Latest / Books4Guys / The Untold Story of Superman: William Bernhardt on Creativity, Publishing, and the Fight Behind an American Icon

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The Untold Story of Superman: William Bernhardt on Creativity, Publishing, and the Fight Behind an American Icon · Books4Guys

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Before we jump into today's episode, I want to thank our executive development partner, Standard Pursuit.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Founded by Hunter Didrickson, Standard Pursuit is a coaching community built for founders, entrepreneurs, and high performers who are ready to step into the next version of themselves.
• 0:16
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• 0:27
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• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's about health, mindset, discipline, leadership, and becoming the type of person capable of achieving the goals you set for yourself.
• 0:43
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• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's get to today's episode.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: William, man, super glad and excited to have you on the Books for Guys podcast.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: As uh we were already chatting it up a little bit and uh it was pretty cool.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: I I noticed you were based out of Oklahoma City, which I've been to several times.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Arkansas today, right?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think I think you're our first guest from the state of Oklahoma.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome to the podcast.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thanks for having me.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to be here.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, but William, I've been excited, man.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've been looking up uh just a lot of your background as I was preparing for this conversation with you.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously your latest book, The Superman Wars, caught my attention.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Just, you know, I I grew up watching Batman and Superman, really the cartoons as a kid.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: That was my introduction too, yeah.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, obviously been a fan of of the movies and and comics for a long time, but I didn't really know backstory or the background of all the chaos that's involved with this and and what you write about in your latest book, and we'll jump into that.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I also wanted to highlight, I mean, you're the president of WriterCon, which I definitely want to know more about.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're a publisher, Babylon Books.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you have I think I saw where you've authored and published over 60 books yourself, which is incredible.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: So 67, although I might have lost count somewhere, who knows?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I think 67.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and plenty more to come.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: But no, William, if you would just take take a minute, just kind of share a little bit of your story and just just I mean, you've been writing for for a long time now.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Where where did that interest come from and and how has that progressed over the years?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, who knows?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: I always loved books.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: I was reading at an early age, probably just like you, and reading everything in sight, going to, we had a neighborhood library very close to where I lived, which was, you know, it was walking distance and in an era when people walked everywhere.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where I found so many books and librarians who took real interest in this nerdy kid who kept dropping by and immersing himself in books.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I was telling people I wanted to be a writer when I was seven, according to my mom, and she's my mom, so we gotta believe it, right?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, first I wanted to be a librarian, but then at some point I realized, you know, somebody these books aren't spontaneously generated.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody writes them.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's their job.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, well, that's the job I want.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: What could be cooler than that?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I started thinking about it and sending things out.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: I got my first rejection letter when I was 11, which I could prove because I've still got it, and like many, many, many more that came after that.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, there's a reason why that stuff was getting rejected.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't very good, but you learn as you go.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: And writing is like anything else, I think.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to put in your 10,000 hours or whatever, and the more you do, the better at it you get.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually, I had something publishable.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: And my first book, Primary Justice, a legal thriller, was published in '91.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been going ever since.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's incredible.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Was the book that you got rejected by at 11, what what type of story was it?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: That was a poem, actually.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'd written this, I thought completely brilliant poem about the Oklahoma land run, but highlights did not like it as well as I did.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is interesting.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you've been you've been writing, reading since a very young age.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm assuming, I mean, was that something your your mother or parents had an influence on?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, did they always recommend reading to you, or how did you just pick it up and you really learn to enjoy it on your own?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: I am sure my mother did.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: She had taught school herself in the early days when my dad was still in school himself.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think she understood the value of write writing.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: She might not have wanted me to turn it into a career, but at least when it happened, she understood this is a good thing.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is, you know, a cool thing that a lot of people admire.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: So there's that.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's fascinating.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: My my grandmother was a librarian, so that's that was an influence on me too.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: She always she would never get me anything I asked for as far as like toys or things, but if I ever asked for anything that remotely involved reading or learning, she was the first one there to help, you know, get it to me or to help get the tools needed to study something.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it was really fascinating to have a grandmother who was a librarian because that that just the encouragement to read was always there from her.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Is isn't that funny?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: But you smiled.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: But you've written so and you've written a lot of different style books and genre.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: How do you determine what your next project is gonna be?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because the Superman Wars is very unique and it's different than poems and other things you've written.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you determine what you're gonna put your your effort and time into?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even have a good answer to I don't know what the answer is.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: And next you're gonna ask, what caused me to pivot to Superman?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes these ideas just grow on you, you know, and after a while you think, and and sometimes it's probably a flaw in me because you'd probably have a better career if you just wrote the same thing over and over again and built your audience.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I get bored.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I've done a bunch of those uh thrillers and crime books.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've written three books of poetry, as you mentioned.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: I've written some young adult and children's stuff, wrote a play, a musical.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: But this and I wrote uh s several books on writing, I might add.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of nonfiction.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: But this Superman book is my first turn into biography and history, you know, total nonfiction.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a pretty severe pivot and took a lot longer than I expected, but it turned out really well.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I'm glad I Yeah.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, well, I think that's that's a great thing to do, though, is to pivot to what you're interested in.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's really what Books for Guys is built on from a reading standpoint, is I'm basically trying to encourage people to pick up something they're actually interested in reading, so that that, you know, that train of personal development and and the excitement to continue reading keeps going.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, maybe if you tried to stick to one genre your whole career, maybe you wouldn't have published as many books or done as much because you wouldn't have been as interested in it, which is totally fine.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and everybody gets, I mean, I don't care how good you are, at some point it's time to do something else because it's getting stale and you're just repeating yourself.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I'd gotten to that point, but I had done something like, I think, 10 or 11 thrillers in a row, and I just thought, it's time for me to do something different now.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: I might should have chosen something that didn't take so long.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I I was really interested in this subject.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of got into it through the back door, although I love comic books and always have, but but what really interested me was that this story about Jerry Siegel, the guy who came up with the idea for Superman, and eventually bites, stands up to power, to use a common phrase today.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: He's the first American writer to sue his own publisher.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't turn out well in the short term, but in the long term, it reaps many benefits for the creators who came over.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: So t this is the most important creator rights battle of the 20th slash 21st century, because it's not really over until 2016.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what interested me.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: That, you know, I love writers, but I know there are a lot of vultures out there preying on all kinds of artists, and and and that's what drew me to this story.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's really a cautionary tale.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's dive in a little bit.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So Jason created Superman, and obviously.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Very single, yeah.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then he got his best friend Joe Schuster to draw it, and they put this thing together.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And looking back, you know, almost 90 years, it's hard to realize just how inspired, what a genius-level idea this first ever superhero was.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's no Marvel universe, there's no DC.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there have been other heroes, of course, even some who wore costumes, but the idea of, you know, a superpowered guy who can do more or less anything, and telling these stories in this illustrated form, the comic book in its modern form didn't even emerge until 35.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: And here these guys are drawing the perfect feature.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: At least they thought so.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: They couldn't sell it.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: What Jerry wanted at the time was a newspaper strip, a newspaper comic strip, because in the mid-30s, during the Depression, that was the big gun.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody read the comics, they were wildly popular, people made a lot of money writing and drawing them.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: We can't even understand now, today, when that's almost dead, how popular they were at this time.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: When there was a newspaper stripe strike in New York, Mayor Lagordia read the newspaper strips over the radio so kids wouldn't miss out on the next installment, you know.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's how popular they were, and made a lot of people, like Milton Kniff and others, uh Alex Raymond with Flash Gordon, very, very prosperous.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what Jerry wanted.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: But and he sent Superman to every newspaper syndicate out there.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody's interested.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Total crickets.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: They just can't see it.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: They're looking at and they're like, a guy's holding a car over his head?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody's gonna buy that.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so he gets rejected over and over again.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's only when he's run out of newspaper syndicates that Jerry finally agrees to let it be published in one of these, you know, by comparison, pretty shabby, low-rent things called comic books.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: He had done some work, he and Joe had both done some work for this company, the way predecessor of what today is DC Comics.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was founded by a guy called the Major, Major Malcolm Wheeler Nicholson, who was a former military officer and a writer himself, so he knew what writing was about, and he took care of his authors.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't always have as much money as he'd like, and he was sometimes late paying, but Jerry had learned to trust him over the years.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: So f and the Major had been wanting to publish Superman since 35.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so finally Jerry says yes.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, in virtually the blink of an eye, this is all spelled out in the book, but somebody else, a man named Harry Donnenfeld, with his associate Jack Liebowitz, managed to take over the company by means that are dubious.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just leave it at that.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Harry had a lot of mob ties, which he was proud of.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I I why can't I say it?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: During Prohibition, he was running rum.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: He'd been indicted for pornography twice.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: His main interest at inquiring this company was he wanted to use his publishing and distribution operation to publish something that wouldn't get him thrown in prison, you know, and comic books seemed safe.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: He had no idea that literally a year after he acquired this company, he'd be a millionaire.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's due to Superman, who debuts in April of 38.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: He's an instant hit.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody loves Superman, kids and adults, although they might not admit it.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Joe DiMaggio was a huge Superman fan, but he always sent somebody else to the newsstand to pick up the comics for him because he didn't want to be seen buying this scruffy stuff.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And Superman is making buckets of money.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: They have more than 200 Superman merchandising licenses in the first couple years.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: But most of that money is going to the company, not to Jerry and Joe.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Jerry and Joe did make some money in the early years, to be sure, but of course, nothing lasts forever, including that.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And there is enormous tension between the management and Jerry, in part because Donnenfeld really wants Jerry to go away so that he can be Mr.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Superman and take all the credit.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And the, you know, it's in the book.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: But there's 10 years of abusive correspondence between Jack Lebowitz and Jerry.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: He's just taking advantage of Jerry's naivete.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: He's very young.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they came up with this idea when they were 11th graders, for Pete's sake, and they're still in their early 20s.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: They've got no business experience.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Jerry's father passed when he was 17, so he really had no mentor, no agent, no lawyer, nobody to advise him, and he made mistakes.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And as a result, he lost control of the character.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the worst of it stop me when you've had enough, but the worst of it came during World War II.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Jerry was drafted.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: He serves his country overseas for more than two years, comes back and finds that not only have they completely taken over the Superman operation, including hiring all of his staff, including Joe, his best friend, but worse, they've started a new feature using one of Jerry's scripts that introduced a new character, well, semi-new character called Superboy, you know, the adventures of Superman when he was young, and he's in a rural setting and he plays pranks on people and stuff.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Liebowitz had rejected this script three times because they had the right of first refusal.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: They turned it down, and then when Jerry's overseas and can't do any, I mean, they turned it down because Jerry was insisting that he would own this character.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they didn't want that.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: But then while he's overseas and can't do anything about it, they ran the script anyway.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it was successful.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so they started this whole Super Boy series, and Jerry comes home and finds that he's been totally ripped off.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: He tries to work with them, but they can't reach any kind of accommodation because again, Jack's attitude is you work for me, and if you don't like it, we'll fire you.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: They've got a 10-year employment agreement, but I don't know what the value of that is when the boss keeps threatening to fire you.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so finally, Jerry's had enough.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: He files suit in 1947.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't go well for him.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: He's totally outlawyered by these sharks.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: He does get a little money on Superboy, but he does not get back the rights to Superman.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: And worse, they fire him in a completely retaliatory fire, uh which would probably be illegal today, but they fire Jerry and Joe, and worse, remove their name from the credits.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the creator credit created by Siegel and Schuster, no more, gone.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Even when they would reprint old stories from the past, they colored over their names.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: So suddenly Superman is a character with no parents, and you know, it goes on and on.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: There are theatrical cartoons, there's the George Reeves Superman in the Go look at that sometime and look for the credits.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: There aren't any.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: It just says Superman's published by DC Comics or in Action Comics magazine.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: And Jerry and Joe then have so many very tough decades.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Jerry continues to work, he hustles, he's writing constantly, but you just couldn't make much money at that time only writing comic book stories, and it was a major struggle for him.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, that's what but but the saving grace is he and his family never stopped trying.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: He never gives up.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Some people listening to this will remember that the company finally gave Jerry and Joe pensions in 1975 after an enormous PR campaign.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that's true, they didn't want any bat PR just when they were about to release the first big budget Superman movie.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so they agreed to give them tiny pensions and credit.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know,$20,000, which was, as another writer, Elliot Magan said at the time, about what they're paying their secretaries.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what they're giving the great.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Just to put that in perspective, Superman today, of course, DC is owned by Warner, at least for now.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: That'll be paramount at some point in the future.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: But he Superman by himself, on average, makes about$450 million a year for the company.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Whether there's a movie or whatever, it's toys and games and underos, and he's a huge cash cow, and they give the creators$20,000 a year.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just so paltry.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: They did get later cost of living increases, but it never amounted to anything.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: But Jerry keeps fighting, and his family keeps fighting even after he passes.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: His wife, who by the way was the inspiration for Lois Lane, she keeps finding fighting.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And these guys are still deposing.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they noticed her third deposition when she was 93 years old.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's these guys are just trying to drag it out and make life as hard as possible.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: She passes, and then their daughter Lara takes up the torch and she carries it to 2016.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: I won't give away the whole story, but I will tell people that if you think this sounds like it's just going to be a lot of boring litigation, it isn't.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: If you think you already know this story because you remember when they got pensions, you don't know half the story.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's 50 more years of contentious battling, but it does ultimately come to a happier ending and uh and a recognition that this family has stood up and fought for what they believed they were entitled to.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I just that's just as you were saying the story, there's kind of another situation that I was thinking about, and that's the the story of McDonald's and and how that came about as well.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it just seems there's always someone that's a little bit more knowledgeable legally, a little bit stronger, maybe just can can pull some strings that the other, you know, the creators don't know, and it comes back to really just put them it ju it's just not right, you know, for lack of a better term to say.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in that case, what people usually yeah, what people usually say is well, Roy Croc knew how to turn it into a national franzi fry.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: And they say the same thing here.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the comic company knew how to publish it and make it.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: I don't believe that.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, but I I think anybody could have published Superman in 1938 and it would have been a huge sensation, other than publishing it, which does cost money.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there was no magic in what they did.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: They just reaped the benefit of Jerry and Joe's creative work, and that's what's really pretty galling.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: That plus the fact that they were so ungracious to the people who gave them this gift.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's that's and again, I had no idea this backstory of Superman.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: As a more casual fan, I've just enjoyed the movies and enjoyed the product and just thought it was a great thing, but didn't I really had no clue of the le legalities and the fight behind it all.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: J just to again, if you created it, you just want a little credit.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm assuming they probably throughout this thing probably weren't being unreasonable with what they were seeking, and there was just pride, you know, involved from the other side that kept that from happening.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: But it's man, what resiliency though to continue to fight that long children get involved and get this thing to the finish line.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like most people would have just given up, and who knows if this story would have ever been able to be written because it would have just probably just been pushed under the rug.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this was 50 years ago, and here's where we're at.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: So kudos to them for putting up the fight.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's the difference between Jerry and Joe, isn't it?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: People, you know, I'm not trying to cast shade on Joe by focusing on Jerry, but it was Jerry's idea and his family that fought.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now you look at a Superman comic and and it will have not only Jerry and Joe's credit, but beneath that it says, by special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family, acknowledging the fight.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes people say, Why isn't Joe Schuster in there?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the answer is simply because that family didn't fight.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: That family caved.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't mean to be harsh, but when Joe passed, uh the company offered them a little bit of money and they took it, and that was the end of the story for them.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: Jerry's family fought.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't fault them for not continuing to fight.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, at some point you to you're not directly involved.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of fizzles out, I'm sure, and and and you know, no reason to to to think of them in a negative light.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they they the the they just got worn down, like most people probably would.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of it is personality too.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Jerry was always the the pusher, the aggressive one, you know.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: He was the one who said we can get this published, and he was the one who kept typing letters and putting samples in the mail and shipping them out everywhere.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: He was basically their agent.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: So clearly he had you know, that personality, he wasn't going to rest easy because in his mind somebody had stolen his character.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And there's more to it, of course, than that, but that's how he saw it.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think he could have lived with the fact that somebody else owned it if they had just let him have a seat at the table, you know, let him be involved.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: But they weren't.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was just the obvious uh opposite.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: They were constantly sidelining him, and that just made him madder and madder and madder.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned the movies.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you a story.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: I love those movies too.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: But when the first Christopher Reeve movie comes out in 78, I believe, it's just recently that the first round is over and they're getting their credits again, and they're being acknowledged by the company.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: So they've been invited to the red carpet premiere in LA of this movie.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so here they are, Lara Siegel, daughter, who was nice enough to chat with me about all this.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: She's sitting there between her parents.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: On the left, here's her dad, not only the creator of, but uh, of Superman, but the model for Clark Kent.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: On her right is her mom, the model for Lois Lane.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: She's holding both hands.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: I shouldn't even tell this story.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'll start getting choked up.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a moment, it's like four minutes and 16 seconds into the movie where if you remember how the credits whoosh onto the screen in this big dramatic blue, you know, it was the best title sequence ever at the time.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, four minutes and sixteen seconds anyway, into it.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: Whoosh, create Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, and the audience roars because they know how these guys have been fighting.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: And Lara feels both parents squeeze her hand, and she looks over their dead, and there are tears streaming down his face.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's how much it meant to him to even have that moment of recognition.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he didn't get any money from that movie.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: He had no role in the writing or development of it, but he was a part of his character again, and being acknowledged for what he did, and that just meant everything to him.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: I and I I love hearing that part of the story.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And William, with this being such a different uh, I guess, uh different way, uh progression of having to get this story out there, what was some of the challenges as far as when you sat down and and you're so you're interested in this, but getting hold of the people involved and and having conversations and having to do research?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not it's not just you thinking of the plot, putting it out there and creating your own story.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're having to get people to tell you and you correlate it in a way that's interesting to readers like me to follow along.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: But what were some of the personal challenges you had as far as trying to organize everything, talk to the right people, and go about kind of a newer process for you with this style of book?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: It really was, and it I'm here to tell you it took at least twice as long as I thought it would, probably more.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up traveling to, I think, eight different states, interviewed more than 50 people, went uh viewed a bunch of library collections, and uh, I couldn't even tell you how many books or magazines or fanzines I went through, hundreds.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my wife laughed about how every day she'd come in and there, there's a tall stack on my desk, but it's all different from what it was there yesterday because there is so much to sort through, but I was grateful for it.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was grateful to anybody who would talk to me.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: The Siegel family was, and they haven't given a lot of interviews in the past, but they were nice enough to talk to me, both Laura and her two sons, Jerry's grandsons, Michael and James.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: But for that matter, on the flip side, a bunch of DC personnel and past presidents spoke to me as well.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: What whatever their corporate alignment might be, I think everybody has a sweet spot for the creators of Superman, because remember, this was the first superhero.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Jerry didn't just create a hero hero, he created a whole genre which is more bigger today than it's ever been before.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now we've got the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and you know, as as we record this, Supergirl is about to enter the theaters on the heels of Superman last year.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, things are really hopping for superheroes, manga and and anime.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: You go to the bookstore, and now there's rows and rows of manga and comic books and graphic novels, and that all starts with a couple of kids in Cleveland during the Depression back in the 1930s.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just incredible story.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and we're I'm super excited to have your book, by the way.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's on the The Books for Guys website.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: So anybody's who's who's interested in learning more about it and going to find it.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I I know a lot of people that listen and watch this are interested in this topic and watching these movies and and and whatnot.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I think they're gonna find this very fascinating, and I hope it leads to a lot of people purchasing and reading the book as well.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so, William, kind of change of gear because I don't want to give too much away, you know, with this book.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've talked enough about it to pique interest and and to get followers.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I wanted to ask you, yeah, exactly.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to ask you about RiderCon and what exactly what what is that and and how did you create that?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: RiderCon is an annual writers conference.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: There are some smaller satellite programs, but the main event is the annual conference, which is always over Labor Day weekend.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: So this year, that's September 4th through 7th, and it's in Oklahoma City.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I'm prejudiced because I'm one of the founders, but it's one of the best writers' conference in the country now.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: More than 60 speakers and more than a dozen agents, publishers, whatever you're looking for, it's there.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, I I created that originally for a specific right reason because I remember what it's like being a punk kid in a small town in Oklahoma who's telling people he's gonna be a writer, and everybody's like, that's nice, you know, you'll grow out of it or whatever.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: There were no writers in my town or anybody who could tell me how to get there.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: I eventually figured it out, obviously, but this is kind of my way of giving back a little and trying to make it easier for the next generation of would-be writers.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's turned out very well.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Every year we have people who find agents or publishers and end up getting published, and it's turned out to be a really wonderful thing.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: We have a podcast too, totally free.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's also called WriterCon.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: You can subscribe to that and, you know, get your week weekly fix of the latest writing news.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, we talk to authors and have writing tips and stuff like that.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's amazing.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'll include that in the show notes so people can find that podcast as well.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: And do you that's that's incredible.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, 60 speakers, it's it that's no small conference.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing that you've been able to build it up to to this level.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Is it for authors who write all different kinds of is it nonfiction, fiction, poetry, anything that they are working or wanting to?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: We cover it all comics, gaming, okay, and more traditional forms of writing.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: We got you covered.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's very cool.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's really cool too to have it there in Oklahoma City, like where you're from.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's where it's that's where you host.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, to me, the most important thing.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I always say this on the first day of WriterCon in the opening ceremonies, I I know you're gonna go to classes or sessions and you're gonna talk to agents, and that's all good.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: But while you're here, meet people, make friends, even though, you know, I know it might go against the grain because writers tend to be introverts and would rather be at the library than socializing.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: But force yourself, I say.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: This is your tribe.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: And these are people who think the same way you do, and there's gonna come a time when you need friends, which relates to the Jerry Siegel story, because those vultures are still out there waiting to take advantage of writers or other artists, waiting to take it, take control of your IP and make a fortune while you don't.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: And now we've also got, you know, big money vanity presses and uh AI scams and all kinds of stuff that people need to be aware of.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I say meet friends.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: So when you get this weird probably written by AI email and you're not sure if this is a legit offer or not, call somebody, talk to somebody.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: You might need critique groups or beta groups or whatever, but most importantly, you need to know how to protect yourself.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: So like I said, so what happened to Jerry Siegel doesn't happen to you.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it's an incredible thing you've built, and sounds like it's just continuing to be bigger and better each year.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that's really cool.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be happy to share that too.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then just a couple more questions for you, William.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: I also wanted to mention your publishing company.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: How do you determine?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm assuming you you've probably met some authors maybe through this conference, even that you've, you know, represented and published their work.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: But how do you determine who you all work with and or you know how what's the process like to work with your publishing company specifically?
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's about like any other publishing company, except perhaps smaller.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just me.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Some of my children are involved too.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's we we didn't start it then, but it got a big boost during the lockdown, you know, when nobody could go to, you know, Alice couldn't work, Ralph had to come home from college because he couldn't live in the dorms anymore.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, well, okay, here, we can all work on this publishing company.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: And kind of did.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we just look for books that uh we like.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: You never know, but we've had some real successes.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: Betsy Kulikowski's got a wonderful series called The Veritas Codex that I love.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: My longtime friend John Woolley's written a book about Kane's ballroom, which is a big music venue in Tulsa.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I love John, but when he brought this, I thought, well, that'll sell 10 copies.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: Wrong.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the best selling nonfiction title we've ever had.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: We get orders from like Australia.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's interested in Kane's ballroom.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know, but I do now.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, full of surprises.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you just never know.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I've talked to several authors who thought the same thing.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: They wrote a book, they thought their mom would buy 10 copies, and you know, maybe some friends and family, and all of a sudden they've sold thousands, you know.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then others who have written a lot of books, they thought one book would would sell more than another, and it was completely opposite.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so you just have to take your shot, do what you love, and let the cards kind of play out.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it's very fascinating.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we we just don't know as much as we think we do in most cases, it seems.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: No, wasn't it William Goldman who was probably talking about movies?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: But he said nobody knows anything, and that's about right.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Trying to predict the future, what's gonna be that's why publishers publish so many books.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: The big New York guys publish so many books every month.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: They don't they don't know what their next hit is gonna be.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: This is true.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: Ninety percent of what New York publishers publish loses money, but it's that one book that doesn't, you know, that's what pays for all the others, but they don't know which if they did, they just publish that one book, right?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: But they don't know in advance.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: No, that you're right.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's like it's like that in all different uh areas, finance, investments, and it's like that 10% that carries the the load.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: But no, well, William, this has been a a pleasure and an honor to have you on the podcast.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I know a lot of people who who will watch and listen to this, they do follow comics and they watch these movies, and I think it's gonna be very they will be intrigued to read your book, The Superman Wars, as I know I am, and I think it's a story that I think a lot of people just don't know about it.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: They haven't heard it, and I think it's going to be something that's different.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, nowadays it seems like there's a new superhero movie out every month.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to keep up with.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: But to to go deeper on this one character and and hear the backstory that maybe a lot of people haven't heard, I think is gonna resonate and be something that people wanna dig into a little bit.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're proud to spotlight your book on Books for Guys.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to share this with everyone so they can watch and listen.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: And can't wait to see what what future projects you have, because at this point, like we don't know what that'll be, you know?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Who you may find something that's that's I know what it'll be.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Bring me back next, Sarah, and we'll talk about the Batman Wars, okay?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and that story, if you can believe it, is even less well known and possibly even more heartbreaking.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: But we'll talk about that next year.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was about to say, when you have that book ready to be released, we'll have that conversation too.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we'd be very happy to talk about that.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: But no, William, thank you so much.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a pleasure.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.