Tag Archives: george

Art of Romance, Chapter 19, More Artists

Posted on August 21, 2009 by Harry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted in 2009/08, 5 Studio, Art of Romance, Artists, Draut, Bill, Kirby, Jack, Meskin, Mort, Prentice, John, Prize, Serial Posts, Severin, John, z Archive | Tagged Andru, Bill, Draut, george, Jack, John, Kirby, meskin, Mort, Prentice, Ross, roussos | 4 Comments

Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 4, Another Hit

Posted on August 14, 2009 by Harry

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

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

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

Black Magic #10

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

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

Black Magic #11

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

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

Black Magic #11

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

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

Black Magic #9

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

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

Black Magic #9

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

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

Black Magic #11

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

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

Black Magic #10

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

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

Black Magic #9

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

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

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

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

Black Magic #11

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

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

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

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

Posted in 2009/08, 5 Studio, Artists, Draut, Bill, Kirby, Jack, Meskin, Mort, Periods, Prentice, John, Prize, Stein, Marvin, z Archive | Tagged Bill, Black, Draut, george, Jack, John, Kirby, Magic, marvin, meskin, Mort, Prentice, roussos, stein | 3 Comments

Art of Romance, Chapter 18, Meskin Takes Over

Posted on July 31, 2009 by Harry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted in 2009/07, 5 Studio, Art of Romance, Artists, Draut, Bill, Kirby, Jack, Meskin, Mort, Prentice, John, Prize, Serial Posts, z Archive | Tagged Bill, Draut, george, Jack, Joe, John, Kirby, love, meskin, Mort, Prentice, romance, roussos, Simon, Young | 1 Comment

Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 2, Up and Running

Posted on May 23, 2009 by Harry

(April to August 1951, Black Magic #4 – #6)

Black Magic #4 to #6 were released during the same period as Boys’ Ranch #4 to #6 (for Harvey Comics). Both titles were bimonthlies which mean that the greatest amount of work produced by the Simon and Kirby studio was for Young Romance and Young Love both of which were monthlies. This is not at all unusual for while Simon and Kirby are most famous for their superheroes most of the work they did during their collaboration was for love comics.

The period discussed in this chapter roughly corresponds with chapter 15 of my serial post The Art of Romance.

While Jack Kirby did all the covers for Black Magic (as he would throughout the first run) in terms of the number of pages drawn he was not the primary artist for Black Magic like he was in the earlier issues. That honors now went to Mort Meskin who did 37 pages compared to Jack’s 17 pages. Even Bill Draut with 18 pages of art did more then Kirby. But even Bill was not the second most prolific artist in the issues covered; surprisingly that would go to the newcomer George Roussos who did 20 pages. Vic Donahue who has been absent from Simon and Kirby productions for some months does a single 5 page story. John Prentice is new to the studio and only provides a single 7 page story. Two stories remain without attributions but one of them is a single page feature.

Black Magic #4 (April 1951) “Voodoo on Tenth Avenue”, art by Jack Kirby

Kirby has scaled back on his splash for his only large piece for Black Magic. Still even with half a page Jack could get a lot of impact. It is amazing how Kirby has managed to make the woman both beautiful and evil; no haggard witch here is just a cold and angry heart. What a text book example of the use of abstract arch shadows (see my Inking Glossary). I count 6 of them in this small splash.

Black Magic #5 (June 1951) “The World of Spirits”, art by Jack Kirby

While Kirby’s other contribution to Black Magic #4 to #6 were very short pieces one of them, “The World of Spirits” is not to be neglected. It is a small masterpiece. It is one of those cases where Jack, so famous for his action, has managed to make exciting art out of nothing more then talking heads. Part of what makes a page like the one shown above so vital is how Kirby changes the expressions in every panel. Since the characters are all past their youth Jack can push his already exaggerated eyebrows to much advantage. The inking is also superb. I am not one to automatically attribute good inking jobs to Kirby but the way the spotting is done on the white shirt in the splash and the use of bold cloth folds make me believe that at least much of the spotting was done by Jack himself. A lot of the times these very short pieces just did not seem to get the same attention from the various studio artists as they gave to the more substantial stories. But not Kirby; some of his greatest masterpieces are short stories such as this one.

Black Magic #4 (April 1951) “The Dead Don’t Really Die”, art by Mort Meskin

I am afraid I am giving short shift to Mort Meskin by only including one example despite the fact that he produced far more work then any other artist. This certainly does not reflect on the quality of the work that Mort was producing; Meskin’s Black Magic work is among the best that he ever did. I admit that Mort did some great work for DC after leaving the Simon and Kirby studio but that unfortunately was done under the severely detrimental effects of Comic Code censoring.

I have selected this particular splash page because of its unusual design. Not that the half page splash is so visually different but the fact that the splash panel is actually the first story panel. Typically splash panels are used as the comic book equivalent of a movie trailer; they provide a sort of a synopsis of the story to entice the reader. I do not remember a story splash panel being used in any prior Simon and Kirby production. The use of this device in “The Dead Don’t Really Die” is still pretty much an isolated case but it would become very typical of Simon and Kirby romance comics in the future.

Black Magic #4 (April 1951) “The Jonah”, art by Bill Draut

Black Magic seems to have given Bill Draut the confidence to draw the type of characters that had all but disappeared from his romance work. You normally would not see something like the sailor with the white hat in Bill’s love stories at this time. The splash panel is also something not to be seen in a romance work. How seedy can you get? Beat up trash cans, littered bottles and yeah I am sure that man in the background is just asking directions from the woman. Note the building on our right; the way the bricks are roughly inked as solid black is a mannerism often used by Draut.

Black Magic #5 (June 1951) “Justice for the Dead”, art by John Prentice

I am not sure why but John Prentice did not seem to do as much work for Black Magic as compared to what he did for the romance titles. It certainly is not because he did a poor job on them; quite the contrary. “Justice for the Dead” is a typical Black Magic piece but with a crime slant that shows that John would have made a great crime comic book artist. He had previously worked for Hillman so perhaps he had done some drawing in that genre there. The GCD lists Prentice as also having worked in Gang Busters and Mr. District Attorney for DC but I have not yet verified that. Years later John would do some work for Simon and Kirby’s Police Trap and later yet take over the syndication detective strip Rip Kirby. My knowledge of John Prentice work outside of the Simon and Kirby studio is sadly incomplete but I am working on rectifying that defect.

Black Magic #5 (June 1951) “The Face from The Future”, art by George Roussos

BM #3 (February) marked the earliest appearance of pencils by George Roussos in a Simon and Kirby production. Despite having two stories in that BM #5 and one in the next issue, it is odd that Roussos has not yet appeared in either Young Romance or Young Love. Since George did a lot of inking and was well known to Joe and Jack there is the possibility that he has help with inking Kirby’s work prior to this but I have seen nothing that confirms that conjecture. That Simon and Kirby both knew Roussos is indicated by a sketches both did for him in 1942 (Joe did Hitler in a zoot suite (Poking Fun at Hitler) and Jack did the Boy Commands (A Belated Happy Birthday to Jack Kirby). George also knew Mort Meskin and had inked some of Mort’s work for DC (Early Mort Meskin).

As often happens in Simon and Kirby productions, George Roussos’ splash for “The Face from the Future” uses some inking technique that seemed borrowed from the Studio Style inking. In this case we find picket fence crosshatching (Inking Glossary) on the hooded figure and a rounded shadow in the upper right corner. However it is clearly Roussos doing the inking and not Joe or Jack touching it up. While there is classical picket fence crosshatching on the right ghostly figure it changes as it proceeds to the left and becomes an inking technique not found in the Studio Style. There the shadow is built with short strokes that initially look like the pickets from the picket fence crosshatching but without the rails. The rounded shadow in the upper corner has a ragged edge that again is not typical of the way it usually is done in the Studio Style.

Black Magic #6 (August 1951) “The Girl the Earth Ate Up”, art by George Roussos

George does such a great job on the splash for “The Girl the Earth Ate Up” I could not resist including it. Do not get me wrong Roussos pencils and inking are on the crude side but his use of blacks makes it really work.

Black Magic #6 (August 1951) “A Wolf That Hummed a Nursery Rhyme”, art by Vic Donahue

Vic Donahue has not been appearing in Simon and Kirby productions for a while and this is the only work that I have assigned to him for 1951. It is an odd story and it allows Vic to draw the type of characters that would not have been appropriate for romance work. Even so I just cannot get enthusiastic about Donahue’s effort. Vic was one of the lesser talents in the Simon and Kirby studio and now that all three of the usual suspects (Bill Draut, Mort Meskin and John Prentice) are present Donahue will rarely appear again if at all (my database has no more entries for him after this one).

Black Magic #5 (June 1951) “Follow Me”, art by unidentified artist

There is one Black Magic artist from this period that I have not been able to identify but he does a nice job on “Follow Me”. Good characterization, excellent inking and good graphic story telling.

The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 1 (#1 – 3), Expanding Their Fields

Posted in 2009/05, 5 Studio, Donahue, Vic, Draut, Bill, Kirby, Jack, Meskin, Mort, Periods, Prentice, John, Prize, z Archive | Tagged Bill, Black, donahue, Draut, george, Jack, Joe, John, Kirby, Magic, meskin, Mort, Prentice, roussos, Simon, vic | 2 Comments

The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 1, Expanding Their Fields

Posted on March 14, 2009 by Harry

(October 1950 to February 1951, Black Magic #1 – #3)

In the early part of 1950 Simon and Kirby had established their studio and were producing comics with a relative small but generally talented group of artists. Their most important, perhaps only, product were two monthly romance titles, Young Romance and Young Love. I do not believe Joe and Jack were still producing the Prize crime titles (Headline and Justice Traps the Guilty) but if they were their involvement was minimal and coming to an end. Few of the studio artists found in the romance titles contributed to the crime titles. Further Jack Kirby would provide some cover art for the crime titles but no interior stories. Simon and Kirby’s deal with Prize for the romance titles was very lucrative but the two were always ambitious and keen to try new challenges.

Young Romance #23 (July 1950) house ad, art by Jack Kirby

The July issues of Young Romance and Young Love featured a full page house ad for a new Prize title, Black Magic. The ad does not provide a date for the first issue but it would be three months before it was released. Synopsis and titles are given for four stories all of which would be in BM #1 although “I’ll Never Sleep Again” was renamed “Last Second of Life”. The cover illustrated was never published. It is one of three versions that I am aware of (another was eventually published, with some additions, on a DC reprint comic). Despite all their efforts, in the end the cover was replaced with one based on the “My Dolly is the Devil” story. The cover title logo would also be modified when the comic was finally released.

Black Magic #2 (December 1950) “The Scorn of the Faceless People”, art by Jack Kirby

The modus operandi for new Simon and Kirby titles was for a lot of the art to have been drawn by Jack at least for the first couple of issues. This was not true for Black Magic. While Jack was the primary artist and provided more pages of art (41 pages) then the other artists (Meskin was the second most used with 24 pages) the difference was not as great as usually found in the initial issues for a new title. One explanation is provided by Mark Evanier (introduction to the DC Demon archive) where he has stated that horror was not a particular favorite of Kirby’s. I must admit I was a bit surprised by that comment since I have always found Kirby’s work in Black Magic as having the same high quality as anything else he every did for Simon and Kirby. There is another explanation for the lack in Black Magic of the typical Simon and Kirby start off and that is Jack was putting his efforts into another new title that came also out in October 1950, Boys’ Ranch. Except for some single page features and a single story from issue #3, Kirby provided all the art for the first three issues of Boys’ Ranch. Did Kirby prefer the western theme of Boys’ Ranch over the horror of Black Magic? Or was it simply that Simon and Kirby made a better deal with Harvey then with Prize? I will leave that answer to the reader. (I will not be posting on Boys’ Ranch at this time as I wrote about not too long ago: part 1 and part 2).

Black Magic #2 (December 1950) “The Scorn of the Faceless People” page 3, art by Jack Kirby

“The Scorn of the Faceless People” is a masterpiece that stands out among all the great work found in Black Magic. The dream analysis theme is unusually and would have been very much at home in a title that Simon and Kirby would produce a couple years later, Strange World of Your Dreams. This story suggests that Simon and Kirby were already feeling the influence of Mort Meskin who had a particular interest in this subject. There is much to commend the art in this story, but check out the unconventional layout of page 3. The carefully use of perspective in the splash-like panel is such that the other two panels really are not intrusive. It is a panel layout that Jack would rarely, if ever, repeat. But then again it was a measure of Kirby’s genius that he would do the unexpected and make it work. There really is nothing much happening in this page but nonetheless it is filled with drama.

Black Magic #3 (February 1951) “A Silver Bullet for Your Heart”, art by Jack Kirby

I remarked in my serial post The Art of Romance chapter 11 (covering a period just prior to this one) that the punch seemed to have gone out of Kirby’s romance splashes. I do not think that is the case for Kirby’s Black Magic splashes. “A Silver Bullet for Your Heart” is just one of many splashes throughout the Black Magic run that are just terrific. As with all truly great comic book splashes it presents the theme of the story in a single scene without, however, revealing how this dramatic point was reached or how it would be resolved (for that you were expected to buy the comic).

Black Magic #1 (October 1950) “His Father’s Footsteps”, art by Mort Meskin

While Kirby was the primary artist for Black Magic, as he usually was for Simon and Kirby productions, other studio artists did great work as well. Perhaps the most outstanding of the other studio artists was Mort Meskin. While Meskin’s romance art was first rate he seemed to particularly shine in the horror genre. Unfortunately his carefully orchestrated horror stories are often neglected by the modern audience whose main interest is in superheroes. Mort developed his own cinematic approach to graphic story telling which fully complemented the scripts.

Black Magic #1 (October 1950) “Don’t Look Now”, art by Bill Draut

Bill Draut was an important artist in the Simon and Kirby studio. Joe Simon has often remarked to me about how much he could depend on Draut. However it seems to me that Bill’s romance art was getting into a routine. It was still fine art and Bill was great at graphically telling a story but I get the feeling he was not pushing himself as much anymore. Black Magic seems to have shaken him out of that in a big way. I recently posted an example of a full page romance splash just because it was an unusual deviation from his standard half pages splashes. Above I provide another full page splash whose merit goes way beyond the untypical splash size.

Black Magic #1 (October 1950) “My Dolly is the Devil”, art by Leonard Starr

I have discussed Leonard Starr a number of times in The Art of Romance. Starr provided great romance art for Simon and Kirby and of course he is most well known for his long running syndication strip Mary Perkins On Stage. All of which makes his “My Dolly is the Devil” that more interesting as an example of Starr’s art in another genre. Although this story is unsigned it truly was done by Leonard. The mother of the story has the pixie look that Starr used often in Simon and Kirby productions (wide forehead, widely separated eyes and narrow chin). Further the tall narrow panels that Starr preferred appear on a number of pages. A satisfying graphic story but unfortunately “My Dolly is the Devil” would be the only story that Starr ever did for Black Magic.

Note how in the light cast by the lamp transforms the doll’s hair into what looks like horns in the shadow.

Black Magic #2 (December 1950) “I’ve Seen You Before”, art by Bruno Premiani?

An ancient curse, an Egyptian mummy come back to life, a cast off lover’s cruel fate, what more could you want? I know many comic fans consider EC horror comics as the epitome of the genre but I prefer stories that are less gruesome and rely more on plot development. Bruno Premiani is another artist we have seen often in the Prize romance titles but it is nice to see his hand in another genre. Of course if this is really Premiani then he also did work for DC superheroes and westerns but that work is drawn in such a different manner it is not at all clear that they were done by the same artist. Premiani did only two stories for Black Magic and “I’ve Seen You Before” would be the last Simon and Kirby work by the artist.

Black Magic #3 (February 1951) “The Voices in the Night”, art by Marvin Stein

We have seen Marvin Stein often in Headlines, Justice Traps the Guilty and Prize Comics Western. In fact he would become a fixture in Prize publications not produced by Simon and Kirby. But he would appear in Simon and Kirby productions as well although perhaps not as frequently or so prominently placed. “The Voices in the Night” is signed and the style agrees well with other work Stein did at this time. This is not his mature style and frankly is a little bit on the primitive side. Joe Simon once remarked to me that he did not originally care that much for Marvin Stein’s art but that latter he became quite good.

Black Magic #3 (February 1951) “The World of Shadows”, art by George Roussos

I am sure that, when they were young and in a darken room, most of my readers have placed a flashlight below their face to provide eerie shadows. Well it seems many of the artists in Black Magic had done that as well. But perhaps none of them used that type of dramatic lighting as often as George Roussos. Roussos is a name we have not encountered yet in the serial posts The Art of Romance or It’s A Crime. George is perhaps most famous as a silver age inker of Jack Kirby at Marvel under the alias George Bell. “The World of Shadows” is unsigned but the art is so similar to other work with signatures that there is little question about the attribution. The artwork is a bit of a hodge-podge but I am unsure if this is due to the use of swipes or a style that has not set settled into place. In places the art clearly shows the influence of Mort Meskin whose work Roussos had inked previously. In all honesty Roussos is not among my favorite Simon and Kirby studio artists.

Posted in 2009/03, 5 Studio, Artists, Draut, Bill, Kirby, Jack, Little Shop of Horrors, Meskin, Mort, Periods, Premiani, Bruno, Prize, Serial Posts, Starr, Leonard, Stein, Marvin, z Archive | Tagged Bill, bruno, Draut, george, Jack, Joe, Kirby, leonard, marvin, meskin, Mort, premiani, roussos, Simon, starr, stein | 5 Comments

Tag Archives: george

Art of Romance, Chapter 19, More Artists

Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 4, Another Hit

Art of Romance, Chapter 18, Meskin Takes Over

Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 2, Up and Running

The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 1, Expanding Their Fields

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