Editorial opinion We're waiting ’ Last month, an editorial ap peared in this same spot ap plauding the Pennsylvania legislature for acting on a measure that would allow voters to register by mail. Headlined ‘No excuse,’ the editorial urged students to take advantage of the new option, and reminded them that they now no longer had a valid reason for not becoming registered voters. But it seems that they still do. You see, of the 13,700-voter’s registration cards available to Cen tre County, Penn State has not received any. Of course, they have been promised to us; USG has been told that they will be able to distribute " X HcSPe. you KNOW TV\f\T Cf\N'T GO OH UKe THVb I' From the editor Unpaid 'tickies/ no 'di * Four years, and you finally made itl Today's the day when you get to stand up In Beaver Stadium or in Rec Hall to Receive your diploma. Your mom's there, your dad's there, your Aunt Hattie twice 'removed is there. Everyone’s there except you. You’re not at your own graduation and when they read through tjie graduation list your name's not on it. • What no graduation? How can that be? You and your adviser, went over how many credits you needed and checked the requirement sheet at least four times tb be sure. You never flunked a course, never had any grade point deficiencies 3nd never had an overdue book at the library. However, you did forget to pay that $l.OO parking ticket from the second week of the term. ' And that’s where they got you. Yup, one unpaid parking ticket can stand be tween you and graduation and according to a spokesman from the Student Traffic Violations Office, one ticket often does just that. The University has a cute system of letting you know that you have been derelict in paying your fines. They send a first notice to the address that you use when registering your car, usually this is your home or parents’ address. After this Marvel Comic madman or literature connoisseur 'Okay, I admit it. I'm a madman. So what else is new, you retort. Only this. Y’see, I’m not your ordinary, dime-a-dozen, run-of-the-mill, nine-to-five, everyday variety of madman. I’m a MARVEL madman. And that makes all the difference in the world. See, being a comics connoisseur in this day and age isn’t as difficult as it used to be, say, when I was growing up (debates range far and wide as to whether I ever did). Comics were for the tot set then; those kids who oogled all the pictures, which was usually all there was to it, since the words weren’t that enlightening to begin with, anyway. Although everyone knows who Clark Kent is, and the team-ups he used to have with his buddy Bruce Wayne, few of us will admit we cut our fantasy teeth on these titans. In fact, since many of us weren’t around for that mythic Golden Age of Comics during the forties, our first exposure was probably via D.C., with its stable of stars that included Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Atom, The Flash, The Justice League of America, the early Adam Strange, done by the same duo who later spearheaded the impressive early Sixties revival of The Spectre, writer Gardner Fox and artist Murphy Anderson.- ■ Now, I admit that these guys were augmented and sustained by stories that, in hindsight and maturity, reveal themselves to have been cardboard and synthetic. Only when the perfect match of artist and writer appeared the aforementioned Fox, Anderson and Gil Kane, for instance did they take on any appeal other than the adolescent. Granted, there was the Fifties’ EC horror company, but we came along to Its in telligent brand of horror far too late, too, since it was forced out of business by the Comics Code. So comics stayed pretty much the way they’d always been the visual and literary equivalent of junk food. Without the french fries. '.And then came Marvel. ! it’s hard to believe, let alone admit, that it’s been almost fifteen years since Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko decided to try something new and radical in a field until then content to remain trite and staid. And, as is the case with all discoveries, the brainstorm was the soul of simplicity itself. When Splderman burst forth on the pages of Amazing Adult Fantasy and the Fantastic Four appeared In their own mag It. 1961, the revolution had arrived. With a vital vengeance. them to the students. But they were also told that County Board of Commissioners is unsure about how many cards the campus will get or when. Some voter’s registration cards have gone to the State College - Municipal Building. Others have gone to libraries and bookmobiles in Philipsburg, Bellefonte and Aaronsburg. Still others have gone ito district magistrates’ offices in Centre Hall and Snow Shoe. But Penn State’s still waiting Granted, the sites chosen for the initial distribution of the cards rank as key locations in the area. But doesn’t Penn State, with its large first scare to mom and dad, a second more threatening letter is sent. This second and final letter, drafted by Mel S. Klein, Director of the Office of Student Activities, says that until the fine is paid the University will put a hold on your graduation and will not release your diploma “for any reason." What’s more, the letter says, if you are not graduating you are still not in the clear because the University will put a hotel on your registration “until the matter is resolved." So until the ticket is paid, you cannot student and faculty population, de serve equally prominent con sideration? At one time there was talk that the registration cards would even be distributed at such a variety of public places as banks and State liquor stores. Surely Penn State deserves as much attention. But wp’ll have' faith. We’ll have patience. And we’ll have hope that the student population of State College is not overlooked. Penn State represents a large portion of un-tapped Centre Coun ty voters. And while making the cards available to students proba bly j/vill not cause a massive politi cal change in local politics, we still deserve the chance. Mall necessary, not indestructible In Ravenna, on Italy's Adriatic coast, the day's work ends and the evening begins with the volta. The townspeople gather about six o’clock in the Piazza del Popolo for the nightly parade around the town square. The new wives bring their first babies in fancy carriages, and the unmarried men come in groups to watch the young women dressed in their best clothes. The old couples, too, come to walk, holding their grandchildren by the hand, around and around the piazza. On the sidewalks along the piazza are the cafes, with their comfortable leather-padded chairs and tiny tables, lined up row after row facing the square. The middle aged waiters have long, soiled aprons as the badge of their honorable profession. They rush between the outdoor tables and the dark, empty bar inside to get drinks and to make change. A visitor may sit for an hour or more with a single drink and not feel rushed. All around him are young couples, families and girls together laughing, each with a brightly-colored green or red drink. / At five o’clock 1n State College in central Penn sylvania, the day’s work is over and the rush begins. Flooding through the University’s stone gates, the professors and students and secretaries walk briskly across College Avenue and down Allen Street. Few stop at'the stores some stores have closed already and most are concerned only about making the bus or catching a ride home. For here were people who, due to accidents beyond their control (a radioactive spider and a cosmic radiation storm during a spaceflight) became something MORE than human, and yet here’s the stroke of genius still retained all their human frailties, foibles, hassles, arguments, disappointments and despairs (albeit heightened) before their miraculous transformation. In other words, these super-humans (Marvel heroes are never superheroes) lived, breathed, thought, hated, got jealous, had babies'(the females, I mean), wanted to kill, make money and usually didn’t even wanna remain the way they were. When was the last time you heard of someone with super-powers wanting to be normal again? In fact, when was the last time you heard of anyone who wanted to be normal, period? Earl Davis The dam burst after that. The sixties were truly the Marvel Age of Comics and, for once, I swear the hyperbole was warranted. Almost singlehandedly, Lee spawned a coterie of characters that have becpme a new mythology so essential to our lives that to think of a month without them is pure heresy: The Hujk, Thor, Iron Man, Daredevil, Doctor .Strange, The Avengers, The X-Men, Sgt. Fury, Submariner, Captain America, Ka-Zar, The Inhumans and the Black Panther. And Author Lee was aided in virtually every case with the ex ception of Spidey by the awesome artwork of Jack (King) Kirby, undeniably the Michaelangelo of the comics field. You don’t Just passively watch Kirby’s work on his Kreations: you experience his classically-proportioned, foreshortened, full page bombshells Aye, the early issues of all these heroes was responsible for - the genuine excitement that was Marvel in the Sixties. Lee and • Kirby, Steve Ditko, Wally Wood, Chic Stone, Don Heck, Gene. Colan, Joe Sinnott, Dick Ayers and Don Heck . . . there was such a rash of riveting talent that you figured there was nowhere else they could go or do to surpass, let alone im prove, on all that had gone before. We figured that Marvel would merely rest on Its already quite illustrious and By 5:45, Allen Street is nearly empty and the only people left downtown are in the Corner Room's dark recesses. plomies' pass go, you cannot collect $2OO, nor can you collect your diploma or pink slip. But you can collect a lot of needless aggravation. It certainly is heartening to know that if you play the University traffic rules by the book you are probably more likely to get a traffic ticket after 5 p.m. than if you drive on campus without registering your car. Campus police admit that they ticket registered cars at night in no student parking areas but dorft ticket non registered student cars. They say they don’t ticket non-registered cars because they don't know who the cars belong to. They might belong to continuing education students or family and friends up visiting. Though, more often than not, these cars probably belong to students who have just decided they'd rather not pay the $3.50 but they save themselves the possibility of getting ticketed and missing out on graduation. University Traffic in action brings to mind that old Ziggy card saying “Sometimes I sits and think ..." But in this case, it just leaves me 'sitsing. ’ EekMTC&HMLS oFwbiTfe RHoDeSLA. TbUtGRMIftMA. CANAL, Allen Street, the center of State College, is a thoroughfare a concrete path people travel through to get someplace else. Except as an entrance to places of' business, the street adds nothing to the life' of our town. Yet for at' least one part of the year, Allen Street is the focus of our lives, a green and flowered avenue which is a destination instead of a thoroughfare. During the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, we gather on benches and near flower beds to get to know one another. For those few days, we hear our friends make music and watch them create art. We feel friendlier; we feel part of State College. Then the landscapers take away the trees and the flowers, and with them go our sense of friendship and our sense of community. The summer visit of the Allen Street Mall has been pdrt of our lives for several years. We create it in early July, enjoy it, talk about it, and dismantle it days later. The Allen Street merchants, the town businessmen we in our darker moments call the local robber-barons, are the major obstacle to the mail’s construction. Some of them actively oppose the mall as badfor business and certain to become a gathering-spot for un desirables. Others say nothing or voice small ob jections and so help to prevent it. Allen Street, it Is rarely pointed out, does not belong precedent-shattering laurels, And then came Conan With the acquisition of Roy Thomas as writer, and his adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s barbarian brainchild, it’s relatively safe to say that that’s when the Marvel Renaissance resumed. Of course, the oldheads 'mongst us ’member Thomas from way back when he, in the dawning of the Sixties, was responsible for the fanzine Alter Ego. But his reap pearance as a writer, which perfectly fused the union of transposing Conan to the comics medium, achieved a sym biosis that hadn’t been achieved since, well, since Lee started it all years before. True, there was a period during the late sixties and the turn of the Seventies .when Marvel did catch its creative breath, grooming new artists and writers. But the seed bore much fruit, and I daresay now there’s not a company around anywhere that can touch the talent Marvel unleashes,every month. Luke Cage, Kull, The Defenders, Iron Fist, The Invaders, The Guardians, Warlock, Omega, Skull, Nova, Red Sonja, Son of, Satan and others typify this new breed of stimulation with, at the head of the vanguard-being Shangi-Chl and Dracula. The writers Marv Wolfman, Doug Moenph, Bill Mantlo, Steve Engleheart, Thomas are splendid, while the artists Kirby at the helm, Colan, Rich Buckler, George Perez, Paul Gulacy, John Buscema and others are impeccable. Hell, it'd take this whole page to name them all. My favorite, personally, Isa crazy and certifiably wonderful fruitcake named Steve Gerber. Why? Oh, for one creation called Man-Thing. Why again? ’Cause then came Howard the Duck! If there can be said to be three turning points in Marvel’s history; then Howard Is it. Suffice it to say, lie's the most ridiculous and yet imminently logical creation of them all. But I don't wanna spoil your fun. Check him out for your own pleasure. He only costs thirty cents, and what's true of Howard can be grafted onto Marvel itself: the return in intelligence, satire, wit, fun, some sly profundity now and then, and ad venture with an Olympian A . . . you'll find it' all here. That goes for each and every Marvel title. Personally, I'm a little partial to Luke Cage, only ’cause I plan to write him one day. Are you listening, Bullpen? TT^JRgifiANHYMN HeVfULLQAP us Into _ BfOTLeS ANDLiFTUP OURMoRALe, Kathleen Pavelko * SO FA*, .we'vje. SPtKSb THE.IR. ATMOSPHERE. *A**?U6 fIITOO66N AND PUT feUDES OP JOfWEft OOfift. THE. CAMERA UEtVJS . WANT TO POSE. OS FOR. THE OHZOOP OF ‘PICVMUES?” ANPIfeUMjr Tfe&eDJßJjr CaMMISS, c*J to the merchants whose stores are located there. The street belongs to the Borough of State College, and hence to all of us. The reasons the mall has not yet been built include the inability of mall supporters to organize effectively against the disproportionate weight of commercial opinion. The borough council has been unwilling to risk businessmen’s wrath, and, so they say, the prosperity of State College, on the mall concept. From my point gf view, the most telling argument In favor of a mall is the esthetic one: Allen Street would be a more pleasant place to shop, stroll or stop If the mall were built. The downtown parking problem has made State College a walker’s town already, thus the removal of a <- few parking meters on Allen Street would not bankrupt any business; on the contrary, the elimination of the where-to-park frustration would be a blessing. As for the gatherlng-of-undesirables argument, for the few days each year that the mall exists, it remains relatively undisturbed. We should not expect the malt to be maintenance-free any public area requires upkeep and minimal police patrol but neither should we* expect mall users to be vandals Urban sociologists point out that the more we try to make public places Indestructible, the more frustrated persons try to make some impact upon their en vironment by defacing it. We,can and must trust the users of the Allen Street Mall to enjoy it without destroying it, just as other public parks in the borough are not destroyed through public use. . Once ’pon a time, my comics collection numbered well over fifteen hundred, with five or six different companies included, tho Marvel always led the way in digits and affection. For the last seven years, my loyalty has superceded all, and Marvel has been the only company I’ve read In that time, and for the time still to come. The over thirty-five titles I purchase every month is an investment in imagination and stimulation unrivaled by any competitor. It’s almost like being married: when you've got steak at home, why go out and look for hamburger? So the next time someone tries to make you feel bad by their condescending smile or remarks, let ’em pass on by in their splendid ignorance. We elite know what's happening. As always, the arrogant ones with their noses stuck in the air artistically and literally are constipated creatively, in tellectually and emotionally, anyway. Let ’em smirk when they see us buy comics. Marvel legitimized the comics industry as a viable art form and honorable calling all its very own. And we. are immeasureably the richer for recognizing it, reading it, and reveling in that knowledge. Imperius Rex! s; Collegian JANICE SELINGER Summer Editor Mailing Address: Box 467, State College, Pa. 16801 Office: 126 Carnegie BOARD OF EDITORS: EDITORIAL EDITOR, Janie Musala; NEWS EDITOR, Paula Gochnour; WIRE EDITOR, Laura Shemick; COPY EDITORS, Debbie Fitch, Mike Joseph; SPORTS EDITOR, Bob Buday; PHOTO EDITOR, Barry Wyshlnski; WEATHERMAN, Scott Chesner. .AHDHalLHfcjie TbUS,Vfel^ NUMBeRON®, NADINE KINSEY Business Manager
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