Aquaman Sketch by Paul Norris

This gets a big WOW from the Shrine, an Aquaman sketch by the Sea King's original artist/co-creator, Paul Norris!

Norris didn't last on the Aquaman strip long, but as comic fandom came into its own in the 70s and 80s he earned some well-deserved fame for his part in Aqua-History. He was asked to draw the character for the big DC Comics office wall mural, and would do Aquaman commissions for fans.

This is from the vast Aquaman art collection of F.O.A.M.er Kevin Elman, who was kind enough to share it with us. Thanks Kevin!

Who's Who: Golden Age Aquaman

No, this is not some "lost" Who's Who listing, this is an exquisite custom job done by F.O.A.M.er and Nuclear Sub Xum Yukinori as gift to the Who's Who podcast, on the occasion of our reaching the 26th (and final) issue of the first series.

Xum is a genius with these things, coming up with fake character entries that look so perfect you'd think they actually came right from the series. Knowing that I was always irritated that the Golden Age Aquaman was ignored in Who's Who, Xum was kind enough to bring his considerable artistic skills to bear and create this for the show--which we duly covered on the 26th episode of the podcast, now available.

Click the graphic to embiggen, and enjoy all the details. Thanks Xum!

Craig Ferguson vs. Aquaman!

This is priceless. At the 2014 SDCC, renowned Aquaman Hater Craig Ferguson gets schooled by someone with a deeply personal connection to the Sea King!

Aquaman Art Gallery: Paul Norris

Oh boy do I love this! It's a private art commission by none other than Aquaman's co-creator Paul Norris, featuring the Golden Age Aquaman pasting his #1 nemesis, Black Jack, right across the kisser! "Greets", indeed!

As bad guys go, Black Jack was always pretty hapless. Glad to see nothing's changed.

Paul Norris' Autograph

This is a copy of DC's More Fun Comics #73 Millennium Edition, signed by none other than Aquaman co-creator Paul Norris!

This comes from newest F.O.A.M. member Geoff Berman, and here's the story:

"I live in Omaha Nebraska. On February 10, 2006, Paul Norris was being honored by his old college here in Fremont Nebraska (Midland Lutheran College). They had an exhibit called 'A tribute to Paul Norris'. I heard about it from my wife, and as luck would have it, I was able to get the day off from work. So I drove like a madman around Omaha, because I knew that the Millennium edition of More Fun Comics #73 had been issued in 2001 and I though I could find one so I could get Mr. Norris' autograph on his original Aquaman story. It took some driving, but I found a copy. I went to the event, it was amazing!!! BUT I forgot a pen, so I had to borrow a pen from someone else in line, and all anyone had was a sharpie, hence how thick the autograph is."


Geoff asked if this submission made him a member of F.O.A.M., to which the answer is a resounding yes! Great get Geoff, thanks, and welcome to the club!

Happy Birthday Paul Norris!

Today would have been Aquaman co-creator Paul Norris' 98th birthday. I will always be a little sorry that I didn't get the idea to try and contact him about a possible interview until just a few weeks before he passed away in 2007.

As a way to honor him (and for some other reasons, as well), I have permanently added his and Mort Weisinger's name to the masthead. Thanks Mr. Norris--without you this would be the Sub-Mariner Shrine, and that's just absurd.

More Fun Comics #73 Millennium Edition - 2001

For the first Comic Friday of 2008, I thought I'd go back--way back, as far back in Aquaman's history as you can go-- to More Fun Comics #73, November 1941.

Of course, not being a millionaire, I don't own an actual copy of that book, which even when I was a kid was listing in Overstreet for like twenty grand(it was listed as "Rare", at the time--anybody know if that's changed over time?), so I went for the next best thing--DC's mostly faithful Millennium Edition, part of their series of reprints of important books in the company's history. They left out the ads, but everything else from 1941 is still in there!

The inside cover editorial mentions this book was "bursting with memorable heroes" and that's right--in just this issue alone, we've got Dr.Fate, Green Arrow, Radio Squad, Johnny Quick, Clip Carson, The Spectre, as well as Aquaman! Even more unusually, both the Sea King and the Emerald Archer make their comic book debuts in this issue, making this book sought after by more than one group of obsessed comics fans.

The untitled Aquaman story, by Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris, comes last:

The story opens with a passenger ship being sunk by a Nazi sub, who even decide to fire upon the lifeboats! Luckily, an arm suddenly appears out of the water to grab the lifeboat and drags it out of the way of an incoming Ratzi torpedo:

After getting the refugees to safety, this mysterious figure jumps aboard the Nazi ship, knocking various crewmembers overboard! The captain crawls back inside, ordering the ship to submerge. Our hero then jumps back into the water, commanding a school of porpoises to drag the boat to land!

The ship's captain asks who this "man of the sea" is and what land he hails from. He replies, "From no land. My name is--Aquaman!"

We then find out this "Aqua-Man"'s origin--turns out his father, an undersea explorer, managed to build a completely water-proof home under the sea, where he discovered some secrets from the lost city of Atlantis! Part of their miraculous science was a way to extract oxygen from water and turn the power of the sea into making one strong and swift, turning his son into a "true dweller of the deep."

After turning down a reward from the captain, Aquaman heads back into the water to find those Nazis, which he does. One of them manages to drop a sledgehammer on his head, knocking him out(beginning the first of many, many Aquaman stories that would turn on Aquaman being rendered unconscious by a hit on the head). The Nazis tie him up, weigh him down, and throw him into the ocean--big mistake!

Aquaman can't quite break the chains himself, so he commands his finny friends to help him. He then finishes the job he started, knocking those Nazis senseless. When one of them throws a grenade at him, he catches it and hurls it back, exploding an entire storehouse of their munitions, killing the Nazi commander!

Aquaman jumps back into the sea, ready for future adventures:

...could anyone have guessed from this modest tale that people would still be talking about this character sixty-seven years later?

I'm sure Mssrs. Weisinger and Norris were just trying to do their jobs as best they could, but they managed to lay the groundwork in these eight pages for something so enduring that the character would become a cornerstone of the DC universe. Thanks guys!

History of the DC Universe Poster - 1987

I had always wanted to run this item, so with the passing of Paul Norris now seemed like the perfect moment.

This was a huge jam drawing DC commissioned in 1987(click here to see the full-size, complete version) that they later released a poster, featuring the greatest line-up of DC talent ever seen in one place(Swan! Aparo! Kirby! Orlando! Colan! Kubert! Thorne! Kane! Fradon! Colon! Adams! Staton! Perez! Gibbons! Bolland!), as well as Paul Norris' last official drawing of his co-creation.

This piece, printed nearly life-size, is also on one of the lobby walls in the DC offices, and is quite a sight to behold when first stepping off the elevator.

In Memoriam: Paul Norris 1914-2007

As Mark Evanier reported yesterday, Aquaman co-creator Paul Norris has died at the age of ninety-three. I can't hope to do as good a job as Mark did eulogizing him, so I recommend you all go over to Mark's site and read his touching comments.

Obviously, without the work of Mr.Norris, I would not have had the childhood hero that meant so much to me and occupies so much of my time as an adult. You never do know what will mean things to people, and I doubt that when Mort Weisinger and Paul first created the character they ever would've dreamed he'd still be around, over sixty years later. Thankfully, Paul was around to receive a lot of the praise from later generations that was his due.

In fact, in a classy(but overdue) touch, starting in 2003 Paul got a "Aquaman created by" credit in the regular Aquaman series(according to Mark, some legal complications have kept Weisinger's name off), and he was the subject of a long interview in a recent issue of Alter Ego, where he discussed his work on the character and his long career.

I had always hoped to meet or at least communicate with Mr.Norris, to tell him how much Aquaman has meant to me over the years, and to personally thank him. Knowing now that I'll never get that chance makes me sad, but I feel like the Shrine is a daily "thank you" to him and what he created, so many years ago.

Rest in peace, Mr.Norris.