There's no Book Marks column this week. I've been spending all my time writing, and reading books for a contest I'm helping to judge. The column will return in a week or three when I'm back to reading anything I want.

Meanwhile, let's talk about my other new favorite form of reading – comic books. I mentioned on Facebook earlier this year that 2013 marks the 75th anniversary of the creation of Superman. Pretty cool!

Because I didn't start reading comic books until a few years ago, most of my experience with Superman was through movies and TV. From 1978 to 1993, it never occurred to me that anyone else could be Superman besides Christopher Reeve. What a shock when Dean Cain starred as the man of steel in the TV series Lois & Clark. But I watched the show and thought, Ooo, I like this!

Then I heard about Smallville and thought, “Oh no! Not Superman in 90210!” But John and I watched it for several seasons and enjoyed it. (After it did become more of a teen's nighttime soap, we stopped watching. But we loved it for a while.)

When I started writing Unexpected Superhero, I had no intention of writing anything like Superman. (How could I compete with that?) But when I came up with last names for my characters (she's Tori Lewis and he's Joe Clarke), I laughed out loud. Suddenly I had this vision of the early North American explorers coupled with superheroes and marriage, and I thought, “That's exactly the feel I wanted!” Tori and Joe are exploring the strange and unknown world of marriage as Tori tries to understand the strange and unknown land of superheroes.

With the new release of the film Man of Steel (which we'll see as soon as John stops working overtime), Entertainment Weekly did a great write-up on Superman's 75-year history last week. Check it out.

Do you have any favorites relating to Superman? Favorite movie or comic book?