Joe Shuster

Joseph "Joe" Shuster (July 10, 1914 - July 30, 1992) was a Canadian-born artist best known for co-creating Superman with Jerry Siegel.

Early life

Joseph Shuster was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Jewish immigrants. His father, Julius, an immigrant from Rotterdam, and his mother, Ida, who had come from Kiev, were barely able to make ends meet. As a youngster, Shuster worked as a newspaper boy for the Toronto Star and, as a hobby, he liked to sketch. The sights and sounds of a big city newspaper, the hustle bustle of its offices, and the fantasy world of the newspaper's color comics had a powerful impact on him.

Creation of Superman

He was a cousin of one of Canada's most popular comedians, Frank Shuster. At the age of ten, Shuster's family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where, by the age of eighteen, he and his friend Jerry Siegel began publishing a short-lived "Science Fiction" magazine. Shuster made the drawings and Siegel did the writing, creating a super character that a few years later evolved into a comic strip. Employed by DC-National, the pair produced a variety of comic stories, including the lead feature in the company's issue of the first Action Comics in 1938. The feature character in that issue, Superman, was an enormous success that led to what is referred to as the "Golden Age of Comic Books."

When Superman first appeared, its hero, Clark Kent, worked for the Daily Star newspaper, named by Shuster after his old employer in Toronto. On this basis, Toronto, rather than New York City, could be seen as the model for Metropolis. When the comic strip received international distribution, the company permanently changed the name to The Daily Planet.

Legal issues

Shuster very quickly became famous as the co-creator of one of the most well-known and commercially successful fictional characters of the 20th century. At the time, in the midst of the Great Depression, he made a very good living from producing Superman stories. However, the copyright to his and Siegel's work belonged to their employer, and when the company refused to compensate them to the degree they believed appropriate, the pair sued. In 1948, the New York State Supreme Court limited their settlement to $60,000 each, at the time a large amount for someone, but very small compared to the multi-millions in profits their employer was generating annually. After the bitter legal wrangling, Shuster left the comics business and his and Siegel's byline were dropped by DC comics.

In 1975, Siegel launched a publicity campaign, in which Shuster participated, protesting DC Comics' treatment of him and Shuster. In the face of a great deal of negative publicity over their handling of the affair (and due to the upcoming Superman movie), DC's parent company Warner Communications reinstated the byline dropped more than thirty years earlier and granted the pair a lifetime pension of $25,000 a year. Joe Shuster died in Los Angeles, California.

This quote is from Neal Adams, award-winning comic book artist and editor:

"I fought for the rights of Superman's creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster. Others made millions while Superman's creators lived in near poverty. Jerry was a clerk and Joe was a legally blind man who lived in his brother's apartment, slept on a cot and worked as a messenger. I met and fought for their small remaining rights when they both turned only 60 years old. Not "old" by any definition.

"The battle took months and the settlement was meager, but it let the men live the remaining years of their lives with dignity. You know what they cared about most? They cared about having their names, once again, associated with their character, Superman! Why? Because it was what they were as people. They were their work."

Awards

In 2005 Shuster was inducted into the Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame for his contributions to comic books. The Joe Shuster Awards, started in 2005, were named in honour of the Canadian-born Shuster, and honour achievements in the field of comic book publishing by Canadian creators, publishers and retailers.

References

Comic Art & Graffix Gallery - Artist Biography

External links