Marc Tyler Nobleman's Blog, page 132

The $130 check that bought Superman

It's painful for many to learn that, in 1937, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster sold all rights to Superman for $130.

On another level, it's also painful to learn that the historic check from that deal is now up for auction…and bidding is currently north of $45,000 with almost a week more to go.

Yes, even the slip of paper that bought Superman is worth more than the original cost of Superman himself.

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In any case, it's astounding that this check has survived. Here's an excerpt from the item description on the auction site:

Knowing that the check would have historical relevance, [a] D.C. employee salvaged it [in 1973, when it was among various documents to be discarded]. For the next 38 years it was kept safe in a dresser drawer...until now.

This March 1, 1938 Detective Comics check, signed by Jack Liebowitz, is made payable to Jerome Seigel and Joe Schuster. (You would think that DC would have spelled Siegel and Shuster's name correctly for a character as important as Superman!) The check, in the amount of $412, includes an account of items being paid for. At the very top is "Superman $130."

The year the check was nearly tossed, 1973, marked the start of a string of events that show that the era of bestowing comics cultural significance had not yet begun:

Also in 1973, the first big-budget Superman movie was announced, though many were skeptical of its viability. The next year, Bill Finger, uncredited co-creator of Batman, died with no fanfare—no obit, no funeral, no gravestone.And the year after that, Cleveland demolished an unassuming little apartment building without knowing that Superman had been co-created there about 40 years earlier.
But this mainstream ignorance of the historic (not to mention artistic) value of comics was about to do an about-face.

In 1978, Superman: The Movie came out and did gangbusters, setting in motion the love affair with superhero movies that Hollywood engages in today more than ever.Finger began to more "formally" receive the recognition he was tragically denied in his lifetime. This included long-overdue acknowledgment by Bob Kane (in his 1989 autobiography) and "partial credit" in books and comics published by DC Comics; it will culminate in my book Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman.The site where Joe's apartment building stood is now commemorated, though nothing, of course, can bring the historic structure back.Thanks in large part to the Internet, fandom is now able to proclaim as more of a united front that Siegel, Shuster, Finger, and others of their era were mistreated. Whether such popular opinion will have any real-world effect is always a wild card, but a welcome one.
Put another way, 1973 was just shy of the enlightened era we are still in.

Transaction that launched both the comic book industry and the superhero genre nearly thrown out? Co-creator of Batman dies with virtually no public notice? Apartment building in which Superman first drawn torn down? None of these travesties would happen today—at least not without big-time backlash among fans.

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Please vote for this blog for the Independent Book Blogger Awards!

Voting ends April 23!

So no dilly-dallying!

Vote

Bloggers were asked to submit up to five representative posts; here are the ones I chose:

pitching a picture book by blogpicture book tips and trickssurprising author Edward Ormondroyd with his first school appearance ever the link between Bill Finger (uncredited co-creator of Batman) and Abraham Lincolnthe Golden Age of Picture Book Biography

It is now PHYSICALLY a book

Look what appeared on my front step last week: 


Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, meet your brother, Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman:


For all the positives of e-publishing, I imagine "first appearance" (not to mention release) days will not be as exciting when the product is only pixelated rather than printed. For all the work I put into this project, part of the proof is something I can hold and page through and stack and, yes, smell in unique form. 

The world may be going digital faster than most in the book business want to admit, and I'm coming to terms with that, but for now I'm also grateful that this book made it out in B.C.E. (Before Computer Everything).

How can opening an e-mail with a link compare with opening that box whose return address contains the word "warehouse?"

The only part of the book interior I will sneak preview at this stage is its DNA:

Thank you all again, for Bill's sake.

Scouting Wayne Manor

I'm making a book trailer for Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman. We've shot for a day and have the next (hopefully last) shoot date on the calendar. For that, I needed to try my hand at location scouting. For that shoot, we need a distinctive background.

We need Wayne Manor.

For those of you not wearing a Two-Face T-shirt or not awaiting your order of the complete series of Birds of Prey on DVD, allow me to explain:

Wayne Manor is the home of Bruce Wayne.

Bruce Wayne is the secret identity of Batman.

I gave myself an hour to find my mansion. I ended up with at least five candidates:





But I didn't know who lived at any of those addresses. So I did a reverse-address search, found names (though still didn't know if they were current), and sent letters to each asking if my crew and me (read: my friend and me) could shoot outside their front gate for about 15 minutes one evening at dusk.

Only one responded—but as luck has it, my favorite one.

Guess which?

Google doodle: Bill Finger

As anyone with a computer knows, Google is one of those rare brands willing to vary its logo. They have tweaked it to pay tribute to everyone and everything from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry to Pac-Man.


So on 3/27/12, I pitched them (proposals@google.com) this:

You'd be lavished with undying praise by legions of geeks everywhere if you did a doodle in honor of writer Bill Finger (2/8/14 - 1/18/74), the
Bill died alone, poor, and unrecognized (no obituary, no funeral). I wrote a book on him to help preserve his culturally significant legacy.

While we are too late for this year's birth and death anniversaries, I think a date that would make an even bigger statement would be July 20—the date The Dark Knight Rises, the next Batman movie, comes out. It would be poignantly appropriate since it was Bill who first called Batman the "Dark Knight" back in Batman #1 in 1940...yet Bill's name will not be in the film credits...

To be continued…I hope. 

I'm feeling lucky.

A Bob Kane model

On 3/4/12, at the Whidbey Island Writers Conference in Washington State, I had the pleasure of sharing a panel with, among others, agent Katharine Sands.

Not breaking with tradition, I mentioned Bill Finger and Batman. After the panel, Katherine told me that her late mother had once posed for Batman cartoonist Bob Kane—and she had a photo of it.

I felt I'd already seen that photo. The image that came to my mind was this, from the 1960s, which has been published in a book or two:

I even saw a resemblance between the model in my mind and Katharine. I pulled up the photo to show her. But that (Cat)woman, she said, was not her mom. This was her mom (and I'd estimate the photo to be from the 1950s):

I asked Katharine if she has any stories to accompany it. Her response:

"I do not believe he chased her around the divan—but Mom turned out to be a major liar about this kind of thing when I found her journal after she died. Shhheeeshhh…"

Put a Finger on it!

Last summer I created T-shirts to help build buzz for my July 2012 picture book on Bill Finger and his role in the creation of Batman:


So when I saw this van recently, I knew my grassroots campaign had taken off:

Batman by batmites

I don't use the term "batmite" in a derogatory way, nor do I mean this Bat-Mite (a real DC Comics character):

Rather I am referring to the tiny people who created these adorable works of art:




They were among many other characters posted on this particular elementary school hallway bulletin board, but as far as I could tell, no other character made as many appearances as Batman did.

This speaks not only to Batman's popularity but also his iconography. Even children as young as four can convey Batman's look successfully; we can tell these figures are Batman without labels or verbal explanation.

That says a lot about the talent of young artists but also about the eye for design that Bill Finger had. The pointy ears and bat emblem are memorable and fairly easy for even a new artist to capture.

Gonzo job, post-toddlers! Same nap-time, same nap-flannel!

Meeting my third Sea World skier

Over Super Bowl weekend, I gave three talks in the Miami area (none about football).

One was at the enchanting Books & Books bookstore in Coral Gables. Adding to the specialness of the evening was a surprise attendee: Diane D. Smith, one of the former Sea World water skiing superheroes I interviewed for my big blog feature last summer and the third I've met in person.

Here is me with the first two and here is me with Diane:

Diane and her husband kindly drove more than three hours to be there, knowing we didn't know when our next chance would be. In the interview process, she was one of the most generous and illuminating of the skiers. She told some great stories and has been more than complimentary and gracious about the finished feature.

Thank you again, Diane, for giving of your time and spirit to my project.

The secret is out

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Immense thanks to Mary Trankel.