Captain America/ Superman as Boy Scouts

[RememberSchiff]

Check out Wizard magazine's interview with the actor Chris Evans who will portray Captain America.

 

"As far as the physicality goes, that comes from the serum, and I think special effects will help me carry the load. As far as who he (Captain America) is as a man, the reason he's chosen for this experiment is because he has a pure heart. It's the morality, the nobility. He's a real redeeming character to play, it's exciting to think of playing him. I actually have a friend of mine who I'm modeling the character after. This guy is actually an Eagle Scout, he's one of those guys who stayed in the Boy Scouts all the way until he was 18. He's just a good human being. He does the right things, he's open, he's honest, he's sincere, he's selfless. It's something that I think everyone aspires to. A lot of time I play characters who don't have any redeeming quality [Laughing]."

 

Ok Boy's Life interview Chris Evans and his Eagle Scout buddy and put Captain America on the cover!

 

In comic books, there are occasional Boy Scout references but only in dialog, that Superman or Shazam are (meaning act like) boy scouts. I have yet to see a DC or Marvel comic showing a young Clark Kent, Steve Rogers, Barry Allen as a scout. Martha Kent would have been a great den mother! Maybe next year.

 

My $0.02(This message has been edited by RememberSchiff)

[skeptic]

Since I have not figured out how to post graphics here, so please look at the group Facebook page for covers of a couple of comics; one is SUPERBOY, and the other one 1941 edition of ROY POWERS, EAGLE SCOUT.

[RememberSchiff]

Haven't tracked down your Superboy reference yet.

 

I didn't know about Roy Powers, thanks. I found this

http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/2009/02/frank-godwin-1889-1959-roy-powers-eagle.html Good stuff, scouts wearing neckerchiefs correctly, using rucksacks, and hiking without adults. Roy looks like a young Lindbergh.

 

Posting graphics, I think that functionality predates this software.

 

Thanks for the info.

[Eagle92]

DANG NABBIT, SKEPTIC AND 'SCHIFF, YOU NOW YOU GOT ME ADDICTED TO SOMETHING ELSE NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Seriously though thanks for the info and link. Looks Like i got start searching Ebay for something else.

 

 

 

"Scouting, my drug of choice!"

[emb021]

I checked wikipedia, and was able to glen a little info on the strip.

 

This was a newspaper strip, written by Paul Powell, who was himself a former Boy Scout (no idea if an Eagle). It became an official symbol of the BSA and promoted scouting.

 

"Famous Funnies" comic book ran this strip for ten years starting with issue #39 in July of 1937. "Famous Funnies" was a long running comic book that lasted until the mid-50s.

 

With the current crazy in reprinting of classic newspaper comic strips, maybe someone might be interested to look into this one??

[CalicoPenn]

Caspar the Friendly Ghost was (is) a Cub Scout - and he's a pretty friendly fellow.

[CalicoPenn]

Richie Rich was (is) a Boy Scout, but I don't think he ever got old enough in the comics to become an Eagle Scout. If I remember correctly, Richard Rish Sr. was both an Eagle Scout and a Scoutmaster, and Cadbury was a Queens Scout.

 

Ya know, I'm seeing a trend here - something to do with Harvey Comics.

[shortridge]

Founder Alfred Harvey was an Eagle Scout. http://www.comicbookdb.com/creator.php?ID=6653

 

It would be entirely possible to do something similar today - if BSA wanted to fork out bazillions for the licensing fees the megacorporations demand.

[RememberSchiff]

skeptic: Superboy No. 13?

 

http://www.comicvine.com/superboy-the-super-boy-scout-of-smallville/37-120177/

 

Looking at the cover, hard to believe he was considered a super boy scout.

 

 

 

 

[skeptic]

Lots of interesting comic material, both classic and recent, related to scouting in some way. I have gathered graphics from many for my archive. But Ihave not often been able to afford the best, or most unusual, such as Roy Powers or Superboy. Do have the entire Little Scouts series and hardback, as well as most of the Casper covers and ads. Still hoping to get a Dennis the Menace; but get outbid when they show occasionally. Maybe after christmas I will start sharing a few graphics on the Facebook site.

[Gags]

That's quite an impressive Thief Knot Supberboy tied.

 

I guess as long as he unties it before he leaves, he's still following LNT principles?

 

:-)

 

--Gags

[skeptic]

Some interesting comments from a couple of net discussions about super heroes and Boy Scouts, including an excellent explanation of the often used comment of someone being "a Boy Scout".

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Comics historian Allan Holtz has unearthed what he believes to be the very first serious adventure comic. In a 2002 issue of Hogan's Alley magazine (named after Richard Outcault's seminal early work, of course), Holtz described his almost accidental recent discovery, in a microfilmed archive of The Philadelphia Leader, of Bobby the Boy Scout (no relation) which predated any other known example of the genre by years.

The Leader shouldn't, by the way, be confused with the same city's Ledger, a far more prominent paper whose syndicate had handled Lady Bountiful, Somebody's Stenog and more. The Leader was small and obscure, and very much not the sort of paper you'd expect to be the only source of anything interesting in the way of cartoon history.

Holtz traced Bobby's strip back to its beginning, on Monday, August 21, 1911. The Boy Scouts of America had been incorporated only a year earlier, tho the scouting movement had been gathering strength for several years prior to the incorporation. Bobby embodied all the traditional scouting virtues trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly etc. He was also athletic, heroic, and all the things an adventure hero ought to be. If a boy didn't have Bobby's qualities chances are, he wanted them. Despite Bobby's youth, he repeatedly foiled criminal plots, performed daring rescues, and otherwise behaved in a thoroughly exemplary manner always aided, of course, by his Boy Scout training.

Bobby the Boy Scout was only occasionally credited. When it was, the signature read F.E. Johnson. Johnson was a staff artist on the Leader, but is not known to have done any other work in comics. It was a reliable, six-times-a-week daily, which, only four years since A, Mutt had become the first such reliable daily, still wasn't a universal trait among weekday comics. It ran for at least five years, but from all indications, was long gone by the time adventure strips became common. If it was ever syndicated, or even published in a single other paper, evidence of such publication has yet to be found.

So is this, indeed, the first serious adventure comic? Who knows?

 

I think that whether being called a "boy scout" is 1) an insult, 2) a term of endearment, or 3) a compliment, is entirely subjective; and I can see the usage of the term (to describe things other than actual boy scouts), could have begun as any or all of the three, although I lean towards glib insult; and it's use probably began not long after Boy Scouts itself began, long predating Superman.

 

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I think the term "boy scout" describes moral character: an earnestness to do the right thing; an earnestness that could either be thought of as youthful when viewed with a positive light, or immature or naive when viewed from a negative light. I think Boy Scouts, with their psuedo-military culture, also conjures an association with discipline and respectfulness (again from a positive light), or The Establishment, rule-following, and squareness (from a negative light).

 

[Mr. Boyce]

Cool enough stuff. Interesting that as a boy, I liked Captain America. Good fighter, interesting war story stuff.