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The Art of Romance, Chapter 8, Kirby on the Range?

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

The theme of this chapter is one that I have touched on before in relationship to some work from Young Romance. Rather then repeat myself over and over again in the examples below I will summarize my argument here. There are five basic ways that some story art might have an incomplete resemblance Jack Kirby’s work; the art may have been done by an artist that was influenced by Kirby; the artist may have swiped from Kirby; Kirby acting as an art editor may have altered another artist’s work; the inker may have deviated from the original pencils by Kirby; or Kirby did layouts that were finished by another penciler/inker. The first three can easily be distinguished from the other two by not being consistently present throughout the story. However distinguishing between the effects of a heavy handed inker or an artist working from Kirby layouts presents more of a problem. In the end it is a judgment call which is probably based in part on how the person making the call feels about the way inkers at the time went about their work. If you believe that inkers working for Simon and Kirby felt that they should impart their own vision on Kirby’s pencils (such as certainly was the case in the silver age) then you are likely attribute stories that do not look like typical Kirby to a heavy handed inker. If, like me, you doubt that an inker would take liberties on tight pencils provided by Kirby (who after all was their boss) then untypical Kirby stories would be better explained as due to an artist working from Kirby layouts. The difference between the two possibilities really is not that great because in these cases the second artist appears to have been the inker as well. Nonetheless I like to make the distinction because there really does seem to be two bodies of work. One group of work is easily identified as by Jack Kirby with all of his characteristic traits no matter who did the inking (the unadulterated Kirby). The other may not always be so readily identified and has unusual traits (unusual at least for Kirby).

I remember that during the silver age Kirby was sometimes listed as having provided layouts while another artist would get the credit for the penciling or finishing. I believe this is just as unfair as the credit Jack sometimes got for plotting while another (Stan Lee) would be credit with the writing. Plotting a story would normally be considered part of writing it just as laying out a story would generally be included in the drawing of a story. Separating plotting from writing or layouts from pencils is fundamentally unfair. In Jack Kirby’s case it is particularly egregious because some of his margin notes ended up in actual dialog and also some of his layouts would be quite tightly rendered in places. Therefore in cases where Jack provided layouts I prefer to credit the pencils to both Jack and the other artist. Unfortunately I have never been able to identify who the finishing artists were.

Real West Romance #1
Real Western Romance #1 (April 1949) “Heart Rustler”, art by Jack Kirby and unidentified artist

The Jack Kirby Checklist cites “Heart Rustler” as being inked, but not penciled, by Jack Kirby. Simon and Kirby’s business was not so much creating comic books as producing them. So it is easy to imagine circumstances where Jack Kirby could be called on to ink someone else’s pencils. I do not know about the reader, but I would love to see how Kirby would ink another artist. So I look at stories like “Heart Rustler” with much interest. However when I examined this story I was disappointed, it was clearly not inked by Jack. Yes there are some places that exhibit some features of Studio style inking. There are some abstract shadows in each panel that are created using a very blunt brush (see my Inking Glossary for explanations of the terms I use to describe inking techniques). Those in the splash panel and first story panel could even be described as having an arced edge. It is probable that Jack or Joe added them. More important are the spotting that is done in a way that Kirby would not have done it. The man blocked out in blue on the left edge of the splash panel has a hat casting a shadow formed by simple hatching; I have never seen Kirby do that. It may be a little hard to make out in the image I supplied but the lower legs of the woman in the same splash panel are shadowed with nearly vertical lines; again this is not an inking technique that Jack used. None of the clothing folds look like Jack’s brush. In fact the shoulder of the woman in the first story panel has a couple of odd blunt spots; one of which is attached to a then line as if it was a leaf on a drooping stem. Kirby would sometimes use similar blots on the edge of a limb as a way of indicating a shadow but he never placed them isolated as done by this inker. Similar problems can be found throughout the story. So I repeat Jack Kirby did not ink this story other then some possible touch ups.

Was the attribution found in the Jack Kirby Checklist just completely unreasonable? No, I think I can understand how it came to be. Look at the face of the woman in the splash. She seems to me to have a very Kirby look to her. Kirby’s hand is a bit harder to see on the rest of the page although I feel it can be seen in the armed gunman in the splash panel. I also believe I can spot Kirby’s touch in the other pages of the story. Further the entire story seems to be laid out in a manner typical for Jack Kirby. I suspect that source of the inking attribution in the Jack Kirby Checklist noted the Kirby look to the story and assumed that it was achieved by Jack inking the piece. Since the brush work itself shows that Kirby was not the inker another explanation must be advanced. The explanation I would give is that Kirby did the layouts for this story. It is apparent that when Jack did layouts the pencils would be tighter in some parts (like the face of the woman in the splash) while other places it would be rougher. Another artist would then tighten up the work and then ink it or perhaps tighten it up while inking.

Real West Romance #3
Real Western Romance #3 (August 1949) “Our Love Wore Six-Guns”, art by Jack Kirby and unidentified artist

Another story identified by the Jack Kirby Checklist as inked but not drawn by Jack Kirby is “Our Love Wore Six-Guns”. Here is a case where the inking is actually done in a manner even further from that used by Kirby then in “Heart Rustler”. Nothing looks like Studio style inking. The clothing folds are typically long and narrow very unlike what Jack was doing at this time. It may be less obvious in “Our Love Wore Six-Guns” then in “Heart Rustler” but there are some faces that look like they had the Kirby touch; for instance the woman in the page’s last panel. These Kirby-like portions occur too frequently throughout the story to be explained as either swiping by the artist or art editing by Jack. The man is just as consistently un-Kirby like in my opinion. I find it hard to believe that an inker would have produced the man’s face in this way had he been inking over tight pencils by Jack. The story layout does seem to have consistently been done in a way appropriate for Kirby. So my conclusion is once again Jack provided layouts and another artist finished and inked them. The inking style used in this story does not match that for “Heart Rustler” so I believe different artists were used for the two stories.

Western Love #2
Western Love #2 (September 1949) “Kathy and the Merchant” page 4, art by Jack Kirby and unidentified artist

To be honest I am not very impressed with either of the two artists who worked on the Kirby layouts for the two stories I discussed above. Because of the low quality of the work usually found on Kirby layouts, I believe the layouts were generally provided when Simon and Kirby felt it was necessary to employ the use of artists of lesser talent, perhaps even studio assistants. However there are exceptions such as “Kathy and the Merchant”. The group of men in panels 2 to 4 is, in my opinion, nicely done. I also do not think their higher quality was due to tighter pencils. To my eyes they have a blend of Kirby and non-Kirby elements. Page 4 is typical of the story so swiping or editing can be eliminated as explanations. I can understand if others believe that Jack did the pencils that were just inked by another, but I prefer to think that Jack supplied layouts not tight pencils. I will say that the Jack Kirby Checklist credits Joe Simon with the inking but I feel that is clearly wrong. The brushwork is much too fine in this story to be the work of Joe.

Real West Romance #4
Real Western Romance #4 (October 1949) “Perfect Cowboy” page 4, art by Jack Kirby and unidentified artist

I think “Perfect Cowboy” also falls into the category of Kirby layouts. The splash may have been particularly tighter and was not inked by the same artist as the rest of the story. The story inking is very interesting. At a glance it appears to be Studio style brushwork. Certainly that was what the inker was attempting. But this is not Joe Simon’s inking as suggested by some. The picket fence crosshatching only superficially resembles Jack or Joe’s brush. The pickets have a distinct pointed end and progressively widen through most of their length unlike the more uniform width found in Kirby, Simon or even Meskin’s use of the Studio style. I am not sure I would call it true picket fence, but simple crosshatching is applied to the dust cloud in panel 3 which is unlike anything I have seen by an inker working in the Studio style. However the most unique technique of this inker is his applying of picket fence crosshatching to the hair of the woman as best seen in the last two panels of this page. The pickets are placed in the same direction as would be expected for the hair and therefore the rails are at odds to the flow of the hair. This is all meant to suggest shadows formed on the lower parts of the waves and curls but the result is decidedly unnatural looking. I do not remember seeing this spotting of hair ever being repeated in Simon and Kirby productions.

Real West Romance #7
Real Western Romance #7 “Loves of a Navajo Princess”, art by Jack Kirby and unidentified artist

The final story that I will cover is a tough call. The two Indians in the splash panel were clearly done by Jack Kirby. The Studio style inking that the left part of the panel shows almost convinced me that this was an example of Jack as art editor fixing up the splash. However close examination showed that the same inking style was used on the rest of the splash. Actually the entire story is done in Studio style inking; picket fence crosshatching, drop strings, abstract arc shadows, the works. In fact the inking job is truly well done but it just does not look like Kirby’s brush. The biggest giveaway is the cloth folds which have a distinct tendency for elongated folds in some places and irregular blots in others. Nowhere else does the art look quite as pure Kirby as the splash but there are more then enough places that have Jack’s touch to convince me that it was his layouts. But like I said it is a tough call and I am not sure many will agree with me, certainly the Jack Kirby Checklist does not.

This chapter concludes the western romance section of The Art of Romance. I have added to my sidebar checklists for Real West Romance and Western Love. Cowboy love was an interesting experiment but it just was not a very successful one. The love glut resulted in the cancellation of a lot of romance comics including the western subgenre. However it would not be correct to blame the demise of the western romance on the love glut. Despite all the cancelled love titles there must have been enough profits during the love glut to convince at least the major publishers to continue to produce a significant number of titles. In contrast none of the publishers decided to continue the western romance titles. The effects of the love glut on the romances that Simon and Kirby produced for Prize was very divergent. Real West Romance and Western Love must not have sold well as they were cancelled just after the peak of the love glut. Young Romance and Young Love not only seemed to weather the love glut but to flourish. But that will be discussed in future chapters 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)

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

(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)

Please Excuse Me While I Ramble On

I am in a funny situation. Since I am involved in the Titan book deal you would think this blog would be a great source for all sorts of information about the project. Actually that is far from the case. For instance I was scooped on the Titan press release. Not only that but one investigator reported on the deal months ago (and no I will not say who he was and how he did it). It is not that I do not know what is going on. Often I do (however not always) but it is not my position to pass that information along. All news about this project has come from Titan in the past that will continue to be the case in the future. I will pass information along only when it becomes official. I suspect that this blog will not be the first to report project news.

Some people have offered various types of help. It is certainly gratifying to see how willing people are to further not just this project but any that is related to Jack Kirby and Joe Simon. Unfortunately I cannot respond to those offers, at least now.

Although I cannot talk much about the project I do not think it would be wrong for me to comment about the people. I am greatly pleased about the commitment I have seen. Titan wants these volumes to be as good as possible. I do not think fans will be pleased with the books when they are released, I think they will be thrilled. I believe that is what everyone on this projects wants.

Let me wrap this up by expanding my subject matter beyond the Titan book project and talk a bit about recognition. In the past Jack Kirby did not get the credit that he should have. Sure Kirby fans knew how important Jack was, but the public at large did not have a clue. You would have thought that the blockbuster movies based on characters Kirby co-created would have changed the public’s perception (or more accurately lack thereof). But it did not happen. I think that now it is changing and I credit Mark Evanier’s book “Jack Kirby: King of Comics” with being pivotal for that change. However Jack Kirby was not the only one who did not get the recognition that he deserved, Joe Simon did not get the proper credit either. This was particularly depressing to me because some of this neglect originated from people who should have known better. The general attitude was that in the Simon and Kirby collaboration all the art tasks were handled by Jack and Joe only did the business end and some inking. I feel that this is changing as well. More and more I am hearing comments about Joe’s importance. I wish I could say that this blog was instrumental to this change but I know that simply is not the case. My readership is much too small for my efforts to have been the cause. If I am right about the shift in recognition for both Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, the future should be very exciting times for their fans.

Timely and the Romance Glut

In Chapter 6 of “The Art of Romance” I presented a graph of romance titles that vividly depicted what Michelle Nolan described in her book “Love on the Racks” as the love glut. I mentioned that the two greatest participators in this rush to produce romance comics were Timely and Fox Comics. The reward received by Fox Comics for their zealous jump into love comics seems to have been the bankruptcy that terminated the company a few months afterwards. Timely obviously survived, but I wondered if more could be determined about what effect the love glut had on them? This time I turned to Atlas Tales (what a great site). I used their search engine to provide all the titles between August 1948 and June 1951. I then entered that information into a database and segregated the titles to romance and non-romance.


Chart of Timely Titles (Romance titles in blue, non-Romance titles in red, and the combined titles in black).

The resulting graph is not perfectly smooth but it still is revealing. It looks to me that when romance titles were first introduced they took the place of other genre comics as shown by the small dip. However the non-romance genres quickly recovered to their pre-romance levels while more and more romance titles were added. Finally a maximum of 24 romance titles were reached, just 3 titles short of all the other genres combined. This was followed by the crash. Now the cancellation of romance titles is expected but note that the non-romance titles also dipped in February 1950. This suggests that the glut resulted in enough of a financial loss that it impacted other titles as well. As I mentioned in Chapter 6 a low of romance titles was achieved in November of 1950 after which the number of romance titles began to climb although never reaching anything near the levels at the peak of the glut. Timely did not participate in this resurgence and instead maintained a steady level of 6 romance titles for the period covered. The non-romance Timely titles quickly returned to their pre-glut levels (by September 1950) and then continued to levels even higher then before the glut. Whatever financial loss Timely suffered was short lived. I wondered if the even higher levels that Timely achieved after the love glut could have been at the expense of other publishers, like Fox, who were not able to recover so quickly?

New Volume of Sky Masters of the Space Force

I have recently obtained a copy of “Sky Masters of the Space Force” Libro 1. This is the first of what should become a three volume set. The restoration of the newspaper strips were made by Ferran Delgado, who has his own blog. I am of the habit of periodically visiting his blog just to look at the beautiful images of comic art that he provides. Unfortunately I have a serious problem with his blog and this “Sky Masters” book as well, no hablo Espanol. I took three years of Spanish in high school but I am afraid I passed only because I was the quietest person in the class.

Still I am particularly looking forward to the volume containing the Sky Master Sunday strips. Ferran has posted some of his restorations and one of them has also appeared in Mark Evanier’s “Jack Kirby: King of Comics”. These restorations are nothing short of drop dead gorgeous. Ferran is taking great care to faithfully restore the original colors of the printed version. Readers of my blog should not be surprised to find that I feel recoloring was one of the greatest banes of earlier reprints of material drawn by Jack Kirby. This particularly egregious in the case of Sky Master because there is every reason to believe that Kirby did the original color guides himself. It is much more likely that work done for the Sky Master in the late fifties could lead an understanding of the true nature of Kirby Kolors then any of the work that Jack did in the ’80s or ’90s.

So congratulations to Ferran Delgado for successfully bringing the first volume of Sky Masters to print. I know it required a lot of work, but the result certainly justifies the effort.

The Art of Romance, Chapter 6, Love on the Range

(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)

It’s Official, Titan to Publish Simon & Kirby

It’s Official, Titan to Publish Simon & Kirby

Yes it is official:

Titan Publishing Group Ltd. has announced the acquisition of worldwide rights to a range of books celebrating the work of Golden Age comics legend, Joe Simon, co-creator of Captain America. Throughout his career, Simon pioneered every aspect of the industry, from writing to art, editing to publishing. He ran a studio that employed some of the industry’s most talented artists, including the famed Jack Kirby. He was the first editor in chief of the company that became Marvel Comics, and ultimately played a pivotal role in comics’ transcendence to an American art form.

Scheduled for spring 2009 is Joe Simon: The Man Behind The Comics, an in-depth illustrated autobiography written by Simon himself, taking readers on an illustrated journey through the life and career of this seminal figure in comics history. From his beginnings in newspaper cartooning through the birth of the comics medium, military service during World War II, the Kefauver hearings and beyond, this volume reveals the man and his work.

Further volumes will celebrate the collaborative efforts of Joe Simon with Jack Kirby. The Best Of Simon & Kirby, a deluxe hardcover edition, explores the duo’s acclaimed proliferation of work in all genres, including superheroes, horror, detective fiction, westerns, and the first of the romance comics. The Simon & Kirby Superheroes delves into the duo’s work that set the standard for costumed characters through heroes such as Blue Bolt, Fighting American, Stuntman, and the Fly.

Compiled with unprecedented access to rare archive material and exclusive contributions from Joe Simon, these are the only editions authorized by both Joe Simon and the estate of Jack Kirby, marking the beginning of a line of publishing that will offer an unprecedented look at the Dream Team of Golden Age comics.

Let me emphasize that last paragraph, both Joe Simon and the Jack Kirby estate will financially benefit from these books.

On a more personal note this is the culmination of the dream I have had for some years. And yes I will be involved in this project. It will undoubtedly mean a lot of work for me. Hopefully I can do it while also continuing my regular posting to this blog.

Boys’ Ranch, Simon and Kirby’s Most Successful Failure, Part 2

Boys’ Ranch can conveniently be separated into two groups. The first three issues featured work by Kirby (with one exception), had three stories per issue, and the stories were longer. For the final issues there is much less use of Kirby, only two stories per issue, and shorter stories. Actually each final issue had a single story, but broken into two chapters. It was part of the Simon and Kirby modus operandi to make heavy use of Kirby’s talents in the early issues of a new title and afterwards make more frequent use of other artists. For Boys’ Ranch the change seems much more dramatic then in other titles. The last three issues are good, but they are not the masterpieces that the earlier issues were.


Boys’ Ranch #4 (April 1951) “The Bugle Blows At Bloody Knife”, pencils by Jack Kirby inks by Mort Meskin

In the last three issues of Boys’ Ranch there is only one story completely penciled by Kirby, “The Bugle Blows at Bloody Knife”. However Mort Meskin does all the inking for this story other then the splash page (which looks like Kirby’s inking to me). Both “The Bugle Blows at Bloody Knife” and “I’ll Fight You for Lucy” are good references for Mort Meskins’s use of the Studio style of inking. For his own work Mort generally did not so fully use the Studio inking style and so his thorough adoption of it in Boys’ Ranch provided a more uniform appearance throughout the title. Mort’s inking is very distinctive and he was careful not to overwhelm Kirby’s pencils. Kirby characteristics such as his eyebrows are generally maintained. The two stories also provide good examples of the differences between Kirby’s way of graphically telling a story and that used by Meskin.


Boys’ Ranch #4 (April 1951) “Fight To the Finish”, art by Jack Kirby

Although Jack contributed less work for the title, care was taken for putting his efforts where they would be of the most use. One way this was done was having Jack pencil the splash page even for stories illustrated by others. With the exception of “I’ll Fight You for Lucy”, every splash in the Boys’ Ranch comics was drawn by Kirby and they are all full page splashes. What splash pages these are. “Fight to the Finish” is certainly among the best. It is a pure Kirby battle, up close and personal. To thrust the viewer into the action, Kirby creates a foreground showing only parts of some fighters. This is the same technique Jack used with a horse as seen in last weeks post and the Bullseye #7 double page splash. Here Kirby presents contrasting arms and heads. The antagonists are clearly identified by the officer sword versus tomahawk above, and below the soldier sporting a Calvary hat confronting an Indian warrior with suitable head apparel. The colorist wisely blocked the foreground elements in the same purple color. The background provides an only slightly better view of other contestants. Among some soldiers, we find Clay, Dandy and Wabash. Perhaps Angel had to be left out because even the truncated cast limited the number of Indians that could be included.


Boys’ Ranch #4 (April 1951) “How Cowboys Say It”, art by Marvin Stein

If Jack Kirby was used less in the final Boys’ Ranch issues the natural question then becomes who did the art? The Jack Kirby Checklist lists these stories as having a “Mort Meskin assist”. Well as we have seen Mort Meskin was involved with Boys’ Ranch so he certainly is a candidate to consider. The Marvel reprint volume lists the books creators as Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Mort Meskin and Marvin Stein. So should we add Marvin Stein as a possible contributor? The earliest date that my database has for Stein is for Headline #40 (March 1950, “The Case Of Joe Andrews”). But I am not very confident of that attribution as it is unsigned and has only a passing resemblance to work by Marvin. The earliest dates for work more securely attributed to Stein would be the cover for Justice Traps the Guilty #20 (November 1950, unsigned) and “Brute Force” from JTTG #22 (January 1951, signed). These dates indicate that Marvin Stein was certainly available for work on the last issues of Boys’ Ranch. “How Cowboys Say It” was one of those single page contributions to the Boys’ Ranch title. In the panel for “Quirly” we find a cowboy viewed from above and to the side. This view along with the distinctive manner of handling the eyes and eyebrows indicates to me that this certainly was done by Marvin Stein. The inking was done in a manner typical of Stein’s work. Note the rather blunt brushwork and its often scribbly nature. Marvin did not adopt many features of the Studio style when inking his own pencils and this page from Boys’ Ranch #4 is no exception.


Boys’ Ranch #4 (April 1951) “Fight To the Finish” page 3, art by Mort Meskin? and unidentified artist

In my opinion, the story art for “Fight to the Finish” has only a passing resemblance to work by Jack Kirby. Take a look at panel 4 from page 3 (shown above). The horse’s front is angled in an opposite direction to its rider and posterior. I do not recall Kirby ever having drawn such an odd arrangement. In the first panel Dandy and Angel look much shorter as compared to Clay Duncan then either Jack Kirby or Mort Meskin drew them (although Wabash seems about right). The eyebrows, particularly in the second and third panels, have some of the angular nature typical for Mort Meskin. There are some aspects of the Studio style however the inking as a whole looks much too sloppy for Meskin.


Boys’ Ranch #5 (June 1951) “Bandits, Bullets and Wild Wild Women” page 4, art by Mort Meskin? and unidentified artist

A similar situation is found in “Bandits, Bullets and Wild Wild Women” from Boys’ Ranch #5. Once again some of the eyebrows resemble Meskin’s mannerism. There are more techniques typical of the Studio style but it is still a rather sloppy performance not at all typical for Meskin. However I have seen Marvin Stein use the same coarse picket fence as evident on the back of Wee Willie Wheehawken. Most of the drawing is rather crude but look at Willie in the fourth panel. Willie is really nicely penciled and even the inking is not badly handled. The comparison of Willie’s portrait with how crudely the rest of the page was done suggests that there may be more then one hand working on this story.


Boys’ Ranch #5 (June 1951) “Last Mail to Red Fork” page 4, art by Mort Meskin? and unidentified artist

Much of what was said previously can be applied to “Last Mail to Red Fork” as well. There is one spotting techniques that shows up more on this page then previous examples. Many of the cloth folds are constructed by multiple overlapping brushstrokes creating long narrow folds. This is a typical Meskin inking technique but its actual use here seems too poorly handled for Mort. Of particular interest is the punch thrown by Clay in the fourth panel. This is not at all the way Kirby would have done it so again I do not believe Jack even supplied the layouts. With Kirby the whole body responds when being hit with a fist, not just the head and arms as in this panel. Clay’s swing and Drapo’s response does look like Meskin’s style to me (see the page from Black Terror #23 from my last weeks post).


Boys’ Ranch #5 (June 1951) “Last Mail to Red Fork” page 6, art by Mort Meskin? and unidentified artist

One final example is from “Last Mail to Red Fork”. Here Mr. Larson from panel 4 distinctly looks like Meskin’s work and is much more carefully inked then most of the story.

So let me summarize my findings for “Fight To the Finish” (BR #4), “Last Mail To Red Fork” (BR #5), and “Bandits, Bullets and Wild Wild Women” (BR #5). In all cases the splash pages were by Jack Kirby, but he otherwise did not have any significant contributions to the art, not even providing layouts. Some of the fight scenes are done in a distinct manner that looks like the work of Mort Meskin. Mort’s touch is also apparent in some of the eyebrows. So I would say the pencils were done by Mort Meskin. Although some of the inking is done in a manner similar to Meskin’s technique on a whole it just seems too sloppy to have been Mort’s. However the inker does seem to have been following the Meskin’s directions. Could these stories have been inked by Marvin Stein? I really cannot say because Stein did not seem to use the Studio style for his own work and so I have little to compare these Boys’ Ranch inking with. So for the moment I am going to leave the question of inking attributions unresolved. But was the second artist just an inker or did he make a contribution to the drawing as well? My current inclination is to provide joint credits.


Boys’ Ranch #6 (August 1951) “Teeth for The Iron Horse” page 3, art by Jack Kirby and unidentified artist

The stories from Boys’ Ranch #6 have a much more Kirby feel to the layouts. In the page from “Teeth for the Iron Horse” shown above the discussion between Clay and Palomino in the first two panels is done in a manner that is very typical for Kirby. There seems to be a progression of art that looks the most like Kirby’s at the beginning of the story grading into work less typical for Jack. I usual take this as a sign that an artist was doing “in between” work. That is Kirby would supply a layout that would be tighter in the beginning and then getting rougher. In cases such as this I give joint credits. The inking, while still somewhat clumsy, is handled better then that found in “Fight To The Finish” (BR #4), “Last Mail To Red Fork” (BR #5), or “Bandits, Bullets And Wild Wild Women” (BR #5). The eyebrows still have the distinct Meskin angularity to them.


Boys’ Ranch #6 (August 1951) “Happy Boy Carries the Ball” page 2, art by Jack Kirby and unidentified artist

The page above from “Happy Boy Carries the Ball” has in my opinion a much more Kirby feel to it. This is particularly noticeable in gentleman in panel 5. The layout of the entire page is much more like Kirby’s then the other stories reviewed earlier. I suspect that as in “Teeth for the Iron Horse”, Kirby may have been supplying layouts that were tighter in some places then in others. I do have some reservations. The ending page of the story is really not done were well; it is not always clear what is happening. This would be very unusual for Jack as he was above all else an excellent graphic story teller. So either this work was edited with some panels removed, or the ending was not based on Kirby layouts. The original art for this story is still in Joe Simon’s collection. That is all but the last page and so cannot resolve this question. All and all, I think that joint credits should be used here as well even if I cannot say for certain who the second artist was.


Boys’ Ranch #2 (December 1950) illustration from “Jack McGregor’s Bluff”,
Boys’ Ranch #4 (April 1951) illustration from “Killer Stallion”, art for both by Jack Kirby (these illustrations were not included in Marvel’s reprint volume)

Even with the decline in the last three issues, Boys’ Ranch certainly was one of Simon and Kirby’s greatest creations. Stories were given enough length to fully develop. Some stories had themes that normally never showed up in comics. Pinups were used to an extent that would never be repeated by Simon and Kirby. With such great pinups, splashes and stories you can tell Joe and Jack gave Boys’ Ranch their all. It failed. There is no getting around it. No paper glut or a failing distributor can be used to explain it away. No matter how highly esteemed Boys’ Ranch may be today, it only lasted six issues. Having been given a year to catch on, apparently sales were too low to warrant its continuation. It was Simon and Kirby’s greatest failure.

Boys’ Ranch, Simon and Kirby’s Most Successful Failure, Part 1

I have long held off discussing Boys’ Ranch since with so much written about that title I feared I would have little new to add. Today Boys’ Ranch is probably one of the most popular Simon and Kirby post-war creations. There is good reason for this modern esteem as the title has much to commend it; action, humor and lots of Kirby. Nothing has done more to keep the Simon and Kirby brand name alive as Marvel’s Boys’ Ranch and Fighting American reprint volumes. Although published in 1992 these volumes are still readily available in the resale market at reasonable prices. Of the two, the Boys’ Ranch volume most accurately reflects the original published comic books. Harvey’s reprinting of Boys’ Ranch stories occurred prior to the establishment of the Comic Code and so the art and stories did not suffer from censorial abuse. I have examined the comics and the Marvel reprint side by side and so far the only changes I have detected were a very few coloring alterations. Unfortunately Harvey reprinted Fighting American during the Comic Code’s reign and the Marvel volume makes use of Harvey’s reprinted version. Mark Evanier’s “Jack Kirby, King of Comics” provides an example from the Fighting American of the removal of an ice pick from one panel leaving an attack without a weapon. All is not completely well for the Marvel reprint volume as a few pages of general interest fillers have been dropped. These single page graphic articles were not drawn by Kirby so many readers will not have lost much. The more hardcore Kirby fans will regret the absence of the text stories some of which had included illustrations by Jack.


Boys’ Ranch #2 (December 1950) pinup, art by Jack Kirby

I have not completely ignored Boys’ Ranch in the Simon and Kirby Blog. Recently I have included the double page pinups from this title in a couple of chapters of my serial post “The Wide Angle Scream” (here and here). The use of pinups, both single and double page, was something new for Simon and Kirby. Each issue of Boys’ Ranch would have a single page pinup at the beginning of the book along with the centerfold pinup. Such extensive use of pinups would not be repeated in any other Simon and Kirby production. The pinups are not only numerous, they are also consistently of high quality. I would be hard pressed to pick the best one. I do want to provide an example and so choose one that provides the best portrait of the main cast of characters. Boys’ Ranch is not just a western, it is also belongs to the boy gang genre so favored by Simon and Kirby. There are significant parallels between the Boys’ Ranch gang and say the Newsboy Legion. Most S&K gangs have one adult member to act as a type of guardian. Clay Duncan does that part and although he lacks a secret identity he does have his own unique origin. One constant in S&K boy gangs is a handsome character that the readers can relate to; in Boys’ Ranch this is Dandy. There is always a gang member to take on the humorous aspects. Often this individual has some regional identification. This role is taken by Wabash who plays a southern hillbilly. The other two main characters are unusual members of this particular gang. Wee Willie Weehawken (I guess New Jersey seemed to be out west to New Yorkers Joe and Jack) was different in being a second humorous member and in being an adult although otherwise treated as another gang member. The most unique member of them all was Angel. Most Simon and Kirby kid gangs included one intellectual but I guess Simon and Kirby felt that such a character would be out of place out west. Instead Angle is sharp shooter with a bit of a temper. The 50s were a time with great emphasis on conformity and Angel’s long hair was definitely a distinction. Not included in the splash was another cast character, Palomino. Her place at Boys’ Ranch was often obscured but she would play important rolls. One was to help shape Clay’s image. Her obvious love for Clay was used to promote him as a hero figure. This also allowed Clay to be disinclined to actively return her affections thereby showing to his young readership that he as a real man’s man (at least by the criteria of youthful readers at that time). When Clay and the boys would go off to some adventure Clay would pointed tell Palomino that she could not come as it was too dangerous for girls. She would reluctantly agree only to following them anyway and save the day at some critical point. Action heroines were not unheard of but generally not used by Simon and Kirby whose women normally play the roll of victims. Palomino is a refreshing exception. Another minor player in Boys’ Ranch is the diminutive and silent Indian, Happy Boy.


Boys’ Ranch #2 (December 1950) “Lead Will Fly At Sunset”, art by Jack Kirby

Not only did Boys’ Ranch include exceptional pinups, the splash pages are among the best that Jack Kirby did and that is saying a lot. Most of them are full page splashes filled with excitement. However the most unusual splash that Kirby did, not just for Boys’ Ranch but for any Simon and Kirby production, was certainly the one for “Lead Will Fly at Sunset”. Not only does it have no action, it does not even have any characters at all. That is Boys’ Ranch we see below from a distance but there is only the caption to confirm that. What we are provided with is nothing more then a landscape. Well that is a little misleading as this was drawn by Jack Kirby who shows here that he can embody a landscape with interest as well. Partly this is due to the unusual perspective Jack has depicted. In the foreground a steep trail descends to a panoramic vista. The nearby terrain is so rugged that only a few twisted trees have managed to cling to the rocks. With the extensive view it is easy to overlook the most significant inhabitant, a coyote on our left descending via the trail.


Boys’ Ranch #1 (October 1950) “The Man Who Hated Boys” page 14, art by Jack Kirby

When Simon and Kirby created Captain America their origin story was only 8 pages long. Only one other Captain America story from the first issue was shorter while the rest were substantially longer. The Red Skull story had twice as many pages as the origin story. The origin was clearly something to get over with as quickly as possible so as to get into the adventures. With the work that Simon and Kirby did for DC and Harvey (Stuntman and Boy Explorers) the origin story was a much more successful story by itself. None of the other Joe and Jack’s origin stories compares with what they did for Boys’ Ranch. It is not just that “The Man Who Hated Boys” is 17 pages long, it is also how S&K weaved the story. Unlike the first Newsboy Legion story, the members of the boy gang are not introduced as a unit. The reader is first shown Dandy and Wabash meeting while Clay Duncan and Angel make their appearances later. All the character introductions are all mixed in with typical Simon and Kirby action. As for example page 14 shown above. Previously Clay, Dandy and Wabash had been pinned down by Indians. At the start of this page we find Angle arriving on horse back with some other reinforcements. Other creators might be satisfied with having the arriving party drive off the Indians, but not Simon and Kirby. We find in the last panel the fight has become the way Kirby preferred, up close and personal. Let me digress for a moment to point out how in the first panel only the mouth and knee of the closest horse is depicted. Kirby would use the same device years later in Bullseye #7 (August 1955). “The Man Who Hated Boys” was a justifiably lengthy introduction but even it does not present all the cast of characters. “Meet Wee Willie Weehawken” would introduce that character and other stories would bring in Palomino and Happy Boy. There would also be a separate origin story for Clay Duncan. Never before had Simon and Kirby invested so much in the backgrounds for the characters of a feature. I am sure this is one of the characteristics that make Boys’ Ranch so appealing for today’s reader.


Boys’ Ranch #3 (February 1951) “Mother Delilah”, art by Jack Kirby

If a poll was conducted on what was the best Simon and Kirby story ever, I have little doubt that “Mother Delilah” would be chosen by a wide margin. It certainly deserves such a distinction. Jack Kirby’s pencils are superb and the inking is consistently both sensitive and powerful. The writing is just exceptional and was given plenty of space to fully accomplish its plot and theme (at 20 pages it is the longest Boys’ Ranch story). The theme, well it is literally biblical in nature. The characters and their motivations have a complexity that is rarely seen in comic books even today.


Boys’ Ranch #3 (February 1951) “Mother Delilah” page 7, art by Jack Kirby

Clay’s rejection of the advances of the saloon girl Delilah leads her to a vow of vengeance. It is through Angel that Delilah seeks to get her revenge. Angel, the story’s main protagonist, is shown to be more then a sharp-shooter with a temper. His bravado is depicted as hiding a longing for a family he has long lost. Even at this level “Mother Delilah” offers more then most comic book stories. However the story goes on to show Delilah as torn between here need to strike back at Clay Duncan and her horror at what this was leading her to do to Angel.


Boys’ Ranch #3 (February 1951) “Mother Delilah” page 2, art by Jack Kirby

Angel and Delilah could have been enough for the story, but the writer choose to include some other cast members as well. There is one, Curley Yager, whose own villainy acts as a foil to that shown by Delilah. Who is the most evil? Curley who, without any thought, treats anyone weaker then himself as a target for his assaults? Or Delilah who realizes the evil she will inflict on Angel but proceeds anyway? Delilah’s self-sacrifice at the story’s end provides the answer as she receives a redemption that Curley could never achieve.

My favorite character plays a minor part in the plot but is of great importance to the story nonetheless; it is Virgil Underwood. His name suggests the classics of Imperial Rome but the part he plays is that of the chorus from Greek tragedy. He is always there to reflect on the action of others.


Boys’ Ranch #3 (February 1951) “Mother Delilah” page 15, art by Jack Kirby

Jack Kirby always thought of himself as primarily a story teller. For many fans his greatest works were the many brawls that he staged. It is true that Kirby was the master of the action sequence. However what amazes me time and time again is how Kirby could handle other types of story lines. Angel, shorn of both hair and pistols, encounters a crowd previously fearful of his sharp-shooter talents. The treatment he receives initially is meant more to humiliate him then to cause bodily harm. Yet before the harassment of Angel goes even further it is suddenly terminated. At first all that is seen are firing guns but that panel is followed by one showing the quick departure of the mob and the arrival of Wabash, Dandy and Clay. The page ends with Dandy and Wabash in the foreground with their backs to the shattered Angel and the comforting Clay. Dandy and Wabash mean to avoid Angel loosing more face then he all ready has, while sheltering him from the views of others, including the readers. It is a very poignant end to the sequence. Who, other then Jack Kirby, ever presented pages like this one?


Boys’ Ranch #3 (February 1951) “I’ll Fight You for Lucy”, art by Mort Meskin

For some few exceptions, the first three issues of Boys’ Ranch is all Kirby art. One departure is the single pages about western subjects. These are pages such as how to make moccasins, how to spin a rope or how to ride a horse. Some art dealers claim these were done by Mort Meskin using Kirby layouts. I agree that Meskin did many of them but I doubt very much Jack had anything to do with it. The art for all of them is rather stiff and I suspect are based on some photographs or illustrations. There is also a short section in Boys’ Ranch #1, “Introducing the Kid Cowboys”, that was clearly drawn and inked by Mort Meskin. The most important exception to the all Kirby nature of issues 1 to 3 is “I’ll Fight You for Lucy”. This story is usually credited as Kirby pencils and Meskin inks. There is no question that Meskin did the inking, but I find the layouts and pencils all look like Mort’s work. It is interesting that this is the only Boys’ Ranch story that does not begin with a full page splash. The splash panel is also unusual in how the characters are all placed together in a compact group on the left side. This would have been an unusually arrangement for Kirby who usually composed his figures to spread out and occupy all available space.


Boys’ Ranch #3 (February 1951) “I’ll Fight You for Lucy” page 5, art by Mort Meskin

Perhaps the most convincing evidence that this story was not drawn or even laid out by Jack Kirby is the fight scenes. Kirby was justly famous for his slug-fests but the fight from “I’ll Fight You for Lucy” (see above) does not show Jack’s characteristic style. For the later part of his career Mort Meskin did not draw much hero genre comics and so did not do many fight scenes. There are some brawls in the unpublished Captain 3-D #2 story but unfortunately the one image I used in my post about that story is not the best match for the fight from “I’ll Fight You for Lucy”. Better comparisons can be found by turning to work that Mort did earlier. Compare the Boys’ Ranch page with a page from Black Terror #23 (see below) by the team of Jerry Robinson and Mort Meskin. Usually when comic art has two signatures the first often indicates the penciler and the last the inker. The division of labor used by Robinson and Meskin seems to have been more complicated. (As, of course, it was for Simon and Kirby)


Black Terror #23 (June 1948) “Danger In The Air” page 3, art by Jerry Robinson and Mort Meskin

The modus operandi for Simon and Kirby seems to have been to heavily use Kirby in the initial issues for a title and afterwards have other artists do more of the work. This was the case for Boys’ Ranch where the final three issues use Kirby in some interesting variations. That will be the subject of next weeks post.

Joe Simon and Timely Detective Magazines


Amazing Detective Cases vol. 1 no. 7 (November 1941) unidentified artist

Joe Simon was working as a freelance editor for Fox Comics for only a three month period before he left to take a position with Timely, still on a freelance basis. Some scholars have described Joe’s job at Timely as a General Editor but in his recent interview (Jim Amash, Alter Ego #76) Joe described it as Art Editor. Those that prefer to call Joe a General Editor usually give the Art Editor title to Jack Kirby. As far as I can tell the allocation of titles has been solely based on the testimony of either Joe Simon or Jack Kirby. Personally I suspect that at the time job titles held no real significance for Martin Goodman the only thing that mattered was the work to be done.

The work that generally holds the interest for most was for the comic books. Unfortunately none of the comics provide credits for the editorial personnel. Kirby did most of the drawing during the Timely period but Joe did some as well either alone or with Jack. But who did the drawing is not the issue here. One interesting suggestion comes from the splash to a Captain Daring story from Daring Mystery #7 (April 1941). The drawing for the story was all by Jack except for the figure of Captain Daring in the splash. That substitution is not what would be expected if Jack was the Art Editor. Otherwise I have not seen any evidence to help in this question about editorial attributions. This record stands in sharp contrast to Simon and Kirby’s post-war collaboration where a good number of examples of Kirby altering another artist’s work have been found along with some by Simon as well.

Comic books were not the only publications produced by Timely at this time. Pulps still played an important part of the company’s income. However so far I have found no help from the pulps about editorial functions either. Kirby does provide much of the art used to illustrate pulp stories but Simon and other artists show up as well. No editorial credits are provided. Joe has said (Alter Ego #76 interview) that he was not an editor for the pulps, he only put them together.

Although the artistic contributions to Timely’s comic books and pulps has been well known for some time, another of the publisher’s products, magazines, has generally been overlooked. Fortunately Kirby scholar and sleuth Tom Morehouse has been actively investigating Timely magazines. A number of magazine illustrations by Jack Kirby that Morehouse uncovered were included in the back of Greg Theakston’s “The Comic Strip Jack Kirby” Recently Tom has kindly loaned me some copies of Timely magazines with examples by other artists. Simon has described these magazines as “flats” which are “glossy magazines without the gloss”.


Complete Detective Cases vol. 3 no. 5 (September 1941)

The Timely periodicals under consideration are all detective magazines; Amazing Detective Cases, Complete Detective Cases and National Detective Cases. Amazing Detectives Case is listed as being published by Crime Files Inc. while Complete Detective Cases and National Detective Cases are said to be by Postal Publications Inc. However this is nothing more then the use of multiple company names by publishers of that day. It is not clear why Timely and other publishers did this but since it was such a common practice there must have been some benefit. These detective magazines are filled with supposedly true stories about various criminals. Stories of murder and other lurid crimes predominate throughout. A look at the covers reveals another important aspect of the magazines appeal. The five covers I borrowed all show images (four using photographs and one a painting) of a woman, generally bound. The recurring characteristic of these covers seems to be the showing of as much legs and cleavage as possible. Frequently words like sex and lust are prominently displayed on the cover. At the time these magazines would not have been considered respectable, but where they thought to be pornographic? I do not know about 1941, but in January 1958 issues of Complete Detective Cases and Amazing Detective Cases were list as prohibited on the grounds of that they were indecent or obscene as covered by the Censorship of Publications Act.

As with the pulps, most of the art used in the detective magazines was by Jack Kirby with other artists providing less numerous contributions. What is of particular interest is that the contents pages of all the magazines examined so far consistently list Joe Simon as the Art Director. (In his Alter Ego #76 interview Joe says the editor was named Levi but the content pages list him as Robert E. Levee. But who knows perhaps, as was so common in those days, the editor was trying to use a name that was less obviously Jewish.) The dates of the magazines known to include Simon credits as Art Director range from November 1940 through July 1941. As not all of the Timely detective magazines have been examined and Joe’s employment at Timely covered a greater period, further Timely detective magazines listing Simon as Art Director will undoubtedly be found.

The Timely detective magazines included extensive use of black and white photographs throughout the interior. This meant that better printing presses were used then those for the interiors of either comic books or pulps. Art generated for the magazines did not have to be the inked pencils used for comics nor the stipple boards frequently used for pulp illustrations. Instead the art was generally ink washes but some may have been done with an air brush. Pretty much any technique that an artist might desire to use could be accommodated except the use of color. Some of the photographs appear to have been retouched with an air brush. Sometimes this was done to improve an inferior photograph. The photographs looked like they were obtained from a variety of sources both professional (police files) and amateur. In other cases an air brush was used to add features that were not originally in the photo. For example firing blasts from gun barrels or flames of a fire (see the Complete Detective vol. 3 no. 5 cover shown above). I do not know whether Simon did the various photograph alterations himself but he certainly was capable of it. Joe’s previous years as a newspaper staff artist included a lot of photograph retouching with an air brush.


Complete Detective Cases vol. 3 no. 5 (September 1941) “Night Hides a Bloody Score” Artilio Sinegra (signed)

As Art Director, Joe Simon was also involved with the layouts used in the magazines. In his previous job as a newspaper staff artist, Simon had very likely been called to do paste-ups. However I doubt that the work he did for the newspapers had the unusual layouts found in these Timely detective magazines. In the magazines photographs were combined in unusual manners and art work would sometimes be mixed in. The first two pages for “Night Hides a Bloody Score” shown above is a good example. The art was signed by Artilio Sinegra, an artist I have not found any information on. I doubt that Sinegra had anything to do with the design of the spread. In this example circular photos were included on the right page so as to correspond to the form of the bowling ball. The legs of the dead man on the left page first underlie then intrude over the title. The body on the left forms a diagonal that is counter balanced by that formed by the skeletal arm, bowling ball, title and pins. This emphasis on design is characteristic of some of the comic book work particularly the double page splashes from Captain America. (See the chapters about Captain America #6, #7, #8, #9, and #10 of my serial post the Wide Angle Scream) Such designs are present throughout the detective magazines I have seen, even when other artists were used or in layouts consisting solely of photographs. I conclude that whether or not he did the actual paste-ups, Joe Simon was responsible for the designs. Only one of the magazines that Tom loaned to me was from early during Joe’s time as Art Director but it does suggest that perhaps Joe started out with simpler designs and progressively got more inventive. These Timely magazines may provide the means of showing Joe acquiring his skills at layout that he would use throughout the rest of his career.


Complete Detective Cases vol. 3 no. 5 (September 1941) “The Devil Strikes a Match” Artilio Sinegra (signed)

Photographs were the primary sources used for the introduction to a story and illustrations generally played a more minor roll. However in some cases the introduction was only artwork. “The Devil Strikes a Match” has an ink wash by Artilio Sinegra. Since I have never come across his name as a comic book artist, perhaps he only did illustrations. The two signed works by Sinegra that I have provided above are the only ones that I can safely attribute to him.


Complete Detective Cases vol. 3 no. 2 (March 1941) “The Mask Man of the Middle West”, art by Al Avison

Tom Morehouse has provided me with information for 15 Timely detective magazines. In this group there are a total of 30 illustrations that are either signed or can be attributed with reasonable certainty. There are a number of incidental graphic additions that just are not sufficient to even provide a guess as to the creator. The majority (19) of the illustrations were done by Jack Kirby. The next most prolific artist was Al Avison who I credit with 5 certain and 2 possible illustrations. The example I provide above is perhaps the best one. I like Avison’s work but his early stuff tended to be a little crude and his talent only really blossomed after Simon and Kirby left Timely. In this case he has created a great composition. The low angle provides an interesting view and I am sure Martin Goodman appreciated the lengthy legs as well. A similar importance placed on attractive legs can be found in another Al Avison illustration (“I Watched Him Love and Kill”, v. 1 no. 7, November 1941).


Amazing Detective Cases vol. 1 no. 7 (November 1941) “Man Who Framed Himself”, art by Al Avison (signed)

Unfortunately the rest of his illustration work was not nearly so well done. I thought I should include at least one other Avison illustration to give a more balanced view of his work in the Timely detective magazines. Even though it shares the same theme of an armed safe robbery it is not anywhere nearly as interesting as “The Mask Man of the Middle West”.


Complete Detective Cases vol. 3 no. 6 (November 1941) “Detroit’s Zombi”, art by Al Avison?

The art with the unusual witch-like creature for “Detroit’s Zombi” is unsigned. I cannot say precisely why, but it looks like Avison’s work to me. There is some similarity to the crude bat with one on a cover that Al did for Speed Comics #15 (November 1941) but both are nothing more then primitive silhouettes so I would not want to make too much of that similarity. The witch has a striking resemblance to the one of the Simon and Kirby wide splash for Captain America #8 (November 1941). The Kirby touch is clear in the Cap splash but he certainly did not draw the illustration for “Detroit’s Zombi”. However I am sure Kirby’s witch was the model that, shall we say, inspired Avison’s version. Incidentally the image of the young girl is one of those retouched photographs I mentioned before. In this case the photo has been so heavily work on with an air brush that it now blurs the distinction between photography and painting.


Complete Detective Cases vol. 3 no. 2 (March 1941) “Cop Killer on the Loose”, art by Joe Simon (signed)

Among the 30 illustrations that have so far been inventoried there are two by Joe Simon. Joe had experience at doing ink wash illustrations during his time as a newspaper staff artist. His brush work is truly confident as he combines detailed work (such as in the figures) with more sketchy rendition (particularly the background walls). The way Joe handles round stones in the wall is very reminiscent of some of his comic book work, for instance the cover for Weird Comics #3 (June 1940) or the Fiery Mask story “The Strange Case of the Bloodless Corpses” (Human Torch #2(1) Fall, 1940). Both Joe and Jack showed in these magazine illustrations a willingness to use bold brush strokes that is prescient for the work that they would do after the war.

I would like to extend my thanks to scholar Tom Morehouse for sharing these Timely detective magazines with me and allowing me to use them in this blog.