astro
April 15, 2009, 8:32pm
1
Kind of interesting . The most interesting part of the letters is where he’s threatening the creators of Superman with being fired if they keep pressing for more pay.
The documents 2.8 meg PDF
Documents released during the ongoing case between the families of Superman’s creators and DC Comics reveal a little-seen history where Lois was too sexy and the Man of Steel maybe a little too gay.
The documents in question: correspondence between Detective Comics (now DC Comics) and Jerry Siegel from 1939 through 1947, entered into evidence as part of DC’s attempt to establish that all the work done by Siegel & Shuster during that time was work for hire. The case still has a while to percolate — the judge has postponed the hearing on unresolved trademark/copyright issues until September 15 — but the material itself is a gold mine for folks interested in comics history.
As the papers reveal, early in the history of Superman, co-creator and artist Joe Shuster was warned to tone down his depiction of Lois Lane by his editor Whitney Ellsworth, and make her less sexy. It was a warning that the artist chose to ignore for months, apparently, causing Ellsworth made an argument that seems shocking even almost seventy years later. Shuster’s Lois was so “unpleasantly sexy” that her pulchritude made her seem a bit too heavy–a problem for which Ellsworth and Murray Boltinoff had an easy solution:
And the criticism didn’t stop there; editorial also had problems with her hair style and her clothing,
…which looked like you have apparently dressed her out of a Montgomery Ward catalogue. [Jack Liebowitz] suggests Vogue, Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar as likelier spots for dress-research.
Noelq
April 15, 2009, 8:52pm
2
Damn! That is some awesome stuff! You’d get sued into oblivion for some of the letters that went back and forth, but they’re darn entertaining.
Thanks for posting that!