Today in Comics History, June 11: Happy birthday, Ben Jonson!

Born on this day (or around it, I'm not gonna be too fussy) in 1572: Ben Jonson, one of the original Jo(h)nson boys, poet and playwright (Every Man in His Humour, Volpone, or The Fox, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, all Elizabethan/Jacobean-era plays that John, who majored in this stuff, has read and told me about). He was a pal and contemporary of William Shakespeare (hey, who wasn't), and this adventure of Blake and Mortimer suggests he helped cover up Shakespeare's supposed death in 1616, which is, at the very least, speculative fiction even more preposterous than What If...? Sgt. Fury Fought World War II in Space? This comic at least does make fun of Oxfordians, who are the criminals of the story. Oxfordians are those who believe that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was the true author of Shakespeare's plays (no, he wasn't), and to prove how wretched Oxfordians are in ways supported by comic books, John Byrne is an Oxfordian. See? You don't want to be in that company, do you?



from The Adventures of Blake & Mortimer Vol. 24: The Testament of William S. (Cinebook, March 2017), script by Yves Sente, translation by Jerome Saincantin, pencils and inks by André Juillard, colors by Madeleine DeMille, letters by Design Amorandi
Jonson's famous deication in the First Folio is thus revelaed to be a cryptic reference to Shakespeare still living! Well, that's definitely ironclad proof.


Ben Jonson makes a guest appearance...I think...in this Superman tale where Lois and Clark are zapped back in space and time to London in the Elizabethan era! And, because Lois knows Clark is there and Superman keeps showing up, Clark has to resort to silly gaslighting with Clark dummies and super-speed. You'd think he'd get William Shakespeare, who figures out Clark's secret identity, to pose as him. No, but Shakespeare blackmails Superman until Supes recites Macbeth for him to copy down and claim as his own, which raises the question: who wrote Macbeth in the first place?

Anyway, Clark spots Jonson in a tavern, but he doesn't even identify which of these Other Guys™ he is. Nice cameoing, Jonson! (snicker)


from "Shakespeare's Ghost Writer!" in Superman (1939 series) #44 (DC/Superman Inc., January 1947), script byt Don C. Cameron, pencils by Ira Yarbrough, inks by George Roussos (?)
This is supposedly the first Superman time travel story, before writers added his ability to fly hecka fast and go forwards or backwards through the years, so it's dependant on a crazy scientist and his time contraption. Luckily, at the end, Lois and Clark return to Metropolis and the office of cranky Perry White while Superman assures us, the readers, that Superman got back too. Somehow. Don't think too hard about it.


Happy birthday, Ben Jonson!