Jimmy So has a brief, nice piece about Superman’s popularity in times of war over on Newsweek.

A deliciously absurd moment in Super Boys, an ambitious new biography of Siegel and Shuster that aims to be as literary as Kavalier and Clay and takes Chabon’s novel as a model, notes that Siegel, who was Jewish, was threatened by the Nazis in Das Schwarze Korps, the official newspaper of the SS. 

I’ve been meaning to post this anyway, so here is the actual page from the newspaper:

As I note in the book, this is just another example of Jerry having no fear when it came to his writing — he got LOTS of people, often very dangerous people, mad at him. This was hard to find, by the way — thanks to the NY Public Library, Dr. Katherine Kickel, and Caroline — we found it, I lost it, so we had to find it again. Read So’s entire article (with some of the above translated) here.

Patrick Challis reviews for COASM:

The story of Shuster and Siegel is a bittersweet one tinged with moments of  success and creativity.  Ricca doesn’t hold back on any information or leave any stone unturned and that leads in to one of the most infomative biographies that I have read in a long time.

Read the full review here.

Today is Maurice Sendak’s birthday, the source of many of our nighttime dreams (or nightmares) as kids. One of my favorite series of his works are these illustrations for an anniversary edition of Melville’s Pierre. I did my MA thesis on this book, mostly because I liked these illos. so much. I always thought he drew Pierre (the tortured artist) as Superman. I have been working on a paper on it here and there. The last image especially.

Sendak did a lot of “last interviews” before his death last year, but The Comics Journal #302 with Gary Groth is one of the best. Glen Weldon, author of Superman: The Unauthorized Biography writes a nice article in The New Republic about this interview here.

On BBC News this weekend — click here for the video.