Page 20 discovered

[Great Rao]

Peter Jones, who owns the artwork for page 20 of the lost K-Metal story, just sent in a scan of it.

He's been trying to figure out just which of the Shuster shop artists worked on it, so any tips along those lines would be greatly appreciated.

This is an incredible find and an incredible contribution. Thanks very much Peter!

1/2006 - Administrator's note: The scan of page 20 has temporarily been removed from this site in order to avoid story spoilers.

[TELLE]

Wow, I'm ashamed to say I hadn't come across this story before, not having fully explored the site or read the Steranko book.  How awesome to see an original Seigel script (albeit, if I understand the Waid article, a painstaking replica).

[nightwing]

I'm in the process of reading Gerard Jones' book, "Men of Tomorrow," and the "K-Metal" story is referred to as a major turning point in the behind-the-scenes history of Superman.

Specifically, it represents the moment when control of the character slipped from the hands of his creator into those of his publisher.  In just a few years Superman had become such a money-maker that commerce, rather than art, was now driving the legend.

And you thought that was a recent thing!

[TELLE]

As a dyed-in-the-wool anarcho-communist, I am convinced it is a very ancient thing!

Art Spiegelman calls the comics "the bast*rd child of art and commerce" and you can read of publishers fighting over the rights to lucrative characters all the way back to the Yellow Kid and the Katzenhamer Kids and beyond.