Joe Shuster
Cleveland airport display to celebrate city as Superman’s birthplace
An artist's rendition of what the Superman display might look like
If everything goes as planned, by this summer visitors arriving in Cleveland by plane will be greeted by a display marking the city as the birthplace of Superman.
The Plain Dealer reports Cleveland City Council was expected last night to approve a proposal by the Siegel and Shuster Society to install a permanent display in Cleveland Hopkins International Airport honoring the Man of Steel and his creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who dreamed up the superhero as teenagers living in the city’s Glenville neighborhood.
The display, which is expected to cost between $40,000 and $50,000, would include a larger-than-life statue of Superman, facts about his creation and related sightseeing information, all under the familiar logo and the words “Greater Cleveland’s Greatest Hero” and “Did You Know Superman Was Born in Cleveland?”
An anonymous donor has already given $5,000 toward the project, and organizers hope to raise more from Superman fans. Donations can be sent to: The Siegel and Shuster Society, 7100 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, Ohio, 44103.
- January 24, 2012 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Nicolas Cage’s copy of Action Comics #1 sells for record $2.16 million
A near-mint copy of Action Comics #1 owned by actor Nicolas Cage sold at auction tonight for a record $2.16 million.
Graded at 9.0, the rare 1938 comic easily surpassed the previous record of $1.5 million set in March 2010 for the same issue, featuring the first appearance of Superman. That copy was graded slightly lower, at 8.5.
Vincent Zurzolo, chief operating officer of ComicConnect/Metropolis Collectibles, told Comic Riffs that the issue that sold this evening — bidding closed at 7:25 p.m. ET — is the best copy of Action Comics he’s ever seen.
“The buyer was extremely excited about the prospect of bidding on this,” he said. “I think he had an adrenalin rush for the last two hours.”
The comic was stolen from Cage’s Los Angeles home in 2000, and discovered in April by an unidentified man who claims to have bought the contents of an abandoned San Fernando Valley, California, storage locker. Although Zurzolo wouldn’t reveal the comic’s previous owner, he did confirm that his company played a role in its recovery.
About 100 copies of Action Comics #1 are believed to exist, but only a handful of those are in good condition.
- November 30, 2011 @ 06:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Superman thief sentenced to six years in prison
Mike Meyer
The Illinois man who stole thousands of dollars worth of Superman memorabilia from a mentally disabled collector in late August has been sentenced to six years in prison.
The Belleville News Democrat reports that Gerry Armbruster, 38, pleaded guilty today to stealing the collection from Mike Meyer and assaulting and robbing an elderly man. Armbruster befriended Meyer, a 48-year-old man who lives on Social Security and works part-time at McDonald’s, before swindling him out of more than 1,800 Superman comics, figures and other memorabilia he’d been collecting since 1974.
News of the theft drew worldwide attention, with fans and creators from as far away as Australia and the United Kingdom rallying to replace Meyer’s stolen items.
Police arrested Armbruster in mid-September while investigating the forcible robbery of money and jewelry from a 76-year-old man, and were able to recover Meyer’s collection. The grateful fan, who lives with his dogs Krypto and Dyno, pledged to give the donated memorabilia to charity. “People were generous to me,” he said at the time. “This is how I can be generous in return.”
Armbruster’s sentencing comes as Meyer is on vacation in Cleveland, birthplace of Superman, courtesy of Carol & John’s Comic Book Shop. He and Keith Howard, who organized the effort to replace the stolen items, visited the former home of Jerry Siegel on Monday, and today toured area comic shops, where they received gift certificates. Their trip will conclude tonight with a party at Carol & John’s.
“I feel like I’m connected with Siegel and Shuster,” Meyer told the Plain Dealer from the living room of the Siegel house, “a piece of history was created here.”
- November 15, 2011 @ 01:50 PM by Kevin Melrose
Warner Bros. lawsuit against Superman attorney can continue
A federal judge has refused to dismiss Warner Bros.’ lawsuit against the attorney representing the heirs of Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Variety reports.
The studio filed a 65-page complaint in May 2010 accusing Marc Toberoff, its longtime legal nemesis, of orchestrating “a web of collusive agreements” that led the Siegel family to reject “mutually beneficial” longtime deals with DC Comics and seek to recapture copyright to the Man of Steel. The lawsuit, which hinges on documents stolen from Toberoff’s office and delivered anonymously to Warner Bros., is designed to force him to resign as the lawyer for the Siegels, who in 2008 successfully terminated the original 1938 transfer of copyright for Action Comics #1. The window will open in 2013 for Shuster’s estate to do the same.
Toberoff filed a motion in August 2010 to dismiss the studio’s complaint under California anti-SLAPP laws designed to curb lawsuits intended to intimidate the opposition through delays and legal expense.
However, U.S. District Judge Otis Wright ruled Toberoff had failed to demonstrate that his role as attorney for the Siegel and Shuster heirs is protected under the California statutes. Wright specifically cited a business deal Toberoff struck with the Shuster estate that he characterized as “not an agreement for the provision of legal services, but one concerning the exploitation of Joe Shuster’s creations.” That’s presumably a reference to an arrangement that Warner Bros. charged would give Toberoff and his companies “a controlling financial interest in the families’ collective claims — leaving him as the largest financial stakeholder” in the Man of Steel.
- October 26, 2011 @ 06:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
Check DC wrote in 1938 for rights to Superman goes up for auction
Characterized by Matt Fraction as “the most important $412 dollars in comics history,” the check written to a young Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, in part, for the rights to Superman, has surfaced among the items for an upcoming auction.
“Have you ever made a business decision that haunted you?” writer Gerry Duggan tweeted Monday, pointing to images of the check. “This piece of true comics history will make you feel better.”
Indeed that check, written March 1, 1938, by Detective Comics Publisher Jack Liebowitz, has been key to several legal and moral disputes, the first beginning barely a year after its signing. (Bleeding Cool notes an April 6, 1939, stamp on the back for the U.S. District Court of New York, suggesting it was entered as evidence in DC’s copyright-infringement lawsuit against Bruns Publications over the Will Eisner-created Wonder Man.)
- October 25, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | Justice League second printing allocated, pushed back
Justice League #1 (Second Printing)
Publishing | DC Comics will allocate the second printing of Justice League #1, with retailers receiving 32 percent of their orders, which now won’t ship until Sept. 21, the same day the third printing will be released. ICv2 reports some stores are concerned that potential new readers drawn in by the publisher’s promotional campaign for the New 52 won’t understand the two-week wait to pick up a copy of the comic. The website also runs down the list of cable television shows during which DC’s New 52 commercial is airing. [ICv2.com]
Passings | Comic Art Community reports that artist Dave Hoover passed away earlier this week. Hoover, who drew runs of Captain America and Starman in the 1990s, more recently worked on Zenescope’s Charmed comic. Before working in comics, Hoover was an animator, working on Flash Gordon, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, She-Ra: Princess of Power, The Super Friends, The Smurfs and many more in the 1970s and 1980s. [Comic Art Community]
- September 8, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Balloonless: Siegel and Shuster’s Funnyman: The First Jewish Superhero
For much of the still-being-written history of comics, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s Funnyman has been something of a footnote, usually mentioned as one more sad detail in the sad story of the two creators who fathered the superhero genre, and the medium and industry that genre carried for a while.
Funnyman, their creator-owned follow-up to Superman after their falling out with National, the company that became DC Comics, is generally seen as an example of how hard it is to catch lightning in a bottle a second time.
Writers Thomas Andrae and Mel Gordon have taken up that footnote and expanded on it like never before, focusing on an aspect of the creators’ careers that could use the focus in their 2010 book Siegel and Shuster’s Funnyman: The First Jewish Superhero.
The sub-title suggests a thesis that I’m not entirely sure the book itself supports, and I’m even less sure that’s where the ultimate value of the book lies (particularly to an audience like us).
The book is sectioned off into articles by the authors and reprints and summaries of Funnyman comic book stories and comic strip stories. Mel Gordon’s “The Farblondjet Superhero and his Cultural Origins” notes that the fourth issue of Funnyman was released the same week the state of Israel was declared in 1948, claiming the hero was a perfect one for the time of immense Jewish anxiety.
From their he launches into a relatively long history of Jewish comedy (35 pages of a 185-page book), including discussion of various out-dated theories as to why the Jewish people have come to be regarded as a more humorous people than other groups, and then a brisk but thorough recounting of their traditions of humor and their interface with pop culture through the dawn of Golden Age Hollywood.
Continue Reading »
- August 25, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by J. Caleb Mozzocco
Siegel & Shuster Society campaigns for Superman license plates
The Siegel & Shuster Society's concept of what the Superman plate might look like
A Cleveland group dedicated to celebrating the city as the “Birthplace of Superman” is leading a campaign to get the familiar “S” insignia emblazoned on Ohio specialty license plates.
The Plain Dealer reports that the nonprofit Siegel & Shuster Society, founded in 2008 to commemorate the creation of the Man of Steel in the city’s Glenville neighborhood by a teenage Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, has to collect 500 names on a petition as the first step toward the plate. A state senator has agreed to propose the plate in the Ohio legislature once the signatures are gathered.
The organization hopes to have the plates available by 2013, the 75th anniversary of Superman’s debut in Action Comics #1. Specialty plates, sold by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, typically cost anywhere between $25 and $35 more than standard plates. A portion of sales would go to the Siegel & Shuster Society to fund Superman projects.
- July 27, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Quote of the day | Grant Morrison on Siegel, Shuster and Superman
Action Comics #1 by Grant Morrison and Rags Morales
[CBR:] From Siegel and Shuster through later chapters on Kirby or Jim Starlin, you cover a lot of the creative life of the people behind comics and how one informs the other, and you make some particular observations about Siegel and Shuster’s desires as artists as well as professionals. There’s so much chatter over the lawsuits over Superman and what not, but for you, did you feel like the characters transcend some of those debates on their own terms, or is that creative personality something that informs how our whole industry works even to today?
[Grant Morrison:] Well, to me it’s never been honestly what’s interesting about this stuff. I think the stories outlast all of those complications. You look at the people who created those characters, and they’re all dead. But the characters will still be around in 50 years probably – at least the best of them will. So I try not to concern myself with that. These are deals made in times before I was even born. I can say from experience that young creative people tend to sell rights to things because they want to get noticed. They want to sell their work and to be commercial. Then when they grow up and get a bit smarter, they suddenly realize it maybe wasn’t so good and that the adults have it real nice. [Laughs] But still, it’s kind of the world. I wouldn’t want to comment on that because it was something I wasn’t around for. I can’t tell why they decided to do what they did. Obviously Bob Kane came in at the same age and got a very different deal and profited hugely from Batman’s success. So who knows? They were boys of the same age, but maybe some of them were more keen to sell the rights than others. It all just takes a different business head.
– All-Star Superman and Action Comics writer Grant Morrison takes a hands-off approach to the conflict over the rights to Superman between Warner Bros. and the heirs of the character’s creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, in conversation with CBR’s Kiel Phegley. Well, sorta hands-off: First he says he’d prefer not to comment because he wasn’t there, but then he points out that Bob Kane secured a much better deal for himself (though not for Bill Finger) at around the same time.
Interestingly, even as the costume changes and potential origin tweaks of the upcoming Superman reboot leave industry observers wondering if they’re a form of insurance should WB and DC lose the Siegel/Shuster legal battle, Morrison has repeatedly gone on record saying that his new Action Comics #1 is directly inspired by Siegel & Shuster’s original, from Superman’s more limited power set to his emergence as something of a street-level social crusader to the constant sense of forward motion the young writer and artist brought to the Man of Steel’s first adventure — an adventure Morrison close-reads to insightful effect in his new book Supergods. If Morrison could once again talk to Superman about himself, what might he say about all this?
- July 21, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Comics A.M. | Marvel’s ‘fathers of invention’; Gaiman, Tan win Locus Awards
Jack Kirby
Legal | Brent Staples pens an editorial for the New York Times on the legal battle between the Jack Kirby estate and Marvel: “The Marvel editor Stan Lee sometimes offered general ideas for characters, allowing the artists to run with them. Mr. Kirby plotted stories, fleshing out characters that he had dreamed up or that he had fashioned from Mr. Lee’s sometimes vague enunciations. Mr. Lee shaped the stories and supplied his wisecrack-laden dialogue. And in the end, both men could honestly think of themselves as ‘creators.’ But Mr. Kirby, who was known as the King of Comics, was the defining talent and the driving force at the Marvel shop. Mr. Lee’s biographers have noted that the company’s most important creations started out in Mr. Kirby’s hands before being passed on to others, who were then expected to emulate his artistic style.” [New York Times]
Awards | Writer Neil Gaiman (Sandman, The Graveyard Book) and artist Shaun Tan (The Arrival, Tales from Outer Suburbia) are among the winners of the 2011 Locus Awards. Gaiman’s “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains” won for best novelette, while “The Thing About Cassandra” won best short story. Tan won for best artist. [Locus Online]
Legal | Jeff Trexler reviews the legal battle between Warner Bros. and the heirs of creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster through the filter of the Neil Gaiman/Todd McFarlane decision, where a judge ruled Gaiman has copyright interest in Medieval Spawn, Angela and other Spawn characters. [The Beat]
- June 27, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Judge grants Warner Bros. access to stolen Superman documents
Action Comics #1
A federal judge has denied an appeal by the attorney representing the heirs of Superman’s creators, clearing the way for Warner Bros. to gain access to documents the studio contends will demonstrate he “orchestrated a web of collusive agreements” that led the families to reject longtime deals with DC Comics.
The documents, which were stolen from the law offices of Marc Toberoff and delivered anonymously to Warner Bros. in December 2008. Although a judge at the time ruled that the documents were privileged and ordered them returned, it was determined that the attached seven-page cover letter was not protected by attorney-client confidentiality. That letter, dubbed the “Superman-Marc Toberoff Timeline,” became the basis for the studio’s 2010 lawsuit against the attorney, in which it claims he acted improperly to convince the heirs of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster to seek to reclaim the original copyright to the Man of Steel. Warner Bros. also alleges tht Toberoff schemed to secure for himself “a majority and controlling financial stake” in the Superman rights.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Ralph Zarefsky ruled late last month that those documents aren’t protected by attorney-client privilege because Toberoff didn’t fight a grand jury subpoena issued in the investigation of their theft, thus waiving privilege. However, the judge deferred the decision to presiding U.S. District Judge Otis Wright who, according to Hollywood, Esq., on Monday rejected Toberoff’s argument that he had no choice but to cooperate with prosecutors in the burglary investigation.
Barring another appeal, Warner Bros. will finally get unfettered access to the documents that it hopes, at the very least, will force Toberoff, long a thorn in the studio’s side, to resign as the Siegel family’s attorney. Whether the papers are the legal hand grenade that Warner Bros. attorneys have made them out to be, demonstrating improper and even illegal, behavior, of course remains to be seen. Wright could look at the evidence and decide Toberoff’s actions were merely those of an attorney aggressively soliciting clients and (just as aggressively) representing their interests.
If that’s the case, it would make this lawsuit only the latest detour in the decade-long fight for Superman — one that became even more bitter in 2008 following a ruling that Siegel’s widow Joanne Siegel and daughter Laura Siegel Larson had successfully recaptured half of the original copyright to the Man of Steel. The window will open in 2013 for Shuster’s estate to do the same.
Deadline’s Nikki Finke offers spirited commentary on the Warner Bros. lawsuit against Toberoff, focusing on the stolen documents and the studio’s controversial tactics.
- June 15, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Car damages Superman tribute fence surrounding site of Shuster home
The plates on the fence surrounding the site of the Shuster family home (via CapedWonder)
A month after thieves stole a historical marker near the Cleveland house where Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created the Man of Steel, a man drove through the fence surrounding the site of Shuster’s former home on Tuesday night, damaging large metal plates that reprint the first Superman story.
According to The Plain Dealer, the driver is believed to be a neighbor, who’s offering to pay the estimated $2,600 to replace the seven plates he destroyed. The panels, which reprint pages from Action Comics #1, were installed two years ago by the Glenville Development Corporation and the Siegel and Shuster Society.
There is good news, though, at least regarding the historical marker: The newspaper reports that the plaque, stolen in April from the intersection of St. Clair Avenue and East 105th Street, was left at the Glenville neighborhood fire station, presumably because of the intense publicity surrounding the theft. It’s thought that the aluminum sign was taken by scrap-metal thieves who mistook it for bronze because of its coloring.
- May 26, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Thieves steal sign marking Superman’s Cleveland birthplace
Home of Superman historical marker
A historical marker near the Cleveland home where a teenage Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman has been stolen.
The likely culprits, The Plain Dealer reports, are scrap-metal thieves who mistook the plaque for bronze because of its coloring. It’s actually made of aluminum.
The sign was installed by the city at the intersection of St. Clair Avenue and East 105th Street in 2003, the 65th anniversary of the release of Action Comics #1. The nearby house where the Siegel family lived until 1950, and where the young collaborators dreamed up the Man of Steel, was restored in 2008 through efforts spearheaded by the nonprofit Siegel and Shuster Society. Two larger markers created by that group hang on a fence outside the Glenville neighborhood home.
If there’s a silver, or aluminum, lining to the theft, it’s that it provides officials with the opportunity to make a correction on the replacement: Siegel’s last name was misspelled on one side of the original marker.
- April 28, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Warner Bros. dealt a setback in Superman legal battle
Action Comics #1
A federal judge on Monday denied an effort by Warner Bros. to gain access to sensitive documents that are alleged to show an agreement between the heirs of Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster not to strike further copyright deals with the studio, Hollywood, Esq. reports.
The documents, which were at the center of Warner Bros.’ May 2010 lawsuit against Siegel family attorney Marc Toberoff, also purportedly contain a formula for how the two estates, and Toberoff, would divide the Superman assets once they successfully terminate the studio’s rights to the property.
Although Toberoff had convinced the judge in the first trial that those documents were protected by attorney-client privilege, Warner Bros.’ new outside counsel Daniel Petrocelli argued in the 2010 lawsuit that the consent agreement violates the U.S. Copyright Act and, therefore, can’t be insulated from discovery. However, U.S. Magistrate Judge Ralph Zaresky ruled this week that the studio’s assertion that the documents are illegal doesn’t necessarily make them illegal.
Zaresky’s decision is a setback for Warner Bros., which has been waging an increasingly bitter legal battle to hold onto Superman following a 2008 ruling that Siegel’s widow Joanne Siegel and daughter Laura Siegel Larson had successfully recaptured half of the original copyright to the Man of Steel. The door will open in 2013 for Shuster’s estate to do the same. (Last month Toberoff asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to determine exactly what elements from Superman’s mythology his clients can reclaim as a result of the 2008 decision.)
The tone and tactics of the dispute were the subject of a letter written in December by Joanne Siegel to Time Warner Chairman Jeffrey L. Bewkes, just two months before her death.
- April 13, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Joanne Siegel’s posthumous appeal to Warner Bros.
Superman
Joanne Siegel, widow of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, passed away on Feb. 12 with her family’s prolonged legal battle with Warner Bros. over the Man of Steel still unresolved.
Although a judge ruled in 2008 that the Siegels had successfully recaptured half of the original copyright to Superman, paving the way for the estate of co-creator Joe Shuster to do the same in 2013, Warner Bros. has continued its increasingly bitter fight for the property. In May the studio went so far as to sue the attorney representing the two families in an effort to force him to resign.
Noting the recent changes in tone and tactics, Joanne Siegel prepared a letter to Time Warner Chairman Jeffrey L. Bewkes just two months before her death asking for an end to such “mean-spirited tactics” as the lawsuit against attorney Marc Toberoff and multiple depositions of herself and daughter Laura Siegel Larson, both of whom were in poor health.
“My daughter Laura and I, as well as the Shuster estate, have done nothing more than exercise our rights under the Copyright Act,” Siegel wrote in the letter, obtained and published by Deadline. “Yet, your company has chosen to sue us and our long-time attorney for protecting our rights. [...] The solution to saving time, trouble, and expense is a change of viewpoint. Laura and I are legally owed our share of Superman profits since 1999. By paying the owed bill in full, as you pay other business bills, it would be handled as a business matter, instead of a lawsuit going into its 5th year.”
The latest turn in the case came just last week, when it was reported that Toberoff had asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to determine exactly what elements from Superman’s mythology his clients can reclaim as a result of the 2008 court ruling.
Read the full text of the letter after the break.
- March 28, 2011 @ 07:15 AM by Kevin Melrose