Mei Man: I drew Superman during the Great Depression

46 Negligence
"Good morning, Colin..."

Positive World, the Messenger Newspaper.

"Good morning, Jack, good morning, Harry."

Nodding to the two people in the newspaper office, Colin took off his hat, scanned the drawing paper on the table that was mostly printed with colored ink, and asked with a smile, "How is it going, how is it going?"

"Basically, it's almost finished." Sitting in front of the workbench, he handed over the draft with wet ink to Colin. Jack rubbed the corner of his sore eyes and replied: "We deleted some of the contents of the frame, so that the whole The plot of "Superman" has become more compact, and professionals have been hired to color these works. Although this has greatly increased the cost of printing, it also makes the entire comic work look more attractive..."

Putting serial comics in newspapers into magazines is not just about printing.

For the sake of convenience, serial comics generally take the form of strip (strip), which is the fixed form of four-panel comics.

But now, since it is decided to move the story of "Superman" to the magazine, the original form of the comic strip will naturally have to be changed. For the past few days, the purpose of Jack and Harry staying in the Courier is to The content of comics has been changed from the original form of comic strips to the form of comic books.

Stretching out his hand and taking the sketch handed over by Jack, Colin looked at the crude sketch still smelling of ink and glue in his hand.

Flipping through the manuscript paper, looking at the comic content that was re-energized after the pages of the manuscript were colored, finally Colin's eyes stayed on the top one of the manuscript paper, which was recolored by the painter, wearing a blue tights , wearing a red cape, a big "S" mark on the shield logo on the chest, and holding a car high above the Superman cover portrait above his head.

The professionals hired by Jack and Harry were quite skilled in drawing, and they also restored the coloring of the comics very well. They basically reproduced the image of Superman in Colin's impression.

However, looking at the Superman on the cover in front of him, Ke Lin always felt a little disobedient in his heart, and always felt that there seemed to be something missing about him on the drawing paper.

"what happened?"

Noticing the expression on Colin's face, Jack who was at the side immediately asked.

"Is there something wrong?"

Instead of answering Jack's question in the first place, Colin flipped through the sketch in his hand again, carefully confirmed every Superman image depicted on the draft paper, and then closed the sketch again with a dazed expression, pointing to the cover on the cover. Superman's crotch asked: "I remember that in the comic book Superman look, in addition to the blue tights, there is also a pair of tight shorts, but the artist who painted it does not seem to draw it on the newly painted Superman. body."

Hearing Colin's reminder, Harry quickly picked up the cover of the "Courier", and compared it with the colored version in Colin's hand, he did indeed see the shadow of a pair of tights on Superman's crotch.However, perhaps due to the relationship between black and white printing, the appearance of this shadow is not very clear, causing the artist to ignore this detail when coloring.

"Sorry, I was negligent."

There was a mistake, and Jack immediately apologized.

"Do you have to keep this design, I think Superman without tight shorts looks quite appropriate?"

Comparing the situation of the two covers left and right, Harry on the side put forward different opinions.

Is Superman without red underwear still Superman?

In later generations, Superman wearing underwear has long been synonymous with his image.

However, whether Superman must wear these underwear has always been the focus of debate among readers.

Not everyone likes the look of Superman wearing underwear, just like Harry in front of him.

"That's because, what you see now is the drawing that has been carefully color-coded by the artist. Naturally, you don't think there is any problem with losing the design of the tights. However, once these comics are put into the factory for mass printing, it will be very difficult. To ensure that the color in the later stage still maintains this quality.”

Hearing Harry's suggestion, Colin didn't wait to speak.

Jack on the side took the lead in refuting his friend.

During this period, printing methods were generally divided into two types, one was black and white printing, which was used by the "Courier", and the other was color printing, which was limited by the development of technology and cost considerations.The so-called color printing in this era is also called four-color printing, which uses four colors of yellow, red, blue, and black to color the characters.

Affected by the Great Depression, in order to save costs, factories often choose to use some poorer paper to affect printing.

This approach also led to a result, that is, the quality of the finished products of magazines and books is often much worse than that of the printed samples. This problem is not obvious in the text, but it becomes especially obvious once it falls on the characters. up, especially after a lot of printing.

This is why, early cartoon characters often have color overflowing from the outline of the character.

In order to be able to cope with this situation, the painters at that time often added shadows or colors to the turning points of the characters, such as the waist, hands and feet, to help readers better understand the poses of the characters.And the red tight shorts on Superman appeared for this reason.

In this way, not only can some character dynamics be shown, but also some unnecessary troubles can be avoided.

After Jack's reminder, Harry realized that he had taken it for granted.

Indeed, once the mass printing started, Superman's overall blue shape did give people a sense of dissonance, as if there was nothing on his crotch.

"I'll call the painter over right away, and rework and color it."

Wanting to understand this, Harry didn't hesitate, and set off right away.

"No need to be so troublesome."

Stretching out his hand to stop Harry's move, Colin picked up a paintbrush stained with red paint from the table, and outlined the iconic pair of red tights on the crotch of Superman on the cover.

"Don't forget, I'm also Superman's artist."

Putting down the paintbrush in his hand and looking at the superman in red underwear on the drawing paper, Colin nodded in satisfaction, then turned his head and said to the two people beside him.

……

"... Later, Harry Donnelfield told me that he occasionally thought that if he had insisted that Superman not wear those tight shorts at that time, maybe what we would see next would be a completely different Superman. Image. Of course, we all know it's impossible, because Colin Looper will definitely stick to his own way, he is always so confident and determined..."

"To this day, I still have some regrets. I didn't see the scene where Mr. Colin Looper colored Superman, but I am also proud, because I am the earliest after Mr. Colin Looper and others. The person who saw the colorful Superman, no one thought at that time that the golden age of American comics would kick off..."——Excerpt from "1932 The Golden Age of Comics"

Author: John Walker
(End of this chapter)