1. Ira Schnapp was a logo designer and letterer who brought his classic and art deco design styles to DC Comics beginning with the redesign of the Superman logo in 1940.
24 Facts About Ira Schnapp
1. 2.
Ira Schnapp did a great deal of logo and lettering work for the company in the 1940s.
3.
Ira Schnapp was one of eight children, five born in Austria, three born after the family regrouped in New York City.
4.
Ira Schnapp definitely attended New York City's Stuyvesant High School, graduating in June 1913.
5.
Ira Schnapp's occupation is listed as Salesman in the New York State Census of 1915, and his family was then living in The Bronx.
6.
Ira Schnapp was probably part of a design team working for the architects McKim, Mead and White.
7.
Ira Schnapp's role was making huge full-size tissue layouts of the letters, which are in the style of Rome's Trajan's Column, as drawn on the architectural plans by the architects.
8.
Ira Schnapp later showed some of these tissue layouts to artist Neal Adams.
9.
How Ira Schnapp became involved in this high-profile design job is unknown.
10.
Nothing is known of his output during the 1920s, but by the 1930s, Ira Schnapp was doing show card lettering for movie theater lobbies, including huge displays for the premiere of King Kong at Radio City Music Hall in 1933, and many others.
11.
Ira Schnapp probably did all kinds of show card, print and advertising logos and lettering in the 1930s, including logos for pulp magazines being published by Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz.
12.
Ira Schnapp was related to Liebowitz by marriage, and though there are no records of his work in the pulps, style similarities suggest he was working for the Donenfeld pulps by 1934.
13.
Ira and Beatrice Schnapp had two children: daughter Theresa, born in 1922, and a son, Martin, born in 1930.
14.
Ira Schnapp began work on a project he hoped would become a syndicated newspaper feature.
15.
Ira Schnapp is often credited with designing the Action Comics logo in 1938, but he later told a young fan, Michael Uslan that the Superman logo redesign was his first work for the company.
16.
Ira Schnapp created more logos for DC, including most of their new titles from 1947 on, such as radio show-based titles like A Date With Judy, Gang Busters, and Mr District Attorney.
17.
Around 1949, Ira Schnapp took a staff position at National Comics, working in their production department at 480 Lexington Avenue every day.
18.
Ira Schnapp's cover lettering and house ads were full of excitement, encouraging children to buy the comics.
19.
Ira Schnapp lettered comics stories of every kind for DC Comics beginning in the early 1940s, including humor, funny animals, romance, western, characters licensed from movies and TV shows, and super-heroes.
20.
Ira Schnapp produced lettering for the Superman and Batman comic strips.
21.
In 1955, with changes brought about by Dr Fredric Wertham and the adoption of the Comics Code, Ira Schnapp designed the Comics Code Authority seal, which became a fixture on comic book covers for over forty years.
22.
Ira Schnapp died at St Luke's Hospital on 113th Street, New York, not far from his long-time home.
23.
Ira Schnapp was more closely related to Fred Iger, head of the American Comics Group.
24.
In 2015, the Type Directors Club of New York City hosted a retrospective exhibition of Schnapp's work, "The Super Type of Ira Schnapp", curated by Arlen Schumer.