Secret art

A cool million

Joe Shuster (circa 1941)

Last month, a copy of Action Comics #1 (June 1938) sold at the Manhattan-based auction company Comic Connect, for $1 million, over three times the $317,000 auction record for a different copy, in lesser condition, sold in 2009. Superman's 1938 debut issue once cost a mere ten cents. The exciting cover and story art was drawn by Joe Shuster, who with Jerry Siegel created the Man of Steel.

Although Siegel and Shuster became famous for Superman, one of the most well-known and commercially successful fictional characters of the 20th century, they didn't become rich. The copyrights to the character and their stories were sold early on to National Allied Publications (the original name of what is now DC Comics), which later became the subject of a bitter lawsuit. Siegel and Shuster partnered again, creating the short-lived comical crime-fighter Funnyman, published by Magazine Enterprises. Their new character fizzled at finding an audience and was dropped after only six issues. Afterwards, Siegel continued to write for comics including X-Men and Archie, but Shuster mysteriously retreated from mainstream comics, drawing as a freelance cartoonist.

Several years ago, author, artist, designer and comic book art historian Craig Yoe found a booklet in a dusty cardboard box at a rare book sale. It was a cheaply printed fetish booklet, Nights of Horror, an under-the-counter rag of which only 16 issues were published in the mid-1950s, with specialized stories of exploitative, seedy pulp. The series had gained tabloid notoriety, having been called the inspiration for the Brooklyn Thrill Killers, a teen gang that had killed two men and tortured others during the summer of 1954. Their brutality instigated an anti-comics crusade, a trial for the publisher and printer and ultimately, congressional censorship of comic books. Equally interesting as the racy history of Nights of Horror, was the distinctive artwork. Yoe recognized the drawings of the anonymous artist as the work of Joe Shuster.

In his beautifully designed book, Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster, Yoe respectfully presents the historic background of Shuster's drawings which depict scenes of torture and bondage, giving them proper context and significance, above and beyond their sordid first impression.