Marc Tyler Nobleman's Blog, page 29

A note from a flutist

Today my book Thirty Minutes Over Oregon: A Japanese Pilot's World War II Story takes flight—21 years after I learned of the story, and 11 after I began to research and write it. So perhaps the more accurate aero-analogy is today my book reaches cruising altitude.


Thanks to my co-pilots, editor Jennifer Greene and illustrator Melissa Iwai. You made the view from the cockpit so much nicer.

The first half of the story is about one man's unique achievement; Nobuo Fujita became the first (and still-only) person to bomb the U.S. mainland from a plane. The second half is about the same man's noble redemption; twenty years after what became known as the Lookout Air Raids, Nobuo returned to the U.S. to apologize and ended up forging a 35-year friendship with the Oregon town closest to the forested bomb site (though he did not speak English). 

After Nobuo died in 1997, some of his ashes were spread in Japan, the rest at the bomb site.

Here is a note I received from Harry Nomura, a flutist who played at the Oregon ceremony (date 11/1/18 but received 10/1/18).


I challenge you to find a lovelier way to express this ritual than "sunk his bone by his dying wish." 

My wish is that this book lands near you and that the story within moves you the way it moved me to write it all those years ago.

Family Day at Smiley Library, Redlands, CA

Family Day is a free annual event open to the public held at the Smiley Public Library in Redlands, CA. It offers a selection of stations based on the books of a single author, and this year (10/6/18), that author was me.

It was quite a privilege. 

Seeing an entire community come out to enjoy various activities based on one's work is humbling.

Allow me to give you a tour:




Kids got a checklist to keep track of what activitiesthey did. 
 Every young attendee received a free book,courtesy of generous sponsors.



 A new fairy garden to let.





 Brave Like My Brother is told in letters between brothers,one in the UK during WWII, the other back home.I loved this Family Day idea.


 This gentleman found and restored a vehicle used during the war and drove it to the event for people to experience.Look closely. Can you spot the copy of Brave Like My Brother?
Zoom!










 Don't worry. They didn't serve fried fairies.
 A group of young people performed a 30-minuteplay based in part on my work but more generallyon the concept of superheroes and heroes.They were so polished and I got to chat with them afterward.


 I signed all those books. Lovely crowd.

Thank you again to my host Pamela Martinez, Marjorie Arnett, and the fleet of others, including many volunteers, who made my participation possible...and memorable.

"Unfolds with a storyteller's flair" – "Horn Book" on "Thirty Minutes Over Oregon"

November/December 2018 (written by Roger Sutton)

"Nobleman knows just the right tone to strike with this story, and he unfolds its events with a storyteller's flair. … There are several lessons here, organically made, and kids who come for the wartime action will be pulled along to the book's ultimately pacific message"

First photo with Phil Yeh, the first journalist to cover Siegel and Shuster's plight

In 2008, the year I started this blog, I had the honor of interviewing cartoonist and writer Phil Yeh. All fans of superhero comics owe Phil a debt: he was at the forefront of a group that helped writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster get (restored) credit and compensation for their genre-launching brainstorm, Superman. As a young journalist running a free California arts publication, Phil helped the industry recognize the imperative of acknowledging (and fandom the imperative of speaking up for) the creative underdog.

Without him, I might not have written Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman. 

That interview was conducted by email but Phil and I have since met in person several times, mostly at comic conventions. Yet we had not taken a photo together till 10/3/18, when I spoke at a school in San Bernadino, where he lives. He and his wife Linda (a public librarian, and more) kindly came to my talk.


A warm man committed to the arts.

Seeing "The Heart of Rock & Roll" jukebox musical in San Diego

I dressed as Huey Lewis.

I interviewed women who starred in Huey Lewis and the News videos.

I met Huey Lewis (and some of the News).

And now I've seen the new musical based on the songs of Huey Lewis and the News.


The Heart of Rock & Roll world-premiered in San Diego in September 2018 and is set to close in late October. As luck may have it, I was already scheduled to be in California during the show's run, but in Redlands, about 1.5 hours from San Diego. 

Still, not knowing if the musical would be successful enough to pop up elsewhere, I seized the opportunity. I flew directly to San Diego, drove straight to the show, and straight afterward drove into the night to my Redlands-area hotel.

Bonus: This poster combines two things I love.

The story was better than I was expecting based on a review or two I read, but of course this was not first and foremost about a story. The songs were the stars. I've rarely heard HLATN songs reinterpreted, so that was a rare treat. I was pleasantly surprised that the show included a few songs that were not hits ("I Never Walk Alone," "World to Me") and one song Huey wrote specially for the story. 

It was worth the side trip.

It was hip to be there.

Baltimore Comic-Con 2018

I've been to San Diego Comic-Con (properly called Comic-Con International) three times and New York Comic Con twice, but never Baltimore Comic-Con (a "neighborhood" con since I live in Maryland)...till now.

Sandwiched between Jim Steranko and Frank Miller, which is not remotely intimidating, I told a lovely audience about my nine-year fight to get Bill Finger credit on Batman. 


I was assigned a big room and was humbled that it was not mostly empty. 

Though I love giving this talk, the highlight of the event was the chance to meet several comics creators I've loved since childhood:

José Luis García-López, tied with Jim Aparo as my favorite superhero artist of all time
Joe Staton, who co-illustrated a book I wrote but whom I'd not met in person before
Tony Isabella, who reminded me that he and I have already met, but a decade ago, and I don't remember details; I was so green at the time, I didn't know which end was up
Mike W. Barr, who bravely and boldly spoke up for Bill Finger...and paid a price for it (he's thanked in Batman & Bill)
I also met the ultra-sharp Marc Andreyko, who tweeted highly nice things about Batman & Bill. That Marc did this Marc two additional kindnesses: he introduced me to Tom King as he passed by and he proposed a cool idea for San Diego next year; stay tuned on that. As for Tom, weirdly, when I spoke at an international school in Guatemala in February, I learned that not one but two of the teachers there are related to his wife.

Jim Steranko and I had a brief moment to chat between our appearances. He gripped both my hand and shoulder firmly, thanked me for what I did for Bill Finger, and SAID WE SHOULD WORK TOGETHER ON SOMETHING. I thanked him for helping to document Bill (so few did), asked for a photo (he brushed that aside), and said I'd be honored (though we both know it'll never happen). 

I showed up at tables for Mark Waid and Jerry Ordway, but neither was there yet and I could not return later. The other legend on my to-see list was Ramona Fradon, but I did not have time to seek her out.

It was a thrill to meet José, Joe, Mike, Marc, and Tom and a pleasure to see Tony and Jim again. Thanks again to BCC for including me in the festivities. 

"Moving" – "Booklist" on "Thirty Minutes Over Oregon"

10/1/18

"Clearly written...moving... This quiet story is less about war than the toll it takes on those who fight, the possibility of reconciliation, and the value of understanding other cultures. A war story with a heartening conclusion"

Picture books taking flight

By chance, all five of my picture books to date feature a central figure who flies:

Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman—Superman (duh)Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman—Batman (not self-sustained; via Batplane, Batcopter, Batwing, being ejected out of a giant toaster, etc.)Fairy Spell: How Two Girls Convinced the World That Fairies Are Real—fairies (duh)Thirty Minutes Over Oregon: A Japanese Pilot's World War II Story—Nobuo Fujita, the pilot of the subtitleThe Chupacabra Ate the Candelabra—the chupacabra (not traditionally described as being winged but our cute little version is)
Superman by Ross MacDonald
Batman by Ty Templeton
fairy photographed by Elsie Wright
Nobuo Fujita by Melissa Iwai
chupacabra by Ana Aranda
I went skydiving in 1996:

Number of named characters in my illustrated nonfiction

At some point during the revision stage of Fairy Spell: How Two Girls Convinced the World That Fairies Are Real, I realized it was longer than my other picture book nonfiction. (I probably did compare word counts, though I don't remember the results.) 


Then I realized it was longer partly because that story required more named characters—meaning characters important enough to my telling that I should refer them to by name rather than connection (i.e. "Jerry's father," in Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman) or title. Generally speaking, if a character appears only once, s/he need not be identified by name.

Not including fictional characters like Batman or historical figures mentioned but not an active character in the story, like Edgar Allan Poe in Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman and President Kennedy in Thirty Minutes Over Oregon: A Japanese Pilot's World War II Story, this is how many named characters my illustrated nonfiction books include:


Boys of Steel—two (Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster)Bill the Boy Wonder—eight (Bill Finger, Bob Kane, Vin Sullivan, Jerry Robinson, Portia Finger, Fred Finger, Julius Schwartz, Jerry Bails)Thirty Minutes Over Oregon—four (Nobuo, Ayako, Yoshi, and Yoriko Fujita)Fairy Spell—eight (Frances Griffiths, Elsie Wright, Polly Wright, Arthur Wright, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edward Gardner, Harold Snelling, Fred Gettings)

So at eight, Fairy Spell has the same number as Bill the Boy Wonder, but at one point it had eleven. During rewrites, three disappeared—much like fairies themselves are prone to do. 

"An important and breathtaking book"

"An important and breathtaking book"
—Colby Sharp book talk video (also on his "Awesome 2018 Books" list)


Thank you again, Colby!