Shuster in 1939
Joseph "Joe" Shuster (July 10, 1914 – July 30, 1992) was a Canadian-American comic book artist best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman with his friend Jerry Siegel.
Early Life[]
Shuster was born in Toronto to a Jewish immigrant family, an experience which would inform and inspire the creation of the Superman character. His father, Julius Shuster (originally Shusterowich), was originally from Rotterdam, while his mother, Ida Katharske, had come from Kyiv in Ukraine.
As a child, Shuster worked as a newspaper boy for the Toronto Daily Star. The family barely made ends meet, and the budding young artist would scrounge for paper, which the family could not afford. In 1924, the Shusters moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where Joe would meet and befriend Jerry Siegel.
Shuster (down) with Jerry Siegel in 1942
Creating Superman[]
In 1933, Siegel and Shuster created a short story titled "The Reign of the Superman" in which the title character, a bald telepathic villain, was bent on dominating the world. The story was not successful, and the character was not used again. Later, they reused the name The Superman for a new character, a superpowered hero who stood up for the oppressed. Shuster modeled the character's physical appearance on actor Douglas Fairbanks Sr., and his bespectacled alter ego, Clark Kent, on a combination of silent-film actor Harold Lloyd and Shuster himself, with the name "Clark Kent" derived from movie stars Clark Gable and Kent Taylor. Lois Lane was modeled on Joanne Carter, a model hired by Shuster.
After six years of searching, the first Superman comics were published by National Allied Publications, the primary precursor of DC Comics. Editor Vin Sullivan chose it as the cover feature for National's Action Comics #1 (June 1938). The following year, Siegel and Shuster initiated the syndicated Superman comic strip. As part of the deal which saw Superman published in Action Comics, Siegel and Shuster sold the rights to the character in return for $130 and a contract to supply the publisher with material.
Legal Issues[]
In 1946, near the end of their 10-year contract to produce Superman stories, Siegel and Shuster sued DC to have their contract annulled and regain the rights to Superman. The following year, the New York State Supreme Court ruled the publisher had validly purchased the rights to Superman when it bought the first Superman story, saying the duo had "transferred to Detective Comics, Inc., all of their rights in and to the comic strip Superman, including the title, names, characters and conception." A subsequent interlocutory judgment found that the rights to Superboy, however, belonged to Siegel. DC subsequently paid Siegel and Shuster $94,000 for the rights to Superboy and the duo's written agreement acknowledging the rights to Superman belonged to the publisher. After this, the company removed Shuster and Siegel's byline from Superman stories.
In 1975, Siegel and Shuster launched a campaign protesting DC Comics' treatment of them. By that point, Shuster had been making his living as a freelance cartoonist, but his worsening eyesight prevented him from drawing, and he had to work as a deliveryman in order to earn a living. Due to the negative publicity over their handling of the affair, and 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 $20,000 a year, later increased to $30,000, plus health benefits. The first issue with the restored credit was Superman #302 (August 1976). By 1976, Shuster was almost completely blind and living in a California nursing home.
Death[]
Shuster died on July 30, 1992, at age 78 in his West Los Angeles home of congestive heart failure and hypertension. Although Shuster was supported by a lifetime stipend from DC Comics, he fell into debt – close to $20,000 by the time of his death. After he died, DC Comics agreed to pay off his unpaid debts in exchange for an agreement from his heirs to not challenge ownership over Superman.
