issue 49 
newsletter of the Mythopoeic SIG
"In the beginning God created..." (Genesis 1:1)
As the first picture (from the Quality Paperback Book Club catalog cover) shows "Frodo Lives."Yes, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy has never been out of print, but there seems to be a revival of interest because of the hype for the new movie trilogy starting this Christmas. That's what the calendar in picture 2 is based on -- obviously since it's an 18-month calendar, including the last 3 months of this year to get one interested in the movie. From the previews it doesn't look too bad (previous versions were), though we rather expected present-day special effects able to make the hobbits heights, as Tolkien told us, "seldom now reach three feet." The third picture is of QPBC's 3-volume set.
QPBC also is offering a companion book to LOTR (of which there have been many), this one 96 pages and free with the set above. At the Science Fiction Book Club (sfbc.com) there's the 138-page "full-color painted graphic" version of The Hobbit and at Christian Book Distributors there's, besides the 1150-page one-volume LOTR above and a 4-volume 1409-page Hobbit-cum-LOTR, an audiocassette version of Letters from Father Christmas.
Along with their usual offerings of C. S. Lewis books, like the "deluxe" one below, and videos, there's audiocassette versions of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew and a CD version of the later (still our favorite Narnian Chronicle, probably because we too had a dying mother when we first read it.)
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The picture to the right is a colorized version of the cover picture from j3K ] n h½c¼.6 22 (July 1988 -- Superman Day being June 18). The cemetery scene from the premier episode of “Smallville” reminded us of of it. Although this new version of Kal-El (aka Clark Kent) does not yet have the red, yellow, and blue suit, he stood in front of a statue of an angel giving just this wing-cape effect. This new version of the mythos is okayed by the copyright holders DC Comics, but is new in several interesting ways.
As we noted in that 50th anniversary acknowledgement Superman is human in appearance, yet superhumanly powerful, fights evil, and flies -- and has an angelic sounding name (literally “Star Child“). In the first episode Clark cannot yet fly and seems only to discover his invulnerability when hit by Lex Luthor’s speeding car, uses a telescope to spy on neighbor Lana Lang and doesn’t wear glasses.Lana does not have red hair.
Nevertheless he seems to qualify for nerdhood because he can’t play sports (for fear of exposing his true idenity or injuring a teammate) except in his daydreams, becomes weak and clumsy whenever he’s near Lana (because of her kryptonite necklace), has the manners of a farmboy.
What this new spin does best however is explain Clark’s Messiah complex. He doesn’t so much save Lex and his schoolmates and their would-be murderer out of gratitute to Humans, but because he fells guilty for all the damage the meteor shower that came with him to Earth caused, especially the orphaning of Lana. Then too there’s the well publicized scarecrow scene with Clark crucified with a red “S” painted on his chest for “Scarecrow” (and “Superman”), made vulnerable by -- what else? -- kryptonite.
In episode 2 the kryptonite spawned "Bugboy" to threaten Lana who ends up mistakenly thinking that her football hero boyfriend saved her rather than Clark. Is there a pattern beginning here?
We hope that some of the old familiar elements of the mythos show up in future episodes (though we do find his girl reporter friend Chloe Sullivan of the Smallville Torch interesting and the Smallville "Meteor Capital of the World"'s Ledger website very interesting) -- Lex turning criminal, his esper sister Lena and niece “Nasty” Nasthalthia, Clark learning to leap tall buildings and fly, deflect bullets, use x-ray, telescopic, microscopic and heat vision, super-ventriloquism, super-breath, Pete Ross learning Clark’s true identity, encounters with red, white, blue and gold kryptonite, the Phantom Zone Ray Projector, Mr. Mxyzptlk, Lana’s brilliant yet eccentric uncle Prof. Phineas Potter, and her dentist uncle Dr. Horten, the alien Bio-ring that turned her into the Insect Queen, the Legion of Super-heroes -- Bouncing Boy (Chuck Taine), Brainiac 5 (Querl Dox), Chameleon Boy (Reep Daggle), Cosmic Boy (Rokk Krinn), Duo Damsel (fka Triplicate Girl), Elastic Lad (Jimmy Olsen), Element Lad, Invisible Kid (Lyle Norg), Lightning Lad (Garth Ranzz), Mon-El, Phantom Girl (Tinya Wazzo), Polar Boy, Saturn Girl (Irma Ardeen), Shrinking Violet (Salu Digby), Sun Boy (Dirk Morgana), and last but not least Supergirl (Kara).
Maybe we're hopelessly Silver Age fen, but this is how we'll always remember our old friends:
KAL-EL KARA LANA
NOJOKAN
We can't let an issue go by without mentioning our newest invented language, Nojokan. We were inspired by the new Star Trek television series, "Enterprise", and finding and digesting several Vulcan language websites -- Vulcan Language Institute, the Vulcan Academy Language Department, even the Italian Dictionaria Vulcaniana -- none of which seem to be the Vulcan language being used by T'Pau on "Enterprise"! It must be yet another of the more than 100 dialects referred to by Bill Richmond and Chris Pinette in "The Vulcan Language Guide". We've charted two dozen:
Anakana (A, aka Yakana), Ba-Golik (B, aka Old Golic), Duane Vulcan (D), Early Yakan (E*), FthinraKathi (F), Gælack (G), High Vulcan (H, aka Senura), Iyi-Golik (I, aka Modern Golic), Jlan (J), Khu'rak (K), LoJjlan (L), Middle Zvelebil Vulcan (M*), Nojºkã (N), Os-Pid-Vuhlkansu (O, aka Old High Vulcan), proto-Zvelebil Vulcan (P), Rihanha (R), Suluhura (S), Taiyakana (T*, aka Old Vulcan), Upper Gælack (U), Vulcanian (V, aka Velprâla), Wolterink (W), Xÿck (X), Yazyk Vulkana (Y), Zvelebil Vulcan (Z). We leave the unnamed, hypothetical intermediary languages, C*, and Q*.
T
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O P Q* R S
----- ------------------------------------- | | |
| | B | C* | | D E
| | -------- | ---------- | | |
F G H I | J K L M N |
| ------- | | | |
U V W X Y Z A
"Live long and prosper." (an abbreviated version of Deuteronomy 4:40), for example, =
In our Nojokã dialect: "Anhråwhåtÿ mÿwhÿr!" (pronounced: "Ank-rowl-low-tie my-owl-lyre").
In Anakana it's the much different: "Tai nasha no karosha." ("Tie nah-shah no kah-roe-shah") and in Iyi-Golik: