American comics: I drew Superman during the Great Depression

"Sir, maybe you should take a look at this..."

New York, Manroland New York Agency.

Agent Lange took the newspaper handed by the worker and couldn't help but show surprise when he looked at the exquisite serialized content on it.

“This printing effect!”

In terms of printing press production, manroland has a long history. Since the first automatic letterpress printing machine appeared in 1845, manroland has also started its own development career.

Manroland plays a huge role in the development of rotary machines. Whether it is the early printing presses powered by steam boilers and steam engines or the new rotary printing presses currently on the market, in fact they all come from Manroland. handwriting.

Currently, nearly one-third of the printing presses used in the entire New York market are produced by Manroland or manufacturers that cooperate with it.

Including the color rotary printing press previously used by Colin Newspaper, it was also a partner of Manroland.

Lange, who is half German, is currently Manroland’s agent in New York.

He is responsible for opening up the New York market for Manroland and promoting new rotary machines.

However, because of the Great Depression, not only the United States but also the entire world was affected by a severe economic crisis.

Including Germany, where Manroland is located, as an industry-oriented country, the decline in exports has naturally caused a sharp drop in internal consumption, and Manroland's printing press sales have also shown a sharp downward trend. According to Lange’s news, Manroland’s headquarters in Augsburg is already planning a new round of layoffs and spending cuts.

And agents like Lange seem to be on the list of layoffs.

Due to the influence of the overall environment, Manroland began to decide to give up some less profitable cooperation channels, and the US market, which was the hardest hit by the Great Depression, seemed to be one of the first targets that Manroland gave up.

Since getting the news, Lange has been in anxiety. It is not that he has not tried to sell the runner.

However, under the impact of the Great Depression, all factories were desperately trying to reduce costs and use the cheapest paper and ink for printing.

Lange has not successfully marketed a rotary printing press for more than a month.

"Give me another newspaper right now!"

Taking a deep breath, Langer looked at the beautifully printed "Courier" in his hand and said quickly to the workers.

In a short time, Lange had a copy of the latest newspaper "World Journal" in his hands.

Looking down at the differences between the two newspapers, and putting them together, Langer more intuitively felt the advanced printing technology used by the Courier.

Being able to become the New York agent of manroland, Lange naturally has its own uniqueness.

He was originally a maintenance worker for a rotary printing press in a factory. He has a very deep understanding of the printing process, and it is precisely because of this background. Only then did Lange come into contact with manroland and successfully become their agent in New York.

If it hadn't been for the Great Depression, he might, no, would have been better off than he is now.

Damn the Depression, damn Hoover.

After silently greeting everything at hand, Langer returned his gaze to the two newspapers in his hands.

"World Journal" is currently the newspaper with the largest circulation in New York, but in terms of printing effect, it is completely different from "The Courier". This difference may not be obvious in text, but once it comes to serialized comics, it becomes somewhat clear.

Looking at the blurred characters and monochromatic colorful characters in "World Journal" and the brightly colored characters in "The Courier", let alone an agent like Lange who has sufficient experience in printing technology, even if it is Ordinary people can also see the difference at a glance.

“So, how does this Courier do this?”

Considering the circulation of the newspaper, Lange can even feel the importance behind this.

"According to the newsboy, it seems that the owner of the Courier has adopted a new printing technology."

The worker didn't know much about the specific situation, so he could only tell Lange what he knew from the newsboy.

"New printing technology?"

Lange knows that the description of 'new' may be a bit exaggerated. After all, with the development of printing technology, all printing press manufacturing has been modified and upgraded based on the previous ones.

But regardless of whether it is an exaggeration or not, it is a fact that the Courier has mastered a new printing process. This process is even a mature technology that can be applied to the printing and publishing of newspapers.

"Send these two newspapers to Augsburg immediately!"

Thinking of this, Lange shouted without much hesitation.

…

[Ability—Super Premonition (Black Iron)]

[Description of ability: Superman has magical sensory abilities and can predict the location of a disaster in advance when danger occurs within ten kilometers nearby. 】

In the Courier Newspaper office, as the new issue of "Superman" was serialized, as expected, Colin also successfully unlocked new abilities.

The abilities that are unlocked for the first time are usually based on [Black Iron], and they will only be upgraded to the [Bronze] level as the serialized story continues.

As for the ability [Freeze Breathing], why is it [Bronze] when it appears?

That's because this ability itself is actually an ability that only appears after the level of [Super Breathing] is upgraded, and [Super Breathing] is one of the abilities that Colin unlocked a long time ago.

Close your eyes and feel the effect of the new ability.

Not surprisingly, [Super Premonition] in the positive world has also suffered a significant reduction.

The range within ten kilometers in the text introduction was directly compressed to about one kilometer, and even the degree of premonition changed from instant foreknowledge to a vague induction.

Of course, no matter what, unlocking a new ability is a good thing after all.

In the newspaper office, Colin tried the effect of [Super Premonition], then restrained his ability and focused on the creation of new radio drama stories.

With the broadcast of "Superman Adventures", Superman's popularity has been further improved.

The content of the radio drama has also been broadcast from the initial "Baby from Krypton" to the third episode "Farm Youth Clark", and this is also the first episode in which Superman speaks in a radio drama. In the previous episode "The Kind Farm Couple", Superman is still in the baby state, and the main dubbing objects are Jonathan Kent and Martha Kent, who are Superman's adoptive parents.

Through the conversation between the two, Superman's difference from ordinary people as an alien baby is shown.

At the same time, the names of Superman's adoptive parents are also determined for the first time through a radio drama. It is foreseeable that with the broadcast of the "Superman Adventures" radio drama, the background of Superman's world will be more and more perfect. In fact, this is one of the reasons why most readers listen to the radio drama on time.

In the early days of the comic serialization, Colin quickly skipped Superman's growth story in a rough way in order to attract readers' interest, making him a superhero known to the public from the moment he appeared.

This approach is undoubtedly correct.

This also made the Courier gain a large number of readers and support in the early days of serialization. Now, as the image of Superman gradually becomes popular, readers have begun to explore the origin story of Superman, wanting to know what the past of such a powerful superhero is like, what the mysterious planet Krypton that gave birth to Superman is like, and how Superman spent his childhood.

CBS also keenly noticed this from the letters from listeners of the radio drama during this period, so it put forward relevant plot requirements in the discussion with Colin. In response, Colin also created the second episode of the radio drama "The Kind Farm Couple", which mentioned Superman's childhood performance, and the third episode he is currently creating "Farm Youth Clark", which mentioned Superman's farm life before going to Metropolis.

According to the audience feedback given by CBS, everyone showed a very strong curiosity about Superman's childhood in the episode "The Kind Farm Couple".

This also brought inspiration to Colin, although in the radio drama "Superman Adventures", the story he wrote had jumped to Superman's youth.

But this does not mean that he cannot retell the story of Superman's childhood.

In fact, if Colin remembers correctly, Superman did launch the comic "Superboy", which mainly tells the story of Superman's adventures in a small town when he was a teenager. Although such serialization is not very helpful for Colin to unlock his abilities, it can undoubtedly greatly enrich Superman's background experience and help him gain a certain degree of [faith].

Even because the plot of "Superboy" is earlier than the serialized "Superman" story, the ability in the comics should be weaker than that of Metropolis Superman.

For the creation of "Superboy", Colin already has an idea, and plans to hire a new cartoonist to serialize this story in "The Courier Comics".

With the continuous growth of the sales of the picture album, "The Courier Comics" has become the number one comic book in New York City.

Moreover, unlike comic publications such as "Famous Comics", "The Courier Comics" has its own comic creation story, and does not need to rely on collecting other comic content on the market.

On the other hand, Jack Lebovitz has been looking for cooperating publishers in cities across the United States during this period, and successfully helped "The Courier Comics" to open up markets in other states besides New York. It is said that the story of "Superman" is most popular in Kansas. As an agricultural state, Superman's identity as a farm youth makes the people of Kansas feel very involved.

...

"A wonderful story!"

CBS, New York Radio.

In the dubbing studio of the radio play "The Adventures of Superman".

The members of the Mercury Theater, led by Orson Welles, saw the plot of the third episode "Farm Youth Clark" written by Colin and couldn't help but sigh.

The Mercury Theater has rich dubbing experience. In the previous two episodes of "The Adventures of Superman", it successfully portrayed the roles of Superman's parents and adoptive parents.

And now, it is finally the turn to dub Superman, the protagonist of the entire adventure story.

Looking at the lines of Superman in the script, Orson Welles was a little eager to move. If he was not a broadcaster and needed to be responsible for the direction of the entire story of the radio play, Orson would be happy to be the voice actor of Superman and appear in the story of the radio play. After all, he has been a loyal reader of Superman comics for a long time.

Now, he can only reluctantly give up this job and hand it over to other dubbing staff in the theater.

"For the voice of Superman, Mr. Colin Looper, do you have any requests?"

As the creator of the "Superman" comics and the screenwriter of the radio drama "The Adventures of Superman", Orson Welles obviously would not ignore Colin's opinions.

In fact, in the dubbing of previous episodes, Mercury Theater also adjusted and determined the dubbing sound after asking the other party's opinions.

"At this period, Clark has not yet completely made up his mind to devote his abilities to saving others, and does not regard himself as Superman."

When faced with Orson Welles' inquiry, Colin did not shirk at all, and immediately made his request: "So, in terms of tone and expression, he is still an ordinary farm youth."

In front of Colin, Orson Welles nodded and turned to gesture to a young-looking troupe member behind him. The latter quickly spoke and imitated the lines from the script of "Clark on the Farm".

"You know, Jonathan, I have endless strength, so leave the rest to me."

After listening carefully to the dubbing lines, Colin thought for a moment and corrected: "Clark's tone should be more confident, like 'You know, Jonathan, I have...'"

Being able to serve as the voice of Superman in a radio drama is obviously an extremely important job for the members of the Mercury Theater. Even inside the theater, there were many members peeping at the Superman dubbing work.

Therefore, the other party acted extremely seriously, imitating the effect Colin needed word for word. He did not want to arouse Colin's disgust and lose this important dubbing due to his negligence.

"Very well, keep talking like this."

After all, it was just a dubbing of a radio drama, and Colin did not require Mercury Theater to be very refined. Therefore, after determining the general way Clark spoke in the episode, Colin ended his teaching.

On the other hand, after Orson Welles witnessed Colin's guidance to the voice actors, an idea suddenly came to his mind.

"I wonder if Mr. Colin Looper is interested in dubbing Superman's first lines in a radio drama? As the creator of "Superman", if you can dub a few lines for Superman in this radio drama, , will give the broadcast of this radio drama an extraordinary meaning.”

"The Exotic Land Development of Vegetable-Growing Skeletons"

"I believe that listeners who listen to the "Adventures of Superman" radio drama will also be happy about it."

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