SUPERMAN FOR THE ANIMALS (2000) produced for the Doris Day Animal League. Written by Mark Millar, art by Tom Grummett & Dick Giordano.
I don’t know how things are set up there now, but when I was still on staff at DC Comics, the company had a Special Projects department from which flowed a diverse variety of comic book and comic book-related product. Formalized sometime in the late-1970s/early-1980s under the supervision of artist and editor Joe Orlando, the department was responsible for everything from creating art and packaging for DC’s licensors to producing comic books in a range of formats for the promotion of those licensed properties and numerous social causes.
In my capacity as a writer and editor, I worked on my fair share of these so-called “custom comics” (as in, made-to-order) for clients including Radio Shack, the U.S. Postal Service, NASCAR, Six Flags, the Doris League Animal League, SunSoft, Schering-Plough, Fleer, Play-Doh, and others. Some of these companies, like videogame developer SunSoft (check out here for the result of that assignment), action figure manufacturer Kenner, and amusement park giant Six Flags were already in business with DC. The others were attracted to the association of their brands with DC’s, or to be more precise, with DC characters like Superman and Batman: Batman and Robin (in the animated style) in a story pitting them against Poison Ivy, their bacon saved by Claritin antihistamine; Superman showing kids the evils of animal cruelty on behalf of the Doris Day Animal League or promoting the use of Radio Shack personal computers, and so on.
Most of those jobs were pretty straightforward but every now and then, the assignment would take on extra added interest when they would require working real people into the fiction. The most prominent such job was one I edited: Superman Meets the Motorsports Champions, done in conjunction with a major 1999 promotional stunt in which nine NASCAR racing champions drove Superman-themed cars. Of course, contriving a reason to get Superman behind the wheel of a car, even a race car, was the hardest part of the job, but contrive one we did, and Superman led the pack of drivers Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., John Force, Matt Hines, Warren Johnson, Joe Amato, Ron Hornaday, Steve Kinser, and Jimmy Vasser in a race to save Earth from an alien invasion.
SUPERMAN MEETS THE MOTORSPORTS CHAMPIONS (1999) produced for NASCAR. Written by Chuck Dixon, art by Paul Ryan & Tom Palmer. Cover by Dick Giordano.
Another–and more recent–custom comic book story I wrote featuring a real life sports hero appeared in Archie Double Digest #217 (May 2011), featuring Dallas Cowboy tight end Jason Witten in “The M.A.D.D. Cowboy of Riverdale High.” Witten comes to Riverdale High to talk to Archie and the gang about underage drinking as part of M.A.D.D.’s (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) Powertalk 21 program, encouraging teens to take the commonsense approach to drinking and driving.
“The M.A.D.D. Cowboy of Riverdale High” for ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #217 (2011). Written by Paul Kupperberg, art by Jeff Shultz & Mark McKenna.
In 2008, I served a brief stint as an editor on WWE’s new kids magazine named, appropriately enough, WWE Kids. Part of my duties included writing and editing the magazines (very) short lived comics section. WWE superstars Matt and Jeff Hardy received their own comic strip, “Hardys In Space,” as did those time-traveling bone crunchers, Ric Flair and Maria, who appeared in “Time Rumble.” In the works but never produced was also a strip featuring my favorite WWE wrestler, a dwarf named Hornswoggle.
Rick Flair and Maria in “Time Rumble,” produced for WWE KIDS Magazine, 2008. Written by Paul Kupperberg, art by Steve Lightle.
“The Hardys In Space,” produced for WWE KIDS Magazine, 2008. Written by Paul Kupperberg, art by John Byrne.
One of the most famous–and certainly the rarest–custom comic featuring real people ever created was a Superman story done in 1988 by DC Comics…and it starred a couple of kids no one had ever heard of. This one-shot and one-of-a-kind comic was commissioned by the father of Daniel Bradman to be given away as a gift to the guests at his son’s Bar Mitzvah. Godfrey Bradman paid an estimated $18,000 to DC to produce “This Island Bradman” for his son, a major fan of the Man of Steel, and guest-starred the Bar Mitzvah boy and his half-brother in a tale that saw the Bradman home captured by aliens and transported, along with Superman, to their home world. Only an estimated 200 copies of “This Island Bradman” were printed according to then-DC Comics publisher Paul Levitz, and copies of this rarity, which featured art by legendary Superman artist Curt Swan, that have made it to the open collectors market have sold for as much as $5,000 – $10,000 each.
SUPERMAN: THIS ISLAND BRADMAN, produced for Daniel Bradman’s Bar Mitzvah (1988). Written by David Levin, art by Curt Swan & Angelo Torres.
“This Island Bradman” was an exception to the rule of scarcity in the world of custom comics. Most are created to get the widest possible distribution in order to sell its product or convey its message. Superman Meets the Motorsports Champions was packed in with a Superman racing t-shirt sold at major retail outlets across the country, making it possibly one of the most widely distributed Superman comics of its time and, likely, since. Superman For The Animals, a one-shot done in conjunction with the Doris Day Animal Foundation (Ms. Day being one of the nation’s most vocal spokespeople for animal rights, although she didn’t appear in the story) was a giveaway piece, while the Batman/Claritin comic was distributed via the Schering-Plough sales force to pediatrician’s offices nationwide, along with such other items as Batman band-aids and Batman growth charts.
Custom comics produced by the major publishers (Marvel Comics have done their fair share as well, as has Archie Comics, which picked up the Radio Shack program after several issues had been produced by DC) have long been objects of curiosity among a subset of comics collectors, but you never know when the next “This Island Bradman” will come along.
Tags: “This Island Bradman", Angelo Torres, Archie Comics, Batman, Chuck Dixon, Curt Swan, custom comics, Dale Earnhardt Jr., DC Comics, Dick Giordano, Doris Day Animal League, Hornswoggle, Jason Witten, Jeff Gordon, Jeff Hardy, Jeff Shultz, Jimmy Vasser, Joe Amato, John Byrne, John Force, M.A.D.D., Mark McKenna, Mark Millar, Matt Hardy, Matt Hines, NASCAR, Paul Ryan, Rick Flair, Ron Hornaday, Steve Kinser, Steve Lightle, Superman, Superman Meets the Motorsports Champions, Tom Grummett, Tom Palmer, Warren Johnson, WWE, WWE Kids
Love seeing this stuff, as corny as some of it is ( I mean, really, Superman rescuing kittens?) because it shows a side of the business that a lot of fans never think about.
Other widely-distributed-but-virtually-unknown-in-the-U.S. custom comics were those Land Mine Awareness ones we did back in the ’90s. Hundreds of thousands were printed and sent to places like Croatia and Central America.
Thanks, Bob…I forgot about those. On a less serious note, we also distributed who-knows-how-many copies of the DC produced Six Flags Park Guide & Maps for 16 or 17 different Six Flags locations, and then there were the 10 issues of the “Celebrate the Century Super Heroes Stamp Album” done in conjunction with the U.S. Postal Service, which also saw probably a few hundred thousand copies distributed…and shaved a few years off my life!