40 years ago: Longtime ‘Superman’ editor visits KU

From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for March 5, 1974:

  • Mort Weisinger, long-time editor of Superman Comics, drew a crowd of about 300 enthusiastic listeners to the Kansas Union this week to hear more about the Man of Steel. Weisinger, who had served as editor from 1941 until just a few years previously, was deluged with questions about the defender of “truth, justice and the American way.” “I am eternally dueling with the fans — they’re trying to trap me,” Weisinger said after a fan had caught him on a slip-up regarding the origins of Superwoman. Weisinger said he preferred the episodes in which Superman “has to survive with his wits” after exposure to the dread substance Kryptonite. “It’s too easy when a man has super powers,” he said.
  • Members of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences celebrated the year in music and handed out Grammy Awards for Roberta Flack, Stevie Wonder, and Bette Midler, among others. Flack’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song” was chosen as record of the year and Flack herself as top pop female vocalist. Wonder had claimed the most Grammys of the show — four in all, including Album of the Year for “Innervisions” and two vocal awards for “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” and “Superstition.” Wonder, who had been accompanied to the stage by his mother and two siblings, accepted one of his statues in memory of singer Jim Croce, who had been killed in a plane crash the previous year.