Tuesday, February 13, 2007

This is for Ethel Guiness, Wherever You Are

Well, this just breaks my heart.

Here we have this clearly awesome young lady writing to DC Comics in 1959 with some adventure ideas for her hero, Lois Lane. She suggests some fun careers (since, y'know, anything goes in the wacky Silver Age).

Then we get this very depressing response:

Reach for the stars, little Ethel!

The worst part is that I'm pretty sure the writers did end up stealing all of Ethel's ideas in later issues.

7 comments:

paperghost said...

Hey! Lois! Get in the kitchen! Make me some pie!

....what on earth is a "WAC"?

Jennifer said...

WAC was a WWII term for the Women's Air Corps.

And I read this letter column just recently (I've been going through the old Lois Lanes myself) and this made me writhe. There's another letter around this time that asks "If Clark and Lois were married, how would Clark feel if Lois scooped him?" and the answer was "Superman doesn't believe in women working outside the home, so it wouldn't be a problem."

Good grief.

Dr. Zaius said...

Freaking brilliant post.

Please post the "Superman doesn't believe in women working outside the home, so it wouldn't be a problem" letter the same way.

Its important for people to remember that these attitudes were prevalent at one time. Its also really amusing to read them as well!

wrath said...

yes Ethel,Lois you COULD be a liberated women of the 50's, However the Roast in the oven is burning, and if she doesn't attend to her "womens work" immediately Supes is gonna be pissed.

paperghost said...

See, all those stupid powers he had but for some reason, he DIDN'T have super cleaning and super cooking.

I call super shenanigans!

Anonymous said...

good lord, that's horrible. but yeah, the one you mention in comments above is even worse.

superman says: "quiet, little missy. men are talking."

Anonymous said...

the one jennifer mentions, i mean. bah, pronoun class is hard. let's go shopping!