Mark Evanier wrote a nice post about Joe Simon’s birthday. But Mark got it wrong when he gave Joe’s age as 92. Well let me set the story straight, Joe is now 94 years young. When I last talked to Joe he commented:

I’m telling everybody that I am 95. I mean what kind of number is 94? No, 95 is a much better number. I’m going to say I’m 95.

Is it any wonder that people get confused about Joe’s age? I love Joe, but I always try to remember he favorite piece of advice:

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Boy Commandos sketch by Joe Simon (1943 – 1945)

I called Joe yesterday to wish him a happy birthday. He was pleasantly surprised with all the emails he has received. I do not know how many, or what percentage came from readers of my blog. I know Joe answered at least some of them, but if you did not get a reply do not be offended. Joe is not perfect when it comes to using his computer, I know that in the past a number of his emails to me never made it. So even if you did not get a reply from Joe, rest assured from my conversation with him that he was quite pleased by all the attention.

Diego Maya provided his own birthday card to Joe.

For my somewhat tardy Jack Kirby birthday post I included a sketch that he did in 1942 of the Boy Commandos. So here I thought I would use a sketch of the Boy Commandos that Joe did. I asked Joe if he remembered the Zenners and he replied that they must of written him requesting a sketch. Joe added that he had done this while he was in the Coast Guard. So this work can be dated as sometime from 1943 to 1945. Not quite as early as Jack’s version, but still from a period where we have very little independent art by Joe Simon. For examples of his published work from this time see my Chapter 8 of The Art of Joe Simon “Off to War“. I will post about another Simon piece of art from this period in a day or two.

Simon and Kirby created the romance comic book genre in 1947 when they produced Young Romance. It was a big success, which in the world of comic books meant that other publishers would shortly release their own romance titles. A better description would be that S&K opened up a flood gate. I have read very little of the romance titles by other publishers, there is just so much that it is overwhelming. That is why I really appreciate “Romance Without Tears”, a collection of stories by the publisher Archer St. John. I was a bit late in coming across this book since it was published by Fantagraphics in 2004. However it is still available at places like Amazon St. John published more then just romance titles and Ken Quattro provides a nice history of the company. Great story, particularly the early part where newsman Archer St. John confronts Al Capone.

“Romance Without Tears” was compiled by John Benson who also wrote the introduction. Benson makes the case that St. John’s romances were unique in having heroines that were intelligent and free spirited. Yes they make mistakes, but they learn from their failures and generally do not suffer because them. Judging from the selection of stories that he provides, Benson’s analysis is accurate. Benson credits most of this to one writer, Dana Dutch. Dutch was obviously an unusual comic book writer. He sometimes places his characters into situations that while not explicitly sexual, are certainly suggestive. Two young couples have a secret overnight trip to a city. A couple returning from a date are caught in a storm in a rather leaky car take refuge by renting a cottage as husband and wife. That sort of thing. Even darker things can be suggested. A woman accompanies a man to a room to do some typing but finds that is not what the man really had in mind. She protests but from the man’s replies it is clear that this would not end well. A rape is not presented but only because of the fortuitous arrival of a bellhop allows her to escape.

“I Played Kiss and Run” page 8 panel 4 art by Matt Baker

The stories are good, just not as good you might expect with such unusual story lines. The problem appears that Dutch is not so much writing love stories as morality tales. In doing so Dutch can at times be a bit heavy handed in his scripting. Would you really expect a couple to say something like found in the panel I provide above? Examples of such stilted writing are common and are the primary reason for parts of the stories appearing too preachy.

Teen-Age Romances #14 (February 1951) art by Matt Baker

Of course comic books are not just about words, the art is just as important, perhaps even more so. The St. John romance comics were fortunate to make use of the talented Matt Baker. Baker did not do all the art, but the other artists clearly either were greatly influenced by Baker or were selected because they tried a similar approach. The best description of Baker’s style is that it is very illustrative in the best sense of the term. Matt’s art gives the impression of being very realistic, but actually that is misleading as his style is very attuned to the comic book media. Unlike many who try to be realistic, Baker’s art is the antithesis of dry. I do not think there is any comic book artist whose women are as sexy and sensual as Baker’s. Matt’s men are ruggedly handsome as well. His covers are special treats, even though I am a die hard Simon and Kirby fan my collection includes the Teen-Age Romance #14 and I could not resist restoring the cover art.

As a student of Simon and Kirby productions, it is their work that I compare other publications to. Although the S&K romance plots were not as daring or unusual as the St. John stories they were better written. I am just not as big a fan of Dana Dutch’s writing as John Benson is. As for the art, well it just would not be fair to compare Matt Baker to Jack Kirby. The S&K studio artist that comes closest to what Baker was doing was John Prentice. Prentice’s women, at least when he was doing comic books, have a sophisticated beauty while Baker’s are sexier. Prentice did not do many romance covers. Those he did are generally quite nice, just not nearly as well done as those by Baker. Matt’s illustrative approach really comes out well with his covers. As far as interior art is concerned, Matt probably is a better story artist then John as well, but not by so great a margin. While Prentice may not compare well with the talented Matt Baker, he does much better in comparison to the other St. John artists who were not as talented.

All in all I am quite pleased with “Romance Without Tears”. I am not ready to abandon Simon and Kirby and start studying St. John publications, but I now understand why St. John’s fans are so enthusiastic. One thing I really like about this book is how the art is presented. Most golden are reprints are make first by bleaching the comic pages and then re-coloring. With one exception (DC Spirit Archives) I have always found the results completely loose their original feel and look very flat. “Romance Without Tears” uses good quality scans instead. This may seem like a cheap technique, but I actually prefer it. Personally I think it would look even better if the scans were cleaned up a bit.

As a general rule comic book fans are very derisive about modern art. They feel that comic artists show greater talent then the fine artists of the last century. Much of modern art is not predicated on realistic depictions. Comic fans, and many of the general public, feel the lack of realistic illustration characteristic of most modern art shows that it is nothing more then a trick played by the artists. Thus a big hoax has been perpetrated on the museums and art collectors of the world and only those who have not studied art history can see that the emperor has no cloths. The irony is that not only have these comic book fans failed to appreciate the goals of fine artists, they also seem ignorant of what comic artists are actually doing. A realistic depiction is not the aim of comic artists either. Invariably these artists are concerned with telling a visual story and realism is often sacrificed toward that end.

Probably no modern artist riles comic book fans more then Roy Lichtenstein. Lichtenstein became a famous Pop artist by transposing comic book art onto large painted canvases. There is a term fans use when one comic artist copies another, they call it swiping. It is not an accident that to swipe was originally a slang expression for to steal. For comic fans it was bad enough that Lichtenstein was swiping from comic artists, what was even worse was his paintings sold for thousands of dollars while the original comic book artist generally struggled to make a living. History adds insult to this story. Let me repeat part of a post I once did where I am talking about comic book artists Irv Novick (from Simon and Kirby Meet the Shield).

Although it is frequently cited that Irv did superhero work for MLJ until 1946, in fact, like many artists, Irv spent some time in the military. During that time Irv befriended Roy Lichtenstein, getting him out of manual work and helping Roy get a job that used his artistic talents. Of course no good deed goes unpunished, after the war Lichenstein became a highly paid pop artist by painting greatly enlarged copies of comic book art originally drawn by a variety of comic artists, including Irv Novick.

Example from “Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein”

Comic fans’ criticism of Lichtenstein has however missed the mark. Even realistic artists depict their subject matter through their own personal filter. No matter how realistic an artist tries to be or how technically talented he is, the final painting will not truly match the source. In truth it is not how realistic a piece of art is that determines how good it is, more important is how well the artist brings forth his personal vision. Roy Lichtenstein’s work is different only in his subject matter, instead of painting landscapes, portraits, or abstracts, at one time Lichtenstein painted comic book art. Lichtenstein’s paintings are not identical copies of comic book panels. There is a marvelous web site call Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein that provides examples of Roy’s paintings and the comic book source they were based on. Again and again they final painting deviates from the source. Some of it is editorial changes to improve the effect of the work. After all a painting stands by itself while the original source is just one panel in a sequence of panels telling a story. Coloring would also be adjusted by Lichtenstein. Even the famous Benday dots are actually Lichtenstein’s inventions and have nothing to do with the printing of the original comic book art. The line art was often adjusted by Roy. It would be nice to be able to say that Roy improved the line art, but in fact the final image often is inferior to the source. Lichtenstein could never had been successful as a real comic book artist.

Although I disagree with the criticism leveled by comic book fans at Roy Lichtenstein that does not mean that I approve of his work. I am not bother by his copying comic book art but I do dislike his attitude towards his source. Lichtenstein’s paintings treat the comic book art as camp. The Pop art world could enjoy the impact of the original comic book art but since it was presented as a fine art painting they could view it with a amused sense of superiority. Fine art is supposed to provide more levels of meaning then that found in popular art. Frankly in the case of Roy Lichtenstein’s comic book paintings I just do not find enough deeper meaning to justify his condescending attitude toward comic book art.

“Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different and appealing?” collage by Richard Hamilton made in 1956.
Image from The Burlington Magazine (September 2007)

My criticism of Roy Lichtenstein does not apply as well to all Pop art. A case in point it the collage by Richard Hamilton, an image of which I provide above. Yes the presence of the Young Romance cover art in the collage does give this work of art special significance for me, more about that below. The comic book art plays only a small portion of the total effect of collage, the same can be said of all the individual pieces. Collages have a special magic, at least when done by an artist with talent. The components of the collage adopt two identities. The individual pieces become part of a bigger image while still remaining recognizable as being clipped from some printed source. The title of the piece (“Just what is it that makes today’s home so different and appealing?”) sounds like it belongs to an article in some home decor magazine. Which makes the image along with all its individual components all the more incongruous. Hamilton’s collage does have a sense of camp to it, but in this case I get the feeling I am a partner in the humor and not the blunt of it. Despite the fact that Hamilton seems to be pocking fun at American middle class society, he seems to have a genuine fondness for each piece of collage element that he uses.

Young Love #15 (November 1950) house ad with the original cover art of both covers by Jack Kirby

There is a reason that I am discussing Hamilton’s collage at this time. The latest issue of The Burlington Magazine has an article on it by John-Paul Stonard. In researching the piece John-Paul has managed to track down the source of most of the collage elements. Interestingly all the parts seem to come from American sources dating prior to 1956. It seems another British artist, John McHale who at the time was studying at Yale, sent a trunk full of material to Hamilton and that formed the basic source for the collage. Unfortunately one of the sources that has not been tracked down is the Tootsie Roll candy that plays such a prominent part of this art piece. The wrapper displays “POP”, a word coined in 1954 to describe the art movement.

The Young Romance “painting” lead Stonard to the Jack Kirby Museum and Rand Hoppe, and Rand in turn lead John-Paul to me. The image provided of “Just what …” may give the impression of a large piece when it actually is about ten inches wide. What appears to be a Young Romance #26 cover clearly is too small to be the actual cover and had to be some sort of house ad. I did a careful search of all the Simon and Kirby productions from about when Young Romance #26 came out (October 1950) up to 1956 the year the collage was made. There were two different ads that the YR #26 was used in. There was a size difference between cover image used in the one variant (used in YL #13) and the second (use in YL #14, #15, YR #27). John-Paul said that the size of the second ad was the correct one. When I sent John-Paul a scan I thought that was as close we were going to be able to come in identifying the source. John-Paul however immediately noticed that the comic title in the scan I provided were in white characters while the one used in the collage were red. When I reviewed the ads again I found only one of the house ads had red letters in the YR #26 image. Thus we could be sure that the source of the collage YR image came from the house ad from Young Love #15.

Young Romance #26 (October 1950) art by Jack Kirby

I like the fine arts, but my main interests in recent years has been the comics produced by Simon and Kirby. So I did not want this post only to have an image of the cover of Young Romance #26 as a faded piece in Hamilton’s collage, or even a better version found in the original house ad. Instead I wanted an image of the cover as close as I could make it to how it looked when it first appeared on the newsstands. I believed romance covers always posed a special problem for Jack Kirby in that he could not include action to make an interesting cover. To help compensate, Kirby turned to the use of visual props. I particularly like the way he has placed some in front of the characters. This gives the image a greater feeling of depth and prevents it looking like the people are standing in front of a stage setting. To do so though, Jack had to place some furniture and a shelf at what are really odd angles compared to the rest of the room. But as I have previously commented, comic covers are not meant to be realistic as if taken from a photograph. Usually it is time that is played around with in order to present what actually is a condensed story, here it is space. The only thing that bothers me about this cover is the wallpaper, I find the pattern too distracting.

I admit that I get something out of Simon and Kirby productions, particularly the romance work, that was not part of their original intentions. It is not the sense of camp that Roy Lichtenstein and his admirers enjoy. Rather it is a reflection of the changing attitudes. I am sure the melodrama was probably a bit over the top even when it was published but I doubt it would even be considered a reasonable premise today. But then again today there are no more romance comics. I wonder about manga?