Will Eisner - Michael Schumacher [27]
Why he believed this is hard to figure. Action Comics, as concocted by Wheeler-Nicholson, was just another hodgepodge of the type of material he’d been foisting on the public from the get-go—forgettable stuff now rotting on newsstands. He might have been able to purchase mediocre work for less than premium prices, but the cover price for his books was the same as it was for some of the better titles on the market, and readers wanted more bang for their dimes.
Desperate for a new, first-rate feature to anchor his book, Wheeler-Nicholson called his business contacts and asked if they had anything lying around. Somehow, a much-handled copy of Superman, languishing on Maxwell C. Gaines’s slush pile at All-American Comics, found its way into his office. Wheeler-Nicholson knew Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster from past business dealings; they had been regular contributors to his comics for more than a year. This Superman idea, although designed originally as a newspaper strip, required work before it would be self-contained enough for a comic book, but it was better than the other material Wheeler-Nicholson had earmarked for Action.
His plans for Action Comics never reached fruition. Harry Donenfeld, partner in the firm that printed Wheeler-Nicholson’s comics and publisher of girlie pulp magazines with such imaginative titles as Juicy Tales and Hot Tales, pulled the plug on Wheeler-Nicholson’s company early in 1938. In the past, Donenfeld had been willing to accept a small percentage of Wheeler-Nicholson’s enterprises in exchange for debt; this time around, he wasn’t looking for a piece of the business. In what was designed to look like a generous gesture, Donenfeld sent Wheeler-Nicholson and his wife on a cruise to Cuba, supposedly to give the Major the chance to come up with fresh ideas. But when Wheeler-Nicholson returned, things had changed. The locks on his office had been changed and Doneneld had filed a suit against him for nonpayment of bills. Facing a disastrous court ruling, Wheeler-Nicholson accepted a mediocre buyout offer from Donenfeld and disappeared from comics.
Neither Donenfeld nor his right-hand man, Jack Liebowitz, had any concept of what they had on their hands, or that Superman would turn into the publishing and marketing phenomenon that it eventually became. The comic’s creators had no idea, either. They saw it as just another job and assigned no special significance to the character, even as they signed away the rights to Superman when they endorsed their $130 paycheck for the feature.
Action Comics didn’t just do well at the newsstands; it exploded into existence, starting strong and, over the next few months, snowballing until it had become the industry standard for a burgeoning superhero comics market. Donenfeld’s company became very wealthy. Donenfeld would label Superman “a fluke,” and Liebowitz would call it “pure luck”—which, in fact, it was.
And Bill Eisner walked away with the anecdote of a lifetime.
Actually, the success of Superman had a much greater effect on Eisner than he ever could have anticipated. For starters, Superman’s popularity kicked the comics industry to a new level. Sales jumped for other books; every publisher clamored for a costumed hero with an exotic background, some kind of superpower, and a nose for truth and justice, if not the American way. Eisner & Iger, as suppliers to comic book publishers, followed the trend, producing work as fast as the studio artists could crank it out. Once again Eisner sent out a call for more writers and artists, and once again he was rewarded with employees capable of staying on pace.
Two of his more recent hires, an artist named Alex Blum and his writer/daughter, Audrey (nicknamed Toni), added not only badly needed help to the studio, but, in the case of Toni Blum, a touch of romance that Eisner, had he been thinking about it, might have anticipated. Aside from taking jobs as secretaries, women were extremely