Marc Tyler Nobleman's Blog, page 24

“Thirty Minutes Over Oregon” and “Fairy Spell” on Bank Street best of 2019 list

I’m honored to report that both of my 2018 books made the Bank Street College of Education list of the Best Children’s Books of the Year (ages 9-12).



Thank you times two!

Four firsts in Austin, TX

On 4/15/19, Bridge Point Elementary in Austin hosted its first author visit, courtesy of its librarian, Katy Larson. It is her first year as a librarian. And it was my first author visit (in fact first time) in Austin. 

The inaugural photo in what will hopefully eventually be a wall of author visit photos:


I can’t wait to see how her author visit program develops!

Thank you again, Katy, for taking a chance on me. 

An eighth grader’s exceptional project on Bill Finger

In February 2019, I received an email from Leon (“Leo”) Filipczak, a Wisconsin teacher, on behalf of Zabian, one of his students, who was working on a project that they rightfully suspected would be of interest to me. Leo was blown away by the research skills Zabian acquired and said he’d not seen Zabian work this hard before on a school project.

They’ll take it from here:

Leo:

He wanted to do a project on the Golden Age of Comics. I wanted him to make it academic enough to compete in National History Day.  

Little did we know that several months later, he’d be down the Bill Finger rabbit hole, in contact with Athena Finger and Marc Nobleman, and have advanced to the statewide competition. Plenty of academic and life skills would be acquired along the way.

Zabian, an 8th-grade student from northern Wisconsin, returned from Madison on 4/13/19 having entered a website on Bill Finger’s life into the National History Day event. National History Day is a science fair-like competition for middle and high school students that emphasizes primary historical research. Every year, NHD has a theme, and for 2019, it was Triumph and Tragedy. 

Zabian: 

I was doing a project on Batman and I found a little article about the Bill Finger story. I don’t even remember which article—maybe it was one by Marc—but I found out there was a controversy about Bill Finger and the creation of Batman. So then I watched Batman & Bill and it really got me interested in finding out about the lies and everything that led up to the movie. I thought it would fit very well with the History Day theme because his entire life was triumph and tragedy. I have been a Batman fan my whole life, but I didn’t know anything about Bob Kane, or especially not Bill Finger, so this was all new.  

Leo:

From the movie, Zabian branched out to Marc’s TED Talk, Bill the Boy Wonder, and other sources. I tried to push him toward placing Bill’s life into the larger context of 20th-century American history. As a history teacher who has Elfquest, Persepolis, and Watchmen on his shelf but who has never had more than a superficial interest in the DC and Marvel superheroes, I was still somewhat skeptical of the academic merits of the topic.  

Another student in the class was doing a Stan Lee project and one thing that struck us was that Stan Lieber [Stan Lee], Bob Kahn [Bob Kane], and Milton Finger [Bill Finger] had similar backgrounds. They were sons of Jewish immigrants, grew up on the mean streets of New York during the Depression, went to the same high school (along with Will Eisner), adopted pen names, and got into pulp publishing very young in what was seen as a low-brow, entry-level sort of industry. It felt like a very American story.  

I convinced Zabian that it would be worth looking into Bill’s genealogy and we managed to track down the 1940 census record that showed Bill was still living at home and working in the shoe store even as Batman was starting to take off. We also found Louis Finger’s naturalization record from 1919, which contained some interesting details and led to some good discussions of the history of American immigration. I was able to talk about my great-grandfather, who immigrated from Austrian-ruled Galicia (now southeastern Poland/western Ukraine) five years before Louis, so this was one of my favorite parts of the project. 

With most of the published sources located, there was only one thing left to do…

Zabian:

From the documentary, I knew I would have to contact Marc and Athena at some point. I didn’t know for sure if they would respond, because I had never tried to randomly contact a famous person before. Maybe they would be busy and wouldn’t care about some kid’s project. Both of them responded, though. Athena gave me a lot of quotes, and let me put them on my site. Marc gave me some websites. They both seem like very nice people.

Leo:

Zabian won the middle-school website category at the northern Wisconsin regional in March and advanced to the statewide contest. This is not typical for a first-year competitor. And although he did not advance to national competition, he demonstrated skill and perseverance that surprised his teachers, his peers, and himself.

Zabian:

It definitely gave me a lot of new skills that I never used before. This was, by far, the biggest school project I’ve ever done. Bill Finger is one cool dude.



Here is Zabian’s website. 

Oh, he even found something I had not seen before—the petition for naturalization. Congrats, Zabian, and thanks to you both for sharing your story. I’d bet Bill would be honored.

“The Chupacabra Ate the Candelabra”: The Play

In October 2018, the Kershaw County Library in Camden, SC put on a play based on The Chupacabra Ate the Candelabra. 


The characters were portrayed by puppets, but I learned of this too late to request photos—the kids took the puppets home!

Two schools and the Kutztown Children’s Literature Conference in PA

I spent three days with students, educators, and ghosts in Pennsylvania, though I saw only one of the three groups. 

On 4/11/19, I had the pleasure of being the 90th author (!) to visit Newtown Elementary in Newtown. Librarian Liz Dobuski has been at it for a quarter-century and has a stunning wall to prove it.




Among the dizzying array of sanctioned graffiti were a bunch of friends who’d blazed a trail there before me.






And I was especially excited to see one of my childhood favorites, José Aruego, illustrator of the immortal 1971 picture book Leo the Late Bloomer. I had never heard of him doing school visits. He died in 2012 (on his 80th birthday).


Liz’s students prepared for my visit in part by building a precious fairy garden.


I’ve come across my share of Boys of Steel postcards, but Liz had one I don’t recall seeing before.


A day later and 40 minutes down the road, I had a blast at J. M. Grasse Elementary in Sellersville. Librarian Kim Mulloy recruited a chatty group of students of all grades to join me for lunch, and they were so much fun to play around with. On her desk was a photo of her family in this frame:


Turns out the superintendent of her school district had gifted that frame to every employee. What a meaningful gesture in support of life-work balance.

On 4/13, I was honored to be one of four author keynotes at the 21st annual Kutztown Children’s Literature Conference on the campus of Kutztown University. The other three: Duncan Tonatiuh, Andrea Warren, and Brendan Wenzel, none of whom I had met before. The audience was engaged and humbling.


The other authors and I stayed in the charming Main Street Inn, which was probably also haunted. The only surface in my room suitable for a laptop was the vanity…in the bathroom.


And those ghosts? I believe I was the only guest at the Temperance House in Newtown and was hoping one would join me, but if s/he did, I didn’t notice. I did, however, take this photo…look closely behind me. Maybe you notice…?

Dixon-Smith Middle School, Fredericksburg, VA

On 4/9/19, I had the pleasure of speaking to 6th-8th graders at Dixon-Smith Middle School in Fredericksburg, VA. My kind host, librarian Melissa West, went above, beyond, up, up, and away to prepare:


That does say "Marc," not "Mars."
And this was only a fraction of the craft work she and her students created to welcome me.

My favorite: scenes from some of my picture books depicted in Legos. One from Boys of Steel:


Thank you again to Melissa for making this day possible!

"Thirty Minutes Over Oregon" and "Fairy Spell" on CCBC Choices 2019 list

The Cooperative Children's Book Center of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison annually compiles a list of their most recommended titles of the year; it's called CCBC Choices.

For 2018, the list comprises 258 books, two of which happen to be mine: Fairy Spell and Thirty Minutes Over Oregon.



Thank you, CCBC, and congrats to all others on the list!

Logan Lerman recommends "Batman & Bill"

The last published Batman story that Bill Finger wrote

Batman #177 (1965), co-starring the Atom and Elongated Man.


Happy 80th birthday, Batman. 

How to choose an Airbnb

This summer, I’ll be making my fourth pilgrimage to Comic-Con International: San Diego (commonly known as San Diego Comic-Con).

The three previous years I went:


2011—to film for the second of three attempts to make a Bill Finger documentary2012—to promote the newly-released Bill the Boy Wonder2014—to honor Bill Finger on the 100th anniversary of his birth and 40th anniversary of his death (not to mention the 75th anniversary of Batman)

This year I’m returning to SDCC to take part in at least one special event for Batman’s 80th, and as usual, SDCC attendees need to book a place to sleep 18-20 months in advance.

To avoid paying approximately $400 a night for a Hampton Inn that will cost a quarter of that a week later, I booked an Airbnb for the first time. (I was also a late adopter of iPods, blogging, and Lyft.) Though I was a bit hesitant (being a clean freak), I was reassured by an omen. One of the options indicated that the owners have two cats—which is two strikes for me. But the property is a separate guest house where the cats don’t go. 

Funnily, the cats ended up being the deciding factor: their names are Bruce Wayne and Bane. (And you thought “B&B” stood for “bed and breakfast.”)

I’m not a cat man but am, of course, a Bat man.

Speaking of animals named for the Dark Knight’s secret identity, this is reminiscent of how I found Athena Finger.

Again, a good omen!