Superman Logs: Superman creators

Jerry Siegel

Jerry Siegal was born in Cleveland, Ohio, USA on October 17, 1914. His birth name was Jerome Siegal. His parent ran a small men's clothing store. He first met Joe Shuster when they were both 16 at Glenville High School.

Joe Shuster

Joe Shuster was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on July 10, 1914. When he was 10 years old, he and his parents moved to Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He worked while going to school selling newspapers and working at a sign painting shop. He won a scholarship to Cleveland School of Art and also had nigth classes at another local art school. He first met Jerry Siegel when they were both 16 at Glenville High School.

Personality of Clark Kent is based on the personalities Siegal and Shuster. Both Siegal and Shuster wore glasses, were mild mannered, were extremely sly with women. A potental future job goal for Siegal was newspaper reporter. Siegal had crushes several girls who did not knowledge his existence.

Siegal and Schuster created Superman in 1934.

The name Clark Kent is the combinaion of several actor names. The first name Clark is from the first name of actor Clark Gable. The last name is from the first name of actor Kent Taylor.

Lois Lane was named after Lois Amster. Joe Shuster had a crush on her when he was in high school.

The name of the city Metropolis is from title of Fritz Lang's 1927 classic film about a city of the future.

When Superman was submitted to McClure Syndicate in 1937, Sheldon Mayer who was a 20 years old cartoonist, editor, and writer for McClure recommend to his boss Maxwell Charles Gains sent Superman to DC Comics. Mayer heard DC was looking for a new character for Action Comics. Gains in 1939 started producing comics books series of other superheroes for DC Comics with Mayer as his editor.

DC was first comic book publisher to produce comics books with only original material. Comic books by most other publisher were only reprints from other newspapers comic strips but some publishers included original content with the reprints. McClure was one of the publisher that included original material when reprints.

Siegel and Shuster secceeded to sell Superman to DC for DC's new Action Comics in 1938. They signed away all rights to Superman for only $130 and agreed for the next 10 years to work exclusively for DC.

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Burton Craddock
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