Category Archives: 5 Studio

That Old Black Magic

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Posted in 2006/03, 5 Studio, Anthologies, Periods, Prize, Topic, z Archive.

As I mentioned previously Simon & Kirby’s longest running comics were their anthologies. Although the Prize romances were clearly their greatest success, they also appeared to do pretty well with their take on the horror genre, Black Magic. This series was also published by Prize, but at least initially was a Simon and Kirby production. Black Magic #1 came out with a cover date of October 1950.

Black Magic #1

Like most S&K comics, Black Magic was originally a bimonthly It went monthly with issue #10 (March 1952). But it is not safe to consider the delay before going monthly as a sign that it was not that popular. Young Romance and Young Love were by all accounts immense successes right from the start and both of them took over a year before going monthly. This delay was more likely due to the publishers concern that even a popular title might turn out to be just a fad. One indication of how important Black Magic was to S&K is that Jack penciled every cover up to #33. But Black Magic was nowhere nearly as popular as the Young Romance since there never was any spin-offs like Young Love was for the romances. Further Black Magic went back to bimonthly with issue #26 (September 1953).

Like the Prize romances, Black Magic was a Simon and Kirby production and labeled as such. That is until after #32 when the S&K label disappears. This was September 1954, about the same time the label disappears from the Prize romance comics. But unlike the romance comics, Black Magic would have only one issue without the S&K label and then it would be cancelled. Could this be retribution by Prize for S&K’s Mainline comics that came out at this time? If that was the case why didn’t they just hand the title to another editor? An alternative explanation was that it just was not selling that well. After all it had gone back to a bimonthly schedule a year before. Whatever the reason, Black Magic would end a year before Young Love.

It seems that until it was cancelled, Black Magic was produced by Simon and Kirby. They were listed as editors in the postal statement from March 1952 to March 1954. Further the usual suspects (Bill Draut, Mort Meskin and John Prentice) show up frequently.

Prize would relaunch Black Magic almost three years later (September 1957). Although Jack Kirby was still doing work for Young Romance at this time, he would never pencil anything for the resurrected Black Magic.

Black Magic #17

Now For A Not So Little Romance

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Posted in 2006/03, 5 Studio, 6 Mainline, 7 Freelance, Anthologies, Periods, Prize, Prize, Topic, z Archive.

I blogged about Simon & Kirby acting as editors, but now I want to discuss what comics they actually produced. But I will be leaving aside the hero theme comics for which S&K are famous. Comics like Fighting American, Boys’ Ranch, and Bullseye. These were classics but their short runs show that they were commercial failures. Simon and Kirby had their greatest success in comic anthologies. Comics like the long running Young Romance Comics.

Young Romance #1

I once asked Joe about what sort of deal he had with Young Romance, the comic that started a whole new, and very profitable genre. He said that S&K paid all the costs of producing and packaging the art. They received nothing in advance from the publisher. The money would only start coming in when 40% of the printed comic was shipped to the distributor. After the shipping advance they would start sharing the profits. Joe remarked that contrary to his reputation as a savvy business man, it really wasn’t that a great deal. Most of the financial risk was on S&K, and if Young Romance wasn’t as widely successful as it was, they would have lost a bundle.

Young Romance #1 has a cover date of September 1947 and it had a very long run published first by Prize (124 issues) then by National. Like many others, S&K copied their own success and produced Young Love also published by Prize (94 issues) and National. But the romance genre continued to be profitable so S&K later produced Young Brides, that title was not so long running (30 issues) and was only published by Prize. But since YR and YL were so long running, clearly S&K did not produce them all. So which ones did they do? Well they pretty much told us about some of them. Starting with YR #13 (September 1949) the lead story of the comic would be labeled as a “Simon and Kirby Production”. It didn’t matter who the artist was and the label would only show up on the lead story. Once started, the S&K label would appear on pretty much every YR, YL and YB they produced. With only a few exceptions until about around August 1954 (YR #73, YL #61 and YB #16). The S&K label did not reappear until May of 1955. Even then it was used sporadically (YR #78, #80, YL #64 and YB #22, #24 and #25). The last appearance of the label was in December 1955 (YR #80).

So why the gap in use of the S&K label? Well one thing that happened at the beginning of the gap is that S&K started Mainline and became publishers of their own comics. Bullseye #1 first appeared with a cover date of August 1954, the same date the S&K last appears. Mainline was a commercial failure and its last comics was cover dated April 1955. The S&K label reappears in the romance comics in May 1955. One reasonable explanation would be that while Mainline was in operation S&K were not producing the Prize romances. Perhaps there was friction because Prize now viewed S&K as competition, particularly since Mainline had there own romance line, In Love.

As I said it is reasonable to say that between August 1954 and May 1955 (cover dates) that S&K were not producing Prize’s romance comics. It may be reasonable, but I don’t believe it is true. The first reasons is what I refer to as the usual suspects. S&K studio employed a number of artists on a freelance basis. But Bill Draut, Mort Meskin and John Prentice were regulars both in the length of time and amount of art. We may not be able to follow the money, but we can follow the artists. We have to be a little cautious since they did not work exclusively for S&K. But any comic where the usual suspects are prominent was likely to have been produced by Simon & Kirby. And the usual suspects were prominent during the gap. In fact they did most of the covers.

Another reason to believe S&K continued producing the Prize romances is a story Martin Thall tells. The comic company of Mike Esposito and Ross Andru also met their demise during the comic crisis of this period. According to Thall, they sold unused romance artwork to S&K (at a bargain price) and delivering it to Jack Kirby’s house. Three stories penciled by Andru appear in the Prize romances of November and December 1954 (YB #19, YL #63 and YR #75). Andru also did some work for S&K in 1952 but that was too early to be what Martin is talking about. But the 1954 stories fit the timeline perfectly. And this is right in the middle of the S&K label gap.

But if S&K produced these romance comics through the 1954 and 1955, when did they stop? Well if we follow the usual suspects we find them prominent until December 1955. Then something surprising happens, Kirby is all over the place. From YR #80 until YR #86 (December 1956) Jack did pretty much the entire issues for all the Prize romances. This includes YL #69 to #73 as well as YB #26 to #30. Jack did 74 stories and covers over this period. Joe seemed to have been part of this because the cover to YR #83 appears to have both their hands involved. Further the cover to YB #30 depicts a couple with twin babies, Joe had twin girls. Finally Joe still has the original art to YL #71. In these issues John Prentice has only one story (YL #69), Bill Draut 3 (#71 and two in #73) and other artists provided only three more stories (Ann Brewster and Ted Galindo both in YL #70 and an unidentified artist in YR #81).

Young Romance #80

Why was Kirby so prominent in these particular romance comics? Well perhaps one reason is after the failure of Mainline, S&K had financial problems and perhaps could not afford to continue to pay their freelancers. In fact they may have had trouble finding work for themselves. YR and YL were monthly titles. But after the December 1954 issues the next YR would have a cover date of April 1955 and become a bimonthly. YL would not be published again until 1960. Although this is all after the Kirby romance run, it may reflect that the Prize romance comics had become less profitable. Remember Joe and Jack shared in the profits but had to pay the expenses to produce the art.

Starting in 1957, Jack’s pencils would appear in most issues of YR until #103 (December 1959). But the usual suspects would not. There is one other piece of evidence that can help. At one point comics started to include a yearly statement. The statement included the name of the editors. I’ve heard that this statement was not always reliable. But that was for editors that worked directly for the publisher. I think that in the cases of S&K this statement may be more trustworthy. The earliest statement is the February 1950 issue of YL where Joe and Jack are listed as editors. The last time they are so listed is the April 1959 issue of YR. Starting with the June 1960 issue of YR only Joe Simon is listed as editor. The August issue of the resumed YL also list only Joe as editor. My information may be incomplete, but the last time I have a listing for editor as Joe is the April 1963 YL. But in a few months National would take over publication of YR and YL and I suspect they would use their own editors.

So it would appear that Jack’s involvement in the Prize romances ended in early in 1959. Even that is surprising since in 1957 he started to work for other publishers like National and Atlas. Although Jack may have taken S&K ideas to these publishers (such as Challengers of the Unknown), nothing indicates that Joe did any work for them. To me this means that by 1957 there was no Simon & Kirby studio. Whatever working relationship Jack and Joe had, it was a very different one then they had during most of their partership.

Simon & Kirby as editors

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Posted in 2006/03, 5 Studio, Art Editing, Harvey, Odds & Ends, Periods, Topic, z Archive.

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby not only created great art, they produced great comics. They would hire writers to make scripts and artists to illustrate them. Joe and Jack would deliver to a publisher a complete comic ready for the printing. During the process of working on these comics they would improved both the scripts and the art. In the end they were Simon and Kirby comics even when other artist did most of the art for the stories.

I thought I would share some examples of Joe and Jack as editors of other artists. The first is from a “The Case of the Hapless Hackie” a Calamity Jane story by Bill Draut from Boy Explorers #1. Bill was a regular of the S&K studio and I am sure I will talk about him often. The original art, still in Joe Simon’s collection, was done on illustration board. These boards are thick (about 1/8 inch) and were the staple of work done for S&K productions. But the art on the bottom of the splash page of this story was done on bristol that was taped to the illustration board. With the bristol removed you can see the art as it was done by Draut.

Boy Explorers #1

As you can see Bill did a good job and the notes by the editor and the artists was a clever idea. However the notes and the title clutter up the page and leave only a thin strip for the art. I believe for this reason and to modernize the effect, Joe did the overlay showing the editor and artist talking by phone. This is the version that was actually printed.

Boy Explorers #1

I say Joe did the editing in this case because the art was done in his style. Bill did a good job, but Joe made it much better. That was not the only change done on this page. The story title was done on paper pasted over the illustration board. The paste still holds the paper down tight so I have no idea what change was made. A similar paste job was done on the third panel on page three, but this time the glue has failed and the scan below shows Draut’s (left) and the final (right) version. Frankly this time I do not see the final version as that much of an improvement on Bill’s take.

Boy Explorers #1

The Boy Explorers and Stuntman comics did not last long as they were victims of the comic glut and resulting crash at that time. Boy Explorers #2 and Stuntman #3 never reached the news stands. But small (1/4 sized), reduced length, black and white versions were mailed to subscribers. I borrowed Joe’s personal copies for scanning and found this on the top of page 18, the third page of “In This Corner Kid Adonis” by Joe Simon.

Stuntman #3

I think that is Simon’s handwriting, so it seems he was not satisfied with the face on the person on the right in the first panel. This particular story was reprinted in Green Hornet #37. This time the person has a very different nose. It seems Joe was not above editing himself.

Green Hornet #37

One casualty of the comic crash was a Vagabond Prince story “Trapped In Wax” by Joe Simon that had been scheduled for the Boy Explorers #2. This particular story did not make it into the small comic sent to subscribers. Perhaps because there were still a few places where the inking had not been completed. In fact this story was never printed until Greg Theakson included it in Stuntman reprint. Below I include a close up of the first panel of page 7 of the story from a xerox in the Joe Simon collection.

Unpublished

Notice there still remains a ghost of the pointing hand. The final hand was redone in a style that is unmistakenly that of Jack Kirby. The man’s right shoulder has also been adjusted. So here we have Jack stepping in as art editor. Careful examination of Simon & Kirby productions show that it was not unusual for Jack to make this sort of corrections.