American comics: I drew Superman during the Great Depression

Toyman, as Superman's regular opponent, Colin spent some time to create him.

Although, due to the limitation of newspaper serialization, the origin story of Toyman cannot be introduced in the plot.

However, comics of this period generally do not have any decent origins.

Even Superman, as the protagonist of the comics, his Kryptonian origin is not complete, and it is hastily skipped with only two or three frames of the plot.

Readers do not seem to care much about this. On the contrary, they care more about Superman's fight against evil villains in Metropolis to save the world and his emotional story with Lois.

In a way, readers during the Great Depression are the best audience group for comics.

They have not been baptized by many comics in later generations, and have no preconceived concepts.

Everything in "Superman" is full of novelty and attraction to them.

Just like the design of Toyman in comics, such a character, if placed in later generations, would at most be positioned as a third-rate villain. Similar scientist villain designs are almost as numerous as cattle hair.

However, for comic readers of this era, the character of Toyman is particularly interesting.

With the appearance of the new villain, the sales of The Courier once again broke the record of last weekend.

In fact, this record has been constantly refreshed. In order to cope with the growing circulation of The Courier, Colin has purchased printing presses from more than one bankrupt newspaper. However, The Courier is still in short supply, and readers have written to complain more than once.

"Why can't I buy the Courier in my neighborhood..."

"The greatest comic in the world, I hope the Courier can continue to be serialized..."

"...Being able to make toys move is simply my childhood dream!"

"When I saw the comics, the toy man controlled the toy army and appeared in the metropolis, even though I knew Superman was omnipotent, I couldn't help but sweat for him."

"Mickey, I saw the shadow of Mickey in the toy man's army. The moment I found it, I was stunned because I had an identical Mickey doll in my home!"

That's right, in the latest issue of the "Superman" comic, Colin also set up a little "easter egg" plot. Among the toy army of the toy man, there is a doll that looks very similar to Mickey Mouse, and its shape holding the rudder is undoubtedly a replica of Mickey's classic image in "Steamboat Willie".

The inspiration for the appearance of this supporting role was just a casual painting after he read the report about Disney in the newspaper.

……

Los Angeles, Walt Disney Studios.

“Hey, Walt, maybe you should take a look at this.”

Roy Disney walked into the studio with a newspaper.

In the studio, Walt Disney was trying the latest film shooting technology invented by Teicolor. He put a black and white Mickey stop-motion animation in the center of the machine, and then used the three-color printing technology to color the animation bit by bit.

Although in the previous interview, Roy Disney said that Disney would shoot the world's first color animation.

But in fact, the world's first color animation appeared as early as 1916. It was an American animation "Thomas Catechumen" issued by Paramount and drawn by Bray Productions. The whole work used the blues natural color process.

However, due to technical limitations and cost considerations, no one experimented with color animation for a long time after Paramount released "Thomas Catechumen".

It was not until 1930, when Universal Pictures filmed "The Jazz Singer", that the color animation clips produced by Walter Lanz were inserted into the film. At that time, the animation in the film used the two-color process. It was not until 1932, two years after the release of "The Jazz Singer", that the animation process developed from the previous two-color process to three-color printing technology, and Walt Disney began to apply it to animation production.

In the dimly lit studio, Walt heard his brother Roy's voice, and he immediately stopped what he was doing and turned his head to reply.

"What is it again? Is it your latest interview in the newspaper, or the completion time of "Symphony of Confusion", if it is the latter, it may take a few days, not a week or so..."

"A week, didn't you just tell me that the 28th episode "Just Dogs" was almost finished?"

Hearing the answer from his brother Walt Disney, Roy Disney couldn't help but frown.

"It's almost done, but the remaining part will take another week to complete."

"Why can't you proceed according to the plan, Walt?"

Faced with his brother's explanation, Roy suddenly felt his emotions surge. Walt Disney was undoubtedly a genius in making animations, but in some ways, his persistence in animations often gave Roy, the head of the studio, some headaches.

"Compared to these, you haven't told me why you came to the studio?"

Seeing that his brother Roy was getting angry, Walt asked immediately to avoid nagging.

"It's a New York newspaper."

Hearing Walt's question, Roy had to suppress his emotions and handed the newspaper in his hand to his brother in front of him.

"It is said that its sales in New York are in short supply. If it weren't for the content serialized in the newspaper that happened to be related to us, the other party would not send the newspaper to us."

No anti-theft

New York.

Hearing his brother Roy's New York, Walt couldn't help but frowned, and some not-so-good memories emerged from his heart again.

Speaking of which, the birth of Mickey Mouse was influenced by this trip to New York.

1 Disney Studios produced the "Lucky Rabbit Oswald" series of animations, and the animations received good responses after they were launched. Therefore, 1 Disney brought his wife to New York to find Charles Mintz, the distributor at the time, to discuss the renewal of the contract.

Walt's original purpose was to increase the price, but Mintz asked Walt to lower the price and told Walt that he had bought off most of the "Lucky Rabbit Oswald" production staff, and according to the contract he owned the copyright of this series of animations. If Walt did not agree to the price reduction request, he could continue to produce "Lucky Rabbit Oswald" himself.

During that trip to New York, Walt not only lost the copyright of "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit", but also most of the animators in the studio were poached.

This was undoubtedly a huge blow to Walt Disney Studios.

On the train back to Hollywood, the depressed Walt Disney suddenly got inspiration and created a cartoon character based on the mouse - Mortimer.

Later, at the suggestion of his wife, Walt renamed this cartoon character Mickey.

And so far, Mickey Mouse has become the symbol of Walt Disney Studios.

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