Category Archives: Gallery

Various 1960s covers

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X-MEN #21, 1966. Apparently just layouts by Kirby, with Werner Roth and Dick Ayers finishing it up. Looks nice, if a little busy, and a bit of a dull looking villain, but good poses on the heroes.

AVENGERS, THE #19, 1965. Kirby on the main drawing, with Don Heck doing the floating heads. Frank Giacoia inks. Good figure of the Swordsman, but what I relly like is all that machinery in the background.

TALES TO ASTONISH #67, 1965. Chic Stone inks on two of the Marvel heroes most likely to cause major property damage just by being around. That’s a great Hulk figure, I think.



Wartime cover gallery

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From the lean times of late 1944, when Simon and Kirby were in the army, some months all the poor S&K fans had from the team were a few covers, like these three selections from the three DC/National books that S&K regularly contributed the lead story for.

It looks like, after helping out with the war effort for the past few issues, the Newsboy Legion turned to pressing homeland matters like evil duplicates. Meanwhile, the Boy Commanos and Sandman were still fighting the Japanese army, with some success it seems.

STAR SPANGLED COMICS #39
BOY COMMANDOS #9
ADVENTURE COMICS #95



Number One Cover Gallery

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CHARLIE CHAN #5, 1949. Neat S&K cover, I like that the left over Nazi has a pet monkey, because monkeys always make comics fun.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #94, 1963. Dick Ayers inks, with a nicely arrogant looking Loki.

LAST OF THE VIKING HEROES #1, 1987. Mike Thibodeaux inks this, one of the bits of art that Jack Kirby did for Thibodeaux’s 1980s comic. I kind of find Thibodeaux’s inks a bit too slick, but it’s a nice cover.



This Hostage Cover

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Some more random covers from scattered years. Did you know that there are about 400 Jack Kirby covers for books that didn’t have Kirby interior work? Just so you don’t think there’s any danger of running out…

GREEN HORNET #9, 1942. Gorgeous early cover done for Harvey Comics, with a nice “ugly mobster” type and an interesting composition.

AVENGERS, THE #12, 1965. Great looking Chic Stone inked cover of the team. I especially like the classic Kirby pose of Giant-Man’s hand there.

CAPTAIN GLORY #1, 1993. From the “coulda been a contender” file, this illustration dates from the same time as the concept art that would evolve into the Fourth World characters, apparently at some point known as Captain Victory. The character remained unused, although his name did go on to bigger things in the 1980s. Finally, when Topps licenced some Kirby concepts in the 1990s for their shortlived “Kirbyverse” line, this great looking piece of art saw print, with some fine Ditko art inside.



Western covers

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Here are a nice trio of covers for Western comics from through the years.

PRIZE COMICS WESTERN #75, 1949. From right in the middle of the S&K years, this is a nice sample of their work, with some gorgeous inking and all sorts of great classic western cliche touches.

WYATT EARP #25, 1959. Christopher Rule is the attributed inker, and it’s a pretty cover. The background figures are what make it for me, especially the guy seemingly intent on climbing on top of the saloon.

RAWHIDE KID #36, 1963. Dick Ayers inks, and a great set-up for the interior story.



Trio of Cover

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ADVENTURE COMICS #97, 1945. Very dynamic S&K cover of Sandman and Sandy facing off against aliens.

HOUSE OF MYSTERY #79, 1958. The monster on this cover is kind of weak, but the foreground figure is nice, with some nice inking from that period.

DEFENDERS, THE #43, 1977. Al Milgrom inks, with a nice big Hulk figure. Kirby drawing Doc Strange always looks a bit wrong, though.



Three Covers

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SANDMAN, THE #3, 1975. Gotta love the monkey with the mechanical brain. Royer inks.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #53, 1959. Giant robots attack, more Atlas sci-fi fun. The actually story for this cover was drawn by Don Heck.

STAR SPANGLED COMICS #42, 1945. More from the wartime stretch when Simon&Kirby just did the covers for the Newsboy Legion stories. Y’know, they’re lucky those criminals kept coming up with elaborate traps with lions rather than, I dunno, just shooting them.



Cover Gallery Decision 2004

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WYATT EARP #22, 1959. Kirby only did a handful of covers for this book, this one is attributed to Christopher Rule inks.

TALES TO ASTONISH #53, 1964. Okay, I’m going to hope that Kirby didn’t have anything to do with designing the Porcupine, and just worked with what he was given. That’s just a sad looking character. Good pose for Giant-Man, though. Brodsky inks.

MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #20, 1976. Inked by Frank Giacoia. I dunno why, but U-Man as drawn by Kirby kind of cracks me up.



Horror/Monster Covers

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In the spirit of the season

MYSTIC COMICS #7, 1941. One of Simon&Kirby’s first covers at Timely, with some cool monsters. And Hitler, too. The Destroyer is one of those characters who didn’t seem to last very long.

BLACK MAGIC #2, 1950 (issue corrected, I got it mixed up with v2#2, aka #8. Wish they numbered those books normally and clearly). Boy, that Halloween party rocks!

WORLD OF FANTASY #19, 1959. One of the not quite so long-lived Marvel monster books, this issue at least had a pretty cool Kirby monster, apparently inked by Christopher Rule, leading candidate for the inker of FF #1 and #2.

Yet Another Cover Gallery

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RAWHIDE KID #41, 1964. Love that image of the Kid leading a revolt on a mining cart.

HOUSE OF MYSTERY #78, 1958. As well as a number of stories, Kirby did a handful of covers for the DC fantasy books of the late 1950s

FANTASTIC FOUR #181, 1977. A nice large action-pose of the Thing by Kirby/Sinnott is always a pleasure.