Happy National Comic Book Day! ⚡📚

#DYK Thor once called Oklahoma home?

Beginning in the 2007 Thor series by writer J. Michael Straczynski and artist Olivier Coipel, Thor returned following Ragnarok and rebuilt the city of Asgard on Earth, just outside the small town of Broxton, Oklahoma. Suddenly, gods and warriors were sharing the Oklahoma prairie with farmers, neighbors, and small-town life.

The unlikely setting became a major part of modern Thor mythology for years, with Broxton appearing in close to 90 comic issues across Thor and related Marvel titles. The town even found itself caught in the crossfire of major Marvel events, including Siege, when Norman Osborn and his forces attacked Asgard.

And Marvel fans got a pretty great Oklahoma callback in Loki Season 2. In the premiere’s post-credits scene, Sylvie arrives in Broxton, Oklahoma, in 1982, where she walks into a McDonald’s looking for a new start. For longtime Thor readers, the location was a not-so-subtle nod to Asgard’s comic-book home on the plains.

From Asgard to Oklahoma, sometimes the Nine Realms are a little closer than you think. ⚡

#NationalComicBookDay #Thor #Marvel #Oklahoma ...

#TBT to welcoming Derek Drymon to OKPOP for a video interview about his friend and collaborator Stephen Hillenburg and the early days of SpongeBob SquarePants. 🧽

Derek, who served as creative director on the show’s first three seasons, first met Stephen while working on Rocko’s Modern Life. As that series wound down, the two spent months at Stephen’s house talking through ideas and storyboarding scenes that would eventually become SpongeBob’s debut episode, “Help Wanted.”

Derek remembered Stephen as “relentlessly creative,” always finding one more way to make a moment funnier. He also recalled the joy of making the show together: walls covered in Post-its, long hours drawing, and a room full of people making each other laugh.

We’re grateful to Derek for sharing these memories and helping us tell the story of the people and creative friendships behind Bikini Bottom. 💛

#OKPOP #SpongeBobSquarePants #StephenHillenburg #DerekDrymon @derekdrymonart ...

Great to connect with Boddle Learning co-founders Edna Martinson and Clarence Tan and hear how their own creative journeys inspired a global mission: helping children become confident, lifelong learners through the power of play.

Edna and Clarence shared how Tulsa’s entrepreneurial community, local investment, and organizations like 36 Degrees North, Gradient, and ACT Tulsa helped them strengthen and scale Boddle during a pivotal chapter in the company’s growth.

Their story is a powerful reminder that learning should be joyful, mistakes are part of discovery, and the right community can help a creative idea reach far beyond where it began.

As Edna put it, Boddle is “creating the next generation’s nostalgia,” building the kind of experience a child might remember 20 years from now as the thing that first made them excited to learn.

Thank you, Edna and Clarence, for sharing your story with OKPOP and for showing what Oklahoma creativity, entrepreneurship, and play can make possible.

#OKPOP #BoddleLearning #Tulsa #EdTech #PowerOfPlay @boddlelearning ...

Remembering E. Nelson Bridwell, born on this day in 1931. 🎂📚⚡

Born near Sapulpa and raised in Oklahoma City, Bridwell grew from an Oklahoma kid fascinated by comics, mythology, and superheroes into one of the great behind-the-scenes minds at DC Comics. Over his career, he wrote and edited stories involving Superman, Shazam!, Super Friends, The Legion of Super-Heroes and many more, earning a reputation for his extraordinary knowledge of comic-book history and continuity.

And there’s a wonderful Oklahoma connection to the comic pictured here.

Captain Marvel Adventures No. 34 was published in 1944 and featured “Captain Marvel in Oklahoma City.” Bridwell was not involved in the original issue. But Captain Marvel was already part of his world. Bridwell later recalled discovering Captain Marvel comics at around age ten.

More than three decades later, Bridwell became professionally connected to the character himself. In 1977, he edited the major retrospective Shazam! From the Forties to the Seventies, which included a reprint of that very same “Captain Marvel in Oklahoma City” story. The Grand Comics Database even notes the connection: Oklahoma City was Bridwell’s hometown.

Today, on his birthday, we remember E. Nelson Bridwell and his remarkable contribution to the world of comics.

#OKPOP #ENelsonBridwell #OklahomaHistory #ComicsHistory ...

If you don’t know the name Jesse Ed Davis, there is still a good chance you have heard his guitar.

Born in Norman, Oklahoma, on this day in 1944, Davis carried his Kiowa, Comanche, Seminole, and Muscogee heritage into a remarkable musical life. His unmistakable playing can be heard alongside Taj Mahal, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, John Lennon, Jackson Browne, Eric Clapton, and many others. He performed at the Concert for Bangladesh, played the soaring guitar solo on “Doctor, My Eyes,” and helped shape recordings that became part of the fabric of American music.

But Jesse Ed Davis was more than a gifted sideman. On his own records, including ¡Jesse Davis!, Ululu, and Keep Me Comin’, he stepped into the foreground as a singer, songwriter, and bandleader with a sound entirely his own.

His playing could be restrained, soulful, fierce, and deeply human, often within the same song. Later in his life, his work with poet and activist John Trudell brought Indigenous music, identity, poetry, and resistance together with the power of rock and roll.

Davis often stood just outside the spotlight, but his sound remains impossible to erase. Today, on his birthday, we remember an Oklahoma original whose guitar spoke across genres, cultures, and generations.

Happy birthday, Jesse Ed Davis.

#JesseEdDavis #OKPOP #OklahomaMusic #RockAndRollHistory ...

Members of the OKPOP team are in Edmond this week for the Oklahoma Museums Association Conference! We’re connecting with fellow museum professionals, exchanging ideas, learning from one another, and making new friends from across the state.

We’re grateful to be part of Oklahoma’s vibrant museum community!

#OKPOP #OklahomaMuseums #OMAConference #MuseumCommunity #EdmondOK ...