Art by Joe Simon, Chapter 13, Wrap Up

When I started this serial post on Joe Simon’s art, I outlined for myself what topics I was going to cover. Initially my plan was to end about the time of the Simon and Kirby breakup. I wanted to avoid the final part of Joe’s career as a comic artist because frankly I do not […]

Art by Joe Simon, Chapter 11, The Party Is Over

After “48 Famous Americans” S&K entered a period of abundant work mainly producing crime, horror and romance genre comics. As far as I can tell, Joe did not pencil anything during this period. I say that rather hesitantly. While working on my serial post “The End of Simon and Kirby” I reexamined a lot of […]

Art by Joe Simon, Chapter 10, A History Lesson

I would now like to discuss another piece of work where I find so much that indicates that it was drawn by Joe Simon that I just do not understand why so many still credit it to Jack Kirby. Some explain the lack of Kirby touches as due to his discomfort with portraiture. I wonder […]

Art by Joe Simon, Chapter 9, American Royalty

After his military service Joe Simon rejoined Jack Kirby. But rather then just resume working for DC, the two wanted to find a better deal and produce entire comics. S&K made an agreement with Al Harvey to create two new titles, Stuntman and Boy Explorers. Jack did the penciling for the title features while back […]

Art by Joe Simon, Chapter 8, Off to War

Star Spangled #21 (June 1943) by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon Joe Simon and Jack Kirby seemed to have been very successful working for DC. But there was a war on and they knew that sooner or later they would be drafted. They responded by going into hyper drive, producing stories and covers that could […]

Art by Joe Simon, Chapter 7, Glaven

There were three Harvey comics from the same period as the Jon Henri covers that I did not include in my last chapter; Champ #22 (September 1942), Speed #22 (September) and Green Hornet #8 (August). To me they always seemed to be very different and previously I did not consider them as done by Simon […]

Art by Joe Simon, Chapter 6, Jon Henri

Champ #18 (May 1942) by Jack Kirby (signed Jon Henri) Starting with a cover date of April 1942 and ending in October are a series of 13 Harvey covers that were obviously done by Simon and Kirby (Speed #17 to #21 and #23; Champ #18 to #21 and #23; and Green Hornet #7 and #9). […]

Art by Joe Simon, Chapter 5, Side by Side

In the previous chapter I described the cover Champion #9 (July 1940) as the first joint work by Simon and Kirby. In the same month the two also worked on the title story for Blue Bolt #2. But their working method for Blue Bolt was different then the Champion #9 cover where Jack did the […]

Art by Joe Simon, Chapter 4, Footnote

Flash Gordon (7/3/38) by Alex Raymond Stan Taylor has sent me some scans of panels from Flash Gordon done by Alex Raymond. Four of these have figures that so closely match work by Joe Simon as to leave no doubt that they were used as sources for swiping. I include one here because it is […]

Art by Joe Simon, Chapter 4, Transition

Blue Bolt #1 (June 1940) “The Human Lightning Streak” by Joe Simon (signed) Most of the work that Joe Simon penciled having cover dates from May to July of 1940 were the Fox covers discussed in the last chapter. But Joe was still a freelance artists and he did some work for other publishers. For […]