Mort Weisinger
Mortimer "Mort " Weisinger ( born April 15, 1915 in New York City, † 1978 in Great Neck, New York) was an American comic book writer and editor and literary agent. Weisinger was known as the creator of cartoon characters or series - like Aquaman, Green Arrow, and Johnny Quick, as well as decades of chief editor of the comics to the granddaddy of all superhero character, Superman.
Life
Weisinger in 1915 in Washington Heights, a suburb of New York City, the son of a businessman working in the textile sector. He spent his childhood in the Bronx.
Together with his friends Julius Schwartz and Forrest J Ackerman called Weisinger 1932, the magazine The Time Traveller into being a fan magazine that dealt with the science fiction genre, and which led the confident subtitles Science Fiction 's Only Fan Magazine. The Time Traveller contained, besides interviews with authors arrivierten especially attempts to write the three makers.
After attending high school Weisinger began at the New York University to study, which he eventually left with no qualifications to work as a freelance author. In 1934 he founded, together with the Schwartz "Solar Sales Service ", the first American literary agency that specialized in science fiction and fantasy writers. Among the clients of this agency included, among other things, Edmond Hamilton, Stanley G. Weinbaum, HP Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury, whose work the agency switched to publishers.
1940 ended Weisinger his work with "Solar Sales " and hired as an editor at the publishing house " Standard Magazine" on, then one of the extremely popular 'pulp magazines. " There he coordinated magazines such as the sci-fi series Thrilling Wonder Stories - in which he particularly einbaute also stories of his former clients of solar sales - and the magazines Startling Stories and Captain Future. As the author created Weisinger at this time with the conceived by him figures Aquaman, Johnny Quick, and Green Arrow lasting classics of science fiction and superhero genres.
1941 took over Weisinger the job of chief editor for the so-called " Superman " section of the DC -Verlag, which was entrusted with the production of the various comic series that dealt with the adventures of Superman, the granddaddy of all superhero character. In this role, Mayer drew - interrupted by his work as a Sergeant in the " Specia Servies " Department of the U.S. Army during the Second World War - just twenty-nine years, until 1970, the fate of the Superman character. After Weisinger gave up this job in 1970, took over his old friend Julius Schwartz the post of chief editor of the Superman comics.
Popular elements that were introduced during Weis Ingers time as editor of the Superman comics in the series about the " Man of Steel ", included the character of Superman's young cousin Supergirl, the superhero club of the Legion of Super-Heroes, Super dog Krypto, and the concept of so-called "Imaginary stories", the "what if ...? " in dream and fantasy sequences - told stories, went about the questions such as " What would happen if Superman and Lois Lane would marry? " or " What if Superman were president of the United States? ", which in the regular Superman stories - could not be told - which had a fixed status quo, to which had to return at the end of each story the makers. The most common story element of " Weisinger era", however, were the attempts of the research of Lois Lane, the identity of esteemed by her Superman with their colleagues reporter Clark Kent to prove. This topic has been varied under Weis Ingers Director countless times and always ended the same way: with a trick Superman, who had let a trial of Lois, to expose him as Clark run into space and its thesis seemed apparently to refute " Clark is Superman" so that they came at the end of each story in doubt about whether her suspicions had not perhaps been wrong yet - what however did not change their intention to prove in a forthcoming stories, Superman's identity with Clark again. The ensemble of the series, the monitored Weisinger, expanding to include Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Superman, Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane, Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen and World's Finest Comics.
In the 1950s Weisinger has also been involved as a senior editor on the television series The Adventures of Superman starring George Reeves.
Awards
As regards the prices received Weisinger for his work include the National Cartoonists Society Award in the Comic Book Division (1956 ), the Newspaper Panel Cartoon ( 1963), the Special Features Award ( 1965) and the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award (2000).