Category Archives: Kirby Or Not

Kirby Imitating John Prentice Again

I got more of a response from my query about whether to continue posting on Kirby’s “ghosting” then I expected. Let me be frank, these are probably the poorest examples of Kirby art that you are likely to find. Because Kirby was imitating another artist he would give up much of what we admire about his artistry. At the same time Jack just was not very successful at adopting the other artist’s style. The shortness of the pieces and their marginal nature does not help much either. Although they are not great works of art, I still find them fascinating. It is interesting to see what Jack would keep, what he would let go, and what he would try to adapt.

Anyway my game plan is to do a couple posts each of Kirby imitating two other artists. Also an example which I believe is Joe Simon doing the ghosting. Then perhaps a more casual examination of some other content pages.

True Bride-To-Be #20
True Bride-To-Be #20 (October 1956) “Homecoming” page 1, pencils and inks by John Prentice

Newlyweds start their life in a small town. Originally the wife as a city girl and she finds life in a small town difficult. She struggles as best she can but the feeling of isolation takes its toll. Just as she decides to return to her family in the city things make a turn for the better. People, including her husband, begin to realize how difficult it has been for her and start to provide support.

A very different splash by John Prentice then the last one I reviewed (First Love #70). But still a real nice design and a great segue into the story. Once again Prentice leaves out a normal panel boarder. But this time he also leaves out some of the background as well, in particular the walls. Not all of it is eliminated, we can still see a view of the outside through the open door. Not much there, just a picket fence, a small house and some trees. (And this time picket fence does not refer to an inking technique). Just this simple view is all what we need to place the story in some small town. The man carrying the woman over the threshold is pretty much completes the visual introduction.

True Bride-To-Be #20
True Bride-To-Be #20 (October 1956) Contents page, pencils by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon

This content pages follows the most common pattern, a splash panel (in this case not much bigger then the rest of the panels) and a short introduction for the feature story.

The splash panel is a close copy of from the third panel of the first page. Well in this case close means without much change in the posture. That hardly means that it is a good enough copy to really look like a Prentice. Still the woman is closer to John’s version then found in the introduction story. The splash does not provide much to go on but it does not look like Kirby’s work. The inking does not look like Jack’s either but it could be by Joe Simon. Because of that and in view of previous examples of contents, I am going to attribute the splash to Joe.

The introduction is once more a prelude to the feature story. Showing how the couple met and fell in love. Yeah it really is superfluous but at least it does not spoil the story much.

Ignore superficial traits such as eyebrows we can see some typical Kirby poses and layouts. Also some typical Kirby rendition of architecture. Jack even uses a similar architectural drawing style for penciling the interiors. I feel confident that this is Kirby “ghosting” for Prentice. But it is another not so good imitation. This time Jack does the best job on the man’s eyes. Eyebrows are not so well copied but at least they are closer to art by Prentice then they are to that by Bill Draut. The woman still has Jack’s preference for a triangular face with widely separated eyes. Not at all the longer, more oval face and closer eyes that Prentice preferred.

Kirby Imitating John Prentice

First Love #70
First Love #70 (November 1956) “Paid In Full” page 1, pencils and inks by John Prentice

It is a dark and stormy night that we find our heroine. Alone and unsure as to what to do or where to go, she still is determine not return home. Looking out from a bridge (no mention of suicide but you got to wonder if that was the suggestion) a policeman confronts her. Rather then taking her in (as a vagrant?) he takes her to a boarding house run by an elderly lady. With the help of the cop and the landlady, our heroine begins a new life. A romance begins with the policeman. The lady is unsure about revealing her past to her love. However the cop has such high standards that she decides to keep it a secret. What this secret actual consists of is finally revealed when her brother suddenly appears. The brother is a criminal and is on the lam from the law. It was the discovery of that fact that originally led our heroine to leave home. The lady finally reveals her past to the policeman, but not about the actual presence of her brother. He is outraged because she is not the good person he thought she was. He breaks off there relationship. Later he has second thoughts and goes to her home. The brother pulls a gun but the lady prevents its use. A fight ensues between the criminal and the cop, which of course the cop wins. Afterwards the cop expresses his regrets and asks forgiveness, which the lady gives.

As usual, Prentice did an outstanding job on the art for this story. Particularly nice is his handling of the start of the story. The woman is alone, at the mercy of her inhospitable environment. A good visual presentation of her inner turmoil and despair as describe by the writer. The splash panel starts it off just right by rejecting a normal panel border and instead providing an rough edge to the art. John had a more realistic approach then most comic book artists. As seen in this example, John did not depend on that naturalism alone. He had a good sense of design and story telling as well.

First Love #70
First Love #70 (November 1956) Content page, art by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon

The content page for FL #70 follows the same sort of pattern I posted about for FL #68 and FL #69. That is Jack Kirby providing a short story introduction to the comic’s feature story. As before Kirby is purposely imitating the feature artist. For FL #70 the introduction story is quite short, only three panels. Therefore there is less to go on for the correct attribution. Forearmed with previous examples of Kirby “ghosting” we know to ignore some superficial traits such as the eyebrows. So even with what little we have it looks like Jack was the actual penciler.

The Prentice imitation really does not come off that well. Actually the previous Draut imitations were not that close either. Draut’s very stylized eyebrows stand out in his art. Do a good imitation of the eyebrows and other inaccuracies get unnoticed. Prentice, on the other hand, did not have any single outstanding trait. All of his style’s traits must be mastered in order to make a good pseudo-Prentice. Jack succeeds most in the brother in panel 3, and to a lesser extend the father in panel 2. Kirby completely misses with the woman. This best seen in panel 3. Prentice’s females have a sophisticated beauty. This is due in part to the eyes being closer together and the face being longer and more oval. Jack’s version still has the more widely separated eyes and triangular face that he favors. Surprisingly all the eyebrows are closer to Bill Draut’s art then they are to Prentice’s manner.

Not all failure to provide a good imitation of Prentice can be laid on Jack. It seems to me that the inker has to take some of the “credit”. In FL #68 and #69 there was not enough of the inking for me to be certain who did it, although it clearly was not Draut. In FL #70 there is more then enough spotting to say that Jack did not do this inking. I am not certain, but some of it looks like Joe Simon’s work. Perhaps someday I should do an analysis of Simon’s spotting techniques. (I can see my readership dropping to even greater depths).

Before I leave the topic of the introductory story I would like to add a short comment on its use. Frankly in this case I think this was a really bad idea. A lot of the impact of the actual feature story rests on not providing the reason for the lady’s plight for most of the story. This effect is completely destroyed by the introduction which provides the explanation. This not only ruins the start of the story but makes story’s explanation repetitious.

First Love #70
First Love #70 (November 1956) “Paid In Full”, panel 3 of page 4, pencils and inks by John Prentice

The splash panel of the contents page was clearly not done by Jack. At a glance it would seem to have been done by John Prentice. Since previously we have seen Simon do close copies from the story art I went looking to see if that were true here as well. Sure enough the woman is from panel 3 of page 4. In this case the copy is so close that I really cannot see any distinctive Simon traits. There is a significant deviation in the exaggeration done in the lady’s eyebrows, but that cannot be considered characteristic of Simon. Because this sort of copying was previously Joe’s modus operandi for the First Love content page, I am going to attribute this swiping to him as well. Besides some of the inking looks like Joe’s.

Jack Kirby Swiping From Bill Draut

First Love #68
First Love #68 (September 1956) “Forbidden To Love Him”, page 1, pencils and inks by Bill Draut

A young lady meets a man at a dance and quickly falls in love. Early in the relationship the man tells the woman that he is an Indian. The lady is surprised and then ashamed at her response. She loves him and wants to marry him. On her return home she finds her parents waiting. They have heard from neighbors that her date was an Indian and they insists she stop seeing him. Of course she refuses and the conflict at home continues. The man gives a speech at a bond rally before the entire town. It is revealed that he is a war hero. He gives an impassioned speech about the importance of foreigners in the history of America and the true meaning of freedom. The town is ashamed about their treatment of the man and the couple wed with everyone’s approval.

The story of “Forbidden To Love Him” is based in Oklahoma and the chief character is an Indian. Nevertheless it is hard not to a consider this story a more universal condemnation of the racial or ethnic intolerance in much of America during the 50’s. It is a topic that Simon and Kirby had touched on in “Different” (Young Romance #30, February 1951). But their version was much more circumvent and not nearly as bold as this story. “Forbidden To Love Him” may have been a little heavy handed but it effectively highlighted the hypocrisy involved.

First Love #68
First Love #68 (September 1956) contents page, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Jack Kirby?

As with FL #69 we have a contents page with an introductory story that at a casual glance could appear to be the work of Bill Draut. In FL #69 the story was a sort of prequel to the feature story. Here in FL #68 it is more like the comic equivalent of a movie trailer. We have less to work with in determining the correct attribution because in four panels all we have are the couple with limited background. Still once you ignore the Draut style eyebrows Kirby characteristics keep popping out. The poses for panels 3 and 4 look particularly like Kirby’s and not the way Draut would have done it. I am discounting Joe Simon’s as the penciller because FL #69 provided examples of both Joe and Jack copying Draut. The art in FL #68 contents page matches Kirby’s version of Draut then it does Simon’s.

First Love #68
First Love #68 (September 1956) “Forbidden To Love Him”, page 5 panel 1, pencils and inks by Bill Draut

The last panel of the introduction story is more complicated and provides more clues as to Kirby’s involvement. In places Jack seems to forget that he is supposed to be imitating Draut and some faces look like pure Kirby. What is particularly surprising about this panel is that it is a swipe from one that Bill did in the story. Bill’s original depicted the crowd’s shame as the man revealed his wartime heroism. Jack has converted the scene to town’s anger about the coming marriage. But there is no mistaking the derivation because the lady’s father and mother have the same positions. The bride-to-be herself was left out by Jack because it would not have been appropriate for her to share the town’s anger. It is interesting to compare Bill and Jack’s approach to the crowd. Bill provides more people and arranges them to regularly diminish in size as we go from front to back. Jack draws fewer individuals and we are less aware of the size of the crowd because we cannot see the back. By doing this Kirby is able to provide clearer representation of the emotions for the people he does shows. In the comments to FL #69 Stan Taylor correctly remarked how the architecture looked like Kirby’s. This panel in FL #68 does not provide as many buildings but it still is interesting to compare Jack’s method to how Bill handle’s architecture.

Bill Draut And His Imitator, Jack Kirby

First Love #69
First Love #69 (October 1956) “Remember, I’m Your Girl”, page 1, pencils and inks by Bill Draut

With the period having 1956 cover dates Kirby was pretty much the only artist working on the Prize romance titles (Young Romance, Young Love and Young Brides). During this time Bill Draut and John Prentice who had previously been doing work for those titles began to appear regularly in the Harvey romance books instead. “Remember, I’m Your Girl” is typical of the work Draut did for Harvey. Bill still had an distinct style particularly characterized by simple but prominent eyebrows.

This a story about a man (Joe), his sister (Annie), and a former friend (Phil). Joe is now a successful politician and his sister is enjoying the financial fruits of that success. There is an approaching election and his position is being threatened by Phil, a rival candidate. Years before all three were good friends so Joe asks Annie to reconnect with Phil in order to find some weakness. His sister refuses but runs into Phil by accident and a romance develops. Joe wins the election but the sister continues her romance. When Joe confronts Annie to choose between her previous financial rewards or the rival, she chooses Phil.

First Love #69
First Love #69 (October 1956) contents page, pencils by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, inks by Joe Simon?

Joe Simon was probably working for Harvey as an editor at this time. I generally do not consider works such as “Remember, I’m Your Girl” as Simon and Kirby productions. The format and length match Harvey romance stories from well before Joe’s time as Harvey editor. However something unusual happened in FL #68 and FL #69. Generally Harvey romances has a content page with at most a portion of the splash for each story. In FL #68 and #69 the content pages had a short original art that served as an introduction to the featured story.

For First Love #69 the feature story was Bill Draut’s “Remember, I’m Your Girl”. The same characters that appear in the feature story are presented here. The text makes it clear that the trio are shown in the earlier days while they were all still friends. A casual glance at the introduction story could result in attributing it to Bill as well. What particularly stands out are the simple but prominent eyebrows, which as I said was a Draut trait. A close examination reveals that the faces are not quite like Draut would do them, particularly in the story panels. There is not much to go but the spot inking does not look like Draut’s either. But I do not think it is just the case of some other artist inking Draut’s pencils. The layouts in the introduction story are not quite like Bill’s.

It is the layouts that provide a suggestion who the real artist was. In the first panel Joe is shown lighting up a cigarette. This is a typical Kirby theme and pose. In panels 2 to 4 the main speakers are placed in the front while those not speaking are placed in the background. This is a typical Kirby layout. Even the way Annie looks over Phil’s shoulder as they embrace is a typical Kirby pose. Although the artist tried to draw the characters like Bill Draut did he really could not completely adopt Bill’s more stylized pencils. Keeping in mind that he is imitating Draut, a close look at the faces suggests Kirby was the penciler.

First Love #69
First Love #69 (October 1956) “Remember, I’m Your Girl”, page 4 panel 1, pencils and inks by Bill Draut

In the past I have often warned about using some Kirby-esque features for attributing a work to Jack. Joe Simon was also familiar with Kirby’s techniques and was pretty good at mimicking most of them. If you ignore the attempt to copy Draut’s style, the number of Kirby-isms seems rather high even for Joe. But look at the drawing of Annie that appears in the bottom of the contents panel. It appears to be the done by yet another artist. A search of the actual story shows that the contents drawing was swiped the first panel of page 4. It would seem to be a reasonable deduction that Joe Simon did the contents drawing. If that is true then he was not have been responsible for the penciling of the introduction story.

The possibility of Kirby ghosting another artist was brought up recently by Bob H. in a comment to All-Star Western #99. I do not know if what Jack did for FL #69 introduction story would properly be called ghosting. It was not a case of fooling the editor, Joe was also involved in copying Draut on the content page. Nor was Draut a regular artist recognized by the reading public. Harvey romances are all unsigned and the artist used for the feature story would change. This was just a case of trying to maintain visual continuity between the contents page and the feature story. Imitating another artist was not something Jack did very often. Although his Draut was not perfect, it was good enough to fool many.

Kirby Or Not, Young Romance #84

Young Romance #84
Young Romance #84 (October 1956)

The Jack Kirby Checklist does not include the cover for Young Romance #84 among works by this artist. Unlike my previous post on YR #85 in this case I can understand why. The woman has an angular face which is not typical of Jack’s work. The man’s face is of no help because it is almost completely hidden. But the man’s overly large ear is one clue. In earlier years, particularly while working for DC, Jack always seemed to make large ears for heads viewed from the back. Later Kirby seemed to make a conscious effort to correct this. But he would still slip into his old habit from time to time as in this cover. Another Kirby touch, although by no means unique to him, is the perspective view provided here. Jack was the master of the use of perspective. But for me it is the couple looking up on the left that provides the best evidence that this cover was penciled by Kirby. Despite their small size, or perhaps because of it, they seem to be classic examples of Jack’s distinctive background figures.

YR #84 was one of the comics from the period where Kirby was doing almost the entire comics for all the Prize romances. Previously in “The End of Simon & Kirby” I posted on this period. In that blog post I commented that some of the outline inking in these all Kirby romances seems to have been done by Bill Draut. Although it is difficult to be sure, I suspect Bill may also have done outline inking for the YR #84 cover. The simplicity of the woman’s eyebrows reminds me of Draut. I hasten to add that woman’s face it not due to Bill. Although not typical of Kirby, the woman is even less typical of Draut. In particular Bill preferred much longer eyebrows. The spot inking for this cover was not done in Bill’s own manner either. Most of the spot inking for the all Kirby romances seems to have been done by Jack himself and I think that is true for this cover as well. Inking for the all Kirby romances ranges from the exceptionally beautiful to the rather poor. My suspicion is that with all the work Jack was doing sometimes he was quite rushed and the inking would therefore either suffer or be minimal. The inking for YR #84 is an example of a job done well but with limited amounts of spotting.

The main part of the story depicted on the covers is pretty obvious, the ladder indicates that the man and woman are about to elope. I am less clear about the part played by the couple on the left. With the bags in front of them it is certain that they are not just on lookers. Either this is going to be a double marriage (the bags are theirs) or they are going as witnesses (the bags belong to the foreground couple). In either case the car that will be used to take them all away is parked behind them. Like most Simon and Kirby covers this one is carefully crafted. But it is constructed to best tell the story, not to be the equivalent of a snapshot. The ladder the man is on is way to far to the right of the window. It is hard to believe that the woman could safely transfer to the ladder. But placing the ladder correctly in relationship to the window would mean the man would also be moved more to our left. This would be disastrous to the composition, all the figures would be on one side of the cover while the other would be pretty much bare. Correcting the ladder placement would also mean covering the background couple and hurt the story that the cover is meant to tell.

Kirby Or Not, Young Romance #85

Young Romance #85
Young Romance #85 (December 1956) by Jack Kirby

I have renamed this topic from “Not Kirby” to “Kirby Or Not”. The title was fine originally since most of my post were about entries in the Jack Kirby Checklist that attributed work to Jack that was actually done by other artists. But lately I have delt with some work actually done by Kirby that was not included in the Checklist. The greatest majority of errors in the Checklist are those that falsely attribute work to Jack, but there are some of the opposite mistakes. I believe this imbalance is due to the fact that most experts look for “signs” of Kirby but fail to look for indications typical of other artists. Jack Kirby was much respected among artists and influenced their work either directly (swiping), indirectly (model), or all the grades between. Since experts are not always carefully watching for indications of other artist “fingerprints”, the tendency will be to err on the side of falsely attributing work to Kirby.

This particular cover comes toward the end of the Simon and Kirby collaboration. Previously they had tried to launch their own comic publishing company called Mainline. During the Mainline period Jack stopped penciling anything for the Prize romance comics, although I believe S&K still produced these comics. I suspect the business effort involved in Mainline was more then Joe could handle and so required Jack’s involvement also. Artists like Ann Brewster, Joe Albistur and John Prentice would take the place in these romance comics of the missing Kirby. But when Mainline finally failed Jack returned to doing work for Prize romances with a vengeance. For about a year Kirby would do pretty much all the art for Young Romance, Young Love and Young Brides. Such all Kirby comics were pretty unusual and had only occurred once before when S&K turned Headline into a crime genre comic. In the case of Headline all Kirby comics were done because Joe and Jack were trying to start up their studio after a previous failed attempt (Stuntman and Boy Explorers Comics). Once Headline was shown to be successful S&K began to use other artists. The late all Kirby romances was probably a similar attempt to restore the studio after the Mainline failure. If so it was not successful and Jack would begin doing freelance work for DC and Atlas.

I do not know why the Checklist missed attributing this cover to Jack. It seems a pretty obvious Kirby to me. I am not sure who did the inking but it was not the greatest job. The poor inking does have the affect of hiding Jack’s more subtle penciling. But the elderly man appears to be one of Kirby’s stock background characters.

Although not the best romance cover that Jack penciled I am still rather fond of it. It is pretty obvious that the humor was supposed to be the waitress so intent on the kiss that she fails to stop pouring the coffee. But for me the real humor is the old man. I love the way he stuffs his face with the piece of bread as he observes the couple.

Not Kirby, Adventure #98

Adventure #98
Adventure #98 (October 1945) by Gil Kane?

Recently Tom Morehouse disagreed with my posting that the cover for KO Komics #1 was not done by Kirby. In his comment Tom also added:

Another example of an unfinished Kirby cover left behind and completed by another is Adventure Comics #98. There Kirby drew the “caveman” (who looks a lot like Brooklyn of the BC) and large animal heads but the rest of the cover was done by another (Gil Kane perhaps?).

Adventure #98
Adventure #98 (October 1945) by Gil Kane?

The Jack Kirby Checklist also attributes the caveman to Jack, but does not mention the animal heads. It is hard to say much about these animal heads, at least with any conviction. Jack was even less accurate with his anatomy of animals then he was with people. Still his animals seem to have a real presence. These heads just do not seem to capture that sort of Kirby “life”. But I suppose I would be willing to accept Jack as the artist for the animals if I could agree with attribution of the caveman. I have little doubt that the origin of the running figure was Jack. I just think it was swiped from Kirby and not some unfinished piece by him. The figure looks like it was originally pretty complete. Then why did the inker (who based on other work appears to be the same artist as the penciler) ignore Jacks penciling to provide the botched version of the left hand. Look at the caveman’s ear, it is normal in overall size but has a very fat edge. That type of fat ear is typical of this artist. On the other hand Kirby would not draw fat ears but when viewed from behind like this figure would make excessively large ears (see cover to Adventure #88 below). But even if you are willing place the blame for these faults on a bad inker that would not explain the lower right arm. Here once again we find an artist that has broken the form in a way that Kirby never seemed to do. These sort of errors are more easily explained as a less talented artist doing a swipe from a Kirby figure.

Adventure #88
Adventure #88 (October 1943) by Jack Kirby

I believe Tom is correct in suggesting Gil Kane’s involvement. Normally I would find it hard to accept that such a poor artist (who also did work on other Adventure covers and Sandman stories) was the same as the incredibly talented Gil Kane. But I have heard it said a number of times that Gil started as a rather bad artist and at one point decided to improve himself with rather spectacular results. I have also read interviews where Gil said that he originally worked for S&K and later did some of their features while they were off in the military. So I suspect this really was done by Gil.

Whatever the history of this piece, the finished cover is truly bizarre. What were the bad guys doing hanging onto the animal heads? Why was the caveman wearing a hat? Even more, why was does he seem to take the center stage as the hero, while Sandman and Sandy cower in the lower corner? I usual do not like a cover that does not “tell” a clear story. But this one is such a collection of weird combinations that it has become the comic book equivalent of surrealism. I may not understand what is happening but it still captures my interest. In its goofiness it has become a masterpiece.

Not Kirby, KO #1, Round Three

Star Spangled #7
Star Spangled #7 (April 1942)

Scholar Stan Taylor has added his own comment on the cover to KO Komics #1

I was always under the impression that the KO Komics cover was a swipe from a panel from Star Spangled #7, page 11. The lower left panel. I thought the swiper just redrew the right arm straight.

Unless two pieces of comic art are nearly identical or share some unusual feature, it can sometimes be difficult to be sure if we are dealing with a swipe or not. I provide an image of the panel in question to let the readers decide for themselves. Just scroll down to yesterday’s post to see the KO #1 and the SS #50 images.

Whether or not SS #7 was the original to KO #1 and SS #50, it does provide a good example of how Jack Kirby would handle some features. The first thing to note is the differences of how the figure’s left leg attaches to the hip. My interpretation of Jack’s rendition is that the upper thigh is brought only slightly forward but it is also brought out to the side. This provides a good pose to show the Guardian as crouching away from the light beam. But crouching is not correct for the slugging Guardian for SS #50 and KO #1. Perhaps because of this both show the left thigh brought much more forward and not to the side to provide a pivot for the swing. To me it looks like they made the attachment between hip and leg much too high, particularly in KO #1.

As Tom Morehouse pointed that in SS #50, or the original model sheet if it existed, the lower legs are cut off. When the KO #1 artist drew the legs he broke the form in a way Kirby would never do. This is particularly true with the figure’s left leg. Kirby’s example arcs from the knee to what I interpret as the start of the foot with the ankle just providing a minor deviation on one side. In KO #1 we find a similar arcing leg that suddenly deviates to the opposite direction (the ankle?), then reversing again for a short distance before meeting the foot. The right leg actually shows the same thing just not as exaggerated. But notice that Kirby does not show all of the feet. Could the KO #1 artist misidentified the feet as the ankles and then added feet to that? Actually this might be evidence to support Stan’s impression.

Not Kirby, KO #1 Returns

KO Komics #1
KO #1 (October 1945)

I previously expressed my belief that despite what the Kirby Checklist says the KO #1 cover was not done by Jack. Well Tom Morehouse added a comment to that post giving an opposing view. Tom is a fine Kirby scholar and made some interesting observations.

I have to strongly disagree with you on this one. If you remove the lower legs (knees down) the punch trail, helmet wings and cape what you have is a Kirby rendition of the Guardian from Star Spangled which has been altered in the inking process by a less than adept artist. What this, in all likelihood was originally, is an incomplete cover or model sheet sketch left behind when S & K went to serve in the military. The exact same illo of the Guardian figure, drawn by another artist, can be found in Star Spangled #50 published at around the same time (with a correct punch trail coming from over the shoulder and down as opposed to across). K.O. #1 was produced by Jason Comic Art (JCA), the same shop which would later produce the JC Penney giveaway 48 Famous Americans. It is a stand alone cover as there is no such character in the interior stories In addition to what’s been added, a close examination of the figure’s left hand shows erasure (of the Guardian’s shield). Both Jim Vadaboncouer and I have noted this and although the evidence is circumstantial I think dismissing this as not by Kirby is incorrect although who the other artist is will remain a mystery. It might have been someone working at DC who, knowing S & K were returning soon, took it, “finished” it and sold it to JCA but the original figure was drawn by Jack just never finished. Another example of an unfinished Kirby cover left behind and completed by another is Adventure Comics #98. There Kirby drew the “caveman” (who looks a lot like Brooklyn of the BC) and large animal heads but the rest of the cover was done by another (Gil Kane perhaps?).

Star Spangled #50
Star Spangled #50 (November 1945) panel from page 11 by unidentified artist

Above I provide an image of the panel Tom referred to. There can be no doubt that there is some kind of history connecting these two works. It cannot be a simple swiping one from the other because both comics were published within a month of one another. Yes there is something funny about the hero’s left hand, although I am not so sure that the erasing of the shield would explain it. In fact the KO #1 artist draws the left arm so close to the leg that it is hard to believe that there was room for a shield. That alone makes KO #1 look more like a swipe then an original drawing done by Jack. However the Guardian wore a peculiar helmet and one depicted in KO #1 is a good match once you take away the wings. I have no doubt that Tom is right that KO #1 is based on a drawing of the Guardian. That being the case the connection between SS #50 and KO #1 must be in DC. There are possibilities other then a model sheet that might explain the relationship between these two images. However even if the model sheet theory is accepted that by no means proves Kirby’s involvement. By this time Jack had been in the military for about 2 years and other artists had been involved in working on the Newsboy Legion. A model sheet or cover proposal could easily have been made by an artist other then Jack.

Tom believes that the original model sheet was not completed below the knees. That would explain away my original statement that the legs were clearly not done by Jack. But it would not explain the problems with the upper part of the figure. As I said in my original post, this sort of straight arm swing looks wrong for Kirby. Jack excelled at representation of a slugging hero and used it often, but I can think of no Kirby example like that of KO #1. There are problems with the drawing for the upper part of the figure as well, although they are not as severe as the legs. The hero on KO #1 was given a hunchback. The upper arm is unnaturally short and the lower edge cuts in as it approaches the elbow in a way that breaks the form. The lower arm is excessively long and appears to have a extra joint. Perhaps this is just the artist attempt at doing the gloves but it just looks unnatural. Jack’s anatomy was not accurate and his proportions were often off but he would never make these mistakes in the form. Also examine the fingers on the figures right fist. There is a dramatic decrease in size along the row as the artist attempts, but fails, to depict a natural hand. A famous Kirby mannerism is to draw square fists so he would not have done such a relatively small pinkie. The artist for the SS #50 story is not anywhere near as good as Kirby but even he avoids these errors. These are not just inking errors but display the same lack of understanding that the artist showed on the legs. I am sure the entire figure was drawn by the same artist and that artist was not Jack Kirby. The KO #1 artist swiped from some source that ultimately came from DC, but the straight arm swing convinces me that even the source of the swipe was not Jack.

Providing a connection of KO #1 to the Guardian from the Newsboy Legion does not automatically give a connection to Kirby. The attribution must still rest on the KO #1 art itself. I find that evidence more than sufficient to state that it was not done by Jack Kirby.

In his comment Tom’s also mentions the cover to Adventure #98. I had planned to eventually post on that cover, but this gives me a reason to do it sooner rather then later. So stay tuned!

Not Kirby, KO #1

KO Komics #1
KO #1 (October 1945)

I apologize for using an unrestored image for the cover of KO #1. The art for the cover is so poor I am unwilling to spend the time to restore it. Add to that the fact that the cover was not actually done by Jack Kirby. The most obvious sign that this was not done by Jack are the lower legs and ankles, particularly his left one. The outline is so sinuous that the form is broken. Jack was not accurate in his anatomy but he would not damage the structure like this artist has. Another feature not seen in works by Jack is the stiff arm swing, it is just too awkward. One final point although perhaps it is not as convincing as the other evidence. Jack had done only two covers using an oversized figure, at this point in his career Jack had stopped using that device.