I have previously discussed Joe Simon’s work as an art director for Timely’s detective magazines. In this post I will therefore be going over familiar ground, but I cannot resist including in my blog some further example that Tom Morehouse has kindly provided. While in my previous post I was largely about the art, this one will chiefly be concerned with layouts that do not use art.

National Detective Cases vol. 1 no. 1 (March 1941)

Joe Simon (since he is listed as the art director, I attribute the layouts to Joe) surrounds the table of contents with a collage. Note how some of the figures encroach across the content’s border. This is of course the converse of having figures extend beyond the panel boarder that Simon and Kirby made such effective use in Captain America at this time. I have seen something similar in the table of contents in a later competitor detective magazines; one wonders whether it already was a common technique in such magazines when this issue of National Detective Cases came out or whether Joe introduced this device and others followed? In any case I particularly like the way the policeman on the left seems to be peering around the content edge.

Amazing Detective Cases vol. 1 no. 3 (February 1941)

Above is another content page with a collage background. Nothing crosses the edges of the content proper but Joe gives it all a very 3-D effect by placing the contents at an angle and providing a trompe l’oeil curled top edge.

Complete Detective Cases vol. 3 no. 1 (January 1941) “I Squealed on the Red Light Boss”

But it is the opening pages of the stories that Simon provides his most interesting efforts. Pages like those in the image above can obviously be compared to the double page splashes that Simon and Kirby would in a few months do in Captain America (#6, #7, #8, #9 or #10). In some ways there are valid correspondences between the Timely detective layouts and the Captain America double page spreads. Both have designs that include a number of elements in innovative manners. For instance, both share the use of design elements such as circular fields. However the similarity between the magazine and comic spreads is not complete. The magazine layout uses some design techniques that I do not believe were ever used by Simon and Kirby in their comic book work. One of these, the placing of the start of the text at the top and almost in the center, can be explained. The equivalent in a wide splash would be putting the initial story panels in a similar location but that would not be good design because it would result in a confusing layout. This problem does not exist in the magazine layout because by its nature the text is easily distinguishable from the imagery of the rest of the layout. Another design feature for the magazine that I do not believe S&K every used in comics is the diagonally position title. In this case there was no reason why this design technique could not have been incorporated into comic books but I cannot remember any comics where Joe and Jack every used it.

National Detective Cases vol. 1 no. 1 (March 1941) “Sex Marauder and the Parked-Car Lovers”

Above is another layout with a layout with emphasis on the diagonal and the text starting at the top of the second page.

Amazing Detective Cases vol. 1 no. 3 (February 1941)

Of course layouts did sometimes include art so I will close this post with one of Jack Kirby’s best efforts for the Timely detective magazines. In “The Amazing World of Carmine Infantino” Carmine describes Kirby’s advice on how to draw a man hitting a woman:

No, try it like this: Do the scene but don’t show the people; just put the shadow on the wall. Let the reader’s imagination fill in the details.

“Love Bed Alibi” shows Jack using a shadow for somewhat different reasons. It is not so much an attempt to mitigate a violent scene as to force the viewer to go to the background shadows in order to make sense of the foreground action. It is as good a crime drawing as any Jack would do years later for Headline or Justice Traps the Guilty. The only detrimental aspect is the photo of the “bundling” bed placed on the bottom of the layout. While it is an interesting digression a more appropriate photograph should have been used.

Amazing Detective Cases vol. 1 no. 7 (November 1941) unidentified artist

Joe Simon was working as a freelance editor for Fox Comics for only a three month period before he left to take a position with Timely, still on a freelance basis. Some scholars have described Joe’s job at Timely as a General Editor but in his recent interview (Jim Amash, Alter Ego #76) Joe described it as Art Editor. Those that prefer to call Joe a General Editor usually give the Art Editor title to Jack Kirby. As far as I can tell the allocation of titles has been solely based on the testimony of either Joe Simon or Jack Kirby. Personally I suspect that at the time job titles held no real significance for Martin Goodman the only thing that mattered was the work to be done.

The work that generally holds the interest for most was for the comic books. Unfortunately none of the comics provide credits for the editorial personnel. Kirby did most of the drawing during the Timely period but Joe did some as well either alone or with Jack. But who did the drawing is not the issue here. One interesting suggestion comes from the splash to a Captain Daring story from Daring Mystery #7 (April 1941). The drawing for the story was all by Jack except for the figure of Captain Daring in the splash. That substitution is not what would be expected if Jack was the Art Editor. Otherwise I have not seen any evidence to help in this question about editorial attributions. This record stands in sharp contrast to Simon and Kirby’s post-war collaboration where a good number of examples of Kirby altering another artist’s work have been found along with some by Simon as well.

Comic books were not the only publications produced by Timely at this time. Pulps still played an important part of the company’s income. However so far I have found no help from the pulps about editorial functions either. Kirby does provide much of the art used to illustrate pulp stories but Simon and other artists show up as well. No editorial credits are provided. Joe has said (Alter Ego #76 interview) that he was not an editor for the pulps, he only put them together.

Although the artistic contributions to Timely’s comic books and pulps has been well known for some time, another of the publisher’s products, magazines, has generally been overlooked. Fortunately Kirby scholar and sleuth Tom Morehouse has been actively investigating Timely magazines. A number of magazine illustrations by Jack Kirby that Morehouse uncovered were included in the back of Greg Theakston’s “The Comic Strip Jack Kirby” Recently Tom has kindly loaned me some copies of Timely magazines with examples by other artists. Simon has described these magazines as “flats” which are “glossy magazines without the gloss”.

Complete Detective Cases vol. 3 no. 5 (September 1941)

The Timely periodicals under consideration are all detective magazines; Amazing Detective Cases, Complete Detective Cases and National Detective Cases. Amazing Detectives Case is listed as being published by Crime Files Inc. while Complete Detective Cases and National Detective Cases are said to be by Postal Publications Inc. However this is nothing more then the use of multiple company names by publishers of that day. It is not clear why Timely and other publishers did this but since it was such a common practice there must have been some benefit. These detective magazines are filled with supposedly true stories about various criminals. Stories of murder and other lurid crimes predominate throughout. A look at the covers reveals another important aspect of the magazines appeal. The five covers I borrowed all show images (four using photographs and one a painting) of a woman, generally bound. The recurring characteristic of these covers seems to be the showing of as much legs and cleavage as possible. Frequently words like sex and lust are prominently displayed on the cover. At the time these magazines would not have been considered respectable, but where they thought to be pornographic? I do not know about 1941, but in January 1958 issues of Complete Detective Cases and Amazing Detective Cases were list as prohibited on the grounds of that they were indecent or obscene as covered by the Censorship of Publications Act.

As with the pulps, most of the art used in the detective magazines was by Jack Kirby with other artists providing less numerous contributions. What is of particular interest is that the contents pages of all the magazines examined so far consistently list Joe Simon as the Art Director. (In his Alter Ego #76 interview Joe says the editor was named Levi but the content pages list him as Robert E. Levee. But who knows perhaps, as was so common in those days, the editor was trying to use a name that was less obviously Jewish.) The dates of the magazines known to include Simon credits as Art Director range from November 1940 through July 1941. As not all of the Timely detective magazines have been examined and Joe’s employment at Timely covered a greater period, further Timely detective magazines listing Simon as Art Director will undoubtedly be found.

The Timely detective magazines included extensive use of black and white photographs throughout the interior. This meant that better printing presses were used then those for the interiors of either comic books or pulps. Art generated for the magazines did not have to be the inked pencils used for comics nor the stipple boards frequently used for pulp illustrations. Instead the art was generally ink washes but some may have been done with an air brush. Pretty much any technique that an artist might desire to use could be accommodated except the use of color. Some of the photographs appear to have been retouched with an air brush. Sometimes this was done to improve an inferior photograph. The photographs looked like they were obtained from a variety of sources both professional (police files) and amateur. In other cases an air brush was used to add features that were not originally in the photo. For example firing blasts from gun barrels or flames of a fire (see the Complete Detective vol. 3 no. 5 cover shown above). I do not know whether Simon did the various photograph alterations himself but he certainly was capable of it. Joe’s previous years as a newspaper staff artist included a lot of photograph retouching with an air brush.

Complete Detective Cases vol. 3 no. 5 (September 1941) “Night Hides a Bloody Score” Artilio Sinegra (signed)

As Art Director, Joe Simon was also involved with the layouts used in the magazines. In his previous job as a newspaper staff artist, Simon had very likely been called to do paste-ups. However I doubt that the work he did for the newspapers had the unusual layouts found in these Timely detective magazines. In the magazines photographs were combined in unusual manners and art work would sometimes be mixed in. The first two pages for “Night Hides a Bloody Score” shown above is a good example. The art was signed by Artilio Sinegra, an artist I have not found any information on. I doubt that Sinegra had anything to do with the design of the spread. In this example circular photos were included on the right page so as to correspond to the form of the bowling ball. The legs of the dead man on the left page first underlie then intrude over the title. The body on the left forms a diagonal that is counter balanced by that formed by the skeletal arm, bowling ball, title and pins. This emphasis on design is characteristic of some of the comic book work particularly the double page splashes from Captain America. (See the chapters about Captain America #6, #7, #8, #9, and #10 of my serial post the Wide Angle Scream) Such designs are present throughout the detective magazines I have seen, even when other artists were used or in layouts consisting solely of photographs. I conclude that whether or not he did the actual paste-ups, Joe Simon was responsible for the designs. Only one of the magazines that Tom loaned to me was from early during Joe’s time as Art Director but it does suggest that perhaps Joe started out with simpler designs and progressively got more inventive. These Timely magazines may provide the means of showing Joe acquiring his skills at layout that he would use throughout the rest of his career.

Complete Detective Cases vol. 3 no. 5 (September 1941) “The Devil Strikes a Match” Artilio Sinegra (signed)

Photographs were the primary sources used for the introduction to a story and illustrations generally played a more minor roll. However in some cases the introduction was only artwork. “The Devil Strikes a Match” has an ink wash by Artilio Sinegra. Since I have never come across his name as a comic book artist, perhaps he only did illustrations. The two signed works by Sinegra that I have provided above are the only ones that I can safely attribute to him.

Complete Detective Cases vol. 3 no. 2 (March 1941) “The Mask Man of the Middle West”, art by Al Avison

Tom Morehouse has provided me with information for 15 Timely detective magazines. In this group there are a total of 30 illustrations that are either signed or can be attributed with reasonable certainty. There are a number of incidental graphic additions that just are not sufficient to even provide a guess as to the creator. The majority (19) of the illustrations were done by Jack Kirby. The next most prolific artist was Al Avison who I credit with 5 certain and 2 possible illustrations. The example I provide above is perhaps the best one. I like Avison’s work but his early stuff tended to be a little crude and his talent only really blossomed after Simon and Kirby left Timely. In this case he has created a great composition. The low angle provides an interesting view and I am sure Martin Goodman appreciated the lengthy legs as well. A similar importance placed on attractive legs can be found in another Al Avison illustration (”I Watched Him Love and Kill”, v. 1 no. 7, November 1941).

Amazing Detective Cases vol. 1 no. 7 (November 1941) “Man Who Framed Himself”, art by Al Avison (signed)

Unfortunately the rest of his illustration work was not nearly so well done. I thought I should include at least one other Avison illustration to give a more balanced view of his work in the Timely detective magazines. Even though it shares the same theme of an armed safe robbery it is not anywhere nearly as interesting as “The Mask Man of the Middle West”.
 

Complete Detective Cases vol. 3 no. 6 (November 1941) “Detroit’s Zombi”, art by Al Avison?

The art with the unusual witch-like creature for “Detroit’s Zombi” is unsigned. I cannot say precisely why, but it looks like Avison’s work to me. There is some similarity to the crude bat with one on a cover that Al did for Speed Comics #15 (November 1941) but both are nothing more then primitive silhouettes so I would not want to make too much of that similarity. The witch has a striking resemblance to the one of the Simon and Kirby wide splash for Captain America #8 (November 1941). The Kirby touch is clear in the Cap splash but he certainly did not draw the illustration for “Detroit’s Zombi”. However I am sure Kirby’s witch was the model that, shall we say, inspired Avison’s version. Incidentally the image of the young girl is one of those retouched photographs I mentioned before. In this case the photo has been so heavily work on with an air brush that it now blurs the distinction between photography and painting.

Complete Detective Cases vol. 3 no. 2 (March 1941) “Cop Killer on the Loose”, art by Joe Simon (signed)

Among the 30 illustrations that have so far been inventoried there are two by Joe Simon. Joe had experience at doing ink wash illustrations during his time as a newspaper staff artist.  His brush work is truly confident as he combines detailed work (such as in the figures) with more sketchy rendition (particularly the background walls). The way Joe handles round stones in the wall is very reminiscent of some of his comic book work, for instance the cover for Weird Comics #3 (June 1940) or the Fiery Mask story “The Strange Case of the Bloodless Corpses” (Human Torch #2(1) Fall, 1940). Both Joe and Jack showed in these magazine illustrations a willingness to use bold brush strokes that is prescient for the work that they would do after the war.

I would like to extend my thanks to scholar Tom Morehouse for sharing these Timely detective magazines with me and allowing me to use them in this blog.

As many of my readers probably already know, there is a lengthy interview of Joe Simon conducted by Jim Amash in the latest issue of Alter Ego (#76). I am sure it is the longest Simon interview ever published and it is filled with information that Joe has never previously revealed. In short it is the best Joe Simon interview ever, by a long shot. What I particularly appreciate is how Amash has managed to reveal the real Joe Simon, at least as I know him. Joe is a natural and entertaining story teller and that is a side no other interviewer has ever managed to bring out. My hat is off to Jim Amash, great job!

Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941) “The Riddle of the Red Skull” page 13, art by Jack Kirby

The interview is accompanied by lots of great art, although on that subject I am certainly biased. Long time readers of this blog will already have been familiar with some of it but it is nice to see even those in print. There is an image I would like to comment on, one from the Captain America #1 described as “a photocopy of the original art”. Technically that is a completely accurate description, but nonetheless I fear that it might be misleading. I wish I could say that Joe still had any original art from Cap #1; it would be quite valuable today. I am pretty confident that all the actual art from Captain America #1 has been forever lost. The source of the Alter Ego image was a flat that Joe did save. The term flat may confuse some because Joe uses it in the interview as a name for magazines printed on non-glossy paper. In the context that I am using it now, a flat is a proof made during the construction of a comic. It is an image of four pages of the comic book arranged as they will be printed on a single sheet of paper. The images of each of the four pages were made from the original art without any colors. As such, flats are the next best thing to the long perished original art. Obviously both Joe and Jack must have known that there was something special about Captain America #1 because they both saved flats from that issue and that issue alone. Joe’s collection does not contain any other flats until some of those published in making Mainline comics (from 1954). In the sixties Jack sold his Cap #1 flats to Marvel for use in their reprint “Captain America, the Classic Years”.  Those flats have been the basis for all the reprints Marvel has made since of the first issue of Captain America. Since modern printing technology is much superior to that used at the time for publishing Captain America #1, you can see better reproductions of the line art by purchasing one of Marvel’s reprint today then you would get by spending thousands of dollars for an original issue.

Daring Mystery #8 (January 1942) art by Jack Kirby

Daring Mystery had a rather sporadic schedule. Issue #7 came out seven months after the previous issue and it would take an addition nine months for #8 to be released. What a difference an issue made. Daring Mystery #6 was produced shortly after Simon and Kirby started working for Timely. It included a Fiery Mask story, a hero Joe Simon created for Timely as a freelance artist when he had just started in the comic book business. DM #7 came out shortly after Captain America #1, Simon and Kirby’s first big hit. Issue #8 came out the same month as Cap #10, after which Simon and Kirby moved on to working for DC.

So even though the cover for Daring Mystery #8 is only two issues away from that of DM #6, which I previously wrote about, what a difference that makes! While I am less then enthusiastic about the cover for DM #6, with DM #8 Jack seems to be in full form. One difficulty with anthologies is what do you put on the cover? The most common technique was to just depict one of the comic’s heroes and list the others by text. While that works it may not be effective in attracting buyers more interested in one of the other characters. Some comics therefore include small images of some of the other features. But too many of these small images would limit the area for the main image. For Marvel Mystery and some other Timely comics the solution was a large image that included two or three key heroes (Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and Captain America). To be fully effective that technique required a good artist. someone like Alex Schomburg. But Daring Mystery did not have any of these key characters, its features were constantly changing. I do not know if Simon and Kirby were the first to present a solution like that for DM #8, but Jack sure makes it look easy. Five heroes charging in a ‘V’ formation makes effective use of the cover area. At this point Kirby excels in the use of exaggerated perspective so even the simple act of running looks exciting.

An inserted image shows a rare example of a Simon and Kirby drawing of a female superhero. But more importantly it shows how far Jack has advance in depicting a hero(ine) slugging a foe. In the future Kirby would improve on this even further, but already he made it one of his trademarks. Kirby did not use realism to make the scene so effective. Someone felled by a fist would not have their lower legs come up like drawn here. And exaggerated perspective is not a realistic view at all. A stop action camera would never capture anything that looked like what Jack drew. What Kirby has done was obtain the correct balance of stylized drawing that makes the final result look truer then reality.

Before their were comics there were pulps, and publication of pulps did not end once comics started being produced. The popularity of pulps must have continued since Martin Goodman issued a new pulp title Uncanny Stories with an April 1941 cover date. Pulps were printed and distributed by the same means as comics. I also believe they had the same sales arrangement whereas newsstands would tear off the titles to books that they did not sell and return them for credit. That would suggest that pulps had cover dates that were about two months later then their actual release date. If correct, this means that you should be able to compare cover dates of comics and pulps. So although Uncanny Stories would come out one month after the first issue of Captain America, it was probably being put together while Captain America #1 was still at the printers. Simon and Kirby as a team had not yet had their big hit. Joe Simon had some success to his name with Blue Bolt, a comic feature that the publisher liked so much they launched a new title for it. Joe was also savvy at how to promote himself and had become Timely’s first art director. Jack Kirby, on the other hand, had little success with the work he had done in comics books prior to Captain America. As Goodman’s only art director, it is not surprising that Simon was called upon to have illustrations produced for the pulp stories. Kirby may not yet have had a big hit, but Joe was well aware of his talent. So it is not unexpected that Joe would have many of the illustrations in the first issue of Uncanny Stories drawn by Jack.

Many pulp illustrations were done on stipple board. Stipple boards have a special surface composed of many small irregularly shaped bumps. Normally penciled illustrations did not reproduced well in publications, intermediate pencil tones would be lost unless they were screened, a process that added expense to production. Penciling on stipple board resulted in translation of tones into small dots. The harder the pencil is pressed, the larger the dots become. With stipple boards the screening of pencil drawings could be skipped without loosing quality. The use of stipple boards in pulps gives us the rare opportunity to see the pencils of comic book artists whose work normally would be inked over.

Uncanny Stories v1 n1 (April 1941) Jack Kirby illustration for “Coming of the Giant Germs” by Ray Cummings
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Could this crimson blob, then, huge as a man, be one of the Things that must come when the Comet was in the northern sky? Was this then the murderous phantom that Bob Dean must see consume his own lovely fiancee, to hold her forever there in the heavens where Bob might know her only through a giant telescope?

Jack loved science fiction but I suspect he was a little uncomfortable with illustrating this pulp story. So he transformed the “crimson blob” of the tale into these Pilsbury dough boys. The dough boys may not be as exciting as most of Kirby’s creations, but they are better then a bunch of amorphous blobs. The drawing shows the dough boys flying up with their captives. They do so in such numbers that they actually form the tail of the comet that is in the sky, a rather nice touch. I am sure some other artist would have presented more alluring victims but Kirby does a nice job on the men’s futile struggle to prevent the mass abductions.

Pulps are basically made from a stack of printed papers stapled along one edge. Unlike comic books they have no center fold so double page drawings such as this one are made with gap down the middle. Generally the originally drawing was just split into the two pieces but in this case something was lost. Note how the shoulder of the man in the center just terminates and he is missing his right arm. A thin strip was somehow left out from the center. I have positioned the two pieces so that the gap represents the approximate size the missing piece.

Uncanny Stories v1 n1 (April 1941) Jack Kirby illustration for “Coming of the Giant Germs” by Ray Cummings

Jack also provided a small insert in the story. I doubt that it really is meant to illustrate anything in the novella. It shows nothing more then a helmeted man firing a ray gun, we cannot even see what it is the ray is striking. It truly is a small drawing and could easily be missed as Kirby’s work were it not for the hand. No stipple board this time, just brush and ink.

Uncanny Stories v1 n1 (April 1941) Jack Kirby illustration for “Man from the Wrong Time-Track” by Denis Plimmer

Not all illustrations that Kirby did for this issue of Uncanny Stories are worthy of mention. But there is this one from “Man from the Wrong Time-Track”, a very dramatic drawing of a man plummeting from a building. The man’s face is almost completely in shadows so it is hard to judge what his reaction is to his situation. The caption does not help either, “In mid-air the gigantic form seemed to stop”. Of course pulp illustrations are not really meant to help with the story, but rather to entice a viewer to buy the magazine to find out what it is all about. Jack must have been very satisfied with this illustrations, it is a rare example of a pulp with his signature.

Uncanny Stories v1 n1 (April 1941) Joe Simon illustration for “The Earth-Stealers” by Frederic Arnold Kummer, Jr.

As Timely’s art editor, Joe Simon would generally turn to other artists to provide pulp illustrations but he would on occasion produce one himself. Joe was familiar with working on stipple boards from his previous work as a newspaper artist. Perhaps that is why Joe provides more of a tonal range then Kirby normally did. This illustrations has all the right components; a damsel in distress, weird aliens, frightful weapons (electric lashes), and a mysterious machine (in the background). Nonetheless Joe does not quite pull it off and this pulp illustration is not one of his better efforts.

Uncanny Stories v1 n1 (April 1941) Alex Schomburg illustration for “Beyond Hell” by R. DeWitt Miller
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For “Beyond Hell” Simon turned to another talented artist working for Timely, Alex Schromburg. Alex was a natural for pulp illustration. As a comic book artist, cover illustrations was all Schromburg ever did, as far as I know he never drew a story. As an illustrator Alex had a well deserved reputation, particularly for producing complicated comic covers. This emphasis on complexity can be seen in Alex’s drawing for “Beyond Hell”. I have rejoined the two pieces of art by eliminating the gutter. The joint is not perfect and unfortunately combining the pieces only calls attention to how tilted the background art was. However that does not detract from the spectacle that the scientist has unleashed. German soldiers, big guns, airplanes, tanks and fighting ships all fall to the force of science. For many Americans at that time, this must have seemed what was needed to save them from being pulled into the wars that currently enveloped the world. In reality science was never as good at creating the implements of peace as it was of developing the weapons of war.

Joe and Jack had been working for Timely for a little over a half a year before working on Uncanny Stories or more significantly on Captain America. Captain America changed everything for Joe and more importantly Jack. After the first few issues of Captain America, Jack would end up drawing all the Cap stories. This along with penciling the Vision for Marvel Mystery Comics would keep Jack quite busy. Too busy to continue his pulp illustrator career.