Writers and Artists
Over the years, there have been a number of different writers and artists on the Superman newspaper strips. Originally, the strip was drawn by Joe Shuster. As Superman became more and more popular and the workload kept increasing, Shuster turned over many duties to his studio assistants. Paul Cassidy was the first in a line of ghost artists on the strip and took over the inking and detail work in 1939. In September 1940, Leo Nowak replaced Cassidy on the strip. Other assistants during this time included Dennis Neville, John Sikela (beginning in 1940), Ed Dobrotka (beginning in 1941), Paul J. Lauretta, and Jack Burnley (beginning in 1941). Sikela and Dobrotka often traded penciling and inking duties between each other. Lauretta primarily inked and did backgrounds on the strips. Burnley eventually left to work on his own comic book Starman but did return to pencil the Superman Sundays in 1943. The Superman strips during this early period of shop work was a team effort with multiple artists working on different parts of the same strip.
This early period ended with the start of WWII. Jerry Siegel, the main writer, was drafted in 1943. Early that same year, Leo Nowak and John Sikela were drafted as well. In 1943, Stan Kaye took over the inking. Wayne Boring, who had been another early assistant to Joe Shuster, left the Shuster studio in 1942 to directly draw the daily strip for DC. Boring and Kaye dominated the daily strip’s artwork throughout most of the 1940s. The two also provided art for the Sunday strip between 1940 and 1966.
In the middle of 1949, Win Mortimer took over the daily strip from Wayne Boring. Stan Kaye continued inking Mortimer’s work until Kaye temporarily left, and Mortimer inked his own work until he left DC in 1956 to publish his David Crane strip. Curt Swan took over the daily strip on June 18, 1956, along with Stan Kaye. Swan continued on the strip until November 12, 1960.
As for the stories in the Superman strips, Jerry Siegel originally wrote them until he was drafted in 1943. Whitney Ellsworth, who had begun on the strip in 1941, continued until 1945. Jack Schiff began his writing on the strip in 1942 and worked on the strip off and on until 1962.
Alvin Schwartz first started writing for the Superman strip in October 1944. Between 1947 and 1951, Schwartz was the only writer on the Superman strip, and he continued on the strip until 1958.
In 1959, Bill Finger started scripting stories, and he worked through the series' end in 1966. During this final period, Jerry Siegel resumed his duties writing some stories.
Read more about this topic: Superman (comic Strip)
Famous quotes containing the words writers and/or artists:
“That’s one thing I like about Hollywood. The writer is there revealed in his ultimate corruption. He asks no praise, because his praise comes to him in the form of a salary check. In Hollywood the average writer is not young, not honest, not brave, and a bit overdressed. But he is darn good company, which book writers as a rule are not. He is better than what he writes. Most book writers are not as good.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this: in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day; to paint the man, in short, as well as his features.”
—James Mcneill Whistler (1834–1903)