Chapter 28: Special Issue
Author: Yue Shang Xintou
For the next few weeks.
As the Superman comic continued its run in The Messenger.
Newspaper sales began to show a steady upward trend. According to feedback from Jimmy the Newsboy, everyone in the neighborhood was talking about Superman.
At the same time, a flood of fan mail poured into the Messenger Newspaper office on the corner of the street.
The vast majority of them expressed their love for the character of Superman, discussed the comic's plot, and didn't forget to urge The Messenger to speed up the serialization of subsequent content.
A small portion, however, unexpectedly praised the portrayal of the female reporter, Lois, in the comic.
"...I believe Lois Lane is a symbol of the modern professional woman. She is independent, brave, competitive, and brilliantly talented, not inferior to any man—her relationship with Clark is also a competition between the sexes, and she always comes out slightly ahead..."
In the serialized comics of this era, female characters were not prominent. Even in a comic like Tarzan, which was adapted from the novel of the same name, the story's protagonist was Tarzan, and female characters often appeared merely as decorative figures, there to highlight the male lead's strength or charm.
This was even more prominent in the mainstream detective comics of the time.
However, this situation changed with the Superman comic serialized in The Messenger.
In the Superman comic, while Superman Clark was certainly the absolute protagonist, using his powerful superpowers to punish evil and aid the distressed, the heroine Lois was no longer a mere decorative figure like in past comics. Instead, as Clark's colleague, she competed with him at work.
Such a setup might seem like a common arrangement in later generations, where female protagonists are commonplace.
Some extremists might even express strong dissatisfaction with it.
But this was 1931, during the Great Depression. The appearance of an independent female character, especially in a comic, was still quite a rare occurrence. Therefore, the presence of the beautiful reporter Lois in the Superman comic not only made her the woman of young men's fantasies but also an idol for young girls to aspire to.
They too wanted to become respected professional women, just like Lois.
"Boss, the readers' response to the Superman comic series has been overwhelmingly positive..."
Inside the Messenger Newspaper office, Little John said excitedly as he sorted through the reader mail and looked at the contents.
In the past, a small, obscure local paper like The Messenger might not receive more than a few letters from readers all year. Now, this week alone, the Newspaper Office had already received no less than twenty or thirty fan letters, and according to the delivery person, that wasn't even all of them.
[Faith (868/1000)]
His gaze swept over the Faith points displayed above the text.
Clearly, Colin's decision to serialize the comic in The Messenger was a success.
In fact, with the immense popularity of Superman, the content published in the newspaper's layout gradually shifted from its original 'criticism' of Hoover to the serialized comic. If not for the fact that The Messenger was, after all, a news media outlet and not a comic book publisher, and needed to maintain a basic level of news reporting for its readers, Old John and Little John would have nearly switched careers to become comic editors.
...
"Boss, the Newspaper Office's printing capacity is starting to fall behind the demand for the newspaper..."
Nowadays, the sales of The Messenger far exceeded its supply.
The only thing limiting the newspaper's sales growth was, ironically, the Newspaper Office's own printing volume.
Currently, the rotary printing press used by the Messenger Newspaper was an old model. Its printing capacity was more than enough for the newspaper office in the past, but it was now completely inadequate to supply the sales of the increasingly popular The Messenger.
Especially this weekend, after the new plot of Colin's Superman comic was serialized in The Messenger, the reader response was immense, and fan mail fluttered into the Newspaper Office like snowflakes.
This made Old John realize that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
"Perhaps we could try adding a new rotary printing press to the Newspaper Office?"
Old John's suggestion coincided perfectly with Colin's own thoughts.
To accelerate the acquisition of Faith, increasing the Newspaper Office's printing scale was clearly an excellent choice.
However, considering that a rotary printing press was not cheap, Colin hesitated.
Lately, with the growth in sales of The Messenger, he did have some money on hand, but it was far from enough to pay for a rotary printing press.
"If you're worried about the price of the printing press, Boss, I might have a way... to help you."
Noticing the hesitation on Colin's face, Old John pushed up the brass-rimmed glasses on his nose and spoke.
"I know some workers from a bankrupt newspaper office. Their boss couldn't pay their wages due to the bankruptcy, so he had to mortgage the office's machinery to the workers..."
In this era, a newspaper office like The Messenger that could be brought back from the brink of death was a rarity.
The vast majority of small papers, impacted by the Great Depression, had fallen to the fate of unemployment and bankruptcy.
"...I can contact those workers and offer to buy the machinery from their newspaper office at a low price."
For those unemployed newspaper workers, the machinery was useless in their hands.
But for the current Messenger Newspaper, this mortgaged and idle machinery was a valuable treasure.
"Contact those workers. As soon as you get a suitable price, buy all the machinery from that newspaper office."
Nodding, Colin didn't say much else, speaking directly.
Then, after a moment's thought, he added, "Also, once the machinery is in place, we need to change The Messenger's publication schedule. In addition to the original weekend edition, I've decided to add a special issue on Wednesdays to serialize the Superman comic and attract more readers."
"A special issue on Wednesdays?"
Hearing Colin's order, Old John and Little John looked at each other in the Newspaper Office, momentarily speechless.
Colin's decision was undoubtedly a very bold one.
It was equivalent to adding a new publication day outside of the Newspaper Office's previously stable schedule.
However, considering the popularity of the Superman comic, neither of them thought there was any risk of failure with the new issue.
It was just that, looking up at Colin, Old John was a little worried whether this kind of serialization schedule would affect the quality of the Superman comic.
If Colin knew what Old John was thinking right now, he would definitely laugh out loud.
If he had to say, he was the one person in this world who had the least to worry about when it came to the quality of the comic.
After all, he had more than half a century's worth of Superman comics to choose from.
(end of chapter)