American comics: I drew Superman during the Great Depression

Next few weeks.

With the serialization of Superman comics in The Courier.

The sales of the newspaper began to show an upward trend. According to the feedback from the newspaper boy Jimmy, people in the entire neighborhood were discussing the topic of Superman.

At the same time, fan letters poured into the Courier newspaper office on the corner.

Most of them express their love for the character of Superman, discuss the comic plot, and at the same time urge the Courier to speed up the serialization of subsequent comic content.

A small part of it unexpectedly praised the portrayal of the female reporter Louise in the comics.

"...I think Lois Lane is a symbol of modern professional women. She is independent, brave, strong, talented, and not inferior to any man - the relationship between her and Clark is also a competition between the sexes, and she always It’s slightly better…”

In the comic strips of this period, female characters were not prominent. Even in comic strips like "Tarzan" which was adapted from the novel of the same name, the protagonist of the story also focused on Tarzan. In comic stories, female characters were often only represented as vases. The image appears to set off the strength or charm of the male protagonist.

This point is even more prominent in the current mainstream detective comics.

But this situation has changed in the Superman comics serialized by The Courier.

In the comics of "Superman", Superman Clark still exists as the absolute protagonist, relying on his powerful superpowers to punish crime and evil, and help the victims. However, the existence of the heroine Lois is no longer a pure vase character in the past comics, but as a colleague of Clark, competing with him at work.

Such a setting may be just a common arrangement in an era when female protagonists are common in later generations.

Even some extremists will express strong dissatisfaction with this.

However, this was the Great Depression of 1931, and the emergence of independent female characters, especially in comics, was still quite rare. Therefore, the existence of the beautiful female reporter Lois in the "Superman" comics has not only become the woman in young people's fantasy, but also the existence that girls yearn for.

They also want to become, like Louise, a respected professional woman.

"Boss, readers have responded enthusiastically to the comic series of "Superman"..."

In the Courier newspaper office, Little John was sorting out letters from readers, looking at the contents of the letters and saying excitedly.

In the past, for a local tabloid with a low reputation like "The Courier", it might not receive a few letters from readers throughout the year. But now, the newspaper has received no less than 20 or 30 letters this week alone. Fan letters, and listening to the delivery guy, that's not all.

【Faith (868/1000)】

His eyes scanned the [Faith] points displayed on the text.

Clearly, Colin's decision to serialize the comic in the Courier was a success.

In fact, with the popularity of "Superman", the content published in the newspaper pages gradually changed from the original "criticism" of Hoover to a comic series. Otherwise, the Courier is a newspaper media after all, not a comic publication, and it needs to maintain basic news reporting content for readers to understand information.

John Sr. and John Sr. were almost on the verge of becoming comic editors.

…

"Boss, the current printing of newspapers can no longer keep up with the demand for newspapers..."

Today, the Courier's sales exceed demand.

The only thing that limits the growth of newspaper sales is the printing volume of the newspaper itself.

At present, the rotary printing presses used by The Courier Newspaper are still of the old style. Its newspaper printing quantity was more than enough for the original newspaper company, but it has long been unable to supply the sales volume of the increasingly popular "The Courier".

Especially this weekend, after the new plot of the "Superman" comic created by Colin was serialized in the "Courier", readers responded enthusiastically, and letters from fans fell into the newspaper like snowflakes.

This made Old John understand that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

"Perhaps we can try to add a new rotary printing press to the newspaper office?"

The suggestion made by Old John coincided with Colin's inner thoughts.

If you want to speed up the acquisition of [Faith], increasing the printing scale of the newspaper is obviously a good choice.

However, considering that the rotary printing press was not cheap, Colin hesitated.

During this time, as the sales of the Courier increased, he did have some money in his hands, but it was far from enough to pay for a rotary printing press.

"If, boss, you are worried about the price of the printing press, I may have a way... that can help you."

Before noticing the hesitation on Colin's face, Old John pushed up the brass glasses on the bridge of his nose and spoke.

"I know workers at a bankrupt newspaper company. Their boss was unable to pay wages due to bankruptcy, so he had to mortgage the newspaper's machinery to the workers..."

In this era, newspapers like The Courier are in the minority after all.

Most tabloids were unemployed and bankrupt due to the impact of the Great Depression.

"...I was able to contact those workers and offer to buy the machines in their newspaper offices at a low price."

For those unemployed newspaper workers, the machine was of no use in their hands.

But for the current Courier Newspaper, these mortgaged and idle machines are important treasures.

"Contact those workers and buy the machines from the newspaper once the price is right."

Nodding, Colin did not say much, but said directly.

Then, he thought for a while and added: "In addition, after the machines are in place, the publication date of the Courier will also be changed. In addition to the original weekend newspapers, I decided to add a special issue every Wednesday to serialize the Superman comics to attract readers."

"Wednesday special issue?"

Hearing Colin's instructions, Old John and Little John in the newspaper looked at each other in surprise.

Colin's decision was undoubtedly very bold.

It was equivalent to adding a new newspaper in addition to the original stable publication date of the newspaper.

However, considering the popularity of the Superman comics, the two did not think that the newly added newspapers would have any risk of failure.

However, looking up at Colin in front of him, Old John was a little worried whether this serialization method would affect the quality of the Superman comics.

If Colin knew what Old John was thinking at the moment, he would definitely laugh.

If anything, he was the person in the world who least needed to worry about the quality of comics.

After all, he had more than half a century of Superman comics to choose from.