The Comics Rack
HUH?
Throughout their lifetimes, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster struggled to regain the rights to their creation, Superman; their feeling being that Superman was not simply work for hire and that they were, justifiably, entitled to a portion of the money that their creation brought in. For many years, DC responded by ignoring both Jerry and Joe and by removing any and all references to the fact that they created Superman from all DC titles.
The two examples shown above are a result of this policy (a policy that DC reversed a number of years ago, much to their credit.) The top example comes from Superman #19, by way of the DC Archives edition, originally published in 1942. The bottom example comes from the yellowed pages of Superman #183 (80 pg. Giant G18) originally published in 1966.
The premise of the story is that Clark and Lois go to the movies to see a Superman cartoon produced by Paramount. You will notice the difference in the credits between the two, in that the Siegel and Shuster credit has been removed from the 1966 reprinting, which was consistent with the DC policy of the time (of all the Golden Age creators, only Bob Kane made out well with Batman, retaining not only credit, but also receiving a good amount of money throughout his lifetime).
Although this may look like an open and shut case of big corporation smash little creators, there is a mystery attached to these examples.
In Comic Buyer's Guide #1478, Cerebus creator Dave Sim wrote a letter concerning some other Superman items and then began to discuss the dropping of credits in the Superman annual (which is what got me off on this track in the first place). Sim claims that Lois' dialogue in Superman #19 is "Siegel and Shuster? Who are they?" an in-joke that would have been funny at the time since Siegel and Shuster were in good standing with DC at the time.
Not having an original copy of Superman #19 on hand, I cannot verify Sim's claim, but if true, it means that the DC Archives are not as complete as they would have us think.
Kind of makes you go HUH? don't it?
Thought Balloons has further discussion of Siegel and Shuster and their struggle with DC Comics.
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