10/17/2026
Happy Birthday to Jerry Siegel, half of the team that created Superman, the cornerstone of comic book super-heroes.
From DC Comics' website:
"...Superman has spent the last eighty years redefining what it means to stand on the side of good. The last survivor of the doomed planet Krypton, raised in the quiet heartland of Smallville, Kansas, Superman is as much a legend as he is a man: the gold standard of heroism, compassion and responsibility.
Though his powers make him god-like next to his human compatriots, Superman's story is not one of greed or conquest. Instead, he strives to represent the inherent goodness of the human spirit, and the capacity of every living thing to do right by their neighbors."
Jerry Siegel (17 October 1914 – 28 January 1996, USA) was an early and very influential comic-book creator.
He was an avid science-fiction fan, publishing the first fanzine in 1929. In high school, he became friends with Joe Shuster, an artist and fan like himself.
Siegel and Shuster broke into comics together, with stories in “New Fun” and “New Comics” (published by what would become National Comics) from 1935.
In 1938, they sold a feature to the same company for a new title, “Action Comics” — ‘Superman’. They got $130 and a contract to supply material to the publisher.
Near the end of the contract, in 1946, the pair sued to regain rights to ‘Superman’. They left National and in 1947 began working for another publisher, Magazine Enterprises. They lost the lawsuit.
Siegel continued to write for a variety of publishers. He returned to National to write uncredited ‘Superman’ stories. He wrote at Marvel both as himself and as ‘Joe Carter’.
He worked on super-heroes for Archie Comics (the Mighty Comics line) and Charlton Comics. For Disney’s publishers, he wrote “Junior Woodchucks” stories (USA) and stories in “Topolino” (Italy).
He received an Inkpot Award (1975) and a Bill Finger Award (2005). He was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame (1992) and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame (1993).
At Comiclopedia — https://www.lambiek.net/artists/s/siegel.htm
At Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Siegel
In the GCD — http://ow.ly/trs5305eRQ2
ACTION COMICS #13 (1939)