Well, actually I’m told that The Globe and Mail is The New York Times of Canada. Or The New York Times is The Globe and Mail of the U.S. But, anyway, The Globe just did a HUGE feature on Secret Identity: The Fetish Art Of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster. The cover of their arts section, the Globe Review, has a way cool, eye-catching banner emblazoned all across the top. Then, there is a full page article inside titled Look! In the Shadows! It’s Sadomasochisticman! with three full illustrations. The article leads off with “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” Joe Shuster is Toronto born so that gets a lot of play. Here’s another quote from the fascinating, lengthy article:

“Now, thanks to the sleuthing archivist/designer/author and former Jim Henson associate Craig Yoe, Shuster’s cover is blown, and blown good…even a casual flip thorough its pages takes you to a naughty netherworld of bare-breasted babes taking the whip to the buttocks of compliant, rock-jawed males; of weeping lingerie-clad white women on trembling knees before muscular black males in tight swimtrunks; of cruel aristocrats in cravats and smoking jackets commanding women to kiss their slippers; of marijuana-smoking Jimmy Olsen look-alikes. Joe Shuster: We hardly knew ye!”

Below is the poster. Aside from the coolest DJs in NYC, the bleeding edge fashion brand Mishka sponsorship, the mash-up of NYC nightlife people, kink people and comic fans please note that there will be tableaus of actors acting out scenes from Joe Shuster’s fetish art from the book! Spread the word, please, by any and all means. And you know the rote: Be there or…

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Was contacted by National Public Radio’s Fresh Air people today-woo-woo! And interviewed by a reporter from Publishers’ Weekly. Yay! And there’s other book signings coming up and appearances at an erotic reading at the Happy Ending niteclub in NYC and many more exciting things in the works I’ll be letting you know about here.

The poster for the awesome bookstore Politics and Prose (and I’ll be using the same graphic for the most excellent store Jim Hanley’s Universe) is below. It’s a colorized Joe Shuster illustration that’s one of my favorites in Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Supeman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster. I especially like it because it reminds me of my days when I was a minister. No, really!

This morning, under the title “Shame Award for Craig,” a “George D” posted the following message on the prestigious comics history message board, The Platinum List. I had posted an announcement about Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster...

Craig,
As much as I do not wish to be call you on something, this is something for the sake of the absent parties who cannot speak for themself (sic), that I must address.

The story of Siegel and Shuster is sad. The creators of not just Superman, but the ones who redefined the image of the super hero as well as the comic book did not deserve the hard times they recieved (sic). Granted they shouldnt (sic) have signed away Superman the way they did. Granted they didnt (sic) have clever father (sic) like Bob Kane did. Granted the industry should have found a place for them. In fact, In (sic) retrospect, one might wonder whether they did the right thing by suing DC Comics.

The Joe Shuster of the 1950s was not a happy man. He was a man who just lost his job, his creation and the law suit. From what I read, he was not the conquering hero with the best job in the world. He was a man full of saddness (sic). A man perhaps struggling to feed his family. Most men in that position might not be thinking straight and doing (sic) things they regret.

But to take the memory of the man who gave us so much who is now dead and try to sensationalize him as a sleeze (sic) artist for something which was either done by him in secret or made to look by him is levels of new low (sic) for you Craig.

Maybe not you (because I wonder if you are capable of shame) but I am sure there are many here who have done things they regret and to have those things paraded gleefully for the sake of a few shekels and to get some perverted titillating pleasure of seeing a hero fall is shameful.

Wheather (sic) he drew the alleged stuff (which I can assure you I will not buy) I cannot say. Assuming he did, wheather (sic) he saw anything wrong with it or not, I cannot say. Yet at the same point I do not think he would want to be remembered as the artist of this anonymous work. I believe he would much rather be remembered as we all remember him, the father of Superman. The one who gave us our first superhero, who stood for truth, justice, the american (sic) way, and morality.

So, with the greatest respect, I ask you Craig, show a little true compassion and love for others in your heart and show the dead some respect. You can be appreciated so much more if you gave up the image of a hugh hefner (sic) wanna be, or a guy who gets adolecent (sic) thrills for naked artwork.

You have said things that I felt were low taste before, but I have to say, with saddness (sic) as I not wish to say the above about anyone, this is a new low.

Try to better yourself Craig, not bring others down to your level.

Rexpectfully (sic),
George

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Steven Stwalley, Webmaster, The International Cartoonist Conspiracy responded:

George, just because an artist chooses to work “blue” is no reason to censor access to their artwork, especially after they are dead. I haven’t seen Craig’s book, but I think any artist of prominence should be able to be analyzed by their full body of work. In comics, it doesn’t get much more prominent than the creator of Superman. Like it or not, part of Shuster’s body of work is racy. For me, this doesn’t lessen his other work… it greatly informs it.

Kudos to Craig for bringing this work to light.

Leo De Sa, Co-Moderator of the Platinum List responded:

What the man said!

Fortunately, during the last century or so museums and art publishers all over the world have chosen to disclose and not hide away some of humanity’s most beautiful paintings and statues, depicting the human body even in highly suggestive poses or actions. Fortunately too, in spite of well- or ill-intentioned family members and sell-appointed defenders of public morals, such interesting pieces as private correspondence or posthumous books like Mark Twain’s dazzling Letters from the Earth could indeed be shown to those who want to peruse them. All of an artist or writer’s work, including the parts that weren’t originally meant to be widely shown, can be meaningful to those who want to know more about said artist or writer. This is certainly also true for comics artists and writers.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, however obtuse they may be. Just please don’t try to censor for the others. Certainly nobody has to purchase a book he doesn’t want to have.

For my part I will definitely buy Craig’s book on Shuster, even if it’s only half as entertaining as his other ones it will be a treat!

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Warren Bernard, who was an invaluable help to me on researching Secret Identity responded:

I had the pleasure of being the main historical researcher on Secret Identity. This took me from the Library of Congress to The National Archives. Along the way we discovered that these cartoons had such an impact that they were featured in New York State hearings, Senate hearings chaired by Estes Kefauver and most important of all, a New York City obscenity case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. This was in addition to these cartoons being linked directly to some very heinous crimes that outraged New York City.

I cannot think of another cartoon, comic, or comic strip that could say the same.

It would be a great loss to the history of comics if we had just let these go and did not turn up this new chapter in the history of comics. Especially since this all occurred right at the time the Comics Code was being formed and yes, in many articles of the day, both these Shuster cartoons and the Comics Code were written up in the same articles in the newspapers of the day, adding much fuel to the Comics Code fire.

When you read the full story, it will become clear that this was no ordinary series of sleazoid cartoons. Keep in mind, of all the sleaze being published at the time in the porn world, New York City picked these cartoons, these magazines, to take to court in an attempt to clean up Times Square.

To quote the man who wrote the introduction:

‘Nuff Said

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Jeet Heer, co-editor with Kent Worcester of Arguing Comics: Literary Masters on a Popular Medium responded:

I completely agree with what Warren (and others) have written: the material Craig found is historically fascinating and important. And I don’t think it reflects poorly on Shuster unless you have some fairly old-fashioned ideas about how sex should be depicted.

I’d also add that anyone who has looked at the early superhero comics will be aware that they were fairly kinky, full of bondage, spankings, etc. To think they were purely wholesome family entertainment is to forget how controversial they were. There was a real overlap between the worlds of the early comics and that of girlie magazines and soft-core porn. Craig’s research helps illuminate that overlap.

Craig here. I welcome more discourse on this subject in the comments section below…

This is going to be big, I’m so excited! All three editions of the highly circulated Metro, the freebie newspaper handed out in the subways of New York, Boston and Philly, have the cover of Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster on the front page, above fold with the headline “Superman’s Sexy Secret”. Then there’s a whole half-page article inside. They did an interview with me on the phone yesterday when I was down at the Library of Congress researching my NEXT book. Read by so many folks this article has got to lead to lots more!

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No mercy for Superman!

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I dig the above headline. And so many great visuals!

NB: DJ David B writes to say that Amazon now has copies in the warehouse and people ordering should have the book in their mailboxes real soon, March 17th! Order now, order here.

It’s pretty well known that DC editors sometimes swiped ideas for comic covers from old pulps. Editors would actually come up with intriguing cover images this way, and then have the writers do scripts based on ‘em-a neat way to work! Wish there were people still doing that-coming up with the covers first, then scripts, that is, not stealing ideas!)

Above is an old pulp and the rip-off Jimmy Olsen cover below…

While trolling through the blogosphere this weekend, I happened on this image below from, of all places, the Chicago Spanking Review blog, which, among other NSFW things, hosts a repository of fetish comic strip and book images.

Discovering this comic book cover below I was flabbergasted how incredibly similar the scene on this Lois Lane (#73; artist Kurt Schaffenberger) is to the image from Nights of Horror that Joe Shuster drew a decade and a half before, and that I used on the cover of Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster. On the Lois Lane cover (entitled Shock Story of the Year!) there’s Lois with her whip, Superman bound to a bench, and a figure, this time not a girl, strapped to a wall.

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It could be all certainly a coincidence, of course, or the product of my very overactive imagination. But the parallels are uncanny. And it opened up a thought to me that I had never considered, even while spending a year writing Secret Identity. Were people at DC aware of Joe Shuster’s activites in p()rn? As my book makes clear, as does the most excellent book published before mine, Men of Tomorrow - Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book by Gerard Jones, the roots of DC Comics, just before the comics, was with p()rn publishing. There had been, and probably were, people at DC that took a professional, and maybe even a personal, interest in published p()rn. And the DC offices were in walking distance of the Times Square bookstores that sold Nights of Horror. And it was the talk of the town and press because of the Brooklyn Thriill Killers. Besides, the art world is a small world and gossip carries far, especially something so juicy like Joe Shuster, the artist behind Superman, their caped cash cow, was drawing fetish art.

So, t’s not at all out of the question that people at DC in the period of the 50s and early 60s knew about this fetish material drawn by Joe Shuster-and maybe even were inspired to create a cover idea for Lois Lane and the resulting story from one of Joe’s sado-masochistic illustrations! At least they weren’t inspired by Nights of Horror like the Brooklyn Thrill Killers, the Jewish neo-Nazi juvenile delinquents that were inspired to horse-whip girls and to murder bums, according to Dr. Frederic Wertham. More on that in the book and more details on the blog later…

Be sharp as a whip, order right now the book, Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster here, and it’ll be in your mailbox in a few short weeks.

The name of some little comic book-y movie that I heard recently came out, Watchmen, is what inspires today’s post: Joe Shuster’s Watch Men! There’s a little bit of voyeur in all of us but a lot of voyeur in the men who who like to watch that populated the pages of Nights of Horror.

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From Nights of Horror issue no.4. You know, there’ always the “suits” that supervise, but then there’s the good ol’ blue collar worker that actually gets the job done. In other words, yes, “it’s a dirty job but somebody has to do it!”

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From Nights of Horror issue no.4. Somehow the two making out remind me of a bob-haired Lois Lane and a handsme Jimmy Olsen and the guy in the window sorta a Perry White-type.

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From Nights of Horror issue no. 12. Honestly, has this gal ever heard of curtains? Love the 3/4 chiseled heads of Shuster’s dude!

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From Nights of Horror issue no.12. Look closely there’s a guy checking out the action from a peephole! He doesn’t have the nice view of the girl’s derriere that WE have, though!

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From Nights of Horror issue no. 11. This one always wigs me out-it’s like the guy has a beer in hand in his living room and is watching TV! Sick!

Order the book, Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster here, you voyeur, you!

Yesterday I promised to post a few of Joe Shuster’s drawings that I didn’t have room for in Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster. Below there’s the common theme of “dirty old men” here that ran through the books (I imagine some of the original buyers of Night of Horror (and Hollywood Detective) could relate—I know *I* can!).

The “dirty old men” in Shuster’s illos do what “Dirty Old Men”/Perry White look-a-likes like to do-fondle and spank Lois Lane and Lana Lang look-a-likes-though THEY THESE LOOK-A-LIKES AIN”T REALLY THEM! There’s a whipping scenerio (also a definite reoccurring theme). And I’m perversely fascinated by the scene at the ocean. The mysterious guy in the background with the shovel has his hands on his hips like so many of the poses of Superman that Joe drew in the comic books (Joe said that his inspiration for this was the Douglas Fairbanks movies). Who secretly IS the guy in the hat and trenchcoat?!? Oh, darn, maybe I should have put that illustration in the book. This is the kind of thing that, uh…tortures book author/designers! (But it’s good blog fodder, so maybe there’s pleasure in the pain).

Coming up: Lots more fascinating art that didn’t make the book and behind-the-scenes secrets about the shocking events told in the book (including the murders involved). And more on “the making of” Secret Identity. So, sign up now for the RSS feed in the upper right.

And order the book now here so you’ll be one of the very first to get your copy.

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From Nights of Horror issue no.5

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From Nights of Horror volume 1

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From Hollywood Detective issue 1

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From Nights of Horror volume 2

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From Nights of Horror issue no. 3

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From Nights of Horror issue no.11

Order Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster here.

Secretly,
Craig

P.S. For a nice preview of the book click on the cover in the right hand column —>

I’ve been absent from blogging for half a year-but here I am with a brand spanking new blog. Let me explain…

One of the big things that kept me away was the book I was working on, “Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster.” Depending on how you count them, I’ve done, or been involved with, around fifty books. But no book took as much effort—and no book was was as full of surprises to me (and I’m gonna assume the readers)—as this new one, due out April 1st!

A while back, I found a cheaply printed, vintage porno booklet (below) in a dusty cardboard box at a rare book sale, and exclaimed to myself , “Oh, my God, Joe Shuster!” And that was just the beginning of surprises. I sold the idea to Charlie Kochman at Abrams of doing a book about the art of this incredibly rare series. I eventually tracked down the complete run at much effort and cost—16 books and more! After I got my contract, I found out a WHOLE lot more—the gripping behind-the-scenes story connected with mobsters, showgirls, the anti-comics crusader Dr. Fredric Wertham, neo-Nazi Jewish juvenile delinquents, Senate investigations, Supreme Court banning, cops on the take, flogging of young teenage girls and…MURDERS!

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When starting a book, I often put together a cover first, because it’s fun to do and it also gives me a “mood piece” to think about when writing, researching, and beginning to think about the design of the book’s interior. I threw it to the great artist and designer at YOE! Studio, Luke McDonnell, to get things started. He chose a brilliant illustration of Shuster’s and dramatically cropped it. He then added simple type to keep it sophisticated, which was the feeling that I was after. I suggested some tweaks, then we showed it to Charlie, who loved it as much as we did and pronounced the cover ,”Perfect—finito—we won’t change a thing!”

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Here’s Shuster’s illlustration Luke originally chose to base the cover on. You can see a bit of the shoddy printing this material had, with the type from the page on the back showing through (in fact, in the parlance of the printing industry, this is called “show through.”) Although the cover of the book eventually changed, there’s still things about this original one that I love.

In the course of looking over and over the material as I began to research and reading the booklets again and again, it suddenly dawned on me to change plans and use one of the number of illustrations that bore a striking resemblance to Superman and Lois (though, of course, they weren’t really them.) At this point, a number of months into the book, this wasn’t so much a “AH HA!” but a loud “DUH!” So, by this time, Luke was on to other things and I enlisted Mike Hill, another super designer at the studio, to put together my idea. We were still keeping the design a stark black, white, and red with simple type, all of which I was really commited to. Below is the illustration of Joe’s (by this time I felt we were on a first name basis) that I decided to use and the resulting new cover.

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Around this time, Abrams had got a new Art Director, Andrea Colvin. Andrea saw what we were up to and suggested I try a more comic book-y type. Man, I hated the idea, I thought it lacked the sophistication I was after. But I wanted to play well with others, so I gave gave it a shot. Clizia Gussoni, my favorite designer at the studio, who also happens to be my wife, and I put together the new version. I bugged the Hell out of her each step of the way (we actually enjoy working together very, very much.) The new book cover had a 3-D superhero-ish logo, which worked well with the Superman and Lois look-a-likes—though I emphasize, they ain’t them. I thought I’d go with a more comic book palette, too, blue and red in the fonts, and yellow wrapping around from the spine. I didn’t know it, but Charlie said there was a name for this, “wrap-around spine.” And then, was it Charlie that suggest scanning some newsprint for the background? Do you like that? Then it was me. Do you hate that? Then it was Charlie. By this time, I was loving the design so I didn’t look back. I only much happily added Stan Lee’s name when I secured him to do the intro—I’m glad Stan wasn’t too tied up!

One idea I came up with all my lonesome was using the right section of the illustration with the young lady in the background tied up, and wrapping it around to the inside for the cover flap. Man, I lucked into that idea and love it. You’ll have to hold the book to get the full effect, but here’s a pic:

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I’m gonna blog regularly about “Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster,” so, sign up for the RSS feed.

Tomorrow, I’ll show you some of Joe’s S&M art that didn’t make it into the book. There’s lots of juicy stuff that couldn’t fit in the book, and even some amazing revelations I’ve learned since going to press. I’ll share all this on this new blog The Secrets Behind Secret Identity. Meanwhile, order “Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster” here so that you will be the first on your block to have one!

You can contact me at my email yoecomix(at)hotmail(dot)com

Secretly,
Craig

P.S. I have the usual blog-erific comment section so feel free to add your 2-cents where it sez “click to comment” at the bottom of each post!

P.P.S. Fellow bloggers and news sites, please give me a link, I’d dig that the most to say the least.