S.S.S. Live from the Superman Celebration!

Despite rumors to the contrary we havent left the planet unannounced to find our previously destroyed home world. We've been away doing the summertime vacation and work type stuff for the past few weeks, and with nothing that's "on the record" really coming out of the studio other than the proposed Teen Titans film,, news has been a bit slow. Although the rumors still seem to be flying fast and furious.

Since I just happened to be in Illinois this week for work, I had a chance to attend the Superman Celebration in Metropolis, IL this weekend for the first time ever. It was basically like a huge comic convention that was just dedicated to Superman, but pretty cool nonetheless. If you're a Superman fan I'd recommend getting there at least once in your life. They had Superman themed everything there: costume pageants, car shows, auctions, art shows, dog shows, etc. They also had some celebrity guests there from the various incarnations of Superman in TV, comics, and movies. I actually got to meet the original Lois Lane, Noel Neill and Supergirl, Helen Slater, which was cool. Erica Durance from Smallville was supposed to be there, but was apparently very sick and unable to attend.

The one thing that stood out to me during the time I was there was the lack oi anything really having to do with Singerman there. I thought this odd considering Singerman had come out less than a year ago, and this was the first Superman Celebration since it's release. I think I saw 2 kids out of a few hundred that were there in anything even resembling the Singerman costumes they were selling for kids last Halloween. Most everyone was sporting the traditional look. Also, in all of the auctions there was little, if any, Singerman merchandise. I came across one of the vendors who was selling an authentic Singerman DVD for $6.99 and asked him why it was so cheap? His response was, "I have so many of them, I just want to get rid of the damn things." I was half-tempted to direct him to this blog posting so he could make the best of his bad situation. There were also no guests there from Singerman. Sure Noel Neill was there, but she was there as "TV's First Lois Lane" not "Dying, old bag that signed her fortune over to a pathetic version of Lex Luthor."

Being the inquisitive gent and social butterfly that I am, I figured I'd do some informal questioning of some of the most hard core of the hard core Superman fanbase about some of the hot button topics (and yes, these people were pretty hardcore. If you fly 2500 miles to go to this convention in your own handmade Supes costume, THAT's hardcore!) I did this without revealing who I was, so as not to taint the answers and to protect my secret identity. I talked to a few dozen pretty interesting people during my time there; at the hotel bar, at the merchant tables, at the costume shows and I found one common thread regarding Singerman. When asked what they thought of the film, I got a luke warm response at best. Answers ranged from "It was OK" to "I liked the guy in the suit but the movie was silly" to "Bryan Singer is clueless" (NOT making that one up) to "They crapped all over the character" (that one came from a mother of 3). Granted this wasn't a statistically accurate poll or anything, and I'm not trying to use it as definitive evidence that the film sucked. I just liked hearing the opinions of people who eat, drink, and breath Superman and would go out of their way to support the character in any medium. The highlight of my day had to come when I was talking a woman in her late 40's/early 50's in one of the art galleries and when I asked her if she followed tha character developments on the internet, she listed this blog as one of the places she checks occassionally for news. It's the little things like that, that brighten up your day.