You've Given Up Before You Even Got Started!

Welcome to part 8 of

Where in the continuing attempt to reproduce Issue 1 of The Human Fly comic, we find Blaze is given both inspiration and motivation by the Human Fly himself...

With Blaze's real injury being one to her confidence and self belief in this fantastic page originally drawn by Lee Elias:-

If you was with me last week, I confirmed that the second real life stunt that can be proven that the Human Fly performed (which also went on to appear in The Human Fly comic) was a Rocket powered motorcycle jump over 26 buses

Quite a bit of this proof comes from the designer and engineer who built the rocket powered bike The Human Fly used "The Rocketman" aka Ky Michaelson on his own website http://the-rocketman.com/human-fly.html

You can read the whole story there all in one go But here is part 1 of Ky's Human Fly story:-

"In 1977, I was contracted to build a rocket-powered motorcycle capable of jumping over 27 buses. The jump was to take place in the Montreal Olympic Stadium, as a half-time show for a concert featuring Gloria Gaynor and a number of other disco stars of the 70's. The daredevil rider was Rick Rojatt, otherwise known as the Human Fly. At the time, Evil Kneivel held the record jump of 13 buses, and Rick wanted to beat it badly. Rick's claim to fame at that point in his career was an astonishing stunt he'd performed over the Mojave Desert where he'd wing-walked on a DC-8 and actually made two low flying passes at 250 mph, a nearly impossible feat, and truly death-defying. The other very unique thing about this off-the-wall daredevil was that he was never seen out of costume, and kept his true identity a secret by wearing a red mask and a white cape, identical to the comic book action hero."

So Ky is the second person to link The Human Fly to Rick Rojatt - there is nothing here to say how Ky knew the Human Fly was Rick or anything similar, but then neither is there anything to say he was not (unlike Jim Shooter in earlier postings about The Human Fly) so at least there is a possibility that The Human Fly and Rick Rojatt was one and the same

"From the moment I met this guy, I was convinced he was an accident looking for a place to happen, especially when he told me he wanted to attempt 36 buses. I managed to convince him otherwise when we discussed the fact that in order to do something that remarkable, he'd have to hit the jump ramp at well over 100 mph, and continue to burn the rocket a couple more seconds after take off. I explained that it was definitely possible, but the fact remained that acceleration of that magnitude in such a small area would launch him head-first through the concrete pillar at the opposite end of the arena. That conversation resulted in his finally accepting the challenge for 27 instead. He'd still have to travel at 80 mph, and it wasn't that there wouldn't be a crash, for I was certain there would be. It was just a matter of how bad it would be by the time he reached our nets and a huge airbag we'd have set up. 
I knew the decrease in speed and thrust would make a huge difference, and I felt we could pull this one off with minimal damage to the bike or to Rick (hopefully)."

If you remember I have already noticed how The Human Fly appeared to pushing the line in-between doing a fantastic stunts and just sheer recklessness, this on the basis of his wing walking stunt having to go through 3 attempts, 2 fails in rain at high speed and with the Human Fly being unconscious at the end of the first 2 attempts - I also noted how there was a specific statement about how carefully planned and designed The stunts the Human Fly was undertaking from The Human Fly himself in his CBC TV Interview

and here we have a professional who clearly is already wondering what is going to go wrong and how badly…

Next week amongst other things we will be treated to the Rocket Bikes rather unique specifications!

TRAGIC TALE
As before I would like to remind you all that the following appears with very kind thanks and much appreciation to Bill Coffin

You can read the entire article here http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2011/11/07/tragic-tale and of course it comes highly recommended

Take it away Bill Coffin!:-

"Rough Drafts

But Bill’s writing was not perfect, and nobody knew that better than Jim Shooter, Marvel’s editor-in-chief and the guy who worked most directly on overseeing Mantlo’s work. Shooter became a comic industry legend in his own right during his nearly 12-year stint with Marvel, from 1975 to 1987. More than any editor before him, Shooter worked to make every Marvel title inhabit the same overall setting, creating a universe of thematically linked titles in which characters and storylines could easily cross over from title to title. Fans often refer to Marvel comics produced under Shooter’s watch simply as the Shooter era. More than a few of them contend that the Shooter era is the high point of all Marvel publishing.

Shooter notes that back when he was first editing comics—and Mantlo was just beginning to write them—publishers paid writers by the page, and it was a pittance, at that. The job was so pathetic, Shooter recalls, that one only did it because they truly loved the medium or they had no other choice. Those who could make a living at it had to be very fast at what they did. And Mantlo was fast. But his work often required a great deal of editing, if not full rewriting.

“I think it amused him that I was staying up all night fixing his stuff and making him look better while he’s staying up all night cranking stuff out and making more money,” Shooter says. He kept a file that consisted of entirely rewritten Mantlo script pages. If a single word of Mantlo’s remained on the page, it did not make the file. At the end of a single year, Shooter recalls, he would have a ream of paper in the file."

Next week: The Motorbike that can fly and more Tragic Tale!