Posts
A Superman comic depicting John F.
Kennedy, originally released shortly after the president’s assassination, on
January 9 finally made its way to the JFK Library in Boston, where illustrator
Al Plastino had thought it had been for nearly 50 years.
“That’s the story we would hear when
we were kids, that’s the story he would tell at Christmas, the fact that it was
there at the library in the archives,” said Plastino’s daughter, MaryAnn
Charles.
Plastino, who died last November,
realized that his original work, “Superman’s Mission for President Kennedy,”
was not in fact housed at the Harvard-based library when news of the comic’s
auction broke near the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination. Plastino
was at New York Comic Con when he heard the news.
“When my father saw that, he got
really upset,” Charles said.
The 10-page comic was produced in
conjunction with the White House to promote Kennedy’s physical fitness program,
but was not yet completed at the time of the president’s assassination. It was
shelved until a couple months into Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency, when Johnson
specifically requested that it be finished. Plastino added a special splash
page to the work before it was released, depicting President Kennedy in the
clouds. On the last page of the artwork itself, it said the art would be
donated to the JFK Presidential Library.
“The thought was that this would be a good thing for kids
and for his legacy,” Plastino’s lawyer, Dale Cendali, said. “It was a really
important thing to him.”
Pictured from left: Al Plastino Jr.
and MaryAnn Plastino-Charles holding the splash page of the original Superman
art from “Superman’s Mission for President Kennedy” with Jay Kogan from DC
Entertainment.
Last month, DC Comics purchased the work
(though the company declined to say from whom or at what price) and donated it
to the JFK Library, fulfilling Plastino’s dying wish. But it’s still unclear
where the original artwork was all this time.
Plastino’s family contacted the JFK
Library to see if its records indicated DC’s original intention to donate the
work fifty years ago.
“A thorough search showed no evidence
that the artwork had ever been offered to the library or was ever a part of its
collections,” said Rachel Flor, a spokesperson for the library.
A recent statement from DC Comics
says they acquired and donated the work “as a tribute to honor [Plastino] and
preserve his artistic legacy,” but made no mention of where the work was during
the past 50 years or why it was not originally given to the library. According
to the statement, they were “fulfilling Plastino’s longtime hope for the story”
by donating the work to the JFK Library. When asked about the mixup, DC
representatives had no comment.
“I think that probably it was taken
by someone at DC back then, and sold, and kept, and sold over the years to
various dealers,” Charles said, adding that they had traced the ownership back
to folk rock musician Graham Nash while starting the litigation process to find
out the current seller. A few days before the first hearing would have taken
place before Judge Hagler in New York Supreme Court, DC stepped in and
purchased the work.
“We’re happy with the outcome, and
grateful to a lot of people for helping,” Charles said.
She said that the death of her father
in the middle of the process (and before the work arrived at the library) has
been “pretty horrible,” but says she feels peaceful now knowing the work is
where her father always wanted it to be.
“It’s a piece of history,” she said.
Flor told LJ the library “will plan some
way to make them available to the public, but those details have not been
worked out yet. We are still working on finalizing the legal transfer, which
must be complete before we can do any kind of display.”
No comments:
Post a Comment