and set the style that would take the American comic book around the world,
conquering all other national variations.
Action Comics number one, seeking some new character, encountered a failed
newspaper strip that two young friends had been trying to get off the ground for five
years. The partnership, stemming from schooldays, was that of Jerry Siegel, writer, and
Joe Shuster, cartoonist; the strip was called ‘Superman’. It told the far-fetched yarn of
an alien shot from his exploding home planet, Krypton, and growing up on Earth as the
adopted child of homespun farming folks. When his powers continue to expand (‘Faster
than a Speeding Bullet! Able to Leap Tall Buildings at a Single Bound!’), he conceives the
idea of changing himself into Superman, and clad in cloak and costume he zips into
action to save the world from gangsters, spies and assorted mad scientists. The concept,
considered ‘unreal’ by many newspaper editors and even his eventual publisher, hit
home with the young readership and soon Action Comics was outselling its rivals. Very
soon, Superman was being featured in a radio serial, a movie serial, a novel, and all the
other manifestations of modern commercialisation. This success was sustained into
television series, feature films (among the world’s largest grossing), and animated
cartoons—and gone for ever (almost) was the reliance on reprinting old newspaper strips.
But although the publishers prospered, Siegel and Shuster made little more than the
price of their comic pages. Siegel soldiered on, but Shuster lost his eyesight, and if it
had not been for the pressure by fellow comic artists and fans, they would never have
received the life pension eventually awarded to them by the company.
Superman soon conquered Britain, which first imported the original comic books, and
then reprinted the daily strip which was syndicated to American newspapers. This began
in the British boys’ story paper Triumph in July 1939, with the strips pasted up into a
four-page centre section. The covers, although only printed in blue and orange, showed
the new hero in action, and were drawn by John (Jock) McCail, a Scottish illustrator.
After the war, Superman comics were reprinted in Australia and exported to Britain before
receiving British publication in their own right. In 1959 the traditional comic weekly
Radio Fun began reprinting the strips, and later several smaller publishers tried their
hands. Superman became the most copied comic character in history, by both his own
publishers (Bob Kane’s ‘Batman’) and his rivals.
Fawcett Publications, whose original paperback magazine Captain Billy’s Whizbang
had founded their fortune, entered the comic book field with Whiz Comics and their own
superhero Captain Marvel. This red-suited strongman was soon outselling Superman,
whose publisher brought a copyright suit. This dragged on for so long in the courts that
it outlasted the comic’s best-selling years; eventually, Fawcett decided that it was easier
to get out of the comic book business altogether, and capitulated without the legal
decision being finalised. But in their wartime years, Fawcett’s comics had spread where
National-D.C.’s had failed to penetrate, and in England a small publisher, Leonard
Miller and Son issued cut down versions of Captain Marvel (and his sister, Mary Marvel
and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny!).
The war years were important to American comic books: they became required reading
for the armed forces and millions of copies were issued to the military post exchanges.
Publishers upgraded their content to embrace not only more adult-oriented stories, often
based on crime and detection, but added pretty pin-up girls. These girls graced every
254 POPULAR LITERATURE: COMICS, DIME NOVELS, PULPS AND PENNY DREADFULS