Lucy, Meet Lois. Lois, Say Hello to Lucy. ...
Two Obsessions Become One
The word obsession is tricky. It is generally defined as a negative, as Webster’s does: "a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling; broadly: a compelling motivation: obsessed with profits." When I use the word obsession, though, I don’t mean it in any dark sense, but rather mostly jokingly to refer to subjects that have occupied unusually large amounts of my time during my life. In a good way. Lois Lane is one of them. Specifically, as those of you who’ve visited this site before know, Lois as drawn by the masterful Kurt Schaffenberger. In fact, I’m in love with almost all of Kurt’s art; the clean lines, the nostalgic feel, the handsome and rippling men; I could go on and on… But you might not know that another of my obsessions is Lucille Ball; I’ve written several books on her, one of which has just been republished in a Third Edition: Lucy A to Z: The Lucille Ball Encyclopedia. For more on Lucy, visit my other site.
Now, the news: at long last, there’s a book about Kurt Schaffenberger’s life and art, called Hero Gets Girl! by Mark Voger. It’s a fan’s dream come true, but for me it has special resonance: Vogel put together my two obsessions for the first time in print, and like a big hit to the head, I realized why I love the wacky Lucy and the impetuous Lois. But I’ll let him tell you, from book’s first chapter:
"Kurt turned DC [Comics’] spin-off [the comic book Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane] into something romantic and operatic. He humanized Lois — gave her a distinct personality. So animated is the character in Kurt-drawn stories, that she became a comic book version of I Love Lucy (with Lois’s penchant for getting into hot water akin to Lucy’s desire to ‘be in the show, Ricky!’)."
Finally! Someone had connected the reason I gravitated to Lois from Lucy (well, Lucy came first; Lois debuted in 1958). It all made sense now. And although it doesn’t make me any less inclined to obsess about Lucy or Lois, or Kurt’s art, for that matter, I found it amusing that a total stranger would finally put it together for me.
What's really fascinating to me is this: Lucy (Ball/Ricardo) began on Tv, of course, but became a comic character, in her own long-running comic strip and comic book series (the I Love Lucy comics continued for several years after the series had ended.) Lois, of course, began on the comic pages, but has been seen in all the same media as Lucy: comics, radio, TV, film. The two characters have more in common than I ever dreamed of. Except (unfortunately) Kurt never drew Lucy, as far as I know.
P.S. If you’re a Lois and/or Schaffenberger fan, this book is manna from heaven. Buy it now! (And visit my Lois Lane web pages by clicking here.)
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Take me home, please.