Dirk Deppey, of the comix newsblog Journalista comments on the recent court decision to grant part of the Superman copyright to the heirs of Jerry Siegel. As you may know if you’re into American superhero comics, Jerry Siegel and Joes Shuster created Superman in the thirties, tried to interest various newspaper comic syndicates for it with no success, only to end up with a bargain, borderline criminal publisher in the new but still very marginal field of comic book publishing. Superman not only made that small publisher into what was for decades the biggest comics publisher in the world, but was part of the foundation for the giant Times-Warner empire, not to mention gave the nascent comic book industry a flying start, with millions of people following the adventures of Superman and his many imitators each month. Then came the radio serial, newspaper strip, movie serial, animation series, tv series, motion picture series, computer games, more animation and so on und so weiter.
How much did Siegel and Shuster get paid for the rights to all this, which has made millions upon millions of profit? One hundred and thirty dollar. Yes, for a few years they were paid rather well for their work, but that was solely for their labour, not for their creation. Once DC realised they didn’t need them anymore, the first time they got uppity, they got chucked. Siegel stayed in the industry and eventually had to work for DC again as just another scripter, while Shuster, eyesight failing, went to work for the post office and eventually was discovered almost broke and living in obscurity. With the success of the seventies movies DC was shamed into giving them some compensation, but as Dirk Deppey says, that original deal was a refutation of the American Dream:
I wish I could remember where I read it — I’m tempted to credit either Neal Adams or R. Fiore — but one of the most damning things I ever read about the Siegel and Shuster legacy was that it was a refutation of the American Dream. One of the defining principles of the United States, after all, has always been the notion that regardless of the circumstances from which you began in life, if you came up with the right idea or hit the right motherlode you would profit from it accordingly, and pass the wealth along to your family when you died. I don’t know if the “rags to riches” story was invented by an American, but it was almost certainly perfected by one.
The story of how Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster brought Superman to DC Comics, and how DC subsequently treated them, turns this notion on its head. $130 and a job — that’s what Siegel and Shuster got, and they only had the latter so long as they were willing to play ball. And when Siegel and Shuster did try to better their circumstances, they were quickly shown the door. Jerry Siegel found himself crawling back to DC Comics, writing for their mediocre wages in the 1950s and 1960s, his most famous creation published with no credit for its author and no compensation for its success. Joe Shuster found himself working for the Post Office, unable to draw due to his failing eyesight and drawing no income for the legendary work that he’d done decades before.