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Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-Creator Joe Shuster
Evil mobsters…panting sado-masochists…horse-whipped girls…pervy pornographers…blue-nosed censors…a rabid shrink…a pious minister…a slimy publisher…good cops & bad cops…sexy showgirls…a poetry-spouting, songwriting defense lawyer…neo-Nazi, Jewish, juvenile delinquents known as the Brooklyn Thrill Killers…and the artist who created Superman.
Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster showcases rare and recently discovered erotic artwork by the most seminal artist in comics, Joe Shuster. Created in the early 1950s when Shuster was down on his luck after suing his publisher, DC Comics, over the copyright for Superman, he illustrated these images for an obscure series of magazines called Nights of Horror, published under the counter until they were banned by the U.S. Senate. Juvenile deliquency, Dr. Fredric Wertham, and the Brooklyn Thrill Killers gang all figure into this sensational story.
The discovery of this artwork reveals the 'secret identity' of this revered comics creator, and is sure to generate controversy and change the perception of the way we look at Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and Jimmy Olsen forever. The book includes reproductions of these images, and an essay that provides a detailed account of the scandal and the murder trial that resulted from the publication of this racy material.
"Jeepers, Mr. Kent!" - USA Today
"Eye-opening……a compelling feat of literary sleuthing." - Publishers Weekly
"A shocking expose" - National Enquirer
"Startling. . . this fascinating collection adds a new dimension to a hidden history.” - Miami Herald
"Secret Identity is an incredible find of historic significance to comics art…. - Library Journal
Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster showcases rare and recently discovered erotic artwork by the most seminal artist in comics, Joe Shuster. Created in the early 1950s when Shuster was down on his luck after suing his publisher, DC Comics, over the copyright for Superman, he illustrated these images for an obscure series of magazines called Nights of Horror, published under the counter until they were banned by the U.S. Senate. Juvenile deliquency, Dr. Fredric Wertham, and the Brooklyn Thrill Killers gang all figure into this sensational story.
The discovery of this artwork reveals the 'secret identity' of this revered comics creator, and is sure to generate controversy and change the perception of the way we look at Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and Jimmy Olsen forever. The book includes reproductions of these images, and an essay that provides a detailed account of the scandal and the murder trial that resulted from the publication of this racy material.
"Jeepers, Mr. Kent!" - USA Today
"Eye-opening……a compelling feat of literary sleuthing." - Publishers Weekly
"A shocking expose" - National Enquirer
"Startling. . . this fascinating collection adds a new dimension to a hidden history.” - Miami Herald
"Secret Identity is an incredible find of historic significance to comics art…. - Library Journal
162 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2009
About the author
Craig Yoe
154 books24 followersCraig Yoe is an author, editor, art director, graphic designer, cartoonist and comics historian, best known for his Yoe! Studio creations and his line of Yoe! Books. Yoe is married to Clizia Gussoni, who is also his creative partner
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
February 23, 2011
Was there ever an introduction to a book which tried to put you off reading it? Stan Lee, famous King of Marvel Comics, tells us in his foreword that what you are about to see “caters to the basest of man’s character and morals” and is “the most sordid of projects”.
Superman was created by Jerry Siegel (writer) and Joe Shuster (artist) in 1932 when they were both 18. No one was interested. Finally they got Detective Comics Inc interested in 1938. DC Comics bought the rights to the character for the bizarro sum of $130 and put them both under contract to supply stories. So Jerry and Joe made the same deal as every teenage singer and rock band ever did, all of them being so grateful to be recognised by anyone that they signed the first contract that was shoved in front of them. And Jerry & Joe thereby lost millions. Superman was an immediate and colossal hit. After eight fat years, Jerry and Joe sued DC Comics for ownership of their creation and lost the case. DC fired them and took their credits off all Superman stories. Nice! That’ll teach these uppity creative types who’s boss. Ka-pow, guys! We’ll see you around! Don’t call us, we’ll call you! Except, we won’t! Ha ha!
So by 1947 Joe Shuster had lost the case, spent his money and had eyesight problems. He didn’t come up with anything much good after Superman. He was spiralling down and he was only 33 years old. By the early 50s he was freelancing for anyone who’d have him.
Enter stage left : a pornographer.
Yes, holy black leather kryptonite! It’s Superman In Bondage featuring Lois Lane (also in bondage) and Lana Lang (likewise)! Plus walk-on parts for Lex Luther and Jimmy Olson, cub reporter.
So, down on his luck, Joe Shuster, creator of the most emblematic of all superheroes, got to work in 1954 illustrating 16 flimsy booklets of BDSM tales called “Nights of Horror”.
For me, this is like finding out that my beloved Uncle Charles has been performing under the name Charlene at a tranny bar for the last ten years. It’s shocking.
Sample captions for the illustrations you will find herein:
I seemed to crave this treatment no matter how harsh or humiliating.
The red ants bit and nipped where the honey had been smeared.
Puff it in… in a few minutes you’ll feel wonderful.
“Implant upon my foot your most servile caresses,” he ordered.
I’ll teach you not to go out with someone else.
I’ll do anything you want.. if you let me have this job (The entire plot of Secretary)
Estelle led him further and further up the road to slavery.
He was not averse to having his plaything become the property of other seamen.
You get the idea. One final particularly outre one – a burly guy approaches a woman who has her arms tied behind her. He is waving a phallic cactus before him
I began to pat it on the naked skin of the lush beauty beneath me.
I mean, that’s just perverted. A cactus? Well, if there wasn’t so much whipping and threatening with red hot irons going on (mostly the victims are female, but not always) I might enjoy this stuff, because it’s beautifully drawn, and for anyone who remembers the mighty Man of Steel, it’s kind of a queasy pleasure seeing someone exactly like him being tied up and threatened by someone who looks exactly like Lois Lane only in her underwear. But there’s just a little too much whipping and beating and pain. Oh all right, it’s ALL whipping, apart from the ants literally in the pants, and the cactus.
footnote
I like it when books connect with each other. This one is like a large footnote to The Ten Cent Plague and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (reviewed elsewhere). I didn’t intend to read three books on early American comics all together but that’s how it turned out.
Superman was created by Jerry Siegel (writer) and Joe Shuster (artist) in 1932 when they were both 18. No one was interested. Finally they got Detective Comics Inc interested in 1938. DC Comics bought the rights to the character for the bizarro sum of $130 and put them both under contract to supply stories. So Jerry and Joe made the same deal as every teenage singer and rock band ever did, all of them being so grateful to be recognised by anyone that they signed the first contract that was shoved in front of them. And Jerry & Joe thereby lost millions. Superman was an immediate and colossal hit. After eight fat years, Jerry and Joe sued DC Comics for ownership of their creation and lost the case. DC fired them and took their credits off all Superman stories. Nice! That’ll teach these uppity creative types who’s boss. Ka-pow, guys! We’ll see you around! Don’t call us, we’ll call you! Except, we won’t! Ha ha!
So by 1947 Joe Shuster had lost the case, spent his money and had eyesight problems. He didn’t come up with anything much good after Superman. He was spiralling down and he was only 33 years old. By the early 50s he was freelancing for anyone who’d have him.
Enter stage left : a pornographer.
Yes, holy black leather kryptonite! It’s Superman In Bondage featuring Lois Lane (also in bondage) and Lana Lang (likewise)! Plus walk-on parts for Lex Luther and Jimmy Olson, cub reporter.
So, down on his luck, Joe Shuster, creator of the most emblematic of all superheroes, got to work in 1954 illustrating 16 flimsy booklets of BDSM tales called “Nights of Horror”.
For me, this is like finding out that my beloved Uncle Charles has been performing under the name Charlene at a tranny bar for the last ten years. It’s shocking.
Sample captions for the illustrations you will find herein:
I seemed to crave this treatment no matter how harsh or humiliating.
The red ants bit and nipped where the honey had been smeared.
Puff it in… in a few minutes you’ll feel wonderful.
“Implant upon my foot your most servile caresses,” he ordered.
I’ll teach you not to go out with someone else.
I’ll do anything you want.. if you let me have this job (The entire plot of Secretary)
Estelle led him further and further up the road to slavery.
He was not averse to having his plaything become the property of other seamen.
You get the idea. One final particularly outre one – a burly guy approaches a woman who has her arms tied behind her. He is waving a phallic cactus before him
I began to pat it on the naked skin of the lush beauty beneath me.
I mean, that’s just perverted. A cactus? Well, if there wasn’t so much whipping and threatening with red hot irons going on (mostly the victims are female, but not always) I might enjoy this stuff, because it’s beautifully drawn, and for anyone who remembers the mighty Man of Steel, it’s kind of a queasy pleasure seeing someone exactly like him being tied up and threatened by someone who looks exactly like Lois Lane only in her underwear. But there’s just a little too much whipping and beating and pain. Oh all right, it’s ALL whipping, apart from the ants literally in the pants, and the cactus.
footnote
I like it when books connect with each other. This one is like a large footnote to The Ten Cent Plague and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (reviewed elsewhere). I didn’t intend to read three books on early American comics all together but that’s how it turned out.
January 26, 2013
This is an awkward book to review. It's trying to be perhaps three different things for three different (not necessarily exclusive) groups of people:
* a study of Joe Shuster's fetish art and how it came to be, directed at people interested in the history and specimens
* an article about the history of how Shuster went from Superman to smut, for people who want the information but aren't particularly interested in looking at that weird kinky shit beyond a sample image or two
* a collection of historically relevant smut plus how it came to be historically relevant, for comics nerds who think that weird kinky shit is awesome and this sort of thing is a gem
So it compromises by looking like a coffee-table book. It's more than just an article with occasional visuals and therefore seems to be beyond a threshold of resistance for such readers (or a disgusting and offensive experience, if they attempt to cross it). It's unsatisfying and disjointed as a book of pornography because the pornographic part was really in the stories themselves, and Yoe doesn't seem to be interested in drawing it out.
But as a study it falls short: Yoe's 30-page article at the start reads like it was reproduced from a magazine, which makes me wonder what is missing. Certainly much is glossed over, although I am not sure how much is due to information that simply wasn't available to Yoe. Meanwhile, the images with so little context from their stories not only lose the pornographic qualities but also deprive the reader the chance to, well, view the images in the context of these lost relics, or even in the context of one of them. Lacking that context, the images don't tell much story on their own and become repetitive and somewhat dull; this many aren't needed to make the sparse observations Yoe presents about Shuster's art style, and those observations would have heavily benefited from side-by-side comparisons to his Superman artwork (and hopefully even some non-Superman mainstream comics art).
The Nights of Horror chapbooks are extremely rare - a search at this moment shows no copies on ebay or half.com and exactly one $100 1971 reprint of issue 7 on AbeBooks, and that price for a reprint makes me wonder if a reprint is in that high demand or if it's the seller mis-estimating its desirability. It does look like some publisher calling itself the Academy Club, about whom I'm finding nothing, is selling paper and ebook reproductions of issue 4 via Lulu and Amazon, so that's a current and cheap way of getting a copy, but I'm not seeing them linked anywhere in a Google search: is anyone linking them? Does anyone know or care?
So maybe the answer is that this book was a testing of the waters that's restored some interest in the chapbooks, but not a lot - and that a more in-depth book would have lost the coffee-table tittering allure that makes this book more sell-able, with little gain. It's unfortunate that the only book on this subject does best as a so-so coffee-table book - one that demands forty-five minutes or so to read, or a couple minutes to glance at - but it really is the only one, which is why I'm calling this four stars instead of 3. It's unfortunate as well that Yoe didn't opt to turn this into the starting point of an anthology about the intersections between comics and smut - had that been the case, this could have been the same exact essay with a curated 5 pages of sample images and analyses along with maybe ten other twenty-to-fifty-page essays and image sets, and that book? I really want to read that book.
* a study of Joe Shuster's fetish art and how it came to be, directed at people interested in the history and specimens
* an article about the history of how Shuster went from Superman to smut, for people who want the information but aren't particularly interested in looking at that weird kinky shit beyond a sample image or two
* a collection of historically relevant smut plus how it came to be historically relevant, for comics nerds who think that weird kinky shit is awesome and this sort of thing is a gem
So it compromises by looking like a coffee-table book. It's more than just an article with occasional visuals and therefore seems to be beyond a threshold of resistance for such readers (or a disgusting and offensive experience, if they attempt to cross it). It's unsatisfying and disjointed as a book of pornography because the pornographic part was really in the stories themselves, and Yoe doesn't seem to be interested in drawing it out.
But as a study it falls short: Yoe's 30-page article at the start reads like it was reproduced from a magazine, which makes me wonder what is missing. Certainly much is glossed over, although I am not sure how much is due to information that simply wasn't available to Yoe. Meanwhile, the images with so little context from their stories not only lose the pornographic qualities but also deprive the reader the chance to, well, view the images in the context of these lost relics, or even in the context of one of them. Lacking that context, the images don't tell much story on their own and become repetitive and somewhat dull; this many aren't needed to make the sparse observations Yoe presents about Shuster's art style, and those observations would have heavily benefited from side-by-side comparisons to his Superman artwork (and hopefully even some non-Superman mainstream comics art).
The Nights of Horror chapbooks are extremely rare - a search at this moment shows no copies on ebay or half.com and exactly one $100 1971 reprint of issue 7 on AbeBooks, and that price for a reprint makes me wonder if a reprint is in that high demand or if it's the seller mis-estimating its desirability. It does look like some publisher calling itself the Academy Club, about whom I'm finding nothing, is selling paper and ebook reproductions of issue 4 via Lulu and Amazon, so that's a current and cheap way of getting a copy, but I'm not seeing them linked anywhere in a Google search: is anyone linking them? Does anyone know or care?
So maybe the answer is that this book was a testing of the waters that's restored some interest in the chapbooks, but not a lot - and that a more in-depth book would have lost the coffee-table tittering allure that makes this book more sell-able, with little gain. It's unfortunate that the only book on this subject does best as a so-so coffee-table book - one that demands forty-five minutes or so to read, or a couple minutes to glance at - but it really is the only one, which is why I'm calling this four stars instead of 3. It's unfortunate as well that Yoe didn't opt to turn this into the starting point of an anthology about the intersections between comics and smut - had that been the case, this could have been the same exact essay with a curated 5 pages of sample images and analyses along with maybe ten other twenty-to-fifty-page essays and image sets, and that book? I really want to read that book.
August 13, 2022
The things people have done for money! Dirty drawings, naughty stories, there's always been a market and creative types willing to earn some rent money.
The combination here is an uncomfortable mix of text and images. I found the text awkward and trying too hard to be joking or “funny.” There is much history, though, concerning censorship and the early porn industry.
The big question remains — when did men acquire nipples? As shown on the cover, men in the 1950s did not have nipples. Women however at the time had prominent assertive nipples, as can be seen in most panels. But men did not.
Nipples on men is a topic that desperately needs to be investigated!
The combination here is an uncomfortable mix of text and images. I found the text awkward and trying too hard to be joking or “funny.” There is much history, though, concerning censorship and the early porn industry.
The big question remains — when did men acquire nipples? As shown on the cover, men in the 1950s did not have nipples. Women however at the time had prominent assertive nipples, as can be seen in most panels. But men did not.
Nipples on men is a topic that desperately needs to be investigated!
July 7, 2013
The fact that artist Joe Shuster and writer Joe Siegel signed away their rights to Superman is by now a well known bit of American popular history. This book resurrects a series of bondage and pornographic drawings that an impoverished Shuster did in the 1950's for an extreme version of the "spicy tales" sort called Nights of Horror.. These drawings went unknown until comics historian Craig Yoe happened across a used copy of one of the Nights of Horror paperbacks and immediately recognized the Shuster style. It's surprising that these drawings had never been identified as Shuster's before, because the trashy books that featured them were heavily publicized during the trial of the Brooklyn Thrill Killers (who were supposedly influenced by them), as well as in senate hearings on the effects of pornography on the young, and even a Supreme Court obscenity trial.
Yoe has found all sixteen issues of Nights of Horror as well as some publications that were retitled while the heat was turned up against the original series. He offers up here about 100 pages of reproductions, and since this book was put out by Abrams, the ink and litho pencil drawings almost certainly look better than they ever looked before. Shuster was a stiff draftsman, and by the time he worked on these he was almost blind. Yoe doesn't pretend to make a case of the drawings' significance. They are sad curiosities, and Shuster's attitude towards them can now never be known. Since he really knew only how to draw one way, there is some inadvertent humor here when you see what looks like Clark Kent, a voluptuous Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Lex Luthor in outrageous scenes of torture and kinky sex.
Yoe has found all sixteen issues of Nights of Horror as well as some publications that were retitled while the heat was turned up against the original series. He offers up here about 100 pages of reproductions, and since this book was put out by Abrams, the ink and litho pencil drawings almost certainly look better than they ever looked before. Shuster was a stiff draftsman, and by the time he worked on these he was almost blind. Yoe doesn't pretend to make a case of the drawings' significance. They are sad curiosities, and Shuster's attitude towards them can now never be known. Since he really knew only how to draw one way, there is some inadvertent humor here when you see what looks like Clark Kent, a voluptuous Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Lex Luthor in outrageous scenes of torture and kinky sex.
December 27, 2015
This is right up there in the running for Weirdest Book I Have Ever Read (Wisconsin Death Trip is another contender). In 1954, having been royally fucked over by Harry Donenfeld, Joe Shuster was reduced to illustrating a low-rent BDSM pulp publication called Nights of Horror. The stories were badly written and riddled with clichés, the production values were so low as to be nonexistent, and there in the middle of it are Joe Shuster's b&w illustrations, drawn in exactly the same idiom as Superman. As Yoe points out, some of the characters look disturbingly like Clark Kent, Jimmy Olson, Lex Luthor, and Lois and Lucy Lane (although I'm not sure anything more can be read into that than Shuster's rather limited repertoire of faces). By modern standards these drawings are utterly tame; I find them stilted and passionless and frequently more than a little ludicrous. (I also get distracted by the fact that these naked or semi-naked distraught girls, in the middle of being flogged or spanked or tortured--red ants, Iron Maidens, creepy spiked oven mitts--have somehow managed to keep their exaggeratedly high-heeled shoes on their tiny perfect Barbie feet, but that's probably just me.) But Nights of Horror was fingered as the inspiration for the Brooklyn Thrill Killers, and in fact Shuster's drawings were presented as evidence in the April 1955 Senate hearings on "Pornography and its Effects on Juvenile Delinquency"--without Shuster himself ever being identified as the artist.
The flaw for me in this book is its attitude toward its subject matter. There's an introduction from Stan Lee bemoaning the depths to which Joe Shuster sank ("Whereas everything about the stories and artwork of Superman was positive and morally uplifting, the pages of Nights of Horror that appear in Secret Identity cater to the basest of man's character and morals" "Some of the material in the book may seem shocking; some figured strongly in censorship investigations in Congress; but all of it will certainly give you pause as you consider the consequences that can ensue when a gifted man is forced to lend his talent to the most sordid of projects"), and Craig Yoe's exposition has a kind of jokey prurience to it that I find off-putting. I don't--let me be clear--think that Nights of Horror itself deserves better, or that Joe Shuster had any personal inclinations toward BDSM (I would argue that his drawings indicate the opposite), but the underlying assumption that there's something wrong with BDSM (what "consequences" is Stan Lee talking about, exactly? is he buying into Dr. Fredric Wertham's assertions about causation? if Nights of Horror had been illustrated by a lesser talent, the Brooklyn Thrill Killers wouldn't have been inspired to beat homeless men to death?), that the sordidness of Nights of Horror is located in its sexuality rather than its cheap, exploitative attitude, frustrates me. I think someone coming from a BDSM-positive subject position might well have had more thoughtful and nuanced (though quite probably not less snarky) things to say about Nights of Horror and the 50s and the first notes of the McCarthy fanfare--and Joe Shuster's odd and passionless pornography.
The flaw for me in this book is its attitude toward its subject matter. There's an introduction from Stan Lee bemoaning the depths to which Joe Shuster sank ("Whereas everything about the stories and artwork of Superman was positive and morally uplifting, the pages of Nights of Horror that appear in Secret Identity cater to the basest of man's character and morals" "Some of the material in the book may seem shocking; some figured strongly in censorship investigations in Congress; but all of it will certainly give you pause as you consider the consequences that can ensue when a gifted man is forced to lend his talent to the most sordid of projects"), and Craig Yoe's exposition has a kind of jokey prurience to it that I find off-putting. I don't--let me be clear--think that Nights of Horror itself deserves better, or that Joe Shuster had any personal inclinations toward BDSM (I would argue that his drawings indicate the opposite), but the underlying assumption that there's something wrong with BDSM (what "consequences" is Stan Lee talking about, exactly? is he buying into Dr. Fredric Wertham's assertions about causation? if Nights of Horror had been illustrated by a lesser talent, the Brooklyn Thrill Killers wouldn't have been inspired to beat homeless men to death?), that the sordidness of Nights of Horror is located in its sexuality rather than its cheap, exploitative attitude, frustrates me. I think someone coming from a BDSM-positive subject position might well have had more thoughtful and nuanced (though quite probably not less snarky) things to say about Nights of Horror and the 50s and the first notes of the McCarthy fanfare--and Joe Shuster's odd and passionless pornography.
March 27, 2017
yoe serves up the weirdies with contagious delight, but he longs for the status quo ante of a rawer, more primitive WWII-to-McCarthy-era comic style as opposed to today's comparative gloss. this brassy, informative essay concludes on a note of nostalgia that I can't get behind, but it's worth reading for characters like eddie mishkin and frederic wertham--plus making abstracts of rare collectibles is always a great idea.
July 16, 2009
Stories of tortures used by debauchers
Lurid, licentious and vile
Make me smile
-"Smut" (1965), Tom Lehrer
About four months ago I interviewed comics historian and all-around swell guy Craig Yoe about his latest bit of comics-related archaeology for PUBLISHERS WEEKLY COMICS WEEK, and I have to tell you it's one hell of a read. SECRET IDENTITY: THE FETISH ART OF SUPERMAN'S CO-CREATOR JOE SHUSTER (from Abrams Comicarts) not only gives us a fascinating look at the artist's illegal, pornographic output following his and co-Superman creator Jerry Seigel's lawsuit against National, aka DC Comics (after which they were effectively persona non grata at the company), but also provides an unexpected element in the founding of the Comics Code Authority.
Following the disappointing (to say the very least) results of the lawsuit, Shuster found work illustrating NIGHTS OF HORROR, a multi-volume series of S&M pulp booklets that featured visuals depicting all manner of flagellation, torture with hot irons, topless and naked females subjected to assorted degradations and discipline and other such fun ways to pass a boring weekend, all delivered in a style I can't believe no one ever connected with the guy who first drew the Man of Steel. Other than its kinky content, the stuff looked exactly like what could be seen in the pages of any given issue of ACTION COMICS, particularly characters who bore a marked resemblance to Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen — looking hilariously jaded, with a ciggie hanging from his lips and a nubile blonde within reach — and even Superman himself, so how this escaped notice is beyond me. Perhaps because much of it is technically superior to the work seen on Superman?
The NIGHTS OF HORROR books were definitely not comics but they were among the bad influences cited by Dr. Frederic Wertham when he appeared before the Senate Subcomittee Hearing on Juvenile Delinquency in 1954, held up as shocking material that found its way into the hands of a bunch of Hitler-worshipping Jewish Kids who dubbed themselves "the Brooklyn Thrill Killers" and unfortunately lived up to their name. Too bad Wertham neglected to mention that the NIGHTS OF HORROR booklets weren't comics, but why let a little thing like an omission of facts stand in the way of one's political agenda? I could explain in more detail but I'd rather you discovered the eye-opening story for yourself by checking out Yoe's excellent book.
Lurid, licentious and vile
Make me smile
-"Smut" (1965), Tom Lehrer
About four months ago I interviewed comics historian and all-around swell guy Craig Yoe about his latest bit of comics-related archaeology for PUBLISHERS WEEKLY COMICS WEEK, and I have to tell you it's one hell of a read. SECRET IDENTITY: THE FETISH ART OF SUPERMAN'S CO-CREATOR JOE SHUSTER (from Abrams Comicarts) not only gives us a fascinating look at the artist's illegal, pornographic output following his and co-Superman creator Jerry Seigel's lawsuit against National, aka DC Comics (after which they were effectively persona non grata at the company), but also provides an unexpected element in the founding of the Comics Code Authority.
Following the disappointing (to say the very least) results of the lawsuit, Shuster found work illustrating NIGHTS OF HORROR, a multi-volume series of S&M pulp booklets that featured visuals depicting all manner of flagellation, torture with hot irons, topless and naked females subjected to assorted degradations and discipline and other such fun ways to pass a boring weekend, all delivered in a style I can't believe no one ever connected with the guy who first drew the Man of Steel. Other than its kinky content, the stuff looked exactly like what could be seen in the pages of any given issue of ACTION COMICS, particularly characters who bore a marked resemblance to Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen — looking hilariously jaded, with a ciggie hanging from his lips and a nubile blonde within reach — and even Superman himself, so how this escaped notice is beyond me. Perhaps because much of it is technically superior to the work seen on Superman?
The NIGHTS OF HORROR books were definitely not comics but they were among the bad influences cited by Dr. Frederic Wertham when he appeared before the Senate Subcomittee Hearing on Juvenile Delinquency in 1954, held up as shocking material that found its way into the hands of a bunch of Hitler-worshipping Jewish Kids who dubbed themselves "the Brooklyn Thrill Killers" and unfortunately lived up to their name. Too bad Wertham neglected to mention that the NIGHTS OF HORROR booklets weren't comics, but why let a little thing like an omission of facts stand in the way of one's political agenda? I could explain in more detail but I'd rather you discovered the eye-opening story for yourself by checking out Yoe's excellent book.
April 10, 2009
This is kind of a weird book to reccomend to anyone who's not super-into the history of the comic book industry, and then for the introductionary essay as much as for the art that follows it.
I have an "official" review of it here:
http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/20...
And I have a long, rambling blog post about it here:
http://everydayislikewednesday.blogsp...
I have an "official" review of it here:
http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/20...
And I have a long, rambling blog post about it here:
http://everydayislikewednesday.blogsp...
August 11, 2009
A fascinating book about Joe Shuster's disjointed life and career. Yoe's forward about the controversy surrounding Nights of Horror's publication and its involvement in the Brooklyn Thrill Killers murder case was really interesting (although, a tad sensational); I'm surprised the story isn't more well known in popular culture. Shuster's up until recently lost art is provocative, classic, lurid and intriguing.
October 28, 2014
Non-consensual sex is NOT a fetish. And, with very few exceptions, that is what Shuster's drawings are composed of: rape, sexual assault, torture, etc. There's no sexiness to drawings like these, which have such an undercurrent of evil to them. Likewise, I very much agree with other reviewers that the analysis/social commentary of the book was severely lacking.
Read
August 28, 2016This book is historic, full of old-school pornography! Want to know what else Joe Shuster did besides Superman? Here it is!
November 10, 2016
Who would have guessed that Joe Shuster, co-creator of the most famous and squeaky-clean cartoon character ever, eventually found himself illustrating a tawdry bondage/S&M series called "Nights of Horror?" You know -- the kinds of books that shopkeepers, in those days, keep hidden behind the counter? This was, of course in the early 1950's, when Shuster was desperate for work and had been unable to wrest the rights to Superman back from D.C. By then, artist Shuster and his cohort Siegel (Siegel was the writer for the original Superman stories) had devoted years to unsuccessful litigation over such rights. Their claims were legally weak because they had sold the rights cheaply to D.C. before realizing what a hot property Superman would eventually become.
This book is called "Secret Identity" because Shuster did not openly take credit for his bondage/S&M art in "Nights of Horror." (He came close by signing some of the art with the pseudonym "JOSH.") According to our distinguished author Yoe, it wasn't until some comic book art enthusiasts took a look at copies of NOH, that Shuster's role became evident. In fact, Yoe correctly observes that the faces of the characters in NOH bear uncanny resemblance to the faces of Clark Kent, Jimmy Olsen, Lex Luthor, and Lois Lane.
It's a good thing that Shuster kept his identity under wraps in these books, because all unsold copies were eventually confiscated and destroyed on grounds of obscenity under New York law. And any person involved in their production was prosecuted if he could be identified. The books had come to light after a gang of juvenile, neo-Nazi delinquents were apprehended and charged in the famous Brooklyn "Thrill Kill" murders. During a trial-competency evaluation of Jack Koslow (the "Thrill Kill" gang leader), Koslow admitted that "Nights of Horror" was on his reading list! Koslow also admitted that he had ordered a bull-whip and a "vampire cape" from ads in Atlas Comics, and that he and his gang had used these accessories during their murderous rampages.
Of especial interest to comic book historians is the fact that this trial-competency evaluation was conducted by none other than the now infamous Dr. Fredric Wertham. Wertham was then the leading figure in the famous 1950's crusade against comics, which led to the highly restrictive and devastating Comics Code Authority. (Wertham is now remembered primarily for his poorly reasoned book, "The Seduction of the Innocent," which claimed that comic books were a significant contributing factor to a perceived rise in the incidence of juvenile delinquency. Wertham's book and a Senate Subcommittee Hearing in 1954 were death knells to many publishing houses, particularly if they relied heavily on the sale of horror comics.)
Mr. Yoe's 35-page introduction is arguably the most interesting part of "Secret Identity." There are lots of great illustrations, photos, and excerpts from newspaper articles. The following 120 pages or so reproduce seemingly random samples of Shuster's bondage/S&M drawings, taken from all 16 issues of "Nights of Horror." There's plenty of female nudity, bondage, and torture. (Just to be clear, there's some variety: sometimes men are torturing women, or women are torturing men; there are definitely examples of a woman torturing another woman, but I see only one example of male on male violence.) You'll find lots of whipping and paddling and various forms of physical restraint. It's all very stylized, minimalistic, and cartoonish. There are no colors. Yoe claims that Shuster used "lithographic pencil" (whatever that is).
This is a certain monotony to the art. I can't say that it is bad. It's actually fairly good as comic book art goes. Nevertheless, the subject matter still has the power to cause discomfort, and some people might find it shocking. So this book's audience is probably limited to readers with an enthusiasm for comic book history or an interest in the Shuster-Siegel-D.C. saga.
My favorite revelation from this book is that Johnny Cochran was not the first criminal defense lawyer to recite doggerel as part of his closing argument. Fred G. Morrit, who represented Koslow in the "Thrill Kill" trial, composed and sang (to the tune of "Ten Little Indians") the following ditty at closing:
"Four bad boys off on a spree,
One turned State's evidence, and then there were three.
Three little bad boys, what did one do?
The judge said, 'No proof,' and then there were two.
Two little bad boys, in court they must sit.
And pray to the jury, 'Please, please acquit.'"
(Writes Yoe: "Jack Koslow and Melvin Mittman got life.")
This book is called "Secret Identity" because Shuster did not openly take credit for his bondage/S&M art in "Nights of Horror." (He came close by signing some of the art with the pseudonym "JOSH.") According to our distinguished author Yoe, it wasn't until some comic book art enthusiasts took a look at copies of NOH, that Shuster's role became evident. In fact, Yoe correctly observes that the faces of the characters in NOH bear uncanny resemblance to the faces of Clark Kent, Jimmy Olsen, Lex Luthor, and Lois Lane.
It's a good thing that Shuster kept his identity under wraps in these books, because all unsold copies were eventually confiscated and destroyed on grounds of obscenity under New York law. And any person involved in their production was prosecuted if he could be identified. The books had come to light after a gang of juvenile, neo-Nazi delinquents were apprehended and charged in the famous Brooklyn "Thrill Kill" murders. During a trial-competency evaluation of Jack Koslow (the "Thrill Kill" gang leader), Koslow admitted that "Nights of Horror" was on his reading list! Koslow also admitted that he had ordered a bull-whip and a "vampire cape" from ads in Atlas Comics, and that he and his gang had used these accessories during their murderous rampages.
Of especial interest to comic book historians is the fact that this trial-competency evaluation was conducted by none other than the now infamous Dr. Fredric Wertham. Wertham was then the leading figure in the famous 1950's crusade against comics, which led to the highly restrictive and devastating Comics Code Authority. (Wertham is now remembered primarily for his poorly reasoned book, "The Seduction of the Innocent," which claimed that comic books were a significant contributing factor to a perceived rise in the incidence of juvenile delinquency. Wertham's book and a Senate Subcommittee Hearing in 1954 were death knells to many publishing houses, particularly if they relied heavily on the sale of horror comics.)
Mr. Yoe's 35-page introduction is arguably the most interesting part of "Secret Identity." There are lots of great illustrations, photos, and excerpts from newspaper articles. The following 120 pages or so reproduce seemingly random samples of Shuster's bondage/S&M drawings, taken from all 16 issues of "Nights of Horror." There's plenty of female nudity, bondage, and torture. (Just to be clear, there's some variety: sometimes men are torturing women, or women are torturing men; there are definitely examples of a woman torturing another woman, but I see only one example of male on male violence.) You'll find lots of whipping and paddling and various forms of physical restraint. It's all very stylized, minimalistic, and cartoonish. There are no colors. Yoe claims that Shuster used "lithographic pencil" (whatever that is).
This is a certain monotony to the art. I can't say that it is bad. It's actually fairly good as comic book art goes. Nevertheless, the subject matter still has the power to cause discomfort, and some people might find it shocking. So this book's audience is probably limited to readers with an enthusiasm for comic book history or an interest in the Shuster-Siegel-D.C. saga.
My favorite revelation from this book is that Johnny Cochran was not the first criminal defense lawyer to recite doggerel as part of his closing argument. Fred G. Morrit, who represented Koslow in the "Thrill Kill" trial, composed and sang (to the tune of "Ten Little Indians") the following ditty at closing:
"Four bad boys off on a spree,
One turned State's evidence, and then there were three.
Three little bad boys, what did one do?
The judge said, 'No proof,' and then there were two.
Two little bad boys, in court they must sit.
And pray to the jury, 'Please, please acquit.'"
(Writes Yoe: "Jack Koslow and Melvin Mittman got life.")
June 5, 2011
Out of work and desperate, Superman co-creator Joe Schuster worked for a porn fetish fiction magazine, illustrating whippings, spankings, bound women and men, scenes of torture, scenes proceeding rape, scenes proceeding lesbian love, and female nudity in the early issues, and near nudity in the later issues. I find this very creepy stuff anyway, and all the more so because Schuster was a man of limited talents who could draw in only one way, so the illustrations reprinted in this book look as if they are lifted from an early Superman story style-wise, though not content-wise. Many of the characters look just like Superman, Lois Lane, Lucy Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Lex Luthor.
This is an important if slimy book for those who study these things, with author Craig Yoe giving a perfunctory history of Schuster as an illustrator and the creation of Superman, and somewhat more interestingly, the history of the under-the counter magazine that hired Schuster as its sole illustrator, and very interestingly the court case of a group of juvenile murderers who used the magazine and the illustrations as the model for their mischief.
This is the subject of an article, not a book, however. What pads this out is the reprinting of every Schuster illustration printed in the magazine. Most of these pages are beautifully designed, but Schuster is not an important artist, indeed too minor even in comic book terms to warrant the book-length treatment, or perhaps that is a personal response. Many of the images simply annoy me, so I’d have been happier with fewer of them. Because of Schuster’s simple style, they could easily have been reduced and still been easily viewable without using so many pages. In fact, it was a design mistake to use the large size in some cases, such as the two page spreads. The gutters between pages are deep, so some of the illustration is lost in the dip. The only time I wished I could see more is the drawing is one captioned as having a female character that looks like Marilyn Monroe. This character’s face is in the gutter between pages, virtually eliminating it. Such design-flaws are rare, but good designs make books better, but they do not make books good. At heart, this is a three star magazine article that looses another star for being so unsavory.
This is an important if slimy book for those who study these things, with author Craig Yoe giving a perfunctory history of Schuster as an illustrator and the creation of Superman, and somewhat more interestingly, the history of the under-the counter magazine that hired Schuster as its sole illustrator, and very interestingly the court case of a group of juvenile murderers who used the magazine and the illustrations as the model for their mischief.
This is the subject of an article, not a book, however. What pads this out is the reprinting of every Schuster illustration printed in the magazine. Most of these pages are beautifully designed, but Schuster is not an important artist, indeed too minor even in comic book terms to warrant the book-length treatment, or perhaps that is a personal response. Many of the images simply annoy me, so I’d have been happier with fewer of them. Because of Schuster’s simple style, they could easily have been reduced and still been easily viewable without using so many pages. In fact, it was a design mistake to use the large size in some cases, such as the two page spreads. The gutters between pages are deep, so some of the illustration is lost in the dip. The only time I wished I could see more is the drawing is one captioned as having a female character that looks like Marilyn Monroe. This character’s face is in the gutter between pages, virtually eliminating it. Such design-flaws are rare, but good designs make books better, but they do not make books good. At heart, this is a three star magazine article that looses another star for being so unsavory.
April 11, 2013
I'm not sure this really merits four stars, but there's no 3.5 option, and Craig Yoe does deserve some points for unearthing and reprinting this bizarre (and tame by today's standards) material, produced in the 1950s anonymously by Joe Shuster for a pretty marginal underground series of S&M stories, Nights of Horror. It's mildly interesting stuff, generally well-rendered but not particularly extreme or outrageous to eyes now conditioned by the undergrounds and much more since. For that matter, it's tame beside the Tijuana Bibles of preceding decades--bondage and flagellation and mild torture, yes (with far more extreme torture implied but not actually shown), but full nudity or explicit sex, no. Shuster's style is pretty recognizeable, though, which adds to the interest factor, since the characters sometimes do resemble Superman, Lois, and so on, though whether because Shuster simply had types he drew or because he was making some subtle commentaries on how DC fucked him over is not discoverable. Yoe's introduction is a decent enough explanation of the context and how these books became part of a tawdry murder case (as inspirations for the sadistic crimes of some thrill-kill teens) and anti-smut hysteria, but Yoe's not a particularly good writer, so the value here is compromised somewhat. And Stan Lee's forward is pretty eye-rolling, what with its sympathy tinged with moral approbrium, given his own complicity in similar despicable treatment of artists at Marvel. Furthermore, why Craig Yoe chose to spread some of the images across two pages is opaque to me, since inevitably key parts of the image are lost in the spine of the book. The books is not nearly long enough, or the images in question big enough, to justify these image placements; they should have been kept on a single page. Otherwise, the images are well reproduced, crisply scanned and clearly printed. More details about the books themselves would have been helpful, I think, though admittetly the real draw here is Shuster's illustrations, not the evidently pretty lame and amateurish stories. Worth having for inveterate comics buffs (or for those interested in the dubious history of underground fetish literature in the US), probably nothing more than a curiosity for anyone else.
February 12, 2018
Framed as an examination of comic book censorship in the 1950s ('Seduction of the Innocent'), this book presents a series of illustrations done by Superman co-creator Joe Shuster (whom the Heritage Minutes proudly proclaim a Canadian) for a seedy, pornographic publication called "Nights of Terror."
(Without going into too much detail, this book is basically the story of a man who was bullied out of the intellectual property rights to one of the most iconic characters in history, and what he had to resort to in order to survive.)
Though technically proficient, there is little to be said of the illustrations, which comprise the majority of the book. I wish more was said about the history of the publications they were from - I'm a big fan of genre fiction, and love learning about its evolution throughout the decades - but all in all it's an interesting book that tells a unique story.
My favorite thing about this book was its introduction.
Written by Stan Lee, it is both humorous and entirely irrelevant to the book (he basically reiterates a culturally relevant opinion regarding the prurient nature of the illustrations).
(Without going into too much detail, this book is basically the story of a man who was bullied out of the intellectual property rights to one of the most iconic characters in history, and what he had to resort to in order to survive.)
Though technically proficient, there is little to be said of the illustrations, which comprise the majority of the book. I wish more was said about the history of the publications they were from - I'm a big fan of genre fiction, and love learning about its evolution throughout the decades - but all in all it's an interesting book that tells a unique story.
My favorite thing about this book was its introduction.
Written by Stan Lee, it is both humorous and entirely irrelevant to the book (he basically reiterates a culturally relevant opinion regarding the prurient nature of the illustrations).
July 21, 2011
Perhaps because there is no way to unravel the mystery of why Superman's creator was drawing fetish art (Was he just doing it for the money or did he derive pleasure from creating these images?), this book reads more like a long article than a book. Once we get a bit of history of Joe Shuster's life and the social/political environment of the age, the bulk of the remainder is made up of summaries of each issue containing Shuster's fetish art, along with reproductions of the pictures. As Yoe points out, it is creepy to see charcters who so closely resemble Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Lex Luthor (and even Jimmy Olsen and Lucy Lane) getting whipped, spanked, and degraded. But beyond the shock value of revealing that this art exists (and a few points about some of the storylines mirroring Shuster's life or the Superman characters), there apparently isn't much else to say.
March 29, 2014
This isn't a book I'd flaunt in public, given its cover, but the story inside is bizarre in the best ways -- Joe Shuster once drew fetish art to make ends meet, and the characters he evoked looked like that of Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen, and yes, Superman. He never signed the work, but comics historians confirm the drawings were done by his hand. Showcased here are his drawings, along with a sad story about teen murderers who cited comics like the ones Shuster drew as an influence.
I took this book out of the library for research purposes, and it delivers in that regard. I'm not sure how much interest its magazine-like structure would have for the casual reader, but I find this story really bonkers, so it was a fun read for me.
I took this book out of the library for research purposes, and it delivers in that regard. I'm not sure how much interest its magazine-like structure would have for the casual reader, but I find this story really bonkers, so it was a fun read for me.
January 21, 2010
Beautiful! I'm not a Superman fan, so I can't appreciate the fact that for many people who love the work of Superman's original co-creator, Joe Shuster, finding out that Shuster illustrated a number of S&M/torture stories for a lurid under-the-counter publication called "Nights of Horror" is like finding out your life's hero is the anti-Christ. I can, however, appreciate illustration after illustration showing Clark Kent and Lois Lane being spanked, whipped, and prodded with hot pokers. Like R. Crumb's "Big Ass Comics," Shuster was obviously drawing "comics with the behind in mind." . . . Too over-the-top to be offensive, this is great little collection of sado-masochistic kitsch.
July 4, 2013
A sad commentary on the post-Superman life of Joe Shuster. Shame of DC comics! I have heard a smattering of the treatment Joe received, but never knew the whole story. And the fact that he did all this witht he visual challenges he had is amazing. If one picks this up for a 'porn' book, I think they would be mighty disappointed; if anything fetish would apply better (Fetish is, in fact, in the title). At the beginning it states "This book is for all adult curioso seekers...", that seems to fit very well also. His way of drawing the human form using a minimal amount of line work while achieving such masterful results is astonishing.
April 16, 2012
I'm shocked by all the prudish comments. Grows some grapes, boys! But then again, Stan Lee's introduction is not particularly kind, dishing praise on Shuster as much as so much venom over the sad & sordid world of S&M comics! Fug that. If you like S&M comics, this is choice. If not, and you think you're just going to be creeped out, don't pick it up. Otherwise, this is a titillating gem of a book.
July 20, 2017
Going into this, I was under the impression that there would be more history on the censorship of comics and of Shuster's personal travails, and far less pornography.
Uhm. I was wrong.
Shuster's art was unflinchingly cruel (I had to put it down several times, even skip a few pages because they made me too uncomfortable), but admittedly, interesting, and undeniably well drawn.
Scary, but impressive.
Uhm. I was wrong.
Shuster's art was unflinchingly cruel (I had to put it down several times, even skip a few pages because they made me too uncomfortable), but admittedly, interesting, and undeniably well drawn.
Scary, but impressive.
March 27, 2010
Summary: Yoe showcases rare and recently discovered early erotic artwork by Joe Shuster, the co-creator of "Superman." Lee provides an Introduction that offers a detailed account of the scandal and the court trial that resulted from the publication of such racy material.
June 7, 2009
It's sad that Joe Shuster was reduced to this sort of thing in the late 1940s and 1950s because he wasn't getting any royalties from National Periodic Publications, the owners of DC Comics, for his co-creation of Superman. But on the other hand he was pretty good at it.
June 9, 2010
This book is full of amazing illustrations from Joe Shuster before he created Superman. It's full of naked women and torture, and one of the characters, who reoccurs through the book, has an uncanny resemblance to the man of steel.
January 28, 2015
While it was an interesting look into the other art forays of Shuster, I found it to be lacking into the history of the why and how Shuster may have felt about the material. I felt that a lot of the book felt that it was based on conjecture, and not actual interview.
December 9, 2016
Fetish and sex in comics in the 1920s-50s is not an easy area to research, it was pretty much all underground and hidden away. Along with a few others in recent years, this well researched book begins to get into that history. Not for everyone, certainly, but a major contribution.
June 8, 2009
v. well illustrated. sad. v. sad. nothing i've read about shuster suggests this amount of anger in him.
January 24, 2010
Fascinating to see Lois Lane spank and be spanked.
Read
July 31, 2011Not enough reproductions of the comics. He bought these comics from us.
January 7, 2012
A sad story about Joe Shuster, co-creator of one the most iconic characters of our time, Superman.
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