Superman Adopted

The world of the comics was never the same after two Cleveland teen-agers turned Superman loose in it. In 15 years, he made over $400,000 for Writer Jerome Siegel and Cartoonist Joseph Shuster, and inspired a score of imitators. Superman was the first cartoon hero to make the reverse jump from comic books to newspaper syndication.

But for all his X-ray vision, impenetrable skin and muscle, Superman has been no great shakes in a courtroom. After a falling out with their publishers a year ago, Siegel & Shuster filed a super-suit for $5,000,000. Among other things they demanded the rights to their creation. (Like most comic-strippers they had signed away all rights.) As the suit dragged on, the publishers lured other artists to draw Superman, although the strip still carried Siegel's & Shuster's names. Last week, in Manhattan, Newspaper Broker Albert Zugsmith arranged a settlement: Siegel & Shuster got $100,000, and National Comics Publications, Inc., got Superman and a comic called Superboy.

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, both 33, already have a new crimebuster on their drawing boards. Their Funnyman is an athletic, but not quite superhuman, combination of swashbuckler and Keystone Cop. Now competing with Superman for the comic-bookworms, Funnyman will jump to the funnypapers when Siegel & Shuster find a syndicate.

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