Category Archives: Prize

Mort Meskin, the usual suspect #2

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Posted in 2006/04, 4 DC (early), 5 Studio, 6 Mainline, Artists, Meskin, Mort, Periods, Prize, Prize, z Archive.

I gather that Mort Meskin is most famous for the work he did during the war. I’ve seen some of his Golden Lad covers and they are quite good. Because my main interest is in Simon and Kirby, I don’t have access to very much of the early Meskin material. However Mort worked at National Comics at the same time as Simon & Kirby, and fortunately some of the Adventure Comics have stories by Meskin. So I have some examples, including the splash page below (“Hitch A Wagon To The Stars”) from Adventure #82 with inking by George Roussos. Even at this time Mort had developed a reputation for being a rapid and prolific comic book artist. There is a story about Jack Kirby and Mort Meskin working side by side at DC each working on a rush job. And how their efforts resulting in a crowd gathering to watch both of them. By that time Jack was already well known, but many now began to take note of Mort’s talent.

Adventure #82 Starman
Adventure #82 (January 1943) Starman by Mort Meskin and George Roussos

Mort Meskin’s first contributions for a S&K production were some stories done with Jerry Robinson in Young Romance #6 (see below) and Justice Traps The Guilty #5 both July 1948. It appears to me that most of the penciling was done by Jerry while Mort’s contribution was largely inking.

YR #6 Inferior Male

Over a year later Meskin appears without Robinson as the penciler in Young Romance #16 and Real West Romances #5 both from December 1949. Once started Meskin would be frequently used not only for romance (Young Romance, Young Love, Young Brides and In Love), but also in crime (Headline, Justice Traps the Guilty and Police Trap) and horror (Black Magic).

Young Love #66

As Joe Simon tells the story in “The Comic Book Makers” initially when Mort was supplied with scripts he was unable to do the work. Joe then suggested that Mort should work in the S&K studio. Even in this environment Mort seemed to suffer from “artist’s block”. Then Joe hit on the idea of penciling some random marks on Mort’s page. No longer faced with a blank page, Mort was back to being a rapid penciler. As Joe tells the story, from then on every mourning it was someone’s responsibility to add those first random markings to Mort’s blank art boards. Mort was very prolific and did not seem to work exclusively for the S&K studio. During the period from January 1951 to January 1953 (cover dates) Mort actually produced more pages of art for the S&K studio then Jack Kirby did. Now this is not a completely fair comparison since Jack had more responsibility in the studio then just penciling. On the other hand the inking of Kirby pencils seemed to have been done by more then one hand, while as far as I can tell Meskin did all the inking for his own art at this time. Joe Simon once said about Mort’s work at the Simon & Kirby studio “He was probably the fastest, most inspired artist in the room, and certainly one of the most dependable.” Remember Jack was in that studio also, so this is no small praise.

Simon & Kirby Studio

That’s Mort “passing gas” in the center, along with Jack looking like he is about to hurl himself at the photographer. Joe looks amused by it all in the front. Jim Infantino and Ben Oda (letterer extraordinaire) are on the right but I have forgotten who that is on the left. I am not sure of the exact date for this photo, but Jim Infantino has a signed piece of work (“Let’s Talk Fashion”) in Young Romance #39 (cover date November 1951). Jim only worked for S&K for a relatively short time, so 1951 or 1952 is a good guess for the date of the photograph.

SWYD #1 The Dreaming Tower

Mort Meskin does not seem to get much attention nowadays. Even among the S&K artists he can easily be overlooked. He doesn’t have Kirby’s expressive and powerful drawing. Nor are his women as beautiful as those done by Bill Draut. Finally his comic art is not as realistic as John Prentice’s (usual suspect #3 who I will post on later). I admit when I first encountered Mort Meskin’s work I was not particularly impressed. But over time I began to realize that his strength was in his story telling. Often it is very unobtrusive. As you read Meskin’s work you may not even realize how he is manipulating what he is presenting. But if you have any doubts about how effectively he does it, take a look at the at the above page from “The Dreaming Tower” in Strange World of Your Dreams #1. The scenes he presents are rather ordinary. But the way he depicts them and his use of black gives the page an eerie effect that is just what the story needs. Kirby is one of the best story tellers, but he has never done anything like this. I am not saying that Mort was a better story teller then Jack. Just that each had their own unique approach.

By the way according to Joe, Strange World of Your Dreams owed its creation to Mort Meskin. In fact Mort is listed as an Associate Editor for the series. No other comic produced by Simon and Kirby have anyone other then Joe and Jack listed as an editor.

Sometime after the failure of S&K’s Mainline (about January 1955), the S&K studio disbanded. But I am still not sure if that happened at the same time as Mainline’s failure or if the studio lasted longer. Certainly by 1957 there was no studio since in that year Jack was doing work for DC without Joe. The last work Mort did for S&K was in Young Love #68 (cover date December 1955). Since Mort had been working in the S&K bullpen, perhaps about September 1955 marks the end of the studio also.

Mort Meskin has been nominated for the Eisner Hall of Fame this year. Although four artist will win that honor, there are some other impressive artists that were nominated (such as Jim Steranko). Fans don’t seem to talk about Meskin very much, so I despair that Mort will not receive enough votes. But if anyone deserves to belong in any comic Hall of Fame it sure would be Mort Meskin. There is an wonderful web site on him by his sons with an excellent biography. I really advise a careful visit. In particular be sure to read “The Second Comic Career of Mort Meskin” by Dylan Williams which is in the Comics section.

Ken Riley, The Forgotten Comic Book Artist

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Posted in 2006/04, 5 Studio, Artists, Harvey, Periods, Prize, Riley, Ken, z Archive.

After returning from military service, Simon and Kirby made a deal with Al Harvey to produce some comics. Jack would draw Stuntman and the Boy Explorers. Joe worked on the Duke of Broadway, Vagabond Prince and Kid Adonis. As I mentioned in a previous post, S&K created some series for Bill Draut (The Furnished Room, Calamity Jane and the Demon). They also created a series “Danny Dixon, Navy Cadet” for Boy Explorers to be done by an artist by the name of Ken Riley. Even hard core S&K scholars would probably respond with: who? Ken Riley was a Coast Guard combat artist for the war who Joe met during their joint service in Washington. But perhaps it would more accurate to call Danny Dixon an intended series as Boy Explores was one of the victims of a comic glut at that time. Only one issue was distributed to news stands. The second issue, sent to subscribers only, was very reduced in size and printed in black and white.

Boy Explorers #1

Boy Explorers #1 (May 1946) “The Lesson In Room 303”
Boy Explorers #2 (September 1946) “The Loaded Oyster Bed”
Black Cat #4 (February 1947) “The Imitation Atlas”
Black Cat #5 (April 1947) “Adventure, South American Style”
Black Cat #6 (July 1947) “The Loaded Oyster Bed” (reprint)

But Ken returned to do at least one story for Young Love #3 (June 1949) “Match Makers”. Here his work is more polished then in Danny Dixon. Since he already was a accomplished artist, this was probably because the romance format allowed him to use a more realistic approach. I think he did a real nice job of that story. Joe still has the original art for the splash page. Much of the fine inking quality was lost in the printing of the comic.

Young Love #3

apparently Riley did not stay in comics for long. Later he did some illustration work for Saturday Evening Posts, Life and National Geographic. I’ve also seen cover art for the book “The African Queen” that was said to have been done by a Ken Riley in 1949. Ken turned to fine arts and moved out west. The paintings I have seen by him are all of Native Americans.

Ken Riley did not sign his comic work. There may be more of it remaining to be identified. The only reason for attributing the above works to Ken are margin notes on some original art and discussions with Joe Simon. Ken Riley did not have much of a comic career, but it did come at a pivotal time at the start of the Simon and Kirby studio after the war. However the real reason I posted this is that his comic work has all but been forgotten. Comics find no place in the biographies of Riley that I have read. In comics histories, the only mention of Ken that I have found was in “The Mainline Comics Story: An Initial Examination” in The Jack Kirby Collector #25 written by Robert Beerbohm (unfortunately misspelling Ken’s name as Reilly). Ken truly was a forgotten comic artist, it just seems a shame for that to remain the case.

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.