BOY COMMANDOS #7, 1944. After six issues doing interiors, Kirby is off to the army, with just covers for the next two years. A great vintage S&K cover, lots of movement, nice details on the motorcycles.

SGT. FURY #15, 1965. Dick Ayers inks. Fury and the Howlers taking care of business in Holland, in a nice dramatic cover. I don’t usually mention anything about the non-Kirby interiors of these things, but this one has a gorgeous unusual combination of Dick Ayers pencils with Steve Ditko inks.

DEFENDERS #42, 1976. Klaus Janson inks. Hulk versus the Rhino. That’s okay. I also always like the way that Kirby draws Doc Strange for some reason.

Some covers to publishers Kirby didn’t do too much work for.

SHIELD-WIZARD COMICS #7, 1942. The Kirby checklist credits this to Kirby/Novick, which seems plausible, but a bit surprising. It would be the only Kirby work for MLJ in the era (after they became Archie he seems to have done a short story in 1947, then of course the late 1950s super-hero stuff). It’s a very nice cover, very much in the spirit of the Captain America covers Kirby had done the previous year.

KO COMICS #1, 1945. Not sure what the story with this cover is. The publisher is Geronoa (or possibly Gerona), and the cover has a “JCA” signature, but does appear to be partly by Kirby, certainly having some traits of his work of the era. Not sure the name of the character, could be “The Duke of Darkness” or “The Menace”, which are listed in Overstreet as characters in here. Any more info would be appreciated.

CHARLIE CHAN #6, 1955. Published by Charlton, presumably picking up some unused inventory material from the Prize series of 1948. This is a great dynamic cover, my favourite of these three.

Kirby was used heavily as a cover artist for the 1976 Marvel annuals.

THOR ANNUAL #5, 1976. John Verpoorten inks. You know, Odin and Zeus really should just fight their own battles rather than pitting their sons against each other.

AVENGERS ANNUAL #6, 1976. Frank Giacoia inks. Nice, but a bit cluttered. And Captain America fighting the US Army, that’s just wrong…

FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #11, 1976. Joe Sinnott. The FF face off against the Invaders. That’s a fun looking cover, especially Ben vs. Namor and the battling Torches.

MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE ANNUAL #1, 1976. Joe Sinnott again. The Thing teams up with the Invaders spin-off group The Liberty Legion. I always like how Kirby draws those Golden Age and faux-Golden Age characters, and of course Ben Grimm is his signature character.

Kirby did two other covers for 1976 Marvel annuals, HULK, which was covered here, and CAPTAIN AMERICA, for which he also did the interiors.

A trio of 1950s Kirby covers

I LOVE YOU #7, 1955. Published by Charlton, another of the remnants of Mainline’s collapse (I don’t think Kirby ever worked for Charlton directly, unless the humour stories in FROM HERE TO INSANITY and CRAZY, MAN, CRAZY were done for them. I suspect even those might have done for a Mainline humour book which never launched). This series took over the numbering from IN LOVE. Very strong cover, hinting at an interesting story, but really, you two, do you want to get caught?

HOUSE OF SECRETS #11, 1958. This looks like it might have been intended as a Challengers of the Unknown cover or splash at some point, and for some reason used as a cover here instead. Or perhaps not. Anyway, it’s one of the few DC books of the era he just did the cover for, and I think is a Kirby inked cover. Great image, I especially like the collapsing bridge.

TWO-GUN KID #48, 1959. Kirby’s first cover for the series, long before the re-design of the character. Nice drawings, although the vignettes look keeps it from having the strong central image, and the design is a bit blurb-happy.

AVENGERS #158, 1977. Joe Sinnott inks. Boy, that Wonder Man costume is quite an eye-sore, isn’t it?

FANTASTIC FOUR #173, 1976. Joe Sinnott inks. Very nice image of the FF and one of their greatest foes.

MARVEL PREMIERE #29, 1976. Frank Giacoia inks. Spinning out of the pages of the Invaders, a very nice cover of the various golden age and pseudo-golden age second stringers.