Newman wrote scripts for Superman, Mighty Mouse, The Lone Ranger and Jungle Jim comic books, among others. Beginning in 1947, he wrote more than 4,100 published stories totaling about 36,000 pages, the equivalent of 120 mystery novels. His stories included dialogue and panel-by-panel descriptions of what the artist was supposed to draw.
``To get my 4,000-plus stories approved, I had to submit another 5,000 plots that were not approved,'' he said. ``In the old days, you wrote a comic book for about $10 a page or about $300 an issue. I'm not a millionaire but I made a very good living.''
In 1993, the comic-book historian Robin Snyder named Newman King of the Comic Book Writers. The Guinness book listed him as most prolific comic book writer under a headline, ``Lots of plots!''
He also wrote a few newspaper comic strips, as well as screenplays and television sketches for such stars as Boris Karloff.
Newman was born in Manhattan in 1924 and enrolled at Dartmouth College. He served in World War II. He hoped to be a playwright, but he found he could make a living writing stories for comic books.
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