With A Little Help From My Friends

I admit it, when I post about the work that Jack Kirby did after the breakup of the S&K studio I am getting into an area that I really do not have a lot of expertise. But what Jack did during S&K is important to understanding what he afterwards, and visa versa. Further I really feel I have something to contribute in areas such as Kirby’s style of inking his own work. However when it comes to things like DC editors, artists and inkers I am really at a loss. Fortunately I had a couple commenters provide some useful information to a recent post of mine.

I did not respond to Nick Caputo in the comments but I did email him offline to ask him to review the entire Kirby story in All-Star Western #99. When Nick did so this is what he had to say:

I took a look at the All Star Western story and, comparing it to the other stories in that issue which I believe Giella inked (“The Double Life of Sherrif Trigger, pencilled by Carmine Infantino and “Duel of the Twin Indians” penciller unknown, as well as the cover pencilled by Gil Kane) I would credit the majority, if not entire, Kirby story to Frank Giacoia inking. Giacoia has a sharper line than Giella and his faces are more defined. There is also some different techniques used on figures and backgrounds (for instance, the lines on the rocks on page 5, panel 2). While it’s possible that Giella did some background work in places, I see more Giacoia here than Giella.

Bob H. also felt that Giocoia was the inker for this story. But he also added an interesting observation:

… given that it was the only story Kirby did for Julius Schwartz’s editorial stable, where Giacoia was a regular, and the “Foley of the Fighting 5th” was an ongoing feature, this was probably more of a ghosting job for Kirby, which is probably why a lot of his tendencies are repressed. Kirby did similar ghosting for Giacoia on some “Johnny Reb” comic strips in the same period.

Well like I said I do not know much about DC at this period, but Bob’s suggestion that Jack was ghosting makes complete sense.

So my thanks to both Nick Caputo and Bob H. for their contributions.

2 thoughts on “With A Little Help From My Friends

  1. nick caputo

    I find it entirely possible that Bob H. is correct and Kirby was ghosting for Giacoia. I don’t know if Giacoia was doing any pencilling for DC (Bob, do you know who was pencilling the Foley strip?)but Giacoia was notoriously slow and may have asked for Jack’s help to meet a deadline.

  2. BobH

    I’m just going by the GCD entries for the issues, but it looks like Howard Sherman was regular artist for “Foley” for several years before and after Kirby’s one story. Giacoia is credited with one solo story in #96, just three issues (six months) earlier, so that would be an interesting one to compare to the Kirby/Giacoia story.

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