Superboys Mysterious Origins Could Tie Him To The RealLife Mob

Superboy’s Mysterious Origins Could Tie Him To The Real-Life Mob

Contents

After the success of Superman, DC hit it big again with Superboy, but an offhand comment about his creation may reveal more than anyone intended.

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Superboys Mysterious Origins Could Tie Him To The RealLife Mob

Everyone knows the story of Superman and his many adventures as an adult, but less than a decade after the Man of Steel’s Golden Age debut, DC Comics decided to fill in the gaps by introducing Superboy, exploring the last son of Krypton’s boyhood adventures in Smallville. Most accounts of Superboy’s creation are told from the side of Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, but a quote from DC editor Jack Schiff is one of the few windows fans have into the elusive and shady side of Superboy’s creation from the perspective of DC editorial.

For a character that is just a younger version of Superman, most fans would be surprised to hear that the creation of Superboy is fraught with controversy, and the more digging that is done, the stranger the story becomes. One of the strangest details comes from a comment that was printed in the 1983 Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, where DC editor Jack Schiff made a bizarre claim that Superboy was created due to extra paper. Schiff’s claim of DC publisher Jack Liebowitz acquiring extra paper is eyebrow-raising, and a number of factors need to be considered in order to illuminate its startling implications.

During the war we had some extra paper which Jack Liebowitz had managed to acquire. So (Whitney Ellsworth) called Joe Schuster and told him we were going to put out a Superboy mag. Joe spent a couple of days in the office, drawing different heads and figures of Superboy and other characters until we had it just right. I worked out a script with Don Cameron, who was writing Batman, Superman and just about anything else we needed.

You Need Paper To Print Comic Books

Superboys Mysterious Origins Could Tie Him To The RealLife Mob

In order to sell comic books, publishers need paper to print on, and prior to Superboy’s creation, it became increasingly hard for publishers and printers to get their hands on paper. Historian Paul Hirsch explained the government’s role in easing paper rationing to comic publishers who were willing to include American propaganda in their publications, saying in an interview to the Library of Congress:

Overwhelmingly, comic book companies were willing accomplices to the WWB (Writer’s War Board). Cooperating with the WWB was seen as a patriotic obligation. Working with the WWB also made financial sense, as publishers had to comply with wartime rationing of wood pulp, the essential ingredient in comic book paper. A publisher in good standing that printed WWB-sanctioned stories might receive access to additional wood pulp, and sell more comic books.

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In an article written for Alter Ego #164, Mark Carlson-Ghost writes:

The most important thing to understand about this brief period in comic book history is that stringent paper quotas were set by the U.S. federal government early in 1943. But the demand for comicbooks remained the same. In an era of world war, if anything, the desire for escapist fantasies increased. So do the math. Reduced product on the newsstands, and the same or increased demand, meant that just about everything on sale sold out.

Around September 1944 (as reported in the New York Times), the U.S. Government started implementing additional paper rations on all users of newsprint including newspapers and comic books in order to curb loopholes publishers were using to get more paper. Comic books were usually made three months in advance of release, and hit newsstands (where comics were sold before comic stores) around a month to two months before the cover date. Superboy’s debut in More Fun Comics #101 had a cover date of January 1945 and went on sale in mid-November 1944, which means the production was happening around September 1944, which lines up perfectly with when DC would have been notified about the additional rationing. The timing is further confirmed considering the previous issue, More Fun Comics #100, had a page count of 56 pages compared to More Fun Comics #101’s reduced 48 pages, so Jack Schiff’s claim of Liebowitz acquiring extra paper during this time doesn’t hold water considering the magazine Superboy appeared in had a reduction of pages.

Superboy Gets His Own Comic

Superboys Mysterious Origins Could Tie Him To The RealLife Mob

The restrictions placed on essential items in World War II led to the growth of a black market, which saw people with access to goods selling them to buyers under the table for inflated prices. Harry Donenfeld, who owned DC Comics at the time, also owned the printing presses that printed all of DC’s titles. Donenfeld also owned a distribution company called Independent News, which distributed DC’s comics as well as comics and magazines by DC’s competition. Before the war, Donenfeld was allegedly an associate of criminal figures such as Frank Costello, Benny Fein and Moe Annenberg. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that with these connections, extra paper could now have been acquired.

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The years following the war saw an increased demand for newsprint as the wood pulp rations were slowly lifted, but the American paper industry didn’t return to its pre-war state with a severely decreased production of paper being produced within the U.S.. In 1939, the U.S. produced 939,000 tons of newsprint, compared to a post-war amount of 771,000 tons in 1946, and the U.S.’s consumption of newsprint in 1939 was 3,548,000 tons compared to 1946’s consumption of 4,284,000 tons (as clarified in a CQR Newsprint Supply Report.) The decreased production and increased demand called for larger amounts of newsprint to be imported from other countries, primarily from Canada, which was subject to import tax. It’s possible that with government rations on newsprint no longer in effect, Liebowitz and Donenfeld were able to acquire extra paper through non-official sources in a time where it was becoming harder for publishing companies to acquire said paper, but government watchdogs weren’t as vigilant about checking in on where the paper was coming from as rations were lifted.

If Schiff’s claim is accurate, it’s possible he was confusing his timeline. If indeed Leibowitz was able to acquire enough extra paper to create a new comic title, legally or otherwise, it most likely would have been after the war, which would mean Schiff was referencing 1949’s Superboy #1, and not 1945’s More Fun Comics #101. In this way, the story may reveal far more than was intended about the machinations behind Superboy’s immense popularity.

Superboy Succeeds

If the youth of America loved Superman, they loved Superboy almost equally. Superboy’s feature in More Fun Comics (and in Adventure Comics six issues later) was very popular, so popular in fact that in early 1949 DC decided he was big enough to become only the sixth DC Comics superhero to receive his own comic book title with Superboy #1.

It’s very possible the obtaining of extra paper spurred this decision. Even though young Superman’s days in Smallville are all but gone in today’s comics, the Golden Age boy from Krypton was a massive success for DC Comics, and even if extra paper wasn’t the reason for his creation, there is no doubt Superboy made extra paper with his success.

Special thanks to Warren Bernard and Roy Thomas for valuable insight.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/superboy-dc-comic-creation-paper-crime-mob-controversy/

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