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Secret Identity: The Fetish Art Of Superman's Co-Creator (2009)

by Joe Shuster(Favorite Author)

3.87 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0810996340 (ISBN13: 9780810996342)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Abrams ComicArts

review 1: 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.
review 2: Out of work and... more 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. less

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