The widow of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel died yesterday in California. Joanne Siegel was 93.
As Joanne Carter, she met writer Jerry Siegel and his fellow Superman co-creator, artist Joe Shuster, in Cleveland when they were getting their start as teens during the depression. Carter had placed a classified ad in The Plain Dealer offering her services as a model. Shuster contacted her and she became the model for Superman’s love interest, Lois Lane. She married Siegel in 1948, following his divorce from Bella Siegel.
Siegel and Shuster tried to sell Superman for years without success. They eventually sold the character to National Allied Publications which later became DC Comics. The man of steel debuted in the first issue of Action Comics in 1938.
In 1946, near the end of their 10 year contract, Siegel and Shuster sued National over the rights to their creation. They lost and settled for $94,000. Their byline was soonafter dropped from Superman comic books. Siegel continued to write comics for different publishers and Shuster drew mostly horror comics. The latter’s eyesight eventually got so bad that he couldn’t work anymore and by 1976, he was living in a nursing home in California.
