Category Archives: Prentice, John

Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 8, The Gang’s All Here

(February 1953 – April 1953, Black Magic #21 – #23)

Just like in the romance titles from this same period, Kirby toke a commanding lead in the amount of art provided for Black Magic (24 pages). Second place fell to Al Eadeh(?) (17 pages), followed by Bill Draut (12 pages) Bob McCarty(?) (10 pages). Mort Meskin, John Prentice, George Roussos and Bill Walton all provided a single story each. There are three short works for which I have not been able to determine the artist. The romance art from this period was almost entirely done by Kirby, Draut, Meskin and Prentice with a single piece by Eadeh. It is interesting therefore that during this period McCarty, Walton and Roussos only provided work in the horror genre title.

Black Magic #21
Black Magic #21 (February 1953) “The Feathered Serpent”, art by Jack Kirby

Jack Kirby was not only the most prolific Black Magic artist during this period he also did all of the most important work; all the covers and featured stories. No full page splashes but still some rather nice art. I like most of the artists who worked on Black Magic but in all honesty no one other than on Kirby was capable of making a truly interesting monster. This is not as much of a defect for the title as it might seem because few stories had monsters or demon antagonists. Black Magic was more oriented toward the supernatural and not true horror.

Black Magic #23
Black Magic #23 (April 1953) “Those Who Are About To Die” page 2, art by Jack Kirby

Part of Kirby’s reputation is that he really was not very good at drawing beautiful women. I have to admit I find little variation in the females that he depicted later in his career. I am not sure if Kirby was always to blame for this or if much of it was the result of “corrections” performed by some of his inkers. However during the period he worked with Joe Simon, Jack penciled quite a variety of women. The wife of the painter in “Those Who Are about to Die” is one of my favorites. Both devoted and intellectual she fits perfectly into the part she plays in the story. As far as I am concerned she is just one of the many different beautiful women Kirby drew.

Black Magic #22
Black Magic #22 (March 1953) “Barbados Burial Vault”, art by Bill Draut

Bill Draut did more than his fair share of good splashes but perhaps his best from this period is the one from “Barbados Burial Vault”. It really does not demonstrate his talent as a penciller; the figures are all rather small and the simple architecture dominates the scene. It is Bill’s willingness to abandon his typical draftsmanship to achieve a mod is what makes this work so appealing to me. The impact is provided by the contrast of the small procession carrying the casket from the bright light of day into the dim burial vault.

Black Magic #22
Black Magic #22 (March 1953) “Horrible Herman”, art by John Prentice

Perhaps the best story from this period was Prentice’s “Horrible Herman”. John spent most of his time when work for Simon and Kirby with doing romance stories but I feel he had a real talent for horror. Not that this was true horror but rather more of a suspense concerning a boy with great powers. No one could stop Herman, or could they?

Black Magic #23
Black Magic #23 (April 1953) “Land of the Dead”, art by Mort Meskin

Mort Meskin drew some great splashes in Black Magic but perhaps none of them were more unusual than the one for “Land of the Dead”. It is not that his drawing itself was so technically superior, if anything it was a little bit below his usual work. However Mort has managed to invest this splash with a sense of other-worldliness. No speech balloons but none are required to explain the confrontation of a woman and two eerie figures that block her from a tombstone bearing the words “Here Lies Loves”. The bizarre cloud formations complete the effect imparted to the splash.

This story would have been more appropriate for the by now defunct Strange World of Your Dreams title. Not only would it have been appropriate, this story was almost certainly originally meant for the unpublished fifth issue of that title that would have been published just a few months before. A repeating feature in SWYD was “Send Us Your Dreams” with a pipe smoking Richard Temple doing the dream analysis. The same character is found in “Land of the Dead” except his name has been changed to Bart Roberts. That this was in fact just a substitution can be seen in how that name was just pasted over the older version in the caption of the first story panel (note how the name in is not aligned with the rest of the caption).

Black Magic #21
Black Magic #21 (February 1953) “Warning Voice”, art by Bob McCarty(?)

Many of the Black Magic stories from this period are rather short. “Warning Voice” is only three pages. Perhaps that is why such a small splash panel was used. The panel is hardly wider than the first story panel and at a glance could be mistaken as the first story panel. While I can see the logic behind such a small splash panel I do not feel it was a good approach due to the confusion it causes.

Note the large eyes particularly in the close-up panel. This remains the chief reason that I am not yet comfortable with the Bob McCarty attribution that I have been following.

Black Magic #21
Black Magic #21 (February 1953) “The Mind Reader”, art by George Roussos

There is only a single two page story by George Roussos. Observe the Meskin influence that can be seen in the man in the last two panels. I do believe this is an influence and not an indication of actual involvement by Meskin.

Black Magic #22
Black Magic #22 (March 1953) “Stanwick’s Theory”, art by Bill Walton

I admit than generally I am not overly fond of Bill Walton’s art. He was a competent artist but he only occasionally produces something that really grabs my attention. The splash for “Stanwick’s Theory” is a pleasant exception. In fact I really, really like this splash. The use of a tall narrow panel and extreme close-up and cropping are very effective. Even the cigarette and its smoke play an important part in the composition. This splash is not only unique for Walton it is also rather unusual for Simon and Kirby productions.

Black Magic #23
Black Magic #23 (April 1953) “Evil Spirit”, art by Al Eadeh(?)

Al Eadeh(?) really made good use of the script for “Evil Spirit”. The image of a beautiful woman using her long hair to strangle a man is certainly memorable. So memorable that years later Jack Kirby would re-use the concept for Medusa a villain (who later becomes a heroine) in the Fantastic Four comic book.

The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 7, Kirby Returns

The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 9, The Party’s Over

Art of Romance, Chapter 22, He’s the Man

(February 1953 – April 1953: Young Romance #54 – #56, Young Love #42 – #44, Young Brides #4)

Number of Romance Titles 1947 - 1954
Number of Romance Titles 1947 – 1954 (the period covered in this chapter is shaded in blue)

I must admit we have entered the period of Simon and Kirby’s romance production that I find the least interesting. This is somewhat unfair because most of the artists used were doing good work. Part of the problem is that while the art was still fine it was largely done by artists we have seen for a number of years. Another contributing factor was that Simon and Kirby were having greater difficulties in coming up with new plots. There are still some stories that are real gems, but they just were not as frequent as previously. I had considered devoting longer periods of time for each chapter but I feel that by keeping on the current three month pace allows me to present more examples of work by artists that are much too overlooked today.

I have remarked in the last couple of chapters of The Art of Romance and The Little Shop of Horrors that Jack Kirby had become more productive after a long period where S&K comics depended more on other artists. While Kirby had become more prominent he still had not returned to the really dominant status he had in earlier years. That is until this period where Jack provides 62 pages of art. This is well above the second place artist who was John Prentice with 46 pages. Third place was taken by Bill Draut (38 pages) and fourth by Mort Meskin (31 pages). These four artists provide almost all the art for this period with Al Eadeh(?) drawing a single story, an unidentified artist contributing two stories and another artist, probably a studio assistant, doing three single page features. Completely absent are two artist that were pretty common presence in previous chapters; George Roussos and Bob McCarty(?).

Young Love #43
Young Love #43 (March 1953) “Teen-Aged Widow”, art by Jack Kirby

Kirby is not only back in terms of quantity of art, much of it consists of rather nice material. Four of the seven featured stories were done by Jack and one of them, “Teen-Aged Widow”, even returns to a longer length (12 pages) that had previously been typical for Kirby. The splash page for “Teen-Aged Widow” is rather nice. It is a great example of a confessional splash, what young reader of the day could have resisted such a story. Tears do not play so important a part in Simon and Kirby romances as they did in comics produced by others during the silver age. But those tears are very appropriate here. Note how the small sculpture piece in the foreground repeats the protagonists reclining posture. One odd thing is the small size of the books in the foreground. I doubt that this was meant to be taken literally but was just a consequence of the limited space available.

Young Love #43
Young Love #43 (March 1953) “Girl Friday”, art by John Prentice

The work by John Prentice during this period is an exception to my lack of great enthusiasm for this period of S&K romance. This is probably due the relatively late arrival of Prentice into the Simon and Kirby production having started just two years previously. Even Meskin has been around longer (three years) while Kirby and Draut have been around since the beginning (six years ago). While Meskin has only been around one more year then Prentice he produced a lot of more work. John was generally not the most productive of the studio artists which is all the more reason to be pleasantly surprised by the amount of work he did during the period covered in this chapter.

The splash for “Girl Friday” is another of those by Prentice that eliminates the normal panel borders. Perhaps my fondness for this effect has caused me to include in my posts enough examples to mislead my readers into thinking this was Prentice’s typical approach. Actually borderless splash panels were pretty uncommon for Prentice however he did use this format more often than other studio artists.

Young Brides #4
Young Brides #4 (April 1953) “Here Cries the Bride”, art by Bill Draut

Bill Draut’s romance art has not changed very much over the years. Joe Simon has remarked to me a number of times how reliable Draut was, a true professional. Bill graphically told his story in a clear manner with enough variations in viewpoints to keep the reader’s interest. Probably none of the studio artists other than Kirby made as effective use of background details in his splashes. These details probably do not mean much aesthetically but are quite important in capturing part of the story in the splash. While Draut’s style did not evolve much during the period he worked for Simon and Kirby it would undergo large changes afterwards. Although Draut’s art became more acceptable to silver age publishers unfortunately in my opinion the changes to his style were detrimental to his art.

Young Brides #4
Young Brides #4 (April 1953) “Under 21”, art by Mort Meskin

I feel that the work Mort Meskin did during this period was on a whole not as good as his earlier efforts. That is not to say there were not an exceptions and “Under 21” was certainly one of those. What a great splash, perhaps Meskin’s best effort for a feature story. The wistful pose of the young lady wonderfully captures the mode of the story. The scandal suggested censored newspaper clipping was sure to attract the reader. Meskin’s placing the protagonist on a small town front porch is unexpected but rather effective. The quality of Meskin’s inking had recently been rather sporadic but here the pen and brush are fully under Mort’s competent command. Fortunately none of Meskin’s work for this chapter was inked by George Roussos. I have to admit that I find the inking by Roussos of pencils done by Meskin or Kirby to have been at best unfortunate and at worst disasters.

Young Love #44
Young Love #44 (April 1953) “What’s Mine Is Yours”, art by Al Eadeh?

I do not have much to say about the single story questionably attributed to Al Eadeh but I did want to include another example of his work.

Young Romance #55
Young Romance #55 (March 1953) “Heartless”, art by unidentified artist

Two stories (“Heartless” and “The Other Woman”) by an unidentified artist occur in the same Young Romance issue. He is certainly not among my favorites but he is competent artist nonetheless.

Chapter 1, A New Genre (YR #1 – #4)
Chapter 2, Early Artists (YR #1 – #4)
Chapter 3, The Field No Longer Their’s Alone (YR #5 – #8)
Chapter 4, An Explosion of Romance (YR #9 – #12, YL #1 – #4)
Chapter 5, New Talent (YR #9 – 12, YL #1 – #4)
Chapter 6, Love on the Range (RWR #1 – #7, WL #1 – #6)
Chapter 7, More Love on the Range (RWR #1 – #7, WL #1 – #6)
Chapter 8, Kirby on the Range? (RWR #1 – #7, WL #1 – #6)
Chapter 9, More Romance (YR #13 – #16, YL #5 – #6)
Chapter 10, The Peak of the Love Glut (YR #17 – #20, YL #7 – #8)
Chapter 11, After the Glut (YR #21 – #23, YL #9 – #10)
Chapter 12, A Smaller Studio (YR #24 – #26, YL #12 – #14)
Chapter 13, Romance Bottoms Out (YR #27 – #29, YL #15 – #17)
Chapter 14, The Third Suspect (YR #30 – #32, YL #18 – #20)
Chapter 15, The Action of Romance (YR #33 – #35, YL #21 – #23)
Chapter 16, Someone Old and Someone New (YR #36 – #38, YL #24 – #26)
Chapter 17, The Assistant (YR #39 – #41, YL #27 – #29)
Chapter 18, Meskin Takes Over (YR #42 – #44, YL #30 – #32)
Chapter 19, More Artists (YR #45 – #47, YL #33 – #35)
Chapter 20, Romance Still Matters (YR #48 – #50, YL #36 – #38, YB #1)
Chapter 21, Roussos Messes Up (YR #51 – #53, YL #39 – #41, YB #2 – 3)
Chapter 22, He’s the Man (YR #54 – #56, YL #42 – #44, YB #4)
Chapter 23, New Ways of Doing Things (YR #57 – #59, YL #45 – #47, YB #5 – #6)
Chapter 24, A New Artist (YR #60 – #62, YL #48 – #50, YB #7 – #8)
Chapter 25, More New Faces (YR #63 – #65, YLe #51 – #53, YB #9 – #11)
Chapter 26, Goodbye Jack (YR #66 – #68, YL #54 – #56, YB #12 – #14)
Chapter 27, The Return of Mort (YR #69 – #71, YL #57 – #59, YB #15 – #17)
Chapter 28, A Glut of Artists (YR #72 – #74, YL #60 – #62, YB #18 & #19, IL #1 & #2)
Chapter 29, Trouble Begins (YR #75 – #77, YL #63 – #65, YB #20 – #22, IL #3 – #5)
Chapter 30, Transition (YR #78 – #80, YL #66 – #68, YBs #23 – #25, IL #6, ILY #7)
Chapter 30, Appendix (YB #23)
Chapter 31, Kirby, Kirby and More Kirby (YR #81 – #82, YL #69 – #70, YB #26 – #27)
Chapter 32, The Kirby Beat Goes On (YR #83 – #84, YL #71 – #72, YB #28 – #29)
Chapter 33, End of an Era (YR #85 – #87, YL #73, YB #30, AFL #1)
Chapter 34, A New Prize Title (YR #88 – #91, AFL #2 – #5, PL #1 – #2)
Chapter 35, Settling In ( YR #92 – #94, AFL #6 – #8, PL #3 – #5)
Appendix, J.O. Is Joe Orlando
Chapter 36, More Kirby (YR #95 – #97, AFL #9 – #11, PL #6 – #8)
Chapter 37, Some Surprises (YR #98 – #100, AFL #12 – #14, PL #9 – #11)
Chapter 38, All Things Must End (YR #101 – #103, AFL #15 – #17, PL #12 – #14)

Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 7, Kirby Returns

(November 1952 – January 1953, Black Magic #18 – #20)

It looks like once again I have slipped up. I meant to mention, at the appropriate time, Simon and Kirby’s new title Strange World of Your Dreams. Well the time should have been during the last chapter (Chapter 6) because the first issue of SWYD has the cover date of August 1952. I have previously debated with myself whether to include SWYD in this serial post. While SWYD shares some characteristics with the horror genre and with Black Magic in particular, the title is in other ways quite unique. In the end I had decided not to include it because I have posted on it previously (Strange World of Your Dream, strange indeed and Featured Cover, Strange World of Your Dreams #2). However those posts did not include a discussion of the work by the participating artists so I have added a checklist (Stange World of Your Dreams Checklist) which can also be found in the sidebar. It was a short-lived title which with the last issue cover dated January 1953, the month that this chapter ends with. Black Magic was successful but that does not mean that every title that Simon and Kirby came up with would be as well.

In some earlier chapters of Little Shop of Horrors I have commented on the relatively decreased roll that Jack Kirby’s played in Black Magic. However in my last chapter I remarked on his greater contribution having taken the position of the second most prolific artist. In the period covered here Jack takes the first place with 25 pages. This is really not quite as significant as it might sound because Bob McCarty(?) takes second place with only 2 less page then Jack. However the two have a substantial lead over George Roussos (14 pages). All other artists provided only minor contributions. Surprising that includes the normally prolific Mort Meskin.

Black Magic #18
Black Magic #18 (November 1952) “Nasty Little Man”, art by Jack Kirby

Jack Kirby’s contribution to Black Magic during this period has not only increased in amount of art but also played a more prominent part; Kirby did the first, or featured, story for all three issues. One of the stories, “Nasty Little Man”, is in my opinion one of the best pieces Kirby did for Black Magic. The splash is another example of how Jack could make a masterpiece out of virtually nothing. All we are presented with is a standing man that is smoking a pipe. His large head clues us to the fact that he is the little man mentioned in the title. And what a nasty man the story shows that he is. A warning to never underestimate someone based on height.

Black Magic #20
Black Magic #20 (January 1953) “The Strangest Stories Ever Told”, art by Jack Kirby

While I often highlight Kirby’s more substantial contributions it is important to realize that Jack drew rather minor works as well. Sometimes despite their short length these could be masterpieces. However occasionally these short pieces could be all too easily overlooked as was certainly the case for “The Strangest Stories Ever Told”. This work is not included in the Jack Kirby Checklist and in all honesty I had previously failed to recognize it as well. For me the most obvious clue as to the correct attribution is found in the final panel and particularly in the woman. I feel that once the rest of the panels are examined more carefully they reveal Kirby’s hand as well.

Black Magic #20
Black Magic #20 (January 1953) “Pied Piper of Flame”, art by Bob McCarty(?)

As I mentioned earlier Bob McCarty(?) plays an important part in these issues of Black Magic. I guess I find that a little surprising since the large eyes that he provides his characters of both sexes give them a rather soulful look that seems a little out of place in the horror genre. That aside, McCarty was certainly good at graphically telling the stories.

Black Magic #18
Black Magic #18 (November 1952) “Detour, Lorelei on Highway 52”, art by Bob McCarty(?) and Jack Kirby

Bob McCarty(?) may have been talented but his work was, like that of many of the studio artists, subjected to the inclusion of parts by Jack Kirby. In his perhaps unofficial roll as art editor Jack was sometimes called to touch up another artist’s work. Parts drawn by Kirby occur so often in the splash that the possibility remains that this is not so much a touching up as a preplanned activity. In “Detour, Lorelei on Highway 52” we can see Kirby’s distinctive hand in both the penciling and inking. The entire female figure was done by Kirby and his blunt inking brush can also be seen in some of the nearby road side. However all the foreground elements were inked with a finer brush presumably by McCarty. I am uncertain who did the inking of the background steep hill.

Black Magic #20
Black Magic #20 (January 1953) “Hatchet Man” page 4, art by Bill Draut

Bill Draut only did a single Black Magic story during this period. Actually it might easily be overlooked because much of the story is drawn from a more distant viewpoint. This is unusual because Draut is generally very good and using more varied viewing distance to keep the story visually interesting. Further the splash panel is one of his poorer efforts so I have decided to deviate from the normal splash page example and show a story page instead. Bill’s hand is particularly easy to spot in the fifth panel.

Black Magic #19
Black Magic #19 (December 1952) “Return from the Grave”, art by Mort Meskin

Mort Meskin also only provides a single story and it is also not one of his better efforts. I believe most of the fault lies in the inking. While there are some effective spotting in parts most of the inking lacks Mort’s typical control and seems a bit crude. I have not been able to come to a conclusion of whether Meskin himself did the inking or some other artist like George Roussos.

Black Magic #20
Black Magic #20 (January 1953) “Crash Report”, art by John Prentice

The most pleasant surprise is the return of John Prentice. While Prentice plays an important part in the romance titles he is much less frequently used in Black Magic. I feel John does a great job in his horror genre stories but I suspect that his romance work was so appreciated by Simon and Kirby that they preferred to assign him romance pieces.

Black Magic #19
Black Magic #19 (December 1952) “This’ll Kill You”, art by George Roussos

George Roussos provides some work where some of the people have a Meskin look to them. While it is possible that Mort actually had a hand in this art, I am presently interpreting it as Meskin influencing George rather then actually working on the art. This opinion is largely based on some Meskin art that was inked by Roussos without George being so heavy handed as to make it difficult to recognize Mort’s pencils.

Black Magic #18
Black Magic #18 (November 1952) “A Deadly Dream”, art by J. G.

Two very short works (one and two pages) resemble the work of a still unidentified artist that signed a piece as J. G. (BM #9, February 1952, “The Man In The Judge’s Chair”). The splash for “A Deadly Dream” includes some picket fence crosshatching and some abstract arch shadow (see Inking Glossary) that are part of the Studio Style inking. Such techniques are not found elsewhere in the story and so they indicate someone, probably either Simon or Kirby, touching up the splash.

Black Magic #19
Black Magic #19 (December 1952) “Dead Man’s Isle”, art by Bill Walton

Bill Walton also provides a single story during this period. I feel there is no reason to write in more detail about this piece but I do think it helps to provide examples of all the more important artists that work for Simon and Kirby.

The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 1 (#1 – 3), Expanding Their Fields
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 2 (#4 – 6), Up and Running
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 3 (#7 – 8), The Same Old Gang
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 4 (#9 – 11), Another Hit
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 5 (#12 – 14), New Faces
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 6 (#15 – 17), Mix Bag

The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 8 (#21 – 23), The Gang’s All Here
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 9 (#24 – 26), The Party’s Ovetr
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 10 (#27 – 29), A Special Visitor
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 11 (#30 – 33), The End

Art of Romance, Chapter 21, Roussos Messes Up

(November 1952 – January 1953: Young Romance #51 – #53, Young Love #39 – #41, Young Brides #2 – 3)

Number of Romance Titles 1947 - 1954
Number of Romance Titles 1947 – 1954 (the period covered in this chapter is shaded in blue)

In the last chapter the most prolific romance artist was Bill Draut. This was somewhat of a fluke because Draut held that position only for a short time and Mort Meskin would once again regain the top position by producing 77 pages of art. However this time Mort would achieve such high page counts not by his efforts alone. Some of Mort’s art covered here was inked by George Roussos. Exactly how much is not clear as there are some works I just have not been able to decide about the inker.

Jack Kirby picks up second place with 42 pages but other artists are not far behind him. It has been some time since Jack was the dominant artist. The other two usual suspects take the next positions; Bill Draut (36 pages) and John Prentice (34 pages). Bill Walton does a surprising, for him that is, 22 pages. The other artist (George Roussos, Al Eadeh(?) and Bob McCarty(?)) provide only a small number of art pages.

Young Romance #53
Young Romance #53 (January 1953) “That Girl in My Corner”, art by Jack Kirby

Jack Kirby may not have been as prominent a presence as he once was but he still did some incredible art. The confessional splash for “That Girl in My Corner” is a great example. What a moving figure the fighter presents; perhaps a little tired and haggard but by no means defeated. His girl presents the least interesting character of the splash but check out all the on-lookers. The background figures may not have played an important place in the splash but they are just the sort of added spice that provides the proper atmosphere.

Young Love #40
Young Love #40 (December 1952) “Fallen Idol”, art by Jack Kirby

There was a time when the first, or featured, story almost always used a confessional splash. That has changed in recent months. Of the eight comics reviewed here only one of the featured stories has a confessional splash. That is not to say that the first splash did not always get good treatment. In fact I had a hard time choosing between two of Kirby’s splashes to present here; they both were so good.

Young Brides #2
Young Brides #2 (November 1952) “The Luckiest Guy in the World”, art by Bill Draut

Another of the changes occurring to the Prize romance titles is that previously if Kirby appeared in an issue he would most likely do the feature story. This was no longer the case; Jack only did three of the eight featured stories. Three of the other featured stories were done by Bill Draut. Another change was the splash for the featured story did not always take up a full page. While in the earlier romance issues the featured story seemed chosen from the start, now more and more it seems like it was indistinguishable from any of the other stories.

At a quick glance the cluttered desk top could belong to anyone. The story is about a newspaper artist but look what is on the drawing board cut off by the left edge. Looks like comic book art to me.

Young Romance #51
Young Romance #51 (November 1952) “Cheap Kisses”, art by John Prentice

One practice remained, the teaser. I wonder if the teenage girl readers understood the suggestion of prostitution that John Prentice’s splash provides, but I am sure any adult viewer would. Perhaps this was done on purpose to entice an adult to purchase the comic expected a lurid story. But any adult that did buy the comic was certainly doomed to disappointment. In this case the real crime that the girl did was theft.

Young Brides #2
Young Brides #2 (November 1952) “Give And Take”, art by John Prentice

John Prentice would sometimes abandon a splash border. It is a technique that allows the story to stand out from the others. The theme of a man preventing a woman from suicide is one that he would draw again years later for Harvey Comics (“Paid in Full” was discussed in Kirby Imitating John Prentice). Interestingly Prentice left out the border for the splash for the Harvey story as well.

Young Romance #53
Young Romance #53 (January 1953) “Bring a Girl”, art by Bill Walton

The confessional splash is not always limited to the feature story. I believe the confessional splash for “Bring a Girl” is the only one that Bill Walton did. It is also Walton’s only full page splash for Simon and Kirby. Its uniqueness suggests that this story may originally have been intended for the feature story but got replaced by Kirby’s “Girl in My Corner” which in my opinion was a good choice. Still it is the best splash that Walton would do for Simon and Kirby. So nice that I also suspect that Walton was provided a layout, most likely by Joe Simon.

Young Love #39
Young Love #39 (November 1952) “Marriage on the Rocks”, pencils by Mort Meskin

Some of the art by Mort Meskin for this period have been inked by a brush technique I do not remember seeing in his art before. The technique is call a split brush where by the brush is manipulated to form multiple tips. With this technique it is possible to ink parallel lines with one stroke. In the inking of “Marriage on the Rocks” this can best be seen as short strokes on the man’s shoulder. Meskin has a preference for spotting with parallel lines but in the past did them with separate brush strokes. I cannot make up my mind if this is Mort just experimenting with the split brush technique or if it indicates that another artist did the inking.

Young Love #41
Young Love #41 (January 1953) “Forget Me, Fraulein”, pencils by Mort Meskin, inks by George Roussos

According to the Jack Kirby Checklist, “forget Me, Fraulein” was penciled by Jack Kirby and inked by Mort Meskin. The biggest problem with that is there on the right edge just above the story panel is Meskin’s signature.

Young Love #41
Young Love #41 (January 1953) “Forget Me, Fraulein” page 3, pencils by Mort Meskin, and inks by George Roussos

I am sure that some will still say that Kirby did the layouts, but it is clear to me that Mort was not working from layouts supplied by Jack. That is not to say Kirby did not influence Meskin, Mort had been working along side of Jack for three years and had picked up some things. The easiest clue that these are not Kirby layouts, now that it has been pointed out in a previous comment by Steven Brower (Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 5), is the narrow depth of field. Most of the men look much more like Meskin’s than those drawn by Kirby. However there is something to the men that is a little off from typical Meskin and the Fraulein looks nothing like Mort’s.

A clue as to why this story seems so odd is found in the picket fence crosshatching (see Inking Glossary) found in panel 3. This Studio style inking technique is found nowhere else in this story. While the picket fence crosshatching does not recur elsewhere in two panels at the bottom of page 6 there can be found Kirby’s blunt inking brush. One of these panels has a man obviously drawn by Kirby. Apparently Kirby has taken on his roll as art editor and provided numerous touchups to the art.

It is unusual to find Kirby doing any corrections on Meskin’s art and never before have the corrections been so extensive. The reason becomes clear when the inking is examined more closely. Particularly revealing are the manner the cloth folds are spotted. They are not inking with the sweeping parallel brush strokes that Meskin typically uses but rather by the somewhat splotchy method employed by George Roussos.

So what has happened was that Roussos inked Meskin’s pencils in a manner very typically for George, that is to say rather poorly. Since this was going to be used for the all important feature story, Kirby had to do a surprisingly large number of touchups. In the end the story is a mixture of a majority of pieces that look like they were penciled by Meskin, a surprisingly number of parts that look like Kirby’s work and in even a few places part that look like they were drawn by Roussos. George did a great job of inking Mort’s art when both were working for DC but here in the Simon and Kirby studio Roussos just seems to do little more than mess up Meskin’s pencils.

Young Brides #3
Young Brides #3 (January 1953) “Bride and Broom” page 5, pencils by Mort Meskin, inks by George Roussos

When writing about the differences between Mort Meskin’s inking and that of George Roussos I have been pointing out their different manner of spotting the cloth folds. While that is usually the easiest means that can be used to determine the correct inking credits, it is not the only why the two inkers are distinct. Both inkers have a fondness for crosshatching but Mort generally only uses it if fill up blank backgrounds while George will sometimes use it on such things as figures as shown by the woman in the first panel from the page shown above. Note how the crosshatching is fine and done at approximately right angles. That is not the manner that Meskin uses for the rare occasions that he does crosshatch a figure as for example in story he later did for Harvey (see Horrible Meskin). There the crosshatching is not so fine and the angle between the lines is much more oblique.

Young Love #41
Young Love #41 (January 1953) “Loving Is Believing”, art by Bob McCarty(?)

I have previously remarked about the large eyes drawn by the artist that I am questionably calling Bob McCarty. Unfortunately the images that I provided were not the best ones to show that feature so I am glad to finally be able to provide a good example, “Loving is Believing”.

Also not how the splash panel is actually the first panel of the story as well. This is not a technique that I have had occasion to comment on before. While this may be the first use of the way of presenting a story, now that it has been introduced we will be seeing it again.

Young Romance #53
Young Romance #53 (January 1953) “Stars In Her Eyes”, art by Al Eadeh(?)

I will close with another specimen of work by Al Eadeh(?). I have not discussed this artist work in detail because I really feel his style, particularly the way he does eyes, is so distinctive that he can easily be recognized. Now all I have to do is find something with this style that he signed.

Chapter 1, A New Genre (YR #1 – #4)
Chapter 2, Early Artists (YR #1 – #4)
Chapter 3, The Field No Longer Their’s Alone (YR #5 – #8)
Chapter 4, An Explosion of Romance (YR #9 – #12, YL #1 – #4)
Chapter 5, New Talent (YR #9 – 12, YL #1 – #4)
Chapter 6, Love on the Range (RWR #1 – #7, WL #1 – #6)
Chapter 7, More Love on the Range (RWR #1 – #7, WL #1 – #6)
Chapter 8, Kirby on the Range? (RWR #1 – #7, WL #1 – #6)
Chapter 9, More Romance (YR #13 – #16, YL #5 – #6)
Chapter 10, The Peak of the Love Glut (YR #17 – #20, YL #7 – #8)
Chapter 11, After the Glut (YR #21 – #23, YL #9 – #10)
Chapter 12, A Smaller Studio (YR #24 – #26, YL #12 – #14)
Chapter 13, Romance Bottoms Out (YR #27 – #29, YL #15 – #17)
Chapter 14, The Third Suspect (YR #30 – #32, YL #18 – #20)
Chapter 15, The Action of Romance (YR #33 – #35, YL #21 – #23)
Chapter 16, Someone Old and Someone New (YR #36 – #38, YL #24 – #26)
Chapter 17, The Assistant (YR #39 – #41, YL #27 – #29)
Chapter 18, Meskin Takes Over (YR #42 – #44, YL #30 – #32)
Chapter 19, More Artists (YR #45 – #47, YL #33 – #35)
Chapter 20, Romance Still Matters (YR #48 – #50, YL #36 – #38, YB #1)
Chapter 21, Roussos Messes Up (YR #51 – #53, YL #39 – #41, YB #2 – 3)
Chapter 22, He’s the Man (YR #54 – #56, YL #42 – #44, YB #4)
Chapter 23, New Ways of Doing Things (YR #57 – #59, YL #45 – #47, YB #5 – #6)
Chapter 24, A New Artist (YR #60 – #62, YL #48 – #50, YB #7 – #8)
Chapter 25, More New Faces (YR #63 – #65, YLe #51 – #53, YB #9 – #11)
Chapter 26, Goodbye Jack (YR #66 – #68, YL #54 – #56, YB #12 – #14)
Chapter 27, The Return of Mort (YR #69 – #71, YL #57 – #59, YB #15 – #17)
Chapter 28, A Glut of Artists (YR #72 – #74, YL #60 – #62, YB #18 & #19, IL #1 & #2)
Chapter 29, Trouble Begins (YR #75 – #77, YL #63 – #65, YB #20 – #22, IL #3 – #5)
Chapter 30, Transition (YR #78 – #80, YL #66 – #68, YBs #23 – #25, IL #6, ILY #7)
Chapter 30, Appendix (YB #23)
Chapter 31, Kirby, Kirby and More Kirby (YR #81 – #82, YL #69 – #70, YB #26 – #27)
Chapter 32, The Kirby Beat Goes On (YR #83 – #84, YL #71 – #72, YB #28 – #29)
Chapter 33, End of an Era (YR #85 – #87, YL #73, YB #30, AFL #1)
Chapter 34, A New Prize Title (YR #88 – #91, AFL #2 – #5, PL #1 – #2)
Chapter 35, Settling In ( YR #92 – #94, AFL #6 – #8, PL #3 – #5)
Appendix, J.O. Is Joe Orlando
Chapter 36, More Kirby (YR #95 – #97, AFL #9 – #11, PL #6 – #8)
Chapter 37, Some Surprises (YR #98 – #100, AFL #12 – #14, PL #9 – #11)
Chapter 38, All Things Must End (YR #101 – #103, AFL #15 – #17, PL #12 – #14)

Art of Romance, Chapter 20, Romance Still Matters

(August 1952 – October 1952: Young Romance #48 – #50, Young Love #36 – #38, Young Brides #1)

Number of Romance Titles 1947 - 1954
Number of Romance Titles 1947 – 1954 (the period covered in this chapter is shaded in blue)

Simon and Kirby not only created the romance genre of comics, they also made quite a bit of money from it quite well. Their agreement with Prize Comics gave Joe and Jack a share in profits but it also required them to cover all the costs of producing the art. If sales for the love comics were not sufficient, Simon and Kirby could actually loose money. However there are two indications from the period covered in this chapter that indicate that the Prize romance titles were doing quite well. One is that Young Romance reached its 50th issue. Of course there is nothing really special about the number 50 (as compared to 49 or 51) but it does make a convenient benchmark for how successful the title Young Romance was. Most of the titles created and produced by Simon and Kirby did not last past 7 issues. Young Romance, Young Love and Black Magic are among the exceptions. Justice Traps the Guilty was another title created by Joe and Jack but they did not actual produce it over most of the title’s run.

There is a second indication on how successful the Prize romance comics were. Simon and Kirby titles were typically started as bimonthlies. You can tell if a title was doing well because either it would become a monthly or a spin-off title would be made. Apparently the S&K love comics were doing well but Young Romance and Young Love were both monthly so the only option was to introduce another title, Young Brides. Young Brides would also follow Simon and Kirby’s modus operandi and begin as a bimonthly. As far as I can tell there was no difference between the contents of any of the three love comics except that Kirby would appear more often in the flagship title, Young Romance (although during the period covered in this chapter Kirby would not appear in Young Romance at all). By the way, Young Brides is another of those successful titles that would last well beyond 7 issues.

As the reader can see on the chart shown above, the new title Young Brides was released at a relative peak in the number of romance titles published. I use the tracking of the number of romance titles over time as a means of deducing the popularity of romance comics and even as an indicator for comics in general (The Real Reason for the Decline of Comics). I still do not have an adequate explanation for this relative peak and the decline that followed. Was it similar to the romance glut where publishers grew overconfident and ended up with more romance titles than the market could bear? Or was there some external factor such as the rise in criticism of comic books in some sectors of the public? Like I said, I really do not know but it does not appear that starting a new love title at this time was a poor business decision because Young Brides would go monthly a year later which is a sure sign that sales where very good even with three romance titles.

Surprisingly the most prolific artist for these seven issues was Bill Draut (59 pages). Bill is a consistent presence in Simon and Kirby productions but he is generally overshadowed by either Jack Kirby or Mort Meskin in terms of quantity. Meskin was still prolific supplying 51 pages. Other artist provided significantly less; John Prentice (29 pages), Al Eadeh(?) (24 pages), and a surprising fifth place for Jack Kirby (23 pages). Other artists (Bill Walton, Bob McCarty(?) and George Roussos would supply only single stories.

Young Love #36
Young Love #36 (August 1952) “Two-Faced Woman”, pencils by Jack Kirby

Another indication about the more reduced roll that Jack Kirby has been taking in the romance titles is that he only did one of the seven lead stories. The lead story typically starts with a confessional splash; one where one of the characters introduces the story to the reader and their speech balloon becomes the title. The confessional splash was very effective and it seems strange that Kirby did not go with it for the splash used in “Two-Faced Woman”. Frankly this splash while technically well executed just does not have much impact. The verbal exchange just does not seem to match the splash well. However the inking was by Kirby and is quite superb.

Young Brides #1
Young Brides #1 (September 1952) “Surprise, Surprise” page 5, pencils by Jack Kirby

More than any of the other studio artists, Kirby always liked to add a little action to his romances. Slaps did not play a big part in Simon and Kirby productions but check out that last panel. In movies the man slapped would often hardly flinch, but this lady certainly put some muscle behind it.

Young Romance #48
Young Romance #48 (August 1952) “Love Is Poison”, art by Bill Draut

Kirby may not have used the confessional splash but it would appear with other artists. Bill Draut made some particularly good use of that splash format. In “Love is Poison” even without reading her speech we can tell she is a bitter woman. The star on the door behind her shows she is an actress but the peeling paint above her indicates that she is not appearing in a big time movie or Broadway show. Draut was second only to Kirby among the studio artists in providing such emotional portrayals.

Young Romance #50
Young Romance #50 (October 1952) “Money, Money, Money”, art by Bill Draut

Draut did four of the seven lead stories and some of his splashes are so good that I wanted to include another example. The splash for “Money, Money, Money” may not have quite the impact of “Love Is Poison” but I love his portrayal of the grocery boy waiting to be paid (somehow I do not think he will get much of a tip). The inking of the upper part of the page is rather unusual for Bill.

Young Love #36
Young Love #36 (August 1952) “Mister Fix-It”, art by Mort Meskin

Mort Meskin may not have drawn splashes with the emotional impact found in those by Kirby or Draut, but he was great at humor. The gas station attendant feels that he is calm and collected while he unknowingly misses the gas cap and pours the fuel on the ground. Mort did these humorous splashes so well it is small wonder that he seem to do more of them than any other studio artist.

Young Love #38
Young Love #38 (October 1952) “Take Care of My Sweetheart”, pencils by Mort Meskin, inks by George Roussos?

Although I generally do not make a point of it, Mort Meskin did his own inking while working for Simon and Kirby. I say this based on an examination of the work itself and it was verified recently by a comment that Joe Simon made to me. Meskin was very productive and sometimes I feel that some of his worked suffered because of that. However some of the work in this period seems particularly poorly inked, as for example “Take Care of My Sweetheart”. This is unfortunate because the composition for the splash is rather nice. But the inking does seem rushed and the end results rather crude.

Young Romance #49
Young Romance #49 (September 1952) “The Way They Met”, pencils by Mort Meskin, inks by George Roussos?

“The Way They Met” from YR #49 is another example of uncharacteristically poor inking on a work penciled by Mort. Normally the cloth folds made from a series of narrow parallel lines are an indication that Meskin did the inking so I might attribute it all to a particularly rushed job. However while the faces have Meskin’s classic grin they also have a resemblance to those drawn by George Roussos. So I suspect what is going on is that Roussos is helping with the inking. Unlike Kirby, Meskin at least sometimes indicated the spotting in his pencils (The Eleventh Commandment) which may explain why Roussos adopted some inking techniques not found when inking his own pencils.

Young Romance #49
Young Romance #49 (September 1952) “Witch Girl”, art by John Prentice

The two lead features not drawn by either Draut or Kirby were done by Prentice. This is a clear sign that Simon and Kirby valued his contribution and I think with good reason. While I like the art that Kirby, Draut and Meskin were providing I think Prentice was just what was needed to provide the titles with a healthy mix of styles. “Witch Girl” uses the almost standard confessional format (John’s other lead feature, “Jay’s Protege”, does not). While Prentice might not quite have Kirby’s or Draut’s talent for the portraying of emotions, he certainly could draw beautiful women. Prentice was greatly influenced by Alex Raymond and the male character looks like Rip Kirby. This is ironic because Prentice would take over the strip after Raymond’s untimely death in 1956.

Young Love #37
Young Love #37 (September 1952) “Helpmate”, art by Bill Walton

There is a single story, “Helpmate” signed with just initials. Even if the art style was not clue enough, a comparison of those initials with Bill Walton’s signature in stories like “Say the Magic Words” (Black Magic #12, Chapter 5 of the Little Shop of Horrors) show them to be identical. Walton did work for a number of different comic publishers at the same time. He would not play a big part in Simon and Kirby productions but he would appear on and off for a couple of years.

Young Romance #48
Young Romance #48 (August 1952) “Everything but Love”, art by Al Eadeh(?)

I provide another example of work that I questionably attribute to Al Eadeh. The way the artists draws eyes, particularly for women, is so distinctive that it should be relatively easy to determine if this work really was done by Eadeh once I have managed to compare it with signed work for another publisher from this period.

Young Romance #49
Young Romance #49 (September 1952) “You’ll Wish You’d Never Met Me”, art by Bob McCarty(?)

My problem with resolving the attribution of this work to Bob McCarty (or not) is different than with the case of Al Eadeh(?). There is some work for Foxhole that can safely be attributed to McCarty. It is just a matter of seeing whether traits that make this work like distinct from the Foxhole work change with time or remain constant. The most distinctive difference is the large eyes used in these earlier pieces as can be seen in the above page.

Chapter 1, A New Genre (YR #1 – #4)
Chapter 2, Early Artists (YR #1 – #4)
Chapter 3, The Field No Longer Their’s Alone (YR #5 – #8)
Chapter 4, An Explosion of Romance (YR #9 – #12, YL #1 – #4)
Chapter 5, New Talent (YR #9 – 12, YL #1 – #4)
Chapter 6, Love on the Range (RWR #1 – #7, WL #1 – #6)
Chapter 7, More Love on the Range (RWR #1 – #7, WL #1 – #6)
Chapter 8, Kirby on the Range? (RWR #1 – #7, WL #1 – #6)
Chapter 9, More Romance (YR #13 – #16, YL #5 – #6)
Chapter 10, The Peak of the Love Glut (YR #17 – #20, YL #7 – #8)
Chapter 11, After the Glut (YR #21 – #23, YL #9 – #10)
Chapter 12, A Smaller Studio (YR #24 – #26, YL #12 – #14)
Chapter 13, Romance Bottoms Out (YR #27 – #29, YL #15 – #17)
Chapter 14, The Third Suspect (YR #30 – #32, YL #18 – #20)
Chapter 15, The Action of Romance (YR #33 – #35, YL #21 – #23)
Chapter 16, Someone Old and Someone New (YR #36 – #38, YL #24 – #26)
Chapter 17, The Assistant (YR #39 – #41, YL #27 – #29)
Chapter 18, Meskin Takes Over (YR #42 – #44, YL #30 – #32)
Chapter 19, More Artists (YR #45 – #47, YL #33 – #35)
Chapter 20, Romance Still Matters (YR #48 – #50, YL #36 – #38, YB #1)
Chapter 21, Roussos Messes Up (YR #51 – #53, YL #39 – #41, YB #2 – 3)
Chapter 22, He’s the Man (YR #54 – #56, YL #42 – #44, YB #4)
Chapter 23, New Ways of Doing Things (YR #57 – #59, YL #45 – #47, YB #5 – #6)
Chapter 24, A New Artist (YR #60 – #62, YL #48 – #50, YB #7 – #8)
Chapter 25, More New Faces (YR #63 – #65, YLe #51 – #53, YB #9 – #11)
Chapter 26, Goodbye Jack (YR #66 – #68, YL #54 – #56, YB #12 – #14)
Chapter 27, The Return of Mort (YR #69 – #71, YL #57 – #59, YB #15 – #17)
Chapter 28, A Glut of Artists (YR #72 – #74, YL #60 – #62, YB #18 & #19, IL #1 & #2)
Chapter 29, Trouble Begins (YR #75 – #77, YL #63 – #65, YB #20 – #22, IL #3 – #5)
Chapter 30, Transition (YR #78 – #80, YL #66 – #68, YBs #23 – #25, IL #6, ILY #7)
Chapter 30, Appendix (YB #23)
Chapter 31, Kirby, Kirby and More Kirby (YR #81 – #82, YL #69 – #70, YB #26 – #27)
Chapter 32, The Kirby Beat Goes On (YR #83 – #84, YL #71 – #72, YB #28 – #29)
Chapter 33, End of an Era (YR #85 – #87, YL #73, YB #30, AFL #1)
Chapter 34, A New Prize Title (YR #88 – #91, AFL #2 – #5, PL #1 – #2)
Chapter 35, Settling In ( YR #92 – #94, AFL #6 – #8, PL #3 – #5)
Appendix, J.O. Is Joe Orlando
Chapter 36, More Kirby (YR #95 – #97, AFL #9 – #11, PL #6 – #8)
Chapter 37, Some Surprises (YR #98 – #100, AFL #12 – #14, PL #9 – #11)
Chapter 38, All Things Must End (YR #101 – #103, AFL #15 – #17, PL #12 – #14)

Art of Romance, Chapter 19, More Artists

(May 1952 – July 1952: Young Romance #45 – #47, Young Love #33 – #35)

Number of Romance Titles 1947 - 1953Number of Romance Titles 1947 – 1953 (the period covered in this chapter is shaded in blue)

Simon and Kirby were now producing 3 monthly titles (Young Romance, Young Love and Black Magic). Black Magic had recently become a monthly (chapter 4 of Little Shop of Horrors) a certain indication that the title was a commercial success. There is also reason to be sure that the two romance titles were also still popular for a reason that will be discussed in the next chapter of this serial post.

Mort Meskin’s output for the period covered in this chapter has dropped significantly from the amazing 104 pages that he supplied for the duration covered in chapter 18. Still with 59 pages, Mort was by far the most productive artist working for Simon and Kirby at this time. The second and third most productive artists were Bill Draut (37 pages) and John Prentice (33 pages). Surprisingly Jack Kirby only takes the fourth position (24 pages of art), beating out only the more minor artists used. Meskin’s decreased output was largely made up by the use of at least four other artists.

Young Romance #45
Young Romance #45 (May 1952) “The Things I Didn’t Know about Him”, art by Jack Kirby

There really is nothing to distinguish Young Romance comic from Young Love. The two titles ran the same type of stories using the same mix of artists. The only exception was that there was a distinct tendency for Jack’s art to appear in the flagship title Young Romance rather then in Young Love. During this period Kirby only drew three romance stories and they all appeared in Young Romance. Jack also typically did the lead story when he appeared in one of the romance title. But not always as for example YR #47 where Kirby did a backup story.

Young Romance #47
Young Romance #47 (June 1952) “A Man for My Birthday”, art by Bill Draut

While Mort Meskin supplied most of the romance art during this period, it was to Bill Draut that Simon and Kirby generally turned when Jack was not going to draw the lead feature. For this period Bill did 3 lead stories compared to 2 by Jack (with the remaining one done by John Prentice). The splash for the lead story was second only to the cover for grabbing the potential buyer’s attention. Other genre could turn to action to capture the viewer’s interest but that really was not appropriate for romance. Among the studio artists, Bill was second only to Kirby in providing the splash with visual clues and nuanced emotions that took the place of action.

“A Man for My Birthday” is listed in the Jack Kirby Checklist as drawn by Kirby and inked by Draut. Without doubt this is in error and Bill Draut did both pencils and inks.

Young Love #35
Young Love #35 (July 1952) “Mind Your Manners”, art by Mort Meskin

I like to include at least one image by each of the major artists in my post for this series and I could not resist this one by Mort Meskin. It still is not clear to me whether the studio artists were just following directions from the scripts or did they devise their own compositions. I will return to this subject below, but here I would like to say that I have noticed that humor shows up in splashes by Meskin more often then any other artist with “Mind Your Manners” as a great example.

Young Romance #47
Young Romance #47 (June 1952) “Tenement Girl”, art by John Prentice

Action is not an often a component of romance comics, that is except for those by Kirby. Still it does show up in Simon and Kirby productions from time to time. I wanted to provide another example of a fight scene by John Prentice. Of course Jack Kirby was a master at the slugfest, but his fight scenes were done quite differently from the one in “Tenement Girl” leaving little doubt that John was not working from a Kirby layout.

Young Love #35
Young Love #35 (July 1952) “Heart of Gold”, art by George Roussos

While George Roussos did some substantial work for Black Magic he was generally relegated to short pieces in the romance titles. Frankly this is understandable because George’s art tended to be a bit crude which worked well with the horror genre but detracted from love stories. However Roussos would occasionally get a more substantial romance piece with “Heart of Gold” the only work for this period that was greater then 2 pages. This story is the best romance work that Roussos has done so far and is actually quite nice. Perhaps George was getting a helping hand from Meskin, some of the faces look in part like Mort’s. I believe the primary reason for the improved appearance of the art is the use of a sparser inking. There is an exception to the lighter inking and that is for the man in the foreground of the splash. Note the shoulder blots and the use of picket fence crosshatching (Inking Glossary). These inking mannerisms are usually not found in worked in Roussos inking but they are typical Studio Style techniques. I suspect Joe Simon has stepped in improve the splash. But the rest of the splash seems to be inked by Roussos. Note particularly the inking of the background trees, a mannerism I do not believe I have ever seen in the Studio Style.

Young Romance #46
Young Romance #46 (June 1952) “A Knack for Writing”, art by unidentified artist

There are 4 features, two of which are full stories, done by the same artist in the period covered by this chapter. This amounts to 17 pages of art; not a lot of work but enough to be a significant contribution. Further this artist had a story in Young Love #32 which was covered in the previous chapter. So it would really be nice to be able to identify who the artist was but unfortunately I have not much headway. One possibility is that this work was done by Al Eadeh, an artist that also did some work for Simon and Kirby back in 1949. At Ger Apeldoorn’s suggestion I have look at some scans of the artist’s work in Atlas Tales but either the image resolution was too low or the subject matter too different so that I was unable to come to any conclusions.

Young Romance #46
Young Romance #46 (June 1952) “This Is My Punishment”, art by unidentified artist

Another artist that appears at this time is represented by a single work. I provide a story page because I felt that the splash did not adequately represent his style. I have to say there is something very familiar about this style but I am unable to say why.

Added 8/28/09: In the comments Ger Apeldoorn suggested Bill Walton and without doubt he is correct.

Young Love #33
Young Love #33 (May 1952) “The Man around Her Home”, art by John Severin?

“The Man around Her Home” also has a familiar look to it but in this case I can say why. Some of the men (but not all) look like they were done by John Severin. There are differences between the art in this Young Love story and the work Severin was then doing in Prize Comics Western. Perhaps this was just the effect of a different genre or inker. Severin has not appeared in a Simon and Kirby production since November 1950 but he was very active in Prize Comics Western.

Young Love #33
Young Love #33 (May 1952) “Temper, Temper” page 2, art by Ross Andru

Ross Andru, who provided a single story for Young Love #26 (October 1951), returns to do two more features. While Andru was a talented artist who did excellent romance art he only did occasional work for Simon and Kirby. We will see him again, under different circumstances, in 1954.

I have chosen a story page for an example of Andru’s work because it has the unusually panel layout of 2 rows with 3 panels per row resulting in tall and narrow panels. Among Simon and Kirby productions this layout was first seen to be used by Leonard Starr in romance work from 1949 and 1950. More recently it has shown up in work by first Mort Meskin and, then George Roussos, and now Ross Andru.

There is a reason I am particularly interested in this panel layout other then the chance it provides to compare how different artists work with such narrow panels. When I began studying Simon and Kirby one of the declarations that some Kirby experts made was the Jack supplied layouts for other artists. However when I examined the various artists’ graphical story telling techniques with those used by Kirby I found little to support that supposition. Unfortunately such comparisons are very subjective and there were always others who disagreed with my observations. But panel layouts are more cut and dry and difficult to dispute. So when a particular panel arrangement appears in different artists but not in the work drawn by Jack himself, it is pretty good evidence that Kirby did not do the layouts. After all you would expect that Kirby would use the same type of panel arrangements for his own work as well as any layouts he supplied.

But Kirby was not the only boss in the studio, there was Joe Simon as well. Joe has often said that he provided layouts to artists. This is well documented with later comics such as the Fly for Archie (where Joe’s collection includes some layouts that Joe Burgos did (Carl Burgos does the Fly) but that does not necessarily mean that it was true throughout Joe’s career. Unfortunately it is not possible to compare the layouts of Joe’s own drawing with that by other studio artists because Joe had not done any published art since the “48 Famous Americans” one shot for J. C. Penny in 1947. Now, however, we have seen this unusual panel layout first appear in work by Meskin, shortly followed by Roussos and now Andru. While it seems reasonable Meskin could have picked up the layout himself and Roussos copied it from him, I find it harder to accept that Andru, who did not actually work in the studio, independently picked up the panel arrangement. So I am now considering the possibility that it was Joe that started to use it in layouts supplied to other artists. This is by no means a “slam dunk”, just something I will be considering as I continue working on this serial post.

As I said above, Simon provided layouts to artist later in his career. The layout that Joe had Burgos do were very rough sketches including rough balloons. Joe used a somewhat different layout technique for Sick. There Simon provided the artist with inked panel borders and finished lettered balloons but without even sketches for the art. Either of these techniques could have been used during the Prize year (assuming Joe was in fact supplying layouts).

Chapter 1, A New Genre (YR #1 – #4)
Chapter 2, Early Artists (YR #1 – #4)
Chapter 3, The Field No Longer Their’s Alone (YR #5 – #8)
Chapter 4, An Explosion of Romance (YR #9 – #12, YL #1 – #4)
Chapter 5, New Talent (YR #9 – 12, YL #1 – #4)
Chapter 6, Love on the Range (RWR #1 – #7, WL #1 – #6)
Chapter 7, More Love on the Range (RWR #1 – #7, WL #1 – #6)
Chapter 8, Kirby on the Range? (RWR #1 – #7, WL #1 – #6)
Chapter 9, More Romance (YR #13 – #16, YL #5 – #6)
Chapter 10, The Peak of the Love Glut (YR #17 – #20, YL #7 – #8)
Chapter 11, After the Glut (YR #21 – #23, YL #9 – #10)
Chapter 12, A Smaller Studio (YR #24 – #26, YL #12 – #14)
Chapter 13, Romance Bottoms Out (YR #27 – #29, YL #15 – #17)
Chapter 14, The Third Suspect (YR #30 – #32, YL #18 – #20)
Chapter 15, The Action of Romance (YR #33 – #35, YL #21 – #23)
Chapter 16, Someone Old and Someone New (YR #36 – #38, YL #24 – #26)
Chapter 17, The Assistant (YR #39 – #41, YL #27 – #29)
Chapter 18, Meskin Takes Over (YR #42 – #44, YL #30 – #32)
Chapter 19, More Artists (YR #45 – #47, YL #33 – #35)
Chapter 20, Romance Still Matters (YR #48 – #50, YL #36 – #38, YB #1)
Chapter 21, Roussos Messes Up (YR #51 – #53, YL #39 – #41, YB #2 – 3)
Chapter 22, He’s the Man (YR #54 – #56, YL #42 – #44, YB #4)
Chapter 23, New Ways of Doing Things (YR #57 – #59, YL #45 – #47, YB #5 – #6)
Chapter 24, A New Artist (YR #60 – #62, YL #48 – #50, YB #7 – #8)
Chapter 25, More New Faces (YR #63 – #65, YLe #51 – #53, YB #9 – #11)
Chapter 26, Goodbye Jack (YR #66 – #68, YL #54 – #56, YB #12 – #14)
Chapter 27, The Return of Mort (YR #69 – #71, YL #57 – #59, YB #15 – #17)
Chapter 28, A Glut of Artists (YR #72 – #74, YL #60 – #62, YB #18 & #19, IL #1 & #2)
Chapter 29, Trouble Begins (YR #75 – #77, YL #63 – #65, YB #20 – #22, IL #3 – #5)
Chapter 30, Transition (YR #78 – #80, YL #66 – #68, YBs #23 – #25, IL #6, ILY #7)
Chapter 30, Appendix (YB #23)
Chapter 31, Kirby, Kirby and More Kirby (YR #81 – #82, YL #69 – #70, YB #26 – #27)
Chapter 32, The Kirby Beat Goes On (YR #83 – #84, YL #71 – #72, YB #28 – #29)
Chapter 33, End of an Era (YR #85 – #87, YL #73, YB #30, AFL #1)
Chapter 34, A New Prize Title (YR #88 – #91, AFL #2 – #5, PL #1 – #2)
Chapter 35, Settling In ( YR #92 – #94, AFL #6 – #8, PL #3 – #5)
Appendix, J.O. Is Joe Orlando
Chapter 36, More Kirby (YR #95 – #97, AFL #9 – #11, PL #6 – #8)
Chapter 37, Some Surprises (YR #98 – #100, AFL #12 – #14, PL #9 – #11)
Chapter 38, All Things Must End (YR #101 – #103, AFL #15 – #17, PL #12 – #14)

Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 4, Another Hit

(February – April 1952, Black Magic #9 – #11)

I cannot supply sales figures so I have to look for other indications for how popular Simon and Kirby titles were. Fortunately Simon and Kirby had a modus operandi when it came to releasing new titles (actually it may have been the publishers who were responsible). New titles were released as bimonthlies but if after a period the titles sales seemed to warrant it the title could become a monthly or a new title of the same genre would be created. Black Magic had been a bimonthly for 16 months when it was converted to a monthly. Thus we can safely conclude that sales of Black Magic were good at least at this point in time.

As was true with the concurrent romance titles (Chapter 18 of The Art of Romance), Jack Kirby was producing less then his normal amount of pages of art with most of the work being done by Mort Meskin. In one respect Kirby still was the most important artist in that he did all the covers and the lead story for the two issues (#10 and #11) of the three covered in this chapter. But in terms of number of pages of art, Jack did only 18 pages as compared to the 34 pages done by Mort. After Mort and Jack come George Roussos (14 pages) and John Prentice (13 pages). Four other artists only supplied a single story; Marvin Stein (8 pages), Bill Draut (7 pages) and two unidentified artists (4 and 5 pages).

Black Magic #10

Black Magic #10 (March 1952) “Dead Man’s Lode”, art by Jack Kirby

While Kirby may not have done as much art as he had a year or so ago, what he produced was still top rate stuff. The splash for “Dead Man’s Lode” is a particularly engaging image. Not much in it just a man struggling through a tunnel and a hand beckoning him on. But of course such a simplistic description hardly does justice to what Jack drew. Kirby often brought interest into what for another artist might have been a banal scene. Here the drama is supplied by the man’s torn clothing, stooped posture and rugged features. I particularly like the way the pouring water divides the composition and how streaks of brushwork both suggest the optical distortions as well as the flow of the water.

Black Magic #11

Black Magic #11 (April 1952) “Drop Me Of At the Cemetery” page 4, art by Mort Meskin

I could not resist providing another example of Mort’s use of tall narrow panels. Leonard Starr used them earlier then Meskin, and used the quite well I might add. But Mort’s use of narrow panels was very remarkable. I must admit as I review Mort’s work in Black Magic and the romance titles I cannot help but feel Meskin was more at home with the horror genre. You pretty much never see in Mort’s romance work such a well worked out close-up as in panel 2 but they are not very rare in Black Magic.

Black Magic #11

Black Magic #11 (April 1952) “The Thirteenth Floor” page 2, art by John Prentice

John Prentice did a lot of romance work for Simon and Kirby so it is easy to overlook his contributions in other genre. I find his art in Black Magic quite satisfying. I have previously discussed “The Thirteenth Floor” (Alternate Takes, The Thirteenth Floor) and will not repeat it here other then to note that use of a splash-like story panel is unusual for Prentice. Despite what I feel is the high quality of his Black Magic work, John did not produce many stories for the title. Another Prentice story would not appear in Black Magic until 9 months later.

Black Magic #9

Black Magic #9 (February 1952) “Mark of Evil”, art by Bill Draut

A ruthless but beautiful Chinese pirate; what’s not to like despite being a somewhat predictable story. Draut seemed to relish the change of pace afforded by Black Magic from his frequent romance work.

Black Magic #9

Black Magic #9 (February 1952) “You Should Live So Long”, art by George Roussos

George Roussos appeared to get a greater portion of work for Black Magic as compared to the romance titles. Frankly he is not as talented as some of the other studio artists. His work has a certain crudeness that while quite acceptable in the horror genre detracts that from his romance art. Presumably that is why he is more often seen in Black Magic. Despite my criticism of his art, in at least on respect Roussos is quite effective and that is in his use of blacks. The splash panel for “You Should Live So Long” is a good example of George’s interesting use of shadows.

Black Magic #11

Black Magic #11 (April 1952) “Through All Eternity” page 2, art by George Roussos

I recently wrote about a story that while signed by Roussos looked like it was based on layouts provided by Mort Meskin (Art of Romance, Chapter 18). One of the things I noted in that story (“The Great Indoors”) was the use of tall narrow panels that Meskin was fond of using at that time. Well “Through All Eternity” also has a page with similar panels and so the question arises whether Mort did layouts for this story as well. While some of the faces in “The Great Indoors” looked distinctly like they were drawn by Meskin, I find no such overt Meskin drawing in “Through Al Eternity”. Further while three of the panels (4 to 6) of page 2 look like Meskin could have laid them out, the composition of the upper three panels seems inferior to Mort’s typical efforts. On a whole I am included to say that these are not Meskin layouts and Roussos was just trying to pick up some of Mort’s techniques.

Black Magic #10

Black Magic #10 (March 1952) “Seven Years Bad Luck”, art by Marvin Stein

My database has 6 Black Magic stories drawn by Marvin Stein but they are all from the second run of the title (1957 – 1958). “Seven Years Bad Luck” is unsigned but there are quite enough examples of typical Stein drawing style, such as the man on the right in the last panel, that it can confidentially be attributed to Marvin. By this time Stein was only occasionally providing work for Simon and Kirby productions but he was very active in Prize crime titles (Headline and Justice Traps the Guilty) having in fact become the primary artist. Stein also made appearances in Prize Comics Western although not nearly as often. Marvin had developed a style very suited for the crime and western genre, and he puts it to good effect in this Black Magic tale as well.

Black Magic #9

Black Magic #9 (February 1952) “The Man in the Judge’s Chair”, art by J. G.

There are two mystery artists in the Black Magic issues covered in this chapter. One particularly tantalizing one is the one who did “The Man in the Judge’s Chair”. I say that not because of the art, which is good but not great, but because it is signed with just initials (J. G.). I have a small list of candidates with those initials who worked during this period:

  • Joe Gagliardi
  • Joe Gallagher
  • Jim Gary
  • Joe Gevanter
  • Joe Giella
  • John Guinta
  • Jerry Grandenetti
  • Joe Greene

I am completely unfamiliar with four of them and so I will have to do more research. John Guinta did some work for Simon and Kirby in 1949 (chapter 9 of Art of Romance and chapter 7 of It’s A Crime) but unless his style has changed considerably he was not the artist. Jerry Grandenetti worked with Joe Simon in the 70’s and his comic book career actually goes back far enough. I have not seen much of Grandenetti’s early work and will not rule him out entirely but I do not think he is a good match either. My database shows Joe Gevanter as the artist for a story in Prize Comics Western #104 (March 1954) but I now question that attribution. The piece is signed Gevanter and Severin and that order usually means Gevanter was the penciller and Severin the inker but it seems odd that Severin would ink another artist work when he generally did not ink his own pencils. Further the drawing style is so close to Severin’s that either John’s inking completely overwhelmed Joe’s pencils or in fact Gevanter was the inker to Severin pencils. Currently I accept the latter deduction and I have found no indications that Gevanter penciled any other comic book so I do not consider him the artist of “The Man in the Judge’s Chair”.

Black Magic #11

Black Magic #11 (April 1952) “Room for One More”, art by unidentified artist

The other unattributed story is “Room for One More”. Again the art really is neither bad nor great but it would be nice to know who drew it. Unfortunately at this time I cannot even offer a suggestion.

The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 1 (#1 – 3), Expanding Their Fields
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 2 (#4 – 6), Up and Running
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 3 (#7 – 8), The Same Old Gang

The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 5 (#12 – 14), New Faces
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 6 (#15 – 17), Mix Bag
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 7 (#18 – 20), Kirby Returns
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 8 (#21 – 23), The Gang’s All Here
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 9 (#24 – 26), The Party’s Ovetr
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 10 (#27 – 29), A Special Visitor
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 11 (#30 – 33), The End

Art of Romance, Chapter 18, Meskin Takes Over

(February 1952 – April 1952: Young Romance #42 – #44, Young Love #30 – #32)

Number of Romance Titles 1947 - 1953
Number of Romance Titles 1947 – 1953 (the period covered in this chapter is shaded in blue)

There has not been much change in what the Simon and Kirby studio was producing which were two monthly romance titles and one bimonthly horror all for Prize Comics. I believe all three titles were doing well but I will leave off explaining what is behind my belief until Chapter 20 of The Art of Romance and Chapter 4 of The Little Shop of Horrors.

Mort Meskin provided an astonishing 105 pages of art for the period covered in this chapter. This was much more then what Kirby drew (37 pages). To provide perspective Kirby only drew one more page then Bill Draut (36 pages) an artists not known for his speed. At this point Meskin has been the primary romance artist for about a year. You have to go back 3 years to find a period when Kirby produced more pages then Meskin did in these three months. The pool of other studio artists used during this period is rather small; John Prentice (27 pages), George Roussos (13 pages) and an unidentified artist (6 pages).

Young Romance #44
Young Romance #44 (April 1952) “Forget Me Not”, art by Jack Kirby

Kirby was the artists for the lead story for YR #42, #43 and #44 as well as YL #31. He continues to use the confessional splash where someone introduces the story to the reader and their speech balloon is also the title. The splash for “Forget Me Not” is perhaps the best of the Kirby splashes for this chapter.

Young Love #30
Young Love #30 (February 1952) “Problem Clinic”, art by Jack Kirby and George Roussos

Kirby has been known to provide a splash page for a story otherwise drawn by another artist. But it is unusual to find another artist doing the splash for a Kirby story. I find it particularly surprising that the artist would be George Roussos. The “Problem Clinic” is a standard Nancy Hale feature but this particular one is different from the others. The large vertical splash is not found in other Nancy Hale and is also not a typical splash format for Kirby. Normally “Problem Clinic” starts with Nancy Hale introducing the story, but not in this case. All this makes me suspect that the story was not originally meant to be a Nancy Hale “Problem Clinic” but was re-edited to become one.

Young Romance #44
Young Romance #44 (April 1952) “The Lady Says She’s Innocent”, art by Mort Meskin

While I commonly find phrases in romance stories drawn by Jack Kirby that suggest that he was at least modifying the scripts I normally do not find such phrases in the work of other studio artists. This not to say that Jack did not contribute to the writing of stories for other artists, some writers have reported that Kirby would help provide the writers with plots. But Jack did not seem to re-write the scripts the writers returned unless he was going to draw the story. However the splash for “The Lady Says She’s Innocent” might be an exception. The last line of the soldier “you were wearing my ring and someone else’s heart” sounds so like Kirby to me. Even the whole concept of a person entering the room to verbally disrupt the proceedings is one typically found in Jack’s art. Unusually Kirby did not alter Mort Meskin’s art as he sometimes did with other artists. However I suspect that is what happened here. The composition suggests that there always was a figure on the right side of the splash. Perhaps Kirby was not happy with it, removed the old figure and added a layout and text for the balloon. With other artists Kirby would just have proceeded to draw and ink the figure but since Meskin worked in the studio Jack just left it to Mort to finish it up.

Young Romance #43
Young Romance #43 (March 1952) “Gentlemen Prefer Ladies” page 5, art by Mort Meskin

As I have previously mentioned, Meskin has seemed to pick up the use of tall narrow panels for some pages in a story. I find the above page from “Gentlemen Prefer Ladies” particularly effective both in how well Mort uses the narrow panels and for the cinematic approach to presenting the story. Mort likes to provide the man of his stories with a pipe as a suggestion of their sophistication. I love how this pipe is prominently displayed even in fight scenes.

Young Love #32
Young Love #32 (April 1952) “Can’t Help Wanting That Man”, art by Bill Draut

Despite the fact that Meskin was providing more pages of art then anyone else, it was Bill Draut that was used for those lead stories not done by Kirby during this period. Draut was not as good an artist as Kirby (who was?) but he still did an excellent job on the confessional splashes. The one for “Can’t Help Wanting That Man” provides a complete story. The struggling starlet torn between ambition and desire is venting her dilemma on a busy television studio while here love interests looks on. It is everything a splash should be, particularly for the all important first story of the comic.

Young Love #30
Young Love #30 (February 1952) “Learn to Love” page 5, art by John Prentice

John Prentice had his own way of graphically telling a story and I provide an example above. The way he works up to the dramatic close-up in the last panel is quite good. I do have some qualms about panel 4. The simple hatching used for the sky unfortunately inappropriately suggests rain. It is not Prentice’s fault but the handkerchief that the lady holds has suddenly become the same color as the man’s shirt making it all a bit more confusing then it really would have been. Note the way the brickwork is handled in the last panel. The use of scattered groups of black bricks done in rough brushwork is often seen in Bill Draut’s work.

Young Romance #43
Young Romance #43 (March 1952) “The Way They Met”, art by George Roussos

George Roussos drew 6 features during this period and except for one they were all 1 or 2 page long. It is easy to see why; Roussos really was not that great of a romance artist, at least at this time.

Young Love #31
Young Love #31 (March 1952) “The Great Indoors”, art by Mort Meskin and George Roussos

Like most of the comic book industry at that time, Simon and Kirby did not normally provide credits for the artists that worked for on their productions. However they always allowed, perhaps even encouraged, artists to sign their work. So I always pay attention to the signatures because they provide the means to learn how to identify the various artists. The signature for “The Great Indoors” is a bit hard to make out but I thought it might have said Persius. It was the only story by Persius in my database and I could never uncover any further information or work by that artist. That is how it stood for a long time but my work for The Art of Romance has really tuned me in to the style used by George Roussos and when I saw the last panel of the splash page I immediately recognized it as his work. There are some parts, such as the man in the splash panel, that look like Mort Meskin’s style but initially I just attributed that to the large influence Meskin had on Roussos. When I closely looked at the signature again, I thought it actually read Roussos. Hey what can I say? Both the signature and the printing were poor.

Young Love #31
Young Love #31 (March 1952) “The Great Indoors” page 3, art by Mort Meskin and George Roussos

Going through the story I came across page 3 and saw the tall narrow panels. This is not a panel layout that I have seen Roussos use but it is one that Mort Meskin often turned to (see above). Then it all made sense. “The Great Indoors” was laid out by Meskin and finished and inked by Roussos. I have seen Jack Kirby do this with some less talented artists but this is the first example I have found of Meskin doing it. Roussos was one of Meskin’s inkers for work done previously at DC. I often find him listed as the inker for Meskin’s S&K work as well but I have not seen any evidence of that. Further Joe Simon has told me that Meskin inked his own work. “The Great Indoors” gives an indication of what Roussos inking Meskin have looked like at this time.

Young Love #32
Young Love #32 (April 1952) “Three Day Pass” page 3, art by unidentified artist

There is one artist I have not been able to identify but he only did a single piece, “Three Day Pass”. I find some resemblance to the work by Al Eadeh (Art of Romance, Chapters 5 and Chapter 7). Eadeh worked for Simon and Kirby back in 1949 and if “Three Day Pass” is by Al then his work has evolved a bit. Unfortunately I have no interim Eadeh pieces to compare it with, so for now I am just leaving it as unidentified.

Chapter 1, A New Genre (YR #1 – #4)
Chapter 2, Early Artists (YR #1 – #4)
Chapter 3, The Field No Longer Their’s Alone (YR #5 – #8)
Chapter 4, An Explosion of Romance (YR #9 – #12, YL #1 – #4)
Chapter 5, New Talent (YR #9 – 12, YL #1 – #4)
Chapter 6, Love on the Range (RWR #1 – #7, WL #1 – #6)
Chapter 7, More Love on the Range (RWR #1 – #7, WL #1 – #6)
Chapter 8, Kirby on the Range? (RWR #1 – #7, WL #1 – #6)
Chapter 9, More Romance (YR #13 – #16, YL #5 – #6)
Chapter 10, The Peak of the Love Glut (YR #17 – #20, YL #7 – #8)
Chapter 11, After the Glut (YR #21 – #23, YL #9 – #10)
Chapter 12, A Smaller Studio (YR #24 – #26, YL #12 – #14)
Chapter 13, Romance Bottoms Out (YR #27 – #29, YL #15 – #17)
Chapter 14, The Third Suspect (YR #30 – #32, YL #18 – #20)
Chapter 15, The Action of Romance (YR #33 – #35, YL #21 – #23)
Chapter 16, Someone Old and Someone New (YR #36 – #38, YL #24 – #26)
Chapter 17, The Assistant (YR #39 – #41, YL #27 – #29)
Chapter 18, Meskin Takes Over (YR #42 – #44, YL #30 – #32)
Chapter 19, More Artists (YR #45 – #47, YL #33 – #35)
Chapter 20, Romance Still Matters (YR #48 – #50, YL #36 – #38, YB #1)
Chapter 21, Roussos Messes Up (YR #51 – #53, YL #39 – #41, YB #2 – 3)
Chapter 22, He’s the Man (YR #54 – #56, YL #42 – #44, YB #4)
Chapter 23, New Ways of Doing Things (YR #57 – #59, YL #45 – #47, YB #5 – #6)
Chapter 24, A New Artist (YR #60 – #62, YL #48 – #50, YB #7 – #8)
Chapter 25, More New Faces (YR #63 – #65, YLe #51 – #53, YB #9 – #11)
Chapter 26, Goodbye Jack (YR #66 – #68, YL #54 – #56, YB #12 – #14)
Chapter 27, The Return of Mort (YR #69 – #71, YL #57 – #59, YB #15 – #17)
Chapter 28, A Glut of Artists (YR #72 – #74, YL #60 – #62, YB #18 & #19, IL #1 & #2)
Chapter 29, Trouble Begins (YR #75 – #77, YL #63 – #65, YB #20 – #22, IL #3 – #5)
Chapter 30, Transition (YR #78 – #80, YL #66 – #68, YBs #23 – #25, IL #6, ILY #7)
Chapter 30, Appendix (YB #23)
Chapter 31, Kirby, Kirby and More Kirby (YR #81 – #82, YL #69 – #70, YB #26 – #27)
Chapter 32, The Kirby Beat Goes On (YR #83 – #84, YL #71 – #72, YB #28 – #29)
Chapter 33, End of an Era (YR #85 – #87, YL #73, YB #30, AFL #1)
Chapter 34, A New Prize Title (YR #88 – #91, AFL #2 – #5, PL #1 – #2)
Chapter 35, Settling In ( YR #92 – #94, AFL #6 – #8, PL #3 – #5)
Appendix, J.O. Is Joe Orlando
Chapter 36, More Kirby (YR #95 – #97, AFL #9 – #11, PL #6 – #8)
Chapter 37, Some Surprises (YR #98 – #100, AFL #12 – #14, PL #9 – #11)
Chapter 38, All Things Must End (YR #101 – #103, AFL #15 – #17, PL #12 – #14)

Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 3, The Same Old Gang

(October – December 1951: Black Magic #7 – #8)

During the period covered in this chapter, along with the bimonthly Black Magic, Simon and Kirby were producing two monthly romance titles (Young Romance and Young Love). Not the largest work load for the prolific duo but apparently all the titles were doing well. Since Simon and Kirby received a share of the profits, sales volume was more important then the number of titles produced.

As was true with the concurrent romance titles (Chapter 17 of The Art of Romance), Jack Kirby was producing less then his normal amount of pages of art work. In BM #7 and #8, Jack would do the two covers and a single 8 page story. It was Mort Meskin who was the most prolific artist providing 23 pages for these two issues. Even John Prentice and Marvin Stein produced more pages then Kirby (both with 12 pages each). Bill Draut would provide a single 7 pages story. That was the complete artist line-up for BM #7 and #8; just the regular studio artists of that time. This is another of those chapters where I have been able to identify all the artists who worked on these issues.

Black Magic #7
Black Magic #7 (October 1951) “The Thing in The Fog”, art by Jack Kirby

The full page splash for Jack Kirby’s single story, “The Thing in the Fog”, is quite unusual for the artist. Typically Kirby focuses on the human elements of a picture but here all we see are the backs of three individuals on a make shift raft. The center of attention is the approaching ship and even it is mostly lost in the fog with only the masthead distinctly delimitated. The depiction of fog would normally be expected to be billowing cloud shapes but instead the mists are rendered by a complex of strong crosshatching. The whole effect is one of eerie mystery and impending doom. It may be an unusual splash for Kirby but still one of his greater pieces of art.

Black Magic #8
Black Magic #8 (December 1951) “Invisible Link”, art by Mort Meskin

Meskin’s splash for “Invisible Link” consists of a repeated image although with different clothing and surroundings. Today the artist would probably simply draw one, make a copy and work on the copy to produce the second image. But at this time there were no cheap copiers and so a stat would have to be made. This not only meant added costs but added delay as well. Instead Mort simply redrew the figure. By quickly going back and forth between the two images you can verify the differences between the mouth, nose and other details. The use of a double image is a simple device but one that captures the essence of the story.

Black Magic #8
Black Magic #8 (December 1951) “Invisible Link” page 4, art by Mort Meskin

I have previously remarked that Meskin would sometimes adopt the tall narrow panels that earlier were used by Leonard Starr. In Mort’s case this typically meant dividing the page into two rows each with 3 panels. Above I provide a page with a slightly different approach. The height of the bottom row has been reduced giving even more vertical dimension to the narrow panels of the top row. To make up for the loss of height, the bottom row only has two panels. These tall narrow panel layouts are normally not found in the works by Jack Kirby during this period and that is another of the recurring indications that Kirby was not providing layouts to Mort as some people have claimed. Further it suggests that whatever script was provided to Meskin it either did not completely detail out the art on the page, or if it did Mort felt free to deviate from the directions.

Black Magic #7
Black Magic #7 (October 1951) “Don’t Ride the 5:20”, art by Bill Draut

A skeletal cloaked figure of death looms over a speeding train in this full page splash by Bill Draut. Of course none of these elements are found among Bill’s romance art so it is by depictions of people in the story that allows this work to be safely attributed to him. The detailing of the drawing of the train indicates it was based on a photographic image. But the sharpness, so untypical for Draut, suggests that rather being swiped from a photograph that perhaps the picture was literally glued down on the board and then inked over to provide the desired effect. If true this would be an unusual occurrence at this time although years later Simon would often build up a cover using stats.

Black Magic #7
Black Magic #7 (October 1951) “Old Tom’s Window”, art by John Prentice

It is not unusual for Jack Kirby to assume the role of art editor and make alterations to the work submitted by artists employed by the studio. Normally this is for less talented artists and I do not recall ever seeing Jack fix up the work of Bill Draut or Mort Meskin. I consider John Prentice as in the same talented class with Draut and Meskin which is why I am surprised to see Kirby art editor’s hand at work in some of art submitted by Prentice when he first appeared in Simon and Kirby productions. Compare the first story panel for “Old Tom’s Window with the rest of the page and you will note subtle but important differences. The figures in panel one are simpler and lack the craggy feel found in the splash and the second panel and which is typical of Prentice’s depictions of men. Also observe the difference in brush techniques. Those in the first story panel include picket fence crosshatching, drop strings and abstract arch shadows (see my Inking Glossary for explanations of these terms) that are typical of the Studio Style inking. The brush work is blunt but nuanced and was almost certainly done by Kirby. The inking on the rest of the page lacks these elements and is typical of Prentice’s approach. It is hard for me to understand why Jack felt compelled to work on this panel since the depiction of the men in hospital beds is really not that different from those done by Prentice on the rest of the page. Perhaps it was not so much Jack correcting John as providing him with guidance about how to do the story. If that was true it was with this single panel as the rest of the story is laid out in Prentice’s characterizing manner.

Black Magic #7
Black Magic #7 (October 1951) “No One Human” page 2, art by Marvin Stein

By this time as I mentioned in The Art of Romance (chapter 16), Marvin Stein’s art was beginning to show some significant improvements from his earlier more crude style but has not quite reached his more mature style. I credit much of Stein’s improvement to his close study of Kirby’s art either through close observation while working in the same studio or perhaps by actually inking Jack’s work (although I have not yet verified Stein’s inking of Kirby at this early date). Marvin’s inking has particularly improved from his early version to this one. Normally I prefer to present a splash, but in the case of “No One Human” it is difficult to recognize Stein’s hand in the first page. Instead I show page 2 where the man in panel 3 is very close to Stein’s mature art style. Note Marvin’s frequent angular crosshatching. While this is not generally found in Stein’s work it plays a prominent part of this story but I have to admit I find it rather distracting. Also observe the vertically oriented captions. Kirby would only occasionally use vertical captions so this is an indication that this story was not based on Kirby layouts. Interestingly vertical captions are often used by Mort Meskin who also occasionally uses similar angular crosshatching. I find it hard to believe that Meskin would be supplying Stein with layouts and even harder to accept that Mort would be inking Marvin’s pencils so I suspect that Stein was also carefully studying Meskin’s work as well.

Black Magic #8
Black Magic #8 (December 1951) “Donovan’s Demon”, art by Jack Kirby and Marvin Stein

I have discussed the splash for “Donovan’s Demons” in the past (Summoning Demons). The only modifications of my previous views is that I know come to credit the artist for the story as Marvin Stein. But to quickly review, while the man appears to have been drawn and inked by Stein, the woman is clearly the work of Jack Kirby. Both are background elements with the most important part of the splash being the chair, candles and star pattern on the floor. The candles are good matches for those done by Kirby found elsewhere. Chairs do not normally play such a prominent part in Kirby’s art so it is difficult to make a comparison. However the perspective on the chair is so well done and since this sort of dramatic perspective played such an important art I believe Jack did the chair as well. It is not that unusual to find a Kirby figure in a splash otherwise done by another studio artist but it is odd to see a single figure by another artist in a splash otherwise done by Kirby. Perhaps this was done so that there would be some continuity between the splash and the rest of the story art.

The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 1 (#1 – 3), Expanding Their Fields
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 2 (#4 – 6), Up and Running

The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 4 (#9 – 11), Another Hit
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 5 (#12 – 14), New Faces
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 6 (#15 – 17), Mix Bag
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 7 (#18 – 20), Kirby Returns
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 8 (#21 – 23), The Gang’s All Here
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 9 (#24 – 26), The Party’s Ovetr
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 10 (#27 – 29), A Special Visitor
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 11 (#30 – 33), The End

Fighting American, Chapter 4, The End Game

Fighting American #7
Fighting American #7 (April 1955) “Sneak Of Araby”, art by Jack Kirby

The lead story for issue #7 has Fighting American fighting the commies in Arabia over oil (of course). A clever splash but one with a frequently used theme of villains trying to avoid detection but clueless as to their impending encounter with Fighting American and Speedboy.

Fighting American #7
Fighting American #7 (April 1955) “Sneak Of Araby” page 4, art by unidentified artist

The Jack Kirby Checklists assigns 4 pages of this 8 page story to Kirby but other then the splash page none of it looks like his work to me and I do not think they are his layouts either. Panel 5 of page 4 looks to me like Kirby’s pencils and inking but that panel is the only convincing work by Kirby in the story. I suspect this particular case was Kirby acting as art editor and fixing up a poorly done panel. So far I have not been able to identify the artist.

Fighting American #7
Fighting American #7 (April 1955) “Three Coins In The Pushcart”, art by John Prentice

For “Three Coins In The Pushcart” the Jack Kirby Checklist only credits the splash to Jack. Frankly I do not see Kirby in any part of the story including the splash and again not even the layouts.

Fighting American #7
Fighting American #7 (April 1955) “Three Coins In The Pushcart” page 4, art by John Prentice

There a clues on the splash page that John Prentice is the correct artist to attribute this story to but it can best be seen with page 4. As far as I know Prentice did no other superhero work so there is nothing to compare this story to. However John’s women are usually quite distinctive and the lady in the second panel was clearly done by him. Comparison of this work to four pages of “Super Khakalovitch” from Issue #6 convinces me that John Prentice was also the artist for part of that work as well. This may not have been his finest work but he handles both the action and humor surprisingly well considering both are elements not normally associated with Prentice.

Fighting American #7
Fighting American #7 (April 1955) “Space-Face”, pencils by Jack Kirby and inks by Mort Meskin

What a delightful set of characters in the splash panel for “Space-Face” each with their own distinctive features and emotions. The inking for this splash is has a characteristic simplicity particularly in the eyebrows that identifies Mort Meskin as the inker. One striking feature of the splash is the way the bottom edge cuts off the lower part of two faces. While I am not going to say Kirby never does this, it certainly is not typical for Jack but it was a frequently used device by Meskin particularly in the Vigilante work Mort did for DC during the war (link). Because of this I briefly entertained the notion that the splash was actually drawn by Mort but the faces are so typical of Kirby that I just as quickly rejected the idea. In particular note the one guy to our left of Speedboy; take away the cigarette and he looks just like Scrapper from the Newsboy Legion.

Fighting American #7
Fighting American #7 (April 1955) “Space-Face” page 4, pencils by Jack Kirby and inks by Mort Meskin

Because of the splash panel I paid close attention to the story pages to check if they were done by Kirby or Meskin. Well the layouts generally look like Jack’s and page 4 is especially convincing. The way the figures run in the top panels is typical for Kirby. Note how the sole of the foot of the running boy in panel 3 turns to the viewer. This device was frequently used by Kirby (also by Joe Simon) but I have never seen Mort do it. So while I believe Mort Meskin did the inks, I am convinced Jack Kirby did the actual pencils. Fighting American #7 was the last issue published by Prize Comics. Occasionally you will come across a claim that Fighting American was cancelled because of the Comic Code. However the evidence does not support that view. It is true that the earlier issues had art that would have been unacceptable under the Comic Code, but issue #7 was published with the Comic Code stamp without any apparent problems. Further the art work had been completed for issue #8 and would be published years later again without any difficulties with the Comic Code. Because Fighting American is today viewed by many as one of Simon and Kirby’s greatest creations it would have been nice to blame its failure on the Comic Code but the correct explanation is simply that it did not sell well enough. That it was a tough time for comics in general and superheroes in particular probably did not help.

Fighting American #1 (Harvey)
Fighting American #1 (October 1966) “Round Robin”, art by Jack Kirby

In 1966 Harvey published a Fighting American comic that was a combination of reprint material and previously unpublished stories. The cover and the “new” art were all done by Jack Kirby and were inked in a manner typical of the original Simon and Kirby productions. Fighting American #7 had 20 pages of Fighting American stories and that is exactly the same number of pages for the new stories found in the Harvey’s Fighting American #1. There is little doubt that this material was originally meant for issue #8 of Prize’s Fighting American but went unused when that comic was cancelled. The biggest difference between FA #7 and what would have been FA #8 was that Kirby contributed all the art for the cancelled Fighting American stories while he did not do all the art for FA #7.

The lead story for the Harvey FA comic was “Round Robin”. The shortness of this story (only 5 pages) is not obvious because it is broken up by the inclusion of a reprint of the Fighting American origin story. The splash seems to have been modified specifically for the Harvey comic. I believe the “the original one and only” text in the title as well as the small Fighting American and flying figures were late additions. Also the Simon and Kirby signature is in Joe Simon’s handwriting and does not match the original style and was added later.
There was a lot of variation in the costumes in the original Fighting American series. The most glaring was perhaps the way Speedboy would usually have blue trunks and red leggings but sometimes red trunks and blue leggings. But for the Harvey comic invariably both the trunks and leggings of Speedboy are red, a combination not seen previously.

Fighting American #1 (Harvey)
Fighting American #1 (October 1966) “Roman Scoundrels”, art by Jack Kirby

The splash for “Roman Scoundrels” has the car touche that reads “produced by Simon and Kirby”. Comics put together by the Simon and Kirby studio almost always had this car touche on the lead story. Thus this is another indication that the new art in the Harvey comic was original intended as issue #8 of the Prize title and that “Roman Scoundrels” was meant to have been the lead story for that cancelled issue.

In “Roman Scoundrels” the heroes take part in the filming of a Hollywood movie where the villain replaces harmless stunts with ones meant for lethal consequences. I am sure that Simon and Kirby had used this plot before, but at this moment I do not remember where.

Fighting American #1 (Harvey)
Fighting American #1 (October 1966) “Yafata’s Moustache”, art by Jack Kirby

I may feel that Simon and Kirby jumped the shark in “Super Khakalovitch” from FA #6, however all the stories for the defunct issue #8 are actually quite good. My favor ate is “Yafata’s Moustache” a story that perfectly balances the action and humor the two elements that made Fighting American such a unique superhero.

Superheroes were once again a big thing in 1966 and at least a second issue of Fighting American was initially planned by Harvey. It was to be a combination of reprint and new material like the previous issue. However there was no more unpublished Fighting American art left over from the Prize series so Joe Simon created a new cover and had George Tuska create the art for two new stories (“The Beef Box” and “The Mad Inker”). Unfortunately Harvey’s Fighting American #2 was cancelled. “The Beef Box” would eventually be included in the Fighting American reprint book published by Marvel in 1986. “The Mad Inker” has never been published probably because the splash page was already missing from Joe Simon’s collection by 1986.