Mei Man: I drew Superman during the Great Depression

Chapter 34
Positive world, morning.

Walking on the dim street illuminated by the street lamps, Colin, who survived the catastrophe, walked on the way to the Messenger newspaper office.

It's only early four o'clock in the morning, the sky is so gray that there is no light to be seen, and the surrounding streets are quiet and deserted.

Passing benches, homeless people sleeping wrapped in newspapers, whites and blacks crammed together on a bench without the slightest gap.

When people are so poor that they don't care about anything, there will naturally be no discrimination.

The impact of the Great Depression on blacks was smaller than that of whites in this era, because they were born poor, and their daily lives were not much different from those of the Great Depression.

When a person is poor enough, the Great Depression doesn't hurt them much.

Passing by rows of homeless men wrapped in 'Hoover blankets', the sound of Colin's footsteps was particularly loud on the calm street. The homeless men on the bench twisted their bodies and muttered a few words, but none of them People would like to open their eyes and take a look. They don't want to wake up after they have finally escaped from hunger and poverty and go to sleep.

After walking through the deserted streets, the rest of the road became much more familiar.

Walking through the deserted shop streets, Colin stopped in front of the old newspaper office on the corner by the dim light of the street lamps.

He took out the key from his pocket, inserted it, and pushed open the door of the Courier newspaper with the creaking sound of the handle turning.

pat!

Press the switch, and the lights from the newspaper office penetrate the glass and reflect on the road surface of the street.

After changing the clothes and hats on his body, he came to the stove with ease, picked up charcoal and put it in, and put the kettle on it.

While waiting for the hot water to boil, Colin was not idle.

He came to the desk and sat down, reached out and took out the manuscript paper from the drawer, and filled the ink in the pen again.

Looking at the blank drawing paper in front of my eyes, I picked up the brush and took a deep breath, before throwing myself into the intense creation.

……

"...Perhaps, you should try to get in touch with more girls instead of hugging those piles of comics...they won't bring you girls..."

"But at the very least, they won't deceive me..."

At six o'clock in the morning, Old John and Little John appeared at the door of the newspaper office together.

"When you left yesterday, did you lock the door?"

He took out the key and inserted it into the keyhole. Before Old John could turn it, the door of the newspaper office was easily opened in front of him.

Seeing this, Old John frowned and asked his son behind him.

"I remember it was locked."

Looking at the door that opened in front of him, Little John hurriedly promised.

"I swear!"

"It's useless to swear to me. Now, you'd better pray that nothing is lost in the newspaper..."

Sighing silently, the old John said something to the bewildered little John behind him, and then stretched out his hand and pushed open the door of the newspaper office with a worried face.

As expected, the scene of the newspaper being ransacked did not appear.

On the contrary, the two saw Colin working hard in the newspaper office.

"Good morning, both of you."

Hearing the movement from Old John and Little John outside the newspaper office, Colin stopped the paintbrush in his hand, raised his head to greet the two people at the door, and at the same time reached out to pick up the cup on the table and drank the coffee inside. do.

"Good morning, boss."

Looking at Colin who appeared in the newspaper office, Old John and Little John looked at each other in dismay, and then replied with some belated awareness.

"Boss, how could you?"

Walking into the newspaper office, Old John couldn't help but look at the sketches scattered in front of his desk.

"So early..."

"Some inspirations popped up suddenly. In order not to let these inspirations escape, I rushed over a little earlier."

Faced with the questioning, it was naturally impossible for Colin to tell Old John and the two of the crisis he had encountered in the anti-world, so he casually found a reason to explain.

"However, from your appearance, it's not just a little earlier."

His gaze stayed on the coffee cup and kettle in front of Colin for a while, and Old John couldn't help muttering.

"Yeah, I don't really care about time."

Shaking his head, he suppressed the drowsiness in his mind.

Ke Lin looked at the half-finished sketch in his hand, got up and moved his stiff body.

During the interval between Ke Lin's activities, Little John's eyes were already attracted by the content of the sketch in front of him.

There is no doubt that what is on the table is the plot of the latest "Superman" serial. In this comic, a villain called the Mischief King appears and commits crimes in a rather special way.

In the first scene of the comics, the prank king led his men into the bank, but what he did was not a robbery, but a lot of money was forced into the bank, and even passers-by were also given money.Because his 'crime' is so special that even Superman can't do anything about it.

Because, in this 'crime', no victim appeared, not even the bank that was robbed.

Because of the previous special robbery, the prank king became famous, and soon he launched his second crime, leading his men into another bank, but this time his action changed from giving money to A real money grab.

In the comics, a maverick villain like the Prank King immediately caught Little John's attention.

In the newspaper office, he stared at the contents of the drawing without blinking his eyes wide open, until the plot described the scene of the second crime of the prank king, then he withdrew his gaze a little bit unsatisfied.It's not that Little John doesn't want to continue reading, it's simply because the content of the comics ends here.

"So next, will Superman arrive in time to stop the crime?"

"What kind of confrontation will happen between the prankster and Superman?"

"Is there a way for the Prankster to defeat Superman? No, it shouldn't be possible. With Superman's ability so powerful, the Prankster will definitely not be his opponent..."

Although the plot in the "Superman" comics ends here, Little John can't help but start to imagine the follow-up plot in his mind.

The more he imagined, the deeper respect Little John had for Colin.

Who would have expected that the birth of "Superman" comics was just an occasional conversation between myself and the boss in the newspaper office?

……

"...At that time, my boss at the time, Mr. Colin Looper asked me, what are you watching? "Dick Tracy", I told him so... I saw that Mr. Colin Looper was silent in the newspaper For a few minutes, then he told us we were going to have a comic strip in the newspaper, and then Superman was born, all of a sudden..." - Excerpt from "1931 Superman and I"

Author: John Walker
(End of this chapter)