How to use this Page

When writer Jerry Siegel (at age 19) and artist Joe Shuster (19 or 20) dreamed up Superman in the summer of 1934, they not only created the "modern" superhero but also unwittingly jump-started the comic book industry and—stay with me—built the engine that is currently powering Hollywood.

Hollywood tends to make a majority of its money in the summer and most of its summer money on movies about superheroes—even more acutely in the past decade:

Batman, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Spider-Man and its sequels, Iron Man, and the X-Men trilogy are only some of the superhero films that became among the biggest hits (in the hottest months) of their respective years.

But these movies might not have happened if not for Superman: The Movie (1978), the first big-budget theatrical release about a superhero.

(I'm not counting the campy 1966 Batman film and the various 1940s superhero serials, but not just because of their lower budgets; Superman: The Movie was the first theatrical release about a superhero done "realistically." Another qualification: although Superman: The Movie debuted in December, most superhero movies in its wake have come out in summer.)

Before Superman: The Movie, Hollywood questioned who besides 10-year-old boys would go to a movie about a comic book character. Especially a comic book character done realistically. (And wouldn't that then scare off the 10-year-old boys as well?)

Yet Hollywood did, of course, take the risk on Superman: The Movie, probably due in some part to the heart of the film—and it wasn't just 10-year-old boys (or comics fans of any age) who made it an epic success.

The simple (and partially obvious) summary thus far:

• There might not be big-budget superhero movies without Superman: The Movie.
• There would be no Superman: The Movie without Superman.
• There would be no Superman without Jerry and Joe.

If writing a book on any particular subject is a test of passion, the final exam requires you to be able to give a presentation about that subject for at least an hour...many, many times.

I've now been spreading the gospel about Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman for about a year and a half. I can easily see myself continuing to do it until, well, people stop wanting to hear about Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. That is, hopefully, a point that will not come in my lifetime.

Once you speak on a subject a certain number of times, you start to hear certain comments and questions repeat. Here are some of the ones I find most compelling:

• People in their seventies or older telling me that they remember having a copy of Action Comics #1, but their mom (always the mom) threw it out. Had they kept that debut appearance of Superman, it would have been worth at least half a million dollars today, and several of the 100 copies known to still exist have sold for more than a million. Don't fault the mom. Moms know a lot, but how could they have predicted this?
• People who haven't read a comic book in decades, if ever, telling me that they find the story of Superman's creators fascinating. (I don't mean my telling of it—just the story in factual terms.) This makes sense. I'm not a "fan" of, say, spelling bees, but upon hearing rave reviews for a documentary called Spellbound, I saw it—and loved it. The point is we should not be drawn only to subjects but also to stories.
• People seeing the story through different lenses. To some Jewish people, it's about overcoming prejudice. To some businesspeople, it's about moral obligations of companies. To some children, it's about the love of storytelling. To Clevelandites, it's about hometown pride. To all kinds of people, it's about the importance of persistence.

My public posting of some of my research on the stories behind Superman (Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster) and Batman (Bill Finger) has resulted in a fun variety of people contacting me.

Here’s a list off the side of my head, which is a spot reserved for information that may be of interest only to me:

• various people (often college students) interested in writing a book, play, or screenplay on these subjects
• a lawyer who represented the Siegel family (I didn't get in trouble)
  
• a producer for Warner Home Video (seeking info on Finger for a short documentary to be included on the DVD of a Batman animated film)
  
• the son of a longtime editor of Superman comics
• a producer for the PBS show History Detectives (regarding a claim that a man other than Finger or Bob Kane created Batman)
  
• a talent I can mention by name—fellow Shusterite Craig Yoe, author of Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-Creator Joe Shuster (just to introduce himself, good chap)
  
• an executive producer for a late night talk show

This following articlette is from the 12/7/33 issue of the Torch, the student newspaper of Glenville High, the high school of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, the world's first traditional superhero.

How tingly is that second-to-last line? In hindsight, it should have been the last:

Glenville High School, sometime between 1933 and 1935;
courtesy Western Reserve Historical Society

Glenville High stairwell and strangely abandoned bag, 1934
(the year Siegel and Shuster graduated);
courtesy Cleveland State University archives

the school's original sign, now on the floor in a room at its current location

For what will most likely be my last post of 2009, I'll take an approach common this time of year: looking backward and looking forward at once.

As for looking back, here is a scan of a photograph a friend recently forwarded, asking for any background I might know about it:

A Stars and Stripes photographer took it and it is his son, Tony Ebert, looking for information. The photo was labeled "Siegel and Green 'Super GI" and dated 12/1/44. Superman co-creator and original writer Jerry Siegel (the darker-haired one in the photo) was drafted in 1943 and didn't ship overseas. Though I do have a few more details about his military service in my research notes, I don't believe I have much if anything on his work for Stars and Stripes. (It wasn't an aspect I planned to include in Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman.)

Unfortunately, my friend did not save Tony's e-mail address. I wanted to contact Tony before posting this, both simply to talk but more importantly to ask permission. I did contact everyone I found online with his name, but as of yet have not heard back from the one in question. Hopefully I still will, and in the meantime, I decided to post the photo with this explanation. If I can't find the right Tony, perhaps this way he can find me.

Please do not repost or publish this photo without including some form of this explanation, and check back here for a possible update, if I get one.

As for looking forward...in my last post of 2008, I teased that 2009 would be the year of a Bill Finger announcement. I was close. I think it will instead come in January.

As widely recounted, including in Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster transferred all rights to Superman to Detective Comics for $130.

Here is a copy of the agreement. It shows the signatures shot 'round the world.

The date is hard to read but according to Superman: The Complete History, it would have been sometime between December 1937 and February 1938.

Thanks to Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, I've branched out beyond schools and libraries in booking speaking engagements. The new (to me) venues have ranged from Jewish museums to historical societies. Soon I will add my first luncheon keynote address to the list. And to deliver that address, I'm making my third trip to Cleveland (fourth to Ohio) in nine months.

Last Son by Brad Ricca.

Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones.

Secret Identity by Craig Yoe.

The Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer (plus the triumphant 2008 campaign he spearheaded to renovate Jerry Siegel's former Cleveland home).

Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman by golly.

To name only five.

A friend asked me why I think the last few years have seen a surge in interest in Siegel and Shuster. Good question, and it also begs a more specific one: is this increased interest only within the comics community or also among the general public?

Either way, I don't think it has as much to do with Michael Chabon as some might say. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (which came out in 2000) wonderfully helped bring a certain mainstream validation to comics, but I don't think the book inspired the average reader to then pick up, say, Men of Tomorrow. And despite its popularity, it didn't make Siegel and Shuster household names (not that it was necessarily trying to). To comics people, Kavalier & Clay was an engaging new lens through which to consider the Siegel and Shuster story. To non-comics people, it was just another good book.

My friend wondered if the surge in interest might relate to the litigation between the Siegel family and DC Comics. But that is not on the radar of most people beyond the industry, at least not those I talk to.

I think the interest is at least in part because of a suddenly urgent sense of posterity—the last of the Golden Agers are dying now, so people are scrambling to document them while those original creators (or people they knew) are still around to speak for themselves.

I think it also has to do with the timing of the formative years of our generation. Many of the people researching Siegel and Shuster today grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. The superhero culture of that period has had a distinct influence in what has been happening recently at DC:

• the acclaimed mini-series Justice written by Jim Krueger and Alex Ross paid tribute to the Legion of Doom from the cartoon Super Friends (which debuted in 1973)
• the Hall of Justice and Wendy and Marvin, also from Super Friends, have been brought into print "continuity"
• other characters created for that cartoon (the Wonder Twins, Black Vulcan, Samurai, Apache Chief) are getting the action figure treatment (strange, when you think about it, that it took as long as it did)
• artists are drawing Superman to resemble Christopher Reeve (the first Reeve Superman movie came out in 1978)
• the animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold is based on a comic whose glory days were the 1970s

Columbus, Franklin, Beethoven, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Wright, Ruth, Roosevelt, Roosevelt, Siegel, Shuster, Parks, Armstrong, Obama.

Hold up—a couple of impostors snuck onto that list. All of those people are typically discussed (or at least touched upon) in history class. And all of those people (along with many more textbook names) have been the subjects of multiple picture books...except Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, creators of Superman, widely considered to be the world's first superhero.

Teaching history is a process of ranking consequences. Teaching time is limited (more than ever these days, with increased emphasis on test preparation). Therefore, plenty of people who made significant contributions to society don't get classroom coverage—those contributions are not judged to be significant enough to bump any of the "validated" names above.

Luckily, however, we are in the Golden Age of Picture Book Biography. Part of what I mean by this is that we live in a time where writers are writing and editors are publishing picture books on people who are not textbook names but could be—and, arguably, should be.

Perhaps thanks to a picture book, some of these people eventually will be.

In other words, the Wright Brothers weren't famous before the public had heard of them. I am stating the obvious, but you smell what I'm cooking.

Imagine the time before the general public knew the name Philippe Petit. Some might have said, "Never heard of him. Can't be that great of a story." After the book The Man Who Walked Between the Towers came out in 2003, many probably said, "Can't believe I never heard of him. Really glad I have now."

What writer of illustrated nonfiction wouldn't want to be the first to publish the story of the first (and only) daredevil to string a cable between the World Trade Center towers and walk between them?

Is this achievement as significant as setting a home-run record or as refusing to move to the section of the bus designated for your race? To some, emphatically not. To others, enthusiastically yes. Yet if it is a riveting story with insight into the human condition, does this matter?

Declining to publish or read a book on a person you haven't heard of is counterproductive to the purpose of publishing. It is about bringing new stories to light, or illuminating new aspects to familiar stories.

Declining to mention such figures in the classroom is similarly regretful. I have had the fortune to meet many enlightened teachers who see the value in sharing a story like Siegel and Shuster's with their students, even though it is off-curriculum. One teacher I met even made a lesson plan (complete with a Venn diagram!) about Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman. Actually, he made two: an 8-page version for students and a 15-page teacher's edition.

Here is a review of the book by the Graphic Classroom, which advocates using comics in teaching.

Christopher Columbus : terrestrial exploration :: Babe Ruth : baseball
Franklin Delano Roosevelt : crisis leadership :: Neil Armstrong : space exploration
Ludwig van Beethoven : classical music :: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster : ?

On Thursday, November 6, something happened in a small room at the Cleveland Public Library, Glenville branch, that made me even more excited about politics than I already was last week. Except it wasn't really about politics at all.

Glenville is the neighborhood where Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster lived when they created Superman in 1934. At the time, it was predominantly Jewish. Today it is predominantly black and poor.

Earlier that day I had spoken at the main branch, downtown. The audience was mostly young black people. I was expecting the same in Glenville. Instead I was ushered into a room where about 35 or 40 members of the adult community leadership organization were finishing up a meeting. They, too, were almost all black. Some of them were holding Obama signs—two days after the election. The purpose of the signs had switched from rool of persuasion to badge of honor.

I gave my presentation, hoping they would feel pride for the seminal event that had occurred in their neighborhood. They did seem moved by the story, which some had not known before.

Then my friend Tracey Kirksey, head of the Glenville Development Corp. and almost certainly one of the ten kindest people in the world, asked if she could say something. I said of course.

She proceeded to emphasize how Jerry and Joe were underdogs who had a vision and worked hard to see it come to pass. In succeeding, they bucked the odds and made history. Then she unexpectedly compared them to Barack Obama in spontaneous words so eloquent that I wish I had recorded them. The essence was that she felt she could tell her children that they could be president one day—only now, she finally fully believed it to be true. The others, of course, reacted with jubilation.

Of all the Boys of Steel experiences I've had since the book came out, this was by far the most profound. I felt so lucky to be in Ohio, in Glenville, for that moment.

At least four documents show that Michael Siegel (father of Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman) died not from gunfire as stated in Men of Tomorrow and elsewhere but from a heart attack during a robbery of his clothing store in 1932. Earlier, I posted one of those documents, the coroner's report.

Here is the first page of the second, the police report. I am not posting the second and third pages—to see those (as well as the third document, the death certificate), you will have to wait until my friend Brad Ricca's book comes out. As for why I am doing it this way, see below.

property of the Police Department, City of Cleveland

Page 1 (above) is titled Casualty Report. It specifies "heart failure." Here is my best shot at a transcription of the rest:

"when Michael Siegel became excited when three unknown Negroes entered his store at 3530 Central Ave and one of them walked out with a suit of clothes ? the events ? Michael Siegel fainted and fell down on the floor causing his death"

Page 2 is titled Criminal Complaint. Page 3 is Departmental Information. They both have some great details so check Brad's blog for announcements.

Obtaining this police report was a fortunate fluke. Before Brad and I discussed the police report, he had already tried to get it. The police department told him if he could find it, he could have a copy. (Apparently, and oddly, they could not find it.)

Meanwhile, when I requested the coroner's report, which set me back 20 cents, I was told that the police report was attached to the coroner's report, but the coroner's office was allowed to send me only the coroner's report. I asked Brad if he could ask his police contact to authorize the coroner to send him the police report—and it worked. Teamwork triumphed, problem solved, report received.

IFWBC - LSR.

Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman is featured in the cover story of the Life section of USA TODAY...and appears in the top right of the front page!


The online version does not use the same art (unfortunately, that means no art from the book) but I think the text is unchanged.

The key point here is that my book is the first to correctly describe the death of Michael (sometimes Mitchell) Siegel, the father of Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman.

Others have written that he was shot to death during a robbery of his clothing store.

He did die during a robbery, but because of a heart attack, not a gunshot. At least according to the police report, coroner's report, death certificate, and obituary.

And this was in 1932—six years before the fame of Superman—so there would be little reason for a cover-up. Just another tragedy for just another merchant in the pit of the Great Depression.

I tip my research hat to documentary filmmaker Brad Ricca, who discovered the truth about Michael Siegel's death before I did. However, I discovered it for myself before he told me he had, too!

It's been just over two weeks since Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman came out, so it's a good time for a book tour.

I don't mean me hitting the road to promote it (that will start in September) but rather me touring you through the book itself, pointing out behind-the-scenes details.

The pages aren't numbered. (Publishers fear that could turn off readers by reminding them how short picture books are.) So I'll reference pages by their first few words.

"But Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers..."

attention to detail - The coroner's report for Jerry Siegel's father Michael stated that one man robbed Siegel's clothing store. His death certificate stated two men. Both the Cleveland Press obituary and the police report stated three. That left us with no way to accurately reflect all four reports, but showing two robbers covered us for three of the four reports (if there were three robbers, one is simply off-frame here).
attention to detail - Both the police and coroner's reports identifed the robbers as "Negro."
attention to detail - The coroner's report indicated that Michael Siegel had gray hair.
attention to detail - It is unlikely that the store was named "Siegel's" as there was another store in town with that name.
misbelief corrected - Men of Tomorrow was the first published source to address the tragic end of Michael Siegel—but the book got a crucial detail wrong. Siegel did die during a robbery of his store, but not by gunshot. His heart failed. No wounds were on his body. A key plot device in Brad Meltzer's novel The Book of Lies (which I have not read) is the missing gun that allegedly killed Michael Siegel—but none of the four reports invoke the possibility of murder. According to the police report, "At no time were any blows struck or any weapons used."

"Jerry read amazing stories..."

attention to detail - I try to avoid the word "amazing" (and other toothless adjectives including "wonderful" and "fantastic") in my writing, but I broke my own rule here as a nod to a pulp magazine called Amazing Stories. We depicted the influential August 1928 cover because the flying man was an image that stuck with Jerry.

"Jerry also wrote his own..."

attention to detail - The window and the view out it are depicted as they actually looked.

"Jerry was shy..."

attention to detail - "Weird tales" is another phrase I incorporated because it was the title of a pulp.

"Jerry and Joe could've passed..."

attention to detail - I can't recall seeing any photos of a young Joe Shuster wearing glasses. I read that he always took them off before being photographed. However, he is wearing glasses throughout the book since he was not posing for photographs in any of the scenes.

"But he did it with pictures..."

attention to detail - Joe was left-handed.
attention to detail - Jerry and Joe were Jewish. I wanted to indicate that but did not find an organic way to do so in the text. That's why we show Shabbat candles here. (I also mention their Jewishness in the afterword.)
attention to detail - That's a likeness of an actual drawing of Lois Lane that Joe did.

"Jerry managed to save..."

attention to detail - That's a likeness of the actual cover. Notice what Jerry's strategically positioned arm blocks.

"The character would be like..."

design - Early on, I decided I didn't want the whole book to look like a comic book. I felt that would be too obvious. Instead, I wanted just this spread to be in comic book format. This is the moment of Jerry's epiphany, the moment that his mind turns into a comic book, and I wanted that to stand out visually.

"Before dawn..."

misbelief corrected - Some articles and interviews state Jerry ran twelve blocks to Joe's. Nothing groundbreaking about this, but I measured it personally and it's exactly nine-and-a-half blocks.

"Just as Jerry had written all night..."

attention to detail - This scene takes place later the same day as when Jerry ran to Joe's wearing his clothes over his pajamas, yet his pajamas are not shown here. I didn't notice this till after the book was printed, but I can conveniently explain it away: it was hot so it's fair to assume that, at some point, Jerry would have taken off the pajamas at Joe's.

"The boys thought this hero..."

attention to detail - I am still conflicted that I wrote that the boys "happily" agreed to convert their comic strip to a comic book. Some sources give the sense that Jerry and Joe felt it was a step down. Comic strips were highly regarded at the time whereas comic books, in their infancy, were not. However, Jerry and Joe had turned down at least one previous offer for Superman (because they didn't feel the publisher could handle it properly), suggesting they did have some restraint and business savvy.

"One of the owners..."

attention to detail - That's a likeness of Harry Donenfeld.

"The Great Depression had lasted..."

attention to detail - Normally I would not use a phrase like "powers and abilities" because it's redundant, but as you've probably already observed, it's one of several phrases associated with Superman sprinkled throughout the book; others include "faster than a speeding bullet" and "up, up, and away."
attention to detail - There will always be dispute as to which character deserves the title of the first "true" superhero—The Scarlet Pimpernel (1903), Tarzan (1912), Zorro (1919), Buck Rogers (1928), Popeye (1929), The Shadow (1930), The Lone Ranger (1933), Flash Gordon (1934), The Phantom (1936)?—but in terms of worldwide familiarity and overall influence, I'd give it to Superman.
attention to detail - In the first version of this spread I was shown, the movie was in full color. When I saw the finished book, I didn't notice right away that it had been changed to black and white. Technically, the former was correct. The first Superman movies (which is what this illustration is representing) were the Fleischer animated shorts that debuted in 1941—and they were in vibrant color.

afterword, page 1

misbelief corrected - Despite what Men of Tomorrow and various other sources state, there is no known evidence and little likelihood that Adolf Hitler or Joseph Goebbels personally banned Superman at a Nazi gathering. I consulted multiple professors who specialize in Nazi history and work at top institutions and none knew of it. None of the thick books on World War II that I checked mentioned it either. I explain in the text where this misconception probably came from, a theory courtesy of Dwight Decker.

afterword, page 2

attention to detail - I state that Jerry's 1975 press release was nine pages. Other sources state that it was ten. However, because the first page is not numbered and because it reads, "Full details are in the enclosed news release," I (and apparently Jerry) considered it a cover note. The second page is also not numbered and the third page is numbered "2." (Are you in awe of this hard-hitting investigative analysis?)

afterword, page 3

attention to detail - Can you find the typo on this page—the only one I've noticed in the book? Clue: it was a last-minute typo...

This concludes our tour.

The Cleveland neighborhood (Glenville) in which Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman wants to acknowledge that. Part of the fundraising effort is an appeal to high-profile Superman fans via a letter that went out this week.

The celebrities:

* Howard Stern—mentions Superman on air quite often
* Jerry Seinfeld—featured Superman in almost every episode of his sitcom
* Jon Bon Jovi—Superman tattoo
* Nicolas Cage—named his son Kal-El, Superman's Kryptonian name
* Gene Simmons (KISS)—has a self-proclaimed "passionate" relationship with Superman
* Shaquille O'Neal—Superman tattoo
* John Ondrasik (Five for Fighting)—big hit song "Superman (It's Not Easy)"
* Joey Fatone ('N Sync)—Superman tattoo

The pitch:

Ask “Who is Clark Kent?” and most anyone can answer that it’s Superman’s secret identity. Ask “Who are Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster?" and you’ll probably get only shrugs and head scratches.

Before Metropolis, Smallville, and Krypton, Superman came from Cleveland. The world’s first comic book superhero was created by teenaged writer Jerry Siegel and his artist friend Joe Shuster, who lived 9.5 blocks from one another in the Glenville neighborhood. For too long, we in Cleveland have done little to pay tribute to our red, yellow, and blue legacy.

For this year’s 70th anniversary of Superman's debut, the city is beginning to change that. Among our plans:

* restore Jerry Siegel’s former home
* place matching markers at Jerry's house and the site of Joe’s former apartment building (demolished in 1975)
* install honorary street signs Siegel Lane and Shuster Lane
* host a Siegel-and-Shuster-themed race and block party to promote good health and community spirit
* erect a larger-than-life statue of Superman flying off a building in the center of our business district

Your fondness for Superman is no secret. And while none of us in real life have “powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men,” we all have the power to do great good in different ways.

We are working to raise $x by September 10, 2008 to pay for the two commemorative markers we would like to erect this fall. We would be super-thrilled and super grateful if you would help us reach our goal—any amount is deeply appreciated. Any money we raise in excess of the final cost of the markers will be redirected to the fund for the Superman statue. We will gladly provide documentation itemizing how all contributed money spent and list your name as a sponsor on all marketing and media materials. And of course, if we do reach goal, we’d be honored if you would join us for the race, block party, and marker unveiling. After all, where else will you get to run a sixth of a mile to the stirring John Williams theme from Superman: The Movie or snack on organic mini-pizzas in the shape of Superman’s emblem?

The response:

Cross your fingers that there will be one.

Meanwhile, please spread the word! To contribute, e-mail me and I'll send you the right way.

A tale of marketing madness:

One night I took a break from sensible promotional tactics and Googled "Jerry Siegel." I was not looking for the Jerry Siegel of Boys of Steel. I was looking for any other Jerry Siegel. I found maybe five or six with e-mail addresses online.

And I e-mailed them.

I asked if they knew of their almost-famous namesake. I heard back from three. None of them deemed me deranged—not to my digital face, anyway:

Jerry Siegel, the dean: "I am very familiar and of course a fan of both the character Superman but also the creators. ... It is interesting how often people ask me if I was the creator of Superman even though that would make me considerably older than I am."

Jerry Siegel, the professor: "I used to watch the old Superman TV show as a kid and enjoyed my namesake's achievement. I have a replica of Superman and a cel from a Superman cartoon and a little Superman doll in my office. When I first came to LA in 1973, they were shooting the Superman movie with (I think) Christopher Reeve. I was called by a couple of reporters who found my name in the phone book. I was introduced for one of my professional talks at the University of Chicago as 'the creator of Superman' and told the person introducing me that that was the best introduction I ever had (even if slightly inaccurate). So me and Jerry go way back."

Jerry Siegel, the photographer: "I was a Superman fan as a kid, but not so much now. Should be considering the name. The other side of the team, Joe Shuster—well, my father was Schuster Siegel."

I found even fewer Joe Shusters and heard back from none.

Two of the subjects of the next four nonfiction picture books I'm working on are quite likely the only people in the world with their respective names. Those cases will necessitate some new form of marketing madness.

On my January 2007 photo research trip to Cleveland, my second stop (after Jerry Siegel's Kimberley Avenue house) was the house he moved into after Superman was a success.

The snow was still falling as I parked in front of it at 4 p.m. I didn't need images of this for my book, but I am a completist, so I took a couple of steps onto the snow-thick driveway and began to take pictures.

Then the front door opened.

A smiling man called to me to come inside.

"I'm sorry?" I said.

"Are you the appraiser?" he said.

I could have pulled a Lois Lane and lied so I'd get to go in, but I told the truth—and still got to go in.

I was quite surprised to find myself standing in my second former Jerry Siegel house in one day. The man graciously showed me around. He had not known the co-creator of Superman used to live there. I thought that might help up the list price. The only aspect of the house that dated back to Jerry's time in it (early 1940s) was a (refinished) bathtub.

However, I am not a complete completist because I didn't photograph that.

Common sense says a writer does his research before writing the book. I first visited Cleveland, the setting of Boys of Steel, in January 2007—nearly two years after I wrote (and sold) the book.

However, my mission was to gather photo reference for the illustrator. I wanted the images in the book to be as authentic as possible, though most readers would not know one way or the other. My first stop would be 10622 Kimberley Avenue—the address of the still-standing house where Jerry Siegel lived when he thought up Superman in 1934.

I wanted to get in to take photos so I didn't want to show up unannounced. I did not know that the family now living there regularly and kindly lets people in, nor did I know that certain comics professionals could have given me the family's name and phone number.

In advance, I wrote a letter to the unknown occupants, including my cell number. I planned to drive immediately from the airport to the house; if no answer, I'd leave the letter and hope they'd call me before my four-day research trip was over. (I'd mailed the house a similar letter in August 2005 and hadn't heard back, but that lacked urgency because I wasn't in town at the time.)

I landed in a snowstorm. I arrived at the house mid-afternoon. It was so cold my digital camera pretty much shut down. I didn't expect to see anyone outside, so I was happily surprised that a woman was scraping ice off her windshield right across the street from 10622.

I trudged up to her. "That's Superman's house," I said, pointing to the one painted red and blue and displaying numerous pieces of Superman merchandise in the first-floor windows. Yeah, dumb thing to say, for more than one reason.

"That's my house!" she said.

I introduced myself. Turns out this was Fannie Gray, around age 30, tutors kids in the neighborhood. She said it'd be up to her dad whether or not I could go inside, and as it happened, he pulled into the driveway right then. I am not embellishing.

Standing in shin-high snow on the front lawn not much bigger than a large picnic blanket, Jefferson Gray said I could come back on Thursday afternoon. It was Tuesday. Thursday was the day before I would leave. That was cutting it close—what if at the last minute they wanted to move the date? I would have almost no cushion. I asked if I could come anytime sooner and he pushed Thursday.

So I came Thursday. The family, as has become legendary among Superman aficionados, was more than gracious. I spent at least 30 minutes in their house, taking photos with both a digital and a backup disposable camera.

I will see the Grays later this summer when the neighborhood commemorates both Jerry's former house and the site of Joe's former apartment building with some special markers.

In the meantime, here are a few photos of the attic where Jerry typed stories. Jefferson Gray shows up in one, pulling back a curtain so I can shoot the window. Pay attention to that window—you'll see it again.

When writing nonfiction, "dialogue" can be a dangerous word. My first drafts of Boys of Steel did not contain any.

Librarians cast doubt on books which claim to be nonfiction but which don't source quotations they include. If any of its dialogue is made up, a book is (obviously) not pure nonfiction.

Once I discovered a picture book about a celebrated poet which included lots of dialogue. I asked the author about that. He said the words were a combination of excerpts from the poet's autobiography and some things the author "rather assumed." For that, he told me, the book got "whacked in a couple of reviews."

Get a review that questions your authenticity and you run a real risk of losing library sales.

That is why, when an editor read an early draft of Boys of Steel and suggested I liven it up with dialogue, I balked at first.

However, I grew curious. I went back through the Jerry and Joe interviews I'd used as source material and found instances where I could replace exposition with a quotation. As luck had it, these happened to space out fairly evenly throughout the manuscript. In one or two cases, I had to change a verb tense, but otherwise, I was quoting verbatim.

This was the version that sold. However, at one point my editor said she doesn't feel picture book biographies need dialogue. I told her I didn't, either, but another editor had encouraged me to try it and I liked the outcome. Later, I asked my editor if we could add this to the acknowledgments page: "All dialogue is excerpted from interviews with Jerry and Joe." She didn't feel that was necessary, either. Referencing my fellow author's misfortune above, I pushed for it. My editor kindly obliged me.

The very first review of the book singled that out: "A bibliography and assurances that 'all dialogue [was] excerpted from interviews' puts factual muscle behind the subject’s literary brawn." My editor joked that now I can blog about how she resisted that at first. One factor that makes her an exceptional editor is that she respects her writers' instincts—and another is that she has the style even to mention this.

I've always been careful with how I use and cite information in my work. Absolute truth may be unknowable but writers owe it to readers to come as close as possible.

As you will read in Boys of Steel, 1975 was a pivotal year in Superman history.

That year Jerry Siegel turned 61 and resumed his mission to secure financial security from his co-creation. But that time, for the first time, Jerry did not sue. Instead he sent out a press release to hundreds of outlets. He wanted his and Joe's story to be told in the mainstream media. Then public pressure might get him and Joe what decades of litigation had not.

Thing is, no reporters called.

Until Phil Yeh, publisher of a local newspaper in southern California. At the time, Phil was not much older than Jerry had been when he conceived Superman.

Phil assumed he would have to get in line to interview Jerry, but he became the first person to write on the Siegel and Shuster plight.

I consider Phil one of the two most significant yet unheralded people in the seventies segment of the Superman saga. He's now a friend and he kindly agreed to an interview about his role in nudging Jerry and Joe toward the Christmas 1975 settlement that changed their lives. As for the other person, he's also a friend now and his interview is my next post.

For those not familiar with your link to Siegel and Shuster, could you please give the capsule summary?

In 1975, I was publishing an arts newspaper in Long Beach, California called Cobblestone which later changed its name to Uncle Jam and continued through the 1990s. We did our typesetting at the Marina News, a local paper in the Belmont Shore area of the city (I also worked at the Marina News for a few years). Helen Arterburn, the editor of the Marina News got the press release from Jerry Siegel and thought that I would be interested in the story since she knew that I drew cartoons and often had done interviews with cartoonists.

Phil Yeh and friend 1974; photo courtesy of Phil Yeh

Phil Yeh today; photo courtesy of Phil Yeh

This past Friday, which happened to be the 70th anniversary of the public debut of Superman, I attended my first comic convention.

While there, I was treated to three other firsts:

1. It was the first time I saw Boys of Steel on display. It was not the finished book, since that doesn't yet exist in tangible form, but rather a galley—a prepublication, unbound version of the book. Random House sent me a stash of them in January, but it's a different feeling to see one in public. I was momentarily stunned when the hard workers at the Random House booth told me they were giving out a limited number of the galleys for promotion...now the book is really beyond my own head.

2. It was the first time I signed Boys of Steel for someone. Of course, it was a galley, but that didn't decrease the joy of the moment in the slightest.

3. It was the first time I was interviewed for television about Boys of Steel.

A fourth first: it was the first time I ate a vanilla-filled churro.

However, the highlight was a comment from Jim Steranko, comic book artist/writer/all-around legend. I'd consulted him during my Bill Finger research and his responses were consistently prompt and kind.

As he thumbed through the Boys of Steel galley, he said, "Jerry would've loved this."