when the Superman family became a bi-monthly “100-Page Super Spectacular” book called … yep, you guessed it: Superman Family with issue #164.

Art and characters ™ & © DC.

Kids took to the syndicated Superman series, rushing home after school each day to watch it. Also starring George Reeves as Clark Kent/Superman, DC must have felt it was the right time to give Jimmy a larger role in the comic book world. Lois followed with a couple of try-out issues in Showcase (#s 9 and 10) in August and September 1957; her own comic, Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane debuted in January 1958 (cover-dated April). It too lasted until 1974, with #137 being its final issue before Lois stories started to appear in Superman Family, which continued the numbering of Jimmy Olsen, with #164.

So why are these books worth discussing for one hour on a Friday afternoon at San Diego Comic-Con when you have Funko POPS! to buy or any number of other worthy panels to see? I’m glad you asked! Both Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane are among DC’s weirdest, wildest, wonkiest books, especially in the 1960s—they were also top sellers for the company. We’ll be looking at both series via their covers, an important part of each issue, since DC management believed most comics were an impulse buy based entirely on the covers. But we’ll also take a deeper dive into a few specific issues of each title, including Jimmy Olsen #43—featuring “The Wolf Man of Metropolis!”—and Lois Lane #54—featuring “The Monster That Loved Lois Lane!” We’ll examine both of those stories in greater detail.

We’ll also take a side trip into a DC marketing ploy of the era with the comic world’s most inspired promo creation, “Go-Go Checks!” Created by DC Editorial Director (and son of the company’s co-owner) Irwin Donenfeld, Go-Go Checks were a way to make DC books stand out from all the others on the incredibly crowded newsstands of the mid-1960s. The gimmick was an idea regarded as “hip,” “happening,” and “now” as only a middle-aged, suit-wearing, publishing exec who thought his comic books were bought by 8-10 year old boys could imagine, circa 1966 (aka the “Year of the Bat” … the Batman TV series, that is!).

The first Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane issues to feature those absolutely magical “Go-Go Checks!”

So there you have it. I hope if you’re at Comic-Con this year, you’ll reserve Friday at 2:00 PM for a visit with Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, and me. There will be free postcards and buttons, while supplies last (don’t worry, I have well over eight of each) and hopefully, a good time will be had by all. At least I’ll try my best to keep you entertained without having to summon my pal, Superman, with my super-sonic signal watch to destroy you all with his heat vision.

We’ll be taking a short break to prepare for our Comic-Con debut, but don’t worry … we’ll be back in August with Tales From My Spinner Rack #26 … look for a preview soon!

To read all the “Tales from My Spinner Rack” posts, click here!