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beau Smith-Daydreaming and Scheming! In 1967.
by beau Smith
This is nothing new, at least in my world. It’s one of those things I used to daydream about in grade school when I should’ve been paying attention to my math. (Who am I kidding, I never paid attention to my math.)
Grade school and especially Junior High School, was my peak time in comic book reading and collecting. That was the time period that I truly read and studied the comic books I bought every month. So, in class, when the topic was not of interest or I wasn’t eyeballing the prettiest girl in the class, I daydreamed of comic books. even then, I wanted to write comic books stories. My extra loose leaf pages in my notebook were filled with half written stories and ideas for comics.
In My Daydreams, You could Hang Out With The Hulk and have Pie.
It’s true that I used to write the typical stories that a kid my age would. You know, The Hulk and The Sub-Mariner teaming up to fight doctor Doom from destroying Washington, D.C. and taking over the United States. (Why The Hulk and The Sub-Mariner would care, well, your guess was as good as mine. I was in grade school. What did I know?)
What I would daydream about were those “A Day In The Life” stories of say Captain America, The Sub-Mariner, Batman, Superman, etc. What was a day like when they weren’t saving somebody or some planet? In reality, they were bound to have more normal days than not. I used to wonder what were they like.
In My Daydreams, Superman….Well, even In My Daydreams, Superman Was never This Weird.
I always figured Superman had the hardest regular day. As Clark Kent, he was a reporter and had access to all the breaking news, not only in Metropolis, but around the world. So I always guessed he really didn’t have much time to do any reporting. He could always find crime that needed thwarted or some country that needed saving. As a kid and an adult, I didn’t know how he could make those choices. When I thought of Superman and what his day was like, I always tried to dumb it down a little so my head wouldn’t hurt thinking about it. If I was gonna think that hard, I might as well be doing my math work.
In My Daydreams, Batman and Catwoman had Time For Malts.
Batman was always easier. I could see him going about his rich guy business stuff like any other adult would, maybe picking Robin up at school, although I always saw Alfred doing that. I did figure with all the cool stuff that Batman had, he must have been in the Batcave a lot inventing or fixing all his machines, vehicles and making utility Belt stuff. I never pictured him loafing around much. I have to admit, when my family was at the beach for vacation once, there was this family that had the house next to us, and the father there looked just like what I thought Batman/Bruce Wayne would look like in real life, so I would pretend he WAS Batman on vacation. I’d watch him and his family and then add backstory to everything they did. I figured at one point when they were all out in the water playing that he’d see a shark and have to wrestle it and make it go back out to sea, or maybe when they were collecting sea shells, he was really signaling Aquaman about the next JLA meeting. Oh, you’re right, my mind shouldn’t be left idle for too long.
In My Daydreams, everybody gathered At The Coffee Bean In Your spare Time.
Marvel superheroes were always a little easier to have thoughts about. In Stan Lee’s stories, he gave them a little more of a civilian life than most. The fantastic four and Spider-Man always had lots going on in their private life as did Daredevil. That wasn’t too hard to think about, so I would try and give The Hulk, B’Wana Beast and even the bad guys a normal life.
I have to admit, the bad guys were a lot of fun to think about. one of my favorites was having The mad Thinker and Dragon man trying to go about doing normal things. doctor Doom was easy, he had his own country and lots of people to do his bidding, but try being the mad Thinker and having to go to the grocery store to feed Dragon Man. No wonder he wanted to rob banks and rule the world. Can you imagine the food bill?
In My Daydreams, The Defenders Surfed At The North Pole.
The Sub-Mariner wasn’t too hard to figure. He had a kingdom to run and he could always just swim with his aquatic buddies for fun. I had him surfing without a board off the coast of San Diego once as well as doing some big Wave surfing in Hawaii, showing up Greg Noll.
I would also daydream about the different heroes passing through my hometown and hanging out with me and my friends. That was always some fun make believe stuff to pass the time. I always thought it would be cool for wonder woman to fly me and my family to our vacation at Wrightsville beach in her invisible jet so it wouldn’t take as long to get there. She would always hang out withus there, basically because she was already in her bathing suit. I guess my hormones were trying to bust out without me being that aware.
Even today, as a writer of comics for close to 30 years, I still daydream about one day getting to write one of these “A Day In The Life” stories about the mainstream superheroes. The odds of it happening are pretty slim due to the current state of dead seriousness in comic book stories, but as a full grown kid, I can still daydream. You should as well.
Your amigo,
Beau Smith
The flying Fist Ranch
www.flyingfistranch.com