Comics Great Kurt Schaffenberger

Like many Silver Age comics artists, Kurt Schaffenberger never got to sign his work. It’s possible that many people who loved his work on the Superman Family never knew he he was. But just like other great Superman artists like Wayne Boring and Curt Swan, he put his own personal style to the cast. He was a much more expressive and cartoony artist that the others in the Superman stable, so much so that I wondered if he had worked on romance comics (he hadn’t).

It’s tempting to think the Schaffenberger languished in obscurity because he worked primarily on Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane except that it was the third best selling comics title at the time, only behind Superman and Superboy. The cover of issue 25 shows his appealing style.

Look at Lois’s disgruntled face, Superman’s pleading look, and Lana Lang’s joyful mocking in the background. Not to mention the absurdity of the bubble car, one of several goofball ideas that made Silver Age comics so wacky.

Here are a couple of interior pages from this story. I’m not a big fan of the way Schaffenberger drew Superman—his double chin is too dominant. But the rest is terrific. And what would a Silver Age Superman story be without robots?

Schaffenberger had an interesting life off the page, too. Once he moved to Englewood, New Jersey, to work on Captain Marvel and other titles for Fawcett, he took over the arpartment recently vacated by the local high school football coach Vince Lombardi. During World War II, Schaffenberger used his knowledge of German (he was born in Germany) to translate messages behind enemy lines from Allied spies.

Schaffenberger had the kind of career in comics that doesn’t really exist anymore. He retired in 1980, always on the periphery of the Superman titles. In fact, his last work appears to be inking the Superman title “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”

If you want to check out a bunch of Schaffenberger’s work, the DC’s Finest collection Superman Family: The Giant Turtle Man has several Lois Lane stories as well as Curt Swan’s terrific work on Jimmy Olsen (Swan was one of the definitive Superman artists).

Finally, at my parents lake house, where I go every year, the protective association installed a lending library on the beach with this plaque. Nice words!