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I consider myself lucky that Ross MacDonald illustrated Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman.
He was exceptional to work with and is now a friend. But the book came out in 2008. Why interview him now?Because I should have done it then. With respect to Bill Finger, I often say “Justice has no expiration date.” Same is true with good content.Besides, the book is still a book... What attracted you to illustrating Boys of Steel? It’s a great story about the guys—boys, really—who [created] arguably the first, and certainly the most iconic, superhero.I had grown up reading the Superman comics of the ‘60s. They were fun when I was young. The art in those was clean and accomplished, but a little bland. [But] the stories had devolved (degenerated?) into these convoluted yet simplistic plots involving time travel, Superman trying to keep Lois from finding out his secret identity, Mr. Mxyzptlk, and an ever-expanding rainbow of Kryptonites.As an adult, I came to really appreciate the artwork and storylines of the early, dark comic books and Sunday comics of the ‘40s. Joe Shuster’s art and the dark gripping plots of the early Superman comics came as a huge revelation. You used brown for Jerry Siegel’s clothes and green for Joe Shuster’s. Did you incorporate any other recurring visual motifs? Jerry is kinda tubby and Joe was rail thin. But they almost looked like brothers in many ways. Both had similar glasses and hair, and like every single male American of the time, they wore suits. All the time. They even have the same initials, so keeping their names straight is difficult, too.They looked similar enough that just making one heavy and one skinny wasn’t quite enough to tell them apart. So I gave them each their own color scheme. That was something you saw in the old comics—the characters often only had one suit (I guess that was probably true in real life at the time, too), and it helped make the comic panels a quicker read. Villains often had purple or orange suits, and Clark Kent’s was always true blue.Another thing I tried to do was to make the illustrations that showed Joe and Jerry’s real life have a nice muted color scheme but the scenes they imagine are bright, pulpy, comic colors. What is your favorite piece of art from Boys of Steel? Much as I liked drawing Superman, my favorite piece is Joe sketching on the back of wallpaper scraps in the unheated kitchen of his mother’s apartment while she washes dishes in the background. What piece of Boys of Steel art was the most challenging to create? Another fave—Jerry sitting at his typewriter in front of his bedroom window while the neighborhood kids play outside. What was the most annoying request I made?
All of them—just kidding. I don’t remember any requests, frankly. Maybe they were so annoying I blanked them out!
Do you have any unused art you can share, especially cover sketches?
Like most of the book, the cover was a one-sketch kinda deal. There are a couple of alternate versions of the title page, though.
Any particularly memorable feedback you’ve gotten for your work on the book? Charlie Kochman, formerly an editor at DC Comics, now at Abrams Image, really loved the book. It felt good getting praise from someone who worked at the house that published Superman comics from the very beginning. Anything else about the experience you’d like to add? Great working with you on this, and it was fun helping to tell the interesting creation story of one of my childhood heroes. <!--[if gte mso 9]>
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With the release of Man of Steel, Voice of America asked me about Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman.
VOA is a government institution. Its radio broadcasts are aimed at people living outside the United States for whom English is probably not the native language. It was my first experience with it. I was told to speak slowly and without difficult vocabulary. Up, up, and far, far away...
The May/June 2013 issue of The Horn Book includes the first article I have written for that esteemed magazine. It is a variation and extension on thoughts about writing dialogue in nonfiction I first expressed here.
Online:
For the second year in a row, I’m thrilled to be on the author roster of the Jewish Book Council Network.
Last year I got to talk about Batman. This year Superman. And as if on cue, upon arriving in New York City on 6/2/13 to give my two-minute pitch to a roomful of programming directors from 100 Jewish institutions across North America, I see and snap this:
The scene juxtaposes two American icons forged in the same decade: the Empire State Building (completed 1931) and the Man of Steel (conceived 1933, debuted 1938).
The room in which about 50 authors presented back-to-back, and some of the people to whom we presented:I look forward to coming to as many of your communities as possible over the next year.
Here was my two-minute pitch:During dangerous times, a baby boy is born. For his own good, his parents give him up, sending him off in a vessel. Another family finds him and raises him as their own, without knowing where he came from. Eventually, he learns his history…and his destiny…and becomes a savior.
Sound familiar?
Yes, Moses…but also Superman. As his planet is about to explode, his parents launch him to safety in a rocket. He lands on Earth an infant, a Kansas couple adopts him, and he grows up to be the world’s greatest superhero.
He was also the world’s first, created during the Depression by two Jewish teens, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster. They were geeks before the word existed.
Was the Moses parallel intentional? Did Hitler himself call Superman a Jew and ban his comics from Nazi Germany? What is the Jewish connection to Superman’s Kryptonian name? And why did Shabbat prevent Joe from drawing Superman? No, not the obvious reason!
Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman answers these questions, debunks myths, and solves mysteries. It’s an all-ages book and the first standalone bio on the men of Cleveland behind the Man of Steel. It’s both inspirational and heartbreaking—even to people who couldn’t care less about superheroes. It reveals a discovery that made the front page of USA Today. It in part led to my TED talk. And it’s an Association of Jewish Libraries Notable Book of Jewish Content, the revised edition of which is out this year for the 75th anniversary of Superman.
I’ve been invited to speak to standing-room-only adult audiences at Jewish institutions nationwide, and I’m thrilled to be on the JBC Network for the second year in a row. Let’s celebrate this icon together, along with truth, justice, and the Jewish-American way.
Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman came out in hardcover in 2008, and is still reprinted in that format. When, several years ago, I first suggested putting out a special 75th-anniversary-of-Superman edition in 2013, I was envisioning it in hardcover as well.
Random House agreed to the anniversary edition but in paperback; it sports not only the celebratory banner but also a few corrections.
My author copies arrived 5/24/13, AKA a week before June, which marks the cover date of Action Comics #1 (1938) and the release of the latest screen iteration of Superman, Man of Steel, not to mention my friend Brad Ricca’s exhaustively researched book Super Boys.
The summer of Superman is in full force...again.
In 1994, I set out to write a screenplay about Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Joe had died in 1992, but Jerry was still alive. I asked Dennis Dooley if he knew how I could contact Jerry.
Dennis was one of the two editors of Superman at Fifty!: The Persistence of a Legend! (1987), and also wrote the first (and, to me, best) of the sixteen essays in the book, “The Man of Tomorrow and the Boys of Yesterday” (an earlier version of which appeared in the 6/73 issue of Cleveland Magazine).
A few observations about the book:- It was published by Octavia Press of Cleveland, which does not seem to be around anymore. Though Superman is a Cleveland story, I imagine the reason Octavia published the book is because no well-known publishers wanted to.
- The cover is static and amateurish. This book was unofficially in honor of Superman’s 50th anniversary. Today, any such book would have a far more dynamic cover design.
- The headline also seems dated. Today, the headline would be something mouthier and more specific like “The History, Culture, and Influence of the Man of Steel, the World’s First and Greatest Superhero.”
- Harlan Ellison contributed an essay in which he wrote that there were five characters whom everyone on the planet knew: Mickey Mouse, Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Robin Hood, and Superman.
I don’t remember how I found Dennis, but this was pre-Internet, so it probably involved the phone book.
His response was both kind and disappointing:The me of now would not have let such a letter deter me, but the men of then decided to abandon the Jerry and Joe project. A decade later, however, I revived it—that time, as a picture book. The Boys of Yesterday were now the...
But alas, by then, Jerry, too, was no longer around to see it.
In honor of today's opening of Man of Steel, the first live-action Superman movie since Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman came out, I was thrilled to introduce the book to not one, not two, but three people who have portrayed Superman as a child in a feature film.
So just like the post title says, it's Boys of Steel meet Boys of Steel:
Aaron Smolinski, toddler Superman in Superman: The Movie (1978);
Here are all three in a younger day:
Aaron
Colgan twins (of steel)
The first two photos above were taken on 6/13/13. Thank you again to Aaron and Candice (the twins' mom) for your willingness to take and send these photos.
Just as personalities can be encoded with patterns even the person possessing the personality doesn’t realize, writing styles can, too.
Both of my superhero picture books, Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman and Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, take a similar approach on the second page: they use the rule of threes. (This is often associated with humor, but can be used in other ways as well.)
(The previous page teases that Jerry Siegel, Superman writer,
was with his friends when at home rather than school;
this page is the surprise reveal.)
The rule of threes in and of itself is not the pattern I’m pointing out—lots of writers use it, of course. The pattern is using the rule of threes on the second page. (Normally I would reserve the word “pattern” for three or more instances, but…okay, head starting to spin.)
I didn’t notice I’d repeated this tactic until after the second book was out. Because I didn’t do it consciously, I probably can’t explain it satisfactorily. It may be as simple as this: it’s a handy device to quicken the pace, which works especially well toward the beginning of a story because it tugs readers in via a rhythm.
Later in both books, I refer back to the threesome. In Boys of Steel, it reiterates the list—twice, actually:
In Bill the Boy Wonder, I refer back less specifically: Let’s see if I end up using the rule of threes on the second page a third time.
Head spinning faster now.
It’s always an honor when a young person chooses a book you wrote for a school project. It is a special honor when that young person happens to be the child of a fellow author. (Not every writer passes on genetic code for a talent in writing but I suspect all writers hope we pass on at least refined taste in writing.)
The young man’s name is Max. The fellow author, his mom, also happens to be my friend. Her name is Jennifer Allison. She also gave birth to Gilda Joyce via a series of mystery novels for young readers.
Here is Max’s report, which I find both flattering and factually sound:
Here is Max:
Thank you Max! You are now a Boy of Steel, too. And Jennifer will be featured on this blog again later this year. I won’t say why yet but will give this clue. Maybe this is one for Gilda Joyce herself to solve...
Superman is the ultimate law-abider. So it’s borderline traitorous for me to write a book about him that breaks some of the “rules.” Luckily, none go so far as to be criminal.
broken rule #1—Do not write nonfiction picture books on pop culture figures.
At first this may seem invalid because plenty of others have also broken this rule (and, for that matter, all of the other rules I’ll list). Yet this still comes up. It’s a commentary on commerce, not content. There can be editorial resistance to historic figures who are not part of traditional curriculum. Teachers are pressured to stick to material that will come up on tests; anything else can be perceived as a waste of time. Therefore, some editors worry that this situation will doom sales for a book on an unconventional topic. I am happy to report that the fact that Superman and his creators, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, are typically not covered in social studies has not hindered classroom use of Boys of Steel. In fact, the book has multiple applications to curriculum, even if the Man (or Boys) of Steel will not be on the test.
broken rule #2—Do not write picture books about writers.
It does seem that a book featuring illustration after illustration of a person sitting at a desk would quickly become visually boring. But who says writers do nothing more than sit at desks? In writing any book there are challenges, and in writing any picture book there are additional challenges, and one of them is varying your images no matter what the subject. Boys of Steel contains only one image of Jerry at his typewriter. The rest is other kinds of adventure.
broken rule #3—Do not use dialogue in nonfiction picture books.
I’ve already written on this, but the recap is as follows: if you treat it like any other fact and source it appropriately, why not? In Boys of Steel, I include statements the Boys made in interviews but presented as dialogue. It livens up the text as dialogue tends to do, and it brings the reader closer to the protagonists. Yes, the lines of dialogue may have occurred at different times in real life than when they appear in the book, but this is a convention we regularly accept in nonfiction. No nonfiction is “pure” nonfiction—not even autobiography.
broken rule #4—With biographies, start with birth, end with death…or at least mention birth and death.
We are living in the Golden Age of Picture Book Biography, which allows writers unparalleled freedom in how we tell our true stories. Everything in the book must be factual, but not every fact must (or even can be) in the book. We need not present our tellings chronologically or wholly. Sometimes the birth and/or death of a figure are simply not essential details in our approach. (To the subjects, they were, of course, notable milestones.) I start Boys of Steel in roughly 1930, when Jerry and Joe met, and end it in roughly 1940, soon after Superman’s stratospheric rise. (I do address the rest of their lives briefly in the author’s note.)
broken rule #5—Refer to your main character by name.
Perhaps this is not quite a rule, but it certainly is the standard. Not counting the subtitle and author’s note, Boys of Steel contains the word “Superman” precisely zero times. This was not because I was hindered by copyright/trademark restriction or because I made an oversight. This was simply because I could. In my structure, the Boys create Superman toward the end of the story proper, which means I got that far without using the word; it then became a fun challenge to see if I could get to the end without it. Readers come away thinking I’ve used the word, but they are actually extracting it from images alone.
broken rule #6—Have a happy ending.
Real life sometimes doesn’t, so books about real life sometimes can’t either. Kids can handle the truth (relative to their age, of course). It does no favors to sugarcoat—or omit—certain tragedies. Every biography addresses struggles the protagonist faced en route to success, so why can’t the book end on a struggle? The illustrated portion of Boys of Steel does end on a high note, but the author’s note reveals that the Boys went on to face considerable suffering. Learning about injustice or misfortune or other unpleasantries may sound depressing, but often it is empowering. It can get kids fired up to help prevent similar situations in their own lives and to go do good in the world.
These are the kinds of rules even Superman would condone breaking.
Some reviews of Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman called writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster heroes. They created arguably the most iconic superhero of the 20th century. But does that make them heroic?
I feel the word “hero” is overused. This dilutes its potency. The more people we call heroes, the less impactful the word is.
It is a natural transference to refer to superhero creators as heroes themselves, but that is a disservice both to more traditionally defined heroes (firefighters, police officers, rescue workers, everyday people who surprise even themselves by risking their own lives to try to save another) and to the creators themselves.
True, dreaming up a character who becomes an industry unto himself is something few have done; there are fewer such creators than heroes. So there is certainly prestige and distinction in it. But that doesn’t mean there is bravery and selflessness in it. Superhero creators deserve praise, but to call them heroes is giving them the wrong kind of praise.
Another word tossed around too liberally is “genius.” Were Jerry and Joe creative geniuses? I consider “genius” a classification that can be measured, and I don’t believe you can measure artistic ability. It’s subjective. So if you ask me, not only were Jerry and Joe not heroes, but also not geniuses.
So what were they? They were creative for sure. Innovative. Risk-taking. Persistent.
And it is in in this last regard that they came closest to being, yes, heroic.
Their cultural contribution was undeniably seismic, but it was their blind determination to see their idea through despite three and a half years of rejection that shows just how strong they were. They endured nos ranging from the unembellished to the borderline cruel. Yet none of that stopped them, because they were convinced they had a good idea.
Then after they sold all rights to Superman for $130, they went through 35 years of hardship trying to get them back. They genuinely believed it was their right to do so. They were the underdogs. They were demoralized, ignored, insulted—yet they were not deterred from their goal.
To me, that is what is heroic. Your ideas may be peerless but it’s your actions that determine your hero status.
The fall of 2012, I was in synagogue a lot. I’m talking beyond the High Holy Days.
On 10/21/12, I spoke about Superman at Temple Beth Ami in Rockville, MD.
On 10/28/12 (as the hurricane Sandy approached), I spoke about Superman and Batman at Adas Israel in Washington DC.
On 11/11/12, I returned to Beth El in Bethesda, MD. In the spring, I had spoken there on Superman. This time it was Batman. © Mitchell Solkowitz
After my Beth Ami talk, a young woman told me she’d recently learned the American Sign Language sign for Superman. It was so cool and something that had never occurred to me. (I also learned that Batman doesn’t have his own.)
My kind host at Adas told me that some of its nursery school kids would wait in front of the electronic bulletin board in the lobby for the Superman/Batman advertisement to come on. Adorkable. (To be clear, I’m the dork. They’re the rest.)
I’m going on faith that this was a moment of bonding, not a desperate, 3 a.m. attempt to bore a fussy baby back to sleep.
Arvi and Zoe; photo courtesy of my friend (and the mommy) Alyce Bybee
Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman came out in 2008.
In 2013, it is venturing into two new territories: paperback and ebook. I suggested a paperback to acknowledge Superman’s 75th anniversary. Putting out a new edition would also enable us to a) make a few corrections and b) pitch the book to the Jewish Book Council Network. (A title must be new the year you propose it.)
These are the tweaks I requested:
1) cover - add starbust to the effect of “Superman’s 75th anniversary: 1938-2013”
2) change the year of Superman’s creation from 1934 to 1933 (the year had been debated but after Boys of Steel came out, close-to-conclusive evidence for 1933 surfaced)
3) change the black-and-white movie screen on the second-to-last illustrated spread to this:
4) last page of author’s note - italicize Action Comics
5) copyright page - insert “Superman © DC Comics” (a big oversight, I know, yet one that has thankfully not caused any problem)
A note on the movie theater scene: The fall before the book came out, my editor e-mailed me a PDF of the entire layout. In that version, the movie screen is in color; it’s where I captured the image included above.
When I next saw the book, the screen had been changed to black-and-white without consulting me. I suspect an art director assumed color was a mistake, and understandably so. However, the first screen representation of Superman was the Fleischer cartoons that began running in 1941, and they were in vivid color. And I did not realize this until it was too late to change it.
Alas, due to cost, it will also not be changed for the new edition.
If you have found any goofs in the book, speak now or you may have to hold your peace until the 100th anniversary.
Welcome to the 75th anniversary of Superman, AKA 2013.
Tomorrow I will announce related news on Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, and today I am thrilled to finally be able to reveal that my friend Brad Ricca has a Superman book of his own coming out this year.
Cleveland Magazine 1/09
It’s called Super Boys. Here’s the cover in English and a teaser ad Kryptonian: Brad is a grade-A researcher and grade-A guy, and he’s been working hard on this for years. Please join me in not being able to wait to read this book.
In June, I posted a rundown of comic books that made an impact on me in my childhood. One was a 1985 issue in which a letter I wrote was printed. It was, in fact, the only comic book that ran a letter from me (though I don't remember if I ever wrote any others).
Superhero writer Jamie Coville wrote in with an observation that startled me. An observation that caused Jamie to speculate it could have been the inspiration for Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman.
You will figure it out:
I almost got the chills when I saw that.
Thank you to Great Krypton! for inviting me to be a guest on the podcast and for allowing me ample time to rap about not only the Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman but also Bill Finger and even WWII pilot Nobuo Fujita. (He went up, up, and away, too.)
The title spread of Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman is ready-made with a cheeky (though not premeditated) signature spot: within a word bubble coming from Superman.
(Technically, since Superman is "speaking," the signature should be
his name...but no one seems to mind.)
At first I didn’t see the same potential in
Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman…but with only the third book signed, I found a comparable (if slightly more difficult) approach for Batman.
(It's supposed to call to mind the Bat-Signal.)
| Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman | Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman |
superhero | Superman | Batman |
form of “boy” in title? | yes | yes |
familiar phrase title alludes to |
0 Comments on “Boys of Steel” vs. “Bill the Boy Wonder” as of 1/1/1900
I’m honored that Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman made the second annual summer reading list at James Patterson’s Read Kiddo Read.
That is the title of the podcast episode I recorded with "The Book of Life" in Miami in February 2012. I love it, especially since the underdogs that podcaster Heidi Rabinowitz Estrin are referring to are creators of the opposite of underdog—superheroes.
...yet my friend recently spotted Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman in Philadelphia, at the National Museum of American Jewish History.
That "Hava Nagila" book looks fascinating.
No, I have no big announcement. But this 1/18/12 USA Today article boosted my hope that, before long, I might be able to say "They are (finally) making a movie about Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the co-creators of Superman":
 The article points out the recent flood of period pieces from Hollywood. Since 2008, I have pitched Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman (which, incidentally, also made it into USA Today) to select movie producers. Some were intrigued but none made offers. The two most recurring reasons:
- It would be difficult to obtain the needed permissions from DC Comics.
- Period films are expensive to make and are not likely to be mainstream hits.
I understand the first concern (though certain Hollywood heavyweights have the clout to get it done), but this article deflates the second. Period films based on true stories nominated for 2012 Oscars included The Iron Lady, My Week with Marilyn, War Horse, J. Edgar, and A Dangerous Method, not to mention fictional period films including The Artist, The Help, Hugo, and Alfred Nobbs.So why not My Week with Jerry and Joe? Red Capes? The Geek’s Speech? Realistically speaking, potential complications involve more than DC Comics. In March 2012, a friend who works in Los Angeles reported the following:
I recently met Ilya Salkind [a producer on the Christopher Reeve Superman movies] at a comic convention. When I asked the status of his S
Please come back 8/30/11 for the continuation of the massive "Super '70s and '80s" series, running most days between now and 10/12/11! And for today, a post of "regularly scheduled content":
In June, I "reported" that a friend discovered my book Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman in a Six Flags gift shop. That it was there was not a surprise, since I'd worked hard in 2008 to pitch them. That it is still there is something of a surprise—and a pleasant one, even if these are the same still-unsold copies brought in three years ago!
The friend who told me of this in June went back in August (presumably for attractions other than my book) and kindly snapped and sent these photos:
 I suspect (but will never attempt to prove) that this is the first hardcover nonfiction book to be sold in an amusement park gift shop. Not exactly a distinction worthy of Guiness, I know.
Thanks to a recent Google Alert, I learned of a review for Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman that slipped by me in 2008. It's from the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (Volume 62, Number 2, 10/08) and I'm glad it didn't stay hidden forever. Here's a passage:
Nobleman presents them honestly as awkward teens, frustrated adults, and, for a long time, exploited and uncredited creative artists. However, the author also focuses on their imaginative skills, their remarkable collaborative triumphs that started at very young ages, and their ultimate contribution of the best-known superhero in comics for over seventy years. The text is snappy and effectively episodic, honing in on moments of frustration and elation with which readers will readily empathize. MacDonald’s blocky, vividly colored illustrations are an ideal complement to the text, drawing from the idealism and Americana of the comics themselves.
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Good point. And informative as always. Much appreciated.