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Unmasking The Smallville Ledger...

The time has finally come for me to unveil some of the secrets I have been keeping all these years. I start with The Smallville Ledger and the mysterious Christopher James Beppo, whose identity was recently revealed by Mark Warshaw in the latest issue of "Smallville: The Official Magazine" (Issue #21 - article entitled, "Outside the Box").

First, let me tell you right up front the names of those who were responsible for the stories you read every week in The Smallville Ledger and give them credit where much credit is due.

The Smallville Ledger Staff writers and their real names are as follows:

Angie Perez - Angela Dai'Re

Gena McGuiness - Gena Murph

John K. McGuiness - Chris Freyer (Christopher James Freyer )

Kathy Romita - Kathryn Zoucha

George "The Streak" Talmer - Mark Warshaw

Jim "Slim" Bradlee - Chris Freyer (Christopher James Freyer ). This was yet another pen name used whenever he had to write another story in an issue that already contained an article written by Christopher James Beppo.

And for those of you who were there 'way back in the early days, let's not forget the "Letters to the Editor" - aka “Ed” - also Chris Freyer. If you ever submitted a letter that was published with a response, you were communicating with Chris. He didn’t want Chris Beppo to be associated with the Editor, so he simply replied to emails as “-ed.” to conceal his identity. As well as being short for "Editor," he became know to readers as 'Ed' through the “Letters to the Editor” page. They didn't know that it was the same person.

The Classified Ads were most often written by Chris and Mark, with the rest of the staff jumping in once in a while, with as well as the occasional suggestion from others. Ads sometimes contained clues about upcoming episodes (spoilers), spoofs on Smallville, links to contact Smallville characters and/or answer ads (all email went to Chris), and even a few “inside” jokes between the show’s production staff.

What’s interesting to note is that in Beppo’s last story, he challenged readers to figure out the identities of the writers. Some found the meanings of the pen names, but not the true identities. For those who don’t know, the list of pen names were derived as follows:

Christopher James Beppo – named after ‘Beppo the Super Monkey'.

Angie Perez – named for D.C. Comics artist George Perez, who worked on Superman and Wonder Woman.

Gena McGuiness – named for D.C. artist Ed McGuiness, who worked on Superman and Batman.

John K. McGuiness – named for D.C. artist Ed McGuiness, who worked on Superman and Batman.

Kathy Romita – named for D.C. artists John Romita & John Romita, Jr., who worked on Spiderman.

George "The Streak" Talmer – named after ‘Streaky the Super Cat'.

To make the connection between the pen names and the real names of the writers, one piece of vital information was still missing. What would a Smallville puzzle be without a “Rosetta Stone”? In this case, the modern technology of the internet and “Google” simply couldn’t replace the old-fashioned task of looking up the information in a book. (Remember those days?)

Many of you who are reading this now probably have a copy of the book I’m referring to. It is this book that contains the “Rosetta Stone” that unlocks the mystery that has eluded many for some time. It is “Smallville:The Official Companion Season 1”, by Paul Simpson. The real names of The Smallville Ledger staff are listed on the acknowledgements page.

Oddly enough, the copy I have was given to me one evening at dinner by none other than Mr. Christopher James (Beppo) Freyer himself, a month before it had even hit the shelves. Having had to conceal his identity all these years I can now, finally, declare: ‘The cat is out of the bag.” Or should I say, monkey? - 'Ritch'

The Puzzles of the Masks

For information about this site or any inquiries concerning information on this site

please feel free to contact Rich 'Ritch' Huber.