The Complete Superwoman – A First and Last Rarity
Skip to comments
This will be an amalgamation of a few subsets we have here:
a First and Last entry, a Rarities post, and a Complete collection.
On June 27, 1943 The New York Tribune syndicate distributed the first episode of Superwoman by already famed cartoonist Rea Irvin. The Sunday-only strip appeared in at least two newspapers – The New York Herald Tribune and The Oakland Tribune.
Superwoman Sunday comic strip supplied by Michael Norwitz via Daniel Best
The strip instantly became the talk of the town (in joke). The following day (Monday, June 28, 1943) Walter Winchell, in his newspaper column, notified the public of a problem.
Superman had become an instant sensation and competitors immediately riffed on the idea. By the time Superwoman appeared there were already comics featuring a Super Magician, a Supersnipe, and Super Mouse, a Super Rabbit, and probably more. Of course none of those ripped off the Superman title logo, a registered trademark.
Superman and Superwoman are © DC Comics
Oh, there was one other problem – National Periodicals had already trademarked “Superwoman.”
So the above Sunday is the first and the last Superwoman strip, a complete run of the rarity.
(And her mysterious companion/sidekick remains an unknown.)
Daniel Best supplies more details at his blog.
Comments 2
Comments are closed.