Category Archives: Kirby, Jack

Ted O’Neil

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Posted in 2009/07, 3 Timely, Artists, Kirby, Jack, Periods, z Archive and tagged , , , , ,

1940 was a difficult time for many Americans. Although the economy was improving the country was still in the grips of the Great Depression. The relatively new comic book industry provided work for some artists but it did not provide the big time money like a successful syndication strip. For a comic book artist to make a good living he had to be talented and hard working. Well the newly formed team of Simon and Kirby were certainly both hard working and talented. Newly arrived to form the core of Timely’s first bullpen, the duo were hard at work on the Fiery Mask, the Vision and the short lived Red Raven. But that was not enough for Joe and Jack, as they also moonlighted for other publishers. Kirby, probably by himself, would do the Solar Legion for Crash Comics. Jack would also join Joe on Simon’s earlier creation, the Blue Bolt. The two would also work on some existing features for Prize Comics one of which was Ted O’Neil.

Prize Comics #7
Prize Comics #7 (December 1940) “Ted O’Neil”, art by William Rowland

Prize Comics was a fairly new title with the first issue having a March 1940 cover date. Ted O’Neil was a feature of Prize Comics right from the start. Unfortunately I have seen none of the earlier issues so I have little idea how the feature started out. By Prize Comics #7 (December 1940) Ted O’Neil was an American in England’s Royal Air Force. The splash page credits William Rowland with for the story. Early in the golden age of comics such credits often refer to the writer and not the artist. However Who’s Who of American Comic Books shows Will Rowland as the artist for other titles so I think we can safely say he is the artist for this Ted O’Neil story as well. Rowland may also have written the story as well as was so commonly the case this early in the history of comic books.

Prize Comics #7
Prize Comics #7 (December 1940) “Ted O’Neil” page 4, art by William Rowland

What can I say, while I would not call Rowland a bad artists, I just cannot get to exciting about him either. Rowland tries hard to make the story interesting but he just is not quite up to it. The story itself is a bit clunky and the artwork a bit stiff. While the flying scenes are easy to understand they just do not grab the reader. I really do not mean to be too hard on William Rowland’s work on this Ted O’Neil story because it compares well with most comic book stories from that period.

Prize Comics #8
Prize Comics #8 (January 1941) “Ted O’Neil”, pencils by Jack Kirby

Simon and Kirby’s work for Prize are all unsigned. Some fans like to give Kirby all the credit for this work, but just because we cannot see clear indications of Simon’s participation does not mean that this was not a collaborative effort. I prefer to provide joint credits for their work once Simon and Kirby had teamed up unless there is good reason to do otherwise. (The only exception that comes to mind is the Fiery Mask story from Human Torch #2 which is so close to Joe’s earlier efforts that I wonder if it had been left in inventory for a time).

Prize Comics #8
Prize Comics #8 (January 1941) “Ted O’Neil” page 5, pencils by Jack Kirby

It should come as no surprise that Kirby’s pencils for the Ted O’Neil story found in PC #8 was much superior to Rowland’s from PC #7. Simon and Kirby were not yet famous but you have to wonder if some of the more observant artists had not begun to take notice of Jack’s art. Perhaps not since Simon and Kirby traits have not taken full effect. Here and there part of a figure will extend beyond the panel boundaries but it is all very tentative and easily overlooked. There is a circular panel but it is a small insert and not the larger ones that Joe and Jack would use later to such great effect. A couple of panels have a sinuous edge but none of the panels have the irregular borders that played such an important part of Simon and Kirby art for a time.

But observant readers might have noticed something special. Rowland’s flying scenes are all viewed from a distance while Jack would pan in and out. It does not sound like much but it reminds the reader of the very human occupant of the cockpit and keeps the eye interested. Rowland does not provide a single close-up in his story while Kirby provides many.

Not just the art is interesting but the story is as well. If Joe and Jack were presented a script they already had developed the habit of rewriting it. Rowland’s story was a straight forward action tale but Joe and Jack would add a little humor. One scene were Blinky receives a kick in his rear end for good luck reminds me very much of a scene from a much later Kirby story, “Street Code” where a kid’s hunchback is rubbed for similar reasons.

Prize Comics #9
Prize Comics #9 (February 1941) “Ted O’Neil”, pencils by Jack Kirby

While America had not entered the war, Britain was in the thick of it with their Royal Air Force battling Germany for command of the skies. However Edward R. Murrow’s live broadcasts from London during the Blitz incited many Americans to support England. This certainly was the reason that Ted O’Neil ended up in the R.A.F. But Rowland hardly made use of that connection. While the Germans are mention in PC #7, the bad guy works for another plane manufacturing company. Simon and Kirby places Ted O’Neil in the thick of it. We see the Battle for Britain and the London Blitz. There are saboteurs and spies. Ted O’Neil may not have worn a colorful costume and his only power came from flying a plane, but Simon and Kirby were already laying the ground works for their soon to be released Captain America.

Prize Comics #9
Prize Comics #9 (February 1941) “Ted O’Neil” page 3, pencils by Jack Kirby

By PC #9 even the art work was becoming more powerful. Note how the figures have begun to escape the boundaries of the panels in a more obvious fashion. Joe and Jack had flexed their artistic muscles and they were ready to explode in full force with Captain America. Even before it hit the stands they must have known they had something special in Captain America. Issue #9 would be their last work for Prize for many years. Joe and Jack would do a rush job to produce a special edition of Captain Marvel that would get released in the same month as the first Cap comic. That would be the end of their moonlighting for a while except for some covers that Joe would do for free as a favor to his friend Al Harvey. Previously Simon and Kirby almost went unnoticed but with Captain America a big success everyone in the industry took paid attention and comic books were never the same.

Fighting American, Chapter 4, The End Game

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Posted in 2009/07, 6 Mainline, Artists, Fighting American, Kirby, Jack, Periods, Prentice, John, z Archive and tagged , , , , ,

Fighting American #7
Fighting American #7 (April 1955) “Sneak Of Araby”, art by Jack Kirby

The lead story for issue #7 has Fighting American fighting the commies in Arabia over oil (of course). A clever splash but one with a frequently used theme of villains trying to avoid detection but clueless as to their impending encounter with Fighting American and Speedboy.

Fighting American #7
Fighting American #7 (April 1955) “Sneak Of Araby” page 4, art by unidentified artist

The Jack Kirby Checklists assigns 4 pages of this 8 page story to Kirby but other then the splash page none of it looks like his work to me and I do not think they are his layouts either. Panel 5 of page 4 looks to me like Kirby’s pencils and inking but that panel is the only convincing work by Kirby in the story. I suspect this particular case was Kirby acting as art editor and fixing up a poorly done panel. So far I have not been able to identify the artist.

Fighting American #7
Fighting American #7 (April 1955) “Three Coins In The Pushcart”, art by John Prentice

For “Three Coins In The Pushcart” the Jack Kirby Checklist only credits the splash to Jack. Frankly I do not see Kirby in any part of the story including the splash and again not even the layouts.

Fighting American #7
Fighting American #7 (April 1955) “Three Coins In The Pushcart” page 4, art by John Prentice

There a clues on the splash page that John Prentice is the correct artist to attribute this story to but it can best be seen with page 4. As far as I know Prentice did no other superhero work so there is nothing to compare this story to. However John’s women are usually quite distinctive and the lady in the second panel was clearly done by him. Comparison of this work to four pages of “Super Khakalovitch” from Issue #6 convinces me that John Prentice was also the artist for part of that work as well. This may not have been his finest work but he handles both the action and humor surprisingly well considering both are elements not normally associated with Prentice.

Fighting American #7
Fighting American #7 (April 1955) “Space-Face”, pencils by Jack Kirby and inks by Mort Meskin

What a delightful set of characters in the splash panel for “Space-Face” each with their own distinctive features and emotions. The inking for this splash is has a characteristic simplicity particularly in the eyebrows that identifies Mort Meskin as the inker. One striking feature of the splash is the way the bottom edge cuts off the lower part of two faces. While I am not going to say Kirby never does this, it certainly is not typical for Jack but it was a frequently used device by Meskin particularly in the Vigilante work Mort did for DC during the war (link). Because of this I briefly entertained the notion that the splash was actually drawn by Mort but the faces are so typical of Kirby that I just as quickly rejected the idea. In particular note the one guy to our left of Speedboy; take away the cigarette and he looks just like Scrapper from the Newsboy Legion.

Fighting American #7
Fighting American #7 (April 1955) “Space-Face” page 4, pencils by Jack Kirby and inks by Mort Meskin

Because of the splash panel I paid close attention to the story pages to check if they were done by Kirby or Meskin. Well the layouts generally look like Jack’s and page 4 is especially convincing. The way the figures run in the top panels is typical for Kirby. Note how the sole of the foot of the running boy in panel 3 turns to the viewer. This device was frequently used by Kirby (also by Joe Simon) but I have never seen Mort do it. So while I believe Mort Meskin did the inks, I am convinced Jack Kirby did the actual pencils. Fighting American #7 was the last issue published by Prize Comics. Occasionally you will come across a claim that Fighting American was cancelled because of the Comic Code. However the evidence does not support that view. It is true that the earlier issues had art that would have been unacceptable under the Comic Code, but issue #7 was published with the Comic Code stamp without any apparent problems. Further the art work had been completed for issue #8 and would be published years later again without any difficulties with the Comic Code. Because Fighting American is today viewed by many as one of Simon and Kirby’s greatest creations it would have been nice to blame its failure on the Comic Code but the correct explanation is simply that it did not sell well enough. That it was a tough time for comics in general and superheroes in particular probably did not help.

Fighting American #1 (Harvey)
Fighting American #1 (October 1966) “Round Robin”, art by Jack Kirby

In 1966 Harvey published a Fighting American comic that was a combination of reprint material and previously unpublished stories. The cover and the “new” art were all done by Jack Kirby and were inked in a manner typical of the original Simon and Kirby productions. Fighting American #7 had 20 pages of Fighting American stories and that is exactly the same number of pages for the new stories found in the Harvey’s Fighting American #1. There is little doubt that this material was originally meant for issue #8 of Prize’s Fighting American but went unused when that comic was cancelled. The biggest difference between FA #7 and what would have been FA #8 was that Kirby contributed all the art for the cancelled Fighting American stories while he did not do all the art for FA #7.

The lead story for the Harvey FA comic was “Round Robin”. The shortness of this story (only 5 pages) is not obvious because it is broken up by the inclusion of a reprint of the Fighting American origin story. The splash seems to have been modified specifically for the Harvey comic. I believe the “the original one and only” text in the title as well as the small Fighting American and flying figures were late additions. Also the Simon and Kirby signature is in Joe Simon’s handwriting and does not match the original style and was added later.
There was a lot of variation in the costumes in the original Fighting American series. The most glaring was perhaps the way Speedboy would usually have blue trunks and red leggings but sometimes red trunks and blue leggings. But for the Harvey comic invariably both the trunks and leggings of Speedboy are red, a combination not seen previously.

Fighting American #1 (Harvey)
Fighting American #1 (October 1966) “Roman Scoundrels”, art by Jack Kirby

The splash for “Roman Scoundrels” has the car touche that reads “produced by Simon and Kirby”. Comics put together by the Simon and Kirby studio almost always had this car touche on the lead story. Thus this is another indication that the new art in the Harvey comic was original intended as issue #8 of the Prize title and that “Roman Scoundrels” was meant to have been the lead story for that cancelled issue.

In “Roman Scoundrels” the heroes take part in the filming of a Hollywood movie where the villain replaces harmless stunts with ones meant for lethal consequences. I am sure that Simon and Kirby had used this plot before, but at this moment I do not remember where.

Fighting American #1 (Harvey)
Fighting American #1 (October 1966) “Yafata’s Moustache”, art by Jack Kirby

I may feel that Simon and Kirby jumped the shark in “Super Khakalovitch” from FA #6, however all the stories for the defunct issue #8 are actually quite good. My favor ate is “Yafata’s Moustache” a story that perfectly balances the action and humor the two elements that made Fighting American such a unique superhero.

Superheroes were once again a big thing in 1966 and at least a second issue of Fighting American was initially planned by Harvey. It was to be a combination of reprint and new material like the previous issue. However there was no more unpublished Fighting American art left over from the Prize series so Joe Simon created a new cover and had George Tuska create the art for two new stories (“The Beef Box” and “The Mad Inker”). Unfortunately Harvey’s Fighting American #2 was cancelled. “The Beef Box” would eventually be included in the Fighting American reprint book published by Marvel in 1986. “The Mad Inker” has never been published probably because the splash page was already missing from Joe Simon’s collection by 1986.

Art of Romance, Chapter 17, The Assistant

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Posted in 2009/06, 5 Studio, Art of Romance, Artists, Draut, Bill, Kirby, Jack, Meskin, Mort, Periods, Prentice, John, Prize, Serial Posts, Stein, Marvin, z Archive.

(November 1951 – January 1952: Young Romance #39 – #41, Young Love #27 – #29)

Number of Romance Titles 1947 - 1953
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 3 of The Little Shop of Horrors.

Mort Meskin was really going strong during the period covered in this chapter. Joe Simon described in “The Comic Book Makers” the difficulties Mort had when he first came to work for Simon and Kirby. I do not know if someone was still marking Meskin’s pages with scribbles to get Mort over his fear of the blank page or if Mort had worked past his problems. Either way Mort did 82 romance pages; much more then any other studio artists. The second place was once again Bill Draut. Bill was not famous for his speed and there is no particular reason to believe he was faster then the average comic book artist but even so he managed to do 59 pages during this period. Jack Kirby remained in third place but with 32 pages the gap between him and Draut had widened. Jack did all the lead stories for Young Romance but that was all he did; he did draw any backup stories for Young Romance and he did nothing at all for Young Love. Jack only did a single page more then John Prentice’s 31 pages. The remaining work was done by 2 other artists discussed below (16 pages by one and 2 by the other). Marvin Stein, Vic Donahue and Ross Andru were artists present in last chapter but they do not show up in the issues covered in this post.

Young Romance #41
Young Romance #41 (January 1952) “Dangerous Companion”, art by Jack Kirby

I have a particular fondness for Kirby’s romance splashes. They may not rate high with Kirby fans today but they should. Some are his finest creations and work well as stand alone art. Unfortunately there is only one outstanding splash during this period, the one for “Dangerous Companions”. There is nothing special about the scene Jack presents. It is little more then a couple getting a marriage license. When put into words like that it sounds quite boring. I can explain some of the reasons I find this work so engaging. The high viewing angle not only lets the reader see all that is going on but makes him feel his is part of the story, like he is standing behind the counter. Each part of the composition plays its part both visually and for telling the story. The lady is quite attractive and, at least as I am concern, is proof that Kirby did draw beautiful women. With her raised eyebrow she pauses before she signs the form and seems to want to ask us, a stranger, if she is doing the right thing. All these are good and valid reasons why this splash works so well but in the end they do not fully explain it. As so often with Kirby, or any great artist, there is some magical quality that cannot be put into words but cannot be denied.

Young Romance #39
Young Romance #39 (November 1951) “Marvin’s Pearl”, art by Mort Meskin

Mort Meskin drew a lot of great art for Simon and Kirby but I have a special fondness for “Marvin’s Pearl”. Much of the credit has to go to the unknown writer. It is a light hearted tale of a pearl found in a meal and the effect it has on the people involved. However it took the Meskin’s skill to transform the script into such a delightful graphic story. I particularly like Mort’s interpretation of Marvin. Is it possible to view the splash with Marvin literally dancing with joy without raising a smile? Frankly I cannot imagine any other artist doing a better job on this story then Meskin, not even Jack Kirby.

Young Romance #41
Young Romance #41 (January 1952) “Kill Her with Kindness”, art by Mort Meskin

I often wonder if the teenage female readers of the Young Romance really appreciated such things as the splash for “Kill Her with Kindness”. They might not have enjoyed a scene of scantily clad women but I am certain Mort Meskin liked drawing it. Why else would Mort, who normally used half page splashes, devote an entire page to this beach scene? Even if the size of the splash was dictated by the script writer, Meskin certainly seems to have taken to it enthusiastically.

Young Romance #39
Young Romance #39 (November 1951) “The Wall between Us”, art by Bill Draut

Bill Draut does a confessional splash for “The Wall between Us”. Usually confessional splashes are reserved for the lead story but this is a backup story. There always is the possibility that it was originally meant to be the lead story but got switched after the art was completed. However Kirby is generally the lead story artist for Young Romance and this issue is no exception. I think Draut did a good job on the art work but there seems to be a disconnect between the image and text in the word balloon. Usually in a confessional splash they work very well together and those done by Bill are no exception. But what does washing dishes have to do with the “wall between” the couple? I wonder if the balloon text was a late, and not very successful, alteration?

Young Love #29
Young Love #29 (January 1952) “Dumb Blonde”, art by John Prentice

John Prentice’s art is usually easy to spot. Most Simon and Kirby artists were influenced by Milton Caniff but Alex Raymond had the greatest impact on Prentice. John’s women have a more sophisticated beauty and his men a rugged sort of look and small eyes. Like most studio artist, John did his own inking which he did with a very assured hand. I have previously discussed his cloth folds are long and sweeping, and have different shapes they used by Joe or Jack. John’s brush work for hair was also distinct as can be seen in the above splash.

Young Love #29
Young Love #29 (January 1952) “Dumb Blonde” page 8, art by Jack Kirby?

The first page of “Dumb Blonde” is typical John Prentice pencils and inks. However the rest of the story is not. Some pages look like Prentice’s inking but the brushwork seems more rushed. Other pages still look like John’s pencils but inked by another. The different look is particularly apparent on page 8 shown above. Compare the way the hair is inked on the last page with what Prentice did on the first. Further the women do not have sophisticated beauty nor the men the rugged looks typical for Prentice. But take a careful look at the man in panels 3 and 5, he looks like he was done by Jack Kirby. Yet the woman does not look like she was drawn by Jack in any of the panels. So what is going on here? The first explanation that comes to mind is that Prentice was working from Kirby layouts. However the story is graphically told in a manner so characteristic of Prentice and not in a Kirby manner at all that I think this explanation can be safely discounted.

The solution I offer is that in the last page of the story Kirby was inking over Prentice’s pencils. Some artists who ink there own work do rough pencils and do the detail work when inking. I have never seen any uninked pencils by Prentice so I cannot say if that was his working procedure. If it was then any artist inking such rough pencils would likely to impart much of their own drawing style to the finished inking; hence the Kirby look of the man in the two panels of the last page. Kirby inking another artist would be quite extraordinary. I believe that the Jack Kirby Checklist includes only three cases that were supposed to be Kirby inking another artist. When I was able to track down copies of these so called Kirby inking I was always disappointed; all of them were clearly not inked by Jack. If parts of “Dumb Blonde” were inked by Jack it would be the only case of Kirby inking another artist that I have found.

I am not sure that Kirby and Prentice were the only inkers involved either. I suspect “Dumb Blonde” was a rush job that had to meet some deadline. As such it probably got the inking treatment normally reserved for Kirby’s pencils where many of the studio artist pitched in to ink the work including Jack himself. Jack was a fantastic artist but he was a really poor ghost artist. He had trouble suppressing his own style and imitating another artist’s mannerisms. Years later Jack would try to imitate other artists in some index pages for Harvey romances. In fact one of the imitate artist was Prentice and Jack was no more successful then (Kirby Imitating John Prentice and Kirby Imitating John Prentice Again).

Young Love #28
Young Love #28 (December 1951) “Love without Logic”, art by George Roussos

George Roussos started appearing in the romance titles in November. His appearance is not surprising but what is unusual is that it took so long for him to show up. Roussos had been appearing in Black Magic starting in February. Perhaps Joe and Jack thought that while George’s art was very suitable for horror stories it might not work so well for romance. In fact while Roussos was not particularly bad at romance art, he was not particular good at it either. Most of the romance work George did during the period covered in this chapter was for short pieces 1 to 4 pages long. He did do one regular length story called “Love without Logic”. Roussos obviously put some effort into as can be seen by all the fine crosshatching in the cityscape found in the splash. George was a frequent inker of Mort Meskin at DC during the war so it is not surprising to see Meskin’s influence on the art that Roussos did for Simon and Kirby. Not so much in the inking, although both artists had a penchant for including crosshatching done with a pen. It is the drawing that shows the influence but never to the extent that would make it difficult to distinguish the two artists. Meskin was clearly the master and Roussos the follower.

Young Love #28
Young Love #28 (December 1951) “Love without Logic” page 2, art by George Roussos and Jack Kirby

The second page of the story is a particularly well executed moody piece full of nighttime shadows. The Meskin influence is well indicated by the woman in panel 5. As good as the piece is look at that first panel. See how the woman raises her eyebrow and her arches her body toward the man. We cannot see his face but his whole body language speaks his desire. But look at his hand. If you have not guessed it already this was the work of Jack Kirby. Compare the trunk of the fallen tree in the foreground with the tree in the last panel. There is no question, that fallen tree was inked by Jack. Further all the foliage is inked in a quick, robust but assured manner very different from the rest of the page. While it is not that unusual to find Kirby stepping in as an art editor and fixing some part of a story it is surprising that he worked on the entire panel. Perhaps Jack was unsatisfied with the entire panel and redid it all but I would like to offer another explanation. Perhaps Jack was using the first panel to instruct George how he wanted the rest of the page to be done. If so wouldn’t you have liked to be a fly on the wall to listen to that discussion? Actually the entire story could be based on Kirby layouts; I see nothing in the story to prove that but nothing to discount it either.

Young Romance #39
Young Romance #39 (November 1951) “Let’s Talk Fashion”, art by Jim Infantino

This chapter of The Art of Romance is one of the few that I have been able to confidently identify all the artists who provided word during this period. Actually that is now true of the last chapter as well but when I wrote that post there was a single one page feature that I failed to identify then. However I had forgotten about an artist who contributed very little to Simon and Kirby productions and not much more to other comics either, Jim Infantino. Besides the single piece form the period covered by the chapter 15 I can add two other single page features by Jim with only one of them signed. Perhaps more will be found in future chapters.

Frankly the main reason Jim Infantino is of interests is because of his brother Carmine. As can be seen in the example above while he is not an incompetent artist there is little reason to give great praise for him either. The art is technically well done both pencils and inking although a bit stiff. However since this is a fashion feature and not a story there really is no way to judge how good a graphical story teller Jim was. It is interesting that these short features used typed lettering. This is very unique for Simon and Kirby productions that at this time were, these exceptions, all lettered by Ben Oda.

In one respect I was inaccurate is saying Jim contributed little to Simon and Kirby comics. Jim worked for Joe and Jack as a studio assistant. As such he probably helped in many ways with S&K productions that cannot be recognized today. In particular he almost certainly was one of the artists used to do some of inking of Jack Kirby’s pencils; at least the more minor inking steps. We see Jim in one of the rare studio photographs taken.


Joe Genalo, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Mort Meskin, Jim Infantino and Ben Oda. The caricatures of Marvin Stein and Jim Infantino were probably by Joe Simon.

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)

Art of Romance, Chapter 16, Someone Old and Someone New

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Posted in 2009/06, 5 Studio, Art of Romance, Artists, Donahue, Vic, Draut, Bill, Kirby, Jack, Meskin, Mort, Periods, Prentice, John, Prize, Serial Posts, Stein, Marvin, z Archive and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

(August 1951 – October 1951: Young Romance #36 – #38, Young Love #24 – #26)


Number of Romance Titles 1947 – 1952 (the period covered in this chapter is shaded in blue)

Despite the fact that today many fans point to Boys’ Ranch as one of Simon and Kirby best efforts it was at the time a commercial failure. The last issue of Boys’ Ranch would have an August cover date. After that Joe and Jack would only be working on the two monthly romance titles and the bimonthly Black Magic all of them for Prize Comics. Young Romance entered its fourth year and I believe both romance titles were still selling very well.

Jack Kirby is legendary for the amount of work he could produce. While there were periods during the Simon and Kirby collaboration that support that legend there are other times that do not. In the previous chapter Meskin replaced Kirby as the most productive studio artist. During the period covered in this chapter Meskin has maintained the first place position but now Bill Draut has replaced Jack for the second place. For the romance titles Meskin produced 64, Draut 49, and Kirby 45 pages. Adding the work for Black Magic only increases the disparity (Meskin 78, Draut 67 and Kirby 60 pages). Mort Meskin was famous for his productivity but Bill Draut was not. The difference is all the more striking when it is considered that Meskin and Draut were doing all there own inking while Kirby was not.

Another indication of Jack’s decreased involvement in the art from this period is that Bill Draut did the lead story for Young Romance #36. While it was not unusual for the first story of Young Love to be done by artists other then Kirby, Young Romance was the flagship title and up to now Jack almost always provided the lead story. The single previous exception was for YR #12 (July 1949) and Draut was the feature artist on that occasion as well.

I cannot offer any explanation for Kirby’s decreased page production. If his time was occupied with trying to develop something new it did not come to fruition. But it must be remembered that Jack was a boss and his income depended on the how good sales were for the S&K titles not on how many pages of art he drew. His decreased output could be due to nothing more then attention to some personal issues.

Most of the rest of the romance work was done by two artists; John Prentice with 25 pages and Marvin Stein with 24 pages. Three other artists supplied single stories. Two of them will be discussed below and the third has not been identified but only provided a single page.


Young Romance #38 (October 1951) “Family Trouble”, art by Jack Kirby

While his page count has dropped the quality of Jack Kirby’s work had not suffered. He still drew great splashes and his stories were still unique compared to other studio artists (suggesting that Jack was rewriting the scripts while he was drawing them). This uniqueness was often the result of placing more action into the story, something that Kirby excelled at. But as I have pointed out before, Jack also excelled at comic book art that did not rely on action. His romance splash panels are often examples of this. The splash for “Family Trouble” uses the confessional format that is so typical of Kirby’s lead stories. The word balloon that introduces the story provides the plot of young lovers facing family disapproval but does not explain the basis of their problem other then age. Kirby presents the couple passing through a gate carrying their luggage presumable off to start their new life together. The sign on the entrance indicates they are leaving the servant’s quarters and therefore theirs is a romance that breaks the class boundary between the rich and their servants. The man seems calmed but resolved while the woman seems more resolute. At a glance this splash is nothing more the two standing figures but Jack embodies an entire story in it. Of course the viewer is expected to be enticed to read the story to get the full explanation.


Young Love #25 (September 1951) “My Old Flame”, art by Jack Kirby

Kirby’s splashes are almost always interesting but occasionally they are quite unique. Given Joe Simon’s long history of innovative designs I suspect he provided layouts for many of Jack’s covers and splashes but even if that is true it still took a genius like Kirby to make them work so well. Here while riding a train a man pauses from reading his book to reflect on a past relationship. Normally the splash would be expected to show a head shot or half figure of the former love object. Instead we are provided with just a close-up of a set of eyes seeming arising behind the man; a compositional device that is much more effective in capturing the man’s mood.


Young Romance #36 (August 1951) “Yesterday’s Romance”, art by Bill Draut

“Yesterday’s Romance” was the lead story for YR #36 that Bill did instead of Jack. It is an unusual story for any romance title because it main characters are all in their advanced years. Draut does a good job of capturing the offbeat nature of the story in his splash. The odd thing about this piece is that usually the lead story used the confessional format where the protagonist’s speech balloon tells what the story is about and provides the title. Bill has used that confessional splash before so he was aware of Simon and Kirby’s preference for using that splash format for the lead story.


Young Romance #36 (August 1951) “Married In Haste”, art by Bill Draut

While “Yesterday’s Romance” failed to make use of the confessional splash it appears in the same issue in “Married in Haste”. This suggests that “Married in Haste” was originally meant to be the lead story but its place was taken by “Yesterday’s Romance” after the art was completed. Bill does a good job with the confessional splash and as any good splash it succeeds in its roll as the story’s preview. It may not be fair but it is constructive to compare the splash for “Married in Haste” with Kirby’s “Family Trouble” (shown above). Both do well at having the splash background support the story needed although it is not clear how much of this was the result of the artist and how much came from the writer. I describe the comparison as unfair because Kirby is such a great artist the comparison will tend to make Draut’s work poorer then the excellent art it really is. But the comparison is useful because it highlights the nuanced emotions Kirby gives his characters compared to the more static ones that Draut provides. While Kirby is justly famous for the exciting action the work he did for romance pushed him to be equally adept at portraying more subtle emotions.


Young Love #24 (August 1951) “Native Wedding”, art by Mort Meskin

The splash for Meskin’s “Native Wedding” is reminiscent of the one Bruno Premiani did some time ago for YR #10 (June 1950, see chapter 11 of The Art of Romance). One obvious difference is that Meskin is uncharacteristic in his use of busy brushwork found throughout the splash. Normally this would result in the image loosing focus but somehow Mort pulls it off. Mort also takes care to make the camp fire scene occur at night providing the nearby faces shadowed from below as appropriate for the position of the fire. The dancer’s back is also appropriately shadowed.


Young Love #26 (October 1951) “Let’s Keep It Gay” page 5, art by Mort Meskin

For a couple of pages of “Let’s Keep It Gay” Meskin adopts and 2 rows by 3 columns panel layout. This results in tall narrow panels that Mort put to good use especially in the second panel of page 5. This panel layout was one that previously Leonard Starr was fond of using so one wonders if perhaps Meskin picked it up from him. Starr also used a 3 rows by 3 panel layout where he would decrease the height of two rows so that the remaining row would have similarly tall panels. Starr’s modified 3 by 3 panel layout did not seem to be one the Meskin picked up on.

I particularly like how the bottom row starts with the couple in the foreground and a TV studio as the background, then Mort comes in for a close-up without the studio background, before ending by once again pushing the couple into the background of the studio. Careful manipulation of point of view was an important aspect of Meskin’s art during this period providing his stories with what could be described as a cinematic approach.


Young Romance #38 (October 1951) “One Tragic Mistake”, art by John Prentice

John Prentice has become a regular presence in Simon and Kirby productions, especially the romance comics. In the last chapter I provided an example where Prentice seemed to be adopting some of the Studio Style inking techniques. Although it was possible it could have been Joe or Jack touching up John’s work the picket fence crosshatching (see my Inking Glossary for explanations of some of my inking terminology) my opinion was and still is that it was the work of John himself. For the splash page of “One Tragic Mistake” we find a more typical Prentice inking. Note in particular his method of doing cloth folds. They are not the spatulate or oval shape typical of Kirby but tend to be long with roughly parallel edges and with a more or less flat and sometimes slanted ends. John also has a fondness for long sweeping cloth folds. Note the inking of the man’s shoulder. At a glance this might be mistaken for a Studio Style shoulder blot but see how it appears on only one of the shoulders and is clearly integrated with the shadow on the side of the face. With Joe or Jack I am never sure if shoulder blots were meant to indicate shadows or the turn of the form but Prentice always seems quite clear with his intent.


Young Romance #38 (October 1951) “One Tragic Mistake” page 8, art by John Prentice

While the splash page to this story looks like typical Prentice inking other pages seem to be a combination of his own inking techniques and the Studio Style. Most of the cloth folds are done in Prentice’s typical brush work but note the abstract arch shadows (panels 1, 2 and 4), picket fence crosshatching (panels 3 and 4) and shoulder blot (panel 6). Only drop strings appear to be missing. Panel 6 truly has shoulder blots because they appear on both shoulders while a shadow would only be appropriate foe the man’s right side. While I am not certain that the picket fence crosshatching was not by John, the abstract arches are so untypical for Prentice that I believe this is Joe or Jack stepping to do some touching up.


Young Love #24 (August 1951) “Don’t Tell On Me” page 2, art by John Prentice

A page from another Prentice story from the same period provides a more typical example of Prentice inking. Again note the cloth folds some of which are long and sweeping and few could be called oval or spatulate in shape. There are some arching shadows that might suggest the Studio Style. But the round shape in the first panel is not abstract at all but is clearly meant to be the moon. The arc of the left side of the second panel is meant to be the entrance to an arched hallway. The shadow on the right side seems to be the light of the window falling on the darken exterior. Almost all applications of large areas of ink appear to be intended as realistic shadows. There is some picket fence crosshatching that again does not look typical of the brush work of either Kirby or Simon. However note the picket fence crosshatching of the last panel. The pure black area on the man’s left shoulder seems an appropriate shadow but then the picket fence crosshatching on the opposite side does not. Since I have found both Simon and Kirby touching up other artists works distinguishing between their efforts and that of the original artists adopting Studio Style techniques can be a difficult conundrum. In John Prentice’s case I am still undecided. The distinction becomes important when trying to detect Prentice’s hand in the inking of work by Jack Kirby. Some have suggested that John was the inker for some of Kirby’s art and he certainly is a candidate for that type of work.


Young Love #24 (August 1951) “Left At the Alter”, art by Marvin Stein

Previously I have had mixed feelings about Marvin Stein and in particular felt his romance art was little more then adequate. Even in the last chapter I noted his presence and gave an example image but did not provide more detailed examination. However Marvin had been working hard at improving his art and although signs of improvement have been noted before now his efforts really seems to bare fruit during this period. Marvin developed a style for his crime and western work that owed much to what he learned from Jack Kirby. For that more action oriented art Stein also developed an inking style that was blunt but well controlled; a style very suitable for the genre it was used on. Neither the pencil nor inking style would be very appropriate for romance work so instead Marvin used a more refined style for both. Not only was the bold inking brush restrained but Marvin sometimes used a pen to create crosshatching. His figure drawing has improved but he still retains one of his earlier trademark tendencies to give his woman eyes that are set at an angle with each other.


Young Love #25 (September 1951) “Alice Finds Her Wonderland”, art by Marvin Stein

The splash for “Alice Finds Her Wonderland” is so special I could not resist including it. The Alice in Wonderland cast was probable requested by the script writer although the wonderland that Alice desires in the story did not include these delightful characters. Having seen much of Marvin Steins work in the romance, crime, western and horror genres it is quite a pleasure to see him so successful at a more cartoon-like drawing.


Young Romance #36 (August 1951) “Just Good Friends”, art by Vic Donahue

Vic Donahue has not made an appearance in a Simon and Kirby production for almost a year (last seen in YL #13, September 1950, see Chapter 11 of The Art of Romance). Even then I remarked that his art had been improving. Apparently that improvement has progressed so far that I almost did not recognize him in “Just Good Friends”. Even though this piece is unsigned enough of Vic’s mannerisms remain to credit Vic with this story such as the tilt he often gives the heads of females or the way he occasionally reverts to fine pen work often as simple hatching. Vic also appeared in this same month in Black Magic #6 (Chapter 2 of the Little Shop of Horrors) in a signed piece but I have to admit I did not find that work particularly appealing.


Young Love #26 (October 1951) “Polly Wants a Boy Friend”, art by Ross Andru

I am always impressed by the number of talented comic book artists that had worked for Simon and Kirby at one time or another. Some like Bill Draut, Mort Meskin and John Prentice did extended stays. Others like Leonard Starr and John Severin worked for more limited durations but provided their share of work during that time. Yet others made brief appearances and only did a few pieces for instance Bernie Krigstein and Steve Ditko. Ross Andru belongs in the last category.

I must admit that I am not that knowledgeable about Ross Andru’s history. Most fans are probably familiar with him for the work he did many years later on Amazing Spider-Man. Andru was clearly an enterprising individual who formed his own company on three occasions. The earliest was in 1951 when he and Mike Esposito created MR Publications. I am not clear exactly what the nature of this company was. Some have said it was a comic publishing company in which case Andru and Esposito were three years ahead of Simon and Kirby’s Mainline (although Al Harvey was much earlier then them all). However I have been unable to determine what comic titles they published. If MR Publications was actually producing comic books for another publisher to release then Simon and Kirby had been doing that for years (and Will Eisner doing it still earlier). MR Publications was short lived and it would be interesting to determine the timing of that company or its demise and the appearance of Andru’s in Simon and Kirby productions.

“Polly Wants a Boy Friend” is typical romance work by Andru. The sort of wistful expression with tilted head of the woman in the center of the splash panel can be found in some signed pieces from a few years later. The man in the last panel of the page was also a dead giveaway of Andru’s style. Although unsigned I have not doubt about the correct attribution of this story. My database indicates Ross will appear in a couple more Simon and Kirby romances in the near future and again under different circumstances in 1954. Considering that Andru’s earlier pieces for Joe and Jack are unsigned there is also the possibility I will find more as my reviews progress.

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)

Fighting American, Chapter 3, Jumping the Shark

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Posted in 2009/06, 6 Mainline, Artists, Fighting American, Kirby, Jack, Periods, Simon, Joe, z Archive and tagged , , , , ,

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby had launched their own publishing company, Mainline, starting with Bullseye #1 (cover date August 1954). In an uncharacteristic move, Simon and Kirby did not advertise their involvement in the Mainline titles (Bullseye, Foxhole, In Love and Police Trap). This unusual reticent was undoubtedly due to a desire to avoid conflicts, at least initially, with Prize Comics for whom Joe and Jack continued to produce comics including Fighting American. The extra work Simon and Kirby had taken on was not without consequences as there was a drop in the quantity and quality of the work drawn by Kirby. The art for the earlier issues of Fighting American was top notch but in my opinion most of the art for the issues covered in this chapter were relatively inferior (but an inferior Jack Kirby was still better then the best of most other comic book artists).


Fighting American #5 (December 1954) “Jiseppi, The Jungle Boy” page 3, art by Jack Kirby

The decline in art quality that I mentioned above does not seem to have occurred in “Jiseppi, The Jungle Boy”. This is a delightfully nonsensical tale about a jungle boy in India that speaks English with a distinct Italian accent. Actually in the end it turns out there is a perfectly logical explanation for this incongruity (okay maybe only as logical as can be expected in a comic book). As seen in the previous chapter, Simon and Kirby’s humor includes making fun of the comic’s heroes. Above we see Fighting American trying to track Jiseppi through the jungle completely oblivious to all the dangers that his quarry saves him from. I love the way that the jungle boy’s tiger speaks in stick figures.


Fighting American #5 (December 1954) “The Year Bender” page 4, art by Jack Kirby

Simon and Kirby would throw in some science fiction-fantasy into their humor as well as seen in “The Year Bender”. They travel in time is said to be about 3000 years in the past. It looks like Rome but that could not be since at 1000 BC Rome was just one of many small Italian cities and the arena games presented here would not be held for many years from then. But historical accuracy was never an important criteria for Simon and Kirby particularly if it got in the way of a good story. Check out the fun Jack had in drawing the ancient helmets; I do not believe any two head gear were drawn the same throughout the story.

As delightful a tale as this is, the decline in art quality that I mentioned is pretty obvious. It would be easy to blame the inker but Jack had some pretty poor inkers in the past but Simon and Kirby would usually rescue it by doing the final touchups.

The final panel reads:

AND THAT NEXT TRIP INTO THE PAST MAY BE COMING UP SOONER THAN SPEEDBOY SUSPECTS! YOU’LL SEE WHAT WE MEAN WHEN YOU GET THE NEXT BIG ISSUE OF FIGHTING AMERICAN!

Despite what they promised issue #6 had no time travel tale.


Fighting American #5 (December 1954) “Invisible Irving”, art by Jack Kirby

The villain for “Invisible Irving” makes use of invisible paint although oddly enough often comes off just part of his body leaving him looking like a flying head.

The tale ends with a caption:

FIGHTING AMERICAN AND SPEEDBOY HAVE A SPECIAL TREAT FOR YOU IN THE NEXT ISSUE. COME ALONG WITH THEM AS THEY UNCOVER A LOST CIVILIZATION IN “CITY BENEATH THE SEA”

Perhaps this refers to the same story mentioned at the end of “The Year Bender”. Even so “City Beneath the Sea” is a story that would never appear and as far as is known was never drawn.

Fighting American #6
Fighting American #6 (February 1955) “Deadly Doolittle” page 4, art by Joe Simon

The art for “Deadly Doolittle” is generally attributed to Jack Kirby, and with good reason since many Kirby mannerisms can be found in the story. However as I have previously pointed out (Art of Joe Simon, Chapter 11) this story is actually a rewrite of a Manhunter story (Adventure Comics #75, June 1942, “Beware Of Mr. Meek”). In “The Comic Book Makers” Joe Simon describes how he and Jack got into hot water with Prize Comics for using re-scripted old romance art. While I have never been able to trace down the specific romance work in question (not that surprising considering the thousands of romance pages that Simon and Kirby produced) this recycling of an old Manhunter story occurred about the same time and was a similar cost saving measure. Attributing the actual pencils for “Deadly Doolittle” to Joe Simon is not based on the use of swipes. Some use the false swiping criteria (non-swipe = Kirby, swipe = Simon) but it has been amply shown that Jack would swipe as well. Rather I credit Simon for this particular story because of the art, especially the woman in the last panel of page 4. Similar women can even be found in the reworked Black Magic that Joe did for DC many years later (Black Magic at DC).


Fighting American #6 (February 1955) “The Making of Fighting American”, art by Jack Kirby

Four pages of issue #6 are used for the retelling of the origin of Fighting American and Speedboy. This was all art selected from the first issue except for the splash panel. Not that the splash was new, it was originally meant as the cover for Fighting American #4.


Fighting American #6 (February 1955) “Super Khakalovitch”, art by Jack Kirby

For me “Super Khakalovitch” is where Simon and Kirby had finally jumped the shark in Fighting American. It may be just me, but I find the humor forced and the story dull. Further the story is not helped by the fact that not all the art was drawn by Jack Kirby. I judge that Jack did pages 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7.


Fighting American #6 (February 1955) “Super Khakalovitch” page 8, art by unidentified artist

The other pages (3, 8, 9 and 10) were done by an artist that I have not been able to identify; he does not look like any of the artists working for Simon and Kirby at the time.

Simon and Kirby may have jumped the shark but they produced enough art for two more issues although one would not be published for years later.

Fighting American, Chapter 2, Fighting With Humor

Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 2, Up and Running

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Posted in 2009/05, 5 Studio, Donahue, Vic, Draut, Bill, Kirby, Jack, Meskin, Mort, Periods, Prentice, John, Prize, z Archive and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

(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

The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 3 (#7 – 8), The Same Old Gang
The Little Shop of Horrors, Chapter 4 (#9 – 11), Another Hit
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

My Two Cents

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Posted in 2009/05, Artists, Kirby, Jack, My Two Cents, Topic, z Archive and tagged , , , , , , ,

The Jack Kirby Collector always has something interesting in it but with all the great art included it can hardly fail to excite a Kirby fan. I thought I would write a brief comment about a couple of articles from the latest issue (JKC #52).

The first concerns a short piece by John Morrow about the screen play “Fish in a Barrow”. I had previously posted on this play (A Simon and Kirby Screen Play) based on a copy belonging to Joe Simon. It seems however that Morrow has a somewhat different copy. John notes that his copy was 66 pages in length while the one I reported on was 77. Morrow’s description of the overall plot indicates it is the same play but obviously something has been changed. The JKC article includes an image of the first page of Morrow’s copy that provides a hint about what has happened. Morrow’s version of the story begins with two men exiting an elevator and proceeding down the corridor to an office. In Simon’s copy they are already in an office and instead it centers on the reactions initiated by the publisher’s unlighted cigar. Simon’s version seems more dramatic. Further since Simon’s version takes place in an office while Morrow’s goes from the elevator to an office, Simon’s version would seem better for a performance in the TV live plays that the piece seems intended. All that and the longer length of Simon’s version suggest that Joe’s copy is the more recent rewrite of John’s copy.


Single panel from Demon #14 used in “Casting a Shadow” (Jack Kirby Collector #52)

The second comment I have to make concerns the article “Casting a Shadow” written by Adrian Day. In it Day suggests that Kirby’s use of shadows in some of his later works was the results of the influence of a science fiction television show “The Outer Limits”. As presented it all seems very plausible and I have no problem with considering Kirby’s art reflecting outside influences. Unfortunately Adrian failed to consider earlier work from Kirby’s extensive career. Simon and Kirby had a long history of the use of abstract shadows to enliven their comic art and it can be found not only in some of Jack’s earlier work but it was even applied to work by other artists working for Simon and Kirby productions. While the strange shadows on the couch in the image used by Day in his article (shown above) seem to be a late addition to Kirby’s repertoire, those on the walls are not. Note the way some are slightly curved; this was a common Simon and Kirby technique. For comparison I provide the line art for the cover for Young Romance #34 (June 1951) below. I should add that this is by no means the earliest example. Can there be any doubt about Kirby’s long use of seemingly inappropriate shadows? I suggest the absence of such shadows during the silver age was more a result of the way the inking of Kirby’s pencils was handled at that time.


Young Romance #34 (June 1951), art by Jack Kirby

The Art of Romance, Chapter 15, The Action of Romance

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Posted in 2009/05, 5 Studio, Art of Romance, Artists, Draut, Bill, Kirby, Jack, Meskin, Mort, Periods, Prentice, John, Prize, Serial Posts, Simon, Joe, Stein, Marvin, z Archive and tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

(May 1951 – July 1951: Young Romance #33 – #35, Young Love #21 – #23)


Number of Romance Titles 1947 – 1952 (the period covered in this chapter is shaded in blue)

Besides the two romance titles, Simon and Kirby were also producing bimonthly Black Magic (for Prize) and Boys’ Ranch (for Harvey). At this point I believe it can safely be said that Joe and Jack had little to do with the Prize crime titles. While Mort Meskin and Marvin Stein would appear in Prize comics both produced by Simon and Kirby and those that were not, they were the only artists that seemed to do so. John Severin had been another artist that worked in both the romance and crime titles but at this point the only Prize title he was working on was Prize Comics Western (also not a Simon and Kirby production).

Young Romance switched back to drawn covers for May and June (Young Love had already been using art covers). Both titles would revert to photographic covers for their July issues and would remain using photo covers until 1954. I really do not know what to make of YL consistently and YR sporadically using art covers for a period of about a year.

In a certain respect Jack Kirby was the primary studio artist during this period as in fact he was during the entire time Joe and Jack produced comics together. Except for a period in 1954 and My Date #4, Jack would provide the art for the cover of all Simon and Kirby productions that did not use a photograph. During this period Kirby would also do the lead story for all the issues of Young Romance and one for Young Love (YL #21). But if the total number of pages of art produced is used to judge who was the primary artist then Mort Meskin wins out be a large margin. For these six romance issue Jack did a total of 51 pages of art while Mort did 80. The difference is all the more striking with the knowledge that Meskin did all his own inking while Kirby did not. I will say that I feel that Meskin’s art sometimes suffers from his higher rate at producing art while Kirby always seems to provide high quality work no matter how many pages he drew. It also pays to compare Jack’s 51 pages with Bill Draut’s 36 and John Prentice’s 34 or 37 pages (the uncertainty about Prentice page count is due to the short feature “Will You Help Me?” from YL #21 which I will discuss below). Jack was still working at a high rate; it is just that Mort was even more exceptional. Marvin Stein is another contributor during this period with only 3 stories and 23 pages. There are 3 very short pieces (a total of 7 pages) that I have not been able provide artistic credits for.


Young Romance #34 (June 1951) “Old Fashioned Girl”, art by Jack Kirby

Perhaps others do not share my view, but I find Kirby’s confessional splashes powerful drawings despite their lack of action. While Kirby is generally (and quite reasonably) famous for his dynamic drawing it was a mark of his genius that he could be so effectively in such static compositions. Much of this has to do with Jack’s careful use of characterization. I have said it before but it is worth repeating, I do not agree with those who claim that Kirby did not draw beautiful women. It is true the protagonist in the splash for “Old Fashioned Girl” does not have the type of attractiveness that would be found in a beauty pageant contestant. But her frail like form has its own beauty and most importantly is totally appropriate for her antique dress style. The thing is Kirby did not draw the same women over and over but created unique individuals that were well matched to the theme of the story. The woman’s downcast eyes and the demur way she holds her hands augment the characterization. The old woman looking on and all the antique surroundings complete the picture. If all that was not enough, Jack has added a small panel that is not a story panel but another means of showing the conflict between the lady’s old fashioned ways and what was then modern society.

I feel that Jack Kirby’s romance splashes are much more interesting then the covers. I present the line art for the cover of YR #34 which is based on the “Old Fashioned Girl” story in a post above (My Two Cents). The reader can compare the two and reach their own conclusion.


Young Romance #35 (July 1951) “Temptations of a Car Hop”, art by Jack Kirby

The splash for “Temptations of a Car Hop” provides a nice contrast to the one in “Old Fashioned Girl”. The protagonist was certainly meant to represent a thoroughly modern woman, or at least what would have been modern in 1951. However 58 years later and the car-hop has disappeared a casualty of the fast food drive through. I do remember them from my younger days but none that I ever visited had such and attractive waitress wearing such a short dress.


Young Love #21 (May 1951) “All Work and No Love”, pencils by Jack Kirby inks by Marvin Stein

With all the work I am doing for Titan’s Simon and Kirby library, I have not had time to devote to investigating the various inkers of Jack Kirby’s work. Still from time to time I come across a piece that just screams a particular inker. Such is the case with “All Work and No Love”. In the splash the simplicity of the woman’s eyes and eyebrows and the slight angle they have in relation to one another leaves little doubt that Marvin Stein was involved in the inking. The same sort of eyes appears elsewhere in the story as well. Also there are some cases where the eyebrow is extended into a crease of the forehead which is a trait often found in Stein’s own art. I should point out that inking of Kirby pencils in the Simon and Kirby studio was like an assembly line with various artists taking care of different chores. So when I say Marvin Stein inked this story I am saying no more then he was the one inker of this work that I have been able to identify but there are others that I have not. In this case Marvin seems to have done the outline inking, the first step in the inking process. Note however how the spotting uses the picket fence crosshatching, drop strings and shoulder blots that are characteristics of the Studio Style inking (see my Inking Glossary for explanations of the inking terminology that I use). Stein’s inking of his own work does not use such techniques. Further Stein’s own inking was a bit rough and lacked control. It would improve greatly in future years but at this point I cannot believe he could have been the artist that did the spotting.


Young Romance #33 (May 1951) “Take a Letter, Darling” page 6, art by Mort Meskin

While I have frequently remarked how action is more often found in the romance stories Jack Kirby draws I do not want to leave the impression that action played no part in stories drawn by other studio artists. So I thought I would provide some examples. First up is a page by Mort Meskin. Meskin has his own unique and very stylized version of a slugging as can be seen in the second panel. Note in particular how the angular position of the victim’s head and how his legs are folded up beneath him. I say it is stylized both because Mort uses it over and over again and because it appears nothing like how a photograph a fight would look. I am not using the term stylized in a negative manner because I believe a comic artist job is to tell a story, not to try to produce a sequence of photorealistic images. With his technique Meskin has condensed several instants of time into one image (the victims head responding to being struck by the fist is the first instant, with the torso soon following and finally the loss of control of the legs as the effect of the knock out is completed).


Young Romance #33 (May 1951) “Not in the Act” page 8, art by Bill Draut

The second example of a fight comes from Bill Draut’s “Not in the Act”. Draut uses an interesting compositional device of presenting the fighters in depth. I am not sure where Bill got this idea but it is pretty effective. I do not believe I have seen Draut use it before so it is not as an important part of his repertoire as Meskin’s or Kirby’s more stylized slugging.


Young Love #23 (July 1951) “Cradle Robber”, art by John Prentice

The splash for “Cradle Robber” provides an example of a fight as portrayed by the more recently arrived studio artist. Actually calling it a fight is not quite correct as Prentice has chosen to present the moment just before the punch is thrown. The other thing about this splash is that it is actually a teaser as there would be no fight seen in the story. It is however the closest example of a fight that I could find by John Prentice in the period covered by this chapter.


Young Romance #35 (July 1951) “The Catskill Man-Chasers” page 8, art by Mort Meskin

Mort Meskin is famous for his use of blacks but that does not always show up in his romance art. That may in part be a result of his high rate of art production. But it may also be because for Meskin telling the story properly had become a higher priority then making interesting art. Sometimes Meskin would have the best of both worlds (story and art) as in this page from “The Catskill Man-Chasers”. For many comic artists only night scenes would get an abundance of black but here Mort uses it to make the light parts so much brighter as would be appropriate for a hot summer day by the pool. Mort also uses it in the second panel to hide in plain sight Tom, the love interest of the story. Tom’s presence in the panel is not obvious at a glance because Mort only provides a silhouette but at closer examination the pipe clearly indicates that the shadowed figure is Tom. Starting with the second panel, Meskin moves in closer and closer so that the view progresses from a crowded scene to one that focuses on just the couple. While Meskin is restricting the focus he is paradoxically increasing the use of black until in the final panel the reader can make out only a little of the faces. While Mort has obscured the features he has made the scene all the more intimate. It is a masterly orchestrated page all the more so because nobody else working for Simon and Kirby, including Kirby, worked blacks anything like this.


Young Romance #33 (May 1951) “Charity Case” page 5, art by John Prentice

Since John Prentice is a new addition to the Simon and Kirby studio it behooves me to begin to try to discredit the opinion that too many Kirby fans have that Jack supplied layouts for the various studio artists. While that is true for some of the more minor artists that Simon and Kirby occasionally used it is decidedly not true for the more common talented artists. John Prentice certainly falls in the talented group and except for a special case from years later and from outside the romance genre Prentice did not work from Kirby layouts. One piece of evidence in Prentice’s case comes from the dramatic close-ups like panel 3 in the page shown above. While Jack Kirby occasionally did close-ups they generally are not as radically cropped as Prentice often uses.


Young Love #22 (June 1951) “Cry Baby”, art by John Prentice

It was not uncommon for Studio Style inking techniques to show up in splashes of stories of the artists that otherwise were inked with other brush mannerisms. Often I suspect it was the work of Joe or Jack stepping in to touch up the art. That is not however what I judge happened to “Cry Baby”. All the major features of the studio style are present in this page if not in the splash itself; picket fence crosshatching, drop strings, abstract shadow arch and shoulder blots (see my Inking Glossary). What makes me believe this was not the work of Simon or Kirby is the way the picket fence crosshatching is done particularly on the man’s jacket. The rails are not done in the standard way of the Studio Style but match Prentice’s cloth folds. The pickets vary in both spacing and execution in ways not typical of Simon and Kirby. This leads me to believe that the spotting was actually done by Prentice himself.


Young Love #21 (May 1951) “Will You Help Me?”, art in part by John Prentice

I must admit I am uncertain what to make of “Will You Help Me?” from YL #21. The overall simplicity of the style is different then work assigned to Prentice yet the brunette has the elegant beauty so typical of John’s work. The inking of the splash panel looks like a combination of that by Prentice and another artist. The spotting of the hair is typical of Prentice’s technique but the cloth folds are not nor are the way they are arranged along the edge of her sleeve which suggests either Simon or Kirby. The inking in the first story panel all looks like it was done by Prentice. On the other hand the crosshatching in the last story panel is not typical of any of the parties considered so far. It is possible that Prentice is inking Kirby pencils but the way the brunette turns to talk to someone behind her is a common Prentice mannerism. The other possibility is that Prentice is working from Kirby layouts with which he takes liberties in some places. It could be that John did the pencils and final spotting but that the outline inking was done by someone else. At the present I am undecided except that John Prentice participated in the art in some fashion.


Young Love #23 (July 1951) “Nag, Nag, Nag”, art by Marvin Stein

I thought I would close off with an example of what Marvin Stein was doing during this period. The style is still typical of Stein’s early period but there are hints like the man in the second story panel that are typical of the style he would develop later.

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)

The Art of Romance, Chapter 14, The Third Suspect

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Posted in 2009/05, 5 Studio, Art of Romance, Artists, Draut, Bill, Kirby, Jack, Meskin, Mort, Periods, Prentice, John, Prize, Serial Posts, Starr, Leonard, Stein, Marvin, z Archive and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

(February 1951 – April 1951: Young Romance #30 – #32, Young Love #18 – #20)


Number of Romance Titles 1947 – 1952 (the period covered in this chapter is shaded in blue)

Besides Young Romance and Young Love, Simon and Kirby were also producing Black Magic and Boys’ Ranch during this period. Jack Kirby supplied some covers for Headline and Justice Traps the Guilty so it is possible that Joe and Jack still had something to do with the Prize crime titles as well. However Kirby, Draut and Starr, artists important to the other Simon and Kirby productions, did not appear in the crime titles. That plus the lack of a Simon and Kirby production cartouche seems to indicate that Headline and Justice Traps the Guilty were no longer produced by Joe and Jack. Romance comics in general were just starting to rebound from the relative low that followed the love glut. However with more then 45 titles, romance comics were still a lucrative part of the industry. Since both Young Romance and Young Love were both monthly titles it can be presumed that they were still selling quite well.


Young Romance #31 (March 1951) “One Way to Hold Him”, art by Jack Kirby

Since Joe Simon did not do much penciling anymore, Jack Kirby was by one definition the primary artist for the studio. Jack would provide the cover art that was still appearing on Young Love (Young Romance had converted back to using photographic covers). The all important lead stories for Young Romance were all done by Kirby. At 12 to 14 pages long, Jack’s lead stories for YR were longer then the work by any other studio artist (a maximum of 9 pages). But if the primary artist is considered the one producing the greatest number of pages of art, Kirby was no longer the primary romance artists. During this period Kirby produced 55 pages of romance art while Mort Meskin did 66 pages. Jack’s work for Boys’ Ranch #3 (February) meant that for February Jack produced the greatest number of pages in the studio for all genres but by April that was no longer true and Mort would take the lead.

About three and a half years since the start of Young Romance and Kirby is still finding ways to put special interest into his romance stories. Jack could write a story without action but he certainly like to add it when possible. Who else would use the rough and tumble roller derby world to tell a love story. I often wonder how the original teenage girl readers thought of Jack’s stories but for the modern comic reader there is no question that Kirby’s romance stories are fascinating reads.


Young Romance #30 (February 1951) “Different”, art by Jack Kirby

Jack Kirby was not averse to using a love story to tackle social themes as well. “Different” is not really about romance but about intolerance instead. Initially when the family moved into the neighborhood they were well received. Only after the visit of the grandparents reveals that the family’s original name had been Wilheims did the community turn against them. Love is just a background to the story of initial acceptance followed by rejection based only on the towns prejudiced perception of the family’s background.


Young Love #18 (February 1951) “Unwilling Bride”, art by Mort Meskin

As discussed above, it was during this period that for the first time Mort Meskin output exceeded Jack Kirby’s. Meskin’s art production rate is all the more remarkable considering that Mort did all his own inking while Jack’s work was mostly inked by others. I wish the original art for the splash from “Unwilling Bride” was available as I would love to know how the negative figure of the jailed man was done. The spotting looks like it was brushed with white ink but I would think it would have been difficult to work white over a black background. Would Simon and Kirby have agreed to the extra expense to make a negative stat? However it was done it provides an effective way to put an image to the troubled girl’s thoughts.


Young Romance #32 (April 1951) “Hand-Me-Down Love”, art by Bill Draut

Once again Bill Draut takes third place in the amount of work provided; 6 stories with 45 pages.

Previously Bill Draut’s splash art seemed to be in a bit of a rut; not bad but not particularly exciting. Perhaps because of his work in the new Black Magic title Draut seems to have his mojo working again. Whatever the reason Bill has some nice splashes during this period. “Hand-Me Down Love” is a confessional splash which makes me suspect that it was originally meant to be the lead story for Young Love but was moved to Young Romance instead. Since Kirby was doing all the lead stories in Young Romance Draut’s work then became one of the backup stories. Like many of Kirby’s romance splashes at the time there really is not much going on but what is presented tells a whole story. The woman’s apron identifies her as a housewife. The drab background with a wall having small flaws indicates her humble surroundings. Two photographs should be her loved ones. The man obviously would be her husband but what can be made of the woman? While the splash tells a story it purposely leaves some things unanswered to entice the viewer to read the story.


Young Romance #31 (March 1951) “The Things You’re Missing”, art by Marvin Stein

The fourth most used artist was Marvin Stein with 4 stories and 32 pages. Stein would produce some nice work for the crime titles in the future but at this point his style is a bit clumsy. Some of Marvin’s characteristic traits can be found at this earlier stage, such as the shallow depth to the face of the man in the splash. When inking his own work Stein was always a bit rough but at this point his brush also lacks the assurance he would eventually gain. Without that confidence his inking just looks as clumsy as his pencil work.


Young Romance #30 (February 1951) “Weekend For 3”, art by Leonard Starr

For whatever reason, Leonard Starr only provided a single story in the period covered in the last chapter but now he does 3 stores with 22 pages. Starr seems to have completely abandoned the tall and very narrow panels that he had previously favored. Occasionally he would divide a panel row into three panels and even more rarely extend the height slightly but the panels never become as narrow as before. For the most part now Starr adhered to a standard panel layout of 3 rows with 2 panels per row. Leonard still likes to use a vertical splash as for example “Weekend For 3”.


Young Love #18 (February 1951) “The Cave Man Type”, art by Leonard Starr

It was not just Starr’s panel layouts that were evolving. I mentioned in the Chapter 12 how Leonard had begun using a sultrier female along with the more pixie look his females previously had. In “The Cave Man Type” Starr uses what was for him a very different type of man.

My database indicates that February 1951 was when Starr would do his last work for Simon and Kirby until 1954 (and I have gone back to verify the attribution of the two 1954 pieces). But originally my database only included a single Starr work for February but with this recent review I now add two more. Considering that Starr stopped providing signatures on his later S&K work and that his style was changing I wonder if I will find more of his work when I write the next couple of chapters to this serial post?


Young Love #20 (April 1951) “Big Bertha”, art by John Prentice

“Big Bertha” from YL #20 marks the first appearance in a Simon and Kirby production of work by John Prentice. My previous short biography on John Prentice (John Prentice, Usual Suspect #3) is seriously flawed* and incomplete and I really should put together a better one. Prior to coming to work for Joe and Jack, Prentice had been working for Hillman and perhaps some other publishers as well. Prentice shared an apartment with Starr so perhaps Leonard aided John in getting work from Simon and Kirby. Most artists that worked for Simon and Kirby had adopted (directly or indirectly) aspects of Milt Caniff’s style but John was greatly influenced by Alex Raymond. So much so that when Raymond died suddenly in 1956, Prentice was able to easily take over his syndication strip Rip Kirby. John’s arrival in the S&K studio filled a significant gap created when Bruno Premiani left. Artists would come and go in Joe and Jack’s studio, but the presences of Bill Draut, Mort Meskin, John Prentice, and of course Jack Kirby meant that all Simon and Kirby productions would have a healthy and interesting combination of artists.


Young Love #19 (March 1951) “Later Then You Think”, layout by Jack Kirby

I have been able to provide attributions for all of the romance work during the period covered by this chapter with the exception of “Later Then You Think”. This looks like the work of some minor artist working from layouts provided by Jack Kirby. Normally when I describe a work as based on Kirby layouts I am uncomfortable using that term because it was obvious that what Jack had provided were very tight in some places. In this particular case that is not true; the artist style is present throughout and no parts have an overly Kirby look. The only exceptions are the photographs in the splash panel that totally look like they were done by Jack. Interestingly the entire story is inked in the Studio Style; shoulder blots, abstract shadow arches, and picket fence crosshatching are found throughout.

Footnotes:

* The most serious error in my previous post on John Prentice is my attributing to him “Two-Timer” from Young Love #4 a piece that I now questionably credit to Bruno Premiani.

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)

Young Allies and the L Word

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Posted in 2009/05, 3 Timely, Artists, Assorted, Kirby Or Not, Kirby, Jack, Periods, Topic, z Archive and tagged , , , , ,


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941), art by Jack Kirby

Recently there was discussion on one of Yahoo’s comic book lists about the correct attribution for the art for Young Allies #1 and #2. I do not want to get into details of that interchange, although I may disagree with some of the participants they are entitled to their opinions. But I thought I would write a post on Young Allies #1 to explain my position. The cover for Young Allies #2 presents its unique problems so I will discuss it some other time.

There can be no question about Simon and Kirby’s involvement with Young Allies #1. The punch throwing Bucky on the cover is so typical of Kirby that there can be no doubt that he drew the figure. I would go even further and confidently credit Jack with the Red Skull and Hitler as well. Normally that would be enough for me to attribute the entire cover to Jack Kirby; it was not Simon and Kirby typical procedure for Kirby to draw part of a cover then pass it on to someone else to finish it up (there are two exceptions that I know of, the covers for Detective #65 and In Love #1).

Three of the bound Young Allies, those on our left, have enough similarity to other Simon and Kirby creations that I would conclude Jack probably drew them. The soldier firing a pistol is a typical Simon and Kirby motif and although he is a little stiff I would assign him to Jack as well. I do have trouble attributing the last Young Ally, Whitewash, to Jack. While Simon and Kirby produced some stereotypical characters none of them ever went as far as this troubling image. Finally there is Toro. Frankly there is not much in Toro’s depiction that suggests Kirby but then there is little in the Simon and Kirby repertoire to compare Toro with.

To sum up there are parts of the YA #1 cover that clearly were done by Kirby, some parts that might be Jack’s as well, but other parts that may be someone else’s work. I will return to the cover after I have considered the story art as well.


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1942) chapter 3 page 3

The book is one long story with 6 chapters. Each chapter, with the exception of the first, starts with a full pages splash. The first chapter begins with a sort of table of contents in the form of a matrix of reduced versions of the chapter splashes. This format of turning the comic into one long story is a device that Simon and Kirby would return to in Boy Commandos. While some of their later work did not take up the entire book Simon and Kirby did return every so often to long stories requiring multiple chapters. It is clear that different hands were involved in drawing this story. The story art certainly was not drawn by Simon and Kirby. I really have not carefully examined it and so I will not be discussing credits for the story art at this time.


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941) enlarged Chapter 1 section of the table of contents

Although the first chapter actually starts with a table of contents that table includes an image that may have been the originally intended splash. For the most part everything seems drawn by Kirby. Fists are square in shape as is typical for Kirby. Bucky’s legs have a form often used by Jack. Of course nobody could depict a punch like Jack and this is a good example of a Kirby slugfest. In fact we shall see the attribution of this panel to Jack Kirby is the most secure of all the splashes. There are two troublesome aspects and they are the same ones found in the cover: Whitewash and Toro. Toro is an important part of the composition and the fall of the topmost Nazi soldier makes no sense without him. Yet the figure of Toro is as stiff and uninteresting as his depiction on the cover. Whitewash on the other hand just seems out of place.


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941) Chapter 2

Bucky looks like he could have step out of a page from Captain America and I am quite comfortable attributing him to Kirby. The Red Skull is a bit awkward but this is not unusual for Jack’s work at this period. Otherwise the Red Skull looks like Jack’s work. Note how Whitewash is placed in the background. His attempt to escape the graveyard was meant to provide comic relief but his small size hides what would otherwise be his stereotypical facial features. Once again Toro seems stiff and uninteresting but still plays an important part of the composition.


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941) Chapter 3

I am not sure why anyone would have problem with Chapter 3 being penciled by Jack Kirby; what with square fingertips, Bucky’s wild hair, and the disarrayed posses of the Nazi seamen. This splash more then any of the others is centered on Bucky with all other Young Allies delegated to the background. Toro, with his stiff flight, seems little more then a smaller version of the Toro depicted on the cover.


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941) Chapter 4

Only in the splash for Chapter 4 do we find some decidedly non-Kirby elements. While there are some square fists (a cautionary example to depending on this trait alone when identifying Kirby art) the rest of the hands look very different from Kirby’s usual manner. The pile of Young Allies pinning Hitler lacks the action of typical Kirby art. Even the heavy boy’s readiness to use a hammer on Hitler’s rear end is not typical Simon and Kirby humor. Bucky has not only been placed in the background but now Whitewash gets to be the centerpiece of the splash which makes his stereotypic features all that more repulsive to our modern sensibilities. Toro is given the most dynamic pose of all the splashes or the cover. In short I do not think Kirby had anything to do with this splash, nor for that matter Joe Simon.


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941) Chapter 5

The low viewing angle, the wide running stance of the Red Skull and the lower of the two Boy Commandoes Young Allies, and the soldier firing his pistol from above all are classic features of Jack Kirby’s art. Also note the Red Skull’s square fists; while I caution against depending on this feature its presence should not be ignored either. There is a crudeness to the art that makes this splash distinctive compared to the other splashes we have examined so far.


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941) Chapter 6

Most Simon and Kirby splashes and covers have an emphasis on design that makes me believe that they had been laid out by Joe Simon (see my serial post The Wide Angle Scream). But there are others where the figures are distributed all over the image and interlink with one another like some complicated puzzle. I believe these “all over compositions” are Jack’s alone. The splash for Chapter 6 is an example of this type of composition. Jack really did not try to provide accurate anatomy but he paid careful attention to the underlying form. Kirby might distort the figure but he always did it without “breaking” the structure. It is just that sort of distortion that is found here in the legs found on Bucky and his thrown (and barely clad) opponent. Some of the Young Allies have been excluded from this splash, in particular Whitewash. Toro gets one of his most energetic posses but he still presents a stiff and awkward appearance.

Now that the cover and all the splashes have been presented what can be concluded? As I mentioned above the splash for Chapter 4 does not seem to me to have any significant Simon and Kirby involvement and I will be excluding it from my discussion. Otherwise all the splashes and the cover had Simon and Kirby involvement at some level. Jack Kirby brought to Captain America a dynamic art style that no other artist at that time came close to. That dynamism is found in the cover and all the splashes (again excluding Chapter 4). While Simon and Kirby’s presence seems pretty certain much of the art seems crude compared to what Kirby was penciling in Captain America at the same time. Although Joe may have been involved in some of the inking, I do not think Simon was stepping in to help with the pencils either. Thus one or more other artists are likely to have had a hand in this work as well.

It was probably the combination of the Kirby dynamic action with the crudeness of the drawing that has caused some to use the L word. Yes some are saying Kirby only did the layouts. Frankly I am getting pretty disgusted with the L word when applied to Jack Kirby. Normally when the term layouts implies that one artist would provide very rough or outline drawings with another artist then providing the details. A good example are the layouts that Carl Burgos did for Joe Simon (Carl Burgos does the Fly). When I say that I believe Joe would often provide Jack with a splash or cover layout that is what I am talking about. But my study of Simon and Kirby productions (particularly the romance comics) and Marvel silver age comics convinces me that Jack never did layouts of that type. Unfortunately we no longer have any examples of Kirby “layouts”, that is those left unfinished by another artist. But it is obvious even in the finished product that Kirby provided much more then mere outlines. Kirby “layouts” may have been a little rough but they were tight enough that his hand is still often detectable in the final product. In some places Kirby’s presence would be so strong that Jack must have provided very tight drawing. To call this type of work layouts is completely unfair to Kirby. Frankly I blame Stan Lee for first using this term for some work that Jack did during the 60’s. The only problem is that I have yet to come up with a better term. However it is clear that the proper credit for the pencils for cases like the cover and splashes for Young Allies is that Jack Kirby drew them working with other artists.

As for Young Allies I believe the cover and splashes (still excluding Chapter 4) all were done by Jack Kirby but with some portions tighter then others. Bucky invariably got the best treatment and Toro the roughest. It may sound like heresy but I do not believe that at this time Jack had any idea how to handle a human torch and since it was someone else’s creation little interest in figuring it out. While Kirby would carefully place Toro into the composition he left it the finishing artists to flesh him out and frankly they were not up to the job. As for Whitewash Kirby always seem to place him far in the background of the splashes, or leave him out entirely. I suspect that Jack really was not comfortable with Whitewash and this suggests that his presence in the Young Allies was dictated by someone else.