MacDonald Ross - Boys of steel: the creators of Superman

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Text copyright 2008 by Marc Tyler Nobleman
Illustrations copyright 2008 by Ross MacDonald
Hand lettering by David Coulson

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nobleman, Marc Tyler.
Boys of steel : the creators of Superman / by Marc Tyler Nobleman ;
illustrated by Ross MacDonald. 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-375-83802-6 (trade)
ISBN 978-0-375-93802-3 (lib. bdg.)
1. Siegel, Jerry, 19141996Juvenile literature.
2. Shuster, JoeJuvenile literature.
3. CartoonistsUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature.
I. MacDonald, Ross. II. Title.
NC1305.N63 2008
741.50922dc22
2007041606

eBook ISBN: 978-0-449-81064-4

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v3.1

M ost days, Jerry Siegel slipped into the halls of his high school staring at the floor. He always wished he were going in the other directionback home.

Thats where he could be with his friends. They were an extraordinary bunch.

But Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers were fictional characters. They saved other fictional characters in pulp magazines and comic strips. They couldnt save anyone in the real world, where millions of people were struggling to find jobs during the Great Depression of the 1930s. They couldnt save Jerrys father, who had died of heart failure during an after-hours robbery in his clothing store in Cleveland.

Jerry read amazing stories every evening, every weekend, every chance he got. If he wasnt reading, he was watchingthe cinemas had no shortage of rousing motion pictures about daredevils who laughed at danger. And when he should have been paying attention in class, he let his thoughts drift to galaxies yet to be explored. None of it helped him miss his father less, but it did distract him from his sadness for a little while.

Jerry also wrote his own adventure and science fiction stories. Hed pound away at his typewriter by the front window in his attic. From there, he could see boys playing ball and flirting with girls on the street below. Jerry wasnt good at those things. He had crushes on girls who didnt knowor didnt carethat he existed. Some of them look like they hope I dont exist, Jerry thought.

Jerry was shyunless he could talk about musclemen or detectives or jet packs or ray guns or any other champions or gadgets hed read about. But the kids he knew werent interested in those weird tales, and they ignored Jerry.

Except Joe Shuster.

Jerry and Joe couldve passed for brothers. Both were short. Both wore glasses. Like Jerry, Joe was lousy at sports and mousy around girls. He, too, was shy, almost painfully so. And he, too, escaped to other worlds in pulps and strips, then made up his own worlds.

But he did it with pictures, not words. While Jerry was typing in his attic, Joe was drawing in his kitchen, using a breadboard as a surface. Joe often illustrated Jerrys stories.

No matter the obstacle, Joe found a way to draw. When his family couldnt afford art paper, he made do with wrapping paper from the butcher or the back of discarded wallpaper. In winter, because the Shusters apartment had no heat, he drew while bundled in several sweaters, one or two coatseven gloves.

It wasnt just kids who didnt understand Jerry and Joe. One of Jerrys teachers told him that he was wasting his time writing what she called trash. But Jerry sensed that these stories were important. In life, people got pushed around. Children lost parents. Criminals got away. In stories, heroes could prevent all of that.

And Jerry had a plan. If he and Joe could come up with a colorful new character, they could produce a comic strip about himand maybe sell it to a newspaper syndicate.

The partners crafted a science fiction story in cartoons. It starred a brave, tough man who fought for truth and justice. But that wasnt enough to make him stand out from the many other men of action already on the newsstands. After only one publisher said no to Jerry and Joes concept, Joe tore up the pages in disappointment.