Roy Thomas’ Steely Comics Fanzine
EDDY ZENO SALUTES THE MEN WHO DREW
10.95 SUPERMAN AFTER JOE SHUSTER ®
$
In the USA
No. 193
Joe Shuster
Frank Shuster (letterer)
Paul Cassidy
Wayne Boring
Paul Lauretta
Dennis Neville
Leo O’Mealia
Fred Guardineer
Jack Burnley
Leo Nowak
John Sikela
Ed Dobrotka
Pete Riss
Stan Kaye
George Roussos
Paul Fung (inker)
Jon Small
Charles Paris (inker)
Ray Burnley (inker)
Marvin Stein
Al Wenzel
Win Mortimer
All characters TM & © DC Comics
June 2025
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LEN WEIN’s life as writer/editor from creating Swamp Thing and Wolverine, to MOORE and GIBBONS’ Watchmen, and more! Plus the sad demise of WILL EISNER’s P*S Army Preventive Maintenance magazine, interview with romance and pin-up artist JAY SCOTT PIKE, more of STEVE WILLIS, and SHAUN CLANCY reveals the saga of ADRIAN LOPEZ’s Harpoon/Apple Pie humor mags! FRANK CHO cover!
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George Hagenauer Hake’s Americana Auctions Heritage Art Auctions Mel Higgins Jim Kealy Jeremy Kirby Ben Kufrin Joan Kufrin Art Lortie Barry Pearl Ken Quattro Bob Rozakis Randy Sargent Eric Schumacher Jim Sikela Bryan Stroud Dann Thomas Delmo Walters, Jr. Jeff Weigel Eddy Zeno
This issue is dedicated to the memory of
Keith Giffen, Don Perlin, Gus Ricca,
& the several “Superman” artists covered herein
Contents Writer/Editorial: More Powerful Than A Locomotive! . . . . . . 2 Drawn To Greatness: Wayne Boring & The Early “Superman” Artists Who Followed Joe Shuster – Part I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The high-flying beginning of Eddy Zeno’s book on the early Man of Steel.
Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! Didya Know? (Part 1) . . . . . . . 57 Michael T. Gilbert and the Sunday comicbook supplements that preceded The Spirit!
Tributes To Keith Giffen & Don Perlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 re: [correspondence, comments, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . 67 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #251 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 P.C. Hamerlinck presents Kristopher Brownlow on little-known Fawcett artist Gus Ricca.
On Our Cover: The very-limited-edition 2021 printing of Eddy’s Zeno tome Drawn to Greatness (see full name with subtitle directly above) featured a full-page montage of 28 Superman-related images that foreshadowed the more than two dozen comics pioneers who would be covered in the book. We loved that page, but, with Eddy’s blessing, replaced six of the central pics with a Wayne Boring self-portrait of himself and Mr. Mxyztplk to make it the cover of this issue of Alter Ego. Just so you know: the half-dozen omitted images contained work by Fred Ray, Hi Mankin, Sam Citron, Don Komisarow, and Ira Yarbrough—plus the classic Superman cover logo. But you’ll find all five of those guys, and many more besides, in our representation in this issue of the first half of EZ’s heavily researched and lushly illustrated volume. [Images TM & © DC Comics.] Above: A classic pose by Jack Burnley, certainly one of the best draftsmen who ever put his hand to “Superman.” Eddy Zeno refers to this as a “leg up” pose, because that’s the way Burnley often drew the Man of Tomorrow when he (Superman, we mean—not Burnley) was flying through the sky above Metropolis. [Superman TM & © DC Comics.] Alter EgoTM issue 193, June 2025 (ISSN 1932-6890) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage paid at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Alter Ego, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Six-issue subscriptions: $76 US, $95.70 Elsewhere, $29 Digital Only. All characters are © their respective companies. All material ©their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.
4
Drawn To Greatness—Part I
I. When The Forebear Was Still In Their Midst
F
or this writer, the artists most admired upon my first encountering their work were Michelangelo Buonarroti, Johannes Vermeer, Camille Pissarro, Frank Frazetta, and Curt Swan. Reading about them gave historical context to their lives. With my mind opened, additional Renaissance painters, Baroque masters, Impressionists, and practitioners of other forms of art filled the continuum. It was an onslaught of discovery destined to include many comicbook and comic strip delineators. Hergé, Alex Raymond, V.T. Hamlin… even those not considered leaders in the medium usually contributed something of value. For example, when a memorable “Legion of Super- Heroes” story in Adventure Comics #310 (July 1963) was read with difficulty due to my young age at the time, illustrator John Forte drew his Legionnaires so stiffly they might have all been named Stone Boy (or Girl) after one of the “Substitute Heroes” introduced a few issues earlier. Appearing unbendingly upright, they resembled a brilliant box of crayons in their multi-colored costumes. What could be more appealing to a seven-year-old?
The Inheritors John Forte began delineating the Legion’s futuristic exploits in 1962. With time-traveling Superboy as the group’s premier member, the artist had already drawn imperfect duplicates of the Superman Family for a year in “Tales of the Bizarro World!” John inherited the Legionnaires when they replaced the Bizarros in Adventure Comics. Asked to serve as one of Curt Swan’s temporary inkers when embellisher Stan Kaye left the field, Forte himself was both penciler and inker on a few stories featuring cub reporter Jimmy Olsen, senior correspondent Lois Lane, and the Man of Steel himself. There were others. Former “Batman” artist Jim Mooney gathered “Supergirl” as a backup feature when his 6½-year stint on “Tommy Tomorrow” ended in Action Comics. He added “Superman & Batman” team-ups for a time in World’s Finest Comics. In 1941 comicbook artist George Papp co-created a hero (with Mort Weisinger) who thrives to this day: Green Arrow. As the Emerald Archer shifted from More Fun Comics to other titles, George in 1958 received “Superboy” assignments in Adventure Comics and in the main Superboy title. Four years after Fawcett ceased publishing comicbooks, Kurt Schaffenberger, who’d drawn “Captain Marvel,” became the
“You Will Find Me A Grave Man…” (From top right:) Clark Kent at his parents’ graves, by writer Jerry Siegel & artist Joe Shuster, from Superman #1 (1939), as per Superman Archives, Vol. 1… The Wayne Boring-penciled version of this scene, a negative from Three Dimension Adventures Superman (1953), from an artist proof preserved by DC production manager Jack Adler; inker uncertain; script by Bill Finger… From the 1999 graphic novel Superman: War of the Worlds, the same scene as rendered by Michael Lark; script by Roy Thomas. [TM & © DC Comics.]
definitive artist on Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, beginning with the inaugural issue (March-April 1958). Kurt had a long second act on nearly all the “Superman” titles. Another former “Captain Marvel” artist, Pete Costanza (who often served as artist C.C. Beck’s embellisher), inherited mainly the Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen title, starting with the 91st issue (March 1966). The author’s two previous biographies dealt with the super-careers of Al Plastino and Curt Swan; the purpose of this volume is to shore things up before their arrival—to celebrate the guys who were there before Joe Shuster was fated to leave his co-creation in the latter 1940s.
Wayne Boring & The Early “Superman” Artists Who Followed Joe Shuster
5
II. The Answer Man Weighs In by Bob Rozakis (Jan. 23, 2016) Bob Rozakis’ “Answer Man” alias came from a recurring column in DC Comics that addressed readers’ questions about the firm’s heroes. Earlier, he drove a company vehicle called the Comicmobile. Rozakis’ more conventional jobs at DC included production director and comicbook writer. Bob co-created ‘Mazing Man and Hero Hotline with artist Stephen DeStefano. Other assignments included writing the Superman Sunday Special syndicated comic strip and the Superman: The Secret Years (Feb.-May 1985) miniseries.
I
Bob Rozakis at a Big Apple Con in New York City in 2011.
do not pretend to be an expert on the art of Joe Shuster and the “ghosts” he employed in his studio. Certainly, Shuster is responsible for the look of Superman, Lois, Clark, and the other regulars in the stories. He did his best to move the story along, albeit with characters who more resembled posed mannequins than real people. But he paid minimal attention to background details, which came and went panel-by-panel.
Consider, for example, pages 2 and 3 of the “Superman” story that appears in Action Comics #7. The scene takes place inside a trailer; and over the space of a half dozen panels, furniture, things hanging on the walls, and even the windows seem to be moving all around. A towel hanging on a hook, drawn in four of the panels, is in a different spot relative to other objects each time. Shuster also used the shortcut of panels with no background at all, just a single character and a word balloon. In Superman: The Action Comics Archives, Vol. 2, DC attributes the art to Shuster and “the Superman Studio.” Perhaps the most noticeable thing about these stories is that the background art becomes more complex. One can only imagine that these assistants, trying to demonstrate their abilities, drew as much as they could in the panels to jazz them up. DC notes in some of the Archives volumes that Shuster would often draw the heads of Supes and other characters while his studio artists did the rest. In late 1940 DC bypassed Shuster and his Studio completely,
Faster Than A Speeding Bullet Train One of Joe Shuster’s most beautiful comicbook covers—Superman #3 (Winter 1940)—needed little background detail. Thanks to Heritage Auctions. [TM & © DC Comics.]
giving some “Superman” scripts to Jack Burnley. Burnley had almost a decade of experience by then as a professional, and it shows in his art. The characters are more realistic-looking and the action more fluid. Interesting to note that the stories done by the Studio that follow Burnley’s appear to be imitating his style and attention to detail. There is still evidence of panels that Shuster laid out, but others that can probably be attributed to the assistants because of their un-Shusterish style. After the anonymous attribution to the Studio in Vol. 2, in Superman: The Action Comics Archives, Vol. 3 DC starts to identify individual artists. Among them are Leo Nowak, John Sikela, Paul Cassidy, Ira Yarbrough, and Ed Dobrotka. Cassidy’s art in Action #37 is the most like Shuster’s in terms of layout, though with a bit more background detail.
The Walls Have Ears—And, Apparently, Legs Joe Shuster arbitrarily changed the backgrounds in a static scene in these panels (and others on the same page) from Action Comics #7 (Oct. 1938). Script by Jerry Siegel. [TM & © DC Comics.]
Nowak’s art is a bit more fluid in #38 & 39, though it seems the only way he can consistently draw Superman or Clark is a three-quarters head shot. It’s evident with other characters as well, but most obvious when you realize that Supes/Clark is looking either to the right or the left in virtually every shot.
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Drawn To Greatness—Part I
The Co-Creator Takes A Hand Based on analysis of poses and proportions, Shuster was more involved with the original retelling on the Superman Sunday strip dated May 31, 1942, than with other newspaper strips of this era. Script by Siegel. [TM & © DC Comics.]
Sikela’s work in the next few issues is the most like Burnley’s, with smooth, clean lines. He does, however, often make Superman look more like a Thanksgiving Parade balloon. Dobrotka’s solo work in #46 is, like Cassidy’s, very Shusterish. It seems likely Shuster drew the heads, as they are not as detailed and are quite reminiscent of the early stories. [NOTE: Although the Grand Comics Database at https://www.comics.org lists Paul Cassidy as both penciler and inker, this writer’s opinion is that, while Ed Dobrotka may have inked the story, there is a lot of John Sikela evident in the penciling. Also, Joe Shuster contributed some of the Man of Steel’s figural work and rendered a vampiric-looking villain named The Domino. —EZ.] The look of Yarbrough’s art is similar to that of Dobrotka and, therefore, also Shusterish. It would seem likely that the aim of the Studio artists was to keep the art looking like Shuster was still drawing it. Perhaps the ideal pairing was Sikela inking Dobrotka’s pencils. It maintained the Shuster layout style while bringing the much more detailed look of Burnley’s work. Though Wayne Boring penciled a large number of covers, Stan Kaye’s inking overpowered what I would consider Boring’s essential style. DC clearly wanted a certain look for the character on
the covers, one that Al Plastino and Win Mortimer (and, later, Curt Swan) were able to present. There is no mistaking the Boring style inside the books, however. One of the most noticeable aspects is his poses of Superman flying. There is the distinctive look of the Man of Steel as he “runs” through the air; this works when he is coming in for a landing but seems very odd when you consider he had to leap into the air to get started. The other pose, one arm and leg outstretched with the other two folded in, is perhaps Boring’s most famous. After years of watching George Reeves flying on TV, I wondered how Superman was able to direct his flight in this position. The one thing that always bothered me about Boring’s art was his seeming inability to draw a profile shot of Clark (or anyone else wearing glasses) that didn’t look as if the glasses were sitting cockeyed on his face. It always looks like one lens is sitting on Clark’s nose!
III. Overview “One of the sturdiest precepts of the study of human delusion is that every golden age is either past or in the offing.” From The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. “We Didn’t Know… It Was The Golden Age.” Title of a long-running column by Marc Swayze (former “Mary Marvel” and “Captain Marvel” artist at Fawcett Comics) that appeared for years in Alter Ego magazine.
Wayne Boring & The Early “Superman” Artists Who Followed Joe Shuster
7
A Shop Is Needed The Shuster Shop of Superman artists remained largely uncredited before their contributions were finally acknowledged by fandom. There were different variations of the “comicbook shop,” including separate studios where complete comics were assembled for various companies that did not have their own staffs and farmed out the labor. For the publisher who started National Allied Publications, through his successors at what eventually became DC Comics (now under the umbrella of DC Entertainment), the creative talent generally worked directly for them. However, when it came to Superman, a different path was taken. Jerry Siegel was the Caped Kryptonian’s sole comicbook writer until he enlisted in the Army in 1943. To keep up with his output, the labor-intensive demands of illustrating multiple panels per page required more than one person. It was established that co-creators Siegel and Shuster (who famously sold their rights of ownership to the character for $130) would independently package stories for their employers. Joe and his art crew manned such titles as Superman, supplied the lead tales in Action Comics and World’s Finest Comics, and handled the Superman daily and Sunday newspaper strips at the beginning. Eventually, Shuster’s failing eyesight and an ailment he developed with his drawing hand necessitated hiring a host of people to augment his talent.
Keeping Up With Jerry Jerry Siegel nearly scripted for a much different shop than the one eventually run by Joe Shuster. Circa late 1934/early 1935, when it seemed that he and Joe would never get their proposed Superman newspaper strip off the ground, Jerry solicited the talents of other artists. They included fellow Cleveland, Ohio, native Tony Strobl; news syndicate illustrator Mel Graff; and Buck Rogers assistant Russell Keaton.1 Keaton even did some sample strips with Siegel, giving Superman a different origin from the one we all know. Ultimately, all three artists decided to go in other directions. [NOTE: In addition, “Creation of a Superhero” is the title of an alleged, rough-draft memoir, circa 1979, that reads authentic, in which Jerry Siegel typed that he solicited Leo O’Mealia and Russell Keaton to illustrate an early version of “Superman” (Leo in 1933 and Russell in 1934).]
Round & Round Hands and feet grew more rounded as Joe Shuster’s style softened on the Man of Steel. [TM & © DC Comics.]
After Shuster was brought back and their best-known creation became a publishing bonanza, the need for a shop extended beyond the Man of Tomorrow. That’s because Jerry, with his Depression-era mentality, refused to give up writing other characters. Some of his features had begun as early as 1935 and been drawn solely by Joe. They included “Henri Duval of France, Famed Soldier of Fortune,” seen as brief installments in New Fun, then More Fun Comics (five total books, cover-dated between Oct. 1935 & May 1936). Also, “Doctor Occult, the Ghost Detective,” whose last appearance was in More Fun Comics #32 (June 1938). Conveniently, “Doctor Occult” ended the same month that “Superman” debuted in Action Comics #1. “Radio Squad” (formerly “Calling All Cars”), “Federal Men,” and “Bart Regan, Spy” (later just “Spy”) started with Shuster art, but when Joe got too busy with “Superman,” each feature had sufficient life to be handled by others. The same was true for “Slam Bradley.” The idea for Slam was first conceived (as was “Federal Men”) by National’s founding publisher, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson.2 Jerry and Joe made him their own, adding a comedic sidekick and treating the brawler as though he was birthed from an earlier, non-powered, second incarnation of a character they labeled “The Superman.”
Out On A Ledger August 1939 payment ledger sheet signed by early DC editor Vin Sullivan. Note the higher page rate paid for “Superman” stories than for those featuring other characters Jerry Siegel was writing at the time.
Shuster never worked on later Siegel co-creations like “The Star-Spangled Kid,” “Robotman,” and “The Spectre.” The former two features were launched in
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Drawn To Greatness—Part I
Costume Parties (Above:) A masquerade ball with a twist, from the “Wonder Woman” story in Sensation Comics #33 (Sept. 1944). Pencils & inks by H.G. Peter; script by W.M. Marsten.
H.G. Peter From the inside front cover of Wonder Woman #2 (Fall 1942). [TM & © DC Comics.]
(Right:) The cover of Boy Commandos #24 (Nov.-Dec. 1947), on which young hero Brooklyn sported Superman garb, was penciled by Jack Kirby; inker unknown. Thanks to the Grand Comics Database. [TM & © DC Comics.]
Jack Kirby A World War II-era snapshop, from Jeremy Kirby via Internet.
News Flash: Sports Cartoonist Draws Athletic Heroes The incidental work of Leo O’Mealia and Fred Guardineer notwithstanding, many have written that Jack Burnley was the first “Superman” delineator who did not belong to the Shuster Shop. In 1929, a decade before he joined the fledgling comics industry, Hardin “Jack” Burnley became the youngest syndicated sports cartoonist. His three-column commentary was carried by King Features Syndicate. When that job ended in 1938, he provided short-story illustrations for legendary newspaperman and author Damon Runyon.33 The Broadway musical Guys and Dolls was based on Runyon’s 1920s and ‘30s short stories dealing with New York City’s underworld. Jack Burnley met his share of gangsters and gamblers while living there, too. When courting his future wife Dolores Farris, a well-known dancer and musicalcomedy actress, Jack won her heart. That, a few years after her suitor Frank Marlow was gunned down allegedly for his ties to racketeering. (Marlow had been one of the owners of the Silver Slipper nightclub where Delores first gained fame.)34 Jack Burnley began officially at
Jack & Dolores Burnley A photo of the “Superman” artist and his wife, from Batman the Sunday Classics: 1943-46—and a 1945 newspaper ad for the gasoline company Conoco that appears to contain his work. “I saw one of my figures on a billboard advertising gas or oil for cars or something. They used my stuff a lot for promotion.” [Superman TM & © DC Comics.]
Wayne Boring & The Early “Superman” Artists Who Followed Joe Shuster
23
DC by producing the cover art for New York World’s Fair Comics #2 (see p. 54). The Grand Comics Database says the book was released during July or August of 1940. Quoting the artist: “This marked the first time that Superman was ever drawn independently without the help and supervision of the creator, Joe Shuster…. Also… I was the first artist to ever draw both Superman and Batman [together], and the first to work on both early newspaper strips.”35 In later drawings commemorating his time with DC’s top superheroes, Jack usually wrote the years 1940-47 next to his signature, but there was at least one instance when he inscribed 1939-47. Perhaps Burnley was remembering when he first took samples to DC and was given some sports fillers to do before gaining regular assignments. Jack stated: “[Editor] Whitney Ellsworth came out and said, ‘Come right in. I remember your work.’ The year was 1939.”33 His next seven years were an artistic whirlwind. After much Superman and Batman comicbook work, in addition to drawing “The Justice Society” chapters in All-Star Comics, along with co-creating new character Starman in 1941, Burnley noted: “I did Superman Sunday pages in 1943 and 1944. I penciled the Sunday pages, Charles Paris was the inker.”33 Paris, in addition to embellishing Jack’s Superman Sundays, inked Burnley’s pencils on the covers of fifteen issues of World’s Finest Comics from 1944-47.
He Was A Real Sport! (Above:) A Jack Burnely sports cartoon done not long after he left comicbooks. From his days at the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph. [© the respective copyright holders.]
The artist continued: “I also did a few dailies. One time I got called into the office. They had gotten some dailies in from Cleveland, and they claimed Superman’s head didn’t look right. Shuster had stopped inking the heads, and they felt that Wayne Boring hadn’t gotten them quite the way they wanted. I ‘fixed’ them by pasting a bunch of new heads over the old heads on about two weeks of strips. Eventually, Boring became the premiere Superman artist doing the archetypal hero of the ’50s.33 “At one time I had Superman Sunday pages and Batman Sunday pages running at the same time in the New York Mirror.” Jack was busy enough at DC that he often enlisted his brother and sister’s help: “It was hard work. The first three or four years I would pencil and ink all the art. My brother Ray (whose real name was Dupree) would ink the backgrounds and my sister Betty
SuperStars! Jack Burnley was especially known in comics for his “Superman” work, such as this cover for Action Comics #107 (April 1947), as inked by Stan Kaye—but Jack was fonder of his work on the “Starman” strip he co-originated. The latter panel is from Adventure Comics #67 (Oct. 1941). While JB both penciled and inked both works, his brother Ray is thought to have helped with the backgrounds on the “Starman” art. “Superman” script by Siegel; “Starman” script by Alfred Bester. [TM & © DC Comics.]
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Drawn To Greatness—Part I
Studio cartoons (1941). Fred also produced the cover for 1940’s Superman’s Christmas Adventure. The Grand Comics Database notes that Superman’s Christmas Adventure was a giveaway item for Nehi drinks, Bailey store, Ivey-Keith Co., Kennedy’s Boys Shop, Macy’s, and Boston Store. Jack Burnley’s art graced the back cover and most of the interior pages. (NOTE: There was a front cover variant with Superman and Santa posed similarly, but by a different artist. In addition, two completely different covers exist from 1944. Illustrated by someone other than Fred Ray, the one reuses the name Superman’s Christmas Adventure and was possibly drawn by Jack Burnley. The other, titled Superman’s Christmas Playbook, features a more primitively inked Man of Steel and was a giveaway by store chains including Donaldson’s, “The Friendly Christmas Store.”)
Historian & Emblem Maker Extry! Extry! Cub Burnley Inks Cub Reporter Ray Burnely was perhaps best known for inking Curt Swan’s pencils on Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen in the 1950s. [TM & © DC Comics.]
Bentley did the lettering. They worked with me at my place in Flushing, Long Island.”33 Burnley reiterated in a letter to the author postmarked May 13, 1999: “My brother Ray… inked backgrounds for me in the early years (1939-1943) but when he returned from army service in 1944 he worked in the DC bullpen as an inker and I lost touch with his work. I don’t know anything about his inking in later years. He died in 1964.” (Ray Burnley’s chief assignment in the 1950s was to ink Curt Swan’s pencils, primarily on the first 37 issues of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen.) When Jack left DC in 1947, he returned to the sporting life as a cartoonist, this time working for the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph for four years, then for the San Francisco News for twenty-five more. He retired in 1976.
“FRAY” Before 1940 was done, another artist was hired who was independent of Siegel and Shuster. “FRAY” was how Frederic “Fred” Ray, Jr., sometimes signed his work. Though Jack Burnley drew Kal-El in panels for a Macy’s Department Store giveaway in late 1940, Ray seemed to get most of the commercial art assignments during this time. He is attributed as having penciled/inked Superman greeting cards for Quality Art Novelty Co., Inc., and the date stamped on the back of one of his original card drawings is Nov. 11, 1940. (Besides Fred, there was a second unknown card artist at the time with a dissimilar, rougher style.) Soon FRAY’s Man of Tomorrow was appearing on posters advertising Superman Bread and Paramount’s Fleischer
Fred Ray (circa 1941) from the Batman: The Sunday Classics: 1943-46 volume—and the one-sheet giveaway that DC made out of Ray’s rousing cover art for Superman #14 (Jan.-Feb. 1942) after the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001. [Superman art TM & © DC Comics.]
To handle the large load writing “Superman,” “Radio Squad” was one of the few series Jerry Siegel relinquished prior to being drafted. Before that happened, Fred Ray was requisitioned to illustrate some of Jerry’s later “Radio Squad” stories for More Fun Comics. Their short stint together began in More Fun #62 and ended in issue #70 (Dec. 1940-Aug. 1941).
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the first memo writer asked, how does one tell a fellow soldier’s rank during the Revolutionary War? The editor responded with “Expert Fred Ray reports: ‘It is rather difficult to answer because there were many different insignia orders, and they kept changing. Generally, here is the breakdown: Major General: two epaulettes, two stars on each; Brigadier General: two epaulettes, one star on each; Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel and Major: two plain epaulettes; Subaltern (Lieutenant): one epaulette on left shoulder, Sergeant, red epaulette on red strip of cloth on right shoulder; Corporal: green epaulette or green strip of cloth on right shoulder. To designate rank, chest ribbons also were worn, so were feathers of different colors as well as cockades of varying colors.’” Fred had another passion: writing, drawing, and publishing booklets to be sold for a nominal fee at various historical landmarks.36 He made available for visitors the sagas of Fort Ticonderoga in old Quebec; Valley Forge in southeastern Pennsylvania; the old Spanish Castillo de San Marcos at St. Augustine, Florida; Fort William Henry in Lake George, New York; and Old Fort Niagara on Lake Ontario in its 1770s guise. With the goal of producing approximately one pamphlet per year, others dealt with the Battle of Gettysburg and Lincoln’s follow-up address; drums at Yorktown; Fort McHenry and the Star-Spangled Banner; frontier forts and battlefields not previously covered; and Antietam, a major battle between the North and South fought at Sharpsburg, Maryland, in 1862. Ray’s greatest research challenge in one of his booklets was determining how to accurately render the Alamo fort in San Antonio, Texas, as it stood in 1836.37
Men Of Tomorrow—And Yesterday (Above:) Pencils for Fred Ray’s re-creation of his cover for Superman #12 (Sept.-Oct. 1941), done in the late ’70s or early ’80s (signed “FRAY”)—and (right) his bonus pinup to celebrate Tomahawk #100 (Sept.-Oct. 1965), featuring a hero of which he had been a longtime artist. He penciled and may have inked this pic. (See p. 54 for the published cover.) [TM & © DC Comics.]
Ray entered the military before Siegel, joining the Army Air Forces in 1942. After his service, Jerry came back to DC somewhat bitter after losing much control over his brainchild, along with losing money from additional Superman projects not shared with him and Joe. In contrast, Fred returned with a new purpose. A long comicbook tenure drawing fictional Revolutionary War hero Tomahawk secured the financial base needed to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. It afforded him the ability to pursue art history endeavors on the side and, finally, it gave him a studio with drawing board perched where he could see the historic Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, close to Valley Forge. Robert H. Fowler was the former president of the National Historical Society. In his introduction to the 1970 book O! Say Can You See, he wrote: “Frederic Ray, Art Director of the Society’s magazine[s]… has prepared many cover paintings for both American History Illustrated and Civil War Times Illustrated.” O! Say Can You See chronicled different events in our country’s development as portrayed by various illustrators, including John Trumbull, N. C. Wyeth, Howard Pyle, Winslow Homer, and Harvey Dunn, to name a few. Fred was responsible for the book’s compilation and narration. A few years later he assembled a tome about an early American illustrator titled Alfred R. Waud, Civil War Artist. Ray was also an illustrator for The West magazine. DC Comics appreciated their learned historian. Tomahawk #100’s (Oct. 1965) letter column was called “The Saddle Bag” and
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Drawn To Greatness—Part I
complemented by John Sikela’s inks on a comicbook story titled “Superman, Matinee Idol” (Superman #19, Nov.-Dec. 1942). It was a sequel of sorts to the first Superman cartoon from Fleischer Studio. In print form the artists suitably captured the animated guise of hero and villain. Panels were framed to simulate strips of film. Regarding conventional comicbook stories, Ira Yarbrough became a “Superman” illustrator just as the cartoons were coming to an end. The way he posed the Man of Tomorrow in flight approached their look. However, of all the “Superman” comic artists, Wayne Boring appeared to be the most influenced by film background cityscapes whose buildings rose to forever, and by the animated scoundrels’ doomsday machines with levers and coils and gears galore.
XI. The Initial Superman Letterers: Brother Frank And… “Of course, they were partially mimicking the lettering seen in newspaper strips and other comic books.” Jules Feiffer wrote of the first funnybook generation: “Some artists penciled only the figures, leaving the backgrounds for another artist who then passed the page to a lettering man who then passed the page to an inker who then might ink only the figures, or sometimes only the heads, passing the work, then, to another inker who finished the bodies and the backgrounds.”14 Assistant Paul Cassidy noted his assembly-line roles: “I did all kinds of stuff, from penciling to lettering to inking everything but the faces.”21
“Superman, Matinee Idol” The illusion of film strip on a comicbook page, from Superman #19 (Nov.-Dec. 1942). Note that, in the page’s final panel, Lois and Clark are in the audience watching the animated cartoon. The story’s layouts are attributed to Joe Shuster, the finished pencils to Ed Dobrotka; inks by John Sikela. Script by Jerry Siegel. [TM & © DC Comics.]
were jarringly simple compared to what was needed to carry a comicbook story or newspaper strip continuity. Technicolor Superman being on model with Shuster’s version was serendipitous. Joe noted: “It was accidental. I was just down in Miami for a visit, and somebody who knew me said, ‘How would you like to come down and visit the Studios?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to see them doing Superman.’ They were just starting on it. I went down there, and I was fascinated with it. And I suggested, ‘I wouldn’t mind drawing some shots for you showing how Superman looks in side view, front view, three-quarter view, how Clark Kent would look, and Lois Lane would look.’ They said, Fine: they’d love to have me do it. So, I just sat down and spent a couple of days there drawing model sheets. I loved doing it, and I loved being involved in it. And we were lucky enough to receive a credit line on the cartoons afterwards.”62 While the animated Superman, Clark, and Lois were on point, the cartoon villains, especially at first, were not. Those with nefarious machinations were tall and lean with distinct but sparse hairstyles; a bevy of animators kept the facial lines and expressions simple. They couldn’t hold a candle to how the comicbook and news strip delineators emoted their characters. Over Shuster’s layouts, Ed Dobrotka’s finished pencils were
Prior to the arrival of the Superman-titled comicbook and newspaper strip, there were certain lettering quirks in the initial issues of Action Comics. Whether inscribed by Joe Shuster, Paul Cassidy, Paul Lauretta, or others, letters inside the speech balloons were all different sizes depending on the number of words. The early calligraphers employed bold highlights, dots, and dashes. Skewed down and to the right, words were scribed with an obvious rapidity that left Joe’s feverish story pacing unimpeded while matching Jerry’s equally frenetic scripts. As early as Action Comics #2, explanatory narrative captions sometimes employed a big first letter colored red, green, blue, or black. With Action #6, they stood out even more when enclosed by a black circle. Lines of dialogue became straighter. The Grand Comics Database attributes these changes to Paul Lauretta assuming the lettering role. Vertical narrative captions were sometimes interspersed with more conventional horizontal ones. They became panels unto themselves, adding variety by disrupting the flow on a comicbook page. When Superman’s “S” emblem was pictured in certain of these upright headers (also found in the newspaper strip), it brought the same feeling of comfort and familiarity as when a symbol is repeated in a picture storybook. The trend lasted through Paul Cassidy and into Leo Nowak’s run, before vertical captions were gradually phased out.
The Third Musketeer Joe Shuster’s younger brother Frank was at times one of the Shop letterers in the equation. While it is believed that Joe himself transferred Superman’s first scripted words to the original art, it seems that Frank was always around. Indeed, he helped Joe and Jerry cut up and reposition the newspaper strip tryout panels as the lead-off story in Action Comics #1.11, 63 Later that year, on September 9, 1938, Frank copyrighted a humor book with his friend
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Frank Shuster (in uniform) visiting his mother and brother while serving at the Pentagon; photo taken in New York City, 1944. (Courtesy of Jean Shuster Peavy.) In the triptych of panels at right: It is believe that Frank S. worked as a Shuster Shop letterer at the time of Superman #15 (March-April 1942). Though it’s unknown if this is his work, note the low horizontal bars on the “A’s” and “H’s,” and on the middle bars of the “E’s.” Loops on the “R’s” are sometimes unconnected. Also, one can see that the bottom halves of “S’s” are tapered, while “W’s” face backward in these panels from the issue’s final story. [Page TM & © DC Comics.]
Jerry Siegel. Designed as a ten-lesson correspondence course, it was titled How to Be Funny, a Practical Course of Serious Study in Creative Humor.64 Frank and Joe’s sister Jean Shuster Peavy was the youngest sibling. She told interviewer Mel Higgins that Frank began helping with the lettering on “Superman” tales at some point in 1938. She did not know if he worked on non-“Superman” features like “Slam Bradley.” In addition to transferring words to art board, Frank assisted with completing panel backgrounds. He did not consider himself good enough to be a cartoonist, and in no way did he mind working behind the scenes for Joe and Jerry. He thought of himself as the third musketeer.11 In 1941 Frank Shuster was still transcribing the Man of Tomorrow’s exploits, as confirmed in that year’s June 21st issue of the Saturday Evening Post.22 The magazine article, an in-depth look at the success of Jerry and Joe, reported that there were then five artists in the Shuster Shop “furiously penciling and lettering Superman panels....” Those who worked there stated in later years that there were never more than four cartoonists crammed into their tiny office space. Regardless, Frank was not one of them. He did his lettering from the Shuster family home in Cleveland, a fact verified in 2009 by sister Jean. Whether handled by Frank or someone else, if one compares tales from this period to earlier stories, the craft of transcribing had evolved. No longer shapeless blobs, word balloons sprouted cloudlike bulges that better encompassed the varying line-lengths of dialogue. Expressions in captions or balloons sometimes slanted. Almost, but not quite italicized. It was a way to accelerate the eyes through the verbiage so readers could focus more quickly on the illustrated action beneath. A few word-delineators of “Superman” stories were phasing out around the time of the Saturday Evening Post article. Paul Lauretta was one. A second scribe, though perhaps it was still Lauretta (clues from his “American Ace” stories demonstrate that he sometimes changed accoutrements) used jagged arrows to connect adjacent panels, thickened the first letters of captions, and infrequently added geometric shapes to sparsely worded vertical headings. A third delineator squared off the lead caption’s first letter in some of Jack Burnley’s fall/winter 1940-41 illustrated stories for Action Comics. Was it Burnley himself, his brother, or his
sister? A fourth letterer used curvaceous “N’s” and “W’s,” while a fifth calligrapher incorporated stubbier stems on word balloons, designed unenclosed captions with emboldened first letters, and transcribed “S’s” that tipped slightly backward. With those just mentioned gone by mid-1941, a stalwart remained, one with a straightforward, no-nonsense style. Still, certain letters were distinctive. For example, the horizontal bar of “A’s” and “H’s” and the middle bar of “E’s” were usually well below center. Instead of joining the lower part of the loop with the vertical stem, “R’s” were rarely closed. There may have been other, different hands helping occasionally, too. Floating captions, one-of-a-kind narrative designs on splash pages, and calligraphy that appeared cruder in some panels than others were aberrations sometimes seen. Overall, lettering style(s) were not as varied as what came before, making identification difficult. While the next chief scribe may have come sooner, changes were not obvious until the middle of 1943. Captions suddenly possessed wavy-lined
How To Be Funny Faces by Joe Shuster. An ad for Jerry Siegel & Frank Shuster’s 10-lesson humor course.
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Drawn To Greatness—Part I
borders. Question marks were squigglier. Known as a stylized scroll option, first letters of captions were colored red and shaded in the upper left corner to provide the illusion of depth. At each fable’s conclusion, “The End” transformed from block writing to cursive. Working months ahead of the printed publication date, it can be reasonably surmised that Frank Shuster was gone by this time. Jean Peavy told Mel Higgins that Frank entered the Army on November 1, 1942; he exited the service circa September 1945. She added that her brother never returned to the craft of lettering because the folks at DC by then controlled the hiring on “Superman.”11 After the war, Frank moved into the lovely apartment in Forest Hills, Queens Borough, New York City that Joe rented for his family. (Joe resided in Manhattan, in a fancy apartment building with a doorman; he knew many of the celebrities living there, too.) Frank wrote humor skits and jokes for his sister Jean’s nightclub act. The wannabe actor combined singing and comedy into her one-woman show. Frank himself was once an aspiring thespian. Determined to perform on Broadway, at sixteen years of age he left Glenville High School (where Joe had graduated) and jumped a train headed for NYC. Working as a busboy, he lasted six months before returning to Cleveland to graduate from a different institution than his brother. John Hay High School provided Frank with the opportunity to do Shakespeare and comedy. He was also editor of the school newspaper and contributed a satirical humor column called “Stiletto.”11 The Shuster clan obviously enjoyed entertaining others. Certainly, big brother Joe enthralled millions due to his part in creating and sustaining the adventures of Superman, but a cousin, also named Frank, was part of the once-famous Canadian comedy team of Wayne and Shuster. The “other” Frank Shuster and Johnny Wayne performed together as professionals from the 1940s through the 1980s. They made 66 appearances on TV’s The Ed Sullivan Show alone. Joe’s brother Frank was enamored with sociology. Foreshadowing the Beat Generation, he traveled with hobos to study their culture. In addition, while he was penning gags for Jean’s show Frank was writing about human nature. He could be serious and insightful. Even during the war, after taking a personality test, the Army made Frank an assistant chaplain because he was interested in advising and guiding others. Later he clerked for a general at the Pentagon. Frank made it a point to observe 5-Star general and future President Dwight D. Eisenhower while walking the halls.11 Big brother Joe ran out of money after he was fired from “Superman.” Long before he and Jerry were each granted an annual stipend from DC Comics (commencing at the end of 1975), the then-destitute older sibling left his fancy digs and moved into the family apartment. Frank became the main provider. Initially working as a draftsman38 for very little money, he eventually found a job with the Nielsen Company. From the early 1950s until 1992 Frank
Ira Schnapp in the DC Comics bullpen—juxtaposed with Wayne Boring’s cover for Action Comics #198 (Nov. 1954), with Stan Kaye inks—and (except for the logo) the distinctive fancy lettering of Ira Schnapp.
compiled television show ratings charts for the marketing research organization. Responsible and reliable, he never missed a day at Nielsen.11
Showcard Letterer Of The Comics Ira Schnapp came to Superman after Frank Shuster. His earliest known contribution to the Metropolis Marvel was to redesign the Superman comicbook logo. Beginning with the title’s sixth issue (cover-dated Sept.-Oct. 1940), Ira’s masthead, clean and ahead of its time, would endure for more than four decades without alteration. While it deserves its trademark status, credit must go to Joe Shuster for the initial concept. He had the right idea but remained undecided on the best, fixed look to his stubbier title lettering, redrawing the logo a few times between issues one through five. Longtime comics letterer Todd Klein, who started working at DC in 1977, wrote: “Ira took elements from all the Shuster versions, standardized the width and shapes of the letters, made the telescoping consistent, and used true three-point perspective, which Shuster’s work only guessed at.” Schnapp brought to comics more than two decades of prior experience as a showcard letterer, where he learned to use greatly varied calligraphy on title, narrative, and dialog placards for silent moving pictures, movie theatre lobby cards, storefront posters, and other forms of print advertising. Immigrating to this country as a boy from Sassow, Austria, the roots of his vocation came even earlier. Between the ages of 14 and 18, Ira was tasked with enlarging
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and perfecting an architectural firm’s lettering so stonecutters could inscribe what still appears on the James A. Farley Post Office in New York City: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” Construction on the Post Office occurred between 1908 and 1912, an era when Schnapp may have enlarged letters for other landmark buildings as well, including the main New York Public Library (completed in 1911) and Grand Central Station (opened in 1913). The Art Deco movement originated in the 1920s and grew stronger in the ’30s and ’40s. Deco’s design style influenced Ira’s work for the rest of his career. As early as 1934 Schnapp was lettering covers and creating logos for Harry Donenfeld’s spicy/girlie pulp magazines at Trojan Publishing.24 Ira was related by marriage to Jack Liebowitz who, at the time, was Harry’s accountant and point man, prior to the two men entering the comicbook industry. In 1940, the same year he revised Shuster’s logo for “Superman,” Ira illustrated and probably wrote copy for a weekly newspaper panel titled “The Art of the Ages.” Schnapp’s goal for each installment was to discuss and reproduce one well-known painting or sculpture. Applying nuanced shading to pen and ink in an attempt to add realism to newsprint, the feature appeared in exactly one tabloid, the Toledo Blade. “The Art of the Ages” survived for a mere 24 installments. In a few years Ira was providing ancillary cover blurbs as well as inside story lettering for DC Comics. By the latter 1940s, he’d moved from working freelance to taking a position with the company. Gaspar Saladino was a younger calligrapher when he joined the staff at the end of 1949; he recalled that Schnapp was already at his desk in the production room (on the 9th floor at 480 Lexington Avenue) by the time he arrived. With full-time status, Ira was specifically tagged to produce more and more of the blurbs appearing on comicbook covers, revealing the guest stars or hinting at mysteries about to unfold. He would establish new logos that symbolized the individual themes behind different titles. Eventually, Schnapp became perhaps best-known for the DC house ads known as “Coming
Interior—But Not Inferior! A rare in-book credit for letterer Schnapp occurred near the end of his career, in The Inferior Five #2 (May-June 1967). Script by E. Nelson Bridwell; art by Mike Sekowsky & Mike Esposito. [TM & © DC Comics.]
Super-Attractions!” Combining small cover images (or just the title logos) with hand lettering of varying fonts and styles, the ads began appearing earlier but exploded all over the line during the early to mid-1960s. Meanwhile, Ira continued to transpose dialog for hundreds of inside stories on the line’s super-hero and humor comicbooks when he could find the time. Todd Klein on his blog described traits consistent to the letterer. Schnapp’s cursive script for covers, splashes, and ads was distinctly attractive, taking on bright colors with ease. In story panels, when a writer used excessive dialog, Ira liked to overlap his word
Look! Up At The Top Of The Cover! (Above:) Joe Shuster’s cover logo for Superman #5 (Summer 1940) was one of several that set the tone and general look of the masthead. (Right:) It’s Ira Schnapp’s iconic rendering of that logo, however, that was put in place only one issue later—and has been seen the world over ever since. [TM & © DC Comics.]
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(Above:) Will Eisner’s Spirit Section from June 2, 1940. (Right:) A bevy of Fox comics characters in this promo ad from the Kansas City Journal. It appeared on Jan. 28, 1940, four months before Eisner’s first Spirit Section! [© Eisner Estate.]
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