Category Archives: Topic

Some Lettering by Howard Ferguson

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Posted in 2009/10, Lettering, Topic and tagged , , ,

I must admit that I have not done enough carefully studies of the lettering done on Simon and Kirby productions. I always realized the importance of the lettering, both aesthetically and historically, but there always seemed other investigations that attracted my attentions. I have decided that I will no longer postpone examining this subject. I am not going to make a serial post because my investigations will not be following the timeline. But I will group these posts under a Topic on the sidebar.

In this pursuit I like to assemble images of the letters from a single story. Of course there is always a certain amount of variation in the letters but I try to select somewhat typical examples. For these samples I only select letters from captions and balloons that are not bold or oversized.

Letters Prize Comics #7
Prize Comics #7 (December 1940) “The Black Owl”, letters by Howard Ferguson

Initially like many early artists both Joe Simon and Jack Kirby did their own lettering. When the duo was working in the Timely bullpen their work began to be lettered by Howard Ferguson. Joe is the first to admit that his own lettering was rather amateurish while he considers Howard was one of the best letters ever. I provide about some examples of his lettering from an early Black Owl story. Note the rather short vertical strokes at the bottoms of the letters ‘P’ and ‘R’. I have selected an ‘S’ that shows a lower ending that is shorter horizontally than the upper one. Actually this is a rather variable feature ranging all the way to an equal length for both the upper and lower arms. However the short lower arm for the ‘S’ can usually be easily found while the reversed almost never occurs. There are two rather distinctive letters. One of them is the ‘J’ with its rather long and flat hook. Unfortunately ‘J’ is not a common letter but when it is used it provides an easy means of spotting Ferguson’s work during this early period. A more common letter that is very useful for identifying Ferguson’s work is the ‘C’. Note the short vertical stroke that descends from the top arm of the ‘C’.

Letters Stuntman #1
Stuntman #1 (April 1946) “Killer in the Bigtop”, letters by Howard Ferguson

I am going to make a rather long time leap and provide some lettering from late in Ferguson’s career. Despite the years that separate the Black Owl story from this Stuntman work, the ‘C’ is still has that very distinctive short stroke. The ‘J’ is very much unchanged. Examples of ‘S’ with a shorter lower arm can still be found but they are not nearly as common as before. There have been some changes as for example in the ‘G’. The overall shape is the same with the horizontal stroke place rather high in the letter. But note how in the Prize #7 the horizontal line for the ‘G’ extends to the right from the lower arm while in Stuntman #1 it appears to be made from the same stroke and does not extend to the right. The ‘?’ has also been altered having a lower arm that hooks much more to the right giving the main body a look almost like a ‘2’.

Letters Green Hornet #39
Green Hornet #34, originally published as Stuntman #3 (October 1946) “Rest Camp for Criminals”, letters by Howard Ferguson

I would very much like to determine when Ferguson passed away and was no longer lettering for Simon and Kirby. Unfortunately his most distinctive earlier trait, the ‘C’ with a short vertical stroke, pretty much disappears. Occasionally a ‘C’ will have just a hint of this feature and I provide an example of one at the bottom of the samples. The ‘J’ is still distinctive but like I said it is not a common letter. The ‘P’ and ‘R’ still have short lover vertical strokes but not quite as extreme as in Prize #7. Oddly Howard has gone back to the earlier version of the ‘G’ with that small horizontal stroke to the right.

Letters Headline #24
Headline #24 (May 1947) “Trapping New England’s Chain Murderer”, letters by Howard Ferguson?

I am going to close with samples from a crime story from seven months later. There are a number of changes to be found. The ‘J’ is still distinctive but no longer has a horizontal stroke at the top. The ‘G’ reverts once again to the Stuntman form without the short horizontal stroke to the right. However the horizontal stroke no longer sits so high in the letter. The lower vertical strokes for ‘P’ and ‘R’ are not quite so short as before. The apostrophe now has a slant where previously it was always vertical. There are two big surprises. Previously the ‘M’ had been very consistent with a slant to the two outer arms and the inner junction reaching as low as the base for the two outer arms. Now the outer arms of ‘M’ are vertical and the inner junction does not always descend to the base of the letter. The other surprise is found in the letter ‘Y’. Again this letter had bee very consistent in all the earlier works having the lower portion formed by a continuation of the stroke for the right arm giving it a slant. In Headline #24 the lower portion of the ‘Y’ descends vertically.

In conclusion, while there was some variation in Ferguson’s lettering over the years for the most part it seems pretty consistent. That is except toward the end. Frankly I do not know what to make of the changes found in the lettering of “Trapping New England’s Chain Murderer”. Although I have not assembled letter examples, there are other late stories that exhibit variations. All of this work is typically credited to Ferguson but I have to say I have my doubts. However I require further studies of these works before I reject the Ferguson attributions altogether.

Jack Kirby, Fanboy

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Posted in 2009/08, Artists, Kirby, Jack, Periods, Swiping, z Archive and tagged , , ,


Red Raven (August 1940), art by Jack Kirby

Somewhere around February 1940 (calendar dates) Joe Simon left his position as editor for Fox Comics and became Timely’s first comic book editor. It would seem that the first thing Joe did on arriving at Timely was to produce a new title, Red Raven Comics (August 1940, cover date). My understanding is that until a salaried position was arranged for Jack Kirby, he stayed at Fox. Perhaps that is why the title feature of Red Raven was done by another artist, but Jack would do the cover and some backup features (Early Jack Kirby, Chapter 5, Timely and the Red Raven). It was a very imaginative cover showing the Red Raven rescuing a damsel in distress. It looks like a scene from some medieval castle and for good reasons.

Prince Valiant (January 15, 1938)
Prince Valiant (January 15, 1938), art by Hal Foster

Kirby’s cover was clearly swiped from the popular Prince Valiant syndication strip. This is not new information that I am presenting here as my understanding is that the swipe was reported a number of years ago in Robin Snyder’s newsletter. I have not seen this particular newsletter but Joe Simon discussed it with Carmine Infantino and me around 2000 or 2001 so it should have been prior to that. Joe remarked that originally the Red Raven cover was attributed to Kirby but when it was found to be swiped from Hal Foster some now said it was by Simon. Joe was complaining about the attitude, pretty common at the time, that Jack would never swipe but Joe always did. Hopefully that false concept has been put to rest by the discovery of a number of swipes that Kirby did from various sources, many of them discovered by the diligent efforts of Kirby scholar Tom Morehouse. In the case of the Red Raven cover the drawing style leaves no doubt that Jack was the penciller. By the way when Joe made the remark about the newsletter Carmine asked “But Joe did you swipe”? Joe answered, “Sure, back then everybody did”.

It is interesting that Jack used a newspaper comic from about 2 years prior as material to base the Red Raven cover. Although Prince Valiant was very popular, I do not think it had yet been reprinting as a book. That meant that Kirby had kept at least this particular strip for some time. One normally does not think of Jack Kirby as a fanboy but it appears he was, at least for Hal Foster.

The Demon #1
The Demon #1 (September 1972), pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Mike Royer

Of course that was all when Jack was very young; surely he wouldn’t do something like later in his career. Would he? Mark Evanier wrote a foreword to DC’s reprint “Jack Kirby’s The Demon”. Mark is such a marvelous writer and Kirby scholar that all of his introductions are great, but this one is particularly special. In it describes Jack creating and outlining the first issue of the title, The Demon, over the course of a family outing to a restaurant. On his return Jack would pull out a reprint volume and declare he would use it to model the new character as a sort of inside joke. You guessed it; it was a reprint of Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant. Over twenty years later and Jack still was a fanboy!

Prince Valiant (December 25, 1937)
Prince Valiant (December 25, 1937), art by Hal Foster

Both Prince Valiant images that I used above come from a new reprint volume by Fantagraphics (Prince Valiant, Vol. 1: 1937-1938). This is a gorgeous volume with coloring that is absolutely breath taking. I highly recommend it.

Fighting American Does NOT Come to Dynamite

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Posted in 2009/08, Odds & Ends, Topic, z Archive and tagged , , , , , ,

This year’s San Diego Comic Con was the place to introduce many new projects. However the most surprising event, at least for Joe Simon, was Nick Barrucci’s announcement that Fighting American would be published by Dynamite (as seen in Comic Book Resources and Newsarama). According to Mr. Barrucci:

We started talking to Joe Simon himself, and met with him and his attorney Ted Kessler, and then the conversation went to Lisa Kirby and Lisa’s attorney Paul Levine. From there, it’s just been a very long conversation.

It is true that Mr. Barrucci started with talks with Joe Simon, but Simon turned down Dynamite’s proposal in no uncertain terms. Apparently Mr. Barrucci did not know the meaning of the word no and he proceeded anyway. Joe only found out the supposed deal when it appeared on Comic Book Resources.

Joe Simon says:

There are some penciled covers of Fighting American by Mr. Ross that are printed in the story without copyright notice. I find that damaging, as is the whole fake story.

8/3/09 Update:

Newsarama has written new information on this subject

There is an important pieces of information that I feel I should include here:

Newsarama also spoke with Lisa Kirby Monday afternoon, who informed us the Kirby estate will no longer be participating in a Fighting American project at Dynamite.

DC’s New Book, The Sandman by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

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Posted in 2009/07, Publications, Topic, z Archive and tagged , , , , ,

The Sandman by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

Joe Simon gave me a copy of DC’s new book “The Sandman by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby”. Amazon lists the release date as August 18, but it may be in comic books stores sooner then that. Simon and Kirby worked on Sandman (along with Manhunter, the Newsboy Legion, and Boy Commandos) just after leaving their highly successful run of Captain America at Timely. It was with Captain America that Simon and Kirby achieved fame but it was at DC that their unique collaboration really took root. This book provides all the Simon and Kirby Sandman stories that appeared in Adventure and World Finest Comics. That means the book contains all the independent Sandman stories that Joe and Jack did but excludes Sandman’s appearance in All Star Comics as part of the Justice Society of America. The Sandman also excludes some Sandman stories done by other artists while Simon and Kirby were doing their military service during the war. Included also is Simon and Kirby’s last comic book collaboration, a remade Sandman from 1974. Only the first issue of the 70’s Sandman is here since Joe and Jack once again went their separate ways. With 290 pages of art that is a lot of Simon and Kirby and at $39.99 a real steal. At that price you could not even buy a single issue of the original comic let alone the entire run.

There are two basic philosophies about how to reprint old comic book art. One approach is to recreate, or as Marvel calls terms it reconstruct, the art. The other approach is to use cleaned up scans. Recreated reprints can look superficially attractive but the reader is actually getting a modern artist interpretation of the original work. Depending on the artist doing the recreation this may or may not be very accurate. Reprints using scans are accurate but not always pretty because of the primitive printing of the original comics and the deteriorations that they have suffered with age. I prefer reprints that use scans and I am happy to say that is the approach that DC has adopted for this volume.

The Sandman by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

In all honesty there are some problems with The Sandman. The book is 7 by 10.5 inches in size. This is a common dimension for books of this nature but it meant that the art had to be reduced in size. However it is not much smaller then the original and reading is not really impaired. I would have preferred the original size but that would have meant a larger book with a correspondingly higher sales price. It is not the height of the original comics that caused the difficulty but rather the width. DC was obviously trying to limit the amount of size reduction and so the margins and gutters are rather narrow. The image above shows the resulting page format. The narrow gutter does not really affect the reading but as can be seen it does make scanning difficult.

There is a nice introduction by John Morrow, publisher of The Jack Kirby Collector. Morrow provides some much needed background for those not steeped into the history of Simon and Kirby. However there is a secret rule that says that every volume reprinting Jack Kirby material must include an essay by Mark Evanier, in this case it is an afterword. Of course I am being a little bit facetious about there being such a rule, but only a little bit. Evanier not only knows more about Jack Kirby then anyone else but he is also a marvelous writer. His presence in The Sandman, or any other Kirby volume, is always much appreciated.

What can I say, this is after all the Simon and Kirby Blog and this book is prime Simon and Kirby. Buy this book to find out how a second rate backup feature became the star of Adventure Comics. Buy this book to see how exciting Simon and Kirby could be. But buy this book.

The Best of Simon and Kirby

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Posted in Best of Simon & Kirby, Topic.

Amazon is still saying the release date is May 12, but “The Best of Simon and Kirby” has been appearing in comic book stores across the country. I have decided to keep a running post for reviews and such. Readers are encourage to leave comments as well. If this sounds like a shameless plug that is only because it is a shameless plug. I want “The Best of Simon and Kirby” to be a great success. Remember this book has been authorized by Joe Simon and the Jack Kirby Estate.

“Dazzling from beginning to end, The Best of Simon and Kirby is a monumental piece of comics’ history”
Mike Rogers for the Library Journal

Newsarama has a preview of the entire Blue Bolt #4 story, if you have never seen Simon and Kirby’s Blue Bolt, or worse yet are only familiar with it from the 1998 paperback, you are in for a pleasant surprise.

“The finest work by Simon and Kirby, creators of Captain America, covering two decades during which the Dream Team conquered every genre”
from icV2

5/5/09 UPDATE:

Steve Saffel (the book’s editor) makes a statement about the project in Comic Book Resource

Newsarama has an extended interview with the art restorer for this book. If you did not know who that is, that would be me.

5/9/09 UPDATE:

“A collection of complete comic book stories from the legendary team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, covering every genre in which they made their mark”
in Monsters and Critics

“Bringing an unmatchable boyish energy to the medium, Simon and Kirby produced comics that popped right off the page”
by Bill Sherman in Blogcritics

5/23/09 UPDATE:

There seems to have been a lot of comments and reviews of “The Best of Simon and Kirby” on the Internet. The latest quotations and links that I provide below are very likely to be incomplete as I do not have the time to do a thorough search. Included are a couple of interviews of Steve Saffel (the book’s editor).

“Joe Simon and Jack Kirby have been the gold standard for partnerships in the comic book field. Their work ethic, their creations, and their longevity speak volumes about the duo and speaking of volumes, they are likely the only ones to get DC and Marvel to allow stories from their archives to share two covers”
by Rober Greenberger in ComicMix

“an exquisite showcase of two gentlemen who rank as veritable grand masters in the comics medium”
The First Post

“The book had the cooperation of Marvel and DC Comics and the help and approval of the Kirby family, so this is probably the best cross section of the Simon Kirby team ever produced”
by Charles R. Rutledge in Singular Points

“I collect a variety of first- and limited-edition books, and it takes a lot for me to be impressed, but The Best of Simon and Kirby just has that special something in the execution that makes my brain tingle”
Jeff VanderMeer in Omnivoracious which includes an interview with Steve Saffel

Another Steve Saffel interview can be found in Ain’t It Cool News

“The Best of Simon and Kirby, a gloriously oversize tome” in
Entertainment Weekly who gave the book an A

“Jack Kirby’s creation (or co-creation) of most of the Marvel Universe may be his claim to immortality, but his earlier collaboration with partner Joe Simon was arguably richer, deeper and more varied”
Richard Pachter in The Miami Herald

5/29/09 UPDATE:

“The book had the cooperation of Marvel and DC Comics and the help and approval of the Kirby family, so this is probably the best cross section of the Simon Kirby team ever produced”
by Charles R. Rutledge in Singular Points. Rutledge provides a nice overview of the work of Simon and Kirby.

“History oozes from these pages and you will find yourself immersed in a bygone age that still resonates in these modern times thanks to the immense talents of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby whose energy reverberates across space and time.”
by Bart Croonenborghs in Broken Frontier (includes some sample pages)

6/5/09 UPDATE:

“Simon and Kirby are the foundation stones for comics as we know them, crossing all genres depending on public tastes and exploring new storytelling techniques. Their legacy is a legend that has shaped our reading pleasures and inspired generations of comic-book creators.”
by Paul W. Smith in Den of Geek

“This volume is, of course, an important addition to any comic book fans library due purely to its historical merits. However, the stories are also greatly entertaining–otherwise it wouldn’t be much of a “Best of,” would it?”
by Thom Young in Comics Bulletin

“After hearing for years and years about how great the comic-book creative team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby was, I finally ‘get it.’ All it took was reading the pair’s THE BEST OF SIMON AND KIRBY, a fabulous hardcover collection from Titan Books.”
by Red Lott for Bookgasm

“THE BEST OF SIMON AND KIRBY should be available just about everywhere books are sold now, and it’s quite gorgeous. In fact, I’ll say right now, if I had to pick a single Kirby book to recommend out of the hundreds that have come out since I started tracking them for this weblog in 2004, weighing the quality of the material, the quality of the production and the value for the price, this would be the winner.”
by BobH from The Jack Kirby Comics Weblog
This short comment means more to me personally then any of the reviews of The Best of Simon and Kirby. Bob’s blog is the place to go to get the latest news about all upcoming publications about Jack Kirby. He even has scooped me on news about this very book.

6/12/09 UPDATE:

I missed getting a copy of Comic Shop News #1146 last week which prominently featured The Best of Simon and Kirby in an article by Cliff Biggers. It includes an interview with editor Steve Saffel where Steve says some highly complimentary things about me. Steve also has done interviews in Forces of Geek and by Avi Weinryb in Comic Book Bin. That last interview provides the surprising information that Amazon lists the superhero volume with a release date of December 31, 2035! I am hard at work on the art restoration for that volume and I can assure you that it will be out much, much sooner then that!

“The names Joe Simon and Jack Kirby are widely regarded as legendary in the context of comic book history”
by Michael Simpson in Blogger News Network

“Best known today for their superhero work, which they excelled at and which helped to define that genre, they were in truth far more versatile than that, working in just about every storytelling convention from horror to western, and in fact helping to establish one, the romance comic, that is now barely mentioned in connection with their names.”
by Adam-Troy Castro in Sci Fi Wire

6/19/09 UPDATE:

“The Best of Simon and Kirby” is a beautiful oversized hardcover that acts as a huge showcase of their works, and in a great number of genres.”
Greg McElhatton in Comic Book Resoures

“I’ve got to say that they did a stellar job with it. It’s oversized (essentially a coffee table book), printed on non-glossy paper, and a real work of art. The extra size really lets you get into the art, which is part of the point of this book.”
David Brothers in 4th Letter

“Big, Bright, and Beyond fantastic, this collection truly represents both Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, and the golded age of comics that they helped usher in!”
Sebastion Piccione in Project Fanboy

6/26/09 UPDATE:

Bill Gladman interviews Steve Saffel in Comic Related

My Two Cents

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Posted in 2009/05, Artists, Kirby, Jack, My Two Cents, Topic, z Archive and tagged , , , , , , ,

The Jack Kirby Collector always has something interesting in it but with all the great art included it can hardly fail to excite a Kirby fan. I thought I would write a brief comment about a couple of articles from the latest issue (JKC #52).

The first concerns a short piece by John Morrow about the screen play “Fish in a Barrow”. I had previously posted on this play (A Simon and Kirby Screen Play) based on a copy belonging to Joe Simon. It seems however that Morrow has a somewhat different copy. John notes that his copy was 66 pages in length while the one I reported on was 77. Morrow’s description of the overall plot indicates it is the same play but obviously something has been changed. The JKC article includes an image of the first page of Morrow’s copy that provides a hint about what has happened. Morrow’s version of the story begins with two men exiting an elevator and proceeding down the corridor to an office. In Simon’s copy they are already in an office and instead it centers on the reactions initiated by the publisher’s unlighted cigar. Simon’s version seems more dramatic. Further since Simon’s version takes place in an office while Morrow’s goes from the elevator to an office, Simon’s version would seem better for a performance in the TV live plays that the piece seems intended. All that and the longer length of Simon’s version suggest that Joe’s copy is the more recent rewrite of John’s copy.


Single panel from Demon #14 used in “Casting a Shadow” (Jack Kirby Collector #52)

The second comment I have to make concerns the article “Casting a Shadow” written by Adrian Day. In it Day suggests that Kirby’s use of shadows in some of his later works was the results of the influence of a science fiction television show “The Outer Limits”. As presented it all seems very plausible and I have no problem with considering Kirby’s art reflecting outside influences. Unfortunately Adrian failed to consider earlier work from Kirby’s extensive career. Simon and Kirby had a long history of the use of abstract shadows to enliven their comic art and it can be found not only in some of Jack’s earlier work but it was even applied to work by other artists working for Simon and Kirby productions. While the strange shadows on the couch in the image used by Day in his article (shown above) seem to be a late addition to Kirby’s repertoire, those on the walls are not. Note the way some are slightly curved; this was a common Simon and Kirby technique. For comparison I provide the line art for the cover for Young Romance #34 (June 1951) below. I should add that this is by no means the earliest example. Can there be any doubt about Kirby’s long use of seemingly inappropriate shadows? I suggest the absence of such shadows during the silver age was more a result of the way the inking of Kirby’s pencils was handled at that time.


Young Romance #34 (June 1951), art by Jack Kirby

Young Allies and the L Word

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Posted in 2009/05, 3 Timely, Artists, Assorted, Kirby Or Not, Kirby, Jack, Periods, Topic, z Archive and tagged , , , , ,


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941), art by Jack Kirby

Recently there was discussion on one of Yahoo’s comic book lists about the correct attribution for the art for Young Allies #1 and #2. I do not want to get into details of that interchange, although I may disagree with some of the participants they are entitled to their opinions. But I thought I would write a post on Young Allies #1 to explain my position. The cover for Young Allies #2 presents its unique problems so I will discuss it some other time.

There can be no question about Simon and Kirby’s involvement with Young Allies #1. The punch throwing Bucky on the cover is so typical of Kirby that there can be no doubt that he drew the figure. I would go even further and confidently credit Jack with the Red Skull and Hitler as well. Normally that would be enough for me to attribute the entire cover to Jack Kirby; it was not Simon and Kirby typical procedure for Kirby to draw part of a cover then pass it on to someone else to finish it up (there are two exceptions that I know of, the covers for Detective #65 and In Love #1).

Three of the bound Young Allies, those on our left, have enough similarity to other Simon and Kirby creations that I would conclude Jack probably drew them. The soldier firing a pistol is a typical Simon and Kirby motif and although he is a little stiff I would assign him to Jack as well. I do have trouble attributing the last Young Ally, Whitewash, to Jack. While Simon and Kirby produced some stereotypical characters none of them ever went as far as this troubling image. Finally there is Toro. Frankly there is not much in Toro’s depiction that suggests Kirby but then there is little in the Simon and Kirby repertoire to compare Toro with.

To sum up there are parts of the YA #1 cover that clearly were done by Kirby, some parts that might be Jack’s as well, but other parts that may be someone else’s work. I will return to the cover after I have considered the story art as well.


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1942) chapter 3 page 3

The book is one long story with 6 chapters. Each chapter, with the exception of the first, starts with a full pages splash. The first chapter begins with a sort of table of contents in the form of a matrix of reduced versions of the chapter splashes. This format of turning the comic into one long story is a device that Simon and Kirby would return to in Boy Commandos. While some of their later work did not take up the entire book Simon and Kirby did return every so often to long stories requiring multiple chapters. It is clear that different hands were involved in drawing this story. The story art certainly was not drawn by Simon and Kirby. I really have not carefully examined it and so I will not be discussing credits for the story art at this time.


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941) enlarged Chapter 1 section of the table of contents

Although the first chapter actually starts with a table of contents that table includes an image that may have been the originally intended splash. For the most part everything seems drawn by Kirby. Fists are square in shape as is typical for Kirby. Bucky’s legs have a form often used by Jack. Of course nobody could depict a punch like Jack and this is a good example of a Kirby slugfest. In fact we shall see the attribution of this panel to Jack Kirby is the most secure of all the splashes. There are two troublesome aspects and they are the same ones found in the cover: Whitewash and Toro. Toro is an important part of the composition and the fall of the topmost Nazi soldier makes no sense without him. Yet the figure of Toro is as stiff and uninteresting as his depiction on the cover. Whitewash on the other hand just seems out of place.


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941) Chapter 2

Bucky looks like he could have step out of a page from Captain America and I am quite comfortable attributing him to Kirby. The Red Skull is a bit awkward but this is not unusual for Jack’s work at this period. Otherwise the Red Skull looks like Jack’s work. Note how Whitewash is placed in the background. His attempt to escape the graveyard was meant to provide comic relief but his small size hides what would otherwise be his stereotypical facial features. Once again Toro seems stiff and uninteresting but still plays an important part of the composition.


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941) Chapter 3

I am not sure why anyone would have problem with Chapter 3 being penciled by Jack Kirby; what with square fingertips, Bucky’s wild hair, and the disarrayed posses of the Nazi seamen. This splash more then any of the others is centered on Bucky with all other Young Allies delegated to the background. Toro, with his stiff flight, seems little more then a smaller version of the Toro depicted on the cover.


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941) Chapter 4

Only in the splash for Chapter 4 do we find some decidedly non-Kirby elements. While there are some square fists (a cautionary example to depending on this trait alone when identifying Kirby art) the rest of the hands look very different from Kirby’s usual manner. The pile of Young Allies pinning Hitler lacks the action of typical Kirby art. Even the heavy boy’s readiness to use a hammer on Hitler’s rear end is not typical Simon and Kirby humor. Bucky has not only been placed in the background but now Whitewash gets to be the centerpiece of the splash which makes his stereotypic features all that more repulsive to our modern sensibilities. Toro is given the most dynamic pose of all the splashes or the cover. In short I do not think Kirby had anything to do with this splash, nor for that matter Joe Simon.


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941) Chapter 5

The low viewing angle, the wide running stance of the Red Skull and the lower of the two Boy Commandoes Young Allies, and the soldier firing his pistol from above all are classic features of Jack Kirby’s art. Also note the Red Skull’s square fists; while I caution against depending on this feature its presence should not be ignored either. There is a crudeness to the art that makes this splash distinctive compared to the other splashes we have examined so far.


Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941) Chapter 6

Most Simon and Kirby splashes and covers have an emphasis on design that makes me believe that they had been laid out by Joe Simon (see my serial post The Wide Angle Scream). But there are others where the figures are distributed all over the image and interlink with one another like some complicated puzzle. I believe these “all over compositions” are Jack’s alone. The splash for Chapter 6 is an example of this type of composition. Jack really did not try to provide accurate anatomy but he paid careful attention to the underlying form. Kirby might distort the figure but he always did it without “breaking” the structure. It is just that sort of distortion that is found here in the legs found on Bucky and his thrown (and barely clad) opponent. Some of the Young Allies have been excluded from this splash, in particular Whitewash. Toro gets one of his most energetic posses but he still presents a stiff and awkward appearance.

Now that the cover and all the splashes have been presented what can be concluded? As I mentioned above the splash for Chapter 4 does not seem to me to have any significant Simon and Kirby involvement and I will be excluding it from my discussion. Otherwise all the splashes and the cover had Simon and Kirby involvement at some level. Jack Kirby brought to Captain America a dynamic art style that no other artist at that time came close to. That dynamism is found in the cover and all the splashes (again excluding Chapter 4). While Simon and Kirby’s presence seems pretty certain much of the art seems crude compared to what Kirby was penciling in Captain America at the same time. Although Joe may have been involved in some of the inking, I do not think Simon was stepping in to help with the pencils either. Thus one or more other artists are likely to have had a hand in this work as well.

It was probably the combination of the Kirby dynamic action with the crudeness of the drawing that has caused some to use the L word. Yes some are saying Kirby only did the layouts. Frankly I am getting pretty disgusted with the L word when applied to Jack Kirby. Normally when the term layouts implies that one artist would provide very rough or outline drawings with another artist then providing the details. A good example are the layouts that Carl Burgos did for Joe Simon (Carl Burgos does the Fly). When I say that I believe Joe would often provide Jack with a splash or cover layout that is what I am talking about. But my study of Simon and Kirby productions (particularly the romance comics) and Marvel silver age comics convinces me that Jack never did layouts of that type. Unfortunately we no longer have any examples of Kirby “layouts”, that is those left unfinished by another artist. But it is obvious even in the finished product that Kirby provided much more then mere outlines. Kirby “layouts” may have been a little rough but they were tight enough that his hand is still often detectable in the final product. In some places Kirby’s presence would be so strong that Jack must have provided very tight drawing. To call this type of work layouts is completely unfair to Kirby. Frankly I blame Stan Lee for first using this term for some work that Jack did during the 60’s. The only problem is that I have yet to come up with a better term. However it is clear that the proper credit for the pencils for cases like the cover and splashes for Young Allies is that Jack Kirby drew them working with other artists.

As for Young Allies I believe the cover and splashes (still excluding Chapter 4) all were done by Jack Kirby but with some portions tighter then others. Bucky invariably got the best treatment and Toro the roughest. It may sound like heresy but I do not believe that at this time Jack had any idea how to handle a human torch and since it was someone else’s creation little interest in figuring it out. While Kirby would carefully place Toro into the composition he left it the finishing artists to flesh him out and frankly they were not up to the job. As for Whitewash Kirby always seem to place him far in the background of the splashes, or leave him out entirely. I suspect that Jack really was not comfortable with Whitewash and this suggests that his presence in the Young Allies was dictated by someone else.

The Making of “The Best of Simon and Kirby”

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Posted in 2009/04, Odds & Ends, Topic, z Archive and tagged

As reported by The Jack Kirby Comics Weblog, Diamond has stated that “The Best of Simon and Kirby” will be out this week. I cannot verify that the book will truly be in stores so soon. Further Amazon is still listing a May 12th release. But in anticipation of its not too distant release I thought I would do a small post about how the art was prepared. Everything starts with a scan.


Stuntman #1 (April 1946) “Killer in the Bigtop”, original scan

Unfortunately the original comic book pages were not that well printed to begin with, the paper invariably has yellowed with age, and the colors faded to some extent. The original scan is not a pretty thing but more importantly it is not a good representation of Simon and Kirby’s original intent.


Stuntman #1 (April 1946) “Killer in the Bigtop”, color correction

Fortunately there is Photoshop, an application by Adobe made for manipulating images of all kinds. For “The Best of Simon and Kirby” each scan was optimally adjusted using Photoshop to remove the paper’s yellow color and correct the faded colors.

While these adjustments make the page look like new, they do nothing to correct the problems caused by the original poor printing. Problems like registration, where the different colors are shifted in relationship to one another. Or incomplete printing. While these defects were in the original comic they still are detrimental to appreciating Simon and Kirby’s efforts. Photoshop does provide tools for correcting these problems as well although not without much effort.


Stuntman #1 (April 1946) “Killer in the Bigtop”, fully restored

The final result looks much more attractive then the original scans. At their heart the images still remain scans. Flaws that did not distract from the art were left. Compare the before and after and you will see that original coloring was adhered to and most importantly the line art was unaltered. What you get is pure Simon and Kirby. You cannot get better then that.

I developed the Photoshop techniques that are so briefly outlined above by myself. Apparently others have figured them out as well. Lately a small number of books have been published using restored scans. Most notably the Sunday sections in the “Terry and the Pirates” (IDW Publishing), “I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets” (Fantagraphic Books) and “Supermen” (Fantagraphic Books). They share with “The Best of Simon and Kirby” a desire to present the original masters and not some recreation by a modern artist. It is a goal that was generally ignored in the past but that I hope will become increasingly prevalent in the future.

Cover for Alarming Tales #2, My Third Attribution Attempt

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Posted in 2009/04, 7 Freelance, Artists, Harvey, Odds & Ends, Periods, Simon, Joe, Topic, z Archive and tagged ,

Alarming Tales #2
Alarming Tales #2 (November 1957)

Trying to provide the proper credit for comic book art is always filled with uncertainties in certain cases. All one can do is use what evidence is available and make the best judgment possible. The willingness to try must be joined with acceptance of the errors that will sometimes be made. Case in point, the cover for Alarming Tales #2.

Alarming Tales #4
Alarming Tales #4 (March 1958), art by Joe Simon

My original take on the cover for AT #2 was that Joe Simon was the artist. Joe can be a difficult artist to identify. While he signed much of his work at the start of his career a lot of his later work lacks a signature. An even greater difficulty lies in Joe’s skill in adopting different styles. Experts have attributed some Fox covers to Lou Fine having overlooked Joe’s small signature. Joe did so good a job at mimicking Jack Kirby that much of the admittedly limited amount of work Simon did while collaborating with Kirby continues to be attributed to Jack. I do not claim to be able to identify all Joe Simon’s work; there is some late romance cover work that I do not a good understanding of and I sometimes doubt that it will ever be possible to confidently determine which Dick Tracy covers Simon ghosted. The Art of Joe Simon provides an overview of Joe’s career although I have changed my opinion about a few of the attributions in that serial post*. Among the styles Joe used was one more personal in that it does not seem to be an attempt at mimicking another artist. One of the best examples of this style can be found on the cover for Alarming Tales #4. The man in the cover for Alarming Tales #2 shares that style and for that reason I first assigned AT #2 to Joe Simon.

Alarming Tales #2
Alarming Tales #2, original art from the collection of Paul Handler

But there were problems with my original attribution of this cover to Joe Simon, the most important of which was that the spaceman look like he was done by Mort Meskin. Mort Meskin had not worked for Joe Simon since the breakup of the Simon and Kirby studio and there are no examples of Mort’s work in any Joe’s productions after that time. However when the original art for the cover surfaced I reevaluated my position. The original art clearly shows that the cover was made by joining two separate pieces of art. I therefore concluded that Joe had used an old piece of art by Mort Meskin combined with new art by his own hand. But a Simon and Meskin joint attributions was not completely satisfactory. What was the original source for the Meskin art? It was too large to be story art. The only comic that the art might have been meant for was Black Magic. Jack Kirby did all the covers for the first run of Black Magic so this left the possibility that the spaceman was originally for a splash page of a story meant for Black Magic left over from the sudden cancellation of that title.


Black Magic #5 (June 1951) “Sleep, Perchance to Die” page 3 panel 4, art by Mort Meskin

That is how my opinion stood for almost two years. Recently, however, I was reviewing some Black Magic comics when I noticed a page from Mort Meskin’s “Sleep, Perchance to Die”. The story concerns a rivalry so intense that it carried over into prophetic dreams. The protagonist was a bookish student and one of his dream involved being chases by an overgrown version of his athletic rival (but no bites from a radioactive spider). There can be no doubt that the oversized and somewhat monstrous figure was the bases for the spaceman of the Alarming Tales #2 cover. The final, and almost certainly the correct, conclusion was that Joe Simon drew the entire AT #2 cover using the panel from Meskin’s Black Magic story from 1951 as source material. While the AT #2 figure retains enough of the original that Meskin’s touch can still be recognized, a comparison between the two shows how much Simon has transformed it. This is the first case of Simon swiping from Meskin that I have seen but I am sure there are other examples yet to be found. Joe still has great admiration for Mort Meskin’s talent. The Joe Simon collection includes a group of proofs of various Meskin splash pages. No other artist received a similar treatment, not even Jack Kirby.

footnotes:

* I no longer believe Joe Simon penciled “The Woman Who Discovered America 67 Years Before Columbus” (Black Cat Mystic #60, November 1957) or the cover for The Spirit #12 (Super Comics, 1963).

“The Best of Simon and Kirby” Gets Reviewed

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Posted in 2009/04, Odds & Ends, Topic, z Archive and tagged

I guess I was not the only one to get an advance copy of Titan’s soon to be released “The Best of Simon and Kirby”. There is already a short review on the web by Mike Rogers. . Among the many complements:

Dazzling from beginning to end, The Best of Simon and Kirby is a monumental piece of comics history

So what comic book web page was Mike Roger’s doing the review? None, the review appeared in LJXpress the Library Journal’s newsletter. While I believe fans will love this book, my biggest hope is that it will give Simon and Kirby exposure outside of comicdom.