Fighting American #4 (October 1954) by Jack Kirby

Another great FA cover done during the period when this title was more about humor then about being the typical superhero. In common with the cover for Fighting American #3 we find our hero about to spring a surprise on his clueless foes. I love the line “let me kill Speedboy just this once”. It is a great cover filled with Kirby’s unique humor touches such as the absurdity of Rhode Island Red lighting her cigar with a torch. I find that Jack had his own way of humor which includes the physical appearance of the subjects. To me it is very different then what Joe Simon did for the covers of Sick. It is also why I am always surprised that many still think that Guys and Dolls was done by Jack when its visual humor is so much like Joe’s.

I am rather surprised about the green face that the colorist provided for Yuscha Liffso. It makes him look not so much funny as weird. I guess it is the only thing about the cover that I find objectionable.

There were three more issues to Fighting American, not including the Harvey issue. Unfortunately these later covers just do not have the “punch” found on the first four issues. These last issues came out at the same time as the Mainline titles so I suspect Jack’s creative energies were going there instead.

After “48 Famous Americans” S&K entered a period of abundant work mainly producing crime, horror and romance genre comics. As far as I can tell, Joe did not pencil anything during this period. I say that rather hesitantly. While working on my serial post “The End of Simon and Kirby” I reexamined a lot of S&K material. Suddenly I realize one story that I always thought as drawn by Kirby and was listed in the Jack Kirby Checklist had actually been done by Joe Simon. It seemed pretty obvious and I was quite surprised that I did not notice it before. I will discuss this story below but the point is if I had missed that work by Simon I might have missed others.

Adventure #75 (June 1942) “Beware of Mr. Meek” by Jack Kirby

Fighting American #6 February 1955) “Deadly Doolittle” by Joe Simon

When we approach the end of the Simon and Kirby collaboration, work penciled by Joe reappears. However in some cases saying Joe is the artist depends on you think what makes someone the creator of a piece. In his book “The Comic Book Makers” Joe describes an incident where S&K got caught by Prize for reusing old romance art with new scripting. So far I have not found the stories that Joe is talking about. But in Fighting American #6 (February 1955) there is a story “Deadly Doolittle” that clearly was redone from “Beware of Mr. Meek” a Manhunter story from Adventure #75 (June 1942). But the FA story was not made by reworking stats from the older comic to change the uniforms, rather the entire story was redrawn. Much of this was done to remove some older layout techniques that Simon and Kirby no longer used. Early in their collaboration parts of figures would frequently extend well beyond the panel edges entering other panels. The FA story was redrawn so that things remained in their panels. But this was not done by just eliminating the parts outside of the original panels but by recomposing the panel instead. I find Simon’s touch in all of this work. It is particularly interesting to see Joe redo some of Jack’s classic socko punches. Joe tries valiantly but does not quite succeed in capturing Jack’s effect. I find a lot of Simon touch in this story and all the Kirby effects seem to be transmitted through Joe’s sensibilities.

Cockeyed #4 (April 1956) “Guys and Dolls” by Joe Simon
Enlarged view

The last piece of worked signed jointly as Simon and Kirby is the unusual “Guys and Dolls” that appeared in the Mad-takeoff Cockeyed #4 (April 1956). This is included in the Jack Kirby Checklist, although I really cannot say why. The art looks much closer to cover work that Joe would do later for Sick then anything I have seen Jack do. Further the visual humor looks like Joe’s and does not seem to match Jack’s humor work. For me the most convincing evidence is that this works appears to have been done with an air brush. Joe Simon was a master with this tool having learned it while working for a newspaper at the beginning of his career. He would return to using it for not only the Sick covers but also for some of his advertisement work. I have seen nothing that indicates Jack had done any air brush art.

Alarming Tales #1 (September 1957) by Joe Simon

I doubt many would say that the figure in the flying chair and the background from the cover of Alarming Tales #1 (September 1957) were done by Jack Kirby. I clearly see Joe’s touch and believe he did this cover. But I can see why many see Kirby’s presence in the bottom part of the cover. I feel Joe did this portion also but he is swiping or mimicking Jack for parts of it. I presented a color image in a chapter of the “End of Simon and Kirby”. But the coloring makes it difficult to clearly see the figures, so above I provide a restoration of the line art. To me the lady on the left and the man looking out of his car seem to a have Kirby look to them. But the man pointing (third from right) and the man on the far right look more like the work of Simon.

Black Cat Mystic #60 (November 1957) by Joe Simon

Not long after Alarming Tales #1, Joe did a cover for Black Cat Mystic #60 (November 1957). Notice the similarity of the man with the two from the AT #1 cover.

Black Cat Mystic #60 (November 1957) “The Woman Who Discovered America 67 Years Before Columbus” by Joe Simon

Black Cat Mystic #60 has the story drawn by Joe Simon that I mentioned at the beginning of this post. This short (2 pages) story is listed in the Jack Kirby Checklist, but as I said I now disagree with that attribution. We have in this work Joe mimicking Jack quite successfully. The men have a Kirby-ish look but a careful examination of the eyebrows reveal the more simple form that Simon preferred. The woman also comes from a Kirby source, such as some of the unused covers for Black Magic #1. But the woman’s eyes give away the fact that this was Joe’s pencil work. The hand of the woman in the splash panel is not drawn the way that Kirby would have done it. I am sure some will say that some panels of the second page of the Mayans were done by Jack. But I suspect even this includes subjects that were drawn from art history sources that both Joe and Jack used.

Alarming Tales #4 (March 1958) by Joe Simon

Covers begin to appear at this time where Joe seems to abandon any attempt of mimicking Kirby. I provide an image of Alarming Tales #4 (March 1958) as an example. Here we find a simpler style of drawing and inking that Joe will often use from here on. Once again Joe has adopts a new style.

Art by Joe Simon, Chapter 10, A History Lesson

Art by Joe Simon, Chapter 12, Covering the Fly

Police Trap #1 (September 1954) “The Beefer” by Joe Albistur

I mentioned Joe Albistur briefly in Chapter 3 of my “End of Simon and Kirby” serial post. Joe is another of those forgotten comic book artists. Web searches have provided nothing in the way of real biographical information. To make matters worse, some have misread his signature and refer to him as Al Bistur. It is easy for me to resist the temptation to look down my nose at those who got his name wrong. Honest mistakes made in the study of comic book history deserve correction not criticism. Besides I have to include myself among those who have made that particular mistake.

I asked Joe Simon about Albistur. Although Simon said he felt he should remember the name, and even corrected my pronunciation, he could remember nothing about him. In a way this is not surprising. Simon worked with a lot of artists over the years and Albistur worked for the S&K studio for only a short period of time. But it was that critical time during the Mainline period. Albistur first appeared in Police Trap #1 (September 1954) and last showed in Young Romance (October 1955). During his stay with S&K Joe produced 21 stories; 6 for Police Trap, 1 for Win A Prize and 14 for the Prize romance titles (see checklist). His appearance in these particular comics, but none of the other Prize titles, is one of the reasons I am convinced that Simon and Kirby were still producing the Prize romance titles at the same time they were publishing their own comics under Mainline.

Police Trap #4 (March 1955) “All In A Day’s Work” by Joe Albistur

Joe Albistur shows up in S&K productions with a fully developed style, he must have worked in comics elsewhere before this. Joe does a good job in the mild type of crime genre that is supplied by Police Trap. Albistur illustrates the story well and seems comfortable with the action sequences. He excels in presenting a story in unusual situations; on the ledge of a building where a cop tries to talk someone out of suicide, or in burning building rescuing a baby. Kirby is said to have provided layouts for S&K freelancers, but the way Albistur does these stories I doubt it is true in his case.

Win A Prize #2 (April 1955) “The Handsome Brute” by Joe Albistur

In Win A Prize #2 Joe’s contribution is a science fiction piece. Here again Albistur shows his story telling ability. But it also shows his weakness. When it comes to the part the alien reveals himself, Joe does not seem to know how to visualize him and so casts the face in shadow. Somewhat of a letdown. Of course it may have been difficult working for Jack Kirby, who is a master at this sort of thing. Black Magic had already been cancelled and Win A Prize never went past the second issue, so we never get a chance to see Albistur try his hand at this sort of thing again.

Young Romance #77 (June 1955) “The Big Fish” by Joe Albistur

It was in the romance genre that Joe Albistur did most of his work for S&K, filling in for the absent Jack Kirby. Albistur seems an odd match for the romance comics. His women do not have the clear beauty of Bill Draut, nor the sophistication of John Prentice, nor are they stylized like Mort Meskin’s. I am lost for words on how to describe Joe’s women. The best I can do is say that they have a sort of roughness that gives them an earthy look. But we do not need to accept the quality standards of a teenage girl from the 50’s. I am not sure they would have liked Joe Albistur’s work that much, but I do. Joe used some interesting composition devices, like having a panel edge cut off much of the face of the leading woman. Albistur also had an eye for gestures, like the pin ball wizard stretching his fingers. Although Joe’s women may not have a typical comic book beauty, they are done in an easily recognized style. I have little interest in a style for style sake. But I do admire an artist who develops a unique style as a way of expressing his own personal voice. That is a quality that Joe Albistur shared with the best of the S&K artists.

When Jack Kirby returned to providing work for the Prize romances he would begin to do pretty much the entire comic. Therefore Joe Albistur disappears from the Prize romance titles. Unlike Bill Draut and John Prentice, he does not show up in the Harvey romances. I suspect his work was not a good match for the Harvey house style of those romances. I have not seen any of Albistur’s post S&K work, but he does come up a few times in a search of the internet. It appears he did work for Gilberton in 1961 working in the Classics Illustrated and the World Around Us titles. In 1973 and 1974 Joe shows up in the DC titles Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion and the House of Secrets.

Joe Albistur was not as flashy as some of the more popular artists, you know someone like Jack Kirby. But at least in the work he did for S&K, he was not a run of the mill artist either. Albistur had talent and his own unique voice. He may not have been a superstar but he does not deserve the anonymity that he has fallen into.

I’m busy tonight working on the next chapter to The End of Simon & Kirby. But I thought I would point out a happy coincidence that occurred in two chapters. I’ll provide links but chances are both chapters are on this page, so it might be easier to just scroll down. In Chapter 2 I included an image of the cover to Young Love #55 done by John Prentice. It turns out that that cover is based on a story done by Jack Kirby in the same issue called “Love Wars”. I just happened to provide a scan of the splash page to Jack’s story in Chapter 5. I find such alternative versions interesting for the insight it provides into the artists. Mind you I am not saying that Jack’s splash gives an idea how he would have done the cover. When it came to the romance comics, Jack’s splash pages seem spicier then his covers.

This example of an artist doing a cover based on a Kirby story may be unique during the S&K collaboration, I’ll have to check. Also rare are examples of Kirby and another artist doing alternate takes of the same cover. I included scans of covers by Jack Kirby and Bill Draut in “Artists and Models“. I can think of only one other example from the S&K period.

There are however a number of examples of Jack doing the cover based on a story by another artist. I think it may be fun sometime to post a series of examples of these alternate interpretations.

Young Love #55 (March 1954) “Love War” by Jack Kirby

Previously in the End of Simon and Kirby we saw the launch of Fighting American for Prize followed shortly by the creation of Mainline, Simon and Kirby’s own publishing company. Although Simon and Kirby continued to produce romance comics for Prize, they stopped including work penciled by Jack. Mainline only lasted a short time before it failed.

Young Brides #25 (November 1955) “His Beautiful Visitor” by Jack Kirby

In October, the month after Charlton released the last of what had been Mainline comics, a story penciled by Jack Kirby appeared in Young Romance #79. The next romance (Young Brides #25 November) would have Jack doing three of the four stories. Oddly there was no Kirby in Young Love #68 (December). After this we have a run of romance comics that are almost completely done by Jack Kirby (YR #80 to #85, YL #69 to 73, and YB #26 to #30). Kirby would do all 16 covers, 58 of the 65 stories, and 373 out of 416 pages (excluding covers). The percentage of Kirby in this run would be even higher if we excluded Young Love #71 which only had a single Kirby story. Of the 7 stories done by other artists; 4 were done by Bill Draut (YR #81, YL #71 and two in #73), 1 by Ann Brewster (YL #71), 1 by Ted Galindo (YL #71) and 1 by an unidentified artist (YL #69). Never before in the history of Simon and Kirby do we see anything like this. The closest to it occurred was with the launch of Headline as crime genre. There Jack did all of the first four issues (Headline #23 to #26, March to September 1947).

Young Romance #84 (October 1956) “Poison Ivy” by Jack Kirby

At the beginning of the post I included a splash page from YL #55 that Jack did just before he stopped doing Prize romances in order to concentrate on Fighting American and the Mainline comics. Compare this to a page from YB #25 (”His Beautiful Visitor” see above) from the time of Jack’s return to these romance titles. Despite the similar panel layout the two look different. The spot inking in the earlier page is in the typical S&K shop style. But in the later work there is less spotting, particularly in the figures, giving the page a lighter look. When parts of the figure do get more spotting, it often is done by flooding a larger area, see “Poison Ivy” from YR #84 above. Brush techniques that were standard to the S&K shop style (like the coarse crosshatch that reminds one of a picket fence, or the rows of unconnected short strokes) are encountered less frequently. When these brush methods are used they tend to be done in a finer style then previously. These differences in inking styles seem to be present right when Kirby returned to doing these romance titles, but they appear to become more obvious over time.

Young Love #71 (June 1956) by Jack Kirby

The same observations about the change in inking style can be made about the covers. However more effort was usually done on the covers. The old shop style crosshatching appears more often on covers although done in a finer style. Great care was sometimes taken, the lines in YL #71 (above) were done so fine that they look like they were done using a pen but the original art (still in Joe Simon’s collection) show that it was actually done with a brush.

This may be a good place to interrupt with a short discussion about how inking was done in the Simon and Kirby studio. All uninked art by Kirby done during the S&K collaboration that I have seen show that Jack did tight pencils done entirely as lines. No indications for spotting are found and folds in the clothing are indicated by simple lines. The next step appeared to be the inking of the panel outlines, balloons and the lettering. Then the art is inked closely following the penciled lines without any spotting. Next the spotting is done to bring a sort of volume to the forms and provide tonal variations across the page. Thus ignoring the lettering, the art can be said to have three stages; penciling, lining, and spotting. In an interview Carmine Infantino, who worked in the S&K studio mostly in 1948, describes Jack doing the spot inking. Martin Thall once described visiting the studio where a number of individuals were busy doing an inking job. My own examination of original art leads me to believe that often more then one hand was involved in the spotting. Frankly when experts attribute the inking to Jack himself, Joe or some other artists I do not know what they mean. Are they referring to the outlining or the spotting? Are they saying that all the inking was done by that one person or just parts? I really have no clue as to what the inking attributions by the experts means, I sometimes wonder if they know themselves.

Young Romance #81 (February 1956) “A Match For Linda” by Jack Kirby

To me it appears that the line inking done during the all Kirby run of romances was done by different individuals. I have little confidence that I can identify most. After all they are following Kirby’s tight pencils and this is not Marvel Comics in the Silver Age with Stan Lee urging inkers to add their personal touches. I am pretty sure Jack wanted the line inkers to be faithful to his pencils. Still there are subtleties to the pencils and different responses to those nuances by the line inkers. One of the line inkers in some of these stories appears to have been Bill Draut. Take a look above at the eyebrows in the female on the splash page to “A Match For Linda”. Notice the tendency to it be a little long and simple. Compare this to a page below from “He Had Only Me” by Draut. Of course not every eyebrow in the Kirby story has the Draut form, after all Bill is trying to keep to the pencils. But when there is deviation from the Kirby look, it seems to be in the direction that Bill Draut would normally do. I have not made a careful examination of all the stories, but I think Bill also had a hand in the line inking for “The Unhappy Housewife” (YB #30), “Torch Song” and “Bust Up” (both from YL #73), and “Lizzie’s Back In Town”, “Lady’s Choice” and “Resort Romeo” (all from YR #85).

Young Romance #81 (February 1956) “He Had Only Me” by Bill Draut

Although I feel I can see hands other then Bill Draut’s working on the line inking for some of the stories, I believe only one artist was doing the spotting. Yes there is a lot of variation in how the spotting was done or even how much spotting was done at all. But when crosshatching was done it seems finer then previous S&K shop inking. There is a consistent attempt to divide panels into light and dark areas, with the light sections predominating.

Young Romance #83 (June 1956) by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon

The Kirby Checklist does not include the cover for Young Romance #83. Although it is not one of his best efforts, I really believe that Jack did the foreground couple. However the pair in the movie screen does not look like his work, but appears to me to be done by Joe Simon. The movie screen was done using a special product that allows an artist to get grey tones by applying special chemicals. The grey tone is actually achieved by the means of fine lines. Apparently Jack never got into using these sort of materials. But starting here we will find Joe experimenting with new techniques from time to time.

The all Kirby Prize romances were done from December 1955 to December 1956. This effort raises a couple of questions. One is whether the Simon and Kirby collaboration in effect during this time? The answer I believe is yes there still was some sort of joint S&K effort. Joe joined Jack in working on the cover to Young Romance #83. Young Brides #30 depicts a couple with twin babies, Joe had twin girls. Finally Joe still has the original art for the cover of Young Love #71 in his collection. But although I believe Joe and Jack were still jointly working here, the inking done on these issues convinces me that the way this collaboration was handled was different. I suspect that the S&K studio had closed at this point and Joe and Jack were working at their respective homes. They had worked from their houses earlier in their joint careers, but at that time they lived close to one another. Now they lived further apart and this made the same type of working arrangement difficult. Gone were the days of passing art back and forth until both were satisfied. Other then the line inking, most of the work we see here is by Jack. If you want to see the sort of stuff like the Simon and Kirby of earlier years, these romances will probably disappoint you. If your interest is in Kirby’s vision alone, here for the first time in many years you will find a purer Kirby. The quality of the work varies greatly, and this is not just because of the use of various line inkers. Kirby’s spotting can be very minimal at some times, rushed and sloppy at others. However I do not want to leave a negative impression, when all things work well the results can be very nice.

The other question that comes to mind is why do all Kirby issues at all? One possibility is that some change was made in the deal between the artists and Prize so that the money Jack received was not based on just the profits but somehow also on the number of pages he penciled. Or perhaps the finances for S&K were so poor that they could not have enough to pay their freelance artists. Another possibility was that the whole effort was an attempt to boast the sales for these romance comics. If it was an attempt to help a financially ailing line of titles it does not look like it succeeded. Young Love and Young Brides would be cancelled after December 1956. Prize Comics Western was already ended the previous September, so Prize was now down to one monthly (Justice Traps the Guilty) and two bimonthly titles (Headline and Young Romance). This was really a low point for the Prize company. Since Simon and Kirby no longer had a hand in the crime titles, only Young Romance remained as a source of income from Prize. The last Western Tales for Harvey was July 1956 and work for Warfront was limited to a few covers. In the next chapter I will write about Harvey romances, but let me say here that things must have looked pretty grim for Simon and Kirby by the December 1956 cover date.

Chapter 4, A Friend Provides a Helping Hand

Chapter 6, A Friend’s Romance