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American Mythology
The Making of Superman
3 'They'll get to see Joe's illustrations too.'
On Joe's bedroom floor in the Shusters' Ohio brick house lay sheets
of paper among scattered magazines. The scraps were covered with pencil
drawings. Joe's dad was a tailor. Joe shared a bedroom with one brother.
Three younger siblings shared a room next door.
Jerome Siegel lived twelve blocks away in a modest two-storey red
brick house. Jerome's father ran a local furnishing store but had six kids
to support. Producing science-fiction zines had been a hobby for Jerome
since school. He did the writing and Joe did the pictures. Jerome's father
duplicated the friends' fanzines on a Gestetner in his office at the store.
Jerome Siegel was set on becoming a professional writer.
The pulps were the market to go for.
Popular Publications and Street and Smith turned down the
stories he'd written under pen-names. Jerome was still a teenager and none
of the rejection slips dampened his enthusiasm to write a story the pulps
would buy.
'I wish I could write like Edgar Rice Burroughs,' Jerome said
to his father. 'His Mars adventures and Tarzan stories are tops. And for
story-ideas you can't beat John W. Campbell in Amazing Tales.'
'Jerry, why don't you send your fanzine to the publishers
of those mags with all that praising-up in an accompanying letter? They
may send you fresh copies to review. They'll read your own stories and get
to see Joe's illustrations too.'
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