Loading ...I was perusing one of my favorite websites, Newsarama.com, when I came across the headline “Superman’s Hidden History.” Naturally, I wanted to know more.
The article dealt with the ongoing legal battle between DC Comics (Warner Brothers) and the families of the creators of Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Apparently, entered into evidence in the lawsuit were several correspondences between DC (then called Detective Comics) and Jerry Siegel, the writing half of the duo. The heirs of Jerry Siegel recently won half of all rights to all Superman material published post 1999 and are trying to take back the rights to Superboy.
The articles are amazing. Repeatedly editor Whitney Ellsworth berates the talent of both Shuster and Siegel and threatens them, overtly and covertly, trying to make sure that the millions Superman was bringing into DC stayed firmly in the hands of DC and not in the hands from the two young Jewish creators of the Man of Steel.
Some of the correspondences refer to the way artist Joe Shuster drew Superman (apparently they thought he drew him “lah-de-dah”, read “too gay” with a “nice fat bottom” ). But as interesting as the borderline homophobic comments on Superman’s big ass are — and I should really write something on the way that gay people are treated in comics –, the harshest criticisms were reserved for my gal, Lois. Apparently the head honchos at DC hated the “sexy” way Shuster rendered Lois and wanted her to be changed immediately!
So for your reading pleasure, here, in its entirety is one of the letters in which Ellsworth expressed his extreme displeasure at Lois’ depiction, and even offered a hideous rendering of his own. Keep in mind this letter was written less than three years after the first issues of Action Comics went on the stands (April, 1938, cover dated June, 1938). Both Lois and Superman were present in Action Comics #1.
February 19, 1941
Dear Jerry: –
We have just received a magazine release and a bunch of dailies. Murray and I have gone over the magazine stuff, and we find that a great deal hasn’t been done to make Lois look better. The roly-poly hair-do is still the same way we complained about. And why it is necessary to shade Lois’ breasts and the underside of her tummy with vertical pen-lines we can’t understand. She looks pregnant. Murray suggests that you arrange for her to have an abortion or the baby and get it over with so that her figure can return to something a little more like the tasty dish she is supposed to be. She is much too stocky and much, much too unpleasantly sexy. Please call it to the attention of Joe and his lads that the better artists in this filed draw their heroines more or less by a certain formula that makes them look desirable and cute. This they do by having the hair prettily done instead of making it look like a rat’s nest. On top of this they make the face pretty — and they try to draw it the same way every time. Then, by drawing the shoulders wider than the hips they give the gal a listome quality that is absent when the accent is on hips. Also, the waistline is drawn higher than it would be in real life, and the legs are longer and slimmer. There is usually no attempt to prove pictorially the female tummy has a certain roundness if not confined within a girdle, nor that bosoms cast terrific shadows by virtue of their outstanding quality. While the dames in SMILIN’ JACK may be very tasty and exciting, I certainly do not approve of them for exploitation in publications like ours. You know as well as I do what sort of censure we are always up against and how careful we must be.
Now, I make no pretensions about being an artists, but I’m a helluva a critic (as you may agree). Herewith, then, is roughly my idea of what proportions should maintain in drawing a heroine. What I’d like to see is Lois drawn merely as the nice capable gal we know her to be really.
Whit’s version of Lois (Written next to picture) You used to make her more or less in this manner slim and sleek.
Part 2
Since writing the first page of this, Mr. Jack Liebowitz (co-owner of DC) has seen the artwork in question, and is extremely dissatisfied with Lois. He says that in addition to making Lois look like a witch, you have apparently dressed her out of a Montgomery Ward catalogue. He suggests Vogue, Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar as likelier spots for dress research.
This latest release has gone back to you by air express. We have not marked it up, for it should be obvious that Lois needs attention in practically every case.
You or Joe —- if not both of you, should realize just as readily as we do that the gal ain’t being done right by, and that she should be. I’d suggest, where paste-overs are resorted to, that the artists use bond paper rather than Bristol board, for the Bristol casts shadows on the edges. Even if the drawing seem to show through the bond paper, they will not photograph.
Regards
Whit
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So unpleasantly sexy. What were they thinking?!