WE’VE BEEN accepting new fiction only sporadically of late, as we ready other aspects of our campaign. BUT we have new writing today– from long-time DIY scribe Wred Fright, an excerpt from his newest novel, Fast Guy Slows Down.

We’re running it because A.) it’s from Wred Fright, whose unique style combines fun with wit and intelligence, B.) it’s about a superhero. What could be more pop?

A superhero’s reflections on his career and crucial events through the decades. We chose for our excerpt the glamorous decade of the 1940’s, whose conflicts of flawed good guys versus evil Nazis brought about the need for pop superheroes– and led to their rise and maybe the birth of modern pop culture itself.

We hope you enjoy it!

The superhero is a child’s power fantasy, he or she all grown up and powerful. Big not small.  To reach that, the parent must be gone, maybe because the child thinks he or she will  always remain a child with the parent around, even though that isn’t true. Anyway,  Superman’s an orphan. So’s Captain Marvel. So’s Batman. So’s Robin. Wonder Woman  doesn’t have a dad, at least in the stories I read; I think they gave her a dad later on. Initially though, her mom makes her out of clay or something.

(Art: “Miss Fury” by Tarpe Mills c/o Camilla Nelson.)