Alarming Tales #1 (September 1957) by Joe Simon

Previously in the End of Simon and Kirby, Joe and Jack’s own comic publishing company failed after just a short time. Another source of income for S&K was the comics they produced for Prize. But that company would also have difficulties and would cancel a number of titles. Kirby would turn to doing freelance work for DC and Atlas while Simon may have started do editorial work at Harvey.

We may not be certain whether Joe Simon was actually doing work at Harvey comics as an editor in 1957. But work by Bill Draut and John Prentice stopped appearing in the Harvey romance titles at about the same time as the Jack Kirby covers disappeared. Perhaps that is an indication that Joe stopped editing these titles. Whatever Joe’s job status was at this time, he still seems to be pitching comic proposals to Al Harvey, and at least some times succeeding. Alarming Tales would be a (Comic Code mild) horror/science fiction anthology. The first issue (September) would consists mostly of work done by Kirby. It could have been another all Kirby issue since Jack also supplied a cover, but Joe replaced it with one his own. It may sound like heresy but I think Joe was right. By removing the apparatus that covered the eyes, Joe’s man in a flying chair became scarier and thus more likely to induce a purchase. At some level Kirby must have thought this also because his splash page also shows the man in the flying chair without the goggles. It may not be obvious in the scan I provide, but Joe has used some sort of stipple paper to create the sky and has added zip tones on the car. Thus we see Joe using more modern materials to make comics, something that did not seem to interest Jack.

Alarming Tales #3 (January 1958) reworked Jack Kirby?

Alarming Tales #3 has a cover by Kirby, or is it really? There exists original art for another version of this cover that also looks like it was done by Jack. It has the same old man, boy and men in a boat. But the settings that holds these figures is different, more swamp like. The figures appear to be so similar between the two versions that stats may have been used for the published version. So what should it be called; a Simon and Kirby or Kirby pencils and Simon settings? In any case when Joe and Jack were working in the same studio I doubt that this would have happened. Reworking decisions like those for the covers of issues #1 or #3 would have been made before inking.

Alarming Tales #1 (September 1957) “The Fourth Dimension Is A Many Splattered Thing” by Jack Kirby.

Unlike some previous S&K titles that Harvey printed, Al seems committed to Alarming Tales and issued this title bimonthly. Jack’s contributions to the title fill the first two issues, but diminished to a single story in the next two releases. What Kirby did for this title was consistently pretty good. Stories include a future world ruled by rats and dogs, a scientist who develops plant men and a robot who wants to be a man, among others. But perhaps most unusual is “The Fourth Dimension Is A Many Splattered Thing”. Although the opening and closing sequences were clearly drawn by Kirby, I am not so sure about the fourth dimension panels. Frankly judging by previous efforts by Jack (Strange Worlds Of Your Dreams) I would have expected something visually more exciting. The inking on the Kirby stories is consistently excellent. At places there are the areas flooded with ink that seem a bit more abstract then natural, inking reminiscent of but not quite as good as the Yellow Claw work. In other places spotting takes on less of an abstract quality similar to what was done in Challengers Of The Unknown. There are even places with the “picket fence” type of crosshatching that was a mainstay of the S&K shop style, only once again done with a finer brush. I think much of the spotting in the first issue and the single story in the #3, perhaps even the line work, was done by Jack. There probably is less Kirby spotting in the issue #2 and #4. Alarming Tales continued without Kirby’s help until issue #6 (November 1958).

Black Cat Mystic #59 (September 1957) “Take Off Mr. Zimmer” by Jack Kirby

In the same month that Alarming Tales #1 was launched, the much delayed Black Cat Mystic #59 came out. There is an adventure with Mr. Zimmer and the two youngsters, but otherwise the idea of using Mr. Zimmer as the host for the comic seems to have been dropped. The rest of the contents to this issue are just the same sort of stories that were used in Alarming Tales and here also were all done by Jack. In fact the unused alternate cover version that Jack did for Alarming Tales #1 that I mention above, was actually originally meant for this issue of Black Cat Mystic. As with Alarming Tales, Harvey seems to have committed to releasing Black Cat Mystic on a bimonthly schedule. Issue #61 is another Kirby packed issue, but just like a ghost, Mr. Zimmer has now completely disappeared. Inking is similar to what was seen in Alarming Tales. With issue #58 done a year before, there is the distinct possibility that some or all of the stories were done earlier. There is no Kirby after issue #60 and #62 was the end of the Black Cat title as a horror/science fiction anthology.

Black Cat Mystic #60 (November 1957) “A Town Full of Babies” by Jack Kirby

Race For The Moon #3 November 1958) by Jack Kirby

As mentioned in the last chapter, Russia launched its Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957. Simon and Harvey’s response was pretty impressive. If you remember there is a 5 to 6 month difference between when a comic was started and the cover date of the final product. The earliest we could expect a response to Sputnik would be March 1957, and sure enough that is the cover date for Race For The Moon #1. Actually this issue probably would have come out later but Joe filled its contents with reprint material from older Harvey comics. Issue #2 would not come out until September but at least it was full of all new material by Kirby. Issue #3 followed promptly in November with more Kirby sci-fi. Included in this was the introduction story for The 3 Rocketeers, sort of a space version of the Challengers of the Unknown. But that month would be the last for both Alarming Tales and Race For The Moon.

Race For The Moon #2 (September 1958) “The Thing On Sputnik 4” by Jack Kirby

As I Simon and Kirby fan I find the material in Black Cat Mystic and Alarming Tales interesting reads. But how would a kid with only a few dimes feel about them? Frankly the contents of the two titles were the same. For that matter DC and Atlas offered not too dissimilar comics some with stories by Jack Kirby as well. I suspect that kid would just as likely spend his dimes elsewhere. I would have thought that Race For The Moon would have stood a better chance on the comic book racks. In any case, Joe had gotten Harvey to publish a number of titles, none of which became big hits. So by the end of 1958 Al Harvey probably was not too interested in trying again right away. If Joe had any other ideas he would most likely have to take them elsewhere. Unfortunately there were not a lot of other places to go.

Chapter 7, On His Own

Chapter 9, An Old Romance

Love Problems #38 (March 1956) by Jack Kirby

Previously in the End of Simon and Kirby we saw Simon and Kirby start Mainline, their own publishing company. When unfortunately Mainline failed they turned to the poorly paying Charlton to publish the same titles for a couple of issues. Then Harvey Comics would release three issues of Western Tales that contain some new Simon and Kirby material. Work for Prize would now be limited to three bimonthly romance titles.

Starting in December 1955 Jack Kirby would pencil pretty much all of the contents for these Prize romances. Prior to that the Prize romance titles were being done by S&K studio freelance artists including the usual suspects Bill Draut, Mort Meskin and John Prentice. When Kirby took over these titles, what happened to these artists? Well even though I describe these issues as all Kirby romances they did include 7 non-Kirby stories. But 7 stories is not much for an entire year. For Mort Meskin the December issue of Young Love (#68) was his last for Simon and Kirby productions. Judging from the GCD, Mort would return to DC working mostly in their horror genre. We have already seen that Bill Draut would give Kirby a hand in inking for at least some of the all Kirby issues. Draut would also, along with John Prentice, appear in Harvey romances.

True Bride-To-Be #19 (August 1956) “Heart and Soul” by Bill Draut

Although Harvey specialized in comics for the very young, he also had five romance titles at this time. The interiors or these titles are very formalistic. Each would start with a contents or introduction page. The stories would all be relatively short. Most titles would consist of stories that are exactly 5 pages long and in addition there would be some single page features. A title may occasionally deviate by including a 7 page story. Unfortunately there seems to have been a house rule about not signing any of the work. This makes determining who the artists were difficult without reference to other publications. Fortunately work by Draut and Prentice are rather distinctive. In the end Harvey romances look very different from Simon and Kirby productions. Personally I enjoy S&K productions even when they do not include Kirby pencils. S&K productions have their own house style, but it still allows for a lot more variations between stories. Harvey romances seem to offer a much too uniform look.

True Bride-To-Be #20 (October 1956) “Homecoming” by John Prentice

I have a word of caution to give about the following analysis. I have examined all the Harvey issues with Kirby covers but beyond that my access it spotty. I have augmented this using Heritage auction records but of course that can not be considered complete either. I should add that Heritage are often wrong in their attributions, a good portion of the art that they said was done by Draut or Prentice was done by other artists. Unfortunately the resulting data is still too incomplete for the earlier period but seems sufficient for the latter part of my story.

Hi-School Romance #60 (February 1956) “First Claim On Him” by Bob Powell

I was surprised to see that Bill Draut actually shows up at Harvey rather early in Love Problems and Advice #23 (September 1953). He is also in Hi-School Romance #33 (October 1954). But as I said, my early data is incomplete and I have no idea how often he appears. The next occurrence I know of is February 1956 after which he starts showing up commonly. My first record of John Prentice starts in January. I should add that not every issue has Bill or John and when they are present they only have one story each. Jack Kirby starts providing some covers and an occasion introduction page. Neither Draut nor Prentice did any covers although they did do some introduction pages. On the other hand Kirby did not do any stories. So far I have not detected any of the other former S&K freelance artists among these Harvey romances. Which is too bad because I am not overly fond of many of the artists in these titles. With one exception, Bob Powell has a long history of work for Harvey comics and his romance art here is just superb. The work that Draut and Prentice did for these Harvey romances seems consistently quite nice. I wish I could say the same thing about Kirby’s covers. They seem to range from the exceptionally beautiful to the rather dull.

True Bride-To-Be Romances #17 (April 1956) by Jack Kirby

Some people have expressed to me their doubts about whether some of these covers really were done by Jack. The composition used are rather static. But that is not surprising since dynamic action is not a requirement for romance covers, in fact it can be detrimental. Unfortunately that means some typical Kirby features cannot be relied on here for attribution, such as Jack’s exaggerated perspective. Kirby has his own nuances when handling figures but much of these can be lost depending on the inker and some of the inking for these covers is poor. My opinion is that the Jack Kirby Checklist is correct about most of the Harvey romance covers it attributes to Jack. I disagree with the Checklist only about Hi-School Romance #73 (March 1958), its a nice cover but the layout does not look correct for a Kirby and the nuances do not seem right either despite what looks like pretty good inking.

True Bride-To-Be Romances #19 (August 1956) by Jack Kirby

I believe that Jack penciled 18 romance covers for Harvey. These covers were done during the same time period as the all Kirby Prize romance comics (see last chapter). I believe that Jack did all the spot inking for those Prize romances. But inking for the Harvey covers does not look the same. Part of the difference is due to the fact that the S&K shop style of coarse crosshatching (like the “picket fence” or the rows of short dashes) is not used on any of the Harvey covers. This is not surprising since such heavy crosshatching would seem to conflict with the house style of the Harvey romances. Perhaps in compensation on some Harvey covers tonal areas are sometime achieved by the use of finer parallel brush strokes. Finer then the S&K shop inking, but coarser then what could be achieved with a pen. Both the Prize and Harvey covers are similar in having less spotting that results in lighter covers. Also in both cover groups, darker areas are sometimes achieved by flooding a larger area with ink. As part of sparer spotting, both Harvey and Prize covers have sleeves where the folding is concentrated at the junction with the chest and also in the elbow region. But on some of the Harvey covers the folding in the elbow region look very unnatural especially since some of the folds take unusual paths (see True Brides-To-Be #19 above). This convinces me that at least two artists did the spot inking on different Harvey covers. To complicate things even more, at least one of the covers (First Love #70 November 1956) appears to have had two artists doing the spotting. The first one did the spotting generally using fine parallel brush strokes. The second artist then touched up over these finely lined parts of the man’s hair and his sleeve with much coarser brush work.

The last Kirby cover for a Harvey romance occurred in December 1956, the same month that the all Kirby romances for Prize ends. The finish for work by Bill Draut and John Prentice for these Harvey romances seems to be May 1957. Here my references are more complete and I do not expect this date is too far off. The question remains what was the working arrangement here? Well the romances done during this period of about a year show no significant difference then those that preceded or followed. Whatever they were, they were not Simon and Kirby productions. I have a folder of work that Joe Simon did as an editor for Hi-School Romance Date Book #4 from 1963 (I do not think that this particular issue was ever published). I believe that Joe started doing such editorial work for Harvey in 1956 to help his financial situation after the failure of Mainline early in 1955. The various post-Mainline Simon and Kirby projects just did not provide enough money. As editor, not producer, Joe would continue to use the same artists and writers that Harvey had already had. Joe could however give some jobs to Bill Draut and John Prentice who lost work particularly when the all Kirby romances started. Jack was busy with those Prize romances, but not too busy that he could not provide Joe with some covers.

Black Cat Mystic #58 (September 1956) “Gismo”, by Jack Kirby

But if Simon was doing editorial work for Al Harvey, he still was pitching new work. At least that is how I interpret Harvey’s Black Cat Mystic #58. All of the contents of this horror/science fiction anthology were penciled by Kirby. When I outlined for myself the The End Of Simon & Kirby, I was unsure what chapter I should put this comic. Truth be told, if I had to do it over again I would place Black Cat Mystic #58 after my discussion about the Western Tales issues in chapter 4. Although the cover date for #58 is rather late, the inking seems to bridge the gap between the more classical S&K shop style in the Western Tales and the new inking manner found in the all Kirby romances. One splash (see above) exhibits the shop manner of coarse crosshatching (“picket fence”) and the introduction page (see below) exhibits robust spotting. Other stories are inked more like the all Kirby romances with more limited spotting and flooding used in the larger dark areas. Another clue to the earlier date for the art is the original art for the introduction page is done on the thick illustration board typically used by the S&K studio, while all the Harvey romance covers by Kirby that I have seen were done on thinner Strathmore.

Black Cat Mystic #58 (September 1956) introduction, original art by Jack Kirby

On the introduction page we meet Mr. Zimmer, a ghost who tells two youngsters stories and takes them on adventures. In fact that is the premise of the story “Read To Us, Mr. Zimmer”. The way Mr. Zimmer is presented makes it seem that this issue would be the start of a new series. But as before with Western Tales, Harvey seemed willing to publish Simon and Kirby concepts, but he just did not seem to have enough interest to get them out on a timely basis. The next issue of Black Cat Mystic would not be released until a year later (September 1957).

Chapter 5, The Return to Romance

Chapter 7, On His Own

Western Tales #31 (October 1955) by Jack Kirby

Previously in the End of Simon and Kirby we saw the launch of S&K’s own publishing company Mainline at a time of peak anti-comic sentiments. Income from comics produced for Prize decreased due to title cancellations. Charlton, a company infamous for its poor rates, was used to publish a new title, Win A Prize. After Mainline abruptly failed Charlton would also publish left over work from that line.

It is hard to image Harvey Comics as the corruptors of youth. Come on how could reading Richie Rich lead a minor into a life of crime? But even a company that mainly published comics for the very, very young would face difficulties with an approaching Comic Code. Harvey also had his own version of the horror genre titled “Witches Tales”. He must have thought it might have problems with the code or perhaps it just was not selling too well. In any case the title switched to Witches Western Tales. I have no idea what the readers might have thought they were buying with that title. But the hope must have been that purchasers of the old title would at least try the new one. New to the contents would be reprints from Simon & Kirby’s Boys’ Ranch. Now part of this change may have been due to the Comic Code, but not all. The same month has another Harvey title, Thrills of Tomorrow, including Stuntman reprints. Could it be more then a coincident that this happened at a time of financial stress for Joe and Jack?

Pocket Comics #1 (August 1941) by Joe Simon

Al Harvey and Joe Simon had a long history, meeting at Fox Comics in the days before Captain America. When Harvey had the idea of publishing pocket sized comic books he asked Joe to join him. But Joe was going to receive a share of the profits for Captain America and thought that was a much better deal then investing in Al’s idea. But Simon did contribute the art for some of the first covers for Al’s comics. Joe always says he did those cover for free. Well the profit sharing from Captain America never amounted to much. Supposedly Goodman used a lot of extraneous business expenses so that the profits from Captain America would be low, at least as far as the books were concerned. Meanwhile Harvey’s pocket comics failed (they were too easy to steal) but he still ended up building an extremely successful comic publishing company. And Al did not forget Joe and the help he provided.

Witches Western Tales #30 and Thrills of Tomorrow #20 appeared with a April date and with the comic code stamp. But April was the same month that the last Mainline comics were released. As we saw before Joe and Jack turned to Charlton to publish the final issues of what had been Mainline. The last of these (Police Trap #6) was dated September. The only think left for S&K at Charlton was Charlie Chan and that would end with issue #9 (December 1955). There was also work for Prize. With Black Magic cancelled that left only the romances. Sure enough, Jack Kirby returns to doing pencils for romance in October. I want to save writing about Kirby’s return to Prize romances for my next chapter where I will go into it in detail. But I will say that when Jack stopped doing pencils for these romance titles they were published monthly, on his return they were bi-monthly. Things must have been financially difficult for the Simon and Kirby team.

Western Tales #32 (March 1956) by Joe Simon

When October came around Harvey dropped the witches from the title and it became just Western Tales. I don’t know for sure if Joe and Jack got any money for the reprints Harvey had used, but Western Tales #31 included new material. Although the comic would still have some Boys’ Ranch reprints, now it starred Davy Crockett. Issue #32 would not come out until March, but Davy was still the star. Surprisingly the cover was penciled by Joe Simon. It has been quite a few years since Joe penciled a cover. I could be more exact and say what that last cover was, but I know that a lot of experts and scholars do not agree with me that Joe did that earlier cover and so I want to leave that subject for a future post. There was an even longer delay for Western Tales #33 (July 1956) and now the star would be Jim Bowie.

Western Tales #33 (July 1956) “Magic Knife” by Jack Kirby

The art for these Western Tales is typical Simon and Kirby with Jack doing the penciling. These comics have standard S&K shop inking. Spotting was often more limited then much previous work but typical S&K “hay”(strong crosshatching) is present. More spotting was often done on the covers and splashes and the results provide a darker image. The art work in all three issues is very similar and very much like what was produced in the Mailine comics. We shall see in the next chapter that at the same as these Western Tales, inking in romance comics would start to look different. Because of this I believe that despite the delay between issues of Western Tales that they were all done relatively close to one another and not too long after the end of Mainline. Al Harvey was willing to give these comics a try, but his commitment remained in his kid humor comics like Richie Rich. As happened to the S&K team all too often, Western Tales ended up being cancelled after a very short run.

Warfront #28 (January 1956) by Jack Kirby

But Simon and Kirby work would show up in Harvey comics other then Western Tales. I want to leave the subject of Harvey romances to yet another post (when I said I was going to do this topic in chapters, I never said how many I would need). Here I want to discuss some work for Warfront. S&K relationship with Warfront (and as we shall see later this is true also with the Harvey romances) was very different then what happened in Western Tales. Although Western Tales included some reprint material it otherwise looks like a typical Simon and Kirby production. But the contents to Warfront seem to be Harvey material, they do not look at all like S&K, only the covers do. The first S&K cover is on Warfront #28. The depicted aircraft roughly follows a panel from a story from Foxhole #2 (November 1954) called “Hot Box”. The original art for Warfront #28 still exists and it is done on thick illustration board. All the Simon and Kirby work I’ve seen had been done on such boards, even work done by freelancers. The only exception was some John Prentice material for Bullseye. All the Harvey work I have seen was done on much thinner bristol board. This along with the art style leads me to believe that the Warfront #28 cover is actually unused Foxhole #2 cover recycled for Harvey.

Warfront #29 (July 1956) by Jack Kirby

Jack is the primary pencil to the cover for Warfront #29. But note the odd thing that the soldier is carrying on his back. Even though he is firing a rifle he looks like he is carrying a flame thrower. I believe that this cover has been modified, originally the soldier was torching the occupants of the tunnel. The change was done to either avoid or correct a problem with the Comic Code Authority. The style also makes me believe that this also could be unused art from Foxhole. The real test of this guess of mine would be if the original art ever shows up. If it is recycled Foxhole art I expect it will be on thick illustration board. If the use of a flame thrower was removed it would have been covered over with a paste up.

The Jack Kirby Checklist also assigns to Jack the covers for Warfront #30 (September 1957) and Warfront #34 (September 1958). Frankly because of their layouts I do not agree that they were done by Kirby. However we shall see in a later chapter that Joe and Jack were involved in other Harvey projects at the times in question. It really does not change the story I am telling if you accept covers #30 and #34 or not.

Chapter 3, Unlikely Port in the Storm

Chapter 5, The Return to Romance