Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett looks at the return of the Unbelievable N-Man, Jack Kirby's toon designs from the 80s, and the missing title in the list of Eisner nominations.

A parody and a pastiche are two very different things, one is easy to do, the other incredibly hard, which is why there are so many of the first and so few of the second.  This is why I've always kept a soft spot in my heart for one of the rare pastiches that got it right; I'm of course referring to 1963, the unfinished Image series from 1993.  Alan Moore, Steve Bissette and Rick Veitch managed to replicate the flavor of early 1960's Marvel Comics without ever making the results look like lifeless tracings of the actual articles.

I was particularly fond of The Unbelievable N-Man who appeared in Tales From Beyond in the story "Showdown in the Shimmering Zone," very much a 'race against the commies' plot enlivened by Alan Moore's warped imagination (i.e. multiple nuclear explosions have somehow turned a portion of the desert into an alien landscape that comes with its own laws of physics).  And although N-Man was clearly a homage to the Incredible Hulk, Steve Bissette gave him enough of an original attitude that he can be judged on his own merits.

I really can't be sure of much of anything anymore but I was pretty sure I would never, ever see The Unbelievable N-Man again.  Then last week came the story that while it looks like 1963 will never be collected Bissette and Veitch have divvied up its characters between them.  And Bissette will be bringing back not just N-Man but Hypernaut, The Fury and Sky Solo & Her Screamin' Skydogs who will all appear in Tales of the Uncanny: N-Man & Friends Vol. 1.  It's a 200+ page paperback to be published by About Comics, hopefully sometime in the fall.

And even I'm having trouble believing this is actually going to happen.  First you've got to understand that I'm such a big Jack Kirby fan my favorite part of the Jack Kirby Collector is when the magazine publishes artwork Jack did for Ruby-Spears Productions back in the 1980's for cartoon shows that never sold.  I know I'm a little too old for playing make believe but I've got to admit was fun looking at the pages and imaging what could have been. Well Joe Ruby and Ken Spears have teamed-up with Sid and Marty Kroft to try and turn as many of these characters into multi-media products as possible.  Frankly I'm geeking out a little over here, especially at the prospect of someone producing an art book collecting this material.

And, finally the 2010 Eisner Comic Industry Award Nominees were posted and as usual there are some categories I care about more than others and nominees even I (with my conspicuous consumption of all things comic) haven't heard of.  I realize opinions vary and awards by their nature are subjective but I just can't believe Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-Creator Joe Shuster by Craig Yoe wasn't nominated in the category of Best Comics-Related Book.

Over the weekend I read a number of theories floated online as to why it wasn't but I don't plan on speculating on what's behind this omission by the "blue-ribbon panel of judges" (as one press released referred to them).  Though it might have something to do with why I, as I confessed in last week's column, had "absolutely zero interest" in reading Secret Identity... at first.

I'll admit that my initial reaction was a visceral one, triggered by a pair of presumptions on my part.  First there was the sexually charged subject matter (which to my middle-class sensibilities seemed terribly "sordid") and second I imagined it was the story of Joe Shuster's nightmarish descent into a world of degradation.  Not to mention I had the sneaking suspicion someone had just cobbled together a collection of public domain material by a "brand-name" creator to make a quick buck.

But bit by bit the actual story behind the cook got out into the media and oh yeah it's dark, but how could a story featuring Jewish Nazi (!) Thrill Killers and "Nights of Horror" (the only comics-oriented material ever banned by the U.S. Supreme Court in a landmark censorship case) be anything but dark?  Nevertheless it's also a serious work of social history that brings a much needed human dimensions to comic book histories which for the most part continue to be a dry recitation of dates, issues numbers and mutually agreed upon legends.

And to me just as important the book is nothing but respectful to Joe Shuster; it makes the case that along with being a formative figure in the comic book industry he was an overlooked master draftsman.  I suggest every comic book shop in America order a copy of Secret Identity, if only if every retailer can read it for themselves.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely  those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.