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| Pencilled, inked and colored by Curt Swan |
Look! Up In The Sky!
Superman daily strips began appearing in newspapers across the country on January 16, 1939. They
predate Superman Comics #1. Thousands were published before the strip ended in 1966, (thank you Batmania). DC Comics and nostalgia
publications have reprinted the first few years of dailies, yet the Superman daily strips from about 1944 to the end of the
run have never been reprinted anywhere since the day they first appeared in the newspaper. Over 20 years
of history of one of the most beloved characters in the world remains unknown. I once asked DC's publisher why this
was and he replied that in those days no one gave much value to the daily strip after publication date. They did not have
them. I didn't tell him but I did. A long time ago I set myself the task of assembling a collection of each one
of these daily strips, and while I have many individual strips I have been lucky enough to have put together a near complete
set of the Superman daily newspaper strips from mid 1959 through the end of the run in April 1966. I have created this
web site, proudly, so that these strips can be read and enjoyed by Superman fans for the first time in 50 years.
When you start reading you will immediately see
that something is different. What you expect to be familiar is a little off. We've all read Superman Of The Future
by Al Plastino, but the episode in the newspaper was drawn by Curt Swan. Captive Of The Amazons from Superman #266 with
art by Wayne Boring is drawn here by Swan. The strip version of The Coward Of Steel is by Boring not Plastino. The Ugly
Superman, drawn in the dailies by Swan shares little more than the title with the comics version by Kurt Schaffenberger. It's
like waking up in Bizarro world.
The
majority of these stories are alternate versions of classic Superman tales like The Man No Prison Could Hold, Superman Goes
To War, Superman's Return To Krypton, Superman's Hands Of Doom and many others. When I was a boy I sometimes found myself
disappointed when I saw the latest comic with it's beautiful Curt Swan Superman cover only to open it to discover that the
story inside was drawn by Wayne Boring. Here are the stories that go with some of those covers. Plus there are
characters and stories new to Superman readers such as Lorelei Lanier from this version of The Superboy Of 800 Years Ago.
Silver Age comic books were great fun and with this run it's as if there were discovered a dozen more that we did not know
we had.
I will be adding to this site regularly, as I fill the holes in my collection.
If anyone has any of the newspaper strips that I need please contact me.
I love comics and Superman
and newspaper strips and this website will feature anything within that world that I find interesting.
Take a look at the last page to see something about Captain Marvel that you have never seen before.
Read the stories shown here for the first time in 50 years and have fun. Tell your friends.
Sid Friedfertig
May 2011
