Kurt Busiek's Astro City: The Annotations

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              KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY VOL. 2, #13
                        In The Spotlight
      collected as part of the FAMILY ALBUM trade paperback
                      Narrator: Looney Leo
        Date: 1998? (present), 1946 to 1990s (flashback)
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Cover:    Looney Leo sits in his restaurant. Note that the woman
          (left) is gesturing toward him, indicating that she and
          her companion (right) are talking aboout Leo.

2/1:      First appearance of Looney Leo, previously referred to in
          #1, 5/3.

4/5:      The starting point of the story is dated to 1946. The
          "name-change" is a reference to Romeyn Falls being
          renamed Astro City; according to Vol.1 #2, this would
          finally occur within roughly the next year. Daigh Street
          refers to Fawcett editor Ralph Daigh.

5/2:      First appearance of Professor Borzoi, "a Bolshevik
          agitator" according to Kurt Busiek. Much as the Gentleman
          resembles Fawcett/DC's Captain Marvel, Borzoi bears
          similarities to his arch-foe Dr Sivana (and, indeed,
          Looney Leo is rather like Talky Tawney, one of Marvel's
          allies). The borzoi (also known as the Russian wolfhound)
          is a breed of dog developed in Russia to pursue wolves.
          The Professor is so named due to his resemblance to these
          elegant dogs.

6/1:      "Gilda" is a real 1946 movie starring Rita Hayworth and
          Glenn Ford (the other credits visible are for George
          Macready and Joseph Calleia (below Ford's credit), and
          producer Virginia Van Upp and director Charles Vidor
          (bottom line). The movie's tagline (mostly obscured by
          Leo's caption) reads "There NEVER was a woman like
          Gilda!".

 /3:      The poster in the background is for "My Darling
          Clementine". The two visible actors are Linda Darnell and
          Victor Mature (the cowboy on the bottom right is Henry
          Fonda). That posters for both "Gilda" and "My Darling
          Clementine" should appear is unusual, as "Gilda"
          premiered on March 15th, 1946 while "Clementine" did not
          debut until December 3rd.

 /4:      Note that the character on the Happy Jack Beverages
          advertisement is Alfred E Neuman, most commonly
          associated with MAD MAGAZINE. This is in fact
          historically accurate; Neuman is a public domain
          character a century old.

10/1:     "Francis the Talking Mule" was an actual film starring
          Donald O'Connor and Patricia Medina.

11/2:     Humphrey DeForest Bogart (1899-1957), considered one of
          the greatest Hollywood actors of all time, starred in
          films such as "The Maltese Falcon", "Casablanca" and
          "Sabrina". Comedian Danny Kaye (1913-1987), real name
          David Daniel Kaminski, was featured in movies like "The
          Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and "White Christmas", and
          on TV in "The Danny Kaye Show". "The Wizard Of Oz" was
          the film version of the novel "The Wonderful Wizard Of
          Oz", written by L Frank Baum. The most popular version,
          made in 1939 and likely the one to which Leo is
          referring, starred Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger
          and Jack Haley; Leo would be a shoo-in to reprise Bert
          Lahr's role as the Cowardly Lion.

12/4:     Looney Leo's cartoon life (chaste romance, three nephews)
          is a familiar animation set-up, one shared by characters
          such as Disney's Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.

13/4:     Corliss McBride may be a reference to the short-lived
          1950s comic MEET CORLISS ARCHER. MEET CORLISS ARCHER's
          first issue was amongst the evidence cited in Dr Frederic
          Wertham's 1954 work "Seduction Of The Innocent", which
          touted comic books as a major perverting influence on
          America' youth.

14/3:     The "Los Angeles Times" story reads:

                    KIDDIE TV STAR INVOLVED IN TEENYBOPPER DRUG
                    DEATH
                    "He Killed Her For His Depraved Pleasure"

               Authorities discovered the body of Corliss McBride
               in the hotel room of Looney Leo at 11:15 yesterday
               evening. McBride, known to Leo as "Trixie", was
               apparently living in the former cartoon star's room
               in exchange for money to support her drug
               addictions. Police [ ]

          The photo caption reads "[ ] victim McBridge [from an?]
          elementary school yearbook". Note that the paper is dated
          February 7th, 1957.

16/6:     First appearance of Zzardo. The name (though not the
          character) was inspired by Dr Lizardo from "Buckaroo
          Bonzai".

17/2:     First appearances of the Myth-Master (speaking), the
          Mermaid (right, behind the Silver Agent), El Hombre (top,
          above the Myth-Master's arm), Mirage (right, beneath the
          Silver Agent), the Hummingbird (right, beneath N-Forcer),
          and the Champions of the Imagination. The Champions are:
          Far left is Achilles, who appears in numerous Greek
          myths, particularly Homer's "The Iliad". To his right is
          the Witch from the fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel",
          popularised by Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm and Wilhelm Carl
          Grimm, better known as the Brothers Grimm. Beneath her is
          the pirate Blackbeard, a real pirate named Edward Teach
          (?-1718) who terrorised the Carolina and Virginia coasts
          between 1716 and 1718, but who has since entered into
          American folklore. Above the witch is Gort, the robot
          from the film "The Day The Earth Stood Still". Behind him
          is Quetzalcoatl, a Mexican deity known as the Feathered
          Serpent. The cowboy with the rattlesnake/lasso is Pecos
          Bill, a creation of journalists (particularly "Century"
          magazine's Edward O'Reilly) said to have been raised by
          coyotes and ride a mountain lion in the defense of the
          Pecos River region of Texas. The iron man is Joe Magerac,
          a Slavic-American steelworker hero.

  /3:     D'Artagnan is a character from the 1844 work "The Three
          Musketeers" by Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870).

18/1:     The rightmost arm is that of Joe Magerac, perhaps
          suggesting he allied with Honor Guard at some point
          during the battle.

19/4:     Fago's Funny Features is a reference to Vincent Fago, who
          did funny animal comics such as SUPER RABBIT for Timely
          and PETER RABBIT. As an editor, he supervised Timely's
          expansion into the funny animal comic arena.

20/2:     The real estate company listed on the sign is "Romayne
          Realty", peculiar because the original name for Astro
          City was spelt Romeyn Falls.

22/3:     Dooley Wilson (1894-1953) co-starred with Humphrey Bogart
          in "Casablanca", playing the pianist Sam.

24/1:     This sets the end point of Leo's story (and of the
          framing sequence) to the 1990s; presumably it's set in
          1998, though there's no specific evidence for this.

24/2:     First references to Starfighter and Quark.




Release History:
Version 1.2 released 11th July 1998
Version 1.1 released  5th July 1998
Version 1.0 released 22nd June 1998

Notes:
Citation format is page/panel. For instance, 18/1 refers to page
18, panel 1. Two-page spreads are treated as a single "page" for
the purpose of panel enumeration; for example, 6-7/3 refers to the
third panel on a spread covering pages 6 and 7. Issue number is
included if different from the issue being annotated, with issues
from Volume 1 specified as such.

KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY, its prominent characters and their
likenesses are trademarks of Juke Box Productions. All quoted text
is copyright Juke Box Productions.

Additions, corrections and comments should be sent to the editor.
Reproduction of these annotations, in whole or in part, without the
permission of the editor is forbidden.

Annotations for other issues of KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY may be
found at http://strindberg.ling.uu.se/~anders/KBAC/main.html
(HTMLized versions) and http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/kbac/ (text
versions).

Sources:
"Comic Art & Graffix Gallery Virtual Museum & Encyclopedia"
(http://www.comic-art.com/enter.htm)

"Who's Who In Astro City" (http://www.bonner.rice.edu/morrow/kbac/
kbacww.html)

Contributors:
Shannon Patrick Sullivan, shannon@morgan.ucs.mun.ca (editor)
Iain Brown, plap@iname.com
Kurt Busiek, kurtbusiek@aol.com
Jim Murdoch, smiv@primenet.com
Jess Nevins, jjnevins@ix.netcom.com
Danny Sichel, eds7466@umoncton.ca