ANNOUNCE: Craig Yoe, author of SECRET IDENTITY at TCAF
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Toronto Public Library Presents
THE 2009 TORONTO COMIC ARTS FESTIVAL
Saturday May 9th , 10am-5pm
Sunday May 10th, 11am-5pm
Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St., Toronto, Canada
FREE TO ATTEND
SECRET IDENTITY: Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator at Toronto Comic Arts Festival
Author and archivist Craig Yoe attends TCAF to promote his surprising new work
TORONTO, Canada – A last-minute guest announcement brings Craig Yoe, author of the surprising new comics biography/history book SECRET IDENTITY: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster to The 2009 Toronto Comic Arts Festival to promote his work. Yoe, a noted archivist and the author of more than 30 books on the history of comics, will be on hand both days to sign copies of his work, and will be interviewed in a special panel discussion spotlighting the book, hosted by noted journalist and author Douglas Wolk.
Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-creator Joe Shuster (Abrams ComicArts; April 2009; U.S. $24.95 CAN $27.50; Jacketed hardcover; 160 pages, dist. in Canada by Canadian Manda Group), is a Spring 2009 release that reveals that legendary comic book artist Joe Shuster also illustrated a series of S&M/bondage publications called Nights of Horror in the early 1950s. The discovery of this artwork and the story behind it, uncovered by Yoe, reveals for the first time the “secret identity” of this revered comics creator, the magazine he worked for, and the path towards The U.S. Senate Subcommittee that almost destroyed comics forever!
Craig Yoe will be exhibiting at The Toronto Comic Arts Festival on Saturday May 9th, from 10am-5pm, and Sunday May 10th, from 11am-5pm, at Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street. Craig Yoe will also be the subject of the special panel discussion “Spotlight: Craig Yoe and the Fetish Art of Joe Shuster”, Saturday afternoon at 2pm in Toronto Reference Library’s Gallery Space. The panel will be hosted by Douglas Wolk, freelance writer and critic for The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Salon.com, and author of the book Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work.
Yoe is added to an already spectacular line-up of more than 200 comics authors and cartoonists that will be exhibiting, signing, reading, and presenting their work at TCAF. As always, the event is free to attend.
ABOUT:
Craig Yoe runs the New York design firm YOE! Studio with Clizia Gussoni, and is the author of over 30 books, including The Art of Mickey Mouse. Yoe has won the Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators, two Addys, a Mobius, and an Eisner Award.
Douglas Wolk is a freelance journalist and critic whose writings on music and comics have appeared in The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Rolling Stone, and Salon.com. His most recent book is Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean, published in 2007 by Da Capo Press.
ABOUT THE TORONTO COMIC ARTS FESTIVAL:
First held in 2003, The Toronto Comic Arts Festival was conceived to provide interaction between the creative community and the public, and was modeled on similar festivals around the world. TCAF 2009 will take place at Toronto Reference Library, at 789 Yonge St. just North of Bloor Street in the heart of the city. The Festival will feature over 15,000 square feet of attractions within the Reference Library complex, more than 200 cartoonists, and more than two weeks of programming and events leading up to the 2-day exhibition extravaganza!
Canadian cartoonists are recognized as among the best in the world, particularly in the fields of manga and alternative comics. TCAF is Canada’s opportunity to not only promote and celebrate homegrown artistic talent, but also to broaden its scope and showcase creators from the US and abroad, many in Toronto for the first time. This prestigious gathering of artists will attract an international and national audience.
PRESS:
For more information about this book or to interview Craig Yoe, please contact Katrina Weidknecht at 212.229.8812 or email kweidknecht@abramsbooks.com.
For more information or press inquiries about The 2009 Toronto Comic Arts Festival, please contact 2009@torontocomics.com, or Christopher Butcher or Peter Birkemoe at 416-533-9168.
COMPLETE PRESS RELEASE FOR SECRET IDENTITY FOLLOWS:
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For Immediate Release Contact: Katrina Weidknecht
Executive Director Publicity
212.229.8812
kweidknecht@abramsbooks.com
New Book Secret Identity Reveals Superman’s Co-creator
Joe Shuster Illustrated Notorious S&M/Bondage Publications
By Craig Yoe, with an introduction by Stan Lee
Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-creator Joe Shuster (Abrams ComicArts; April 2009; U.S. $24.95 CAN $27.50; Jacketed hardcover; 160 pages), a new book by artist, designer, and comics historian Craig Yoe, reveals that legendary comic book artist Joe Shuster also illustrated a series of S&M/bondage publications called Nights of Horror in the early 1950s. The discovery of this artwork and the story behind it, uncovered by Yoe, reveals for the first time the “secret identity” of this revered comics creator, and is sure to change the way we look at Shuster and his creations—Superman, Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and Jimmy Olsen—forever.
A few years ago Yoe came upon an issue of Nights of Horror in a dusty box in the back of a used-book store. Although the illustrations weren’t signed, he instantly recognized the artist who drew them. Yoe diligently tracked down a full set of these rare publications, and promptly showed them to several other experts who immediately confirmed the drawings as Shuster’s.
In Secret Identity, Yoe reveals the story of how Shuster, the man who, along with writer Jerry Siegel, co-created Superman, went from drawing the “Man of Steel” to illustrating these publications—material that he discovered inspired a group of neo-Nazi juvenile delinquents known as the Brooklyn Thrill Killers. Inspired by scenes they saw in the Nights of Horror magazines, the gang horse-whipped girls in the park, set vagrants on fire, and murdered two of them. The anti-comics crusader Dr. Fredric Wertham (who wrote Seduction of the Innocent) was drafted by the courts to interview the brains of the gang, Jack Koslow—a Jewish teenager who sported a Hitler moustache. The police then raided the bookshops in Times Square that carried Nights of Horror. The obscenity case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, which banned the books and ordered they be destroyed. Soon a U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency was established in 1953 and, along with Wertham, was tasked with investigating the problem, which almost destroyed the comic book industry.
Secret Identity opens with an introduction by comic book legend Stan Lee, who was as stunned by the revelation of this material as everyone else who has seen it. The book reproduces illustrations from all 16 issues of Nights of Horror, along with a few other publications that Shuster created after the court case. The similarity of the images to the likenesses of Shuster’s earlier super hero work is unmistakable, only here they take on bizarre, violent, and erotic scenarios. The book traces Shuster’s life and career from the origins of Superman in a poor neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio, to its wildly popular success, to the lawsuit Shuster and Siegel later brought against DC Comics to reclaim their copyright, which they eventually lost. Yoe documents the failures, disappointments, and predilections in Shuster’s later life, which may have led to—or at least in some part might explain—his decision to illustrate scenarios so far from the super-hero ideal he helped to define.
Did Shuster just need the money, or was this artwork a dark part of his personality that found an outlet in the anonymous and sordid illustrations he produced for the Nights of Horror? Secret Identity reveals a fascinating story filled with remarkable and never-before-seen drawings from a beloved master of super-hero comics.
About the Book:
Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-creator Joe Shuster
By Craig Yoe
Introduction by Stan Lee
Abrams ComicArts; April 2009
U.S. $24.95 CAN $27.50
Jacketed Hardcover
160 pages; over 150 duotone illustrations
About the Author:
Craig Yoe runs the New York design firm YOE! Studio with Clizia Gussoni, and is the author of over 30 books, including The Art of Mickey Mouse. Yoe has won the Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators, two Addys, a Mobius, and an Eisner Award.
For more information about this book or to interview Craig Yoe, please contact Katrina Weidknecht at 212.229.8812 or email kweidknecht@abramsbooks.com
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ABRAMS
The Art of Books Since 1949
Founded by Harry N. Abrams in 1949, ABRAMS was the first company in the United States to specialize in the creation and distribution of art and illustrated books. Now a subsidiary of La Martinière Groupe, the company publishes visually stunning illustrated books in the areas of art, photography, cooking, interior and garden design, craft, architecture, entertainment, fashion, sports, pop culture, as well as children’s books and general interest titles. The company’s imprints include Abrams, Abrams ComicArts, Abrams Image, Abrams Books for Young Readers, Amulet Books, Stewart, Tabori & Chang, and STC Craft/A Melanie Falick Book. Abrams also distributes books for The Vendome Press, Victoria & Albert Museum, Tate, Royal Academy of Arts, Booth-Clibborn Editions, Five Continents and others.
www.abramsbooks.com
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Posted 2009-04-30
at 2:46 PM
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