Category Archives: 1 Early

Art By Joe Simon, Chapter 2, Before Kirby

The GCD lists Joe Simon as the artist for Solar Patrol in Silver Steak #3 (February 1940) and renamed as Planet Patrol in SS #4 (March 1940). I have not seen either so I cannot verify this attribution. Still the timing and Joe’s frequent signing of his work makes it likely to be correct.

Target #1
Target Comics #1 (February 1940) “The Case of the Black Widow Spider” by Joe Simon (signed)

In February titles we also find Joe Simon starting a feature in Target Comics #1 (Novelty Press) called T-Men. He does a similar job to the one he did in the tree man story for Solar Patrol. One important difference is that although he still does not use the standard panel layout, his deviation from a strict grid are small and there is never any question about the proper reading sequence. The story is a little better then the Solar Patrol one, but it is without the improvements shown in his Fiery Mask story for Timely. This may be just Joe still trying to adjust to a new art media. However I suspect that the T-Man story may have actually been done at about the same time as Solar Patrol but the publication of it was delayed. This is the first part of a two part story. But the way the first part ends leads me to wonder whether if it was originally meant to be two parts. The ending seems abrupt and not like a planned cliffhanger. When the story continues in the next issue it is quickly wrapped up in a few panels. My suspicion is that the story was originally eight pages. Either this is not the length the publisher asked for, or a length change was required later. In either case Joe did a little fixing to make it a seven page story with a “to be continued”. But when Joe returned to the story for the next issue he knew he wanted to have a half page splash and he wanted to proceed with the new story line. So he cut panels from the former eight page and pasted on the new page. If I am correct this is the earliest example of Joe using cut and paste as an editorial method, a technique that he would use throughout the rest of his career.

Daring Mystery #2
Daring Mystery #2 (February 1940) “Phantom Bullet” by Joe Simon (signed)

The Fiery Mask did not reappear in the second issue of Daring Mystery. Instead Joe launched two new features. The first was Phantom Bullet. The hero has a gun that shots ice bullets. The idea being that after the ice bullet has done its work it melts, leaving the police without a clue. This was a hero? Although Joe still has a way to go, he has made progress in his comic artistry. Like last month’s Fiery Mask, this one has a pretty good story and the art work shows improvement. But Simon is still doing simplified drawing and his trademark angled eye/eyebrow remain. But his style seems consistent throughout the story. You might think that this was an indication that Joe did not do any swiping here, but you would be wrong. Take the kidnapped lady in panel 8 of page 9, rotate her until she is upside down, take a mirror image, and move her arms a bit and presto change-o she becomes the damsel in distress from the cover of Silver Streak #2. I said you would see her again. Guess what, Joe is still not finished with her.

Daring Mystery #2
Daring Mystery #2 (February 1940) “Trojak” by Joe Simon (signed Gregory Sykes)

Another new feature for Daring Mystery #2 was a Tarzan clone called Trojak. This one is signed by Gregory Sykes. But don’t bother searching GCD or any other database for Sykes because you will not find any other trace of him. The way the “by” is written on the title panel, the similar ‘S’, the same style of page numbering, and the art style in Phantom Bullet and Trojak leaves no doubt that were both done by Joe Simon. Joe had so far shown a desire to promote himself, why not on Trojak as well? In all likelihood Joe was worried that Goodman would not want two stories by the same artist in one comic. I looked through the GCD listings for Daring Mystery in search for any other possible pseudonyms. I did find a couple of names that sounded suspicious; Maurice Gutwirth and George Kapitan. But further searching showed that they both actually were legitimate artists with a long record of comic book work. So Gregory Sykes seems a rare example of Simon using a pseudonym.

Daring Mystery #2
Daring Mystery #2 (February 1940) “Trojak” by Joe Simon (signed Gregory Sykes)

Although stylistically similar to Phantom Bullet, the art in the Trojak story looks better. A lot of this has to do with all the action that was possible with Trojak and a jungle full of animals. The style is pretty uniform throughout the story except some of the natives look more developed. Sure enough, doesn’t the chief in panel 3 of the splash page look like the tree man from Solar Patrol? I wonder what the original source looked like?

The GCD does list Joe Simon as the artists for Trojak in Daring Mystery #3 (April 1940), #4 (May) and #5 (June). The date for #3 seems reasonable, those for #4 and #5 less so, but still possible. Daring Mystery #6 (September) includes art by Jack Kirby and so postdates this chapter.

Target #2
Target Comics #2 (March 1940) “Sabotage” by Joe Simon (signed)

As mentioned previously the T-Men in this issue starts by wrapping up the story line from the previous issue. Although handled much too quickly, the way the villain gets his just desserts is really quite funny. Hopefully someday this story will be reprinted. The art for the wrap up is a good match for what was done in the Target #1. However the rest of the story is done in a style that closely matches the stories in Daring Mystery #2 from the previous month. Joe uses larger page number in a circular field, exactly the same as in Daring Mystery #2. Further evidence that the publication of the work Joe did for Target was delayed a month compared to other titles.

The GCD lists Joe Simon as doing the T-Men feature in Target #3 (April 1940) but that one is signed Ben Thompson and was done in a different style. Ben Thompson has a history of doing comics at this time so I do not think it is a pseudonym. The GCD also list Simon as the artist for T-Men in Target #4 (May 1940). However I have not seen that issue.

Human Torch #2
Human Torch #2 (1) (Fall 1940) “The Strange Case of the Bloodless Corpses” by Joe Simon

The first issue of the Human Torch was number 2 because Timely took over the numbering from Red Raven. With the high prices of key golden age comics, like the Human Torch #2, we are fortunate that Marvel has reprinted it recently. Red Raven #1 is cover dated September 1940, so the Human Torch #2 clearly comes after Joe and Jack met. But the Fiery Mask story in this issue was done by Joe Simon alone in a style similar to that he used before meeting Jack. This story is included here because I suspect that it might have been done earlier then its publication date would indicate. For those of you that have Greg Theakston’s “The Complete Jack Kirby, 1917-1940” compare the panel by Hal Foster of a man hollering with the one in the left corner of panel 3. Once more it appears that Joe is swiping from the same source material more then once.

In these first two chapters we saw Joe Simon adopt his own style. Yes there are variations due to Joe developing his skill, and there are also differences due to Joe’s swiping. But careful examination for Joe’s style can provide attributions even when the work is not signed. I could say that armed with this knowledge we are now prepared to identify all of Simon’s early work. I could say that, but it would not be true. In our next chapter we will see Joe adopt an entirely different style.

Art by Joe Simon, Appendix 6, Amazing Man #10

Art by Joe Simon, Chapter 2, Footnote

Art By Joe Simon, Chapter 1, In The Beginning

I disagree with the Kirby Checklist (and most scholars and experts as well) about attribution of some of the work to Jack Kirby. In most of these particular cases I believe the correct assignment would be to Joe Simon. Some of these examples look so obviously Simon to me, that I am amazed at that others cannot see it. In most cases I get no explanation as to why someone attributes something to Jack and not to Joe. As I have discussed previously, comic experts are unwilling or unable to explain their verdicts. There are some few scholars that have tried to give evidence to support their position. But in those cases what I keep hearing is that certain features look like their were done by Kirby. That is all well and good, but what I don’t hear are mentions of features that do not look like the way Simon would do them. In other words these scholars seem to be looking for evidence of Kirby involvement, but are not looking for clues to Simon’s presence. But Joe was a talented artist and through his inking of Kirby’s pencils was very familiar with his style. Joe had the ability and incentive to use things he learned from Jack and even at times to ghost Kirby.

So I would like to do another serial post, this time on art done by Joe Simon before and during the Simon and Kirby collaboration. I doubt I will change many minds about some of these (in my view) misattributions. However I do hope to bring to some a better understanding of Simon’s own style. A similar attempt on the work of Jack Kirby would be a monumental undertaking, there is just so much of it. Joe did not do that much penciling during the years of the S&K studio. So you would think that it would not be that hard to do a fairly detailed and complete analysis. But with Simon I am faced with two problems. The first is that early work by Joe was done during the golden age of comics. These comics are uncommon and generally priced very high. I simply do not have access to all of the comics that some say have work by Joe in them. What I do have for study seems to provide a good idea of Joe’s techniques. A more complete access would certainly be desirable, but I do not think it will change much the view point that I will be presenting here. The second, more serious problem, is the lack of signed work during the period of S&K collaboration. Once they teamed up, work that was signed was done so jointly as Simon and Kirby. No individually signed art was done by either Joe or Jack. So we must look elsewhere for documentation of work by Joe to form the foundation of our analysis.

Joe Simon started his career as a newspaper artist in Rochester, NY. The work I have seen are sport illustrations. These are nicely done in a realistic style, not at all like comic book art. Simon also did a lot of touch up work using an air brush. As Joe described it to me once, if an editor felt a dress was too short in a photograph of a woman, an artist would air brush it longer. Joe became a master of the use of an air brush. But the newspaper Simon worked for shutdown, and he decided to try his luck in New York City.

Joe Simon
Joe Simon

Joe did find work doing re-touching. But although he was good at it, it was a career he did not want to remain in. Following a suggestion, Joe tried the new comic book industry and entered the Funnies Inc. shop. Although this was a completely new experience for him, he adapted quickly and found it to his liking. In his book “The Comic Book Makers”, Joe says his first job was a seven page western. Unfortunately to my knowledge nobody has located what comic this western was published in. The first published work we do know about was done for different publishers, Lev Gleason, Centaur and Timely, and have cover dates of January 1940. Two covers and two stories, for someone who never did comics before it was an impressive start. But comics was a new industry with opportunities for the those with ambition and talent.

Keen Detective #17
Keen Detective #17 (January 1940) by Joe Simon (signed)

For the Keen Detective cover Joe Simon has chosen a fight atop an American tank in the Arabian desert. An unusual choice since the middle east was not then the center of conflict it is today. Here Joe has trouble depicting the hero. His left arm is not convincing, nor is his left leg. Otherwise the rest of the figures are handled well. Simon’s composition works well with and complements the circular field used. The circular field works so well that I wish I could credit Joe with it. In fact this field was a trade mark of Keen Detective and was used for a number of covers before this one. However most of the artists were unable to use it as effectively as Simon did. Still I believe Joe liked the results and a circular design would reappear in some S&K covers in a couple of years. The inking looks like it was done mainly with brush. To me there really is nothing wrong with the inking. But it seems mainly to be used in deliminating the figures. What spotting there is appears mainly to have been done to provide some form to the tank, it is does not seem to aid the over all design.

Silver Streak #2
Silver Streak #2 (January 1940) by Joe Simon (signed)

For the cover of Silver Streak #2, Joe depicts the Claw, a villain with his own feature story inside. Although given a monstrous portrayal, the Claw was originally recognizably as a personification of the yellow peril. Being politically correct was not a consideration in those days before the war. But Simon has made the Claw not as an Asian monster, but instead used Frankenstein as a model. It is an exciting cover with corpses in open coffins (zombies?), a scantly dressed damsel in distress and a hero to the rescue. Remember the damsel, we shall see her again. Anatomy is not Joe’s strong point here, he does not even try to be accurate. Simon provides enough muscle lines to convince the viewer that the hero is strong in body as well as strong in character. What Simon does excel at is design, and the composition of the cover is excellent. Inking is done primarily with a brush in a bold manner. The inking is much more effective then in the previous cover.

SS #2
Silver Streak #2 “The Tree Men of Uranus” by Joe Simon (signed)

Joe Simon initiates a new feature, Solar Patrol. Joe liked science fiction, and it was a genre that he would turn to often. Frankly after Joe’s exciting cover work, this example of his story art is a bit of a let down. You can tell he is uncomfortable with the whole aspect of the sequential art. Simon does not seem to be satisfied with a standard panel grid and uses variously sized panels instead. Unfortunately it becomes a bit confusing and Joe sometimes had to add arrows to indicate the proper reading sequence. I suspect his panel layout was an attempt to make it all more interesting. He does not succeed here, but I think it is the forerunner of the irregularly shaped and circular panels that S&K would use in the future.

In his book Joe Simon describes learning how to draw for comic books:

Slits for eyes, unless the character was to register astonishment or horror – and then the eyes become circles. Heavier lines for the eyebrows, raised for bewilderment, slanting down toward the nose for anger. One line for the upper lip. A heavier line, indicating a shadow, constituted the lower lip.

In this story Joe seems to have followed the use of simplicity to a fault. Perhaps because of it he does not seem to be able to make panels as exciting as his covers. Even panels that by their nature should be interesting, such as the space ship destroying the enemy base, come off as rather dull. Another aspect of Joe’s adoption of simplicity is techniques he starts using in the depiction of his figures. Most obvious among them is the way Simon draws eyes. For men viewed at mid-distance Joe uses a single mark to indicate the eye itself and another for the eyebrow. He joins these two marks so that they meet at an angle, sort of like a sideways ‘V’. We will see this typical Simon technique in much of the art he did before teaming up with Jack Kirby. As for women, Simon economical penciling is too extreme leaving them with limited hair strand lines and no real feel of curls. There is a striking difference between how Joe draws the humans, and the more detailed version he provides for the tree men. I suspect that Joe may be swiping the aliens from some unknown source. Even if that is not true, we will meet a related version of the tree men again.

For another story, Simon was asked to make a character based on the use of fire such as done in the Human Torch. This might sound like a recipe for infringement except the publisher was Goodman, he already had the copyrights to the Human Torch. Joe’s response was the creation of the Fiery Mask which appeared in Daring Comics #1. Unfortunately I have no scans for this story. But if you are a Kirby diehard, you may have a copy of Greg Theakston’s “The Complete Jack Kirby, 1917 – 1940” which has a wonderful restoration of this story. Joe did a much better job with this feature then he did on Solar Patrol. Part of the reason is due to the his adding more action and interest to his panels. Greg Theakston gives another important reason by showing that Joe has done a bit of swiping from master artist Hal Foster.

Let me close this chapter with a story Simon told after dinner to Carmine Infantino, and myself. Joe talked about the cover to Red Raven #1 (August 1940). Apparently someone has recently shown that the drawing is a swipe (from Hal Foster again?). Joe grumbled that when it when it was thought to be an original work it was a Kirby, but when now that it is a swipe Simon must have done it. But after he finished this remark Carmine asked “But Joe did you use swipes?”. Joe replied “Of course I used swipes, everyone did”. (Actually the Red Raven cover was penciled by Jack, but I suspect the layout was by Joe, and not because it is a swipe). We will find that not only did Joe use swipes, he re-used them.

Chapter 2, Before Kirby
Chapter 2, Footnote
Chapter 3, Working for the Fox
Chapter 4, Transition
Chapter 4, Footnote
Chapter 5, Side by Side
Chapter 6, Jon Henri
Chapter 7, Glaven
Chapter 8, Off to War
Chapter 9, American Royalty
Chapter 10, A History Lesson
Chapter 11, The Party Is Over
Chapter 12, Covering the Fly
Chapter 13, Wrap Up
Art by Joe Simon, Appendix 1, Champ 22 Confirmed
Art by Joe Simon, Appendix 2, Daring Adventures #12
Art by Joe Simon, Appendix 3, Daring Mystery Comics #3
Art by Joe Simon, Appendix 4, Daring Adventure #16
Art by Joe Simon, Appendix 5, Harvey Hits #12
Art by Joe Simon, Appendix 6, Amazing Man #10
Art by Joe Simon, Appendix 7, The Spirit #12
Art by Joe Simon, Joe Simon as a Newspaper Staff Artist

Enter Joe Simon, Pocket Comics #1

In his book “The Comic Book Makers” Joe Simon describes how his friend Al Harvey approached him to do a cover for Al’s new concept, a small sized comic book. Joe also tells how Harvey offered to make Joe a partner for $250. But Joe was then working on Captain America. At Timely he and Jack Kirby were supposed to get a share of the profits for this very popular comic. So Joe felt the safe thing decision was to stay at Timely and so turned Al down. It probably seemed at the time like a no brainer, but Simon would never saw much royalty money from Timely and would leave before the year was out. As for Harvey his new comic book concept would not last long but he still managed to build up a very successful comic publishing business.

Pocket Comics #1

Joe’s first effort for Harvey appeared on Pocket Comics #1 with cover date August 1941. This comic came out in the same month as Captain America #5. Jack Kirby was doing some great stuff at that time, but the true Simon & Kirby style had not yet emerged. The Pocket #1 cover was not in the Simon & Kirby style either, and in fact it does not show much in the way of influence from what Jack was doing. Here we get Joe doing Joe.

There are things about this cover which I find unfortunate. The field of stars gives me a claustrophobic feeling. But the biggest problem may not have been Joe’s fault as he said he was working from a mock-up. Nearly half the top is occuppied by the comic’s title. If that was not enough the left side has a list of the comic’s contents. This left little room for Joe to work, but he uses it well. Joe came up with a terrific design and he executed it well. The scene portrayed actually is not logical, but it works.

On the cover Simon provides a Satan that is a bit differant then that in the comic itself. This is not just due to the colorist’s use of yellow instead of the classic red. Instead Joe has turned to a cover he did for Fox, Wonderworld #13 (May 1940). For the Fox cover, Joe was trying to work in the style of Lou Fine. His success is shown by the fact that that cover was often attributed to Lou despite the presence of a Joe Simon signature.

Wonderworld #14

But there is also an even earlier version of Satan. That was the Claw as portrayed on Silver Streak #2 (January 1940). That, along with Keen Detective Funnies #14, were Joe’s first cover work. Simon gave the Claw more of a Frankenstein look in the face, but the hands are similar to both Wonderworld #13 and Pocket #1.

Silver Streak #2