Across town, a girl pins her hair back, looks at her younger sisters and her tired, scrubbing mother, and wonders what her own future will hold. There is not much money, but she goes to the movies and sees a world that somehow seems more real than her own. She writes for school newspaper and brings the papers home to show her dad, named Mike, who is covered in black from the steel mill. His job will end soon. Her name is Jolan Kovacs, but nobody at school can say "Jolan" (her parents are Hungarian), so she goes by Helen. That too will change.She lives in Cleveland and times are tight and has little sisters so what she does is think as big as she can. Even though she has no experience at this sort of thing, how hard could it be? She's seen the movies and read all the magazines. So she takes out an ad in the local paper and announces that she is a model and wants work. She is really that interested, that desperate or just that something. When her ad shows up in the paper, she reads it and laughs out loud. She then gets a little scared.The letters fly in.Most of them are from guys looking for dates. That makes her grimace but also smile just a bit. One is really bad. She eventually gets to one letter that actually sound genuine. It is from an artist, a cartoonist, who has been published, won contests and is seeking a model for a cartoon strip. She likes the funnies, especially on Sundays, and thinks that wouldn't be too bad at all. That might be perfect, actually. She is impressed, so she writes him back. His name is Mr. Joseph Shuster.
Makes a nice story doesn't it? It's actually a true life love story. It's from a reading that literary agent Janet Reid attended by Brad Ricca, the author SUPER BOYS.
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