Aller au contenu

Utilisateur:Kurzon/Superman

Une page de Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre.

Publication history[modifier | modifier le code]

Articles connexes : Publication history of Superman, Superman (comic strip), List of Superman comics et Superman (franchise).

Comic books and comic strips[modifier | modifier le code]

Superman debuted as the cover feature of the anthology Action Comics #1 (cover-dated June 1938 and published on April 18, 1938).[1] The series was an immediate success,[2] and reader feedback showed it was because of the Superman character.[3] In June 1939, Detective Comics began a sister series, Superman, dedicated exclusively to the character.[4] Action Comics eventually became dedicated to Superman stories too, and both it and Superman have been published without interruption since 1938 (ignoring changes to the titles and numbering).[5][6] A large number of other series and miniseries have been published as well.[7] Superman has also appeared as a regular or semi-regular character in a number of superhero team series, such as Justice League of America and World's Finest Comics, and in spin-off series such as Supergirl. Sales of Action Comics and Superman declined steadily from the 1950s,[8][9] but rose again starting in 1987. Superman #75 (Nov 1992) sold over 6 million copies, making it the best-selling issue of a comic book of all time,[10] thanks to a media sensation over the possibly permanent death of the character in that issue.[11] Sales declined from that point on. In February 2016, Action Comics sold just over 31,000 copies.[12] The comic books are today considered a niche aspect of the Superman franchise due to low readership.[13]

Beginning in January 1939, a Superman daily comic strip appeared in newspapers, syndicated through the McClure Syndicate. A color Sunday version was added that November. The Sunday strips had a narrative continuity separate from the daily strips, possibly because Siegel had to delegate the Sunday strips to ghostwriters.[14] By 1941, the newspaper strips had an estimated readership of 20 million.[15] Shuster drew the early strips, then passed the job to Wayne Boring.[16] From 1949 to 1956, the newspaper strips were drawn by Win Mortimer.[17] The strip ended in May 1966, but was revived from 1977 to 1983 to coincide with a series of movies released by Warner Bros.[18]

After Shuster left National, Boring also succeeded him as the principal artist on Superman comic books.[19] He redrew Superman taller and more detailed.[20] Around 1955, Curt Swan in turn succeeded Boring.[21]

Creative management[modifier | modifier le code]

Initially, Siegel was allowed to write Superman more or less as he saw fit,[22] because nobody had anticipated the success and rapid expansion of the franchise.[23] But soon Siegel and Shuster's work was put under careful oversight for fear of trouble with censors.[24] Siegel was forced to tone down the violence and social crusading that characterized his early stories.[25] Editor Whitney Ellsworth, hired in 1940, dictated that Superman not kill.[26] Sexuality was banned, and colorfully outlandish villains such as Ultra-Humanite and Toyman were thought to be less nightmarish for young readers.[27]

Mort Weisinger was the editor on Superman comics from 1941 to 1970, his tenure briefly interrupted by military service. Siegel and his fellow writers had developed the character with little thought of building a coherent mythology, but as the number of Superman titles and the pool of writers grew, Weisinger demanded a more disciplined approach.[28] Weisinger assigned story ideas, and the logic of Superman's powers, his origin, the locales, and his relationships with his growing cast of supporting characters were carefully planned. Elements such as Bizarro, Supergirl, the Phantom Zone, alternate varieties of kryptonite, robot doppelgangers, and Krypto were introduced. The complicated universe built under Weisinger was beguiling to devoted readers, but alienating to casuals.[29] Weisinger favored lighthearted stories over serious drama, and avoided sensitive subjects such as the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, because he feared his right-wing views would alienate his writing staff and readers.[30] Weisinger also introduced letters columns in 1958 to encourage feedback and build intimacy with readers.[31] Superman was the best-selling comic book character of the 1960s.[32][33]

Weisinger retired in 1970 and Julius Schwartz took over. By his own admission, Weisinger had grown out of touch with newer readers.[34] Schwartz updated Superman by removing overused plot elements such as kryptonite and robot doppelgangers and making Clark Kent a television anchor.[35] Schwartz also scaled Superman's powers down to a level closer to Siegel's original. These changes would eventually be reversed by later writers. Schwartz allowed stories with serious drama, as in "For the Man Who Has Everything" (Superman Annual #11), in which the villain Mongul torments Superman with an illusion of happy family life on a living Krypton.

Schwartz retired from DC Comics in 1986, and was succeeded by Mike Carlin as editor on Superman comics His retirement coincided with DC Comics' decision to streamline the shared continuity called the DC Universe with the companywide-crossover storyline "Crisis on Infinite Earths". Writer John Byrne rewrote the Superman mythos, again reducing Superman's powers, which writers had slowly re-strengthened, and revised many supporting characters, such as making Lex Luthor a billionaire industrialist rather than a mad scientist, and making Supergirl an artificial shapeshifting organism, because DC wanted Superman to be the sole surviving Kryptonian.

Carlin was promoted to Executive Editor for the DC Universe books in 1996, a position he held until 2002. K.C. Carlson took his place as editor of the Superman comics.

The 1940s radio serial was produced by Robert Maxwell and Allen Ducovny, who were employees of Superman, Inc. and Detective Comics, respectively.[36][37] Robert Maxwell was later hired to produce the TV show starring George Reeves. DC Comics (then known as National Comics Publications) felt that the first season was too violent for what they expected to be a children's show, so they removed Maxwell and replaced him with Whitney Ellsworth, a veteran writer and editor at National Comics.[38] DC Comics had approval rights over all creative aspects of the Superboy TV series (1988–1992), from scripts to casting to shooting revisions.[39]

The first three movies starring Christopher Reeve were produced by Alexander and Ilya Salkind. When Warner Bros sold the movie rights to Superman to the Salkinds in 1974, it demanded control over the budget and the casting, but left everything else to the producers' discretion.[40] These movies influenced future stories, with the Salkinds insisting Clark Kent be a newspaper journalist, in order to appeal to older fans.[41] Kent left his TV anchor job and returned to the Daily Planet. Innovations such as John Barry's crystalline set designs for Krypton and the Fortress of Solitude, Superman's chest emblem being his family crest, and screenwriter Mario Puzo's messianic themes were also adopted by the comics' writers.[réf. nécessaire]

Aesthetic style[modifier | modifier le code]

In the earlier decades of Superman comics, artists were expected to conform to a certain "house style".[42] Joe Shuster defined the aesthetic style of Superman in the 1940s, and not just in the comics: he also provided character model sheets for the Fleischer and Famous animated serial of the 1940s.[43] After Shuster left National, Wayne Boring succeeded him as the principal artist on Superman comic books.[19] He redrew Superman taller and more detailed.[20] Around 1955, Curt Swan in turn succeeded Boring.[21] The 1980s saw a boom in the diversity of comic book art and now there is no single "house style" in Superman comics.[44]

Traduction[modifier | modifier le code]

  1. ↑ (en) John Kenneth Muir, The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and Television, McFarland & Co., (ISBN 978-0-7864-3755-9, lire en ligne [archive du ]), p. 539
  2. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "Vendors had sold 130,000 comic books, or 64 percent of the print run. Anything over 50 percent constituted a success and guaranteed a profit. [...] Sales, meanwhile, continued to climb—to 136,000 for the second issue, 159,000 for the third, 190,000 for the fourth, and 197,000 for the fifth. Action No. 13, released on the first anniversary of the original, offered up 415,000 reasons to celebrate. National printed 725,000 copies of Action No. 16 and sold 625,000—an unheard-of success rate of 86 percent."
  3. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "...readers were asked to list in order of preference their five favorite stories. [...] 404 of 542 respondents named Superman as tops, with 59 more listing him second.
  4. ↑ Superman #1 (Summer 1939) « https://web.archive.org/web/20160422132630/http://www.comics.org/issue/470/ »(Archive.org • Wikiwix • Archive.is • Google • Que faire ?), at the Grand Comics Database.
  5. ↑ Action Comics « https://web.archive.org/web/20160223222919/http://www.comics.org/series/97/ »(Archive.org • Wikiwix • Archive.is • Google • Que faire ?), at the Grand Comics Database.
  6. ↑ Superman « https://web.archive.org/web/20160227153800/http://www.comics.org/series/116/ »(Archive.org • Wikiwix • Archive.is • Google • Que faire ?), (1939–1986 series)] and Adventures of Superman « https://web.archive.org/web/20160305150736/http://www.comics.org/series/3345/ »(Archive.org • Wikiwix • Archive.is • Google • Que faire ?), (1987 continuation of series) at the Grand Comics Database.
  7. ↑ "Superman"-titled comics « https://web.archive.org/web/20160305202812/http://www.comics.org/series/name/Superman/sort/chrono/ »(Archive.org • Wikiwix • Archive.is • Google • Que faire ?), at the Grand Comics Database.
  8. ↑ « Marvel and DC sales figures » [archive du ]
  9. ↑ John Jackson, ed. Miller, « Superman Annual Sales Figures » [archive du ], ComicChron.com
  10. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "Superman 75, the death issue, tallied the biggest one-day sale ever for a comic book, with more than six million copies printed."
  11. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "Journalists, along with most of their readers and viewers, didn’t understand that heroes regularly perished in the comics and almost never stayed dead."
  12. ↑ « February 2016 Comic Book Sales Figures » [archive du ], Comichron (consulté le )
  13. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "The remaining audience [by 2011] was dedicated to the point of fanaticism, a trend that was self-reinforcing. No longer did casual readers pick up a comic at the drugstore or grocery, both because the books increasingly required an insider’s knowledge to follow the action and because they simply weren’t being sold anymore at markets, pharmacies, or even the few newsstands that were left. [...] Comic books had gone from being a cultural emblem to a countercultural refuge."
  14. ↑ (en) Paul Tumey, « Reviews: Superman: The Golden Age Sundays 1943–1946 », The Comics Journal,‎ (lire en ligne) :

    « ...Jerry Siegel had his hands — and typewriter — full, turning out stories for the comic books and the daily newspaper strips (which had completely separate continuities from the Sundays). »
  15. ↑ Modèle:Harvp
  16. ↑ « Wayne Boring (1905–1987) » [archive du ], SupermanSuperSite.com (consulté le )
  17. ↑ « Win Mortimer (1919–1998) » [archive du ], SupermanSuperSite.com (consulté le )
  18. ↑ Steven, ed. Younis, « Superman Newspaper Strips » [archive du ], SupermanHomepage.com (consulté le )
  19. ↑ a et b Modèle:Harvp: "In 1948 Boring succeeded Shuster as the principal superman artist, his art style epitomizing the Man of Steel's comics and merchandising look throughout the 1950s."
  20. ↑ a et b Modèle:Harvp: "...Superman was drawn in a more detailed, realistic style of illustration. He also looked bigger and stronger. "Until then Superman had always seemed squat," Boring said. "He was six heads high, a bit shorter than normal. I made him taller–nine heads high–but kept his massive chest."
  21. ↑ a et b Curt Swan (1987). Drawing Superman. Essay reprinted in Modèle:Harvp: "For 30 years or so, from around 1955 until a couple of years ago when I more or less retired, I was the principal artists of the Superman comic for DC Comics."
  22. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "Initially Harry [Donenfeld], Jack [Liebowitz], and the managers they hired to oversee their growing editorial empire had let Jerry [Siegel] do as he wished with the character..."
  23. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "Neither Harry [Donenfeld] nor Jack [Liebowitz] had planned for a separate Superman comic book, or for that to be ongoing. Having Superman's story play out across different venues presented a challenge for Jerry [Siegel] and the writers who came after him: Each installment needed to seem original yet part of a whole, stylistically and narratively. Their solution, at the beginning, was to wing it..."
  24. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "...the publisher was anxious to avoid any repetition of the censorship problems associated with his early pulp magazines (such as the lurid Spicy Detective)."
  25. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "Once Superman became big business, however, plots had to be sent to New York for vetting. Not only did editors tell Jerry to cut out the guns and knives and cut back on social crusading, they started calling the shots on minute details of script and drawing."
  26. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "It was left to Ellsworth to impose tight editorial controls on Jerry Siegel. Henceforth, Superman would be forbidden to use his powers to kill anyone, even a villain."
  27. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "No hint of sex. No alienating parents or teachers. Evil geniuses like the Ultra-Humanite were too otherworldly to give kids nightmares... The Prankster, the Toyman, the Puzzler, and J. Wilbur Wolngham, a W. C. Fields lookalike, used tricks and gags instead of a bow and arrows in their bids to conquer Superman. For editors wary of controversy, 1940s villains like those were a way to avoid the sharp edges of the real world."
  28. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "Before Mort came along, Superman’s world was ad hoc and seat-of-the-pants, with Jerry and other writers adding elements as they went along without any planning or anyone worrying whether it all hung together. That worked fine when all the books centered around Superman and all the writing was done by a small stable. Now the pool of writers had grown and there were eight different comic books with hundreds of Superman stories a year to worry about."
  29. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "But Weisinger’s innovations were taking a quiet toll on the story. Superman’s world had become so complicated that readers needed a map or even an encyclopedia to keep track of everyone and everything. (There would eventually be encyclopedias, two in fact, but the first did not appear until 1978.) All the plot complications were beguiling to devoted readers, who loved the challenge of keeping current, but to more casual fans they could be exhausting."
  30. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "Weisinger stories steered clear of the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, the black power movement, and other issues that red the 1960s. There was none of what Mort would have called "touchy-feely" either, much as readers might have liked to know how Clark felt about his split personality, or whether Superman and Lois engaged in the battles between the sexes that were a hallmark of the era. Mort wanted his comics to be a haven for young readers, and he knew his right-leaning politics wouldn’t sit well with his leftist writers and many of his Superman fans."
  31. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "One of the ways the editor kept in touch with his young audience was through a letters colum, "Metropolis Mailbag," introduced in 1958."
  32. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "It did work. In 1960, the first year in which sales data was made public, Superman was selling more comic books than any other title or character, and he stayed on top through much of the decade. The Man of Steel was at the front of a charge that saw superheroes taking over from western and romance-themed comics. Some of that was a dividend from an easing of the comics scare and other, broader forces, but Weisinger’s reinventions were key ingredients in Superman’s comeback. "Mort kept it alive," says Carmine Infantino, a National Comics artist who would rise to editorial director, then publisher. "He was a damn good editor. Damn good.""
  33. ↑ Comichron. Comic Book Sales By Year « https://web.archive.org/web/20160723085633/http://www.comichron.com/yearlycomicssales.html »(Archive.org • Wikiwix • Archive.is • Google • Que faire ?), .
  34. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "He admitted later he was losing touch with a new generation of kids and their notions about heroes and villains."
  35. ↑ Julius Schwartz, quoted in Modèle:Harvp: "I said, 'I want to get rid of all the kryptonite. I want to get rid of all the robots that are used to get him out of situations. And I'm sick and tired of that stupid suit Clark Kent wears all the time. I want to give him more up-to-date clothes. And maybe the most important thing I want to do is take him out of the Daily Planet and put him into television.' I said 'Our readers are not that familiar with newspapers. Most of them get their news on television, and I think it's high time after all these years.'"
  36. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "[Harry Donenfeld] drafted Maxwell into Superman, Inc., first to oversee the licensing of toys and other products, then to bring the superhero into the world of broadcast."
  37. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "Superman was brought to radio by Allen Ducovny, a press agent with Detective Comics, and Robert Maxwell (the pen name of Robert Joffe), a former pulp fiction author who was in charge of licensing the subsidiary rights of the company's comic book characters."
  38. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "...Robert Maxwell hoped for an adult time slot, so he made Superman an adult show, with death scenes and rough violence."

    [...]

    "In May of 1953, script conferences began for the second season of Adventures of Superman. The program was now under the supervision of a new producer. Robert Maxwell was out, National Comics' editorial director Whitney Ellsworth was in."
  39. ↑ Jenette Kahn: "We have approval rights to everything, the casting of Superboy/Clark Kent, approval of the synopses, the scripts and revised scripts. We even have the right to be on the set as the show is being shot to oversee the revisions being made during shooting."

    David McDonnell et Daniel Dickholtz, « ...And the Adventures of Superboy », {{Article}} : paramètre « périodique » manquant, O'Quinn Studios, Inc., no 5,‎
  40. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "Under the terms of the deal, Warners would have budget and casting approval and the right of first refusal for Superman films made by the Salkinds, but otherwise the financing and production of the films was up to the producers."
  41. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "The Salkinds told Puzo to take Clark Kent off TV and make him a newspaperman after a survey revealed that's how most adults remembered him."
  42. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "Artistic expressiveness of a highly individualistic sort had never been particularly welcomed by traditional comic book publishers. The corporate mind, ever focused on the bottom line of the balance sheet, favored bland "house styles" of rendering..."
  43. ↑ Modèle:Harvp: "Max and Dave [Fleischer's] composers knew what Superman, Lois, and the others should look like, thanks to model sheets provided by Joe Shuster."
  44. ↑ Modèle:Harvp
Ce document provient de « https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Utilisateur:Kurzon/Superman&oldid=147002718 ».