Headline 29 Don’t Let Wilbur Squeal! 8 pages Draut
Headline 29 The Night Of The Freak Murder! 8 pages [Meskin]
Headline 33 A Mother’s Ominous Dream! 6 pages Unknown 4
Headline 34 Double-Cross! 9 pages Unknown 4
Headline 29 Sisters Of Satan 8 pages Draut

Checking with your checklist, I see you have the two Draut stories inked by Draut here. I don’t know what the Meskin story is doing here. If you have it as inked by Robinson, it probably is. My unknown 4 seems indeed to be Broderick, so at least I remembered that well.

JTTG 11 Small-Time Crooks! 8 pages Unknown 4
JTTG 3 So Many Ways To Die! 8 pages Draut
JTTG 4 The Lincoln Tomb Thieves!7 pages Unknown 4 Draut?
JTTG 8 The Violent Mr. Peace 10 pages Unknown 4 Draut?
JTTG 3 Night-Club-Nick 8 pages Unknown 4 Draut?
JTTG 5 Last Of The Old West Bandits 3 pages Unknown 4 Draut?
JTTG 8 First Great Detective 8 pages [Krigstein]
JTTG 11 Insurance Sleuth… 5 pages
JTTG 4 The Half-Pint Killer! 6 pages Unknown 4 Draut?
JTTG 8 Joe Slade 9 pages Severin?
JTTG 5 A Fortune In Slugs! 8 pages Draut
JTTG 7 The Man Who Died Twice 8 Severin?

For these there seems to be a mix of misinterpreted Drauts and Broderick as well. I don’t know Unless I go through them bit by bit, just like you did, I will never get any wiser. The gap for Broderick is too big to be appropriate here (and for the similar story in YB #22).

Many thanks for all your information about Al Gordon. There really is not much I can add since I have seen very little of his work. As for supplying scans of Gordon’s Bullseye work for use on your site, I legally cannot do that. Bullseye is under Simon and Kirby copyrights and that includes the entire contents. I have not yet written a serial post on Bullseye (or Police Trap for that matter) but when I do I will be sure to include an example of Gordon’s art.

Mort Meskin:

I think you have misread my opinion of Meskin’s romance art. I do think Mort was a great romance artist, one of the best. In fact I have the original art for one of Meskin’s romance covers on my wall right now. Perhaps you were mislead by my comments about what work I believe Meskin preferred himself. I do believe that Meskin liked working on horror more than romance. When looking for work outside of Prize it was horror that Mort seemed to ship around. I am not sure if Meskin ever did romance work for anyone but Prize.

Warren Broderick:

I am only familiar with the crime work that Broderick did for Simon and Kirby in 1948 and 1949. I do not find any resemblance of that work to the romance art that you suggest he might have had something to do with. That is not to say it couldn’t be by him after all there is a 6 year seperation between them. Perhaps you have seen other work that makes the connection.

“Day I Grew Up” YB 23:

Actually I originally meant to discuss this piece in my post but somehow forgot about it. The same artist did “Ask Dan Wilson” in the same issue. Frankly I do not know what to make of it. The way the stories are presented certainly have a Kirby look to them. But the actual artwork is so primative. Kirby layouts or swipes from Kirby? At this time I am just not sure. But my current inclination is that untalented artists are not able to consistantly swipe from Kirby so Kirby layouts seems more likely.

Who do you have as the artist of The Day I Grew Up? It has some very superficial Jack Kirby qualities, in the figures design but also the pacing and panel lay-out. I know you are not freely giving these attributions away, but ould this be a story sketched and laid-out by Jack Kirby? The two pager before that has the same elements, only less obviously so.

and That Manning Boy? It sure looks familiar. Especially the face and expressions of Jimmy. Okay, whoever the artist is, he seems to have swiped a Joh Prentice panel on page five (panel 2) and some of the inking seems a bit crude… but I don’t know. Could this be Broderick?

What I find particulary strange is the Kubert/Gordon connection. If Kubert was randomly assigned to Gordon, he would have gotten other artists to do as well, which makes me think Kubert initiated the collaboration, maybe even because Gordon was a beginner and Kubert was helping him out. But it has been pointed out that there already was an Al Gordon working in comics in the forties and since there also was an Algordon working in the eighties (no relation) that would make three of them, highly unlikely. So was it Kubert helping out an older artist, maybe an aquaintance? The progression in Gordon’s work seems to indicate someone finding his own style, not an old pro coping. And why would Kubert’s helping hand slowly disappear?

One thing is sure. Gordon was not a very capable artist. The art on Heritage merits a visit and one of the first things you’ll see is the fact that the page you show is far too accomplished eve for Gordon. All of the stories for Stan Lee appeared in 1954. A story inked by Jack Abel sees the light in 1957. There is nothing for 1955 and 1956.

I see some evidence of Kubert’s style in the image on the television screen, but nothing as overt as the stuff for Stan Lee (with typical Joe Kubert white-out explosions in one story and typical Kubert indians in another). I will see if I have this issue and can find more.