Joe Shuster
Joe Shuster
Joseph "Joe" Shuster was a Canadian-American comic book artist best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman, with writer Jerry Siegel, in Action Comics #1...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionArtist
Date of Birth10 July 1914
CountryCanada
anatomy classes detailed drawings looked sketches time
Those early sketches looked too cartoony; I really wanted to do detailed drawings - I was taking anatomy classes - but unfortunately I wasn't able to do it because of the time element.
destroyed drawings fact simply tear turned
I'm a perfectionist, and I think the fact that the drawings had been turned down made me want to tear them up. I simply destroyed them.
buildings cases draw mostly natural point tall
He was mostly leaping tall buildings in the beginning. There were cases where he would leap off a tall building or swoop down, and at that point he would look like he was flying, I suppose. It was just natural to draw him like that.
jerry
Before I ever put anything on paper, Jerry and I would talk back and forth.
artist delight pages
Not only that, but when I first met Joe, to my intense delight, he showed me that he was a collector. He was collecting some of the early Tarzan pages by Hal Foster, and, later, early Flash Gordons; and I found that we were both absolutely interested in the same type of thing.
ohio years cleveland
I came from Canada when I was about 10 years old, and our family settled in Cleveland, Ohio.
art burden heavy
I did all the work at the beginning up until the point where I couldn't handle the increasingly heavy art production burden alone. I needed, and got, assistance.
littles bits little-bit
Clark Kent, I suppose, had a little bit of Harold Lloyd in him.
imagination speak deadline
In the beginning, we had a great deal of freedom, and Jerry wrote completely out of his imagination - very, very freely. We even had no editorial supervision to speak of, because they were in such a rush to get the thing in before deadline. But later on we were restricted.
jobs pride two
I had to produce a complete page - or two or three - in one day. I took a lot of pride in my work, and I hated to do a mediocre job. Evidently, some of the writers enjoyed my work best of all for that very reason.
art giving calendars
I drew a picture on the back of a calendar in pencil. In those days they used to give out free calendars, I had no art paper, so I took whatever else I could.
glasses shy
I was mild-mannered, wore glasses, was very shy with women.
character thinking names
I think initially we wanted to use the first letter of the character's name. We thought S was perfect.
jumping giving flying
And I agreed the feeling of action as he was flying or jumping or leaping - a flowing cape would give it movement. It really helped, and it was very easy to draw.