Category Archives: Serial Posts

The Art of Romance, Chapter 7, More Love on the Range

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Posted in 2008/06, 5 Studio, Art of Romance, Artists, Belfi, John, Eadeh, Gregg, George, Meskin, Mort, Periods, Prize, Serial Posts, Stallman, Manny, Starr, Leonard, z Archive.

(Real West Romance #1 – #7, Western Love #1 – #6)


Real Western Romance #6 (February 1950) “I’m Goin’ a’ Cortin’ Ella Mae” page 7, art Leonard Starr

Leonard Starr is most known for his syndication strip Mary Perkins on Stage. He had a long career but I suspect the work that he did in romance comics probably was more important in relationship to his success with the newspaper strip then what he did in any other genre. Starr was an important artist for Real West Romance and Western Love. No single artist dominated these titles but Leonard did more work then any other artist. Not all his work was signed, but I believe he provided 10 out of the 66 stories. Now in my last week’s post I mentioned that Kirby provided significant contributions to 11 stories. I hope to be able to show in my next post what Jack’s contribution was for these stories. For now let me say that most of the stories were not fully the work of Kirby and are dependant greatly on the efforts of other artists. Therefore I give Starr more credit for his efforts in these western love titles then even Jack Kirby.

In my choice of an example of Leonard Starr’s work I decided not to use one that emphasized his talents in romance (but you can see an example of that in Chapter 5). Instead I picked one that gives a good idea of his skill at graphic story telling. In this sequence we see the progression of Marsh’s decision to defy the male members of the Bates family, his arrival ready for action, and the tense confrontation. However in the final panel the action from an unexpected quarter provides a surprise ending for the page. It really is a nice example of Starr’s own graphic story telling. I feel that this page would almost certainly have been handled differently by Jack Kirby. I am sure that Jack would have put more humor in the final sequence by revealing the brooms handler. The point is not that Jack was a better artist (he was) but that I feel that this indicates that Kirby was not involved in laying out this story. This is not a new observation on my part and I am sure that I will repeat in often in the future. I simply have not found evidence to support the contentions of a few individuals that Jack Kirby provided layouts for many of the artists that worked for the Simon and Kirby studio. That is not to say Jack did not do layouts, but I will leave an explanation of what might seem like a contradiction for the next post.

Leonard Starr can present somewhat of a challenge in recognizing his unsigned work. His drawing can vary somewhat from panel to panel. For instance generally his women have a child-like or elfin look. But then in another panel the woman’s face will have a more normal beauty. I am not sure, but I suspect this sort of variation can be explained by Starr’s occasional use of swipes. If Leonard was doing a bit of swiping at this point in his career, and I want to emphasize I do not know this for sure, it was not from Jack Kirby. Starr already seems to have progressed to his own style of comic art and did not seem to fall under Kirby’s spell.

One final comment about Leonard Starr’s work in the Simon and Kirby western romances concerns his panel layouts. The most common page layout among the various studio artists was three rows with two panels per row. Now this was by no means invariable but it did dominate. Leonard Starr would use that panel layout as well but he had a distinct tendency to break the rows into three panels per row. He would sometimes go further and vertically compress two rows so that the other row would have distinctly tall and narrow panels. Starr would at times go even further yet and organize the page, as in the example above, into two rows of three panels per row so that all the panels would have the narrow format. Other studio artists would occasionally use narrow panels, even Kirby, but none of them as frequently as Leonard Starr.


Real Western Romance #1 (April 1949) “Wild Hoses and Ornery Gals”, art by Al Eadeh and John Belfi

I have previously written about the team of Al Eadeh and Jon Belfi in Chapter 5. They had a small but important presence in the early Young Romance and Young Love issues. So far the above story is the only one that I can credit to Eadeh and Belfi in the western romance comics. It is a safe bet because it is signed. Most artists that worked for Simon and Kirby were expected to illustrate any category of story. So the fact that I have attributed 6 stories to Eadeh and Belfi from YR and YL but only one from RWR or WL is suspicious. Either they were exceptions and were predominately assigned standard romance work, or some of the work I have credited to them in YR and YL was incorrect, or there is more work to be found in RWR and WL. There are still a number of cowboy love stories that remain unaccredited but so far I do no find any of them convincing examples of Eadeh and Belfi’s work. As I wrote before, Al and John were, like most artists who worked for Simon and Kirby, talented but were not what I would call exceptional.


Western Love #1 “The Tonto Express” (July 1949), art by George Gregg

George Gregg is one of my newer additions to identified Simon and Kirby artists. In the past I have either overlooked his signature or been unable to correctly read it. To the two works I spotted in Chapter 5 (Young Love #4 and Justice Traps the Guilty #17) I have now been able to add another “Fortune In Furs” from JTTG #19 (October 1950). The newly identified piece is another example of a signature I had previously seen but until recently was not able to correctly read. This last work is important because in it Gregg depicts some of the male characters with more complex eyebrows. Perhaps this reflects an influence from Jack Kirby who frequently provides expressive eyebrows. The manner the eyebrows are drawn in JTTG #19 has a pretty good match in “The Tonto Express” and that is one of the reasons I assigned that unsigned work to George. It is gratifying to be able to attribute more art to Gregg and I suspect I will find even more, but I am getting the impression that he only did a little work for Joe and Jack.


Western Love #5 “Lilly’s Last Stand” (March 1950), art by Mort Meskin

December 1949 marked the return of Mort Meskin in Young Romance #16 and Real West Romance #5. Mort had previously provided some work to Simon and Kirby but as part of a team with Jerry Robinson. Robinson and Meskin really did not do a lot of work for S&K but what they did was at a time that when only a small group of artists were supplying art for Young Romance. With his return as a solo artist, Mort would quickly become one of the essential members of the Simon and Kirby studio, or as I like to think of it as one of the usual suspects. Although I use the term “studio artist” most who produced art for Simon and Kirby did not actually work in the studio. Mort was one of the exceptions. As Joe Simon describes in “The Comic Book Makers”, Meskin initially had trouble executing his assignments. Simon was well aware of how talented Mort really was, so first Joe tried patience and when that was not enough he asked Mort to work in the studio. There Joe realized that Mort had a terror of the blank page, and so Joe would have somebody just marks the pages up. Some have claimed that this meant Jack was doing the layouts for Mort, but Joe insists that is not true; the pencils were nothing more then abstract marks. Having overcome his artist block, Mort went on to become a productive member. So productive, that his output exceeding Jack Kirby’s during some periods. I have long believed that Meskin inked his own work. During a conversation with Joe Simon I was told how inking was done in the studio using an assortment of people, “like a factory”. But then Joe paused, and added “except for Mort Meskin, he did all his own inking”. It is nice to have such confirmation.

What an unusual, but effective, composition Meskin provides for the splash panel of “Lilly’s Last Stand”. It depicts Lilly, acting as the sheriff, breaking up a barroom brawl. Normally a fight would be given center stage, but here Mort has placed the fighters in the background. Well, calling it background is a little misleading as all the characters share a rather narrow depth that Meskin makes look natural by using a high viewpoint. There is no true background as nothing is shown beyond the fighters. One of the fighters has been knocked down to the ground while the other advances on him with menace. Across the empty space stands the second fighter’s true opponent, Sheriff Lilly. Lilly is so much in control of the situation that she casually rests one leg on a fallen barstool. We only see the back of the heads of the on looking crowd, except for one that turns to seemingly comment to another observer but really to the reader. By his statement he is Lilly’s boyfriend and thus Meskin has presented a roll reversal of the sexes, the theme of the story. During his years with S&K Mort had a distinct preference for a two thirds of a page splashes. One reason appears to have been that it allowed him to play off the splash panel with the first couple of story panels. That is true here where the story panel shows Lilly in a very feminine dress in contrast to the sheriff outfit. Interestingly Mort provides another level to the contrast. I describe the dress as feminine but the high collar effectively hides her female anatomy while the plunging neckline of her sheriff outfit neckline reveals them. Was this a suggestion that the feminine roll was actually sexually repressive? Perhaps I am reading too much into it, but that is one of the greatest pleasures reading these stories some 50 plus years later.


Western Love #1 (July 1949) “A Gal, A Guy and a Gelding”, art by Manny Stallman

Another artist we have not encountered before in The Art of Romance is Manny Stallman. Had I been writing about Simon and Kirby’s crime comics, we would have seen Stallman’s work earlier because art signed by him began appearing there starting with Headline #22 (December 1948). The attribution of “A Gal, A Guy and a Gelding” is considered tentative and is based on the general style. The fact that it is the only unsigned work credited to Manny in my database suggests that further investigation should reveal more works by him (most artists working for S&K did not sign everything they did). I would not be surprised if crops up again when this serial post returns to discussing Young Romance and Young Love, but I have not found any more of his works in Real West Romance or Western Love. Currently my database only has 8 works by Stallman with the one in WL #1 being the last.

Despite the western theme, most stories from the western love comics are typical romance stories. There is however a greater emphasis on action found in RWR and WL as compared to YR and YL. “A Gal, A Guy and a Gelding” illustrates that quite well. Stallman shows he can handle the action well enough but he clearly did not learn how to depict a fight from Jack Kirby. Jack discovered quite early in his career that the best way to present a person slugged was to have him project toward the reader; Manny has the man fall away from us. Further the slugger seems to be unnaturally leaning towards us. Still there is no question about what is going on. Since this is first and foremost a romance story it has a typical romantic ending. Panel 5 shows that Manny was better then most of the artists in RWR and WL in providing a romantic image, I wonder why Manny was not used more often in YR or YL? As I previously said, most of these cowboy love stories are really romances and as such they typically end with a kiss. I have to laugh about the ending for “A Gal, A Guy and a Gelding” where instead there is a mutual embrace of a horse. (In all fairness, this was probably determined by the script writer).


Real Western Romance #3 (August 1949) “The Cowgirl and the Sheepherder”, art by John Severin and John Belfi

I left for last another artist not previously encountered in The Art of Romance. John Severin would pencil 10 stories for the Prize cowboy romance comics, the same number as Leonard Starr. I give Starr the credit for being the most prolific of the western romance artists because one of Severin’s pieces was a single page. Still Severin was one of the dominate artists, and he also did work for the crime and standard romances comics as well. Here in “The Cowgirl and the Sheepherder” he is inked by John Belfi. We had previously seen Belfi as teamed up with Al Eadeh. John Belfi was primarily an inker but he did occasionally do pencils. In fact just a couple of months previously he penciled a story for Justice Traps the Guilty. As far as I know this is the only S&K studio story where Belfi inked Severin. I thought it might be interesting to include a sample for comparison with Severin’s normal inker.


Real Western Romance #6 (February 1950) “Six Gun Serenade”, art by John Severin and Will Elder

Although this is my first occasion to discuss Severin in The Art of Romance, I did write about some of his much later work for Joe Simon. Therefore I may as well confess up front that I am not a fan of John Severin; I find his style too dry. However when studying comic art history it is important to separate personal tastes from the study itself. I may not care that much for Severin, but that does not change the fact that he was an important artist. I will also say that Joe Simon does not share my view; Joe greatly admires John Severin. On the occasion of the recent death of Will Elder, Joe commented how talented Severin and Elder were as a team and how each would become great in their own particular art form.

It is with Will Elder that John Severin is most often teamed up with in Simon and Kirby productions. Severin and Elder are an exception among the S&K studio artists in that their work was not evenly distributed among genre. Typically studio artists were expected to be able to work on any type of story. However Severin and Elder did very few standard romance stories while as stated above they did a good number of the western love subgenre. They also did some crime stories, but by this time the Prize crime titles were no longer being produced by Simon and Kirby. It was in western genre that Severin and Elder did the most work. My knowledge of Prize Comics Western (also not produced by S&K) is not adequate, but it does seem that Severin and Elder appeared there before showing up in other Prize titles. Further John and Will became regular artists for Prize Comics Western for a number of years.

Severin’s pencils can most easily be recognized by the very wide and square jaw that he usually gave to men. The reader can see a good example of this in the first panel of the page from “Six Gun Serenade” that I provide above. However I chose this particular page to show that John Severin was not always so dry or limited to serious westerns. Here we get a chance to see a more humorous Severin. His rendition of Phil mimicking Slim’s singing in the third art panel is just marvelous. Even better is Phil’s reaction in the sixth art panel after being slugged by Slim. Unquestionably, Severin had the ability to go beyond his normally dry manner when the occasion called for it. Unfortunately there was one thing that John did not seem very successful at and that is romance. If not for the text in the captions the reader of “Six Gun Serenade” would have no idea the couple in the last panel were in love. John Severin just did not seem to have the romantic touch. That may have been fine for these western love stories, but it may explain why Severin and Elder did so little work for Young Romance and Young Love. Still I must say that although I generally do not care for Severin’s work, there are occasions like “Six Gun Serenade” where he just bowls me over.


Western Love #4 (January 1950) “Six Gun Serenade”, art by John Severin and Will Elder, along with Jack Kirby

With all the comics that Joe Simon and Jack Kirby produced over the years, it is understandable that occasionally a story title would be repeated. Even so it is a bit surprising that “Six Gun Serenade” would be reused as a title within just a month. That is not why I have chosen to include the image above. The real reason is the figure of the wounded Dirk in the splash panel. It is clearly the work of Jack Kirby. The inking of the figure and the surrounding wall also appears to have been done by Jack. The rest of the splash and the two story panels were just as clearly done by John Severin and Will Elder. This is one of those cases of Kirby stepping in as art editor. It may not be too surprising that Severin’s original version was not considered good enough. A comparison of the figure in the splash with the one in the first panel that has just about the same pose suggests what may have been the problem.

There are a number of works in Real West Romance and Western Love that I have not been able to provide an attribution. Some are clearly done by the same artist and so I hope that eventually I should be able to figure who that artist was. There are also some that look like Jack Kirby was involved. These stories and the nature of Jack’s involvement will be discussed in next week’s conclusion to the western romance titles.

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 6, Love on the Range

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Posted in 2008/06, 5 Studio, Art of Romance, Artists, Donahue, Vic, Draut, Bill, Kirby, Jack, Periods, Premiani, Bruno, Prize, Serial Posts, z Archive.

(Real West Romance #1 – #7, Western Love #1 – #6)

The first issue of Young Romance was cover dated September 1947. The Simon and Kirby modus operandi was adhered to for that new title. That is it was a bimonthly title and initially depended greatly on the drawing talents of Jack Kirby. By all reports Young Romance sold quite well but oddly 17 months would pass before a second title, Young Love, was released. Although surprisingly lengthy, the delay itself was also typical. A new title in the same genre normally was not attempted before an indication of the success of the earlier title was confirmed. The second title followed the other aspects of the Simon and Kirby M.O. as well (that is bimonthly and lots of Kirby). Not only were the names of the two comics very similar, the same distinctive title design was used for both thereby linking the two comics in the minds of their readers. At that point there would be a Simon and Kirby love comic released every month. This situation lasted only two months before Simon and Kirby and their publisher Prize Comics began to act very uncharacteristically. April 1949 saw the release of yet another romance title, Real West Romance. Because of the way comics are produced and distributed, two months was much too short a time to show whether Young Love would be as successful as the earlier Young Romance. Even though Real West Romance was a mixed genre combination of love and western this still seems a rather bold move. Particularly bold considering that another part of the M.O. was abandoned; there was not a lot of Jack Kirby drawing in the new title. A short three months later in July yet another new title was released, Western Love. Again three months was not nearly long enough to actually determine how well Real West Romance sold. Once again Western Love did not showcase that much work drawn by Jack Kirby. Why deviate from standard practice with these new titles? More importantly, why such a commitment to the new subgenre, cowboy love?

I had often pondered about that last question, why cowboy love? Particularly since the new subgenre of western romance was not unique to Simon and Kirby either. July (three months after Real West Romance) saw the release of Romance Trail by DC, and Cowboy Love by Fawcett. These dates are much too close to be explained by one publisher trying to copy a competitor’s success. It was only the recently released book, “Love on the Racks” by Michelle Nolan that gave me the answer. Simon and Kirby came up with the original idea for romance comics by observing how popular romance pulps were. As Nolan writes in her book, western love pulps were a very successful subgenre as well. In fact one title, Ranch Romances, was published from 1924 until 1971, well past the heyday for pulps in general. Since the success that romance pulps enjoyed inspired the lucrative romance comics, would it not be expected that the western love pulps popularity might predict rewards for a comic book version? A reasonable conclusion is that Simon and Kirby believed so.


Chart of the number of Romance Titles from September 1947 until December 1950

While reading “Love on the Racks” I thought it might be desirable to come up with a graphical representation for romance comics. I decided to import into a database the information contained from “All the Romance Comics Ever Published (?)” originally compiled by Dan Stevenson. Basically I recorded the range of dates of individual romance titles and used this to graph how many romance titles were out for each month. Despite certain flaws in this method*, the final results greatly exceeded my expectations. Above is an image of the graph from the beginning of romance comics until the end of 1950. Note the delay response of publishers (including Prize) to the success of Young Romance. Also observe how more romance titles were continually added, initially gradually and then dramatically. The peak occurred at January 1950 where there were 126 romance titles out! This is followed by an almost equally dramatic decline in love titles until a low of 45 titles is reached in November 1950. Nolan terms this phenomenon the “love glut”. In those days comics were primarily sold in places like newspaper stands, drug stores and soda shops. Such locations invariably only provided a few racks for comics. Therefore the number of titles of all genres that they sold could be counted in the low dozens. No seller of comic books would be willing to stock 126 romance titles at one time. There simply were too many romance titles out. When publishers realized that they were failing to make the profits they needed a rash of cancellations followed. The biggest publisher of romance titles during the love glut was Timely. In this case Timely’s policy of trying to follow the latest trend probably lost them a lot of money. However Timely’s income was not depended solely on comics and so they seemed to have recovered quickly. The second biggest player in the love glut was Fox. Unlike Timely, Fox Comics did not have much else besides comics to fall back on and the loss from the love glut probably was the cause of Fox going into bankruptcy (again) a few months later.

In the graph that I presented above I have shaded in a light blue the period during which Prize was publishing Real West Romance and Western Love. Unmarked is the starting date for Young Love of February 1949. This suggests a possible scenario. Initially S&K/Prize was satisfied with just publishing Young Romance. However other publishers (starting with Timely and Fox) noticed Young Romance’s success and decided to launch a few romance titles of their own. Seeing that they now had competition, S&K/Prize created Young Love. Having successfully started the romance comic genre, S&K/Prize decided to throw caution to the wind and try to get a jump on the competition for a new subgenre, western romance. It is just a scenario, but it does seem to fit the timeline. The graph indicates that when Real West Romance hit the stands, competition initially was not too bad but would undergo a sudden and substantial increase. Prize was a small publisher and may therefore faced even greater difficulty in getting their new western romance comics onto the stands. Even if that was not the case, the Prize western romance comics faced the same problem with the love glut as all the other publishers. In the end Simon and Kirby’s western romance titles were cancelled like so many other victims of the love glut.

It would not be wise to put all the blame on the failure of Real West Romance and Western Love on the love glut. The romance pulps inspired the creation of love comics but they did not share the same audience. The love pulps were the equivalent of romance books of today, read primarily by women with a range of ages. On the other hand, romance comic books were overwhelmingly purchased by teenage girls. As exclaimed in one house ad by Prize for their own cowboy love comics:

HERE IT IS! ROMANCE WITH ALL THE FURY OF A ROARING SIX-GUN!

LOVE IN THE WIDE OPEN SPACES WHERE THE MOUNTAINS MEET THE SKY… RUGGED MEN AND UNTAMED WOMEN WITH LOVE IN THEIR HEARTS AND GUNS ON THEIR HIPS

This might be very appealing for a more mature reader looking for escapist reading; the sort of reader that kept western romance pulps so popular and long lasting. Teenage girls were undoubtedly looking for something not so much closer to their own lives as closer to their own hoped for future. Few wanted to be cowgirls. The love glut resulted in many cancellations, but romance comics were still popular. The 45 romance titles for November 1950 was still a respectable number of titles. It was also a local low, the number of love comics would increase although never to anything near the peak of the love glut. Romance comics survived the love glut but the western love subgenre did not. Cowboy love disappeared from the comic racks and publishers would not try it again.


Western Love #1 “Weddin’ At Red Rock” (July 1949), art by Jack Kirby

As I mention, Jack Kirby’s contribution to the western romance comics was not nearly as great as it was with previously launches of new titles. There are only a few stories from these cowboy love comics that are what I would call unadulterated Kirby; “Weddin’ At Red Rock” (WL #1), “Mail-Order Romance” (RWR #5), “Dead Ringer” and “Two Can Play The Game” (both from WL #5). These works are easily recognizable as being penciled by Jack. There are a number of other stories which do not show Kirby’s presence so clearly and about which there are differences of opinions. I will be covering those in a couple of weeks. Even including this other work, Kirby does not dominate Real West Romance and Western Love like he previously did Young Romance and Young Love. Jack’s had significantly involvement with only 11 out of a total of 66 stories. As we will see this is not much above the level as some other artists whose work appears in these titles.

Certainly some great stories were created when Kirby’s talent was put to full use. “Weddin’ At Red Rock” is only three pages long but it is a treasure. There are no gun fights, only the threat of their use. Yet the story keeps the reader’s interest. The readers are forewarned about a surprise ending and it is a promise kept, at least it was for me. Despite the lack of typical actions such as gunfights, it is a story very dependant on being a western.


Western Love #5 “Two Can Play The Game” page 4, art by Jack Kirby

“Two Can Play The Game” was another story with a surprise ending, although in this case I saw it coming. Many think of Jack Kirby as primarily an artist of the hero genre. However there is little doubt that Jack did not consider himself as restricted to one genre but as a professional artist willing and capable of tackling any subject. Actually Simon and Kirby pretty much expected all the artists working for them to be able to illustrate any story. Today there are not many fans of romance comics but Kirby’s work in love comics is no less exceptional then anything else he did. Pages like the one above from “Two Can Play the Game” convince me that however scripts were created; Kirby was somehow involved in the process. Invariably it is in the stories that Jack draws that contain the more unusual story presentations. Typically a kiss ends a romance page, or even the story, but here Jack inverts the order at starts with the kiss. Jack Kirby was famous for his graphic command of action, but he sure could put passion into a kiss as well. Having started with an embrace, Kirby then uses an interlude with another man to reveal the woman’s intentions, or lack thereof, before returning to showing her proceeding to her conquest. Would any man resist such an outfit?


Real West Romance #2 (July 1949) “Dead-Game Dude” page 4, art by Bill Draut

We saw in a previous chapter that when Kirby began to provide less for Young Romance and Young Love, it was Bill Draut who took Jack’s place as primary artist. This did not happen with the western love titles. Bill provided 8 stories out of the 66 stories. A respectable number, but by no means did Draut dominate Prize’s cowboy love. The western love subgenre did provide occasions for Bill to draw some action. It was an opportunity that would not repeated until near the end of the Simon and Kirby studio. Draut shows that he has made progress in his depiction of action as compared to what he provided a couple of years previously.  Not surprisingly Kirby had a big influence on Draut when it came to a fist fight. This can particularly be seen in the last panel of the page from “Dead-Game Dude” shown above. Bill’s command of exaggerated perspective was not the equal of Kirby, but whose was? I also suspect that Kirby would have placed the flying objects more effectively. Still it is a very dramatic depiction and provides an exciting ending for the page.


Western Love #4 (January 195) “The Girl from Ghost Town”, art by Bruno Premiani?

Above I reproduce the splash page from “The Girl from Ghost Town”. As I discussed in an earlier chapter, the question mark that I apply to the Premiani attribution is because so far I have been unable to find a convincing match with work more securely credited to Bruno. On the other hand nothing I have seen convinces me that the Premiani attribution is incorrect either. I hope someday to resolve this issue at least to my own satisfaction because I really admire this artist. Premiani, if that is whom it is, only worked for Simon and Kirby for a little over a year but during that time he consistently produced nice work. His characters seem to have liveliness to them without the use of exaggerated expressions. His woman are attractive, but in a down to earth way. This is particularly effective in these western stories. What a great cast Premiani presents in the splash panel. They form several groups and truly seem to be interacting. I love the way the can-can dancer performs on the bar for the enjoyment of some customers. Undress her even further and give her audience more modern clothes and it could be a scene in Badda-Bing from the Sopranos. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Premiani provided the art for 6 cowboy romance stories.

Note the small caption “Produced by Simon and Kirby”. This credit first appeared in Real West Romance #3 (August 1949). It would become a staple for the first story in Simon and Kirby comics. After its first appearance, it was only left out in a couple western love comics (RWR #4, RWR #7 and WL #5). It also started showing up in their standard romance comics starting with Young Romance #13 (September 1949). There it would consistently appear with very rare exceptions until Simon and Kirby launched Mainline Publishing in 1954.


Real West Romance #2 “Rough-House Annie” page 5, art by Vic Donahue

We have already encountered Vic Donahue in the pages of Young Romance and Young Love. In those titles Donahue’s contribution was largely limited to very short pieces (2 or 3 pages), at least initially. For the western romance comics Vic got more substantial stories. Generally I choose an image to include in my post that presents the artist most distinctive traits. I must admit my selection here is more for what is being depicted. “Rough-House Annie” is little more then a western “Taming of the Shrew”. I cannot help but believe that this is a case of a lack of understanding by Simon and Kirby of their readership. Would a teenage girl really enjoy the spanking of the lead female? It seems more like a male fantasy to me. Despite the reason for my selecting this page it does show some of Donahue’s characteristics. Note the carefully rendering of the woman’s hair. Also observe the use of fine simple hatching using a pen to provide the shadow cast by a hat in the fifth and sixth panels. Vic typically spots clothing folds as narrow lines. The general absence of picket fence crosshatching (see my Inking Glossary) suggests that for those occasions that it does appear that it was added by another hand.

Real West Romance and Western Love used the talents of a number of artists. Most of these artists were previously discussed in my chapters on Young Romance and Young Love, and others new to this serial post. I have covered a few of them above while leaving others to be discussed next week.

footnote:

* It is easily to imagine other data whose graphs would be better indicators of the relative popularity of romance comics over time. Unfortunately figures for print sizes or copies sold are not available, at least not for all comics over all the period. So with all its shortcomings the number of romance titles has the advantage of being data that has been obtained. There are some weaknesses to graphing this data that I was aware off before I started. I would be treating bimonthlies titles as existing on the racks even for the in-between months. That is not unreasonable because comics were generally kept of the racks for a couple of months. But it does treat monthly and bimonthly with an equality that does not seem correct. Another problem was some the title changes that some comics went through. I made no attempt at distinguishing new titles from title changes. Title changes for monthly comics had no effect, but those for bimonthly would cause a decrement in the title count during the in-between month. Quarterlies were also a problem and not only for the same difficulties discussed above about bimonthlies. Quarterlies are generally not marked by the month, but by the season. I made an arbitrary conversion of seasons to months; Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter were converted to March, June, August and December respectively. Finally some comics had neither marked with the month or the season. Fortunately these were not that common and most of them were IW/SUPER reprints from the 60’s. Despite all these flaws the graph seemed to work out quite well. I suspect the number of titles was always large enough compared to the flaws in the data (the signal to noise ratio) so that the resulting graph is surprisingly smooth.

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 Wide Angle Scream, Almost an Afterthought

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Posted in 2008/05, 6 Mainline, Artists, Kirby, Jack, Periods, Serial Posts, Wide Angle Scream, z Archive.


Win A Prize #1 (February 1955) pinup, art by Jack Kirby
Enlarged view

Pinups, both single and double paged, played an important part of Boys’ Ranch (October 1950 to August 1951) but they did not appear at all in Black Magic which also started in October 1950. Nor did they appear in either Strange World of Your Dreams (August 1952 to March 1953) or Fighting American (April 1954 to April 1955). Pinups did play a marginal roll in some other titles. A single page pinup, “Desk Sergeant”, appeared in Police Trap #2 (November 1954) and a double page spread was used in Bullseye (discussed below). There is also the pinup from Win A Prize #1. While printed on a single page, its horizontal format leaves little doubt that originally the Win A Prize splash was meant to be a double page centerfold. Joe Simon has said that initially this pinup was to have been used in Captain America #11 but Joe and Jack’s sudden exit meant that issue was done by other artists. If Joe’s story is true, this pinup underwent modification before it was finally used. Of course Captain America would have had to have been removed. Sikorsky was just beginning their efforts in building helicopters while Simon and Kirby were working on Captain America and helicopters would not play a significant part in the military until after World War II. The helicopter in this pinup has a USAF marking, but the Air Force was not an independent military unit until after the war. At the bottom center of the splash is what looks very much like a television camera crew. While televisions were created before the war they did not really come into use until the late’40s.

The pinup’s theme of a modern day Gulliver is an interesting twist, particularly in using a futuristic spaceman as the giant. There are a score of little soldiers and civilians scattered about each involved in the individual tasks. The image presents a number of questions. Since no nearby rocket or flying saucer is shown, where did the spaceman come from? Although lying prone with eyes closed, the spaceman appears uninjured. With all the tanks and guns aimed at him the suggestion is that he still is alive. If that is so why are all the soldiers crawling over the spaceman even though he is not tied down or restrained in any way? There does not appear to be much in the way of ropes or cable, so what is the soldiers’ intention? Of course such unanswered question was the whole point as Uncle Giveaway is offering prizes for short stories based on this pinup. I wonder if it is too late to enter?


Bullseye #7 (August 1955) “The Stolen Rain God”, art by Jack Kirby
Enlarged view

During the final period of the Simon and Kirby studio, the only double page splash to actually get printed as such appeared in Bullseye. Oddly it was in the final issue published by Charlton. It is hard to believe that Joe and Jack thought this splash would help save the title. Having Charlton’s print the former Mainline comics looks more an attempt to get some money for art that Joe and Jack could no longer afford to publish themselves due to problems with their distributor. Charlton was notorious for their low pay so I am sure they did not offer much to Simon and Kirby, but it was better then nothing. If by some miracle they sold well enough to warrant continuation, so much the better. But for the most part Charlton used up the final art and cancelled the titles. Foxhole was extended for a single issue produced by Charlton artists with Joe and Jack probably having nothing to do with it. The postal permit for In Love was transferred to Charlton’s new romance title I Love You, which, although having a Kirby drawn cover for its initial issue, was again filled with story art probably created by Charlton artists. I suspect that careful investigation of other Charlton comics will reveal the transfer of the postal permit from the other former Mainline titles Police Trap and Bullseye as well. The only Simon and Kirby title that Charlton ran with for a few issues was not a Mainline title at all. It was Charlie Chan, a title previously licensed to Prize some years before. It was more of a Joe Simon production with Jack Kirby only providing the cover art for the first Charlton issue (#6 June 1955). Joe would help put it together for Charlton until it too was cancelled with issue #9 (December 1955). So I believe the wide splash in Bullseye #7 came too late to be considered a serious attempt to bolster sales of the Bullseye title. I cannot help but wonder if when the breakup of the Simon and Kirby studio was clearly possible, if it had not happened already, whether the presence of this splash was brought on by a nostalgic memory of Simon and Kirby’s use of the centerfold splash in their first big hit, Captain America.

Jack has drawn a good splash. It is just that after so many marvelous double page spreads in the past it is hard for me to get too enthusiastic about this one. It is a well balanced composition with the prominent Indian chief on our left offset by the plateau and title on the right. The chief certainly presents an impressive figure what with his large headdress (could that really be expected to stay on during the charge?) and ornate apparel. The horse cut off on our left showing only a mouth and knee makes the viewer really feel that he is at the head of the line of charging warriors. The colorist wisely blocked out the smaller figures in simple colors otherwise the foreground figures would have been lost among a patchwork of colors. This allowed the small figure of Bullseye on our right to still stand out. The most unusually aspect of this splash, unique among Simon and Kirby wide angle screams, was that it is actually an oversize story panel. We find Bullseye racing in front of the attacking Indians as he tries to prevent the unfolding tragedy that the war will certainly bring. It is a very risking thing for Bullseye to do since his racing across Indian line could easily make him the victim of friendly fire. The two smaller panels on the bottom provide an explanation on Bullseye’s objective.

The splash for “The Stolen Rain God” was the last double page art for a Simon and Kirby production. Even though the studio and their partnership was over, Kirby always seemed willing to give Simon a hand whenever Joe tried to launch new comics. One such effort included the wide angle screams that will be the subject of the next chapter of my serial post.

The Art of Romance, Chapter 5, New Talent

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Posted in 2008/04, 5 Studio, Art of Romance, Artists, Belfi, John, Donahue, Vic, Draut, Bill, Eadeh, Gregg, George, Periods, Premiani, Bruno, Prize, Serial Posts, Starr, Leonard, z Archive.

(Young Romance #9 – #12, Young Love #1 – #4)


Young Romance #12 (July 1949) “The Man I Kept on a String”, art by Bill Draut

As discussed in the previous chapter, Bill Draut became the most prolific contributor to the Simon and Kirby romance titles within the period from Young Romance #9 (January 1949) through Young Love #4 (August 1949). Bill’s importance is also shown by the fact that for the first time a couple feature stories would be done by someone other then Jack Kirby. However with one exception (“The Plumber and Me” from Young Love #1) Bill’s stories would not be as lengthy as Jack’s would sometimes be. This is true even when it was the featured story which so far Jack had always made the longest in the comic. This was the case with “The Man I Kept on a String” which despite being the feature story is just 8 pages long. Bill’s splash for this feature story continued to use the device of a word balloon for the introduction caption and title. Was Bill just told to do this or was he supplied a layout? I just do not have a good answer to that question. The layout of this splash is unusual in having four story panels in two rows with the splash panel assuming an inverted L shape. Since that arrangement is not found in any other splashes drawn either by Bill or Jack it does not provide any suggestion as to who laid it out. Also not found in other splashes is the use of the diminished statue of the one of the figures as a visual symbol of his status. Although at this time I cannot decide on who should be credited for laying out the splash, I find the rest of these stories, and the others that Bill did during this period, to be told in his own manner and therefore not based on layouts provided by Joe or Jack.


Young Love #1 (February 1949) “Lady Luck”, art by Bill Draut

Since Draut had such an outstanding presence during this period, I though I would include another example of his work. The splash has an interesting design using a card of an ace of spades as a visual link to the title and theme of “Lady Luck”. The background for the splash panel is very unusual and I have to admit I really cannot make out what it is supposed to represent. Most splashes by Draut do not have such an emphasis on design. Again I am undecided in splashes such as “Lady Luck”, where design is so important, whether the layout was supplied to Bill or not. Before leaving this story I would like to point out the way Bill presents the adoring Ruth in the last panel of the page. This particular upward gaze with the head slightly tilted was another of those trademarks of Bill Draut.

This period marks a change in Bill’s art work, although I am not certain what if anything can be made of it. The story “Shadows” (Young Romance #10 from March 1949) would be the last work for Simon and Kirby that Bill would sign. Previous his signatures appeared on a good fraction of his work but it would never again be used for anything else Bill did for S&K productions. I am only familiar with very little of Draut’s work after the Simon and Kirby studio closed but I have never seen a signature on any of it either.


Young Romance #10 (March 1949) “Heart’s Desire”, art by Al Eadeh and John Belfi

Draut’s higher productivity during the period helped to offset Kirby’s declining presence but it was not enough to make up for it entirely. Especially since the team of Jerry Robinson and Mort Meskin were no longer contributing either. New artists, at least new for the Simon and Kirby studio, began to provide romance stories. The most important for this period may have been the team of Al Eadeh and John Belfi. Assuming I am correct in my attributions (only 2 of them were signed) Eadeh and Belfi provided 6 stories. The usual assumption in teams like this is that the first name of the signature is the penciler and the second the inker. It should be kept in mind that the division of labor was not always so complete, as for example with Robinson and Meskin where Meskin’s presence seems more then in just the inking. However Eadeh and Belfi divided up their work the same inking style was used even for the unsigned stories that I credit to them. Eadeh and Belfi’s art is not very distinctive but there are some features that help in identifying their work. Light haired woman have thin lines that do not suggest waves and curls very sensuously; often the lines of hair are almost straight even when doing a curl. The outlines for long hair vary in thickness along its length. Some men have distinctively shaped thick eyebrows.

The splash for “Heart’s Desire” has an interesting high and tilting viewpoint. This is not at all typical of their work for either splashes or the stories. I am not sure why they adopted this tilt in this case. It does allow the title and the woman’s confession to occupy the top of the panel leaving the rest with an unobstructed view. In any case it serves to make the image more interesting. I feel that the artists that did work for Simon and Kirby were usually the better ones in the business and that includes Eadeh and Belfi. They certain provided professionally done work and knew how to graphically tell a story. I do have to admit though that they really are not among my favorite S&K artists. Al Eadeh is probably best known for work he did for Timely/Atlas. John Belfi seemed to have worked for a number of outfits sometimes as penciler and other times as inker. Both Eadeh and Belfi are included in David Hajdu’s lengthy list in “The Ten-Cent Plague” of artists who did not continue working in comics “after the purge of the 1950s”.


Young Love #2 (April 1949) “Nancy Hale’s Problem Clinic”, art by Vic Donahue

Another new artist for the S&K romance comics was Vic Donahue. During this period Vic would draw four of “Nancy Hale’s Problem Clinic” a short feature, usually 2 or 3 pages long, that appeared in both Young Romance and Young Love. Although Donahue was new to the romance titles his work had previously appeared in S&K crime comics starting with Headline #32 (October 1948). Vic would be associated with Simon and Kirby for a period of about three years but he never seemed to achieve much prominence in their productions. Sometimes Vic signed with his full name with a distinctive long line after the “Vic”, other times he would only use his first name but kept that long line. Donahue can best be recognized by his attractive but not overly beautiful woman. The slight tilt of Nancy Hale’s head in the first panel above shows up from time to time in Donahue’s women. It appears that, like most S&K studio artists, Vic generally did his own inking. Much attention was paid by Donahue in the rendering of hair. At times Vic used a pen to shadow an area with very straight fine lines as can be seen on Nancy Hale’s hand in the first panel of the image above. Donahue also occasionally used picket fence crosshatching or indicate shade by strong simple hatching with a brush. While both of those techniques are typical of the Studio style of inking, Vic did not use any other brush methods from that style.

There is one interesting exception to Vic Donahue as only an artist for the Nancy Hale feature during this period and that is the featured story for Young Love #4, “In Love with a Memory”. Jack Kirby penciled and inked the splash panel while Donahue drew and inked the bottom two panels as well as the rest of the story. The story matches Vic’s Nancy Hale work and does not seem to be based on Kirby layouts.


Young Romance #11 (May 1949) “Big City Girl”, art by Leonard Starr

A number of individuals did work for Simon and Kirby who would go on to become famous comic artists. I am not saying Joe and Jack discovered these artists but they did seem to recognized talent even during its early stages of emergence. One of these is certainly Leonard Starr. Leonard only appears in one story for the romance comics that I am covering in this post but was also appearing at this time in the western romances that I will be covering in a separate chapter. The first page for “Big City Girl” is laid out with a vertical splash with two story panels on the right side. This is not a splash page layout that Jack used at this time so once again I do not believe Joe or Jack did layouts for this story. Starr is good with his visual story telling and his woman are attractive but neither compares with what would come later when in 1957 when Starr create his syndication strip On Stage (later called Mary Perkins On Stage). That strip is currently being reprinted.


Young Love #4 (August 1949) “My Strange Fear”, art by George Gregg

An unexpected benefit of preparing for this blog post was the detecting of a signature that I had previously overlooked. There on a book spine of the splash for “My Strange Fear” is the name Gregg. I had already seen a similar signature on a story from Justice Traps the Guilty #17 (August 1950) “Best Seller” but I was never able to make out the correct spelling. The signature in “My Strange Fear” is very clear and I am certain that the artist must be George Gregg. Since this is a very recent discovery for me, I do not yet know how much a part Gregg will have in Simon and Kirby productions but since his other signed work is from a year after “My Strange Fear” there is a good chance more work will be found. Some of the eyebrows are very distinctive in “My Strange Fear” so it should not be hard to recognize George’s work even when a signature is lacking. Gregg is another of those artists found on Hajdu’s list of the ’50s purge victims.


Young Love #4 (August 1949) “Two-Timer”, art by Bruno Premiani?

What can I say, sometimes I make mistakes. I had previously included “Two-Timer” in a post about John Prentice as the first work that he did for Simon and Kirby. At that time I recognized that the style was not typical of Prentice but felt that he had not yet matured into his final style. Later I came to realize that there was a body of work from August 1949 through October 1950 that was pretty consistent and distinct from John Prentice’s work which would not appear in Simon and Kirby productions until April 1951. Unfortunately none of the art by this earlier artist for Simon and Kirby was ever signed. Two stories by this artist were reprinted in “Real Love” where they were credited to Bruno Premiani. I do not know whether this was by Richard Howell, the editor of that book, or either Mark Evanier or Greg Theakston who are credited with supplying information. Nor do I know what formed the basis of that attribution. Because in cases such as this my motto is trust but verify, I have given some cursory examinations of some other comics attributed by Permiani, Tomahawk and Doom Patrol. Frankly nothing I saw convinced me that they were by the same artist. The material for DC is distinctly simpler, with much sparser inking, and the eyebrows of women are more arched. There are artists that adapt their style in relationship to the subject or genre they are working in and perhaps that is the case here. There is an excellent biography of Bruno Permiani which indicates that Bruno, born in Italy but had immigrated to Argentina, was in the U.S. during this time. For now I will be using the Premiani attribution but with a question mark to indicate my personal uncertainty.

Whether he is was truly Bruno Permiani or not, I have come to admire this studio artist greatly. Premiani only did work for Simon and Kirby for a little over a year but he contributes a fair amount of material (20 stories by my count). Bruno works in an illustrative style similar to that of John Prentice (hence my original confusion). The two can most easily be distinguished by their women; those by Prentice have a sophisticated beauty with slightly longer faces while Permiani’s women, although still attractive, are somewhat plainer with relatively straight eyebrows. Bruno had an ability to truly animate his subjects. Without using excessive poses or melodramatic rendering, Premiani’s people just seem to radiate their emotions.

I have not commented on every individual cover or story in this serial post; however I review everything for the titles belonging to a particular chapter. I try to remark on any of my attributions that might be different from credits supplied by other scholars, particularly the Jack Kirby Checklist. For those who are interested in my attributions of work not included in the serial post itself, I have added checklists for Young Romance and Young Love to the sidebar. I will be expanding these lists as new chapters The Art of Romance appear. I would prefer any comments about my attributions to be placed in the chapters of The Art of Romance where they are less likely to be overlooked.

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 4, An Explosion of Romance

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Posted in 2008/04, 5 Studio, Art of Romance, Artists, Kirby, Jack, Periods, Prize, Serial Posts, z Archive.

(Young Romance #9 – #12, Young Love #1 – #4)

As I discussed in my previous chapter, other publishers did not fail to notice Prize’s success with Young Romance. Three competing romance titles had appeared with cover dates of September and October 1948. It is understandable that competitor publishers may not have fully understood what a gold mine Simon and Kirby had opened. Print runs of Young Romance were increased and with their deal S&K were getting a share of the profits. What was puzzling was the lack of response by Prize as well as Simon and Kirby for their own success as Young Romance continued to be a bimonthly. In February 1949, after about a year and a half of Young Romance, Simon and Kirby finally produced a new romance title, Young Love, which Prize also published. Both Young Romance and Young Love were initially bimonthlies but were released on an alternating schedule so a S&K romance would be available each month. The two titles shared similar contents without any distinguishing themes. Effectively S&K and Prize could have just as easily have made Young Romance a monthly. However having two bimonthly titles left open the possibility of future expansion by converting to monthly later. That was not the end of their plans, Simon and Kirby would also produce two new titles that combined the romance and western genre; Real West Romance (April 1949) and Western Love (July 1949). These later titles were true romances, but the western aspect gives them a distinguishing characteristic. Therefore I prefer to deal with the western romance titles sometime in the future in a separate chapter. In this and the following chapter I will write about the standard romance comics from Young Romance #9 (January 1949) until Young Love #4 (August 1949). The actual issues are Young Romance #9 to #12 and Young Love #1 to #4.

This period starts with just 4 publishers of romance and the same number of titles. By the end, that is cover date August 1949, there would be 12 publishers and 37 titles. Fox, one of the initial publishers after Prize, must have had a good response since by the end of this period they had 10 romance titles. Timely, another of the initial publishers had by August 6 love titles. Impressive as this is it was just the beginning of the rush to tap into the lucrative market opened by the romance genre. (Title information garnered from “All the Romance Comics Ever Published (?)” by Dan Stevenson.)

The artists that make the overwhelmingly greatest contribution to the Young Romance and Young Love in this period are the same ones from previous issues; Jack Kirby and Bill Draut. The real significant change is the proportion each of these two artists shared. Unlike before where Jack did the largest portion of the work, in this period Bill takes the lead. In the eight issues discussed here Kirby did 10 out of 44 stories and 112 pages out of 342. This compared to the 18 stories and 136 pages that Draut drew. The amount of art that Jack was producing for the crime genre titles had dropped during this period as well. The explanation was not for the artistic work that Kirby would provide to the new titles Real West Romance and Western Love as his contribution to those titles was relatively small. Adding these western romances to their other titles meant that Simon and Kirby were producing a lot of work. Joe Simon and others have said that Jack took an active part in the plotting of work done by all the studio artists. Perhaps plotting and other support activities were keeping Jack away from the drawing board more then before.


Young Love #4 (August 1949) photo cover of Joy Lansing

Not that Kirby lost his dominance in all artistic aspects during this period. Jack continued to be the chief supplier of the first story. This featured story generally was the longest with typically 10 to 14 pages compared to most of the other stories which often were 6 to 9 pages if not shorter. Occasionally art was included in the text stories that were required for lower postal rates. This was done 4 times with Jack supplying the art for 3 of those occasions. Most importantly Kirby continued to be the cover artist. All cover art was done by Jack but with one occasion there was a small insert added to the Kirby cover was lifted from a splash page penciled by Bill Draut. The big change came with Young Love #2 which saw the first use of a photograph as the cover for a Prize romance title. Nothing is provided that identifies the model for the cover but it does look like a head shot of some actress. The next two issues used photos of Joy Lansing described in one comic as a “Hal Roach Television Starlet” and in the other as a “MGM Starlet”. This is the beginning of a run of photographic covers for Young Love, but Young Romance would not follow suit until after the period under discussion.


Young Romance #11 (May 1949) “The Town and Toni Benson”, art by Jack Kirby

While all the stories are good reads it is Kirby’s feature stories that seemed the most dramatic and explored the more interesting themes. In a rare example of continuity in romance comics “The Town and Toni Benson” returns to the same couple who were the subjects of “I Was a Pick-Up” the featured story from Young Romance #1. The majority of romance stories are about the start of a romance. Those that cover later periods in the relationship usually have a love lost and regained theme. In “The Town and Toni Benson” Jack explores the drama of a woman who married for love and not for money. In this story we see the couple’s struggle as they start their new life. Most of Simon and Kirby’s teenage readers would be more interested in the other themes I mentioned but I sure wish stories like this one would had been done more often.

In the issues that I cover in this post I continue to find some of Kirby’s best stand alone art work not on the covers but in the splash pages of the featured stories. The one for “The Town and Toni Benson” is a particular favorite. This may seem surprising because this is one of Simon and Kirby’s simplest splashes. There is no action and it lacks the melodrama found in many other romance art by Simon and Kirby, but it crystallizes the story’s theme. Toni stands erect, shoulders square, legs apart, as if braced to take on whatever the world may throw at her. Although her husband’s hands seem to offer support, it is Toni who projects the most courageous defiance. The breeze that ruffles Toni’s hair and shifts her dress is the only true action found in this splash. The town that embodies the difficulties that they will face together lies literally at their feet. The Studio Style inking, bold yet sensitive, provides just the right touch.


Young Romance #10 (March 1949) “Mama’s Boy” page 11, art by Jack Kirby

As I mentioned in a previous chapter Jack had a number of techniques to add interest to his romance work to compensate for the missing action that is such an essential aspect of the other comic genre. Methods like varying the “camera” angle or placing foreground objects in front of the primary characters. These various techniques show up in Kirby’s crime work as well but seem to play a more important part for the romance stories. Action, in its varied forms, is still inserted into romance stories by Jack as attested by the above image from “Mama’s Boy”. However note how the greatest action, the crash scene, is found in the second panel. The action is not the subject of this page but just the introduction. Here the drama resides in the injury that one an occupant of the car sustains. Although we see the slumped form of the hurt man it is from the fearful countenance of his disheveled friend in the last panel that we truly learn the seriousness state of the accident victim. This is another example of Kirby showing what a master he was even outside of the type of story telling that he is normally famous for. Further it is not just this page, the next one depicting the man performing an emergency operation out in the field with primitive tools. Again the drama is in the actors and we do not see the gory details of what is actually being done. This is years before the Comic Code, it is only Simon and Kirby’s own good taste that censors what we see. In my opinion, the story is all the better for the way it is handled.


Young Love #2 (April 1949) “Too Wise for Romance”, art by Jack Kirby

Some have criticized Kirby’s females as not being very beautiful. While it is true that the harden yet sultry woman in “Too Wise for Romance” is no Barbie doll, surely she is beautiful in her own way? With hands on her hips and a plunging neckline she certainly projects an alluring image. It is obvious that Kirby has not studied classical sculpture but he still understands the importance of properly indicating the form of the flexed leg under the flowing dress. This is not as easy as Kirby makes it look as many others who have studied ancient Greek art have failed to pull it off so well. Once again Jack has created a very specific personality and not a generic beauty, but this is a romance story so do not be surprised that the sexy but formidable exterior hides a warm heart.

Like almost all feature story splashes this one uses a word balloon to provide the introduction and title. The single panel found in the corner has the appearance of a story panel but actually it is part of the splash. The true start of the story on the next page has a very different beginning.

The inking of this splash is as good an example of the Studio Style that could possibly be found. Picket fence crosshatching, drop strings, abstract arches and shoulder blots all play prominent parts on this page (see my Inking Glossary for an explanation of these terms). It is another one of those splashes that I find so much more effective then Jack’s own romance covers. This is a general observation that suggests that Joe and Jack purposely kept the more provocative art inside the cover where it would not attract as much unwanted attention from those who were foes, not fans, of comic books.


Young Love #1 (February 1949) “Fickle”, pencils by Jack Kirby

As in previous chapters of this serial post, I have found some stories that do not so perfectly match other contributions by Jack Kirby. “Fickle” is included in the Jack Kirby Checklist so here deviation from more typical Kirby work is not too great. But note the narrow clothing folds that dominate on the splash page shown above. Although we have seen narrow folds in some of the images I provided above (all of which I believe were inked by Kirby himself) they are used when the image calls for them. Otherwise clothing folds are generally indicated by picket fence crosshatching or simple spatulate and frond shapes. Elsewhere in “Fickle” can be found all the inking mannerisms typical of the Studio Style but still the long narrow clothing folds persist. Jack did not ink this page but the artist who did was very comfortable with the Studio Style. The inker may also have altered the man on this page, note how the head seems too small for his body.


Young Romance #9 (January 1949) “The Easy Life” page 6 panel 1, art by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon

While “Fickle” was recognized as a Kirby work by the Jack Kirby Checklist, “The Easy Life” was not. It is not hard to understand why as most of the art in this story does not have so obvious a Kirby touch as compared to those I have discussed and illustrated above. There are some parts where there can be little doubt about Jack’s contribution. Perhaps the most convincing is the smoker in the panel from page 6 shown above. The woman sharing the panel is not so certainly a work by Jack. As I commented in a previous chapter there are a number of explanations for this state of affairs. I think we can discount an artist simply swiping from Kirby; the smoker is much too good to be just that. That still leaves other possible explanations; an artist working from Kirby layouts, the effects of an inker on Kirby pencils, or Jack in his roll as art editor fixing up another artist’s work. The way to choose between these options rests in the examination of the entire store, not just individual panels.


Young Romance #9 (January 1949) “The Easy Life” page 2, art by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon

Unfortunately it is inappropriate, perhaps even illegal, in a blog like this to provide images for the entire story. All I can say is that I believe the layouts used throughout are in good agreement with the page I present above. The graphic story telling methods found seem consistently like those used by Kirby. Therefore I believe we can exclude the Kirby as art editor explanation. The story is so uniform throughout that it does not appear to be an “in betweener” work (where Kirby would lay out a story for another artist starting with tight pencils, providing little more then roughs through most of the story and then tightening up again at the end). It comes down to a judgment call, one that others might disagree, but I find the art looks enough like Kirby’s that I accept this as his pencils inked by another artist. The inking is interesting because it is done quite well in the Studio Style. Trademarks of that style such as picket fence crosshatching, drop strings, abstract arch shadows and shoulder blots are used. Of all the art in the story it is the main character Claire that looks the least like Kirby’s work. I find the drawing of Claire in panel 3 of the above page to particularly resemble work done by Joe Simon. I believe Joe has “corrected” Kirby’s main character in order to make her more beautiful. Simon did the same thing in the DC reprints of Black Magic from the ’70s. This is another of those cases where a simple designation of the penciler and inker really does not adequately describe what was going on. (Lately I keep encountering issues related to Joe Simon’s inking so I clearly have to address that subject soon.)

Jack Kirby was not the only artist in these particular romance comics nor is he the only subject of interest for this blog. Besides Bill Draut’s greater presence there are a few other artists that make their first appearance in a Simon and Kirby comic. They will be the subject of next week’s Chapter 5 of The Art of Romance.

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)

Kirby Museum Post Original Art from Captain 3-D

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Posted in 2008/03, 5 Studio, Artists, Harvey, Kirby Inkers, Kirby, Jack, Meskin, Mort, Serial Posts, z Archive.

Rand Hoppe has posted seven images of page 10 from “The Man from the World of D” story in the Jack Kirby Museum. This page inked by Mort Meskin includes the large panel that I feel is the masterpiece of the book. It is really great to see how the images were distributed over the different acetate layers. It is definately worth of visit to the Jack Kirby Museum, then again the Museum is always worth a visit!

PS. I had a little trouble going from page to page using the “next” link but found that if I first choose the “full size” link first before using the “next” it worked.

Captain 3D

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Posted in 2008/03, 5 Studio, Artists, Ditko, Steve, Harvey, Kirby Inkers, Kirby Inking Kirby, Kirby, Jack, Meskin, Mort, Periods, Serial Posts, Simon, Joe, Topic, z Archive.

I have decided to examine Simon and Kirby’s most neglected superhero, Captain 3D. So set your computer to 3D viewing. What your computer does not have the 3D view feature? Oh well, I can see most of you have not upgraded to the latest Pear computer. In that case through the magic of Photoshop I will convert scans of the Captain 3D #1 comic to restore the line art. Seriously I have never been a fan of 3D comics feeling that it is largely a gimmick where too much is lost (color) with too little gained. Besides I find it an annoyance to have to wear special glasses just to read a comic.

By their very nature, superheroes require a suspension of critical judgment in order to be enjoyed. I think the barrier is even higher in the case of Captain 3D due to link between the comic’s 3D gimmick and the hero’s jumping out of a book when viewed with special glasses. Along with the ability to come out of the book when needed, Captain 3D has a power pack that allows him to fly. Otherwise Cap, and he is referred to by that nickname, does not seem to have any special powers or strengths. Captain 3D’s main adversaries are the cat people. The cat people had in the past killed the rest of Cap’s people and now want to enslave mankind as well. Normally Cat people look no different from the rest of the population but when viewed with the same 3D glasses that release Captain 3D from the book, the cat people show their feline features. However Cap also fights more everyday criminals as well. Like many superhero comics of that time, Captain 3D has a young sidekick named Danny, the guardian of the book of D.

Captain 3D
Captain 3D (December 1953) “The Man from the World of D” page 11 panel 4, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Mort Meskin

There is little doubt that Jack Kirby penciled all of Captain 3D #1. Perhaps more then any other comic book artist, Kirby has worked on supplying the extra dimension to comic’s flat plane. He has done so starting perhaps from his days at Timely until the very end of his career. I am not sure how he felt about 3D comics but he came to them already knowing how the images should be composed. Joe Simon’s comments about this can be found in his book “The Comic Book Makers”. There Joe’s basic premise is that the images should project out of the comic, not into. The actual art found in Captain 3D confirms Joe’s observation; there are only a few panels that project into the page. One of them is very effective despite breaking this rule; it is a composition that would be repeated years later in the comic book Battle. Late in life Jack would adopt a style where perspective would be exaggerated to such an extent as to appear unnatural. This style is exemplified by a pose the Kirby would use often where the hero jumps toward the user with one arm held straight and fist closed. Captain 3D has the earliest example of the pose that I am aware off, although without the extraordinary exaggerated perspective. After Captain 3D the pose would not be repeated for many years, but obviously it was not forgotten.

In his book Joe Simon describes Al Harvey requesting Simon and Kirby to produce a 3D book. Neither Joe, Jack nor any of the artists working for them had any experience with making such a comic before. An outside artist had come to Harvey saying he figured how to make 3D comics himself and offered to show Harvey’s people how. Harvey wanted the comic done quickly in order to cash in to what looked like a lucrative craze. As an incentive Harvey offered special rates but I sometimes wonder if Simon and Kirby had every turned down a job because they were too busy.

Joe says the Captain 3D book was created by him, Jack, Mort Meskin, Steve Ditko and “other key artists” working for the S&K studio. As I said above Jack Kirby was responsible for all the pencils. The inking is another question. Frequently the inking has been attributed to Steve Ditko by comic art dealers. Not long ago I saw one offering a page from Captain 3D as created by Steve Ditko, never even mentioning Jack Kirby’s involvement! Determining inking attributions for the Simon and Kirby studio is fraught with difficulties as inking credits were never provided. So comparison of inking methods with that used by different artists on their own work is the only technique that can provide help. There is the added difficulty in a case like Captain 3D when a number of different artists were involved on the same project. If that was not enough, the acetate used to create the 3D effect was a very unforgiving and unfamiliar material for the artists to ink on. Brush control that the artists normally exhibited cannot be expected to show up in the Captain 3D inking. Therefore it would be the risky, to say the least, to try to sort it all out. So naturally I cannot resist.

Captain 3D
Captain 3D (December 1953) “Iron Hat McGinty and His Destruction Gang”, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Mort Meskin

The inker easiest to spot is Mort Meskin. I have previously discussed Mort’s inking techniques. Despite the problems acetate presented many of those techniques can be found in Captain 3D. Here the inking technique that seems to stand out the most is Meskin’s manner of doing picket fence brushwork (for explanations of some of my terms please see the Inking Glossary). Although picket fence crosshatching was part of the S&K Studio style, Mort’s can usually be distinguished by “rails” that are lines of strong but even strength, almost like wires laid down on the page. Even the “pickets” tend to be more mechanical then those by S&K. I have found picket fence brushwork in 13 pages all but 2 of which look like Meskin’s work. Mort also had a way of depicting clothing folds with multiple long parallel, sometimes overlapping, brush strokes. Perhaps because of the difficulties acetate presented, I have found this Meskin brushwork only on 4 pages. Meskin had a special way of drawing and inking eyes and eyebrows. He modified it when inking Kirby’s pencils but it sometimes still retains enough of his personal touch so that it can be recognized. In Captain 3D I found 9 pages with Meskin’s eyes. Mort occasionally would place on one side of a form a wider then normal line that also served as a sort of shadow. There is one page that has this Meskin technique. I came to notice that Meskin sometimes gave a sinuous shadow to Cap’s helmet; this can be found in 6 pages. All together I attribute 11 out of 32 pages to Mort Meskin. For those interested these are “The Man from the World of D” pages 5 and 8 to 11; “The Living Dolls” pages 2, 3 and 10; “Iron Hat McGinty and His Destruction Gang” pages 1 and 9; a figure of Captain 3D in an advertisement at the end of the book.

Captain 3D
Captain 3D (December 1953) “The Man from the World of D” page 10 panel 2, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Mort Meskin

Mort Meskin did an outstanding job on the splash page for “Iron Hat McGinty and His Destruction Gang”. However for me the tour de force of the entire book is page 10 of the “The Man from the World of D”. You can tell Mort was struggling with the acetate surface but he still managed to create a masterpiece in the bottom, almost splash-like panel. I believe there is a reason Mort put so much effort here, this is probably the most powerful image that Simon and Kirby had every produced. I am not referring here to the graphic qualities of the image but to its subject matter. Simon and Kirby never went the extremes such as could be found in EC comics. That is not to say they avoided violence; guns, knives, whips and other weapons can be found but S&K usually refrained from making the use of these devices so obvious. The only exception to this seems to be found earlier in the Captain America art where one time they even went so far as to depict the hanging of a fake Captain America and Bucky. Even then we only see a back view of their dead bodies.

Captain 3D
Captain 3D (December 1953) “The Living Dolls” page 7, pencils and inks by Jack Kirby

The next most easy to spot inker in Captain 3D is Jack Kirby himself. Jack’s involvement to the inking should not be too much of a surprise. After all it was a rush job and Jack would finish pencils before all the inking had been completed and so would be expected to join in. What is surprising is the inking technique he adopts for Captain 3D. Kirby does not use the Studio inking brushwork that was ubiquitous of his inking at that time. Instead Jack works in a style remarkably like the Severe style that would not appear in his inking for several years hence. I think Kirby used this style because it allowed him to work more quickly and it overcame some of the difficult problems presented by inking on acetate. Missing from the Kirby inked pages are techniques like picket fence crosshatching or drop strings. Part of the Severe style is a technique of inking a clothing fold with simple elongated ovals or tapers sometimes attached to a thin line giving it the appearance of a narrow stem ending in a long leaf. This brushwork is found on two pages I attribute to Jack but only in a single panel of one of them suggesting that there Kirby was retouching another inker’s page. Kirby was an excellent inker which gave him an advantage in interpreting some of the nuances of his own pencils. The acetate undoubtedly made it difficult for Jack to achieve such subtleties. Nonetheless I feel I have detected nuances in the treatment of eyes and eyebrows that look like Kirby’s hand. Although Kirby’s brush can be confidently detected Jack did not ink much of Captain 3D. There is not much to go on but the two small heads found in the introduction look like Kirby to me. More certainly Kirby’s inking are panel 1 of page 7 of “The Man from the World of D”, page 7 of “The Living Dolls”, and page 5 of “Iron Hat McGinty and His Destruction Gang”. There are some other possible candidates that I will discuss below.


Captain 3D (December 1953) “The Man from the World of D” page 4, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Joe Simon

I have not yet presented to my readers a thorough examination of the inking techniques used by Joe Simon. Joe presents a particular problem in determining inking attributions. My normal methodology is to examine the inking of art penciled by the artist to find clues on how that artist might in turn ink Kirby’s pencils. Unfortunately Simon did not pencil much art during his collaboration with Kirby. Further Joe has shown himself in the past as adept at mimicking other artists’ styles. While at Fox Joe did such a great job that even experts have missed his signature on some of the covers and attributed the art to Lou Fine. Joe has also mimicked Kirby’s pencils and there is no reason to believe he would not also try to do so with Jack’s inks. Therefore what I present below should only be viewed as a preliminary assessment. Joe Simon’s brushwork was coarser then Kirby’s and in particular his clothing folds did not have the same almost puddled appearance as those Jack used in this comic. In Captain 3D 6 of the pages have a coarser brushwork that looks like Simon’s to me. Like Meskin, Simon has a way of doing eyes that can sometimes show through when inking Kirby’s pencils; 3 pages look like they have Simon’s eyes. I previously mentioned that in Captain 3D picket fence crosshatching was used by Meskin but not by Kirby. There are 2 pages that have picket fence brushwork that do not appear to be Mort’s. I feel that they were done by Simon, but it is possible that this could be misleading due to the difficulty of inking on acetate. Both Simon and Kirby used shoulder blots and these can be found among the pages I attribute to Simon. Shoulder blots do not appear on any of the pages I have credited to Meskin but they do on one that assigned to another artist to be discussed below. All total I credit Joe Simon with inking 8 pages of Captain 3D. For those interested these pages are “The Man from the World of D” pages 3 and 4; “The Living Dolls” page 2; “Iron Hat McGinty and His Destruction Gang” pages 2 to 4, 6 and 8. Keeping in mind the problems about distinguishing Simon from Kirby and the difficulties presented by working on acetate it is quite possible that some of the pages I have attributed to Simon might actually been done by Kirby. Particularly suspicious are the number of Simon pages found in the last story. Assuming that was the last story actually penciled it is just where we might expect the greatest inking contribution by Kirby.

Captain 3D
Captain 3D (December 1953) “The Man from the World of D” page 2, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Steve Ditko

Those keeping tally would realize that there are still a number of pages in Captain 3D that were not done by Meskin, Kirby or Simon. I believe most of them were done by the same artist. I credit them to Steve Ditko but frankly this also is very provisional. Since I have not done a careful review of Steve Ditko’s earliest efforts I really do not have a lot of inking traits to rely on. The most distinguishing feature of his inking, at least compared to Simon and Kirby studio artists, is his reliance on a pen for most of his spotting. Some fine pen work does show up in Captain 3D. However there are often brush spotting on the same pages sometimes covering over some of the pen lines. Some of this may be Ditko’s own efforts but some of it looks like Joe Simon going over and strengthening Steve’s work. The presence of a shoulder blot on one of these pages supports that suggestion. The lower part of the man’s jacket in the last panel of the page 2 of “The Man from the World of D” shows a type of feathering that I have never seen before in work produced by Simon and Kirby or artists that worked for them. Ditko also seems to have his unique touch in his way of doing eyes that shows up in Kirby’s pencils. I notice that Ditko had his own way of inking Captain 3D’s helmet. Ditko would create two simple bands or when the top band was near the peak it would be formed into a small semicircular field. All in all I assign 8 pages to Ditko; “The Man from the World of D” pages 2, 6 and 7; “The Living Dolls” pages 5, 6, 8 and 9; “Iron Hat McGinty and His Destruction Gang” page 7.

Captain 3D
Captain 3D (December 1953) “The Living Dolls” page 4, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by unidentified artist

I am concerned that since I do not yet have a good handle on Ditko’s inking style, especially on acetate, that perhaps some of the pages assigned to him may actually been done by some other artist. There is one page (page 4 of “The Living Dolls”) that I simple am not comfortable to assigning to any of the artists that I have discussed so far. I feel this indicates there was at least one other artist inking Captain 3D but I have no idea who he was.

Captain 3D
Captain 3D (December 1953) “The Man from the World of D”, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Mort Meskin

I have saved for last a short discussion about the cover. The art for the cover was also used as the splash page for “The Man from the World of D”. Therefore it would have been done on acetate in order to achieve the 3D effect. It must have been a difficult task to ink on acetate carefully enough so that it could also be used for the cover. Perhaps because of that spotting is very minimal. It appears to have been done with either a pen or a fine brush. This might suggest Ditko inking but I feel it was actually done by Meskin. Meskin did not do much fine inking in the other interior art but some does show up particularly on splash pages where greater effort was made as for example the first page of “Iron Hat McGinty and His Destruction Gang”. The method used to spot the muscular forms on the cover does appear similar that used in the splash. Captain 3D on the cover also has eyes that suggest Meskin’s personal style. There are not much clothing folds but some on the upper torso are made using close parallel lines like those Meskin prefers. Finally Captain 3D’s helmet has a sinuous curve to the shadow; a device similar to what Mort used in the interior art.

The final breakdown is 12 pages inked by Meskin, 8 pages by Simon, 7 2/3 pages by Ditko, 3 1/3 pages by Kirby, and 1 by an unidentified inker. This is a little misleading because one of the pages attributed to Kirby consists only of two small heads and one of the pages credited to Meskin is an advertisement with only a single figure of Captain 3D.

In my next post I hope to discuss Captain 3D #2.

The Wide Angle Scream, More Pinups

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Posted in 2008/03, 5 Studio, Artists, Harvey, Kirby, Jack, Periods, Serial Posts, Wide Angle Scream, z Archive.

Boys� Ranch #4
Boys’ Ranch #4 (April 1951) “King Red Eye’s Last Raid” art by Jack Kirby
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A rampaging grizzly bear, escaping horses, a kicking mule, and the scrambling youngsters of Boys’ Ranch make this image one of chaos. That is except for the firm figure of Clay Duncan as he calmly aims his rifle to make the most of his shot, probably the only one that he will manage to get off. Although the scene is supposed to be chaotic, the composition is anything but that. The mule, boys and Duncan form a broad ‘U’ shape with the bear occupying the center. Each element that forms that ‘U’ directs our attention toward the grizzly. The bald eagle might seem out of place in the portrayed scene. We would not expect the eagle to have been sleeping among the crew and there certainly would seem to be enough Americana in the picture without it. But its does serve the purpose of balancing off the caption on the opposite side of the splash. All in all a carefully composed image not at all like the true chaos found in last month’s splash “Social Night In Town” but every bit as great a piece of art.

Before I continue, I would like to offer a little digression. In 1972 I lived for a short time in Denver. One weekend I went out into the front range of the Rockies to collect fossils. The weather was dry and my original plans were to roll out the sleeping bag and spend the night under the stars. However the area I was in was cattle country and there were absolutely no trees. I found that the cattle liked to visit my car so that they could use it to rub against. I did not relish the possibility of one of them stepping on me while I slept, so I spent the night in the backseat of the car. When I returned to Denver I heard on the radio that a bear had killed some cattle only a few miles from where I was. I felt that I was pretty lucky since the cattle congregating around my car could have easily attracted the bear and had I been outside he may have found me a much easier prey. After a few weeks of killing cattle the bear was finally shot, he was the largest bear killed in Colorado in over 25 years.

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Boys’ Ranch #5 (June 1951) “The Riders of the Pony Express” art by Jack Kirby
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The Pony Express rider runs his horse at full speed as he tries to escape some attacking Indians. The horse seems frantic but the rider appears almost casual with his rifle held over his shoulder. A trail of smoke exits from the gun barrel showing that the rider has already fired it once and will surely do so again if necessary. There is no question about the unpleasant intent of the Indians but the Pony Express rider seems in control of the situation. The Indians are not trailing behind the rider so they appear to have been trying to cut him off. It makes for an interesting composition with the farthest Indian almost at the center with nearer natives placed increasingly towards our right with the Pony Express rider bring the movement back towards the left. That is not the only way the eye is directed, an overhanging rock formation and some tree branches form an oval with all the riders. The caption rests comfortably on the right portion of the rocky arch. It is truly amazing the variations that are found in these wide pinups, each have their unique composition.

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Boys’ Ranch #6 (August 1951) “Remember the Alamo” art by Jack Kirby
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Clay Duncan enthralls his friends while spending the night out in the prairie with tales of the heroics of the defenders of the Alamo. The lower half of the splash depicts the cast of the Boys’ Ranch while the upper half portrays a dramatic battle. What a battle it is, fully in the Kirby tradition. Gun play takes a decidedly second place to hand to hand combat. This is not an all-over composition like we saw in “Social Night in Town”. A large figure occupies the center separating a left portion of large, mostly Mexican, figures from a right field where the large fallen Mexican figures reveal smaller fighters and a building behind. It would almost seem that the Texans were winning the battle! The only Texan that appears to be in immediate trouble is one in the right background who holds his hands to his face. Of course the Texan success could only be true for a relatively short time before they would succumb to the overwhelming numbers of their opponents. The hard struggle they have had up to this point is suggested by the head bandage and torn costume of our central fighter. He, and two others, one on each side, are obviously frontiersmen. I am tempted to identify the center figure as Jim Bowie because of the large knife he welds, mostly out of the frame. Also tempting would be to identify the wearer of a coon-skin hat as Davy Crockett except that there are two of them. Note how the one on the right brandishes his rifle in the same matter that Crockett does on the cover to Western Tales #32 (March 1956). The central figure’s outfit visually links him to the similarly garbed Clay Duncan below but more importantly suggests a common heroic nature. What a shift from the drama above to the quiet scene below. The members of the Boys’ Ranch are bunched up in the center with backdrops of rock formations and night sky. A lone horse is seen on our right compositionally balancing the caption that appears on the opposite side of the splash. The horse should be unsaddled for the night but a shoe horn and stirrups can be seen but not the rest of the saddle. It is the sort of thing I would expect from Jack, but not from Joe who rode a horse in the Coast Guard. It is however a minor and easy to overlook flaw.

Often the inspiration for Simon and Kirby creations can be found in cinema of the period. Jack and Joe were both of the age that they likely saw the movie “Heroes of the Alamo” but that was released in 1937 and thus does not explain the appearance of the Alamo theme at this particular time. Alamo movies and TV shows became more popular a few years later starting with “The Man from the Alamo” (1953), then “The Last Command” (1955), “Davy Crockett at the Alamo” (1955), “The First Texan” (1956) and pretty much ending with “The Spirit of the Alamo” (1960). The “Davy Crockett at the Alamo” is particularly important as it was part of the made for TV series that Disney produced about Davy Crockett that started a craze among young boys. Afterwards the Alamo largely disappeared from popular culture. At least part of this can be blamed on a shift in social attitudes; one of the freedoms the Texan’s were fighting for was the right to own slaves. Another attempt at the theme was done in 2004 with the film “The Alamo” but it did not achieve much success.

It would not be possible for me to overemphasize what a successful piece of art I think “Remember the Alamo” is. The combination of the action and quiet scenes was done so well it is easy to overlook how unnatural it really should have been. It is arguably the best of the double page pinups from the Boys’ Ranch titles and one of Simon and Kirby’s greatest creations. With the end of the Boys’ Ranch title wide pinups or splashes would disappear from S&K publications for the next few years. For Simon and Kirby it was a relatively quiet period with only one new title, Strange World of Your Dreams in 1952. This was followed by a flurry of new comics starting with Captain 3D (December 1953). The wide format’s small part of the activity will be covered in the next chapter.

The Wide Angle Scream, The Pinup

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Posted in 2008/02, 5 Studio, Artists, Harvey, Kirby, Jack, Periods, Serial Posts, Wide Angle Scream, z Archive.

Towards the end of 1950 Simon and Kirby had some hit titles all published by Prize. For the crime genre there were Headline and Justice Traps the Guilty. Having two titles in the same genre is always a sign of a success. More important would be the Young Romance and Young Love titles for the romance genre that Joe and Jack started. However Simon and Kirby were not ones to just sit back and milk past achievements, they were always trying to produce new titles. October of 1950 would see the release of two new S&K productions. For Prize again they would release their first in the horror genre, Black Magic. That title would run for about five years and would be joined in 1952 by Strange World of Your Dreams, again an indication of success. Simon and Kirby would also release in October Boys’ Ranch, only it would be published by Harvey Comics. Boys’ Ranch is considered by many fans as one of Simon and Kirby’s greatest creations. Unfortunately it was not so well received at the time and the title only lasted six issues.

Boys’ Ranch may not have been as big a success as Joe and Jack had hoped, but it was not for lack of trying. S&K used in Boys’ Ranch some things that they had never tried before, among which were pinups. I am not sure where the idea for the pinups came but Simon and Kirby put it to good use. Each issue of Boys’ Ranch contained both introductory and centerfold pinups. Pinups are unlike splash pages since without any attachment to a story a pinup can be a self sufficient entity. In this respect they are much more like cover art except the image need not be crowded by a prominent title. As stand-alone pieces of art, The Boys’ Ranch pinups represent some of the finest work that Simon and Kirby did. With the expanse that the double page provides, the centerfold pinups are particularly effective.

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Boys’ Ranch #1 (October 1950) “Boys’ Ranch”, art by Jack Kirby
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The centerfold for the first issue introduces the cast and the locale. We find Tommy learning how to lasso cattle while Wabash loafs with his guitar. Angel threatens to use his marksmanship to get Wabash moving. Three sides of the image are framed with rough timber with the title hanging from the top post. The complete circumference is edged with cattle skulls, pistols and other western paraphernalia reminiscent of the bottom edge of the wide splash from Captain America #8 (November 1941). This emphasis on design, unusual in the Boys’ Ranch splashes, does not save this particular centerfold. The more distant view used is not Jack Kirby’s forte for he generally does better when he thrusts his cast into the foreground. There are lots of assorted details provided, many requiring explanations from captions, but just not enough interest to hold our attention long. This is a rare example, in my opinion, of a Kirby double page piece of art that does not come up to his usual high standards.

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Boys’ Ranch #2 (December 1950) “Four Massacres”, art by Jack Kirby
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Another more distant view but this time Kirby makes it more interesting by providing more to look at. It is a crowded image but because this is in a comic book and a reader would tend to view it from left to right there should have been no difficulty in finding the Boys’ Ranch characters on the far left as they enter the town. I will leave it up to my readers to ferret out all the details. This splash is filled with individuals and groups all telling their own little stories, no need for captions to explain it all. Whatever the reasons for the short comings of the wide pinup from Boys’ Ranch #1, Jack is now clearly getting into the control of this new format.

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Boys’ Ranch #3 (February 1951) “Social Night in Town”, art by Jack Kirby
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With “Social Night in Town” Jack Kirby is in top form; this is certainly one of his classic drawings. This is Kirby at his best, a slugfest up close and personal. I like to think of this sort of composition as Kirby’s comic book equivalent of Jackson Pollock. There is no true focus to the image as it is an all over drawing with every portion as important as any other. Jack’s mastery of exaggerated perspective allows him to make this look easy but I honestly cannot think of another comic artist who could come close to providing such an exciting fight scene. Kirby has done this sort of thing before in for example “The Villain from Valhalla” in Adventure Comics #75 (June 1942), but the wide format allows a treatment just not possible on a single page. It would sound much too dry to describe all the details but I cannot help point out Wabash clinging in relative safety high on the near center post enjoying watching all the proceedings. Relative is the operative word because note the knife sticking in the post below him and the chair flying high on the right. The theme of cowboy’s letting off steam in a bar fight may not have been a cliche in 1950 but it soon would be. Comic books could do it in a way that television or movies simple could not match no matter how hard they tried. Not that their directors would likely have noticed Kirby’s work in 1950, but they should have.

As wonderful as “Social Night in Town” is, the best was yet to come. Unfortunately that will have to be covered in the next chapter.

The Art of Romance, Chapter 3, The Field No Longer Their’s Alone

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Posted in 2008/02, 5 Studio, Art of Romance, Artists, Draut, Bill, Infantino, Carmine, Kirby Or Not, Kirby, Jack, Meskin, Mort, Periods, Prize, Robinson, Jerry, Serial Posts, Topic, z Archive.

(Young Romance #5 – #8)

In this chapter I will be writing about the next four issues of Young Romance (#5 to #8). For the most part this set is a continuation of the earlier issues. The main artists were same; Jack Kirby, Bill Draut and the team of Jerry Robinson and Mort Meskin. A couple of minor artists that appeared in issues #1 and #2 do not reappear, but a new one would have a contribution which I will discuss in more detail below. Young Romance is still on a bimonthly schedule. This is surprising because by now S&K and Prize were surely aware that they had a hit. When the crime genre Headline (starting with issue #23, March 1947) was a success Simon and Kirby launched Justice Traps the Guilty for Prize seven months later. Yet after over a year they neither made Young Romance a monthly nor created another title. Other publishers had not failed to notice; based on “All the Romance Comics Ever Published (?)” romance titles began to appear published by Fox (My Life #4, September 1948), Timely (My Romance #1, September), and Fawcett (Sweethearts #68, October). Perhaps Prize along with Simon and Kirby were surprised at their own success and fearful that it was just a fad.

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Young Romance #8 (November 1948) “Love or Pity”, art by Jack Kirby

Jack Kirby continued to be the most prominent artist for Young Romance. Kirby did nine out of the twenty stories in these four issues, or 97 out of 177 pages. It may have been even more since as I will discuss below a tenth story may also have been penciled by Jack. Kirby would continue to create the first story in the comic. This lead story would remain the longest story in the comic with thirteen or fourteen pages while other stories would have at most nine pages. The design of the lead story splash page would continue to have a character’s speech balloon used as the title caption. I particularly like the splash for “Love or Pity”. The design is done quite well with a close-up of a couple dominating the page and another section enacting a little scene like some sort of tableau. We have seen this emphasis in design for some of Simon and Kirby’s double page splashes, but it is also to be found in a number of the smaller splashes drawn by Kirby in Young Romance. In the depiction of the large couple we only get to see the face of the woman, the man’s face and his emotions remain a mystery. The woman arches her left eyebrow, looks askance and her hand’s placement on the man’s shoulder seems tentative. All this makes her appear apprehensive and her attempt to dispel her concerns by moving closer into the man’s embrace seems to have failed. From the title caption we learn why, she is uncertain about the man’s true feelings. Many have described Kirby’s woman as not being truly beautiful but it is a criticism I do not share. I find the woman in this splash attractive enough and, more importantly, very human. While some other artists might have been able to make the woman appear even more beautiful I do not know any that are able to invest them with the same sensitivity that Kirby has. Jack does not draw Barbie dolls but rather woman whose appearance reflects their personality and emotions. I find that makes Kirby’s woman truly beautiful indeed.

The second section of the splash depicts a crowd looking disapprovingly on as the woman runs away in shame. Jack has chosen a low viewing angle so that the woman towers over the background crowd giving drama to the scene. The woman’s pose is rather unusual; she looks more like she is tripping and about to fall. Not an inappropriate metaphor for her descent into scandal. The second section is well done but its impact suffers from its diminished size. Envision this section enlarged and expanded toward the right and you can imagine what a double page romance splash might have looked like had Simon and Kirby ever done one. It is too bad they never did.

Young Romance #6
Young Romance #6 (July 1948) “Disgrace”, art by Jack Kirby

One change that seemed to have taken place from the earlier issues of Young Romance was that action no longer appeared quite as commonly in Jack Kirby’s romance stories. Not that action disappeared completely, it would always show up in more Kirby romance stories then it does in those by any of the other studio artists. “Disgrace” is a case in point. If I had to pick one Kirby romance story most likely to satisfy the general Kirby readership, this would be the one. The heroine feels trapped in a coal mining town which she detests for the violence its inhabitants so frequently adopt. Her brother has managed to escape the town but she is dismayed at his career as a prize fighter and his particularly brutal nature. She falls in love with a man only to discover that he also is a professional boxer. She cannot accept more violence in her life so she breaks it off. Later she finds to her horror that her brother and former love are scheduled to meet in the arena. Where does her loyalty lie, with her violent brother or the man she still loves? Jack Kirby is justly famous for his depiction of a punch and the fight in this story is a pure slugfest.

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Young Romance #8 (November 1948) “Love Can Strike So Suddenly”, art by Jack Kirby

Kirby may have tuned down his use of action but he still looked for means to keep his stories exciting. One of his techniques was to make use of the exotic location of some of the stories. Had the splash of “Love Can Strike So Suddenly” depicted a normal local it would have seemed quite banal. All the main characters are just standing around. Even the dialog is not nearly dramatic enough to rescue this page. However by inserting his cast into a street in India, Jack has made this one of his memorable splashes. I am sure Kirby has swiped this from some source, perhaps National Geographic, but I am also certain that he has made his version far more interesting then the original. I have recently discussed this story; it is the source for a swipe used years later in Simon and Kirby’s own romance comic In Love.

Young Romance #7
Young Romance #7 (September 1948) “Mother Said No” page 4, art by Jack Kirby and Carmine Infantino?

The Jack Kirby Checklist does not include “Mother Said No” among its listings of Kirby’s work. It is easy to understand why, the man in the first panel of the page imaged above does not look he was drawn by Jack. Or does he? Kirby often drew his men with wild eyebrows but these look excessive even for Jack. But how much of these exaggerated eyebrows were in the original drawing and how much were due to the inker’s interpretation of the pencils? The layouts throughout the story look like they were done by Jack. It is hard to be sure, but once the eyebrows are ignored a lot to the drawing looks like Kirby to me.

Charlie Chan #1
Charlie Chan #1 (June 1948) “The Hit and Run Murder Case” page 9, art by Carmine Infantino

Nearly identical men’s eyebrows seen in “Mother Said No” can also be found in work that Carmine Infantino did in Charlie Chan. Compare the man in the third panel of page nine of “The Hit and Run Murder Case” shown above to the one in the first panel of the page I previously presented from “Mother Said No”. Further examples of Infantino’s work for the Simon and Kirby studio can be found in an earlier post. While the details of the eyebrows seem to match in the two stories, the proportions used in drawing the faces do not. Nor are Carmine’s layouts in Charlie Chan similar to those found in “Mother Said No”. The inking for “Mother Said No” was done in the studio style which would normally suggest Jack or Joe’s involvement. However Carmine used the studio style inking in some parts of Charlie Chan, particularly the splashes. I really need to do a more thorough comparison, but some of the spotting in “Mother Said No” does not look like it was done by either Jack or Joe. My initial conclusion is that in “Mother Said No” Carmine was inking Jack’s pencils. If that is true what is not clear is whether Kirby’s pencils were not very tight, or if instead they were overwhelmed by Carmine’s inking. In either case I am presently inclined to consider this a joint piece with Jack as the primary artist.

There is a serious problem with the analysis that I presented above because of an interview of Carmine Infantino from The Jack Kirby Collector #34. In that interview Carmine clearly said that Charlie Chan was the only work he did for Simon and Kirby, and later added that he never inked Jack’s pencils. I really want to do a more careful analysis before I am ready to contest Infantino’s statements so for now I consider my conclusions as preliminary. Hopefully a re-examination of this issue will be the subject of another post in not too distant future.

Young Romance #6
Young Romance #6 (July 1948) “Gossip”, art by Bill Draut

Kirby did not draw all the stories in YR #5 to #8; Bill Draut remained a significant contributor with seven stories out of twenty, or 52 pages out of 177. Bill’s art started to change. Gone were the splashes with an emphasis on design, I do not believe it would reappear in Draut’s work until 1954 for In Love. I suspect Joe Simon had a hand in laying out some of the earlier Draut splashes for Young Romance, but from this point on Draut would do it himself. The other change would be the appearance of more and more traits that would be typical of Draut. Note the brickwork for the fireplace in the “Gossip” splash. This is a Draut trademark that will reappear from time to time through his association with the Simon and Kirby studio. Another Draut trademark, which actually showed up before, is the brunette’s pose. Draut portrays a person’s anger by leaning the torso and thrusting the head forward, and sometimes having the person clench their fists. This is a pose not quite like any that I have seen Kirby use and it is one of the reasons that I do not believe Jack was providing layouts for Bill as some authorities have claimed.

Young Romance #5
Young Romance #5 (May 1948) “Jealousy”, art by Jerry Robinson and Mort Meskin

The final two contributors to Young Romance #5 to #8 was the team of Jerry Robinson and Mort Meskin. I attribute three stories from issues #5 and #6 to Robinson and Meskin, one of which (“The Inferior Male”) was signed. The Jack Kirby Checklist credits the splash page of “Jealousy” to Jack Kirby as inked by Joe Simon. The expressive formality of the foreground couple is not typical of Kirby. Nor are the long and simple eyebrows usually found in Simon’s inking. The only thing that suggests Kirby/Simon to me is some of the Studio style inking such as the abstract arch at the top of the wall and the picket fence crosshatching on the lower part of the woman’s dress (see inking glossary). However the “Jealousy” splash presents cloth folds created by long, narrow sweeping brush strokes, this is exactly the inking technique used by Mort Meskin. Also note the man has a type of grin that is so typical for Mort. The eyebrows found in “Jealousy” may also be found in the Robinson and Meskin work found in these early issues of Young Romance. The unusual formal pose of the couple would not be surprising for Robinson and Meskin. The only problem with a Robinson and Meskin attribution for the “Jealousy” splash is the Studio style inking which is not found in other R&M art. I think the best explanation for this discrepancy is that either Simon or Kirby in their roll as art editor stepped in to touch up the splash. I feel the splash matches the art in the rest of the story and it all should be attributed to Jerry Robinson and Mort Meskin.

July marked the last month that Robinson and Meskin art would appear in Simon and Kirby productions. Mort Meskin would return by himself over a year later, after which he would be a frequent contributor until the end of the studio. This is all very hard to reconcile with Carmine Infantino’s TJKC #34 interview where he says that he accepted the Charlie Chan job for the experience he would get by working with Kirby and Meskin. Carmine even describes Mort as working right next to Jack. Carmine’s stay was from June 1948 until February 1949 (cover dates). This does overlap Robinson and Meskin’s period (January to July 1948) but is well before Meskin’s solo return in December of 1949. I just do not find it creditable that Mort was working in the studio at a time when he and Robinson were probably producing more work for other publishers then for S&K. Would Mort and Jerry have been working separately? Would the small amount of work for S&K justify Mort’s presence in the studio? I am afraid I have to conclude that Carmine’s memory has failed him; perhaps he has mixed up the time of his presence in the studio with that of his brother Jimmy who did work for S&K at the same time as Meskin.

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)