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Updated 1/24/2009 |
| With America's
entrance into World War II in December 1941, the Superman feature,
like the rest of the country, was changed irretrievably. Editorially,
the strip was placed into the hands of Jack Schiff, who took a much greater
interest in controlling what was published than his predeccessors,
Murray Boltionoff and Mort Weisinger, had done. Jerry Siegel, Superman's
creator and sole writer to that point, was drafted in early 1943.
Stories by other writers, notably Don Cameron and Bill Finger, and somewhat
later, Alvin Schwartz, appeared. The newspaper strip was taken over
by Editor-In-Chief Whitney Ellsworth (later assisted by Schwartz).
Art wise, Leo Nowak and John Sikela were both drafted, with their last stories appearing in early 1943. Sikela was to return after the war, but Nowak went on to work in advertising and teaching. Wayne Boring continued to produce the newspaper version, but new assistants were needed to help turn out the flow of Superman pages for the comic books. |
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"Case of the Camera Curse" |
| Jack Burnley (b. 1911) was the first outside artist directly in the company's employ to work on Superman. After working on special advertising material, he began with the story in World's Fair Comics #2. Then he took over Action Comics from September to April 1941(28-34), after which he took over the daily comic strip. | Jack was clearly a superior draughtsman to anybody who had worked on the strip before. Thus he was often assigned to do covers, succeeding Fred Ray with Superman 19. He left the Superman strip to work on his own comic book feature, Starman, which appeared in Adventure Comics beginning in April 1941. From 1944-46 he pencilled the Batman Sunday page and, for a time in 1944, was pencilling both the Batman and Superman Sunday pages. He left DC in 1947 to return to sports cartooning.. |
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| Fred
Ray (b 1922)
began pencilling Superman
covers with Supeman's Christmas Adventure in 1940 and began doing the regular
book with Superman #9 in Fall 1940. Probably his most
famous
Superman cover was the American shield and eagle cover from
Superman#14.
His only complete Superman story appeared in Superman 25, "I Sustain the Wings" December 1943, written by Mort Weisinger directly for the US Military was a piece of war propaganda. |
Ray's major contribution
to Superman (other than spectacular art) was a new design for the "S" symbol
which has come to be synonymous with the Golden Age Superman.
Besides his Superman work, Fred also took over the art and writing on Congo Bill when it moved to Action Comics in in June 1941. After the war, Ray concentrated on western themed adventures, mostly Tomahawk |
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| Pete
Riss (1906?-62?) long thought to have worked on only one
Superman story, has now been identified by Joe Desris as the
artist on 5 stories, all produced in a very short period of time in 1943.
The most famous of these is probably "Meet the Squiffles", a Jerry Siegel
penned story about an Imp from another dimension named Ixnayalpay and his
effect on Adolph Hitler. He may possibly have also done a short stint
on the daily newspaper strip.
Riss had a slick crisp inking style reminiscent of Jack Burnley. He had a unique habit of drawing Superman flying with his knee pulled up so high it almost obscurred his chest symbol. See the middle panel in the bottom tier in the example above. |
Riss got around. He worked for Fawcett, Standard, Quality, Prize, Street and Smith and Marvel at various times during the forties. His biggest claims to fame were a long run on Kid Eternity from 1946-9 as well as Hopalong Cassidy from 1948-51 and even Millie the Model from 1947-9. . |
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| George Roussos from Superman 23 "Habitual Homicide" by Jerry Siegel, July 1943 | Joe Samachson and George Roussos- Airwave- Detective Comics 79 "The Tenderfoot Gets Tough" Sept 1943 |
| George Roussos (1920-2000) began his comics career in 1940, inking, lettering and doing backgrounds on Batman. Not content to work on one strip, Roussos' inks ended up all over the place in the early forties, including Captain America. He worked closely with Jerry Robinson, and later Mort Meskin, He worked on Nightro, the Black Terror and the Green Hornet, as well as DC strips Airwave, Vigilante, and Johnny Quick. He also put in stints on the famous EC horror titles and drew a huge quantity of educational and promotional comics. He continued to work in comics up until his death, including long stints at DC and Marvel as a colorist. | Often called, "Inky", Roussos' trademarks include huge full moons, and moody night scenes. His backgrounds often consist totally of shadows with the objects casting them only implied. In addition to his Batman duties, George was one of the main Superman inkers during the war and for some years thereafter, his work often being mistaken for Ed Dobrotka, or Stan Kaye. His Superman pencil jobs are often mistakenly attributed to Sam Citron or Ed Dobrotka. He is currently considered the most likely artist of the Superboy stories of 1947-49. |
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| Ira Yarbrough (1911-83) worked closely with Joe Shuster, sometimes over his layouts, sometimes on his own. His work first appears in Action Comics 63 in August 1943, in a Don Cameron written story "When Stars Collide". Yarbrough's style was heavily comical, vaguely reminiscent of Al Capp's stuff from "L'il Abner". It fit in with the lighter tone being pushed, possibly as an antidote to somber war news. He was the perfect artist to be entrusted with the introduction of Mr Mxyztplk, shown here from Superman 30, September 1944. Notice Yarbrough's unique flying stance with both of Superman's arms curled above his head. | Yarbrough
usually did not ink his own pencils, as editor Jack Schiff was apparently
trying to bring the inking in house in order to apply a more consistent
style to the strip.
George Roussos became the inker of choice
in this era.
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| Stan Kaye, on the other hand, made Yarbrough's art even more cartoony than it was already. Whereas Roussos's rendering could seem stiff and overdone, Kaye inked with blissful abandon. Notice the skyscrapers in panel 4 were done without using a straige edge. | Roussos skyscrapers on the other hand, looked like architect's drawings. Notice the use of shadows to imply windows. Roussos' windows almost never actually had glass in them. |
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Superman 29 (July -August 1944) |
| Ed Dobrotka (1917-77) continued to produce artwork throughout the war, mostly pencilling. | He did about half of the solo 4 page Lois Lane stories that appeared during this time, most written by DC Editor-in-Chief Whitney Ellsworth. These allowed him to shine forth with his gift for comical faces and caricature. He also co-created the Toyman in Action 64, along with writer Don Cameron. Dobrotka also worked for Quality Comics where he got to indulge his comic side more uninhibitedly. |
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| Sam Citron began drawing Superman with "America's Secret Weapon" in Superman 23 Jul 1943. This was another of those patriotic war stories which purported to show why Superman left the war to normal American's while he concentrated on petty crime on the home front. Citron's art seemed anemic when compared with the muscle bound versions of Superman being pumped out by all the other ghosts. | His version of Luthor appeared absolutely skeletal. Still, he had a good touch for Lois Lane. A recently discovered letter from Whitney Ellsworth to Jerry Siegel, dated Nov 12, 1942 indicates Citron worke directly for DC and began ghosting Siegel's Robotman before Ellsworth moved him to Superman. Ellsworth notes that Citron worked with Don Komisarow on that strip, although this is certainly not Komisarow's inking on either sample below. Sam left Superman in 1946 and went on to draw Mr. District Attorney and other crime comics for DC and later drew horror/mystery stories for the American Comics Group.. |
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| Dick Sprang had been stockpiling Batman stories for almost 3 years, as the publisher was guarding against the possibility Bob Kane might me drafted. His Batman work finally began appearing in August 1943. | Somewhere in that period Sprang must have been handed a Superman script to see what he could do. Sprang's next solo Superman story wouldn't appear until the late 1950's. |
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| Joe Shuster also continued to produce artwork throughout the war, although his art is often hard to identify due to his great reliance on assistants to finish off rough pencil layouts. Some stories he's definitely been identified as pencilling include "The Inventions of Hector Thwistle" In Superman 43 and "Hocus and Pocus: Magicians By Accident" in Action Comics 83, April 1945, both written by Jerry Siegel and probably inked and finished by George Roussos. | His main contribution during this period was the launching of the Superboy strip in More Fun Comics 101 in January 1945. |
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Jon Small (-1966) was born in England and came to America in the mid-thirties. He returned to England in the mid-fifties. In between he worked for a number of comics publishers, drawing Bulletman for Fawcett and the Green Hornet for Hillman. He took over the Star Spangled Kid from Hal Sherman in 1944 and also did the 7 Soldiers of Victory for a short time. He appears to have drawn at least one Superman story. |
In the Fifties, Small moved to Dell where he drew the Lone Ranger for a number of years. |
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| John Sikela (1907-98) returned to Superman in late 1946. He rejoined the Shuster shop and worked with them on the development of Superboy before the entire shop left to start the Funnyman strip in 1948. | Unlike before the war, Sikela's later Superman stories were inked by the standard Roussos/Kaye duo. |
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