Category Archives: Odds & Ends

Byrne and Simon, An Unlikely Collaboration

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Posted in 2006/11, Late, Odds & Ends, Periods, Topic, z Archive.

Captain America Collector's Preview
Captain America Collectors’ Preview (March 1995)
by John Byrne and Joe Simon
Larger Image

In 1995 Marvel was going to do one of their periodic changes of direction for Captain America. So they produced a Collectors’ Preview. Although it included a reprint of a Simon and Kirby Cap story from All Winners #1, the Preview was not a comic book. Rather it was a comic book size magazine. That time was a good point in the relationship between Marvel Comics and Joe Simon. Joe’s first attempt at challenging the ownership of Captain America had been settled years before and his next copyright fight was years into the future. So the Preview announced “the return of Joe Simon”. Inside was a nice article showing Joe doing cover recreations for all the Captain America covers produced by Simon and Kirby for Timely. The photos are of Joe at work in his own apartment, the same one he still lives in. You might get the impression from the photographs of spacious living conditions. But I can tell you it is a typical New York apartment which I suspect most Americans would consider rather cramped. Joe’s stat camera did not help. A stat camera is a rather large device that once found common use in the publishing industry. In the days before copier machines (let alone scanners) stat cameras were used to cheaply reduce comic art to the actual publication size. In 1995 Joe was using it to blow up old comic covers. Eventually Joe got rid of this outdated camera and he now uses copiers. You would think this would help provide more room but Joe has three different copier/printers, each one having some preferred characteristic. Lately he has purchased a fourth but I have no idea where he is going to put it without loosing one from his collection.

Since in 1995 Marvel’s relationship with Simon was good and John Byrne was perhaps their hottest artist someone came up with the idea of John drawing the Collectors’ Preview cover and having Joe ink it. Despite my title to this post, it was not a real collaboration. John and Joe never met, nor did they even talk over the telephone. Joe was sent the pencils, he did a tracing and inked on that. The original pencil was sent back to Byrne. Joe had this to say about this job.

Inking John Byrne was easy. For Jack Kirby you had to developed your own way of inking. But with Bryne everything was already there.

During the Simon and Kirby years of collaboration Jack would provide tight pencils but without any of the spotting. On the other hand Byrne had not only provided tight pencils but also had indicated all the spotting. Actually in later years while working for Marvel where Kirby was providing pencils alone he also began to indicate spotting as well for the inker.

The Byrne and Simon art for the Collectors’ Preview was a wrap-around cover. The wrap-around was one format that Simon and Kirby never did. In fact the whole idea would have been ridiculous during the Silver Age or earlier. During those years comics were sold on racks and the whole purpose of covers were to attract a potential buyer’s attention. For that purpose anything on the back would be a complete waste of money. It would take the rise of a collector’s market before wrap-around covers would become more common. One might be tempted to compare such a cover format to the double page splash that Simon and Kirby did so well. But the wide splash worked as a story introduction a function that certainly does not fit the Preview cover as there was no Red Skull story inside. A better comparison would be to the double page pin-ups that S&K made for comics like Boys’ Ranch. I will not be doing a detailed comparison of the Preview cover with S&K wide pin-ups. It just would not be fair since there really is no comparison. After all there is a reason that this is the Simon and Kirby blog, not the John Byrne blog. Still John did a nice piece with lots of excitement. The composition is well done with the arms of the various characters visually linked into an oval. My biggest complaint is there is too much text cluttering the art. John seems to have designed the cover with the placing of the title in mind. But the rest of the text appears to be unplanned for. I suspect the clutter was not John’s fault.

Lone Shark!

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Posted in 2006/10, 5 Studio, Featured Work, Odds & Ends, Periods, Prize, Topic, z Archive.

I saw an unusual post today in one of my favorite blogs Pharyngula by PZ Myers. (A warning to those religious, the Pharyngula blog is largely about evolution and atheism). In it PZ talks about a comic book called Action. What interests him about this comic is the depiction of a giant squid. PZ has a fondness for squid and other cephalopods. (Actually so do I and I am proud of the fact that a fossil cephalopod was named after me, Nostoceras mendryki Cobban). As a biologist Meyers credits the demise of this comic book not to the graphic violence, but to the inaccuracies inflicted by the artist (actually I am sure this suggestion was done tongue in cheek).

The source PZ Meyer used was something in scans_daily (In this case I must warn readers about the graphic violence). Action started in 1976 but only lasted 21 months. Apparently one feature from Action called Hook Jaw had a man eating shark as the protagonist. Hook Jaw was obviously inspired by the Jaws movies. Although I warned the this stuff was pretty violent, I find it does not affect me very much. Frankly I find the depictions so unrealistic that they seem silly. In one panel body parts go flying even before the sharks mouth full closes. Some might credit the demise of Action as due to criticism they received about the violence, I believe it was more likely due to the poor writing and drawing. It just tries too hard to be gruesome.

Black Magic #33
Black Magic #33 (November 1954) “Lone Shark” by Jack Kirby

But the idea of a killer shark as a protagonist was certainly not new. Simon and Kirby had provided just such a story back in 1954. Actually S&K even went further by providing the shark with intelligence so that with thought balloons we can read the story from his viewpoint. This particular shark was unique, atomic radiation had caused it to develop a tumor. But the growth was not cancer it was actually a second mind! Hence the shark’s intelligence. The idea that some sort of mutation can provide an immediate evolutionary leap was a concept some scientists shared about the time this story came out. Some referred to such a mutate as a hopeful monster. Today the belief in hopeful monsters has been pretty much discredited in evolutionary science. But hey this is a comic book so the heck with the objections of PZ Meyer and other biologists.

Black Magic was a Simon and Kirby production, at least up to this point. Joe and Jack were not interested in the sort of gruesome stories that someone like Bill Gaines would produce. In fact this story was not so much as a chiller as a black comedy. Read the opening page, it really is funny. The whole story is filled with similar humor. Of course there is a final unexpected twist but I hate to give any spoilers. This story is one of my favorites and certainly deserves to be reprinted some day.

After issue #33 Black Magic would be discontinued for a few years. We can only guess why this happened. My belief is that Black Magic found itself in an unfortunate position. Although I find the stories very well done, it cannot be denied that some of the comic book readers preferred horror stories that were stronger and more gruesome. So Black Magic probably lost some of its readership to the publications of Bill Gaines and others. At the same time (adult) public sentiment was rising against comics. Bill Gaines and his horror comics acted like lightning rods attracting much criticism. Black Magic became associated in the minds of many adults with the more extreme fares. In response some newsstands began to refuse to sell certain comic genre, horror in particular. Eventually a comic code would be created and the more extreme comics would cease to exist. But that was too late for Black Magic, at least until it resumed in 1958.

Black Magic #33
Black Magic #33 (November 1954) “Lone Shark” by Jack Kirby

Jack even included in this story another extinct cephalopod. But I was really hoping for a more exciting use of a cephalopod by Jack Kirby. At the moment I cannot think of one. So I will close with one with a tenuous link to Simon and Kirby. At the start of his career, before Joe Simon teamed up with Jack, he did some work for the agency Funnies Incorporated. I previously posted on what have been Joe’s first comic book work which eventually appeared in Amazing Man Comics #10. In the same comic there is a feature called The Shark by Lew Glanz. I guess it was attempt by Funnies Inc. to duplicate the success they had with Bill Everett’s Submariner. In there story is a page with a great octopus, another cephalopod. It shows the confrontation of the Shark with the killer beast. Unfortunately Glanz ruins it all by having the octopus turning coward and fleeing. The whole story is filled with similar build ups with disappointing conclusions.

Amazing Man #10
Amazing Man #10 (March 1940) “The Shark” by Lew Glanz

New Joe Simon and Jack Kirby books

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Posted in 2006/10, Odds & Ends, Topic, z Archive.

During my last visit to Joe Simon he showed me a new book. The book is on Joe and it is one of six books from the series “Comic Book Creators”. Also included in the series is one on Jack Kirby, which I did not see. I checked it out in Amazon where they have all six titles listed:
John Buscema
Jack Kirby
Joe Simon
Stan Lee
Joe Sinnott
John Romita, Sr.

Amazon lists them all as $16.46 each. But before you start ordering them there are a few things you should know. First the series is actually meant for children! So do not expect any to find any deep insights or unusual historical information. Still in the book on Joe there are some nice photos but I do not know if any of them did not appear in Joe and Jim Simon’s “The Comic Book Makers”. Next they are rather thin books, not surprising considering who they are meant for. The other thing is I am not sure that they have actually been released yet. Amazon list them as such but the book Joe showed me had a 2007 publication date.

Considering the line up, you have to suspect some connection with Marvel. I think children books like this are a great idea. I suspect the real market is not the children but rather the parents. Still it can be hoped that it might introduce comic books to a younger generation.

Happy Birthday Joe!

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Posted in 1 Early, 2006/10, 4 DC (early), Featured Work, Odds & Ends, Periods, Topic, z Archive.

Star Spangled #48
Star Spangled #48 (September 1945)

Best wishes to Joe Simon on his birthday. Joe is still doing well although he has had a cold that he has not been able to shake for a number of weeks. Even so Joe is still very active. As we saw from his ad proposal Joe has some ongoing projects.

Joe Simon
by Joe Simon
Enlarged view

In honor of this day I post images of Joe’s first published comic art. This was done for his high school newspaper the name of which I unfortunately forget. I cannot say I fully understand the humor, perhaps you had to be going to his school to appreciate it.

Wonderworld Ad Proposal

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Posted in 2006/10, Odds & Ends, Topic, z Archive.

Wonderworld Ad Proposal

I find traces of Joe Simon’s unique humor throughout the Simon and Kirby productions. But it was only when Joe began to produce the magazine Sick that his humor was let free. As you can see from this new advertisement Joe’s brand of comedy has not left him.

The photo is based on one in Joe’s collection. I have previously posted on the comic book artist Ken Riley. Actually a better description for Riley would be an illustrator and sometimes comic book artist. In illustration at the time, an artist would first make a proposal to a client and only if it is accepted produce the actual illustration. So Ken would have his friends act out the pose he wanted and then take a photograph to present to his perspective client. Obviously it was not necessary to get the scene perfectly, I am sure the woman in the final piece was not have Harriet’s expression.

Although you cannot tell if from this photo, the building in the background is a rather unusual one, it had no roof. Harriet Simon loved to sun bath so Joe had it built to provide her with some privacy. The cot you can see inside was the only piece of furniture.

Along with some others, I have been helping Joe with some book proposals. I do not think it would be proper for me to go into details about the project. Besides I believe it is almost like movie deals, you only know a proposal is really going to be done when it has actually been published. I have no idea where Joe got the 1000 figure. When I made a book of the Simon and Kirby covers I believed that including the covers Joe did before meeting Jack there were 386 covers. My opinions on some of these covers has changed but I have also added some Simon covers so the tally is now even slightly larger. If you add covers and stories there maybe a total of about 1200 pieces. But Simon and Kirby was a production studio and if you include work by other artists for that studio a figure about 3400 would be more appropriate. Counting pages of art, instead of just covers and stories, and the count goes over 17,000. If you add in the work Joe produced for Sick the number climbs much higher. I have not inventoried the Sick stuff so I cannot even hazard a guess.

Kirby Puppets?

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Posted in 2006/09, Hillman, Odds & Ends, Periods, Topic, z Archive.

Punch and Judy vol. 1 no. 4
Punch and Judy vol. 1 no. 4 (Fall 1945)

After leaving Captain America and Timely, Simon and Kirby worked for DC. There they worked mainly on Sandman (Adventure Comics), the Newsboy Legion (Star Spangled Comics) and the Boy Commandos (Detective Comics and Boy Commandos Comics). There was a war on and the artists knew that sooner or later they would be drafted. So our intrepid duo went into hyper drive and produced extra material. These backlog stories and covers were used by DC while Joe and Jack did their military service. Eventually the stories were used up, but backlog covers were used right up to the time Kirby returned from the war in Europe. New Sandman and Newsboy Legion stories drawn by Jack reappear in October 1945 (cover date). Joe Simon was still in the Coast Guard at that time and would not rejoin Jack until several months later.

It is just at this time that a puzzling single page art appears in Hillman Publication’s Punch and Judy (Fall 1945). The Jack Kirby Checklist includes this as a work by Jack. Let me layout the pros and cons to this attribution as I see them.

The timing is right, just barely. Jack could very well have been back from the military at this point. The inking, particularly on the boy puppeteer, looks like it could have been done by Jack. The boy’s “Howdy Doody” kind of face is similar to some done by Kirby in “Your Health Comes First” a syndicate feature from the start of his career prior to meeting Simon. Simon and Kirby would produce “kiddie” stories for Punch and Judy later.

Joe Simon says that DC treated them well during the war, providing them with royalties. Jack’s return to DC and his work on the previous S&K titles indicate there was still a job there for him. So why would Jack immediately set out find other work? And if for some reason the DC work was not enough, why did Kirby not continue to do outside work? This is the only work not for DC that is attributed to Kirby at this time. The inking on the drapes does not have quite as convincing a Kirby look. Although there is some likeness to cartoon work from early in Jack’s career, work from this time period did not seem to use this sort of “Howdy Doody” face. This despite the fact that Jack did a lot of kid characters. Yes S&K later did work for Punch and Judy but that was almost two years in the future.

So I end up sitting on the fence. You can make your own decision. I guess I would be happier with the attribution if I was more familiar with other artists doing “kiddie” type of work at that time. Perhaps there are some Kirby scholars out there who can provide their own opinions and the reasons why? Hey, sitting on a fence is uncomfortable!

Laugh, Simon and Kirby meet Archie

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Posted in 2006/08, 5 Studio, Archie, Odds & Ends, Periods, Topic, z Archive.

When Jack Kirby and Joe Simon returned from military service they tried to produce their own comics (Stuntman and Boy Explorers) with Harvey as the publisher. Unfortunately with the end of the war came the end of paper rationing. Publishers went wild and there was a flood of comics. This comic book glut meant that new titles, including those by Simon and Kirby, did not stand a chance. Joe and Jacks venture pretty much failed before it ever got to compete. S&K then tried a number of genre that were new for them. This includes some that are not the sort of thing one would normally associate with Simon and Kirby. One of their efforts was for a title called My Date for Hillman. Despite the title this was not a romance comic but rather teenage humor. It was essentially a take off of the very successful Archie.

Laugh #24
Laugh #24 (September 1947) “Pipsy” by Jack Kirby

But Simon and Kirby would also take the same approach to Archie itself. In Laugh #24 (September 1947) included with stories of Archie, and Katy Keene there is piece called Pipsy. I really do not know much about Archie comics, but the Pipsy story has the feel of being an introduction of a new feature. If that is true then this was almost certainly a Simon and Kirby creation pitched to and given a tryout by Archie. It would be easy to miss that this work was penciled by Kirby. The drawing is more simplified and stylized while spot inking was minimal giving the page a light look. Once you get beyond style details and look at what and how things are depicted it becomes easy to recognize it as by Jack. The visual humor used is more like Jack’s then Joe’s. (At some point I will have to blog on of their different approaches to visual humor.)

Laugh #24
Laugh #24 (September 1947) “Pipsy” by Jack Kirby

The humor is not just visual. There is some of the sort of silliness one expects in funnies directed at teenagers. The student Pipsy has opened an office at the school where students bring their problems to him to solve. The coach asks Pipsy to find out why the whole team has developed sore knees. Adding that if he cannot find the answer Pipsy can no longer date the coach’s daughter Doreen. Pipsy eventually finds out that the teams problems are due to Rumba Dumba dance lessons given by Doreen. She in turn says that if Pipsy reports this to the coach she will never date him again. More unusual I think is the slap stick that S&K bring to the story. Kirby was the master of action and violence which was not at all out of place for superheroes and kid gang comics. But I cannot think of any place where Jack used this talent to a greater extent in his comedy. The team member’s response to Pipsy’s prying are funny but actually quite rough. This story is so attuned to Jack’s strengths that I am sure that if the script was not actually written by Simon and Kirby, it was produced under their direction.

Did Archie realize that Simon and Kirby’s rough humor in Pipsy did not fit well with the clean fun of the rest of the Archie comics? Or was it that Joe and Jack soon found success with crime and romance genre and felt no need to pursue such a limited feature as Pipsy? Whatever the reasons S&K would not return to do any more teenage humor stories for Archie. I do not know for sure, but I strongly suspect that Archie made no effort to produce further Pipsy adventures by themselves.

Kirby swipes from Simon

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Posted in 2006/08, 5 Studio, Harvey, Late, Odds & Ends, Periods, Swiping, Topic, z Archive.

Black Cat #8
Black Cat #8 (November 1947) “The Madness of Dr. Altu” by Joe Simon

To swipe means to whip, to give a sweeping blow. But today it is more commonly used as a slang for to steal. In comics arts it means to copy a design or drawing, but still carries with it the connotation of theft. For many comic fans to show that a comic artist has swiped is paramount to saying that he is an inferior artist. With the artists Jack Kirby and Joe Simon the verdict in the past was generally Kirby = no swipe = good, while Simon = swipe = bad. I would like to think this attitude is changing. Tom Morehouse for instance has done some fine scholarly investigations that reveal the sources for some of Kirby swipes. Jack used this practice long after his period of collaboration with Simon. Actually Kirby’s collages can be considered a form of swiping.

Captain America #213
Captain America #213 (September 1977) “The Night Flyer” by Jack Kirby (original art)

Much has been said about Joe Simon swiping, including here in this blog. It is not surprising that one of Joe’s favorite sources is Jack Kirby. For example Joe used a close copy from Captain America #7 when he put together the cover for The Adventures of the Fly #2 (the cover is shown in Chapter 12 of The Art of Joe Simon). Here I would like to present an example of Kirby swiping from of all people, Joe Simon. Jack’s source was a set of panels that Joe did for a Vagabond Prince story “The Madness of Dr. Altu” in 1947. The use of three panels with close-ups of a face being hit by a fist also occurs in a Captain America story (“The Night Flyer”) by Jack Kirby done 30 years later. It is not a direct copy, Jack would not need any help on how to present such close ups, but it is a swipe nonetheless. I do not think it is a coincidence that in both cases it is the hero of the story receiving the punishment. However there are interesting differences also. In Joe’s story the hero, Prince Vagabond, is initially defeated by his opponent. A short time later there is a re-match which of course the hero wins. That is a plot device more frequently used today but was rather unusual at the time Joe did it. In Kirby’s example a blind and out of uniform Captain America is the receptor of the villain’s blows at the start, but Cap is victorious by the end of the page. Jack does this in an interesting formal device of using panels in a 3/2/1 vertical tier.

Donatello and Michelangelo
Saint John the Evangelist (1412-15) by Donatello and Moses (1513-1516) by Michelangelo

I use the term swipe because it is so entrenched in comic art discussions. But I have to admit I am rather uncomfortable with the word and it’s subtext of stealing. There is no similar expression in the fine arts. No one would speak of Michelangelo’s Moses being swiped from Donatello’s Saint John (By the way the Michelangelo and Donatello I am referring to are Italian Renaissance artists, not mutant ninja turtles). In the fine arts there is a better, richer, understanding on how artists really work. Art is not created from a vacuum by the artist acting alone like some deity. Instead artists (this includes comic artists) extract from previous art, from other art fields, and even from real life. The artist then combines these resources adding his own personal touch into a new piece of art. Recognizing that allows one to appreciate what individual artists bring to their own work and how art continually evolves.

Simon & Kirby as editors

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

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

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

Boy Explorers #1

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

Boy Explorers #1

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

Boy Explorers #1

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

Stuntman #3

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

Green Hornet #37

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

Unpublished

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

Welcome

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Posted in 2006/03, Odds & Ends, Topic, z Archive.

I’ve decide to jump into the world of blogging. I just couldn’t resist the temptation to muse on my favorate comic artist team, Joe Simon & Jack Kirby. But posting will not be limited to just those two , but also to the S&K studio and the artists that worked for it. Artists like Bill Draut, Mort Meskin, John Prentice, and more. Although focusing on the time of the S&K collaboration, I will also branch out to other time periods.