Print

[ComicMike]

An atomic Rabbit! Now I've seen everything, now nothing surprises me anymore! :-)

Link to the book: Atomic Rabbit 01

[Robb_K]

An atomic Rabbit! Now I've seen everything, now nothing surprises me anymore! :-)

Link to the book: Atomic Rabbit 01

What is so unique about "Atomic Rabbit"?
There were many funny animal superheroes in comic books in the 1940s and early 1950s (Super Rabbit, Super Dog, Super Duck, Hoppy The Marvel Bunny, Super Cat, Pussy Katnip, Super Fox, Super Mouse, Mighty Mouse, Superkatt, Atomic Mouse, Atom The Cat, Super Pup, etc.).

[ComicMike]

I think, it's the irritating contrast between a cute rabbit and nuclear power, which among other things also made atomic bombs possible. I find it less irritating with mice or humans, than with a cute rabbit.

[Robb_K]

I think, it's the irritating contrast between a cute rabbit and nuclear power, which among other things also made atomic bombs possible. I find it less irritating with mice or humans, than with a cute rabbit.

Mice aren't cute?

[The Australian Panther]

If and when I find them in my house, not they are not.
Which brings up an interesting point. Exactly why are there so many cartoon mice? Maybe because Mickey is the template?
The most frequent 'funny animals' are Mice,Ducks, Rabbits and Bears. Dogs are mostly extras and villains in Disney cartoons. Cats are rogues, con artists [Top Cat] and villains in cartoons as are Skunks, Wolves and Stoats. Chipmunks are cute. Then we also have Woodpeckers, alligators, Possums and Penguins. An occasional Platypus or Kangaroo.         

[crashryan]

Interesting question. I'm sure Mickey was the original template for later cartoon and comic book rodents. However in terms of design Jerry (of Tom and) seems to have been a stronger influence. I suppose because real-life mice are small and cute and appear harmless (as opposed to rats), they were a good base for sympathetic characters. They also seem to be easier to "humanize" than some other animals. I have to hand it to Walt Kelly for making a possum look pleasant. The real ones are ugly little critters. Come to think of it, the early Pogo was more possum-like and looked the worse for it.

As a kitty lover I feel cats have gotten a raw deal in comics. Though there are some heroic cats, they're more likely to be tough guys or villains. I'd have thought hamsters, guinea pigs, and/or gerbils would have made good Golden Age characters, but I guess they weren't common pets like they are nowadays. Most kids probably wouldn't have known what a gerbil was, and guinea pigs were always associated with laboratory experiments.

[SuperScrounge]

guinea pigs were always associated with laboratory experiments.

Which, considering how many Golden Age heroes got powers from experiments, makes it odd we didn't have guinea pig superheroes.

"More powerful than a bench press, faster than a speeding kitty, able to leap tall cages in a single bound, it's Super Guinea Pig!" 

[ComicMike]

I find it less irritating with mice or humans, than with a cute rabbit.

Mice aren't cute?

OMG, did I actually give this impression? I apologize to all mice!

[Robb_K]

If and when I find them in my house, they are not.
Which brings up an interesting point. Exactly why are there so many cartoon mice? Maybe because Mickey is the template?
The most frequent 'funny animals' are Mice,Ducks, Rabbits and Bears. Dogs are mostly extras and villains in Disney cartoons. Cats are rogues, con artists [Top Cat] and villains in cartoons as are Skunks, Wolves and Stoats. Chipmunks are cute. Then we also have Woodpeckers, alligators, Possums and Penguins. An occasional Platypus or Kangaroo. 

But, you'd rather find mice in your house than rats, I'd wager....... or than badgers, raccoons, skunks, ferrets, and the like!  We had an adult moose in our backyard, which ruined our garden, when I was young.  A few months ago, a raccoon ran down my sister's street in Los Angeles.  The had an opossum living in a tree in their backyard.  A friend of mine in Winnipeg took in a raccoon, and tried to make a pet of it.  It ended up tearing up his furniture.  We had a fruit bat spending its days for about 3 months, hanging from an upper window of the high-ceilinged kitchen of my business partner's cartooning studio in Munich.

But, .... back to the topic:  The comic book industry was one of the most copy-cattish industries, especially early in its history, probably because the running out of the backlog of the newspaper comic strips' pages that had not yet been compiled into comic book format, bringing up a need for thousands of pages of new material for the comic book publishers to print.  And there was little time to use to come up with totally new story ideas and interesting characters.  So, based on Superman's success, and the success of animated cartoons, and western and romance films, comics publishers story writers were forced to copy the styles of the most successful creators in each genre, resulting in tonnes of character clones, including lots of mice. 

Cute mice like Mickey(MGM's Jerry and Tuffy Mouse, Paul Terry's Little Roquefort, Quality's Marmaduke Mouse, Avon's Merry Mouse, Orbit's Merton Mouse), even superhero mice like Super Mouse and Atomic Mouse (clones of Mighty Mouse) were invented.  Because of Bugs Bunny's success, rabbits abounded - both cute little bunnies like Standard's Buster Bunny, Star's Bodkins Bunny, Avon's Peter Rabbit, Key Publications' Peter Cottontail, and King Rabbit, and his nephews; and wisecracker/trickster rabbits like Harvey's Rags Rabbit(and his nephews, Pesty& Jesty, DC's Bo Bunny, and Ajax's Billy Bunny, Charlton's Funny Bunny, EC's Dandy Rabbit, ACG's and Funny Films' Blunder Bunny(failed inventor), Disney's Bre'r Rabbit, and Dell's Uncle Wiggily.  There were also superhero Rabbits (Super Rabbit and Hoppy The Marvel Bunny. 

Because of Porky Pig's success, funny pigs were in fashion early, like Hillman's/Punch & Judy's Fatsy McPig, Charlton's Pudgy Pig, Timely's Ziggy Pig, Timely also had a Pudgy Pig, DC's Peter Porkchops, Standard's Peter Pig, ACG's and Ken Hultgren's Judge Pupple, Disney's The 3 Little Pigs.  The Sangor Studio used probably over 100 differently-named generic pigs just for Creston/ACG and Nedor/Standard comics, alone.

Naturally, cats, foxes, and wolves were used for most of the villains, as they are the animals in real life that eat the smaller, cute mammals. But there were also silly Foxes as foils for smart would-be prey animals, like Foxy in DC's "Fox and Crow", and Dearfield's Foxy Fagan, and ACG's Filbert Fox.  ACG had too many foxes with that same character to name.  ACG's Wacky Wolf was a similar character, as was Standard's Wally Wolf.

Disney's success with Donald Duck, probably led to Warner Brothers' Daffy Duck, which led to Super Duck (especially in his volatile, angry, suburban resident, caretaker of his young nephew, non-superhero existence after his first 10 comics appearances).  Jack Bradbury's Dizzy Duck was also probably patterned after Donald, as were Timely's Dopey, Wacky, and Buck Duck.  And Standard's "Drakestone The Magician" had Daffy Duck's exact physical features and colouring (an identical clone), and also, the craziest/zaniest aspects of his psychological character traits.  Frank Frazetta's and Jack Bradbury's Hucky Duck, looked a lot like Donald, and was a cross between him and Huckleberry Finn.  All of Gil Turner's single-use ducks for ACG
's Giggle and Ha Ha Comics look somewhat like Donald.  Jack Grothkopf's Chuck Duck for Fawcett's Funny Animals looks a lot like him, as well.  Then there was Wacky Quack Duck, a fireman in Jamboree Comics, and
Quick-Quack Duck, a friend of Hoppy, The Marvel Bunny in Fawcett's later Funny Animals stories, Doc Duck (featherbrain) in Key Publications' "Peter Cottentail", Sangor's and Ken Hultgren's Doc Quack, Orbit's and ToyTown Comics' Wordless Waddles, ACG's Jerome Duck, sidekick to Hector The Specter, and Walter Lantz's Davey Duck, one of Charlie Chicken's regular buddies in his 1950s solo stories away from Andy Panda.

[The Australian Panther]

The comic book industry was one of the most copy-cattish industries, especially early in its history,

Well that is simply business. If you want to get capital, you are most likely to get it if you convince the investor [or the publisher or producer] that your creation is likely to succeed, so you copy success.
This is there to see in most mass-market culture, Movies, books, Comics, Magazines,TV and now Games. 
Hollywood regularly cannibalises itself for that reason, so we get Batman and Superman over and over again, Robin Hood, Spy Films, Time Travel, Gangster and Heist movies and Rom-coms. Many just get made because the funding was easy to get and the audience mostly (although not always) keeps coming back again. I think some Movie franchises are nearly up to two figures now.   
Marvel set the bar for US comics companies in the 60's and all other companies mostly still follow their lead as far as Design, look, narrative form and production values go.

the newspaper comic strips' pages

   
Obviously comic books took their template from the comic strips, How many Alex Raymond clones were there, not only of Flash Gordon but also of Rip Kirby? I'm sure Chester Gould had a huge influence on the myriad of crime comics and Mandrake, as we've mentioned elsewhere on CB+, spawned a large number of similar magicians.
The thing is, tho, nothing is truly original, everything is usually based on or created out of, something else that already existed.   

[Robb_K]

The comic book industry was one of the most copy-cattish industries, especially early in its history,

Well that is simply business. If you want to get capital, you are most likely to get it if you convince the investor [or the publisher or producer] that your creation is likely to succeed, so you copy success.
This is there to see in most mass-market culture, Movies, books, Comics, Magazines,TV and now Games. 
Hollywood regularly cannibalises itself for that reason, so we get Batman and Superman over and over again, Robin Hood, Spy Films, Time Travel, Gangster and Heist movies and Rom-coms. Many just get made because the funding was easy to get and the audience mostly (although not always) keeps coming back again. I think some Movie franchises are nearly up to two figures now.   
Marvel set the bar for US comics companies in the 60's and all other companies mostly still follow their lead as far as Design, look, narrative form and production values go.

the newspaper comic strips' pages

   
Obviously comic books took their template from the comic strips, How many Alex Raymond clones were there, not only of Flash Gordon but also of Rip Kirby? I'm sure Chester Gould had a huge influence on the myriad of crime comics and Mandrake, as we've mentioned elsewhere on CB+, spawned a large number of similar magicians.
The thing is, tho, nothing is truly original, everything is usually based on or created out of, something else that already existed.

That is true.  But, that has little meaning when it comes to judging "originality" of new additions to Human "achievement".  "The Alphabet" (using single symbols for each separate sound in a given language) seems to have been invented only one time, having been developed as an improvement from using a syllabic, rebus system of representing complex and abstract ideas more easily in written form.   This was an improvement over the previous improvement in that regard, which was the use of single symbols to represent the sound of a syllable spoken, rather than being restricted by being limited by a single symbol representing the sound of a whole word.  All Humans with normal brain function, had the innate ability to see the possibility of using a single drawn symbol, first to represent the sound of an entire word, then to move to it representing a single syllable, and then, to it representing merely a single sound.  It seems to me that coming to the idea that ideas could be represented in drawings , the first step, is almost totally original,  Each step after that (2nd-can be represented by a symbol, rather than an exact drawing showing every detail), a little less so, but not much, 3rd-can represent a word, 4th-a syllable, 5th- a single sound, - are ALL very original.

Picture writing started from many different, completely different sources.  We are not sure whether The Egyptians or Sumerians first made the move from single word symbols to single syllable symbols.  But, it is likely that they didn't develop that innovation independently.  It had to move from one to the other, because the both were in the same trade network.  It is now clear that Canaanite workers in copper mines in Egypt's Sinai invented the idea of using single symbols for each individual sound (rather than The Egyptian's representation of a syllable sound) around 1700 BC, and adapted that to their own language - and carried that back to their own land (Phoenecia/Canaan) when they returned there, or after the idea had been disseminated to kinsmen who dwelt there, but traveled to Egypt.  That appears to be the genesis of ALL alphabets on The Earth, today.  But, in The Western Hemisphere, The Mayans developed a syllabic script, which COULD have developed into an alphabet completely independently of that development in The Eastern Hemisphere.

Similarly, Superman's creators developed a very new idea, a Superhero, to be used in comic books.  It is true that there were ancient legends and folkloric tales of both Human and half-godlike and half-human superhuman heroes, with superhuman strength and powers of perception from which they could pull ideas.  Were there any superheroes in newspaper strips before 1938?

[crashryan]

Without getting too far into the weeds, it should be noted that Superman was strongly influenced by Philip Wylie's novel Gladiator. It's not a very good book but it's worth a read. His abilities came from science rather than extraterrestrial birth, but Hugo Danner shared many characteristics with the original Supes. His powers and abilities were almost identical, save that Superman lacked Danner's super-powered sex drive (cough cough). Their boyhoods were similar. Danner also shared the early Superman's social conscience. He tried various ways to drive out gangsters, end wars, and such. Unfortunately Danner's efforts never quite panned out. He couldn't fix the world and he couldn't fit into it. He ended up standing on a stormy mountaintop challenging God. (Spoiler: God wins. A lightning bolt kills him.)

Kids are even more likely than adults to riff off the stuff they've read, and Siegel and Shuster were kids. The important thing was what they added to the core concept to realize a personal vision. I'd say they did a pretty good job.

[The Australian Panther]

that has little meaning when it comes to judging "originality" of new additions to Human "achievement".

I grant your point that things have to be done for the first time.
But communicating, including counting and naming things is instinctive to cognitive existence. A Child under one can be observed making sounds learning to talk ( the first speech is crying and laughing?) and using a stick or a finger to draw. All that's missing is sophistication. We now know that even animals, birds and insects communicate with each other with sound and some can read visual cues. I taught Ancient History and the material I used made the argument that language sophistication and counting came from accounting which came from the need to keep accurate records of trade and of goods stored - which became possible when Irrigation and control of rivers made excess crops possible in the Nile and Euphrates valleys.And gave some people time to think and create things.

But, it is likely that they didn't develop that innovation independently.  It had to move from one to the other,

Yes and it did. We now that trade was extensive and far-reaching, likely even to China and the Indus Valley Mohenjo-Daro civilization. So you needed to record numbers accurately and lists of things and clients.
One of the South American peoples, I think the Aztecs, used a sophisticated system of knotted strings to keep records. Unfortunately religious zealotry destroyed most of them. Those that are still left have proved notoriously difficult to decipher.
Symbolic written language comes from simplifying pictographs which come from standardising drawings. So written language is an evolution from drawing, which comes naturally to us all.

It seems to me that coming to the idea that ideas could be represented in drawings , the first step, is almost totally original

Yes and the first child was capable of it. A drawing is a visual idea. Combine two drawings and away you go! Mandarin script consists of symbols consisting of two pictographs, one above the other, each has a separate meaning and each combination has a separate meaning.
But I say again, all of these things, children left alone, will do instinctively. 

Superman's creators developed a very new idea

Yes, Crash, Gladiator was definitely a big influence on Superman.
It's also not a co-incidence that there have always been many 'Gods' in Superhero comics. 
A God-like being comes down from the Heavens to live among ordinary humans, do good deeds and be an exemplar to them. Common to many traditional mythologies. Hercules?  He gets sent away from his real parents and is adopted by another set of parents who teach him all about his adopted culture. When he becomes an adult he is angered by injustice and  becomes a righter of wrongs, Um, Moses?
It's not in any way co-incidental that many of the creators of Superheroes were Jewish.
Lee and Kirby's original origin of Marvel's Thor is another example.
Superman's real name is kal-el.

these composite names are theophorous, referring to, or actually mentioning, the Deity, either by the name of YHWH or by the name of El.

El is a common suffix meaning Godly strength.

Kal is similar to the Hebrew words for "voice" and "vessel."

  So Kal-El - Vessel of God's strength.
'With Great Power comes great Responsibility' Teaching that to (3?) generations of children may be Stan Lee's greatest achievement.     
I rest my case. In the words of Solomon, 'There is nothing new under the sun'             
             

[Robb_K]

that has little meaning when it comes to judging "originality" of new additions to Human "achievement".

I grant your point that things have to be done for the first time.
But communicating, including counting and naming things is instinctive to cognitive existence. A Child under one can be observed making sounds learning to talk ( the first speech is crying and laughing?) and using a stick or a finger to draw. All that's missing is sophistication. We now know that even animals, birds and insects communicate with each other with sound and some can read visual cues. I taught Ancient History and the material I used made the argument that language sophistication and counting came from accounting which came from the need to keep accurate records of trade and of goods stored - which became possible when Irrigation and control of rivers made excess crops possible in the Nile and Euphrates valleys.And gave some people time to think and create things.

But, it is likely that they didn't develop that innovation independently.  It had to move from one to the other,

Yes and it did. We now that trade was extensive and far-reaching, likely even to China and the Indus Valley Mohenjo-Daro civilization. So you needed to record numbers accurately and lists of things and clients.
One of the South American peoples, I think the Aztecs, used a sophisticated system of knotted strings to keep records. Unfortunately religious zealotry destroyed most of them. Those that are still left have proved notoriously difficult to decipher.
Symbolic written language comes from simplifying pictographs which come from standardising drawings. So written language is an evolution from drawing, which comes naturally to us all.

It seems to me that coming to the idea that ideas could be represented in drawings , the first step, is almost totally original

Yes and the first child was capable of it. A drawing is a visual idea. Combine two drawings and away you go! Mandarin script consists of symbols consisting of two pictographs, one above the other, each has a separate meaning and each combination has a separate meaning.
But I say again, all of these things, children left alone, will do instinctively. 

Superman's creators developed a very new idea

Yes, Crash, Gladiator was definitely a big influence on Superman.
It's also not a co-incidence that there have always been many 'Gods' in Superhero comics. 
A God-like being comes down from the Heavens to live among ordinary humans, do good deeds and be an exemplar to them. Common to many traditional mythologies. Hercules?  He gets sent away from his real parents and is adopted by another set of parents who teach him all about his adopted culture. When he becomes an adult he is angered by injustice and  becomes a righter of wrongs, Um, Moses?
It's not in any way co-incidental that many of the creators of Superheroes were Jewish.
Lee and Kirby's original origin of Marvel's Thor is another example.
Superman's real name is kal-el.

these composite names are theophorous, referring to, or actually mentioning, the Deity, either by the name of YHWH or by the name of El.

El is a common suffix meaning Godly strength.

Kal is similar to the Hebrew words for "voice" and "vessel."

  So Kal-El - Vessel of God's strength.
'With Great Power comes great Responsibility' Teaching that to (3?) generations of children may be Stan Lee's greatest achievement.     
I rest my case. In the words of Solomon, 'There is nothing new under the sun'

Eric,
I agree that all your points are valid.  BUT..... I don't believe that that should make us not marvel at the "originality" in achievements like being the first person to think of writing the qualitative and numerical record of business deals (trades) on permanent objects, or moving from a syllibary to an alphabet.  Being the first to think of these things and act upon those ideas, if very creative, and so, a LOT more "original" than the total non-action in that regard, shown by ALL other people before them.  You might not consider that a "totally original" idea.  But, as NO idea can be, that fact is not really relevant to deciding whether or not a given act has "originality". If something is the first (at least known), then, it is valid to give the person who accomplished it some level of praise for doing that, when no one else did.

Regarding "Superman", I didn't know about the newspaper strip predecessor, which was more similar to "Superman" in a few different ways, than I had expected of any newspaper strip that might have inspired Siegel and Schuster.  Still, I think they deserve a reasonable amount of credit (of course the timing was right for them to jump on a great opportunity).

As far as the Biblical names, and the suffixes standing for God, I want to point out that the understood (unwritten) implication of reference to "God's strength" is only true in some cases, which make up only a small portion of the names that have the "El" and "Ya/Yah" suffixes. As you have stated above, the suffix "el" refers to The Canaanite "father God - head of The Canaanite Pantheon, and first-used name of The One Hebrew Tribal God, "El", and the suffix "Ya or Yah" refers in exactly the same way to The God YHVH, who was a more southerly mountain god (thought to have been Midianite), whose name was used by The Israelites later in their history, to stand for The One God (ostensibly because The Israelites (who WERE Canaanites), wanted to disassociate themselves from the other Canaanites.  "El" is used to refer to God exclusively in the earliest portions of The Bible. 

Below is a random list of common Hebrew names, which use "el" or "ya" suffixes, I chose to prove that the "el" and "ya" suffixes do not always refer to God's strength.  In fact, most of the time, they refer to God's relationship to the nameholder, or some quality God has, or his relationship to The Israelite people.  It should be noted that ALL such names were already common Canaanite names at the VERY earliest of The Eblaite Kingdom in Northern Syria, even in 2,400 BC, and The "El" suffix certainly must have been in use long prior to 3,000 BC. (Ebla lies a couple hundred miles southwest of Haran, from where Abraham's family originated, and from where he probably traveled to Canaan some time between 2,000 and 1,700 BC).

Also, "Kal-El" literally means "Vessel of God" only.  No word for strength or power.  But, yes, you are correct that the presumption can be made that it can be interpreted as: "The tool God uses to carry out his wishes on Earth" , or more simply, "The Tool of God's power".  But, you will see below, that a lot of different ideas are expressed with elements left unwritten, with other names using those suffixes:

Ab-i-Jah:  God is my father - Literally: Father of mine is God

Av-ram:  Exalted father -  Literally: Father (is) exalted

Ar-i-El.    Lion of God or God

[The Australian Panther]

BUT..... I don't believe that that should make us not marvel at the "originality" in achievements

Oh, no argument there. That's why we are blown away on CB + when we come across some excellent creative work that we have not been aware of.
My point is that nothing comes from nothing, there is always an origin point for a concept point, or an idea.
Creativity comes from taking the known and making a new thing from new combinations and perspectives.
Like those cooking shows where they give 6 people a fixed lot of ordinary ingredients and they all come up with something different and often spectacular.   

As far as the Biblical names, and the suffixes standing for God, I want to point out that the understood (unwritten) implication of reference to "God's strength" is only true in some cases

My point is that the name Kal-el, from a creative work by two Jewish Men is hardly likely to be a co-incidence.

The consensus is that ALL true alphabets have been derived indirectly from The original Canaanitic alphabet through either adapting the actual usable letters indirectly through the alphabet nearest to them, or from idea of making a letter for each sound element in their languages.  And, a link from that to The Indus Valley Civilisation, Burmese, and other Southeast Asian scripts, has been proven, and heavily inferred to Chinese, Tibetan, Korean and Japanese.

No serious argument there either.

I  know that Stan Lee(Leiber) was Jewish.  But was Jack Kirby?

Jack Kirby was born Jacob Kurtzberg.

Cheers!

[SuperScrounge]

Superman's Kryptonian name was originally Kal-L, I believe the first use of the El spelling came from Bill Finger's 1950s rewrite of Superman's origin.

Another inspiration for Superman is probably John Carter of Mars (comes from another world, gains super-strength and a tremendous leaping ability on Mars).

A bit up-thread Robb mentioned Superduck having a nephew, but Fauntleroy is actually Superduck's brother, not nephew. (and quite the psycho in his earliest appearances.)

[Robb_K]

Superman's Kryptonian name was originally Kal-L, I believe the first use of the El spelling came from Bill Finger's 1950s rewrite of Superman's origin.

Another inspiration for Superman is probably John Carter of Mars (comes from another world, gains super-strength and a tremendous leaping ability on Mars).

A bit up-thread Robb mentioned Superduck having a nephew, but Fauntleroy is actually Superduck's brother, not nephew. (and quite the psycho in his earliest appearances.)

Actually, Fauntleroy was BOTH his little brother AND his nephew, at different times.  First, he was his brother.  Later in the series (with NO explanation or apology) he magically became his nephew. Super Duck could have had a child with his mother, and that child would have been his SON, HALF-BROTHER, AND NEPHEW!!!  So, I was waiting through the later issues in the series, for Supe to star t calling him "Son"!