The Morning Show Murders by Dick Lochte & Dick Lochte

Author:Dick Lochte & Dick Lochte [Roker, Al]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

CHAPTER 31

“Why devote an exhibit of comic art to deceased superheroes?” I asked at precisely eighty-forty-one a.m. the following morning.

It was the first question on the list Kiki had prepared for the bottom-of-the-hour remote. We were telecasting from the Manhattan Museum of Culture and Art, where the exhibit The Mortal Superheroes: The Reality of Fantasy would debut with a charity opening on Saturday evening.

“Well, first off,” co-curator Marius Cathcart replied, “our exhibit actually covers all of the superheroes, including, of course, Superman, Spiderman, Wonder Woman, and Batman, although the Bat, as we all know, isn’t really a superhero. That is to say, he’s a normal human being, if highly intelligent and close to physically perfect, as opposed to the mutant X-Men. Or Superman, for that matter.”

“You speak of these comic characters as if they were real.”

“To some of us, they are,” Cathcart replied. “And for those whose imaginations can’t quite make the leap, films have provided the dimension of reality. These superheroes live and, as our exhibit points out, some of them die, the same as you and I eventually will.”

Cheery thought, fanboy.

An hour earlier, when segment producer Jolie Durbin, cameraman Gabe Farris, and I had arrived at ManMOCA, I’d discovered that the exhibit was a considerably bigger deal than I’d supposed, blessed by the governor, the mayor, several film studios, People magazine, assorted business and social groups, and, perhaps most important of all, Donald Trump.

Cathcart gave us a jiffy tour through five large showrooms filled with vivid comic art, panels, splash pages, and covers, along with statues and movie posters. There were photos of costumed crusaders shaking hands with presidents, sports figures, and other world leaders, entertaining soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and helping out at the Special Olympics.

Placed in key positions in each room were video monitors on pedestals displaying documentary footage of comic artists at work, while live and animated versions of their creations did their superheroic stunts on white walls via projected imagery. One artist caught my eye. I blinked and said, “Is that Rita Margolis?”

“Rita? Sure,” Cathcart said. “She draws Funny Girls.”

“They’re not exactly superheroes,” I said.

Cathcart giggled. “Not exactly,” he said. “But Rita’s a good friend, and she’s helped us put this whole thing together. You know Rita?”

I told him I did.

“She said she’d be here today,” he said.

She hadn’t arrived by the time we went live with Cathcart, his partner, Harris Whirley, and me seated on director’s chairs in the midst of all the Slam! Bang! Pow! action art.

“I have to admit,” I said, “I didn’t realize that superheroes could die.”

“Why not?” Cathcart asked, blinking into Gabe Farris’s hot camera. “Death exists in the real world. Why not in the comic world, too?”

“It’s what the fans want,” Whirley added.

“They actually voted for it,” Cathcart said.

“Right,” Whirley said. “D.C. Comics asked them to decide whether Robin should live or die in the graphic novel Batman: A Death in the Family.”

“And Robin died,” Cathcart said. “Of course, like Batman, Robin wasn’t literally a superhero, either.”

Cathcart

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