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Siegel and Shuster

Page history last edited by Devin 12 years, 2 months ago

from GreatKrypton.com

Born:

Joe Shuster - July 10th, 1914 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Jerome "Jerry" Siegel - October 17th, 1914 in Cleveland, Ohio.

Died:

Shuster -July 30th, 1992 in Los Angeles

Siegel - January 28th, 1996 in Los Angeles

 

 

The creators of the world-renowned superhero classic Superman. Shuster as the artist and Siegel the writer.

 

 

Biography

 

The biographies of both Siegel and Shuster seem to be intertwined. The two met in high school in 1931, sharing a love of science fiction and movies. They began working together to create one of the first sci-fi fanzines (Siegel had created one on his own in 1929 called Cosmic Stories that is generally regarded as the very first) in order to publish theirs' and others' stories. It would be in this production that Superman - originally a villain! - would be created.

 

 

Career

 

Superman evolved into a more good-natured fellow after some years, being influenced by the stories of Doc Savage, Hercules, and Samson. The biggest cause of Superman's change, however came from the seemingly endless string of rejection letters from publishers. Superman would experience many reincarnations, before finally being accepted in 1938 as a "better than nothing" attempt to keep a magazine afloat. This magazine was known as Action Comics, published by Dectective Comics, now much more commonly known as DC.

 

The comic was, certainly, a phenomenal success. The Big Red S: A Superman Site tells this story:

 

"Harry Donnenfelds accountant, Victor Fox came in to work at 10:00 AM, saw the sales figures for Action Comics #1, he quit his job at 11:00 AM, spent the noon hour finding some office space to rent, and by 2 PM he was interviewing people to do superhero comics for him. Victor Fox later went on to create Wonder Comics, with Wonderman in it. He was sued by DC for plagiarism. In fact the guy making the comic (Will Eisner) went into court testifying that Victor Fox specifically instructed him to plagiarize Action Comics #1."

 

Work 

 

- Early Superman comics, of course. They were fired from their positions by 1947 after one of many financial lawsuits.

- Funnyman comics, entirely unsuccessful.

- Interestingly, Joe Shuster had a side project in the Nights of Horror comic book series, creating sadomasochistic fetish strips.

 

Bibliography

 

  • Give a chronological list of their significant works.

 

References 

 

  1. http://www.greatkrypton.com/superman/creators.php
  2. http://dccomicsartists.com/superart/JOE_SHUSTER.htm
  3. http://www.comic-art.com/biographies/siegel01.htm 

 

Further Reading (and Watching!)

 

2 Part story of Siegel

http://www.greatkrypton.com/2011/03/08/the-thrilling-adventures-of-superman-episode-10/

http://www.greatkrypton.com/2011/03/22/the-thrilling-adventures-of-superman-episode-12/

2 Part Story of Shuster

http://www.greatkrypton.com/2011/04/12/the-thrilling-adventures-of-superman-episode-15/

http://www.greatkrypton.com/2011/04/19/the-thrilling-adventures-of-superman-episode-16/

 

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