File this under Art Imitating Life Imitating Art.

Or maybe, clothes don’t make the (super) man.

Last month, the New York Times ran a story – front page, no less – about ordinary citizens putting on costumes, giving themselves superheroish names, hitting the streets and combating real-life crime. Apparently, they mostly content themselves with non-violent intervention, or calling the cops, though one guy in Seattle was arrested after pepper-spraying a street fight.

They even have an organization called The Black Monday Society.

It’s been creeping into the zeitgeist for a while, this business of plain Janes and Joes putting on odd clothing and assuming alter egos. There’s been at least one movie that uses the idea as a springboard – it’s called “Super” and it’s popped up on cable channels hereabouts – and it was the core of a weekly television show titled “Who Wants To Be A Superhero?” hosted by my one-time boss, Stan Lee. (Stan: If you’re out there and asking that question, I’m not raising my hand.)

I imagine that for most members of the Black Monday Society, the masked-and-caped patrols are a hobby, a slight mutation of the dressing up at comics and science fiction conventions that can make a good time of just sitting in a hotel lobby and watching the fantasies parade on past. And hey, maybe the Black Mondays are actually of some service to heir fellow citizens. What’s not to like about blowing the whistle on some creep breaking a vacationing neighbor’s basement window, or directing a befuddled partygoer to the nearest bus stop? But here’s the catch: these well-meaning people are not superheroes, and neither are you, or I, or Stan, or Ryan Reynolds, or anybody else who ever trod the planet. We are not faster than a speeding bullet, we can’t outpower a locomotive nor leap over tall buildings, and if we were ever bitten by a radioactive spider we’d need medical attention. As a species, we homo sapiens need medical attention pretty often, and we especially need it when we meddle with strangers who are bigger, stronger, meaner, or have better weapons or ornery friends or, as almost happened when congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot, a good Samaritan packing a gun mistakes the heroes for the villains.

The psychosexual aspects of role playing in dangerous contexts were touched on in Watchman, still the high water mark in comic book superheroics, and the perils of being a self-appointed vigilante were the subject of last week’s episode of Harry’s Law, which dealt with a young woman’s putting on a Wonder Woman suit and bashing abusive spouses.. I’d been watching the show for about 20 minutes before I remembered that its co-writer, and the show’s creator, the prolific and generally excellent David Kelley, was also honcho on a Wonder Woman series that NBC decided not to air. The episode was unusually glum for a Kelley production, with the faux WW ending up in therapy, but it did give the producers an excuse to put a gorgeous Erica Durance in that costume.

Several decades ago, the mythologist and sage, Joseph Campbell, warned of the dangers of conflating myth with fact. A news story and a fable tell different kinds of truth and it might be unhealthy to confuse the two. So maybe we’d all better save our superheroing for the next convention costume parade and find other ways to help our neighbors.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

Reader questions continue to enter arrive at the Table Talk offices. So, this week, Barry Reese, Bobby Nash and Mike Bullock take some time to respond to two readers and their great questions. This week’s questions come from Mark Holmes and C William Russette. Thanks for writing, guys.

New Pulp’s Table Talk – Reader Questions 3.0 is now available at http://www.newpulpfiction.com/ or at the direct link: http://www.newpulpfiction.com/2012/01/table-talk-reader-questions-30.html

Join the conversation. Leave us a comment on the blog and let us know your thoughts on this topic. We’d love to hear your thoughts and questions.

Have a question you want the Table Talk Trio to answer? Send it to newpulpfiction@gmail.com with “Table Talk Question” in the subject line. Also, let us know if you want attribution for the question, or you’d rather remain anonymous. Please, keep the questions pertinent to the creation of New Pulp and/or writing speculative fiction in general. We’ll get the questions worked into future columns ASAP.

Follow the Table Talk Trio on Twitter. @BarryReesePulp @BobbyNash @MikeABullock

Long-time DC Comics and Marvel colorist Tom Ziuko (The History of the DC Universe, Superman, Batman, The Shadow, Hellblazer, Looney Tunes, Spider-Man, Captain America, Tomb of Dracula, etc.) has been facing some difficult medical issues over the last two years, including kidney failure, neuropathy, and, most recently, emergency surgery to repair a strangulated colon.

According to the Facebook page started by Gary Mann for Tom, “Tom is a freelance artist, unable to afford health insurance, and the last year has been brutal for him…. Tom is currently recuperating at home, although still unable to return to work full-time. Early last year, Tom’s friend and fellow freelance artist Alan Kupperberg mounted an effort to help raise some funds for him; and a great non-profit organization, The Hero Initiative, has played a major role in helping Tom to survive during this last year, keeping him afloat and literally saving him from becoming homeless. But Tom continues to face a mountain of medical bills, personal expenses and debt.

“And so I appeal to those of you who may have been touched by Tom’s work over the last three decades; in that you might be able to contribute to assisting him financially while he continues his recovery. I know that times are tight right now for everyone, but any contribution you might be able to make, no matter how small, would be both beneficial and greatly appreciated by Tom.

“If you want to contribute directly to Tom’s assistance fund, you can do so at Paypal — the account name is — chroma999@aol.com.

“And whether you’re able to contribute funds or not, you can write to Tom directly on Facebook, or at his email address (atomica999@aol.com) in order to send him get-well wishes, to say hello and wish him a speedy recovery, or just to let him know if you’ve enjoyed his work over the years.”