Unpublished Superman story from 1944

Looking at the original art for sale over at Heritage Comics I found the following: a complete (and previously unpublished) 12-page Superman story from 1944, "Supermite!", presumably written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Joe Shuster's studio. The pages can be found here.

Maybe not as exciting a find as the famous "K-Metal" story from 1940, but still an entertaining story featuring mad scientist Luthor and the classic Superman-Clark Kent-Lois Lane triangle. I don't know much about prices for original comic art, but some of the current bids seem to still be quite low. The next few weeks should let us know if these pages end up selling for a price as high as the price of Jerry Siegel's potential clone.

2011/10/28 update:  A couple of details I didn't mention yesterday: Heritage's description mentions that the story came from the collection of Jack Schiff, and also that the late Richard Morrissey had identified the writer as Jerry Siegel (which would suggest that the story has been circulating in fandom for some time).

"Imagine Chris Ware doing the Fantastic Four"

Two things that came to mind after reading Grant Morrison's comments about Chris Ware's work in a recent Rolling Stone interview.

First, Grant Morrison's website, more than 10 years ago:

(I remember showing the above quote to a friend at the time. His response: "Yeah, right.")


And, from a 1999 interview with Grant Morrison:

I really like Chris Ware formally, he’s formally brilliant. The black humour is at a pitch where I can enjoy it just for the sheer nastiness of it, the black depth of it. But what worries me is that there’s so many of those American guys - and I have this problem with the Fantagraphics books, not all of them, but most of them - is that there’s a lot of really bad ones, I think.


They live in the most privileged, the most wonderful country in the world, and they keep writing about how shitty their lives are, and I’m sorry, I come from Scotland, I come from a place where no one’s got work, no one’s got money, and I’m reading these Americans in California telling me that life is shit, and it’s like, Get Therapy, y’know, I don’t want to read your comics, ‘cos you’re boring bastards. And there’s nothing fun, there’s nothing empowering or useful in that. You know, I love Dan Clowes’ stuff, when he was doing Velvet Glove, and Ghost World, but when he writes that stuff, this is who I hate, because Dan Clowes walks in and says “I hate that kid over there because she’s got a big arse, and I hate that one... it’s like, shut up, shut the fuck up, keep it to yourself, that means nothing to me, it’s just attacking humanity for no good reason, do something. And the good thing about him is, he does, but a lot of these Fantagraphics guys do nothing but “I hate this!”, nihilistic, pointless... But like I say, these guys are living in California...

 

 
 
This time, Morrison's comments have generated attention from places such as The Comics Journal and The Beat. I don't agree with his comments about Ware or Fantagraphics cartoonists in general, but I can understand his point of view. (Also, the quotes above suggest that he's been aware of Ware's work for some time. I assume he arrived to that conclusion after reading the work, at least.)

To be honest, I'm much more disappointed by his cavalier dismissal of Jerry Siegel's and Joe Shuster's treatment by DC, as Abhay Khosla and Paul Gravett pointed out a month ago. To say that corporations screwing young creators is something natural ("it's kind of the world") and something that he can't possibly have an opinion about (because he "wasn't around" at the time) strikes me as much more nihilistic than anything Chris Ware or Daniel Clowes have published in their work.

What's missing from this book?

I just received a copy of the new Adventures of Superboy hardcover, reprinting stories published between 1945 and 1947. I look forward to reading this soon, but in the meantime I made a quick checklist of what is and isn't included in this volume.

• New cover by Michael Cho? Check
• The Superboy stories from More Fun Comics #101 to #107, and Adventure Comics #103 to #121? Check
• Covers to the original issues? Most of them. (I assume all covers featuring Superboy were included, which sounds reasonable.)
• Credits for writers and artists of each story or cover? Check
• Credit for the editor of the original stories? Check (Jack Schiff, in case you were wondering)
  
• Some sort of introduction or article describing the origin of the character or the contents of the book? No
• Text at the beginning of the book, or the indicia, or the contents page or anywhere else saying "Superboy created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster? NOWHERE TO BE FOUND

Cogs in the machine

This is something I'd been meaning to post for a long time. It's the beginning of (hopefully) a series of snapshots showing how the discussion regarding creators' rights in the American comics industry has evolved during the past decades. Generally speaking, things have improved since then (there are more choices available for creators today), but there is also a sensation of stagnation in many aspects (just look for example at the new generation of creators who have in past years been screwed by fly-by-night publishers who take all their rights in exchange for vague promises of future royalties).

Things like Jerry Siegel's family trying to regain the copyright of Superman (by simply trying to take advantage of a modification in copyright law that enables them to do so) still generate some controversy today, partly due to lack of information (some people believe the Siegels are trying to change past contracts, which is untrue) or simply because there are people who believe that a publisher is more responsible of a character's financial success than its creators. In the same way there is plenty of room for improvement regarding creators' rights, there is also room (and a need) for informed discussion about this matter.

The following article is from Comics Scene #2 (cover-dated March 1982), and it's written by John Byrne at the height of his popularity. In it, Byrne defines himself as a "company man", making his famous statement: "I'm a cog in the machine which is Marvel Comics", and he also explains why he believes creators should accept the rules as they are, or at the very least not pretend that they weren't aware of these rules when they started working in the industry.

Byrne is characteristically blunt and direct in this article, saying: "The whole concept of work-for-hire has been a thorn in the side of creative people for a long, long time, but it has also been the bounden duty of those who entered the industry to accept the rules, and not expect their presence to modify their little corner of the cosmos." This was published at the same time Steve Gerber and Marvel were battling in court over the rights of Howard the Duck (I intend to write more about Gerber in following posts), and Byrne still held this same view some 15 years later, when he voluntarily testified for Marvel (and against Marv Wolfman) in the lawsuit for the rights to Blade. (Byrne's viewpoint basically was that everybody back then knew they were selling all their rights to Marvel in exchange for a flat page-rate and that it was disingenious for Wolfman to pretend otherwise. Wolfman lost the lawsuit, and hasn't been able to get work at Marvel since then.)

In this article, Byrne also makes the somewhat bizarre statement: "If we are going to have creator's rights [...] should we not then also have (excuse the pun) creator's wrongs? In all the noise and fury over everyone getting a fair share I have not heard one so-called creator offering the flip side of the coin. No one has said they would be willing to take a loss if their creation fell flat on its very expensive face."

This is an example of the viewpoint I mentioned before: believing that since publishers take risks when publishing an unknown property, they deserve a large part of the financial benefits if the property turns out to be succesful. This is a legitimate point of view, but by taking the argument to its extreme ("Is there anyone out there willing to return the money they made while producing some of these duds?") Byrne may have ended up weakening his argument. Freelancers do take a loss if their creations are not commercial enough; each failure means it's going to be more difficult to find work in the future.

The point of this post however is to simply present Byrne's famous article, and not to rebut it point by point. Nevertheless, I'll show in future posts how other industry professionals reacted to this article, with what should be some familiar names popping in.

The difficulties Kirby's heirs face

Yesterday's announcement that Jack Kirby's heirs are trying to claim the copyrights to characters created by Kirby for Marvel probably caught many by surprise, including me. It's true that when news of Disney buying Marvel broke out, many fans speculated that the Kirby family might try to do something like this, following the footsteps of Jerry Siegel's heirs. But my thought at the time (and now) was that actually regaining to copyrights to the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Hulk, Sgt. Fury and other characters would be extremely difficult for the Kirby family to do.

Like most of the people commenting about this and the Superman rights case, I'm not an expert on copyright law. I've followed the development of the Siegel case closely though, trying to understand the reasoning behind each decision, and based on that I think the Kirbys have some significant hurdles to cross.

Many online commenters have correctly pointed out that Kirby didn't sign work for hire contracts while he worked for Marvel, and that the current definition of "work made for hire" applies from 1978 onwards (when the new law took effect). In fact, Kirby refused to sign the work made for hire contract that Marvel started using that year. As noted in The Comics Journal #44, February '79 ("Ploog & Kirby Quit Marvel Over Contract Dispute", page 11):

Former Marvel star artist Jack Kirby also objected to Marvel's contract and Marvel has indicated that he won't be allowed to work for the company unless he signs it. Kirby had apparently been scheduled to resume drawing for Marvel at the end of the animation season. He had been working for Filmation Associates on their Fantastic Four Saturday morning cartoon series for the NBC television network.

Kirby enjoyed working in animation again [...] and remarked, "I sort of adapted to it and I like it very much." He did not want to discuss the specific details of his complaints with the contract, saying only, "I don't want to get tied to a commitment."

Marvel still hopes Kirby will consider signing the contract and returning to work, however. [Editor-in-chief Jim] Shooter says Marvel's talks with Kirby were on friendly terms and Kirby himself called them "very amicable." Nonetheless, Kirby remained unwilling to sign. "I want to try my talents in other directions," he told The Comics Journal. "Maybe this is the right time of life to try other things."

And so he did, doing more animation-related work, trying his hand at screenplays, and doing creator-owned comics like Destroyer Duck, Captain Victory, and Silver Star. (He also returned to The New Gods, but that's because DC offered him a very good deal to do so, which included royalties. The reason appearances of those characters to this day have a "Created by Jack Kirby" credit is due to that deal.)

Still, as seen in the opinion issued by Judge Stephen Larson on August 12 of this year regarding the Superman copyright, the lack of a written agreement between Kirby and Marvel may not be enough. As commented in this blog's previous entry, the Siegels were able to claim the copyrights to some important elements of the Superman franchise, but the Judge's opinion is worth reading in full for knowing which elements and stories they were not able to regain.

Beginning in page 40 of the document, the Judge deals with the Superman work produced by Siegel and Shuter after March 1, 1938 and before the employment agreement they signed in September of that year. Despite the lack of a contract, the Judge decides that the material produced during that time is work for hire, and therefore belongs to DC.

The Judge writes (pages 43-44):

In essence, the September, 1938 employment agreement formalized what had informally been ongoing beforehand. That Detective Comics' requests were made on an informal basis before the written agreements were executed does not detract from the fundamental fact that Siegel and Shuster's creation of the derivative Superman material was done at the request and instance of Detective Comics. That Detective Comics waited six months before more formally "employing" the pair to "continue" to do just that does not detract from the core point that such production by Siegel and Shuster was again done at the instance of Detective Comics; it simply shows that by that point Superman had so proven itself a commercial success that the publisher desired a more formalized arrangement to be placed down in writing to ensure that the pair would continue to produce such material for it (rather than going on to create other comic book characters for other publishers).

When these facts are considered in toto, it is easy to conclude that creation of the works in question lie further along the spectrum from that found in a more traditional employment relationship, as is the case for the comic books created by in-house employees of the publisher. The lack of any long-term guarantee or commitment by the publisher to the business enterprise itself, however, is not something which is atypical in an independent contractor situation. That the pair functioned in such a looser employment relationship with the hiring party is not critical. What is important is the existence of an engagement to create the works, and the level of control and direction the commissioning party thereafter had over creation of the works in question. And in that regard, the fact that Siegel and Shuster were commissioned by the publisher to create specific material to which the publisher had the statutory right to exert control over its creation, and for which they were paid upon the material's publication, is dispositive as to the instance prong.

In short, Detective Comics, as the copyright holder of the pre-existing work, approached the artists and asked that they create works derived from that preexisting material on a regular basis, and then paid the artists for that derivative work. As such, the material would fall within the category as a work made for hire. [emphasis mine]

It's easy to see the parallels with Kirby's situation at Marvel. He was a freelancer, but he was working under the editorial direction of Stan Lee, and he was "commisioned by the publisher to create specific material" on a regular basis for Marvel's monthly books.

Basically, until now the Siegels have been only able to regain the rights to material that Jerry Siegel developed before selling it to DC. Is the Kirby family in a position to come up with evidence that shows that Jack Kirby had written scripts or drawn stories featuring the Fantastic Four or the X-Men before he sold them to Marvel? This is doubtful, and this is the main reason why I can't see them being able to succesfully claim the copyrights to these characters.

Despite all of the above, Tom Spurgeon makes an important point: "The fact that aggressive litigator Toberoff & Associates is the attorney of record makes this a bigger deal because of their past successes" (including the recent Siegel victories). I would very much like to see the Kirby family regain these copyrights, or at least some fair compensation for the use of the characters. I believe they're in a difficult position for the reasons stated above, but at least they have chosen a powerful ally, and this may end up making an important difference.

Siegels awarded more Superman rights

As usual, Jeff Trexler brings us the latest news regarding the Siegels' litigation against DC Comics for the rights of Superman.

The Siegels have recaptured the rights to the following Superman material: Action Comics #1; Action Comics #4; pages 3 to 6 of Superman #1; and the first two weeks of Superman newspaper strips.

The judge's reasoning is as follows:

There is evidence (provided by Denis Kitchen) that the Superman story in Action Comics #4 (about Superman's exploits in a football game) was sufficiently developed by Jerry Siegel and Russell Keaton some years before Action Comics #1. As such, the story in Action Comics #4 can not be "work for hire". While there is proof (based on surviving Siegel notes and documentation) that Siegel had the ideas for some of the stories of other early Action Comics issues some time before 1938, the judge says that a mere idea is not subject to copyright.

Pages 3 to 6 of Superman #1 were also developed before Siegel's and Shuster's relation with DC, so they would now belong to Siegel's heirs. There is evidence that pages 1 and 2 are work for hire, since they were done at Detective Comics's request. (The rest of Superman #1 consists of reprints of early Action Comics stories.)

But what is probably most important is the ownership of the first two weeks of Superman newspaper strips.

(This is the most complicated part of the judge's opinion, examing in detail the deal between Siegel & Shuster, Detective Comics, and the McClure Syndicate; and also citing previous cases such as the DC-Fawcett lawsuit for Captain Marvel/Superman, and a legal dispute between Burne Hogarth and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.)

The judge writes (page 85):

A fact not lost on either party or the Court is that potentially valuable copyright elements subsist in this material, as it is the first material in which Superman's home planet of Krypton is named, Superman's Krypton name is revealed, and the circumstances surrounding Krypton's destruction are revealed. [Emphasis mine]

That's right, it seems these key elements of the Superman franchise would now also belong to the Siegels.

So while gaining the copyright to a mere handful of Superman pages and strips wouldn't seem that important at first glance, gaining the copyright to "Krypton" and "Kal-El" seems to be a very important legal victory for the Siegels.

During my quick read of the 99-page document I found some additional and interesting details about other aspects of the negotiations between Siegel & Shuster and DC. One example: the origin of the mysterious "Lois Lane, Girl Reporter" strip is revealed. On page 23 it is stated that this strip was produced directly by DC as "filler" material due to lateness on Siegel's and Shuster's part in providing strips for the McClure syndicate. There was a side agreement (apparently done without Siegel's and Shuster's knowledge) between DC and McClure in 1943 for the production of these strips, and the cost of producing this material was to be deducted from the gross receipts of the Superman syndication (resulting in, I assume, less income for Siegel and Shuster).

Besides being happy for the Siegels, I also find it very entertaining to see details like these (and many others regarding contracts, page rates, and other financial matters) to be finally revealed in these court documents.

The initial Superman newspaper strips can be seen here.

75% of Superman's appeal

As reported by the Forbidden Planet International blog, Diamond Galleries' Scoop has news about a collection of documents relating to the 1947 litigation for the ownership of Superman (between National Periodical Publications and the Jerry Siegel-Joe Shuster team) being offered for sale.

The three documents shown in the article are apparently only the tip of the iceberg, and as Tom Spurgeon says, hopefully the documents will be made available to historians at some point.

Among the documents we can see for now is a 1937 contract that states that all work done by the Siegel-Shuster team for their employer between December 4, 1937 and December 3, 1939 (at the rate of ten dollars per page) "shall become the sole and exclusive property of the Employer, and the Employer shall be deemed the sole creator thereof, the Employee acting entirely as the Employer's employee." The next clause states that Siegel and Shuster can't use of these creations somewhere else after they leave National Periodical Publications. While only "Slam Bradley" and "The Spy" are mentioned by name, the time period includes the first appearance of Superman in "Action Comics".

(Siegel and Shuster started working for Mayor Wheeler-Nicholson in 1935; one assumes that their earliest work, such as the "Dr. Occult" feature, wasn't initially covered by such a contract, unless they were later asked to retroactively sign their rights away, a not unlikely possibility.)

The last document shown in the article is a 1942 letter from Siegel to Jack Liebowitz. The reproduction is somewhat blurry, but as far as I can tell this is the entire text of the page shown:

Dear Jack:

I was very glad to hear from you. Your invitation to come on to New York to discuss the matter under correspondence was happily received as it will be nice seeing all of you again.

Bella and I expect to leave Monday from Cleveland. And so we should be seeing you Tuesday.

Regarding the matter mentioned in one of your earlier letters (regarding Lois finding out who SUPERMAN is because of reader demand) I feel that the interest of the readers in this subject is a very healthy angle, and we should endeavor by all means to keep them wanting to have Lois find out that Clark is really SUPERMAN. If Lois should ACTUALLY learn Clark's secret, the strip would lose about 75% of its appeal -- the human interest angle. I know that a formula can possibly prove monotonous thru repetition but I fear that if this element is removed from the story formula that makes up SUPERMAN, that the strip will lose a great part of its effectiveness.

This last paragraph is interesting given what we know about the unpublished "K-Metal" story that Siegel wrote in 1940, in which Lois does in fact learn Superman's secret identity. In the letter above Siegel argues in favor of maintaining the status quo (and would it be correct to deduce from this letter that Liebowitz was in favor of having Lois find out Superman's secret?), which suggests that he may have later changed his mind about the appropriateness of the "K-Metal" story.

There is some speculation that Siegel wanted to move the strip forward when he wrote the 1940 "K-Metal" story, and that we were denied the chance to see Superman (and the whole superhero genre) grow as the years passed (see Alex Ross' comments), but the letter above puts things in a different perspective. The "K-Metal" story can be seen as a "Wouldn't it be fun if..?" exercise caused by youthful enthusiasm, while the letter written two years later shows Siegel more preoccupied with the lasting power of the "Superman" feature.

In any case, the genie has been let out of the bottle as far as the current "Superman" feature is concerned, with not only the comics but even the movies showing us what Jerry Siegel would describe as a Superman with only 25% of his original appeal.