Correction

I mucked up the obit for Alvin Schwartz a bit, muddling the issue of who created the Bizarro character in the Superman family of comics.

Bizarro first appeared in print in Superboy #68, which was written by Otto Binder. Bizarro second appeared in print in the Superman newspaper strip, which was written by Alvin. Both were supervised by editor Mort Weisinger. Alvin always said that he created the character. I'm not sure if he wrote the script for the newspaper feature first or merely came up with the concept and sold Weisinger on it but he definitely said it was all his idea.

There is no record of whether Mssrs. Weisinger or Binder concurred with this history and since all three are now deceased, that's probably how the factual recital will remain. It would certainly not have been unusual for the scripts to have been written in a different sequence than their publication dates, and Weisinger was notorious for taking an idea pitched by one of his writers and assigning it to another.

In any case, Alvin says he came up with the idea and, not that this is proof of anything, he sure never struck me as the kind of guy to take credit for someone else's work. In any case, he refined and expanded on the idea in the newspaper strip and the Bizarro that people know and remember is surely more the invention of Schwartz than Binder. I should have been clearer in what I wrote and have amended the posting accordingly. I'm sorry…or as Bizarro #1 or Michele Bachmann would say, "Me am not sorry."