new posts in all blogs
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Jerry Siegel, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 25 of 45
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: Jerry Siegel in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
By:
Heidi MacDonald,
on 4/8/2015
Blog:
PW -The Beat
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
News,
History,
Old Comics,
Culture,
Superman,
original art,
Comic Strips,
IDW,
Joe Shuster,
Jerry Siegel,
Jack Kirby,
MoCCA,
Society of Illustrators,
Stan Lee,
Craig Yoe,
Milt Gross,
Top News,
Yoe Books,
dick ayers,
fay king,
fin fang foom,
Add a tag
This exhibit of works from Craig Yoe’s original art collection has already garnered stellar accolades – tonight you can see why. And that’s not all …
I had the good fortune of seeing an early preview of Is That Art? at the Society of Illustrators a few weeks ago, and it’s a must-see for anyone who wants to connect with the magic and the power of creative design. The exhibit covers much of the first century of comics & cartoon art, and the work is displayed in ways that highlight deep connections and spark new ideas. A original Spark Plug parallel to a Peanuts strip where Snoopy is dismissed as a dog; a landmark portrait of Superman for Siegel-and-Shuster’s syndicate chief near a reflection on a woman’s dual identity by Fay King; the first Pogo newspaper strip; the original Fin-Fang-Foom-awakes page, signed by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Dick Ayers ….
I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover all the wonders for yourself. The exhibit’s official opening is tonight from 5pm – 10pm at the Society of Illustrators, 128 E. 63rd St. in New York City. If you can’t make it this evening (or at all, alas), you can find some consolation in the extensive Yoe! Books library, which includes lavish and faithful restorations of material ranging from kitsch to classics. One place to start: the latest Yoe! Books/IDW publication, Milt Gross’ New York, which has been receiving impressive reviews.
If you can make it to the Society of Illustrators, don’t miss its other must-see exhibits. The original art from Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream is up through tomorrow (April 9), and seeing it at full size reminded me of seeing the original art for Robert Crumb’s Book of Genesis at the Hammer Museum – a revelation. As for the exhibit on Alt-Weekly Comics curated by Warren Bernard and Bill Kartalopoulos, well, that too deserves a book of its own – this exhibit is important not just for chronicling an influential, if under-appreciated genre within North American comics, but for helping us understand the world today.
My friend Jamie Reigle is one of the world’s foremost collectors and purveyors of Superman memorabilia. I’ve mentioned him here before, and not only because he so kindly distributed hundreds (of the tens of thousands) of Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman postcards over the years.
There were a lot:
In the summer of 2013, among the tributes acknowledging the 75th anniversary of Superman, the Cleveland Jewish News produced a special commemorative section; Jamie was profiled.
Mentioned and pictured: the page proofs of Boys of Steel signed by as many members of the Siegel and Shuster families as Jamie could round up.His sons are named Kalel and Lex. I trust Jamie has a plan to prevent young Lex from using his genius for evil…and I know I’m not the first to make that joke.
By:
KidLitReviews,
on 9/14/2013
Blog:
Kid Lit Reviews
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Children's Books,
Superman,
Batman,
children's book reviews,
board books,
Joe Shuster,
Jerry Siegel,
Picture Window Books,
DC Comics,
4stars,
Library Donated Books,
Bob Kane,
Capstone Publishing,
Donald Lemke & Ethen Beavers,
Add a tag
.. Superman Fights for Truth! (Dc Comics) by Donald Lemke & Ethen Beavers Picture Window Books 4 Stars .. About the Story: Someone has stolen from the grocer and it is up to Superman to catch the thief and returns the goods. Opening: Superman hears a cry for help. “Titano took my bananas!” yells a …
Phil Yeh became my friend after an interview I conducted with him in 2008. I conducted an interview with him because he was instrumental in bringing attention to the plight of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in the 1970s.
And now he’s done something for another undercredited Golden Age great, our very own Bill Finger:
Uncle Jam #102 (summer 2013)
He profusely apologized for misspelling my first name.
I am especially forgiving to anyone who devotes ink to Bill Finger.
Thank you, Phil, for fighting the noble fight on behalf of comics creators for going on 40 years.
Superman has had many dads, the most recent of which are these two (from Entertainment Weekly):
…and the first two were these two:
Hopefully by now you know their names as effortlessly as the names of the top two.
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.
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.
A week that brought horror in Boston and shame in Washington also includes an unlikely positive: according to court records, it was 75 years ago today when Superman debuted in Action Comics #1.
Thanks to the Boys of Steel for changing everything, even still: this month inaugurates an (admittedly clunky) tweak to the credit line in Superman stories: from Justice League #19 (first appeared in Action Comics #19, 4/3/13)
If you think it trivializes real-life struggles to juxtapose them with a fictional character, go back to 1938: when America was caught between two of its greatest challenges (the Depression and WWII), Superman brought hope literally to millions...
It couldn't hurt to give the sky more than a passing glance today.
By:
Heidi MacDonald,
on 1/28/2013
Blog:
PW -The Beat
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
News,
Comics,
DC,
Culture,
Superman,
Joe Shuster,
Jerry Siegel,
DC Comics,
Karen Green,
Paul Levitz,
Larry Tye,
Jim Shooter,
Top Comics,
Center for Jewish History,
Danny Fingeroth,
David Weiss,
Harry Donenfeld,
Jenette Kahn,
Mort Weisinger,
Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson Brown,
Samuel Norich,
Superman's 75th Anniversary,
Add a tag
TweetThe Center for Jewish History hosted a celebration of the 2013 75th birthday of the seminal superhero Superman on January 27th with co-sponsorship from Columbia University Library. Though Superman’s cover-date advent in comics occurred in June of 1938, celebrations are gearing up early to take a look back at the Kryptonian’s origins and the impact [...]
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.
Though Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and Bill Finger began making heroic history at the same time, I know of only a couple of concrete overlaps between the Boys of Steel and Bill the Boy Wonder.
At the sunrise of Superman, Jerry and Joe lived in Cleveland, but did go to New York to meet with people at what became DC Comics. I don’t know how often but do know that
Jerry and Joe were friends with Jerry Robinson who was a good friend of Finger’s; both Robinson and Finger lived in New York. In the 1940s, Jerry and a couple of other cartoonists he lived with had parties and all of them would’ve been there at one time or another. I was sure to acknowledge this in Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman.
Also, there’s this:
Joanne Siegel…mentions that Bill Finger used to try and borrow money from her husband in washrooms, bringing the magic of a life in the comics industry into keen focus for the younger generation in attendance.
Tragic and almost mean-spirited as it is, the way the writer phrased this did make me chuckle.While we’re pulling back the curtain, here is another way in which the three men overlapped. Somewhat related, onetime Batman ghost artist Lew Sayre Schwartz told me a great (and potentially history-changing) story about how Jerry and Joe tried to get Bob Kane to go in with them on a lawsuit against DC in the 1940s. Lew was at Bob’s when Jerry and Joe showed up and overheard some of the attempt. Bob infamously declined, and went on to get rich on Batman his own way. I hope someone recorded the full story before Lew passed away in 2011.
If ten years ago you’d have told me that there would one day be a stage play about Jerry Siegel, I wouldn’t have believed you. But then again, if you’d told me there’d be a picture book biography of him (and Joe Shuster), I wouldn’t have believed that either.
On 6/13/12, my generous synagogue, Washington Hebrew Congregation, invited me to attend the play The History of Invulnerability in Washington DC. Apparently I'm the only Jerry Siegel historian in the congregation.
The story focused on Jerry’s “relationship” with his creation, Superman, as well as his struggles on four levels: dealing with the loss of his father who died during a robbery, dealing with selling all rights to Superman for $130, dealing with abandoning his firstborn child Michael after divorcing his first wife, and grappling (as everyone of the period did) with the unthinkable atrocities of the Holocaust.
Any one of those issues would be provocative and complex, but the playwright, David Bar Katz, wove all four into the story. At times this led to jarring transitions but at other times it generated great pathos. I was impressed with the level of real-life detail Katz included. He clearly did extensive research.
Almost immediately, I bought into the actor (David Deblinger) playing Jerry. I began researching Siegel and Shuster in 1994, while Jerry was still alive, but I was not able to reach him. Seeing this accomplished actor portray him made me mourn a friend I never had even more. He convinced me that I was seeing Jerry as he really was.
I was surprised and tickled that my friend and Jerry Siegel champion Phil Yeh was a character in the play. I told Phil and he was surprised, too.
The set was spare but effective. The comic book influence was evident in the paneled backdrop and the stage was plastered with images of comic book covers, though this was noticeable only when close up. An elevated portion of the stage was shaped like Superman’s S emblem, though this, too, could be missed.
A few minor goofs jumped out at me. In the name of accuracy:
- stating that Jerry’s father died in 1925 (it was 1932)
- stating that Superman: The Movie opened in 1977 (it was 1978)
-
0 Comments on "The History of Invulnerability": a play about Jerry Siegel as of 1/1/1900
Over the last fifteen years, the range of action figures produced has diversified in wild ways, in part thanks to companies like McFarlane Toys and Accoutrements. It's not just G.I. Joe and Star Wars anymore:
Because of this, and because of Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman and Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, I was inspired to pitch the idea of superhero creator action figures, starting, of course, with Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, and Bill Finger. Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde got the nod, so why not some 20th century creatives with significant cultural impact?
Action figures are traditionally a province of superheroes, so it’s a no-brainer both thematically and strategically to give creators of some of these characters the same treatment. Plus such figures could be put to good use beyond pleasing fanboys.
Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, and their families have been involved in litigation over Superman on and off since 1947; Bill Finger never got that far. A portion of proceeds of figures made of them could go toward legal fees or simply into a fund for the heirs. Would not be big money, but every little bit helps.
What do you think?
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
In issue #98 (12/10) of the always excellent comic fanzine Alter Ego, Joyce Kaffel, daughter of longtime DC Comics editor Mort Weisinger, reminisces about her polarizing father (who died in 1978).
On one hand, Weisinger was known for co-creating Aquaman and Green Arrow as well as expanding the Superman mythos; he oversaw the first appearances of Krypto (a dog from Krypton with the same powers as Superman), the Phantom Zone (an extra-dimensional Kryptonian prison), the Kryptonian city of Kandor (which villain Brainiac shrunk and put in a bottle), and more.
On the other hand, Weisinger was notorious for his abusive treatment of writers and artists who worked for him. One who bore significant brunt was Bill Finger, the co-creator and original writer of Batman. Jerry Robinson has stated that overhearing Weisinger berate Finger made him (Jerry) cringe.
We have some idea of Weisinger’s side of the story—it seems he felt he could take a hard line with his talent in the best interest of the stories. I haven’t seen any commentary from Finger on Weisinger, though there are likely published accounts I don’t know about from other writers and artists.
At a 1965 comic book convention in New York City, Finger and Weisinger shared the stage on the first-ever panel of comics creators. Yet the transcript of that panel, which ran in Alter Ego #20 (1/03), reveals little if any animosity between Weisinger and Finger. I guess they had their game masks on.
While the thought of Weisinger belittling Finger saddens me (just as any case of belittling would), in this case, given that they were both adults, I do hold Finger at least partially responsible for letting this happen. I realize he was in the subservient position, but that doesn’t mean one must endure humiliation. Today bullying is a hot-button issue, but it seems that it was an almost acceptable part of the corporate climate in the 1950s and 1960s. A man could dish it out, and a man had to take it.
On a tangential note, I was shocked to read that Weisinger’s name was eventually added to the indicia of the comics he edited. It’s not that he didn’t deserve credit; it’s just another reminder that Finger did, yet never got it.
Also, it was ominous to see mention in the 1946 article from Pic (“The Magazine for Young Men”), whose first page is reprinted on page 26, that Siegel and Shuster were in a higher tax bracket. Why ominous? Here's why.
And I liked how Weisinger said that that dynamic duo “used the mailman for a salesman” (though, of course, at that time, everyone had to do that; not even those science fiction pioneers had Internet access yet.) In fact, Weisinger’s turn of a phrase echoes one that I wrote for my Bill Finger book.
I’ve had the pleasure o
Let me tell you a short story.
A baby boy is placed in a vessel and sent away so he will spared from certain doom. He is found by another family and raised without knowing his true heritage. As an adult, he learns who he really is—and becomes a hero to the masses.
Who am I talking about?
If you ask this in a Jewish setting, as I have numerous times, the answer will immediately be “Moses.”
If you ask this in various other settings, you may well get another answer: “Superman.”
We don't know if Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster consciously embedded Superman with a Moses allegory. They don't mention it in any known interview. But it sure is fun to delineate the similarities.
Happy Passover.
The same day I learned my Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman editor Janet Schulman died, I learned that the widow of Jerry Siegel, co-creator and original writer of Superman, also died. (Janet died on 2/11/11 and Joanne today.) Two grande dames that did much for the cause.
Jerry said Joanne was the inspiration for Lois Lane. From what I hear, her real-life character bore out Lois’s combination of charm and tenacity.
Joanne with Jerry and their daughter Laura, 1976
Joanne at the Breman Jewish Heritage and Holocaust Museum in Atlanta; circa 2007; photo via Hogan's Alley[Case Western professor] Brad Ricca is a good friend and [respected] academic who did a documentary on Siegel and Shuster called Last Son. It has been very well received on the circuit. The movie [helped get] him a deal to write a bio (already under contract with St. Martin's Press) on Siegel and Shuster. Brad has had friendly direct contact with Joanne and Laura and met the
The librarian in New Orleans who arranged the Skype visit I did on 9/11/10 shared how her two sons reacted to Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman and gave me permission to in turn share here their special connection:
Both of my boys have Asperger's [syndrome]. They both are highly intelligent. The combination of high IQ and Asperger's makes their lives more complicated. It is a challenge for them to fit in socially and to relate to other people. What makes it worse is that they know they don't fit in.
When my [older] read Boys of Steel, his first comment was that he was very much like the boys who created Superman. He was very excited that this was a true story. It meant that there were other people like him. He even made a list of the ways he was similar to Jerry and Joe (quiet, wears glasses, doesn't fit in, likes to write, and likes to draw). He then read the [author’s note at] the back of the book. He was not happy about how their lives turned out. He said it was a lesson for him to try harder to overcome his anxieties and try new things.
My younger son also read the book later. He also related to the characters. He said that they were just like him. He had not heard my conversation with my older son. He said that now when he gets pushed around he is going to remember Jerry and Joe and how they made Superman!
Not a typo, unfortunately.
The secret origins of both Superman and Batman revolve around theft. While this crime connection may seem like a cosmic joke given superheroes’ raison d’être, in real life, no one laughed about it.
Some fans still rail against the company now known as DC Comics for neglecting Boys of Steel Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for decades. Some fans also rail against DC for not giving Bill Finger equal credit alongside Bob Kane for Batman. Siegel and Shuster versus DC is David versus Goliath. Kane versus Finger is Cain versus Abel.
Of course, neither story is that simple and both have been debated extensively across the years and the web, including elsewhere on this blog.
The purpose of this post is to make a few brief and sometimes quirky comparisons of the men, not the melodrama.
Siegel and Shuster were both shy, though Siegel would go gregarious—sometimes to the annoyance of others—when his passion (namely science fiction) came up in conversation. Finger was not shy but has been described as reserved. He was a bright man who would’ve had an informed opinion about a range of topics, yet he was not the liveliest bat in the belfry. He may have been an example of a person who speaks less in groups so that when he does open his mouth, people listen.
Siegel and Shuster had loving relationships with their parents, though not particularly intimate, partly due to the culture of the era; hence neither mentioned his parents in any interviews I’ve seen. Finger dislike and possibly resented his parents and became estranged from them; I don’t know exactly when but the latest it would’ve been was soon after Batman debuted. Kane’s father was instrumental in Kane securing legal advice that made him rich.
Siegel and Finger were both married twice. Both have been described as flawed fathers (Siegel with respect to his first child, Michael, from his first marriage). Shuster married once briefly late in life.
Finger and Kane were both ladies’ men, though their styles differed. Kane showed off as a wooing strategy whereas Finger would’ve downplayed his career (which, to some of the time, was not impressive anyway). His approach would’ve been more rakish and cerebral. Even shy Shuster blossomed and had an affinity for tall, showgirl-type women.
Shuster and Finger were both interested in physical fitness as young men; Shuster took to lifting weights and Finger was an avid golfer. Later in life, Finger also began working out at a gym.
Siegel, Shuster, and Kane all enjoyed minor celebrity—Siegel and Shuster at the dawn of Superman (they even garnered a swank spread in The Saturday Evening Post) and Kane most prominently in the 1960s and again around the time the first Tim Burton Batman movie came out (1989).
All four were Jewish yet none mentioned Judaism in any interviews I’ve seen.
And all four were, in their own ways, thieves.
In creating Superman, Siegel and Shuster mined elements from books (including, some argue, Gladiator
1 Comments on Boys of Steal, last added: 10/7/2010
These letters about (and one by) Jerry Siegel are from The (Comic) Buyer's Guide #109, 12/19/75.
First read part 1 and part 2.
In February 2008, five months before Boys of Steel came out, I pitched my Jerry Siegel Race idea to the wonderful Glenville Development Corporation and they liked it. They earmarked a tentative month for the event. They sent the letter I’d written to the celebs. They suggested that we look for a corporate sponsor and mentioned one company in particular that was looking for a health initiative to fund. Running is healthy! I imagined that whatever sponsor we got would foot the bill for the race T-shirts.
I also pitched the Jerry Siegel Race to the organizers of the annual Superman Celebration in Metropolis, Illinois, which I was planning to attend that June. Of course, that would not take place on the actual route, but would still be a sixth of a mile accompanied by John Williams.
Eventually, I even planned to do a third race in my town, sponsored by the local independent bookstore.
However, none of the races happened. Here's why:
Cleveland—It was hard for me to do as much as I wanted to do from afar and I wouldn't have asked anyone else to take on the responsibility.
Metropolis—A town official ended up nixing the race because the road chosen for the route would have had a cable (yes, I do remember it being a single cable) strung across it for another aspect of the Superman Celebration. That was a safety concern. (Somehow marathons with thousands of entrants and probably as many potholes, among other little bumps, go on anyway.)
Hometown—I was following up on too many promotional ideas at once and that one—though among my favorites—was set aside. I could tackle most of the other ideas on my own but that one would require help and, again, I didn’t want to burden anyone at the time.
Yet I remain determined to make a Jerry Siegel Race happen one day, particularly in Cleveland. In fact, I’m quite certain it will, and I’ll be running it with a big smile, in a hurry to get to one of those Superman mini-pizzas.
First read part 1.
Jerry Siegel’s house is still standing (in the Glenville section of Cleveland):
Taken January 2007.
So technically, the race would be from Jerry’s house to the site of Joe’s apartment. That distance is a sixth of a mile (just shy of how far the first published incarnation of Superman could leap). I figured it would take the average person about four minutes to run. So this would be a race in which even non-runners could participate.I was hoping that staging what I inelegantly called the Jerry Siegel Race through the largely impoverished neighborhood would be a spirit boost. Yet I also wanted to keep it as simple (and inexpensive) as possible. To do that, I wanted to get the community involved.
I planned to approach local radio stations to find one willing to “score” the race. Say the race was set to start at 3 p.m. At precisely that moment, the station would begin to play the familiar and stirring theme from Superman: The Movie. (Hey, I like to run to it.)
But I didn’t want to have to get into renting and setting up big speakers along the route. Besides, plenty of speakers were already there—in private homes. So in advance, we’d distribute flyers to the neighbors along the 9.5-block route. We’d announce the date of the race and encourage them to take part as a runner—or a DJ.
To be specific, we’d ask them to turn to the designated station(s), put their radios up to their front windows, open those windows, and at 3 p.m., crank up the volume. Voila—instant and continuous soundtrack, perfectly in sync. I’d never heard of a race like this and thought it would be quite electrifying to witness.(I envisioned that we could also use the flyers to promote summer reading.)Perhaps the station(s) that agreed to play the theme during the race would also help raise money by asking each listener to pledge a single dollar toward the cause. The tagline: "Help Superman's hood with a single buck" (playing off of "Leaps tall buildings in a single bound,"
Recently I posted a previously unpublished photo of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel; it shows him in uniform during World War II, at work with a partner on a comic strip called Super GI. Tony, the man who owns that photo, is the son of a Stars and Stripes photographer.
He wrote, “My father's only remark about Siegel was that he was not very generous with his son.” This is something we, sadly, already know to be true on some level.
That man has since sent me three other never-published, WWII-era Siegel images, and apparently has at least one or two more.
One was labeled “officer and cartoonist,” though Jerry was actually the former and not the latter (he was a writer).
Another is a sketch of Jerry by a Bill Davis. I don’t know if he is an artist I should already know about.
A third is a sketch of Superman by, possibly, Jerry himself (which would make the label of the first more accurate). It’s inscribed to Tony, who was five years old at the time.
Here is what Tony speculated about this:
Who did the drawing? I don't know. It could have been Siegel; it looks like a rather simple set piece, a visual autograph. The paper is a design based on Hawai'an reed mat— it works almost as graph paper, making the drawing easy to do. How did Joe and Jerry collaborate in WWII when they were at least 2,000 miles apart—by mail? It [now] occurs to me that Joe [could’ve done] a couple of dozen drawings that Jerry just signed when his co-[officers] hit him up for a drawing?
Permission to reprint these images is not mine to give. If you'r
.jpg)
+-+cover.jpg)
Thanks for this nice write-up and everything, Jeff! Glad you dug the exhibit!