Fingering through the dictionary

The story goes that back in 1939, cartoonist Bob Kane called writer Bill Finger with a barebones idea for a new character name of Batman. (Some say Kane didn’t get past calling him Birdman or Bird-Man, but that’s a topic for another post.)

The story continues that Finger went over to Kane’s apartment to help Kane improve the character. (In The Steranko History of Comics, Volume 1, Finger himself is quoted as saying that.) Seeing Kane’s design (which you’ll read more about in my upcoming book), Finger said it didn’t look intimidating enough to merit the “bat” motif.

So he pulled a dictionary from the shelf to show Kane the picture of “bat,” after which he (Finger) suggested that this character rock a cowl with pointy ears, like the real deal.

Inspired by pop culture writer/designer Arlen Schumer, I wanted to pinpoint just what stippled drawing Finger and Kane would most likely have been referring to; Schumer hunted that bat for an article for Alter Ego (reprinted in The Comic Book Artist Collection, volume 1) and found this:

To pull tight the timeline, I contacted Merriam-Webster. The company confirmed that the most recent edition in 1939 was the 1937. Upon request, they kindly e-mailed me scans of various angles including the cover, spine, and “bat” spread. I wanted these so I could pass on the authenticity to the illustrator of my book.

Here's the cover:

Here’s the spread:

But a throwaway detail in this Finger/Kane dictionary story has long tripped me up.

The location of the dictionary.

No, not that it was on a shelf.

That it was in Kane's apartment.

As Will Eisner said and multiple others echoed in their own words, “Bob wasn’t an intellectual.”

This is not to imply that only intellectuals own dictionaries. But it doesn't take a detective to figure out that Finger, a voracious reader in continual pursuit of self-education, was more likely than Kane to have one at the ready.

On 6/19/07, I asked early and pivotal Batman artist Jerry Robinson if he thought Finger would’ve gone to Kane’s apartment that day, or vice versa. Jerry wasn’t there but he met and began working with both men later that same year, the first year of Batman, so he knew them as well if not better than most at the time.

I didn’t indicate what I was getting at by asking, yet Jerry was a bound ahead. He said that if a dictionary was on hand, the apartment had to be Finger’s.

Which had been my hunch as well.

Only one other source I’ve found has Kane going to Finger’s for that fateful costume fitting—an article by Gerard Jones, author of Men of Tomorrow, that ran in The Times (London) in 2005.

I don’t know if that was an intentional flip-flop on Jones’s part; it’s unlikely any firm proof exists, so perhaps he was simply making the same assumption Robinson and I did.

Why so much Siegel and Shuster these days?

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

The 1970s were also the period in which Siegel and Shuster became known to a wider public. In 1975, they won the settlement from Warner Communications, which made the New York Times and the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. In 1976, their names were restored to all Superman stories in all media, starting with Superman #302 and culminating majestically with Superman: The Movie (see at 2:45). They (especially Jerry) began to attend comics conventions and at least one movie premiere.

In terms of comics, we are the first generation fueled less by the clinical nature of precedent and more by the emotional nature of nostalgia. We are creating superhero content by deepening the superhero content of our youth, and I think at a certain point, it's natural for that interest to extend from the fictional history to the real life history of these characters.

Though I loved Super Friends and Superman: The Movie and Superman comics, I wrote my book on Jerry and Joe without reflecting consciously on any of the thoughts above. (And at the time, none of the Siegel and Shuster projects listed at the start of this post were out.)

I simply found a surprising gap in the market and wanted to try to fill it with a book for both kids and adults that could do its small part to spread the word about two visionary guys (long gone) and their grand achievement (here to stay). It has been so gratifying that so many others have simultaneously helped bring the men behind the Man out from behind their glasses.

"Boys of Steel" in USA TODAY - front page!

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 (known in the family as 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 (and later author) 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!

Saving the Boys of Steel: part 2 of 2

"Reporters don't like being interviewed."

That's from an e-mail John Sherwood sent me on 8/26/06. I'd asked him if I could ask him questions about his role in landing Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, co-creators of Superman, a settlement for life in 1975. If you've read Men of Tomorrow recently, John's name may seem familiar, but he's been on my radar since long before that.

While good man Phil Yeh was the first journalist to pick up on Jerry's press release and write about the sad state of Siegel and Shuster, John was the journalist who broke the story on a national level. I learned of John's article—and later learned it was the first in a series of articles—when, circa 1988, I read an essay on the origin of Superman written by Dennis Dooley published in a book called Superman at Fifty.

John's newspaper was the now-defunct Washington Star. After John's articles, other papers (including the Washington Post) began to cover the story, too.

But the Star is not a paper, I found, that is widely archived. I inter-library-loaned copies of several of John's articles. Here's the first part of the first one:

I thought that finding those articles would be easy compared to finding John himself. Googling his name alone would, of course, produce hundreds of possibilities. The Star ceased publication in 1981 so I didn't think there'd be much trace of it online.

However, I Googled his name and the name of the paper together, and a bio of him came up. He'd written a book (about Maryland) and edited a magazine (about sailing), so I contacted the publishers of both. Someone at the book publishing company gave me his number and I called him.

I gushed that I consider him as important to the Superman story as two high-profile names who did selfless work on Siegel and Shuster's behalf, artists Neal Adams and Jerry Robinson. John was predictably humble though I tried to talk him out of that.

Nearly two years went by before I finally sent him interview questions. (I didn't remind him that "reporters don't like to be interviewed.")

Whether or not he remembered that comment, he obliged graciously:

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

I suppose I got on the Siegel and Shuster trail because of plans to make a Superman movie. I called DC Comics as step no. 1 and also got in touch with some comic book historians (all this before Google). [NOTE: see third question.]

John Sherwood early 1980s; photo courtesy of John Sherwood

Were you a Superman fan before you wrote your Siegel and Shuster articles?

I read comics as a kid and especially loved the crooked "S" on S's long blue underwear. I was a fan of Captain Marvel, too. I liked to draw and would unmask heroes such as The Phantom and The Spirit and anyone else wearing an eye mask by simply copying the face and leaving out the mask. Then I would look at how the artist drew eyes and simply sketch those in, a simple task. And, of course, I wore a cape and thought I could fly with it.

Do you remember your reaction upon first reading Jerry Siegel's long press release?

I don't recall Siegel's "long press release."

Did you know no other paper had yet covered it?

I didn't have a clue if any other paper covered the story.

Was your editor immediately keen on running the stories?

My editor immediately jumped on the idea. In those long-ago days at The Washington Star (1962-1980) I always came up with my own ideas because in that way I was assured of doing what I wanted to do. The editors kind of let me roam and do what I wanted to do. I also wrote about The Spirit for The Star and covered the artist doing the last strip of Joe Palooka. I was a great fan of radio, too.

Were there any details which your editor did not want to include?

My editors let me alone and never changed my copy, although they may have asked a few questions.

What was the public's reaction to your articles?

The public, as far as I was concerned, never reacted much to anything although there may have been a couple letters to editors re: Superman story.

Did you hear from DC Comics?

Never heard from DC Comics, except when I got a press release announcing the (meager) pensions. Big hearts, those corporate types.

Has anyone else ever contacted you to ask about your Siegel and Shuster work?

No, no one else I can recall. It was a long time ago.

What was your proudest moment with regards to your Siegel and Shuster work?

Having the story splashed on the front page (bottom) and, more importantly, Siegel and Shuster getting recognized with a pension. I am happy I was of help to "the boys." It is a great human interest story to begin with.

How did Jerry and Joe respond to you and your articles about them?

I used to receive a Christmas card every year from Joe for a long time; nothing from Siegel, as I recall.

Are you a Superman fan today?

Not really. I follow Doonesbury, but not for the art. Few comic artists were as good as Hal Foster and The Spirit's gifted creator, who also had a great sense of humor.

John Sherwood today; photo courtesy of John Sherwood

What are you doing these days?

In 1997 I became a senior staff writer at Soundings, a national recreational boating magazine published out of Essex, Connecticut. I semi-retired in 2005 but continue to write a monthly, full-page personal column about sailing and my sailing experiences entitled "Bay Tripper." I have never missed a column in all those years. I sail and single-hand the Chesapeake Bay out of Annapolis, where I keep my classic fiberglass sailboat—a Sparkman & Stephens-designed Sailmaster 22 built in Holland in 1962. Named Erewhon. I am a widower and have lived in the same house for 44 years. I have three sons and one grandchild.

10/2/21 addendum: Today I learned that John died on 12/7/16. Sail on, storyteller.

Saving the Boys of Steel: part 1 of 2

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.

Trouble was, 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

I recall that the press release was single spaced and obviously from a man who had been wronged by a big company. As I read through the whole thing which was several pages long, I too felt anger at this injustice to someone who had created Superman. I actually sold a gag to DC Comics when I was 14 and got a check for $5 and all my friends in Los Angeles thought I would go on to work for them when I grew up. It was very ironic that when I started to meet people who worked for Marvel and DC at the very first San Diego Comic Con, I quickly saw how the real people were treated by these companies and made a vow to just publish my own work. 

So getting this press release at the age of 21 was a very big deal to me. I had started publishing my own work professionally at the age of 16 but was still young enough to get angry about things like artists rights. Now, I have become used to big companies ripping people off. Anyway, I called Jerry and arranged to interview him in his place in Los Angeles.

Were you a Superman fan before you wrote your Siegel and Shuster articles?

I didn't grow up reading many American comics. But when I was in junior high, a friend gave me a few hundred DC comics so I started to catch up on the DC titles for a few years. I stopped reading most comics when I started to draw professionally a couple of years later.

Did you know no other paper had yet covered it? If not, when did you find out?

When I got to Jerry's apartment (I am pretty sure he lived in an apartment)—I naturally assumed that the rest of the media was covering the story. He told me that I was the first one to call and do the interview—at that point I could not believe it. I was very young at the time and would learn soon enough that most of the press doesn't cover most of the good stories until someone else does. Journalism in this country has gone steadily downhill ever since.

What was the public's reaction to your articles?

Even with only a few issues of our paper published (we were monthly), we had already figured out that other reporters and editors from the news media in Los Angeles (our paper was distributed through libraries, independent bookstores, museums, etc., from Santa Barbara to San Diego each month) often read the stories we covered and magically, once we covered something, they would do the same piece in much bigger papers. This was fine with us, we were a group of independent writers, artists, and photographers who just wanted to make the best paper possible, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Once the LA Times picked up the piece, the rest as they say was history.

Did you hear from DC Comics?

I called them right after I came back from Jerry's place. I wanted to hear their side of the story and I wanted to see what pressure I could put on them. The executive I spoke to was aware with the Superman movie coming out that this story had to have a better ending than what Jerry was presenting. He called me back shortly after the story ran with news of a settlement of sorts.

Has anyone else ever contacted you to ask about your Siegel and Shuster work?

The guy who did the Men of Tomorrow book [Gerard Jones] and sadly he got some critical facts wrong. I am not Filipino nor have I ever smoked dope. We joke about it but I would love to have the truth be printed especially because the subject we are dealing with is about the truth and the "American" way and justice. All the ideals that Superman stood for so I guess one can see the irony pretty easily here.

What was your proudest moment with regards to your Siegel and Shuster work?

I was just glad to have a chance to help two men who really were treated badly in an art form that I love. Over the years, I have been good friends with many artists who labored for these comic book companies and animation studios and were cheated all over the place. It makes me sad and sick and angry to see good people brought down by these lying greedy people. I am very lucky, I work for myself most of the time and have been always able to speak freely. Obviously DC and Marvel aren't calling me these days.

But as for taking credit for what we did or being proud, I never publicly made a big deal of what we did. I never bothered to tell my story in the comic book press and for years always read that Jerry Robinson (a very nice man whom I have met) and Neal Adams were the heroes here. Perhaps in my middle age, I have started to clarify what we did to just be fair to myself.

How did Jerry and Joe respond to you and your articles about them?

I can't recall anything special happening after we did the piece. I don't think that they owe me anything. I was acting as a journalist and covering a story, really nothing is expected when one is in that role.

Are you a Superman fan today?

I will always be a fan of any character created with heart. What I don't enjoy is all these characters who simply look the same and who do nothing for me as an artist. I guess I am old fashioned in that regard.

What are you doing these days?

For the last 23 years, our group Cartoonists Across America and the World has been traveling around the world promoting literacy, creativity, and the arts. Our tour started in 1985—Charles Schulz was the first cartoonist to endorse our campaign—and continues through 2010. A full 25 years of my life. In that time we have painted more than 1,800 murals around the world and spoken to hundreds of thousands of kids of all ages about the creative process and the importance of artists owning their rights.

Phil Yeh today; photo courtesy of Phil Yeh

I often mention Jerry and Joe's story but not my involvement in the saga when speaking to kids. What I want young people to know is that people like Jerry and Joe were young when they created one of the world's greatest superheroes. I want to inspire kids to do things when they are young and that is the lesson there. I also encourage them to turn off the electronic nonsense that fills their lives and to read and to write and to draw and most importantly to dream. 

I have also written and published more than 80 books in the last 38 years including one of the first modern American graphic novels in 1977. That is another true story that we have been correcting in the last few years since so many people in the comic book press are strangely afraid of telling the whole story.

Superman vs. Hitler

One curious piece of Superman lore exists not among the panels but in real life. Numerous books and essays written about Superman perpetuate the claim that Superman comics were banned in Nazi Germany—in some versions, by Adolf Hitler himself.

In my earliest drafts of the Author's Note for Boys of Steel, I did my part to continue the perpetuation, trusting that the story must be true if such well-regarded sources as Gerard Jones's Men of Tomorrow referenced it (page 162).

Yet when I checked the Notes on Sources section of Men of Tomorrow, I saw that Gerry did not cite where he got the story. So I asked him. (It was not the first verification question I'd lobbed to Gerry, and he was the definition of graciousness each time.) He said Hitler banning Superman was a Siegel family story for which he had no further authentication.

Another great man I've had the honor of getting to know through my research was another Gerry, this one a Jerry: comics legend Jerry Robinson. In his essay "The Ultimate Fantasy," published in the catalogue for the Golden Age of Comic Books exhibit that originated at the Breman Jewish Heritage Museum of Atlanta, he writes, "Hitler pronounced Superman to be a 'Jew' and banned him from Germany." So I asked Jerry. He, too, had no source for the story, going on memory and accepting on faith.

My fact barometer begin to sputter and smoke. It banned me from using the banning anecdote unless I found mention of it in a non-comics-related book. I checked more than a few respected WWII histories, particularly ones focusing on propaganda, but none mentioned Superman. So I e-mailed a gaggle of professors with special knowledge of Nazi Germany from universities including Dartmouth and Princeton, plus a couple in Germany, plus a rabbi/writer/comic book historian. Not a one knew of evidence for it.

Finally I was directed to a writer/translator named Dwight Decker. Recounting the impressive show of research he did for an article for Amazing Heroes and then Alter Ego, he convinced me that the story is most likely untrue. One point especially stood out: "A Dutch researcher in the '80s went through collections of wartime Reichstag speeches and did not find anyone referring to Superman."

Of course, that doesn't imply that the researcher went through every speech. And perhaps Hitler was not in the Reichstag when he allegedly enacted the ban. But when added to the lack of proof I already dug up, it only suggests even more strongly that the event never happened.

Yes, Superman's creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were Jewish. 

Yes, Superman's Kryptonian name is Kal-El, which if interpreted as Hebrew can mean "all that God is." 

Yes, for the 2/27/1940 issue of Look magazine, Jerry and Joe created a two-page comic strip "How Superman Would End the War" (in which Superman captures Hitler and Stalin and delivers them to the League of Nations for justice).

Yes, a 4/25/1940 piece in a Nazi newspaper called Das schwarze Korps (possibly in response to Look) did ridicule Jerry for being Jewish. 

Yes, the 6/29/1940 issue of the The New Yorker ran a short piece (pages 64-66) marveling that such a new character could rankle the Nazis. 

Yes, a 4/9/1965 Time article says that Goebbels once wrote, "This Superman is a Jew!" (The source was not stated, but Goebbels did keep copious journals.) 

Yes, the Nazi Party did ban material from outside Germany.

But amidst a worldwide war, did Hitler himself stop and specifically single out a comic book hero as off-limits?

Unless a primary source document turns up stating that, I'm sticking with nein.

9/5/14 addendum: Trivial Pursuit is not helping.

6/5/24 update: I modified the post to include mentions of Look and The New Yorker.