Origin of Lois Lane's Name (New, unhijacked thread)

Cafe Society
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In the thread Sky Captain–Not Based on a Comic, right? we got into a hijack that I’d like to continue here.

The last post in that thread starts like this:

That was on April 27. By an extremely odd coincidence I was talking to Goulart the very next day. However, this was at the Ellery Queen Centenary Symposium at Columbia so we talked about mysteries, not comics. It didn’t occur to me to ask him about this. [BTW, Columbia’s Rare Book Room on the 6th floor of the Butler Library has a fantastic Ellery Queen exhibit, with every book, all the early magazines, and dozens of original manuscripts.]

Back to Goulart. Does he indeed claim this? He has dozens of books on comics history out, but frankly he’s made a career out of rewriting the same book. The one I have is Ron Goulart’s Great History of Comic Books from 1986. This claims a Doc Savage influence on Clark and notes that Doc’s first name was Clark, but says nothing about Lois Lane at all. Goulart may say this in another book. If so, please provide the cite.

My Sterankos must be packed away with my comic books. Please cite there as well.

That’s a good point. I know that some of the original strip panels exist but they don’t seem to be in any book I have handy.

On the other hand, I can respond with this quote from Les Daniels’ Superman: The Complete History:

The new Superman scenario was in 1934, following the earlier “The Reign of the Superman” in which Supe was a bald Luthor-like villain.

Daniels may just be making the assumption that this early Lois was also named Lane, but his statement seems stronger than that to me.

Years? Margo Lane was created for the Shadow radio show. She wasn’t in the pulps. The show debuted in 1937. I don’t have any evidence that Margo Lane was in the show right from the beginning, but let’s assume she was. Even if we do we know that S&S repaginated their newspaper strip and sent it to Major Nicholson in the fall of 1937. This makes it a chronological possibility that an unnamed or differently-named Lois was named for Margo but a) there’s not the slightest evidence that Lois was anything but Lane at this point and b) it’s a matter of months at the most.

This is folk etymology at its finest. As far as I can see, you’ve decided that it just all sounds too good not to be true. But where is your actual evidence?

Don’t forget, S&S were taking their names from movie stars. From IMDb I can find in a couple minutes of searching, actresses named Nora Lane and Lola Lane (who had singing-partner and occasional actress sisters, Priscilla Lane, Rosemary Lane, and Leota Lane), and actor Lupino Lane, all of whom were active in movies in 1934. And that’s not including many more silent movie actors that the boys would have been familiar with. Lane doesn’t appear to be that uncommon a name, and it also has the virtue of starting with L, which we know they liked. (There was a Lois Long who graduated from their high school in 1933, who could have been an influence.)

None of this is hard, solid proof. But we know that S&S drew upon their high school friends for characters, and that, according to Siegel himself, both the names Clark and Kent had movie origins.

Of course, if anyone has a cite that shows that Lois didn’t have a last name or had a different last name prior to Action #1, that’s entirely different. But “it might be, I want it to be, it should be, and therefore it is” ain’t no more than folk etymology. We need better proof.

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I’m bumping this in the hopes that CalMeacham or some other comic history buff sees it. Hey, Fenris where are you?

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Thanks for the response.

Ahhh – this is the difference between us. I take it that he’s saying that the character of Lois Lane was there since the beginning, not that he’s saying anything at all about the name.

My point is that the Generally Accepted Wisdom with several folks has been that Lois got her name from Margo. That may or may not be true, but Margo was demonstrably there since 1937 at least. I haven’t come across any evidence that Superman’s girlfriend’s name was even written down before his first appearance, let alone what it was. daniels’ book notes a childhood heartthrob of S&S named “Lois”, and if her last name were anything like “Lane” it might be important, but it’s not. The bottom line is that nothing you’ve provided would tend to make me change my view that there’s a ggood chance Lois got her last name from Margo.
The issue of Doc Savage is not out of place here, since the question of whether or not Clark Kent got his first name from Clark Savage brought up Lois in the first place.

There are quite a few resemblances between Doc and Supes, and S&S were serious fanboys, so I’m sure they were aware of them. (They reviewed Wylie’s book Gladiator in their fanzine, which seems to buttress the case that the book was a big influence on the development of Supernman.)

It’s not juast the coincidence of the first names. Both were exceptionally strong and gifted sons of super-scientists.
More to the point, the ads for Doc Savage magazine that appeared in the pulps had, in great big letters across the top of the page:

SUPERMAN!

(It didn’t even say “Doc Savage” in big letters anywhere near this. Steranko’s book reproduces the ad.)

Also, let us not forget that Doc Savage was The Man of Bronze. Is it at all possible that S&S didn’t take their Man of Steel line from this, with added one-upmanship?

(Doc Savage also had a “Fortress of Solitude” retreat in the Arctic, but IIRC, Superman didn’t incorporate that into his mythology until much later, so it’s not relevant here.)
So if Doc Savage inspired Superman with his advertising title, epithet, and parentage, why wouldn’t he get the name from there, as well.
Yeah, I know Daniels explains it in terms of another schoolmate, but this seems a great deal more direct.

This is all like critiquing the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Works of Shakespeare, based on their styles. Nothing here will stand up in court. But to my way of thinking there’s a lot here to imply that Lois and Superman borrowed their attributes from existing pulp characters.

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This site:

states that

(bolding mine)
Accorduing to this site:

http://www.otal.umd.edu/~vg/amst205.S97/vj05/project4.html

although The Shadow first appeared on the radio in 1930 (predating the pulps – The Shadow was “born” on the radio), his first real series ran in 1932. There was another series in 1934-5. even if the above site is mistaken about whether Margo was born on the 1930, 1932, or 1034-5 series, it’s pretty clear that she existed well before 1937.

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Interesting site: This one lists all the radio adventures:

http://www.shadowsanctum.net/radio/radio_es.html

But has no details from pre-1937. Some sites claim that there was no “character” to the Shadow on radio prior to 1937, that he was simply a narrator. But that contradicts the first site in my last post, which indicates real plays from 1932-1935.

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This site claims Moorehead’s appearance in September 1937 was the first appearance of Margo Lane:

http://soonershadowsotr.250free.com/sooner_shadows_otr_003.htm

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We know from S&S personally how big an influence Wylie’s Gladiator was and I’m sure that Doc Savage was an influence as well, although Dent’s description of his character is not that much like the early Superman:

This doesn’t help us with Lois’ origin, though. You want me to believe that S&S created a new version of Superman in 1934 and started sending it to every newspaper syndication service in the country in 1936 (and some comic book ones as well), with a character named Lois who somehow didn’t have a last name until after September 1937? That’s a lot to swallow. How could a proposal not list all the major characters and what their names were? If Lois weren’t Lane don’t you think someone would have mentioned that fact before now?

Or have they? You cited Goulart and Steranko on the subject, but none of your replies have quoted what they actually said. Generally Accepted Wisdom is just another name for folk etymology. Take a look at these recent threads for how unutterably dumb folk etymology can be. It makes a great story to have Lois Lane named after the female in the Superman-like Shadow, but you’ve said nothing yet that makes me want to jump that yawning chasm between it might be and it is.

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I haven’t been able to cite anything, because I wrote in from work. An I don’t have a copy of any of Goulart’s books even at home.

Now, now, don’t go putting words in peoples’ mouth.

As far as I can see, my case is on firner ground – I can cite the appearance of Margo Lan from 1937, and possibly earlier, depending upon wich of those websites if any) is correct. You still haven;t been able to produce anything t show that Superman’s lady was called Lois Lane before 1938.

I have no idea what or how S&S shopped around their idea before it finally got published – none of the books I’ve rad, t my recollection, say. I don’t know if detaled proposals such as we use today were necessary – I doubt it. But the point is that I don’t know which name they had in there. You don’t, eitherm, apparently. But that doesn’t mean it was “Lois Lane” Heck, I can show you plenty of drafts of stories I’ve written where the names change drastically over time.

Again, thi isn’t me being snarky - Oh, yeah, well, it doesn’t explicitly say she was Lois, so therefore she couldn’t have been". We’e looking at claim of precedence, and s evidence counts. It’s usual for names to be amorphous during the creative stage. So far, all you’ve shown is a hopeful interpretation in Daniels’ book. Wishful thinking is no better than folk etymlogy.

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What I have on my side is two historians - Dennis Dooley and Les Daniels - both saying that Lois Lane was there from the beginning. Not Lois, still without a last name, or Lois, whose name in the beginning was Ratzinger, or Lois, who was to go through many versions. Lois Lane.

This is negative evidence rather than positive, but still worth something. Heck, it’s a hundred times stronger than most of the evidence put forth in the “Did Jesus Exist?” threads. :smiley:

But the ball’s in your court, so I’ll give you a chance to look up some cites. While you do that I’m pretty sure there’s evidence out there about S&S’s newspaper proposals, so I want to try to track that down in a library.

If these books weren’t so frickin’ expensive, I’d own a lot more of them.

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Read yer copy of Daniels again. He doesn’t say “Lois Lane” was there from the beginning.
But if we disagree over the interpretation of this passage I doubt if we’ll ever have agreement.

Dooley I haven’t read.

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??? " She was apparently part of this newest Superman scenario from the beginning, and her name was Lois Lane."

Now I’m off to the library.

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But, as I’ve already said above:

Don’t read into an intro to the appearance a character more than it is meant to. This is the line Daniels uses to start talking about Lois Lane, so he names her there. I seriously doubt if he meant it to be a chronological statement about her name.

[Inigo Montoya] That line – I do not think it means what you think it means[/Inigo Montoya]

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The library was a waste of time. I have more books on Superman’s history than they do. And Men of Tomorrow, which might have something on the subject, was out.

However, I found the Smoking Gun. I found the full 1983 NEMO interview online. Page 8 has a link to their 1934 version of Superman, the one I’ve been referring to all this time as the origin. Look at page 20 of The Superman Newspaper Adventures (written and drawn in 1934, published 1939)
© 1934 Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Lois Lane is mentioned by that name.

Lois was always Lois Lane, from that first moment of inspiration. Unless and until you can supply a cite that shows that Margo Lane existed before the 1937 version of the Shadow radio show, I hope you will be properly groveling in your apologies. :smiley:

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I’ve got to say I’m disappointed, Cal. You’ve been all over the boards since I posted this and not an acknowledgment of this thread, Honestly, I had thought better of you.

Overall, though, this thread is a perfect example of the problems with folk etymology. Working backward is exactly the wrong way to approach origins. We look at the past with modern eyes, and pick out those aspects of the world that still seem meaningful to us today. It seems obvious to us that someone influenced by comics would use the name of the girl/love interest/sidekick from a contemporary famous comic-style program, just as it seems obvious to us that the name of the hero would be similarly taken from other pulp influences.

But that’s completely contrary to the way that creators work, especially in the days before postmodern referential naming became the norm. While S&S may have adapted some aspects of their character from earlier influences, the very last thing they would do would be take those names as well. Names are personal and meaningful. We should automatically doubt any suggestion that the names Clark Kent and Lois Lane came from the pulps. In fact, the names came out of the personal lives of the creators, exactly as we should have suspected all along.

IOW, it’s not true that the Whole Nine Yards came from the nine yards of fabric Ma Kent used to sew Superman’s cape. :slight_smile:

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I’ve been gone all weekend, and I haven’t seen this thread among anhything recent. You, of all people should beware of the consequences of jumping to conclusions.

I’ll have a look at that when time permits, but may I say, congratulations upon an excellent piece of research.

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I’ve looked over the link, and it does indeed say “drawn 1934”. I note, however, that the Les Daniel book you’ve been citing (and which seems to have the imprimatur of DC) seems to think that these panelswere drawn in 1939 (see pages 37 and 42): “Siegel and Schuster had the opportunity to improve on this sketchy scenario [Superman’s life and stuation as depicted in Action comics] in just a few months [after the publication of Superman’s appearance in Action Comics], when they realized their dream of seeig Superman appear in a nationally syndicated newspaper strip. A daily black and white strip made its debut on January 16, 1939…” The same pages as n the site you give appear on pages 38-40, with “copyright 1939” on them. Nowhere in the book (which was published in 1998, like the Arlen Schumer article you cite) is it stated or implied that these had any existence before 1939. So where did Schumer get this information?

None of my books is any help. Steranko’s book reprints the newspper strips ith the 1939 copyright date, but you’d expect that, since that’s when they were published. None of the thers suggests anything different for the drawing date, but they wouldn’t be expected to.
The Schumer article does unequivocally state that:

and in the Nemo interview Siegel does say that he drew strips that in 1934 became Action Comics #1 (not, I notice, the newspaper comic)
Schumer seems a respected figure, and Bob Hughes (on the next page from the Schumer article – http://theages.superman.ws/History/VersionI.php --) says the same thing. So how come Daniels, with access to the folks at DC, their libraries, and previously unpublished material from Siegel and Schuster doesn’t know about this? I’ve read the story about Siegel creating ideas in th dead of night and contacting chuster, but no one before has claimed tha those actual sketches became the later published newspaper strip. I know – I’ve checked my library. CalMacham is suspicious.

Nevertheless, Schumer’s name carries clout, so I’ll provisionally accept this. And, again, congratulations on findin this.

I’m annoyed, and insulted, at your calling my arguments “folk etymology”. I agree wholeheartedly with Stephen Jay Gould’s ditum to try and go to the original source wherever possible.

I’d argue that what I do is not folk etymology, since I do try to get the best data possible. But I can as easily argue that not having the original strips places us at least a step from that, so that uncertainty can creep in. One problem with trying to be a know-it-all is that, of course, I don’t know it all, and sometimes you have to rel on the bes available evidence, which is, indeed, what I did. Various sources said that Lois got her name from Margo, and nothing I had ruled that out. In fact, it made it plausible. Your claim that it did not flew in the face of that, and I therefore looked for any evidence that you provided against that. For all your fireworks, you really didn’t provide anything until the Schumer article that supported your case. And when you intially argued that Lois did not get her name from Margo, you were pleased to present a webpage that dated Margo Lane from 1941, which is easily shown to be incorrect. That’s incorrect, and just as much folk etymology.

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Bump

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The 1939 copyright is easily explained. At the time, copyright was established at the time of publication, not at the time of creation as in today’s law. You could not cite a 1934 copyright earlier. Today’s law appears to treat previously unpublished works with a copyright status as if published currently.

As for the rest of it, I don’t understand your claims. I copied that quote out of the Daniels book at the library so I can’t check the page numbers. But I found I do have Daniels’ Superman: The Golden Age (1999), which appears to have almost identical text in this section.

This repeats the claim, made everywhere, that Siegel worked the whole thing out in 1934.

They didn’t like his offer and kept trying. They visited M. C. Gaines with the Superman strip in late 1937.

Now Lois.

You’ll note that this may give you ammunition for a later date for Lois. But there’s an explanation for this as well. The original panels drawn in 1934 would indeed be used directly for the newspaper comic strip that started in 1939. But not so for the comic book.
So why is the first Superman story different from those panels?

So, here’s the chronology as given by Daniels, which agrees with the chronology by Dooley and every other historian I’ve checked into.

  1. Superman strip invented and feverishly drawn by S&S.

1934-1936. Superman strip shopped around to both comic book and comic strip syndicates, with no good offers. S&S invent and sell several other comics.

  1. This year, or possibly earlier, Joanne Carter hired as model. Her image used in future years as Shuster revises his work and improves as an artist.

  2. The strip is sent to DC, accepted, redrawn for the comics page, and published in Action Comics.

  3. Superman comic strip debuts, starting with original panels.

On folk etymology. Just as you thought that the Margo Lane story sounded plausible, I just as immediately thought it sounded false. To me it always sounded like a back formation from modern thought. I did have what I considered to be evidence: quotes from both Dooley and Daniels saying exactly the same thing in almost the same words as the Schumer quote you accepted. It’s been known since forever that S&S shopped their Superman strip around for years and nobody had ever, at any time, said anything except that Lois was around from the beginning as Lois Lane.

Despite the heat, this has been a model of argument over evidence and proof. Both sides presented a hypothesis, both gave quotations from historians and primary sources where possible, and both examined the value of the other side’s evidence to ensure its fitness. The trivialness of the underlying issue isn’t important; it just makes it a better test case with the ability to examine all of the available evidence. I was pretty sure I had remember seeing the answer earlier, but that obviously had no weight if I couldn’t reproduce it now when it counted.

It’s been fun, if occasionaly frustrating.