Detective #65 (July 1942), art by Jack Kirby and Jerry Robinson

I mentioned in a previous post a review of the Jack Kirby Tribute Panel that Comic Book Resources has posted (written by Jim MacQuarrie).

At the very end of the article is found:

Jerry Robinson closed the panel by recalling his participation in one of the very few collaborations that Kirby did with anyone but Joe Simon. “The only time Jack collaborated with anyone but Simon on a cover was an issue of ‘Detective Comics’ when the Boy Commandos joined the book. The cover showed Batman and the Boy Commandos shaking hands. I drew Batman and Jack drew the Commandos.”

In Love #1 (September 1954), art by Jack Kirby and John Prentice

While of course Jerry is right about his contributions to the cover of Detective #65, he is not correct about being the only artist, other then Joe Simon, to collaborate on a cover with Jack Kirby. John Prentice, one of the usual suspects of the Simon and Kirby studio, also had that honor. Jack did the foreground couple while John did the two background figures.

Jerry greeting Joe Simon at the Big Apple Con of 2006

Jerry and Joe at New York ComicCon 2008

Win A Prize #1 (February 1955) pinup, art by Jack Kirby
Enlarged view

Pinups, both single and double paged, played an important part of Boys’ Ranch (October 1950 to August 1951) but they did not appear at all in Black Magic which also started in October 1950. Nor did they appear in either Strange World of Your Dreams (August 1952 to March 1953) or Fighting American (April 1954 to April 1955). Pinups did play a marginal roll in some other titles. A single page pinup, “Desk Sergeant”, appeared in Police Trap #2 (November 1954) and a double page spread was used in Bullseye (discussed below). There is also the pinup from Win A Prize #1. While printed on a single page, its horizontal format leaves little doubt that originally the Win A Prize splash was meant to be a double page centerfold. Joe Simon has said that initially this pinup was to have been used in Captain America #11 but Joe and Jack’s sudden exit meant that issue was done by other artists. If Joe’s story is true, this pinup underwent modification before it was finally used. Of course Captain America would have had to have been removed. Sikorsky was just beginning their efforts in building helicopters while Simon and Kirby were working on Captain America and helicopters would not play a significant part in the military until after World War II. The helicopter in this pinup has a USAF marking, but the Air Force was not an independent military unit until after the war. At the bottom center of the splash is what looks very much like a television camera crew. While televisions were created before the war they did not really come into use until the late’40s.

The pinup’s theme of a modern day Gulliver is an interesting twist, particularly in using a futuristic spaceman as the giant. There are a score of little soldiers and civilians scattered about each involved in the individual tasks. The image presents a number of questions. Since no nearby rocket or flying saucer is shown, where did the spaceman come from? Although lying prone with eyes closed, the spaceman appears uninjured. With all the tanks and guns aimed at him the suggestion is that he still is alive. If that is so why are all the soldiers crawling over the spaceman even though he is not tied down or restrained in any way? There does not appear to be much in the way of ropes or cable, so what is the soldiers’ intention? Of course such unanswered question was the whole point as Uncle Giveaway is offering prizes for short stories based on this pinup. I wonder if it is too late to enter?

Bullseye #7 (August 1955) “The Stolen Rain God”, art by Jack Kirby
Enlarged view

During the final period of the Simon and Kirby studio, the only double page splash to actually get printed as such appeared in Bullseye. Oddly it was in the final issue published by Charlton. It is hard to believe that Joe and Jack thought this splash would help save the title. Having Charlton’s print the former Mainline comics looks more an attempt to get some money for art that Joe and Jack could no longer afford to publish themselves due to problems with their distributor. Charlton was notorious for their low pay so I am sure they did not offer much to Simon and Kirby, but it was better then nothing. If by some miracle they sold well enough to warrant continuation, so much the better. But for the most part Charlton used up the final art and cancelled the titles. Foxhole was extended for a single issue produced by Charlton artists with Joe and Jack probably having nothing to do with it. The postal permit for In Love was transferred to Charlton’s new romance title I Love You, which, although having a Kirby drawn cover for its initial issue, was again filled with story art probably created by Charlton artists. I suspect that careful investigation of other Charlton comics will reveal the transfer of the postal permit from the other former Mainline titles Police Trap and Bullseye as well. The only Simon and Kirby title that Charlton ran with for a few issues was not a Mainline title at all. It was Charlie Chan, a title previously licensed to Prize some years before. It was more of a Joe Simon production with Jack Kirby only providing the cover art for the first Charlton issue (#6 June 1955). Joe would help put it together for Charlton until it too was cancelled with issue #9 (December 1955). So I believe the wide splash in Bullseye #7 came too late to be considered a serious attempt to bolster sales of the Bullseye title. I cannot help but wonder if when the breakup of the Simon and Kirby studio was clearly possible, if it had not happened already, whether the presence of this splash was brought on by a nostalgic memory of Simon and Kirby’s use of the centerfold splash in their first big hit, Captain America.

Jack has drawn a good splash. It is just that after so many marvelous double page spreads in the past it is hard for me to get too enthusiastic about this one. It is a well balanced composition with the prominent Indian chief on our left offset by the plateau and title on the right. The chief certainly presents an impressive figure what with his large headdress (could that really be expected to stay on during the charge?) and ornate apparel. The horse cut off on our left showing only a mouth and knee makes the viewer really feel that he is at the head of the line of charging warriors. The colorist wisely blocked out the smaller figures in simple colors otherwise the foreground figures would have been lost among a patchwork of colors. This allowed the small figure of Bullseye on our right to still stand out. The most unusually aspect of this splash, unique among Simon and Kirby wide angle screams, was that it is actually an oversize story panel. We find Bullseye racing in front of the attacking Indians as he tries to prevent the unfolding tragedy that the war will certainly bring. It is a very risking thing for Bullseye to do since his racing across Indian line could easily make him the victim of friendly fire. The two smaller panels on the bottom provide an explanation on Bullseye’s objective.

The splash for “The Stolen Rain God” was the last double page art for a Simon and Kirby production. Even though the studio and their partnership was over, Kirby always seemed willing to give Simon a hand whenever Joe tried to launch new comics. One such effort included the wide angle screams that will be the subject of the next chapter of my serial post.

Young Romance #8 (November 1948) “Love Can Strike So Suddenly”, art by Jack Kirby

Jack Kirby’s take on romance always seemed to have more of an emphasis on action then most other comic book artists. The above sequence from an early Young Romance is a great example of this. The dramatic plunge of the airplane after hitting an air pocket literally lands a seemingly indifferent lady onto the lap of a reluctant man. The analogy of the airplane’s occupants fall and their falling in love is presented by both the images and accompanying text. It took chance to supply the action needed to overcome the barriers each had placed before their true feelings. This sequence may have played a small part in the overall story but it was pivotal. It was also the quintessence of Kirby’s vision of romance.

In Love #2 (October 1954) “Marilyn’s Men” page 14 panels 5 and 6, art by Bill Draut

In Love #2 (October 1954) “Marilyn’s Men” page 15 panel 1, art by Bill Draut

Kirby’s predilection for action in romance stories stayed with him. Although most of the story “Marilyn’s Men” from In Love #2 was drawn by Bill Draut, I believe that much of the plotting and at least some of the scripting came from Jack. Therefore I feel that the occurrence of essentially the same three panels from Young Romance #8 was not Draut trying to pull something over on his bosses, instead Bill was just following Simon and Kirby’s direction. The premise was similar between the two stories, both involved a plane flight where the relationship between the man and woman changes during the trip. There are significant differences between the two stories as well. In YR it is an accident that breaks down the resistance of both parties, whereas with In Love the pilot’s maneuver is purposeful, showing that it was only Marilyn’s reluctance to love that had to be overcome.

Draut’s swipe is not a close copy of Kirby’s art. Most of the deviation in the art can be attributed to differences in the two stories. Unlike most of the female characters in S&K romances, Marilyn had relatively short hair. Undoubtedly this was visual shorthand for her success as a businesswoman. Unfortunately Marilyn’s shorter hair could not provide the same affect to the first panel where she first is lifted out of her seat. Draut does what he can but Kirby’s heroine had more hair to add drama with. In Kirby’s story the heroine is seated behind the pilot while Marilyn is on his side. Jack therefore can show more of the lady as she goes from her seat to the pilot’s lap. Draut must provide a more foreshortened view and even rotated the pilot in relation to the cabin so that in the end the visual logic of the first scene breaks down. In the second panel Draut has everything under control. In fact here Draut improves on Kirby’s composition by having Marilyn ending up gazing into the pilot’s face, while Kirby left her looking to the side. There is one logical peculiarity in Draut’s presentation. In the first panel Marilyn’s left arm is already on the pilot’s shoulder while his hat is just beginning to come off his head. Yet in the second panel Marilyn’s left hand holds the hat down. How did that transition happen? Jack provides the answer by using the pilot’s headset to constrain the hat’s travel. The final panel, the dramatic view of the kiss, is very similar between the two versions, but by no means identical. The pilot’s face is typical Draut and not a close copy of Kirby’s version. Bill has also added some shadows of the window frames to add even more drama to the scene. While Kirby has good control over the unusual perspective, in Draut’s rendition where is Marilyn’s nose? It does not seem possible to trace its position without violating the man’s facial structure.

In Love #2 (October 1954) art by Bill Draut

Jack was a master at visual storytelling so it comes as no surprise that the dramatic kiss occupies the last panel of his page. In “Marilyn’s Men” the kiss has been placed on the first panel of the page following the other two scenes. This greatly diminishes the impact of the story line. This may not have been Draut’s fault, the layout of the page suggests that the kiss panel was placed there afterwards. Perhaps editing was required to reduce the page count. That it was known then what the proper layout for this sequence was is shown in the cover where not only is the kiss the last panel, but it has also been enlarged.

The three panel sequence from Young Romance #8 hardly stands out as the most memorable panels from Kirby’s early romance work. Even so someone remembered and then used them as a reference for a comic done almost six years later.

Jack Kirby had a lot of different inkers throughout his long and productive career. During the time of Jack’s collaboration with Joe Simon, most of his inkers were also artists that worked for the S&K studio. Mort Meskin, for one, had a extended and fruitful association with Simon and Kirby. The earliest S&K production that included a Meskin signature was “The Inferior Male” from Young Romance #6 (July 1948) (see previous posts here and here). That particular piece was also signed by Jerry Robinson, the usual assumption is that the first signature (in this case Robinson) was the penciler and the second (Meskin) was the inker. Here support is found in that at least some of the pencils do not appear to by Mort, while the inking is typical of his work that follows. The first work to be signed by Meskin alone came over a year later with “His Engagement Ring” (Young Romance #16, December 1949). There is an even earlier work then both of these that Meskin at least participated in (”Love Or A Career” in Young Romance #3 January 1948). To be honest I am holding back some information that I want to be the subject of my next week’s post. Although Mort’s earlier work for Simon and Kirby was sporadic, from 1950 on he became the most prolific of the studio artists. During this time Meskin’s output may have even exceeded Jack Kirby’s.

Young Romance #18 (February 1950) “I Own This Man”, pencils and inks by Mort Meskin

I provide above a splash by Meskin from early in his association with Simon and Kirby. It gives examples of a number of Mort’s spotting techniques. Mort’s most common brush method, actually used much more frequently than apparent in this splash, is to describe clothing folds by using two or more narrow brush lines in close or overlapping paths. These can be found in the pressman’s blue jacket. Note how what the original individual brush strokes are sometimes revealed at the ends of the folds. Another Mort inking style was to often distinctly outline shadows. Once again this splash does not provide the best examples but two of them are present one near the center of the wrestling mat while the other is near Mort’s signature. The wrestlers give Meskin the opportunity to do some real nice simple hatching. The lines vary from thin to quite bold. Often one and occasionally two lines are used to delimit a hatching area. This type of brushing technique is very reminiscent of the S&K Studio style picket fence work. (See the inking glossary for an explanation of my inking terms such as simple hatching and picket fence). I do not know enough about Meskin’s prior inking to say whether this is typical of his work at the time or if this shows he was influenced by the Studio style. The dark spot on the reporter’s right shoulder are suggestive of the Studio style’s shoulder blot. That is misleading as Mort always seems to use these in a way to suggest realistic shadows while in the Studio style they generally appear on both shoulders without any natural explanation.

Young Romance #37 (September 1951) “Just to be Near Him” page 2 panel 1, pencils and inks by Mort Meskin

Although it maybe debatable whether my first image represents true Studio style brushwork, later work can certainly be called that. In the above image the pickets of the picket fence inking have become bold and the rails more consistently applied. Mort would sometimes also use standard crosshatching, as seen on our far left and on the lower part of the woman’s dress. When doing so, he would frequently place the crossing lines at an acute angle so that the white spaces are elongated.

Young Romance #29 (January 1951) “Diagnosis: Love” page 5 panel 3, pencils and inks by Mort Meskin

The above panel provides a better example of Meskin’s penchant for outlining shadows. That the boldly brushed dark spot on the center man’s jacket is a shadow can be seen by the presence of the profile of a nose. Mort would occasionally have a dark shadow trace a path down one side of a figure, such as the man on our left.

Justice Traps the Guilty #56 (November 1953) “G-Man Payoff” page 5 panel 6, pencils and inks by Mort Meskin

When artists both draw and ink their own work the two art stages will sometimes reinforce one another. That is what I believe happened with the eyebrows that Mort gave his men. These eyebrows are inked with a method similar to how Meskin handled clothing folds, two or three narrow overlapping brush strokes would trace the path of the eyebrow. This resulted in eyebrows that were wide, simple and made somewhat angular turns. As we will see below, Mort became so entrenched in inking eyebrows this way that it could affected how he inked Kirby’s pencils.

The above panel also shows how Meskin would sometimes fill in part of a blank background with crosshatching. As is generally the case, here his lines meet at an acute angle, not at right angles some other inkers prefer.

Young Romance #30 (February 1951) “My Lord and Master” page 3 panel 1, pencils and inks by Mort Meskin

Sometimes Mort will use his brushwork to create a side of a figure that is both a narrow shadow and a wide outline. This does not show up often, but is very distinctive when it does. I am sure further study of Meskin’s abundant output will show other inking techniques that while not common can be useful in determining attributions.

Young Love #68 (December 1955), pencils and inks by Mort Meskin

Covers are important for the sale of a comic and the higher quality paper allows a superior printing. Therefore artists take more care in the creating artwork for covers. However the S&K studio artists usually did not get a chance to provide cover art, Jack Kirby would do all cover art when a photograph was not used. But when Simon and Kirby launched their own publication company, Mainline, Jack was so busy that for a year the covers for the Prize romance titles would be done by other artists, including Mort Meskin. On none of his romance covers would Mort use picket fence patterns or any of the other traits of S&K Studio style inking. For the spotting on Young Love #68 Mort relied mostly on his use of narrow brush strokes. Note how on YL #68 the back of the man’s jacket and pants has that narrow shadow or wide outline that we saw before.

Mort Meskin was such a prolific artist that the possibility of the use of assistants has to be considered. In preparation for writing this post I reviewed a lot of Mort’s work from 1950 to 1956, there is so much work that I did not have the time to review it all. This review confirmed my previous conviction, Mort had little if any assistance in inking his art. Almost all the spotting looked like it was done by the same hand.

Some of Meskin’s inking techniques are not limited to him alone. The use of narrow, often overlapping brush strokes can also be found in stories by George Roussos as well. This is not too surprising since Mort and George worked together in the late 40’s. The narrow brush strokes were not the only think George picked up from Mort, a lot of his penciling was clearly influenced by Meskin as well. Nonetheless Roussos did not adopt all Mort’s inking techniques so the two can be distinguished. However a discussion about Roussos will have to await another post. I will say that I have yet to find an example of Roussos inking Kirby (that is until the Silver Age).

Boys’ Ranch #4 (April 1951) “The Bugle Blows at Bloody Knife” page 8, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Mort Meskin

The Jack Kirby Checklist attributes most of the inking in the classic Boys’ Ranch to Joe Simon. Actually it is not hard to recognize Mort Meskin’s inking in much, if not most, of it, particularly after the first couple of issues. The biggest difficulty I faced with choosing an example of Mort inking Kirby from Boys’ Ranch was that I believe Mort was the penciler for at least some of the work in that title that has generally been credited to Jack. But the drawing in “The Bugle Blows at Bloody Knife” looks so much like Kirby’s that I am confident that he was the penciler. I am equally as confident that Meskin did the inking. Note the narrow clothing folds in panels 3, 4, 5 and 6. See how the shadows have a strong outline, most obvious in panel 4, but can even be found on the officer’s forehead in panel 1. The back of the soldier in panel 3 could be described as either a narrow shadow or wide outline. The eyebrows in panel 1 and 6 are simple with angular turns. All of these are typical Meskin traits.

Police Trap #6 (September 1955) “Only the Guilty Run”, page 1, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Mort Meskin

The two gun carrying detectives in the background are so typical of Jack Kirby that he must have been the penciler. At a glance the inking appears typical S&K Studio style. But note how the clothing folds are long and narrow. The final giveaway is the thief’s eyebrows are simple with angular turns. There is little doubt that this is another example of Meskin inking Kirby.

Western Tales #32 (March 1956), pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Mort Meskin

My final image is the cover of Western Tales #32. This work was not included in the Jack Kirby Checklist. The last time I posted on it I attributed both the pencils and inks to Joe Simon. The fact that it was not Kirby’s inking and the stiffness of the Indians (especially the one in the right foreground) suggested to me that Joe might be responsible. After all Simon has shown himself to be excellent at mimicking Kirby. However Crockett’s pose seems more dynamic then what Joe has ever done without using swipes, and it was just the sort of thing that Jack was so good at. Perhaps the awkward pose of the Indian on the right was due to the limited area left over from Davy’s figure. As for the inking it simply is not Kirby’s work. Note the long and narrow clothing folds, Davy’s angular eyebrows, and the way his back is outlined by a narrow shadow. None of these are Kirby traits but all are characteristic of Mort Meskin’s inking. This magnificently inked cover shows that Mort had complete mastery of the S&K Studio style. Mort’s brushwork has the same sort of bold confidence that Jack and Joe also possessed. Although it may not be a reliable enough trait to rely on in determining attributions, Meskin’s brush does seem a little more mechanical then either Simon’s or Kirby’s.

A few months after Western Tales #32 Meskin would stop providing work to Simon and Kirby. If the GCD is correct, Mort had actually returned to working for DC a couple of years earlier. Now having left S&K, DC would become Mort’s main source of income until he abandoned the comic book industry. Meskin’s final DC period overlaps Jack Kirby’s time there, however none of Kirby’s DC work that I have seen was inked by Mort.

I have not made a thorough examination of Jack Kirby’s work for the purpose of determining what ones were inked by Mort Meskin. I want to hold off on that effort until I review some more S&K artist/inkers. So far the only other one I have posted on was Marvin Stein.

I recently posted on the “Artist Loves Model” story from In Love #3 (December 1954). I appended a note to my blog entry where I admitted forgetting about a post by Bob on the Jack Kirby Weblog about the syndicated strip version of the story. Recently I received a copy of Buried Treasures v1 #2 which includes strips of this syndicate strip proposal. I have compared, panel by panel, the strips to the comic book story. I wrote out all the difference as an aid to my understanding what was done. Just in case anyone wants a blow by blow description I have posted the details. Here I will summarize what was done to convert the syndication strips into the comic book story.

The strips opens with Mayor La Flower. We will never see again, he is just one of Cobb’s fans reading his “Old Man Spry” to his juvenile radio audience. This beginning leaves little doubt that there were no earlier strips. The strips end abruptly with Inky going off to confront Donna Dreame about her illicit dealings. Only the comic book version of the story provides the confrontation. But the book story includes a romance angle between Donna and Inky that was not a part of the syndication strips. Had it been drawn, the confrontation scene for the syndication strips would have been very different. Personally I doubt that Simon and Kirby produced any more strips, as a syndication proposal it would have been better for the story to be open ended.

The most significant difference between the strip and the comic book versions is the number of art panels that never made it into the comic book story. 43 out of 142 strip panels failed this transition. The first panel from the strip that made it into the comic book was the first one on the sixth strip. This means that 20 earlier panels were discarded. Before the first story page of the comic book was completed a further 4 syndicate panels would be dropped. Thus most of the ignored strip panels come from the start of the story. The remaining unused strip panels do not seem randomly distributed among the comic book pages. One group is associated with the first and second meeting between Inky and Donna Dreame (8 skipped panels for pages 8 to 10). The next story arc with a number of unused panels concerns Donna Dreame’s hatching her scheme with Half-tone (page 12 with 5 unused panels). The next dropped set of panels combines Half-tone arriving at Donna’s place with his first meeting with Inky (page 13 with 4 unused panels). More importantly the section dropped off concerns Half-tone and Donna coming back from a night on the town. Considering the love angle between Inky and Donna that was part of the comic book story this strip was particularly inappropriate. There are a few single skipped strip panels in other parts of the comic book story.

Why so many unused strip panels? At 18 pages “Artist Loves Model” is the shortest of the In Love “novel length” feature stories. “Bride of the Star” had 20 pages and “Marilyn’s Men” had 19. It is possible that the length of these stories was dictated by the number of pages that the backup stories would require and not the other way around. However it seems more likely that strip panels were not used simply because they were not necessary. Even without the extra panels, the comic book version of the story reads just as well as the syndication strips. The only negative effect of the dropping of strip panels is the lengthy caption found on the splash page of the comic book. Even Joe Simon criticized it when he recently viewed the splash page. However the wordy caption probably was considered preferable to the 20 art panels it replaces. That would have added over 2 pages without significantly helping the story.

It does seem that the initial intent was to include more of the early syndicate strips in the comic book story. In my earlier post I mentioned an used page of art in Joe Simon’s collection. This page was made from some of the panels from the third strip. I was incorrect with my original suggestion that this art page was discarded because it was taking the story into a different direction. I erred due to my misidentifying one of the characters as Jack Hill (because I was working from memory). Now it seems to me that this page was abandoned in order to condensed the story’s beginning even further.

In Love #3 (December 1954) “Artist Loves Model” page 14, pencils by Jack Kirby inks by Joe Simon

Art that did not seem to exist in the syndication strips was added to the comic book. The new art is found in two sections. One is the story arc where Donna Dreame finds out that Inky has used her as a model for one of the characters in the strip they are collaborating on (page 14). A more substantial addition occurs at the very end of the story starting from when Inky confronts Donna Dreame about her dishonest dealings (page 16 through 18). What is significant about these additions is that they concern the romance between Inky and Donna. This romance played no part of the original syndication strip and was added to convert the story for inclusion in a romance comic book title.

Syndication strip 13 panel 4, art by Jack Kirby from Buried Treasures v1 n2
In Love #3 (December 1954) “Artist Loves Model” page 5 panel 5, art by Jack Kirby

Syndication strip 11 panel 4, art by Jack Kirby from Buried Treasures v1 n2
In Love #3 (December 1954) “Artist Loves Model” page 4 panel 6, art by Jack Kirby

Not all the syndicate panels that did make it into the comic book did so unmodified. The overwhelming majority of strip panels were square. When inserting strip panels into the story 41 of them had their shape altered. 30 panels where horizontally truncated, 10 horizontally extended, and 3 vertically truncated. One of the horizontally expanded panels was used to make a splash panel. This splash was overlaid with another panel so that its shape was no longer rectangular. The new art that was added to expanded panels was kept pretty simple and consisted mostly of backgrounds. Much of the horizontal truncations were done simply by clipping the art. In 2 panels this resulted in the complete elimination of one of two original figures. In 7 occasions where the panel was narrowed horizontally, a character was shifted so as not to be significantly truncated. This explains the unusual cut up nature that I found on Joe’s unused art page. Cutting a strip panel into pieces allowed adjustments to the final shape of the panel for the comic book. It appears that this was done even in cases where in the end the square panel was retained.

Syndication strip 22 panel 2, art by Jack Kirby from Buried Treasures v1 n2
In Love #3 (December 1954) “Artist Loves Model” page 9 panel 3, art by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon

I was not completely accurate above about all the syndicate strip panels that made it into the comic book. Actually I found 14 panels where the art was redrawn either wholly or in part. None of these alterations changed who was portrayed or significantly modified the pose. Most of the time Donna Dreame was redrawn (12 panels), Inky was the only other character to be modified (4 panels). In the syndicate story Inky was portrayed as shorter then most of the other characters. With his short stature and pugnacious nature, I cannot help but feel that Jack Kirby made Inky into a sort of alter ego. The size difference between Inky and Donna may have been fine for the syndicate strips. But this created a problem when romance between the two was added for the comic book, it just would not do to have love between a tall woman and a short man. So in 4 panels Inky was redrawn to be taller. That the romance angle was the reason for this adjustment is shown by the fact that Inky is still shown as shorter then Jack Hill.

Syndication strip 22 panel 3, art by Jack Kirby from Buried Treasures v1 n2
In Love #3 (December 1954) “Artist Loves Model” page 9 panel 4, art by Joe Simon

Donna Dreame was altered in a couple of panels as part of the change to reduce her height relative to Inky. That does not explain most of the times that Donna was redrawn. I believe it that these other alterations were done to make Donna more conventionally attractive. Joe Simon once remarked to me that Kirby’s women were not very beautiful, but who cared since Jack drew such great stories. That is a view shared by many others, including Kirby fans. Some have even described Kirby’s woman as ugly. (I hasten to add that I do not share these views and someday I will write a post on why that is.) Joe Simon redrew many of Jack’s women when DC republished some of the old Black Magic stories. Thankfully not all of Jack’s drawings of Donna were redone. This is particular fortunate in the case of a panel which is one of the most sensuous images Kirby ever drew (see image below). Sometimes only Donna’s hair was redone, in these cases the hair was simplified. Kirby used “wild hair” as an indication of a “wild woman”, the hair changes seemed to be done to “tame” Donna a bit.

In Love #3 (December 1954) “Artist Loves Model” page 10 panel 3, art by Jack Kirby

All Simon and Kirby signatures were removed. Other art differences between the syndication strips and the comic book are rarer. Four panels have additions to the background. In two further cases a black band with featuring was added to the top of the panel. All occurrences of Donna’s use of a cigarette holder were removed. Most surprising is a name change, Inky Spotts of the syndication strips became Inky Wells for the comic book. Both names are the sort of appropriate naming that Simon and Kirby often used. It is hard to understand why in the end Wells was considered so much better as to warrant the re-lettering needed to alter the story.

Script changes were not at all extensive. I have noted only two word balloon whose text was modified. One caption from the syndicate strips was deleted and another one rewritten. A caption was added to one comic book panel and most significantly 6 caption panels were added to the book version. None of these affected the plot. All caption additions or alterations seem to have been done just to improve the reading.

Since I have explained the what and the why of the changes made to transform the syndication strips into the comic book story, the question remaining is who was responsible? The syndicate strips had all been drawn by Jack Kirby and much, if not all, of the inking looks like his as well. As for the original syndication scripting, although other writers may have contributed, some of it seems written by Jack. The pencils for the new splash page for the comic book was by Kirby but I believe it was inked by Joe Simon. The same very coarse picket fence inking also shows up in the second splash (page 10) where extending the original syndicate panel resulted in the addition of some art. The art added to the other expanded panels also appears to be inked by Joe. The redrawing of Donna and Inky for the comic also looks like it was done by Joe. Some of the writing for the new or altered captions read like Simon’s effort. However some of the other writing is more “flowery” then typical for Joe, so either he was purposely pushing himself in that direction, or another writer was also involved in the re-scripting. The new art was clearly penciled by Jack but looks different from the rest of the story because Joe did the inking. All in all it would appear that Simon was responsible for editing the syndication strips into the final comic book form with Jack providing newly required art.

Simon and Kirby did a surprisingly number of syndication proposals. Almost all of them consisted of a relatively small number of strips with un-inked pencils. Yet the syndicate “Artists and Models” consists of 36 strips all of which were inked. More significantly, samples were made by George Matthew Adams Syndicate. It is hard to escape the conclusion that “Artists and Models” was considered as the S&K syndication proposal most likely to succeed. The strips do tell a great story and it is one of Simon and Kirby’s best efforts. But I have to agree with Bob of the Jack Kirby Weblog, that it is hard to believe that a comic strip artist could be the basis of enough good stories to keep a syndication strip going for years.