The Jewish Comic Book Guys

The Jewish Comic Book Guys
Presented at the JCC of Ann Arbor
February 25th, 2016
The American comic book industry was, from its inception until modern times,
dominated by Jewish publishers, writers and artists. How this came about and what it says both about
that industry and about Jewish culture in America is the subject of this presentation.
The Early or Platinum Days – As has been the case in many of the fields that I have discussed before,
Jews entered the comic book industry through a combination of chance and lack of resistance. There
were so many professions that were either closed to Jews or where access was limited through quotas
or discrimination that Jews gravitated to those professions that were comparatively open.
The Eastern Color Printing Company opened in 1928 as an adjunct to the Waterbury Republican
newspaper1. The Eastern handled the full-color publishing duties, which were primarily the printing of
the comic strips for the paper, those serials known as the “Sunday funnies”. These included some of the
famous comics such as Joe Palooka and Mutt and Jeff. Eastern also printed the color covers for the
“racy” magazines known as the pulps.
In 1933, the general manager for Eastern was a man named Harry
Wildenberg. He took note of the increasing popularity of comics and
believed that they could be used as a vehicle to sell advertising. It was
about this time that an unemployed Jewish novelty salesman named
Maxwell Charles “M.C.” Gaines (formerly Max Ginzberg) joined the
company in the sales department2. Whether the idea of a full-color
magazine of these same Sunday comic strips originated with
Wildenberg or Ginzberg is not clear, but they were able to sell the idea
as a promotional opportunity. Thus was Famous Funnies born. Soon A
Century of Comics, and Skippy’s Own Book of Comics would follow, the
latter being the first modern comic dedicated to a single character.
Let me repeat that these were used as promotions, given away for
free to promote products. No one believed that children would pay
money for the same comic strips that came for free with newspapers.
Moreover, with Eastern’s success, competition had sprung up in the
form or rival publishers, also offering promotions. In 1935 Harry Donenfield3 would leave behind the
pulp “girlie” magazines (where he had been charged with obscenity) to launch his comic book New Fun.
We’ll talk more about Harry and how he and his partner Jack Liebowitz would launch Detective Comics.
Also on the scene was Martin “Moe” Goodman4 who had several publications of Funnies before
1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Color_Printing
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jews-in-comic-books/
3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Donenfeld
4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Goodman_(publisher)
2
launching Marvel Comics in 1939. As the popularity of comic books grew, an industry sprang up to meet
the demand.
The growing comic book business created opportunities for many young Jewish writers and illustrators
who had been shut out or more traditional avenues such as the advertising business. Ad agencies had
quotas restricting the number of Jewish employees that they would take on. Sometimes newspapers
would hire Jewish cartoonists such as Rube Goldberg5 or Milt Gross6 but these were the exception. In
Rube Goldberg’s case, the fact that his father was a San Francisco fire and police commissioner helped
him get his first job at the San Francisco Chronicle before moving to New York to work at the Evening
Mail. For Milt Gross, who came from the Bronx, he was able to capitalize on his Jewish immigrant roots,
writing stories in an idiom that combined Yiddish and English into Ying-lish as in a "Nize Ferry-tail from
Elledin witt de Wanderful Lemp" or "Jack witt de Binn Stuck". But again, it was far more likely that young
Jewish cartoonists could find work in the new world of comic books than in the newspaper business.
At least that was how it seemed to two students attending De Witt
Clinton High School in the Bronx in 19367. Young Bob Kane (who
would go on to create Batman) suggested to his friend Will Eisner
that he, Eisner, should try to sell his work to a new comic
book called Wow, What A Magazine! Jerry Iger8, the son of an
Austrian peddler and himself a cartoonist who had apprenticed
under Max Fleischer of Betty Boop fame, had become the
founding editor of Wow and accepted Eisner’s submission, an
adventure strip entitled Captain Scott Dalton. Wow only lasted
four issues from July to November 1936 (skipping October due to a
lack of funds) but Eisner contributed several strips in addition to
the Scott Dalton strip, including one about a pirate known as “The
Flame” and a secret agent “Harry Karry.” In only a few short years,
from 1933 to 1936, comic books had gone from reprinting Sunday
funnies to featuring original works of adventure fiction, often written by young, urban Jewish creators.
But the art form was about to take a giant step that would capture the public’s imagination. And the
inspiration for that would come from a most unlikely source.
Man and Superman – Inspiration can come from positive or negative influences. In this case the thing
that took comic books to the next level was the most negative possible.
In 1883, Friedrich Nietzche wrote in the prologue to his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Also Sprach
Zarathustra) –
The Übermensch shall be the meaning of the earth!
I entreat you my brethren, remain true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of supraterrestrial hopes! …
Behold, I teach you the Übermensch: he is this lightning, he is this madness! …
5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milt_Gross
7
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Eisner
8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Iger
6
Behold, I am a prophet of the lightning and a heavy drop from the cloud: but this lightning is called
Übermensch.9
Nietzsche was himself adamantly opposed to antiSemitism (he once declared that “all anti-Semites
ought to be shot”10) by 1934 his writings had been
subverted to fit the Nazi philosophy and the
Ubermensch (translated as Superman by G.B. Shaw
in his play Man and Superman11) had become the
paragon of the Third Reich. Hitler believed that the
German soldier was an Ubermensch, a Superman,
destined to conquer the world. And that others,
Jews in particular, were inferior beings, fit only for
Hitler receiving Nietzsche's favorite walking stick from Nietsche’s
service or worse.
sister, Lisbeth. http://www.f-nietzsche.de/efn.htm
Two young Jewish boys from Cleveland disagreed. Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster had broken into the
comic business with a strip for New Fun about a musketeer-type character called “Henri Duval.12” They
would follow this with a strip about a crime-fighter with magical powers called “Doctor Occult.”
Siegel authored a story about a villain with
mind-reading powers bent on world
conquest entitled The Reign of the
Superman, which appeared in the magazine
Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future
Civilization. In this story, the Superman was
evil. A mad scientist, Professor Ernest
Smalley, entices Bill Dunn, a vagrant, to
participate in an experiment in exchange for
a meal and a change of clothing. The
professor gives Dunn a potion that conveys
telepathic powers, but also a mad lust for
power. Dunn kills the professor, only to find
that the potion wears off. We are left with the implication that Dunn returns to poverty.
Siegel would subsequently rewrite the story. Now the Superman was a hero, a private detective. But the
story still didn’t catch on. Five years would go by. One day Siegel happened to see a comic book about
Detective Dan. Getting his friend Joe Schuster to do the illustrations, they created a comic book about
The Superman. And….it still didn’t sell. Siegel became so frustrated that he burned all the pages; only the
cover survived because Siegel rescued it.
The pair had success creating the character of Slam Bradley for Detective Comics #1. Detective Comics
was a joint venture between entrepreneur Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, publisher of Fun comics
9
https://philosophynow.org/issues/93/Nietzsches_Ubermensch_A_Hero_of_Our_Time
http://www.jta.org/1934/11/01/archive/all-anti-semites-ought-to-be-shot-nietzsche-once-wrote
11
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_and_Superman
12
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Siegel
10
and Harry Donenfield and his partner Jack Liebowitz. Wheeler-Nicholson was in financial trouble and
would be forced out of the company after one year. It would take some time, but Detective Comics
would go on to become DC Comics, one of the most valuable brand names not just in the comics
industry, but in the world of entertainment.
In June of 1938, Superman would finally receive his just due. He would
grace the cover of Action Comics #1. Despite what we know now about
Superman’s eventual popularity, the Man of Steel would share space with
a number of other stories: "Chuck Dawson: The 4-G Gang (Part 1)", "The
Mystery of the Freight Train Robberies", "South Sea Strategy (Part I)",
"Sticky-Mitt Stimson", "The Adventures of Marco Polo (Part I)", "The Light
Heavyweight Championship", "The International Jewel Thief" and
"Murder in England"13. Something for everyone.
Despite having to share space with a number of other stories, Superman
would go on to become the most successful comic book hero of all time,
ushering in the Golden Age of Comics and giving rise to a merchandise
empire that would include multiple comic book versions, toys, movies
and TV shows.
Is Superman Jewish? - That question has been asked, answered and debated on multiple occasions and
by various authorities. The answer is, of course, yes. I’ll provide a short, but far from comprehensive list
of the reasons that have been offered:
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13
14
We have discussed how Siegel originally conceived the first Superman story as a reaction to the
Nazi’s use of the term Ubermensch. Initially a “bad guy” seeking world domination, akin to the
Nazis, Superman would change into a hero, the defender of the weak.
As Superman became a force for good, he was given super-powers. Authors have cited the
Golem of Prague as the inspiration; Siegel in an interview said he drew on the Biblical figure of
Samson.14
On planet Krypton, Superman’s family name was “El.” His name was Kal-El and his father was
Jor-El. This is a reference to Elohim and is used in names of Hebrew origin, such as Samu-El,
Dani-El and, of course, Isra-El. Kal-el roughly equates to the voice of vessel of G-d.
To save his life, Kal-el’s parents put him in a small spaceship and send off to Earth, where he will
be adopted by the Kent family. This seems to have been inspired by the story of Moses in the
bulrushes.
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Action_Comics_Vol_1_1
http://forward.com/culture/178454/10-reasons-superman-is-really-jewish/
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The motto of “Truth, justice and the American way” is very similar to the saying of Rabbi Shimon
ben Gamliel who said that the “The world endures on three things: truth, justice and peace.”
Peace was not so popular as the world was about to enter into World War II.
Young Kal-el would have his name Americanized, just as so many of the comic book authors,
including Siegel and Schuster early in their careers, would in order to achieve acceptance. Clark
Kent, Superman’s bespectacled, clumsy, socially-awkward alter-ego is the classic example of the
nebbish.
The Nazis certainly regarded Superman as having Jewish roots. In 1940, an article published in
Das Schwarze Korps, which was the newspaper of the SS, referred to Siegel as the “intellectually
and physically circumcised chap who has his headquarters in New York” and went on to say that
Superman had been created to sow “hate, suspicion, evil, laziness and criminality” among the
youth of America.
With that said, one of the challenges that Siegel and
Schuster would face was to explain why Superman, with all
his powers, didn’t go to war against the Axis. Couldn’t he
have ended World War II in a single day? Early on,
Superman did fight both the Nazis and the Japanese15. In
Superman 17 (Oct. 1942) the term “Japanazis" was coined to
describe his foes. He was shown sinking battleships, lifting
submarines out of the oceans and destroying tanks.
Superman 17 even featured The Man of Steel holding Hitler
and Emperor Hirohito by the scruffs of their necks.
But Superman would have to stay in America to fight his old
foes here. He had to guard the home front from the likes of
Luthor, The Prankster, Toyman and the Insect Master. To
make this somewhat plausible, Clark Kent failed his military
physical when he inadvertently used his X-Ray vision to read
the eyechart in the next room. In keeping with his role as
the nebbish, Kent would be declared 4-F and unfit for
service.
15
http://www.supermanhomepage.com/comics/comics.php?topic=articles/supes-war
Fighting these supervillains led to one issue that is worth noting. In 1944 Siegel wrote a Superman story
where Lex Luthor had a new and powerful weapon: an atom bomb. Since the Manhattan Project was
top-secret at this time, when word of this story somehow leaked, government agents showed up at the
DC offices and demanded that the story be held until official clearance was given. This must have
mystified the comic book guys, who may have realized that they has stumbled on something out of the
ordinary. The story entitled “Battle of the Atoms” was allowed to come out in January of 1946, after the
bombs had been dropped and the war was over.
Superman was, of course, not the only superhero who had to stay in America to fight crime.
Enter The Batman – As previously mentioned, Bob Kane attended De Witt Clinton High School along
with Will Eisner. He would go on to study art at Cooper Union, then would work at the Max Fleisher
Studio as a trainee animator. After two years, in 1936, he would leave to work in the comic book
industry16.
Bob (he had legally changed his name from Robert) began as a free-lance selling his work to Jerry Iger's
comic book Wow, What A Magazine! When Iger opened a studio with Will Eisner, Bob began working
there. Eisner & Iger produced comics “on demand” for publishers. A publisher wanted an animal comic?
Kane could come up with “Peter Pupp” for them.
Bob Kane’s ability to create comic characters brought him to
the attention of Vin Sullivan, an editor at DC Comics17. By 1939,
Superman had become the most successful character at the
company which published Adventure Comics, Action Comics
and Detective Comics. Sullivan was looking for a character that
would capture the public’s imagination in the same way,
including the skintight outfit and flowing cape. Kane credits
Sullivan as being “instrumental” in the creation of Batman.
Kane would also draw inspiration from the 1930 movie “The
Bat Whispers”18 where people search and abandoned mansion
for hidden treasure while a costumed killer murders them one
at a time and from the movie Zorro with Douglas Fairbanks as
the main character, a movie which Kane had seen as a boy. In
May of 1939, the Batman, as he was originally called, made his
first appearance in Detective Comics # 27. As can be seen from
the “ribs” of the Batman’s wings, Kane drew his visual
inspiration from Da Vinci’s drawings of an ornithopter, a flying
machine. Kane’s hero (or antihero) wore tights like Superman, a
black mask like Zorro and could fly or glide using wings inspired by Da Vinci.
Although Bob Kane has always received most of the credit for the creation of Batman, the contributions
of Milton “Bill” Finger may be just as great19. Born in Denver. Colorado in 1914, Milton was the son of a
16
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Kane
Batman: The Complete History, Les Daniels, Chronicle Books, 2004
18
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bat_Whispers
19
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Finger
17
Jewish tailor. The family would move to the Bronx, New York, where Finger would also attend De Witt
Clinton High School, graduating in 1933. An aspiring writer, Milton would work as a shoe salesman until
1938, when he ran into Bob Kane at a party. Motivated in part because they had both attended De Witt
Clinton, Kane would ask Finger to join his team.
Kane would tell Finger about his concept for a new character:
...had an idea for a character called 'Batman', and he'd like me to see the drawings. I went over to
Kane's, and he had drawn a character who looked very much like Superman with kind of ... reddish
tights, I believe, with boots ... no gloves, no gauntlets ... with a small domino mask, swinging on a rope.
He had two stiff wings that were sticking out, looking like bat wings. And under it was a big sign ...
BATMAN.20
It was Finger that suggested giving the character a cowl instead of the domino mask, a cape instead of
wings, adding gloves, and removing the red sections from the original costume, creating the character
that we know as Batman. Finger would say that he had drawn his inspiration for this from Lee Falk’s The
Phantom, a character from the Sunday comics.
Finger wrote the script for the initial comic and would write many of the early works. It was Finger that
named the alter ego Bruce Wayne (a combination of the Scottish Robert Bruce and Revolutionary War
general “Mad” Anthony Wayne); Finger would contribute to the character of Batman’s nemesis The
Joker; Finger that suggested making Robin the orphan of circus performers. Finger created or co-created
the Batmobile and the Batcave and gave Batman a utility belt. Finger named Gotham City.
But Bob Kane showed Vin Sullivan Batman without mentioning Finger; he cut a deal to provide the
comics without including Finger. Finger’s name does not appear on any of the original Batman stories or
adaptations. It wasn’t until after Finger died in 1974 that Kane would acknowledge his contributions
saying that Finger was:
"… a contributing force on Batman right from the beginning... I made Batman a superhero-vigilante
when I first created him. Bill turned him into a scientific detective."
Finger’s contributions would be recognized after his death. He would be posthumously inducted into the
Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1999. In 2005, Comic-Con
International established the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing, which is given each
year to two writers: one living and one deceased.
Finger eventually left Kane’s studio to work directly for DC. He would soon be called upon to help
another artist turn his concept into a comic.
The Green Lantern – Martin Nodell was the son of Jewish immigrants who had settled in Philadelphia21.
He attended the Art Institute in Chicago, then moved to New York to study at Pratt Institute. Beginning
in 1938, he did work as a freelancer. One of his clients was Sheldon Mayer, an editor at All-American
Publications, one of three companies that would merge to form DC. In January of 1940 inspiration for a
20
21
The Steranko History of Comics., Jim Steranko, Supergraphics, 1970.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Nodell
new comic character came to Nodell in an unlikely place, the New York City subway. As Nodell described
it:
“I picked out the name from the train man on the tracks who was waving a lantern, going from red to
green.... Green meant go and I decided that was it. Then I needed a colorful and interesting costume. I
was interested in Greek mythology and so the costume took on elements of that. It just all fell into place.
When I sent it in, I waited into the second week before I heard the word to come in. I was ushered into
Mr. [Max] Gaines office, publisher, and after sitting a long time and flipping through the pages of my
presentation, he announced, 'We like it!' And then, 'Get to work!' I did the first five pages of an eight
page story, and then they called in Bill Finger to help. We worked on it for seven years.”
The first adventure, drawn by Nodell and written by Bill Finger hit the
newsstands in July of 1940. Nodell did not use his own name for
several months, even though he was moderately successful. He
explained this in an interview: “Comics were a forbidden literature,
culturally unacceptable. It wasn't something you were proud of.”
The Green Lantern became popular enough that he was given his
own comic. Nodell continued to work on the character until 1947,
when he would leave DC to join a competitor, Timely Comics, the
forerunner of what would be Marvel Comics.
Marvel Comics - Moe “Martin” Goodman was the oldest son of Isaac
Goodman and Anna Gleichenhaus, immigrants from Vilna in Lithuania
who met here in America22. Born in Brooklyn, he was the oldest of 13
children. As a young man, he traveled around the country, sometimes
living in hobo camps. As the 1920s drew to a close, Martin was hired
by Louis Silberkleit, circulation manager of Eastern Publishing
Company, to join his department. (Silberkleit would later become co-founder of Archie Comics.)
By the 1930s he had become a publisher of pulp magazines,
paperback books and men’s adventure magazines. In 1939, he saw
the potential in comic books featuring super=heroes and contracted
with Funnies, Inc. to provide a test run of Marvel Comics #1. The
comic introduced the characters of The Human Torch, originally an
android created in a lab in Brooklyn by a scientist, and an anti-hero
who lived under the seas, the Sub-Mariner. In October 1939 the first
edition went out and sold 80,000 units. It was so successful that
Goodman had a second run done in November that sold 800,000
units. Goodman had a hit on his hands.
While the comics industry was new and no one was sure as yet what
would work and what wouldn’t (it was only six years since the
publication of the first issue of Famous Funnies) Goodman had a
natural feel for what would work. He had a hero that was made of
22
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Goodman_(publisher)
fire and one that lived underwater; naturally they should meet and do battle. And so they did Marvel
Mystery Comics #9 published in July 1940. And thus was that staple of the comic book industry, the
cross-over, conceived.
In addition to The Human Torch and Sub-Mariner, the Marvel titles
included Ka-Zar, a Tarzan-like character, and a Western character, the
Masked Raider. Goodman had hired Joe Simon23 as editor and writer.
Joe, born Hymie Simon, had come from Rochester, New York. The son of
a tailor, his family was so poor that they lived in a first-floor flat that was
also the tailor shop. Joe had been a freelancer that had done work for
Funnies, Inc. When he was hired at Timely, he brought along an
illustrator that he had met, a young man named Jack Kirby. Joe recounts
the way that they had first met:
“I had a suit and Jack thought that was really nice. He'd never seen a
comic book artist with a suit before. The reason I had a suit was that my
father was a tailor. Jack's father was a tailor too, but he made pants!”
Simon and Kirby: Captain America - In December of 1940 (that was the actual sale date, even though
the cover date in March of 1941) Timely would introduce a new super-hero, one that that would capture
America’s patriotic fervor. Issue #1 of Captain America showed the Red-White-and-Blue garbed hero
punching Adolph Hitler. The issue would sell almost a million copies.
Captain America is arguably the first super-hero developed specifically
around a World War II theme. His uniform is clearly based on the
American flag, even more than Superman’s was. He fought the Nazis and
his nemesis, the Red Skull, was a Nazi agent. Steve Rogers, Captain
America’s civilian identity, gains his powers when he fails his enlistment
physical, but comes to the attention of General Phillips because of his
determination to go fight despite his frail body. He is given a potion that
turns him into a super-soldier.
Joe Simon wrote about the creation of Captain America. Remember that
the first issue came out a year before Pearl Harbor, before the United
States entered the war. Simon and Kirby were making a deliberate
political statement about how they felt about the events in Europe: "The
opponents to the war were all quite well organized. We wanted to have
our say too." Captain America was not universally appreciated in America. They received threatening
letters and hate mail; a police guard was posted outside their offices. But others appreciated “Cap.”
Mayor Fiorello La Guardia personally contacted Simon and Kirby to offer his support
One might have thought that, given the ties to the war, Captain America would have held limited
interest once the war was over. He didn’t have cool super powers or a mysterious back story. But he
didn’t fade away and is one of the most popular characters in the Marvel universe today. His character
appears in both the current Avengers movies, as well as his own movies, Captain America: The First
23
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Simon
Avenger and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Captain America: Civil War is a future title. Captain
America was the first Marvel hero to make it to the big screen, in a 1944 movie starring Dick Purcell.
Jack Kirby was almost cut from the initial production of Captain America. Filling a comic book with
stories based on a single character seemed a daunting task to Joe Simon and he was worried that the
workload would be too much for Kirby. There were two young artists from Connecticut looking for a
break (Al Avison and Al Gabriele, together known as the “Als”) and Simon was ready to give the work to
them. He told Kirby “You're still number one, Jack. It's just a matter of a quick deadline for the first
issue." Kirby became emotional and replied “I'll make the deadline. I'll pencil it myself and make the
deadline." Simon. Surprised at how strongly Kirby felt, would go along with Kirby’s wishes. Looking back
on this years later, Simon commented on how fortunate this was. “There might have been two Als, but
there was only one Jack Kirby.” It was Kirby that gave Captain America his physique and gave the action
an added dimension. The partnership proved successful: the first run of the comic sold out in only days
and the second run was set at a million copies.
Jack Kirby was born Jacob Kurtzberg on August 28, 1917, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan24. His
father was a garment worker. Kirby liked to draw and saw art as his ticket out of the neighborhood. He
taught himself to draw, using the comics as models. At age 14 he was accepted to the Pratt Institute, but
he only lasted a week there. He explained “I wasn't the kind of student that Pratt was looking for. They
wanted people who would work on something forever. I didn't want to work on any project forever. I
intended to get things done.”
Just as Bob Kane and others had done, Jack got his start in the comic book industry working at Eisner &
Iger. His work was first published in Wild Boy Magazine. He worked on a variety of comic strips,
spanning genres that included science fiction, Westerns, swashbucklers and comedy. He used a variety
of pen names at this time. Eventually he would settle on Jack Kirby.
In 1940, his family moved to Brooklyn, where he would meet and
eventually marry Rosalind “Roz” Goldstein. He left Eisner & Iger for a job at
Fox Feature Syndicate where he worked on The Blue Beetle, his first superhero comic. At Fox, Kirby was paid $15 a week, a salary that he was happy
with. It was also at Fox that he meet and become friends with Joe Simon,
who was working as a cartoonist and editor. When Simon left Fox to go to
Timely, he took Kirby with him. Simon became the company’s editor and
after the success of Captain America, he promoted Kirby to the role of art
director.
Simon had negotiated a deal with Timely that included a share of the profits
from their work. With the success of Captain America, Simon felt that they
not receiving their fair share, that they were in fact being swindled. Simon went to the competition, to
National Comics (which would later become part of DC) and negotiated a deal. At Timely, Simon and
Kirby were paid $85 and $75 a week respectively. At National the pair were paid a combined $500 a
week. When Moe Goodman found out that they were negotiating with the competition, he told them to
24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kirby
leave after finishing up work on Captain America #10. One of the people who had known of their plans
was a 19-year old editorial assistant named Stan Lee.
Once the pair arrived at National, no one seemed to know what to do with
them. They tried filling in as ghost writers, but that didn’t work. Finally Jack
Liebowitz told them “just do what you want.” The pair took over the
Sandman feature from Adventure comics and created a new super-hero,
Manhunter. Both were successful.
In 1942, Simon and Kirby created Boy Commandos, a sort of fusion or mashup of “kid gang” and war comics. The Boy Commandos featured an
international cast of kids that joined together to battle the Nazis. This comic
would be very well-received and was the first work to be published on its
own. (At that time, Sandman and Manhunter were both strips that ran
within Adventure.)
By this point, the team of Simon and Kirby had established themselves as geniuses, having produced hit
comics for the organizations that would become Marvel and DC. They were starting to be compared to
the team of Siegel and Schuster, then men who began the comic book business.
But then came the war. Simon would join the Coast Guard. After two
years of patrolling New Jersey beaches, Simon would run into NY Post
columnist Milt Gross. The two would hit it off and Simon and Gross
would produce a comic called Adventure Is My Career, developed as a
recruiting tool. Simon would not be the only cartoonist to serve the War
Department in this type of capacity.
Jack Kirby, on the other hand, served in a more dangerous capacity. He
was assigned to the 11th Infantry Regiment. When his commander
learned that he had been an illustrator, he assigned him scouting duties.
Kirby would be sent into towns in advance of the troops to draw maps, a
hazardous duty. During the winter of 1944, he suffered severe frostbite
of the legs. He would be sent home and would finish his military career
working in a motor pool. In 1945 he received his honorable discharge.
After the war, Kirby and Simon returned to the comic business. They began
working on kid-gang adventures for Harvey Comics. Alfred Harvey, born
Alfred Wiernikoff, had known Simon and Kirby from their days at Fox. Alfred
Harvey, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, was the creator of comic book
characters Little Dot and Richie Rich and his company published comics
featuring Caspar the Friendly Ghost, Wendy the Good Little Witch, Baby Huey
and Sad Sack. But the team’s greatest success came after they left Harvey for
Crestwood Publications. In 1947, Joe Simon invented a whole new comic
book genre beginning with Young Romance. Again, Simon negotiated a deal
where he and Kirby were to receive a percentage of the profits. And again
they had both a hit comic (selling millions of copies) and a bitter struggle to
get their money.
Kirby and Simon continued to work together for some time, taking a variety of jobs, even opening their
own company. But by 1955, after 15 years of partnership, the two came to a parting of the ways. Simon
went into a career in advertising, while Kirby stayed in the comics industry. In 1958, he began
freelancing for a variety of comic books, including Classic Comics. Finally Kirby returned to Marvel
Comics.
Stan Lee: Marvel Comics – By 1960, Stan Lee had risen to the position of Editor-In-Chief at Marvel
Comics. After almost 20 years, he still held a grudge against Kirby for having left to work for the
competition. At first Kirby worked as a freelancer and had to work 10 to 12 hours a day because of the
low page rates that he was being paid. But then, in 1961, he began one of the most famous
collaborations in comic book history. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby worked together to create The Fantastic
Four.
Stan Lee, born Stanley Martin Lieber, was the son of Romanian Jewish parents. His early life was spent in
Washington Heights in Manhattan. By the time he was a teenager his family had moved to University
Avenue in the Bronx. Stan also attended De Witt Clinton High School. At age 19, he was able to get a job
at Timely Comics through the intervention of his uncle. His cousin, Jean, was married to Moe Goodman.
Ironically it was Joe Simon that formalized the hiring.
When Simon and Kirby left, Stan Lee became first the interim editor, then editor-in-chief and then had
the title of art director added. At first his duties included seeing that the inkwells were filled for the
artists, getting them lunch, erasing pencil marks and proof-reading. But he was learning the business. By
1941, he wrote his first comic, a Captain America. It was here that he invented the shield toss that would
become a trademark.
During World War II, he served first in the Army Signal Corps, then
in the Training Film Division, where his duties included writing
manuals, slogans and occasionally cartooning. When he returned
home, he wrote all kinds of stories including romance, Westerns,
humor, science fiction, medieval adventure, horror and suspense.
But it was with the Fantastic Four and in collaboration with Jack
Kirby that Lee hit his stride.
Why did the Fantastic Four resonate with the 1960s audience? At
first it seems unlikely. There are many derivative elements to it.
The character of the Human Torch had been around for decades,
although not as Johnny Storm. Super hero teams were nothing
new either. Julius Schwartz25, over at DC, had created the Justice
League years before.
Yet Lee took a gamble, creating characters that were tragically
flawed, that a teenage audience could empathize with. This was a
departure from all that had gone before, when super-heroes and
their alter-egos were supposed to be perfect.
25
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Schwartz
The four members of the team were:
Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, a scientist-type, developed the ability to stretch. (Nothing really new,
Plastic Man had been around since 1941.) In love with Sue Storm.
Sue Storm, aka The Invisible Girl, later updated to the Invisible Woman. She was the first female superhero created in Marvel’s Silver Age. Love interest with Reed, interests with Dr. Doom and Sub-Mariner.
Sister to Johnny Storm.
Johnny Storm, aka The Human Torch. Wise-cracking, teenage hero. Charismatic (and good looking) he
was designed to appeal to teens.
Ben Grimm, aka The Thing. Ben Grimm was the tragic hero that really
made these comics different. For one thing, he was Jewish26. (This
would be hinted at, but not revealed until 2002.) Benjamin Jacob
Grimm was from Yancy Street on the Lower East Side. He grew up in a
rough neighborhood, he lost his brother to gang violence. (He was
actually modeled after Jack Kirby, who came from Delancey Street on
the Lower East Side and who lost his older brother as a child. Jack’s
father was named Ben.)
Ben was an Air Force hero, although the time frame changed from
World War II to later years. Despite his colloquial way of speaking
(loosely modeled on Jimmy Durante) he was brilliant, having met Reed
while attending college on full scholarship. And he was handsome.
But the cosmic radiation that gave them all their super-powers
transformed Ben into a horrible creature, a true “Thing.” He was ugly.
He always felt out of place, unwanted. He would find a girlfriend (the blind Alicia Masters) but even then
love would elude him. In short he was the perfect character for teens to identify with.
Marvel’s success with the Fantastic Four led to a host of other flawed yet truly human super-heroes.
They got angry and depressed. They had fights with their girlfriends. Spider-man, as Peter Parker,
worried about how he was going to pay his rent.
Lee and Kirby created the Hulk (the ultimate outcast), Thor, Iron Man and the X-men. With Steve Ditko
(not Jewish, the son of Slovakian immigrants) the failed surgeon and alcoholic Dr. Strange and Marvel’s
greatest hero, Spider-man.
Marvel would become the leader not only in comic book realism, but also in introducing contemporary
politics into comics. In November of 2015 Iceman of the X-men team became the most prominent (but
far from the only) superhero to “come out.” Marvel authors were also outspoken in opposing what they
saw as right-wing politics. Captain America once fought the Tea Party!
Steve Ditko has long been a follower of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. When he left Marvel, he
used the last issue of Spider-man that he worked on to mock Vietnam War protestors.
26
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(comics)
Redefining the Medium: The Life of Will Eisner – Will Eisner had been in the comics industry almost
since the beginning, starting in 1936. At age 19, he partnered with Samuel Maxwell "Jerry" Iger to open
Eisner & Iger, also known as Syndicated Features Corporation. Eisner had worked with Jerry Iger at
Wow! What A Magazine, where Iger had been editor. When that magazine closed, the two were out of
work. Each man offered a different version of how the business got started (Jerry’s is more realistic, he
had been doing publishing on his own) but whatever the case the company did two things: served as
teaching ground for the next generation of comic artists (Bob Kane, Lou Fine and Jack Kirby are only
some of the alumni. Dick Briefer, Chuck Mazoujian, Bill Bossert, Bob Powell and George Tuska also came
through Eisner & Eiger); and established young Will Eisner as a giant in the field.
In 1940, Will left the firm to begin working full-time on The Spirit.
Eisner had been approached by Everett M. "Busy" Arnold with a
proposition. The newspapers were concerned that they were
losing audience to the comic book people. As comic books had
initially offered collections of Sunday comics for free, now the
newspapers wanted to offer a comic book, dedicated to just one
character, as a free insert for Sundays. This was to be called a
“comic book insert.” Eisner would sell his share of the company
to Iger for $20,000.
In a 1997 interview, Eisner explained why he left his successful
business: "They gave me an adult audience and I wanted to write
better things than superheroes. Comic books were a ghetto. I
sold my part of the enterprise to my associate and then began
The Spirit. They wanted a heroic character, a costumed
character. They asked me if he'd have a costume. And I put a
mask on him and said, 'Yes, he has a costume!””
The Spirit was an urban crime-fighter and each week a seven or eight page comic was included in the
Sunday papers. Eisner filled out the section with two smaller features, Mr. Mystic and Lady Luck. At its
peak, the “Spirit Section” was included in 20 newspapers with a combined circulation of five million
copies. Again, Eisner had been very successful.
It should also be noted that during this initial period of creating The Spirit Eisner had (uncredited)
assistance from artists Jack Cole and Wally Wood and a young writer named Jules Feiffer.27
Then came World War II. In his Introduction to the book “Last Day In Vietnam” Eisner would write:
“I began military service with the Ordinance Department of the US Army early in the spring of 1942.
After my induction I found myself in Aberdeen Proving Grounds, an Army camp in Maryland.”
Eisner was not anxious to be sent overseas and into combat. He looked for ways to extend his time
stateside.
27
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_(comics)
He soon found himself assigned to a new program called
“preventative maintenance.” The idea was to reduce
equipment failure due to neglect. Eisner continued “It
was obvious to me that comics would be the best way to
publish information about field-fixes and to teach
bootstrap repair under combat conditions. The concept
was easy to sell; in wartime the military is responsive to
innovation.” Eisner had become a cartoonist for the
military, a position that he would hold in either full or
part-time capacity until 1972; from World War II
through Korea and Vietnam.
As silly as it might sound, Eisner’s work was very popular
with the troops and was considered successful enough
that the Army kept him on as a civilian employee after
the war. As part of his duties, he toured the war zones
and met with troops. The work that he created was both
groundbreaking and poignant.
From the first panel of the title story “Last Day In
Vietnam” you know that you are in for something
different. For one thing, the story is told entirely from
the first person perspective, instead of the standard
third-person point of view.
The main character is a high-ranking civilian being given a tour of combat positions in Vietnam. His
guide is an officer who explains early that this is his “Last day in Vietnam.”
The story itself
juxtaposes lighter
images at the
beginning of the
story, the car ride to
the helicopter for
example, with
grimmer scenes of
the combat veterans
as we get closer to
the frontlines.
Not long after take-off the helicopter carrying our protagonist and his guide stops to pick up three
frontline soldiers. Using simple techniques Eisner is able to convey the weariness and despondency of
these three soldiers who never utter a word. The last that we see of them is as they head back into the
jungle.
“Last Day In Vietnam” was first
published in 2000, well after even
the latest events covered in the
book were over. But some of the
ideas had been with Eisner since his
time in the military during the
1940s.
When Eisner returned to civilian life
after the war, he went back to
working on The Spirit. The majority
of work for that series was done during this period. He also tried to launch several new comic book
series, including Baseball, John Law, Kewpies, and Nubbin the Shoeshine Boy. None of these succeeded.
Seeing that newspaper subscriptions were declining during the post-war period, and since he had an
ongoing contract with the US Army, Eisner launched the American Visuals Corporation, a company that
produced instructional materials. RCA and the NFL were clients.
But by the 1970s, Eisner was ready for bigger and more serious projects. He had in mind a series of book
length illustrated titles about Jewish life and history. When he tried to describe these to his publisher, he
was met with skepticism. Who ever heard of a comic so long and of such serious content? Eisner
explained that no, these weren’t comics. These would be something new, a “graphic novel.”
Beginning with “The Contract With God” books (A Contract With God, A Life Force and Dropsie Avenue)
and continuing on through “The Plot: The Secret Story of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” Eisner
redefined what could be done by combining text with images. The Plot is the last book that Eisner wrote
and is an account of the creation of the anti-Semitic hoax The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,
how this was commissioned to be fabricated in Tsarist Russia and continues to be a plague today. It is an
amazing work and is a fitting tribute published after Eisner’s death.
Will Eisner used the term “Sequential art” to describe how comics told stories. Many of the individual
panels that appeared in comics would, on their own, be considered art. Yet for some reason when they
are bound together to tell a complete story we regard them as something less.
From Superman through The Plot Jewish artists and writers, and those they influenced, used comics to
tell stories about good versus evil, of gods and demons, of people who wanted to repair the world. This
was their story.
Honorable Mention –
William Moulton Marston was a psychologist, a lawyer and an inventor.
He is credited with inventing the systolic blood pressure test, which
became one part of the polygraph test. His wife, Elizabeth, is said to
have suggested the relationship between blood pressure and lying,
which perhaps explains why Marston would give his comic book
creation, Wonder Woman, the magic Lasso of Truth.
In 1940, Marston gave an interview to a former student named Olive
Byrne that would be published in The Family Circle magazine28. He said
that he saw “great educational potential” in comics, a phrase that
caught the attention of publisher Max Gaines. Gaines hired Marston as
an Educational Consultant for what would become DC.
Again it was Elizabeth who suggested that people would like a female
superhero or superheroine in this case. And that is how Wonder Woman came about. Originally
described by Marston as what he thought of as the feminine ideal, Wonder Woman was to be "tender,
submissive, peace loving as good women are.” Instead, Wonder Woman would combine super strength,
agility, a cool flying plane and mystic powers. Her appearance was based on a combination of Elizabeth
Marston and Olive Byrne.
Classics Illustrated was a line of comics created by Russian-born Albert
Lewis Kanter in 194129. The first three issues published under this brand
were The Three Musketeers, followed by Ivanhoe and then The Count of
Monte Cristo. The illustrations were done by a variety of artists, often in a
particularly garish style. Beginning with issue #23, Oliver Twist, Eisner & Iger
were contributors.
For a lot of kids, Classics Illustrated were the comics that you were allowed
to read when you weren’t allowed to read other comics. A secondary line
aimed at younger children was marketed under Classics Illustrated Junior
and featured mainly fairy tales. In 1971, Classics
ceased publication, although the brand name
was used for movies.
Gold Key Comics started publishing in 1962. Primarily Gold Key served to
produce comics for the Warner Bros. and Disney brands (Bugs Bunny,
Donald Duck, The Lone Ranger, Star Trek, et al) but also produced some
original content: Magnus, Robot Fighter and Turok, Son of Stone being the
most famous. By 1984, the parent company, Western Publishing, was out of
the comic business.
28
29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Moulton_Marston
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classics_Illustrated
Bibliography and References
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jews-in-comic-books/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Goodman_(publisher)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Donenfeld (Action Comics/DC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detective_Comics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milt_Gross
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Eisner
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Iger
https://philosophynow.org/issues/93/Nietzsches_Ubermensch_A_Hero_of_Our_Time
http://www.jta.org/1934/11/01/archive/all-anti-semites-ought-to-be-shot-nietzsche-once-wrote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_and_Superman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Siegel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Shuster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reign_of_the_Superman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detective_Comics
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Action_Comics_Vol_1_1
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/16/superman-is-jewish-the-hebrew-roots-of-americas-greatest-superhero.html
http://forward.com/culture/178454/10-reasons-superman-is-really-jewish/
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/superman-from-cleveland-to-krypton/
http://www.supermanhomepage.com/comics/comics.php?topic=articles/supes-war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Kane
Batman: The Complete History, Les Daniels, Chronicle Books, 2004
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bat_Whispers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Finger
The Steranko History of Comics., Jim Steranko, Supergraphics, 1970
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Nodell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Goodman_(publisher)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kirby
http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Jack_Kirby_(Earth-1218)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Commandos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Comics#DC_Entertainment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Lee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Comics_Publications,_Inc._v._Fawcett_Publications,_Inc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(comics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Eisner
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisner_%26_Iger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_(comics)
http://www.willeisner.com/library/graphic-novels.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Moulton_Marston
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classics_Illustrated