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Superheroics are more than just jumping around rooftops and punching spandex baddies right in the mush – sometimes it requires education! Here’s a short list of just some of the superheroes who’ve made crimefighting a sideline to their teaching careers, or made their teaching career essential to their crimefighting!

Lady Fairplay
Created by:Jack Ryan
Debuted in: Bang-Up Comics vol.1  #1 (Progressive, 1941)

Teaching isn’t all glamour – in fact, it’s very little glamour at all. Perhaps that’s why mild-mannered elementary school teacher Mary Lee occasionally takes advantage of her students’ study time to slip out into the crime-filled world outside the schoolhouse walls as the “goddess of chastisement and dreaded foe of the underworld,” Lady Fairplay!

Granted amazing powers by the mysterious “Professor Amazo,” Mary finds herself possessed of tremendous strength, speed and endurance after a mysterious scientific procedure – and a swell car as well, also provided by the professor and outfitted with “everything but the kitchen sink.” Here’s hoping Lady Fairplay never runs into a crook whose sole weakness is porcelain.

1A
Created by: Russ Manning
Debuted in:  Magnus, Robot Fighter 4000 A.D. #1 (Gold Key Comics, 1963)

By the 1960s, domestic automation had become the next big buzzword in American technology. Films, comics and even model homes provided examples of the “House of the Future,” a fully-automated edifice populated by specialized service robots. Effectively being robot servants, these technologies would be designed to handle everything from cooking dinner to waxing the floors to walking the dog and tucking the kids into bed at night.

For some, the promise of home automation meant the liberation from household drudgery. The new-found freedom from housework would allow homemakers to pursue their careers, education, or whatever other pastime beckoned to them in their now-generous free time.

For others, however, this automation presaged a grim future of lazy, helpless humans completely dominated by their robot servants. It was from this future-dread that Magnus, Robot Fighter, was born! A muscular machine-buster from the year 4,000 AD, Magnus made a career out of clobbering the cogs out of robot menaces and android overlords which threatened the fully-automated world of the 41^st century, and all of its citizens, pampered to the point of immobility.

Magnus didn’t learn his robot-fighting all by himself, though! Nope, that was the purview of techno-traitor 1A, a highly-advanced robot whose human-like emotions also made him dread an unchallenged rule of the robots. Having been raised by 1A since infancy, Magnus learned from his foster-father-bot all the destructive arts necessary to demolish evil robots, wherever they may rear their ugly diodes.

The Super-Teacher from Krypton
Created by: Edmond Hamilton and John Sikela
Debuted in: Adventure Comics vol.1 #240 (DC Comics, 1957)

Speaking of robot teachers, few characters in the relatively tame world of the Superman mythos enjoyed quite the controversial conclusion to their careers as did The Super-Teacher from Krypton.

Prior to the destruction of Superman’s homeworld, the Man of Steel’s father Jor-El – anticipating that his son would develop super-powers once he landed safely upon Earth – designed and built a special robot teacher. Its purpose would be to train the young orphan in the use of his tremendous new abilities, but the chaos surrounding the destruction of the distant planet meant that the Robot Teacher’s arrival would be long delayed. It wouldn’t make the trip to the Last Son of Krypton’s adopted world until long after he’d begun his career as Superboy.

The Super-Teacher’s assignments for the young superhero generally tested his intellect and moral compass, more than his burgeoning powers. These are good tests for the youngster who will one day be the greatest superhero in the entire universe, but the Super-Teacher’s sense of right and wrong could have used some tweaking.

In his final appearance in 1977, Super-Teacher entered the canon’s infamy when it abducted and brainwashed a teenage girl (without Superboy’s knowledge, it’s worth mentioning). Super-Teacher then temporarily replaced her personality with one custom-generated to fit the profile of Superboy’s one true love, so as to test the Boy of Steel’s code against killing when strange creatures seemingly murdered her with a hefted stone.

Ethical lines were crossed with terrible gusto in that final tale, making the Super-Teacher’s absence from any subsequent story a genuine blessing, indeed.

The Atom
Created by:Julius Schwartz, Gardner Fox and Gil Kane
Debuted in: Showcase vol.1 No.34 (DC Comics, 1961)

No professor has quite mastered the art of the field trip like Ray Palmer. Physicist and college professor Ray Palmer, in fact, wouldn’t even have the super-powers of the mighty, miniscule Atom had he not accidentally stumbled across a piece of “white dwarf star matter” during a spelunking expedition with his students. Fashioning the celestial matter into a lens, Palmer discovers that he can change his size and the size of certain objects (for a brief amount of time – inanimate objects tend to explode if they’re left shrunk for too long), leading him to a crimefighting career as The Atom!

Although the university at which Ray Palmer taught physics was frequently only the setting for some of the Atom’s adventures, it did eventually produce his successor (albeit temporarily). Graduate student Ryan Choi proves just as brilliant as his mentor when it comes to the questionable physics of the white dwarf star matter, and takes up the identity of the Atom when Palmer retires from the superheroing game. It must be a wonderful feeling to watch a promising student carry on your life’s work.

Professor X
Created by: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Debuted in: The X-Men vol.1 No.1 (September 1963)

Probably no educational figure in the history of comics carries quite the cachet of gravitas as does Charles Francis Xavier, the telepathic leader of the Uncanny X-Men.

Appearing alongside the original roster of the mutant X-Men, Professor X was never just a mentor and booster; he participated in the action as well. Possessing what might be the most powerful psionic mind on the entire planet, Xavier has not only battled some of the greatest menaces of the Marvel Universe, but he’s even an adventurer in his own right. Outside of his X-Men adventures, Xavier boasting a bushel of love interests, a powerful rogues gallery (including, just to name a few, his old pal Magneto, his mega-powerful half-brother The Juggernaut, and equally powerful psionic rival The Shadow King), and a series of adventures which has taken him around the world, into the astral plane and to distant galactic empires.

But the most impressive quality possessed by Professor X is his dedication to the dream of peace and good will between the human and mutant races. Training young mutants to use their strange, new abilities at his School for Gifted Youngsters in Westchester, New York, Xavier has saved the lives and the futures of the literally hundreds of students who have passed through its doors.

Moreso, he’s ensured his legacy in the best way a teacher can – inspiring his former students to become teachers, themselves. The assorted mutant academies of the Marvel Universe have seen classes hosted by assorted X-Men such as Hank McCoy (The Beast), Ororo Munroe (Storm), Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat) and even the once-feral, stab-happy Wolverine!

Here at Quirk Books we love comics. No duh. We even have a monthly Quirk Comics Club, when Quirk staffers meet over lunch for a show-and-tell of comics we’re buying, reading, and making. Check out our neat club pin:

We love comics of all sorts, from superhero books to indie memoirs to vintage newspaper strips to the weird artsy stuff to anything with cats in it. But there’s a special place in our heart for one particular comic book iteration: the mini-comic (a.k.a. mini comic or minicomic, but let’s go with mini-comic).

What is a mini-comic?

Don’t let the name fool you; a mini-comic doesn’t have to be small, as master of comics Jessica Abel points out. But very often they're mini in stature for practical reasons, because mini-comics are a favorite method for independent comics makers to self-produce, promote, and sell their work.  Creators typically make mini-comics in small batches, usually reproducing them by means of photocopier or desktop publishing hardware. When you spot a mini-comic in the wild, it’s likely to be littler than a standard published comic (because paper costs add up), and it’s probably been folded, stapled and/or bound by hand (by the artist and whatever friends and family they can con into helping).

Exception: Welcome to the Pleasure Dome by Ian Sampson is not only a mega-sized mini-comic, it unfolds into a poster-sized final panel.

The Schulz Library, at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River, Vermont, has upwards of 3,000 mini-comics in its collection. Their curators offer this definition:

A mini-comic is small, inexpensive, short-run comic, often handmade by the creator. Typically they are about half-letter in size, since that's easiest to produce, but our collection (known as the Zine Garden) includes mini-comics that are the size of a matchbook to huge 11×17 handmade books and everything in between.

“We don't have hard and fast criteria, there's a bit of ‘we know it when we see it,’ ” Schulz librarian Jarad Greene tells us. "But usually, it's folded and stapled/stitched by hand. Self-published, perfect bound books that don't have an ISBN are sometimes included as well.”

Why are mini-comics awesome?

For so many reasons!

For one thing, a mini-comic is like a unfiltered channel of creativity, direct from the cartoonist’s brain. There are precious few barriers to creating a mini-comic—if you have time, paper, drawing implements and an idea, you’re pretty much set. Comics artists and writers can use mini-comics to experiment with concepts that wouldn’t work in larger, longer, or traditionally-published formats. A mini-comic can run with a crazy idea that might be harder to sustain in full-length comic…and that goes not just for the story and art, but also size, shape, color, packaging, and production method. You can try almost anything in a minicomic.

 

      

Destination Earth, a mini-comic by Debbie Fong, includes a fold-out diary kept by the cat-astronaut protagonist.

 

Mini-comics can handle personal stories, like Kate McDonough's exploration of living with social anxiety, or simple concepts, like her documentation of bizarre items she encountered while working at a thrift shop.

They’re incredibly diverse. Mini-comics can be as appealingly simple or exquisitely complex as their creators decides to make them. Some minis are minimal, just line drawings on a folded sheet or paper. Others are like little jewels, with intricate art, creative packaging, unusual shapes and sizes, fancy bindings, and/or sophisticated printing techniques.

Mark Burrier's Show Off creates dark humor with simple line-drawings.

Rachel Bard's tiny mini-comic Come Back Soon , about as tall as a jumbo paper clip, comes with a teensier comic inside it. Her Growing Hope is printed in metallic gold ink on dark blue cardstock, and comes in a wrap-around band with a cutout in front.

They suggest a personal touch. Though they’re a reproduced medium, like all comics, many mini-comics havea hand-made quality that reminds you there’s a real person on the other end…someone who took the time to plan and print and cut and fold and staple and pack them. You can buy mini-comics at comic shows and chat with a creator who might go on to become famous (comic book famous, that is…but sometimes that's still pretty famous!). If you order a mini-comic online, you might get a hand-written thank you note with your purchase. Blockbuster comics and million-seller graphic novels are great, but minis remind us that comics are a vehicle for individual creativity at all levels, and can travel from creator's brain to reader's hands with fewer stops in between tham most media.

You've probably seen Tom Gauld's cartoons in The New York Times, The Guardian, and in his books published by Drawn & Quarterly. But he once published mini-comics through his own (now defunct) small press.

They’re cheap! Inexpensive, that is. There’s not much risk in spending a few bucks to sample the work of artists you’re not familiar with and bring their nutty ideas home with you. And at few bucks a pop, you can quickly build your own mini-comics library.

So we're agreed…mini-comics are awesome! But where does one find these insanely amazing treasues? Good question…check out our How to Find the Greatest Mini-Comics post for more details! If you're already dying to make your own comic, check out How to Make a Mini-Comic: Part 1, How to Make a Mini-Comic: Part 2, and Mini Comics: The Wrap-Up for ideas!

_{Mini-comics displayed are from the personal collections of Quirk Books Comics Club members and are intended as a small and subjective sampling of the ever-expanding universe of mini-comics.}

[Photo by Rober González on Unsplash]

In honor of Star Wars Day, we're taking a closer look at the HR department's responses to Darth Vader force-choking officers. Seriously, he has to cut it out.

In a time so long ago begins our play,

In a star-crossed galaxy, far far away.

So ends the prologue to William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope, the first of three plays re-telling the epic Star Wars story in the style of the Bard. Followed by The Empire Striketh Back and The Jedi Doth Return, these plays by Ian Doescher combine the magic of iambic pentameter with the beloved space opera of George Lucas – and are a perfect read for this May 4^th! (Or how about organizing a staged reading, lightsabers at the ready?) Brave (Jedi) Knights and evil (Sith) Lords duke it out in elegant verse, while a love story combines with a comedy of mistaken family identity and tragic revelations for a story right up the Bard’s alley.

[All movie stills from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Lucasfilm]

This May the Fourth, invite the ones you love (who also love Star Wars) into your home with all the festivity and joy of a traditional Ewok gathering. The rules of receiving guests in an Ewok community are simple, straightforward, and have led to many seasons of happy living for the tree-dwelling culture. After some time living this way, you too may feel ready to dance like you’re celebrating the fall of an evil empire!

A mention of the word ‘scurvy’ often brings to mind pirates, but you might not be aware that scurvy is a very real and still relevant issue. Scurvy is a condition caused by a lack of vitamin C, which causes tiredness, muscle weakness, rashes, and bleeding gums. Pirates often suffered from scurvy due to the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables while sailing the seven seas. May 2^nd is Scurvy Awareness Day, so to do our part, we’re highlighting 5 swashbuckling stories about pirates! The Limestrong website also recommends making your cat a fruit helmet and sharing via social media, which we also fully endorse. Yes, there are pictures for inspiration!