Tag Archives: black cat mystic

Harvey Horror: Black Cat Mystic #61

by
Posted in 2012/06, Harvey Horror, Serial Posts, z Archive and tagged , ,


Black Cat Mystic #61 (January 1958), pencils by an unidentified artist?

A dramatic change in the Black Cat Mystic title has come with issue #61, there is no Kirby. Issues 58 to 60 of Black Cat Mystic as well as Alarming Tales #1 and #2 were essentially all Kirby comics (with the exception of a two pages story drawn by Marvin Stein in AT #2). We shall see later that Kirby would continue to appear in Alarming Tales but even that would be a limited contribution in both quantity and duration. Jack had begun doing freelance work for DC which paid more than Harvey. However that does not seem like a likely explanation because he did not get as much work from DC as he would have liked. So Kirby sudden absence from Black Cat Mystic must remain a minor mystery.

The cover is an adaptation of the splash page for “Colorama”. Bob Powell drew the interior story and but I am not completely convince he drew the cover. Joe Simon once told me that he did the cover but to be honest I cannot detect his hand in it. The flying figure and his mount do not appear in the story but oddly show up in the contents page. The flying figures is surrounded by something very much like Kirby Krackle. It is an odd but very effective cover.


Black Cat Mystic #61 (January 1958) contents page, pencils by Howard Nostrand

The contents page for Harvey comics were sometimes used as a sort of prequel to one of the book’s stories. It is possible that this was an innovation introduced to Harvey by Joe Simon. While both Kirby and Simon did some of this content pages for the Harvey romance titles, this particular one appears to have been executed by Howard Nostrand, an artist commonly used by Harvey at this time. It is here that the flying figure from the cover appears and not the actual story.


Black Cat Mystic #61 (January 1958) “Colorama”, pencils by Bob Powell

Bob Powell was another regularly featured artist in Harvey titles. Powell was a great artist, at least before he was instructed at Marvel to work like Kirby. His style was particularly well suited for the horror genre and this story is a minor masterpiece. The entire story is based on what the narrator sees.


Black Cat Mystic #61 (January 1958) “Unknown Worlds”, art by unidentified artist

It is hard to believe anyone would present a feature that seriously suggests that there were worlds to be found at the center of the earth. Such an idea may have been the inspiration for fictions writes such as Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs, but by the 50’s science had already known that the earth had a molten core incapable of supporting life.


Black Cat Mystic #61 (January 1958) “Line-Up”, pencils by Howard Nostrand

Besides doing the contents page, Nostrand was responsible for “Line-Up”. This is another odd story and like much of the book rather different than Simon and Kirby pieces. If Joe was still the book’s editor, he was using Harvey writers and artists.


Black Cat Mystic #61 (January 1958) advertisement, pencils and inks by Joe Simon

That Joe was still working for Harvey is apparent with this in house advertisement for Alarming Tales #3 (January 1958). Both the pencils and inks for this ad appear to have been done by Joe, and judging from the humor I suspect the writing as well. I remember from my days in art classes that artists often unconsciously draw people that resemble themselves. I detect something like that in the panel introducing “The Man Who Never Lived”.


Black Cat Mystic #61 (January 1958) “Knockout”, pencils by Joe Certa

I have to admit that I cannot get very excited about the work by Joe Certa, but he was another one of Harvey’s regular artists.


Black Cat Mystic #61 (January 1958) “Strange Superstitions”, art by unidentified artist

Single page works such as this one, called fillers, were often used and were generally done by lesser talents.


Black Cat Mystic #61 (January 1958) “Cancelled”

I have only a passing knowledge of the various artists found in Harvey comics and no idea who this one was. Unfortunately Harvey seemed to have a policy prohibiting artists from signing their works (with the occasional exception of Lee Elias).

Harvey Horror: Black Cat Mystic #59

by
Posted in 2012/04, 7 Freelance, Artists, Harvey, Harvey Horror, Kirby, Jack, Periods, Serial Posts, z Archive and tagged , , , ,

Nine months separated Black Cat Mystery #57 and Black Cat Mystic #58. Such a lengthy delay would make it difficult for the title to pick up a following of readers. That was bad enough but it would be a further year before Black Cat Mystic #59 hit the stands. What was Harvey thinking? The inking style used by Jack Kirby for BCM #59 does not match very well with his inking found in other publications from 1957 but it is a good match for the inking he did in BCM #58 (Jack Kirby’s Austere Inking, Chapter 8, More Harvey). The original art for one of the stories (“The Great Stone Face”) has a Comic Code approval stamp dated June 1956 which shows that the art was in fact created in 1956. Normally getting the Comic Code approval was the last step before getting ready for the printers which would suggest a planned publication date of October or November 1956. That is just the date that would be expected had Harvey not put the issue on hold. Again what was Harvey thinking? This is not a suggestion that Harvey made a poor decision (although that was true) but a real question on why the apparently sudden change in plans. Poor sales does not seem a likely explanation. Sales figures for BCM #58 would not have been available at the time the decision was made to hold back on BCM #59.


Black Cat Mystic #59 (September 1957), pencils and inks by Jack Kirby

The cover for BCM #59 shows a figure erasing himself away, a rather unusual image to say the least. The figure has six fingers per hand and a large head which indicate he is not truly human. That the figure was also chained indicates that he was considered a threat by the scientist and soldiers shown on the cover.


Tales to Astonish #49 (November 1963), pencils and inks by Don Heck (image from GCD)

While by no means identical a similar cover was created years later for Tales to Astonish #49 (November 1963). The cover artist was Don Heck but the story was drawn by Kirby and inked by Heck. Apparently the Living Eraser was for years used as an example of occasional failures by Lee and Kirby collaboration. While the Living Eraser was not up to the standards of comic book antagonists like Galactus he seems better than some of the other early creations such as Paste Pot Pete. At least the Living Eraser provided a memorable image.


Black Cat Mystic #59 (September 1957) Introduction, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Joe Simon

A contents page was pretty much standard at Harvey when Simon began working there as an editor. But it appears to have been Joe that converted the page into an introduction page. This introduction would be a sort of a prequel to one of the stories in the comic. Joe would often try to draw the introduction in the same style as the artist who did the story (Joe Simon’s Turn At Imitating). Joe was good enough of a mimic that some experts still attribute these introduction to the story artist. Jack Kirby also did some introductions for Harvey (Bill Draut and His Imitator, Jack Kirby, Jack Kirby Swiping from Bill Draut, Kirby Imitating John Prentice and Kirby Imitating John Prentice Again). Previously I believed that Jack was imitating the story artist as well. However Kirby was a rather poor imitator and except for one swipe Jack was just being himself. I now realize it was Simon who was purposely inking of these pieces to made them look the story artist. But in the case of the Introduction for BCM #59 Kirby was the story artist and Joe inks the piece in his normal manner.


Black Cat Mystic #59 (September 1957) “Today I Am A…”, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Joe Simon

Jack Kirby is famous for his high action comic art. Understandably because he was so good at it. But Kirby was also master at building tension into a story and “Today I Am A…” is a great example of that. In the hands of a lesser artist this might have been a rather mundane story but Jack transforms it with his usual magic. “Today I am a man” is a bar mitzvah cliché that was probably lost to most of the young readers when this story first was published but it is a clever title for a story of an exceptional individual becoming of age.


X-Men #1 (September 1963) “X-Men”, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Paul Reinman (image from GCD)

The Introduction and story “Today I Am A…” never mention the word mutant. However despite his physical and mental differences the main character Paul was born of normal parents. He was clearly meant to be a sudden and dramatic stage in the evolution of mankind. Normal humans fear and seek to confine him. I do not think I am out of line to suggest that in this story from BCM #59 we find the concepts that would eventually become Homo superior feared by the rest of humanity that would be the basis for the X-Men created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Some fans object to provided creation credits to Lee and Kirby because of all the individual X-Men that were created by other artists. However it was Lee and Kirby that created the premise of mutants and public mistrust that is the foundation of this series right up to today.


Black Cat Mystic #59 (September 1957) “A Weemer Is the Best of All”, pencils and inks by Jack Kirby

“A Weemer Is the Best of All” is a story in a more humorous vein. Not side-splitting humor but definitely a story not meant to be taken seriously. Humor was frequently a part of Simon and Kirby’s repertoire. Even action stories often had humorous parts to them.


Black Cat Mystic #59 (September 1957) “The Great Stone Face”, pencils and inks by Jack Kirby

A monumental stone sculpture of unknown origin, an African tribe with technical skills, and a rifle slinging anthropologist. This is one of those stories so imaginative that one wonders where they came up with it. I can understand the anthropologist but where did the rest come from? Both Joe and Jack were science fiction fans and I suspect somewhere in the pulp magazines they read supplied the kernels that eventually formed into stories such as this one.


The Eternals #1 (July 1976), pencils by jack Kirby, inks by Frank Giacoia (image from GCD)

The theme of gigantic aliens residing on earth for immense periods of time for mysterious reasons is common to both “The Great Stone Face” and the Eternals (a title Kirby created for Marvel in 1976). Jack would often expand on story lines he worked on earlier in his career.


Black Cat Mystic #59 (September 1957) “Take Off, Mr. Zimmer”, pencils and inks by Jack Kirby

The ghost Mr. Zimmer was presented in BCM #58 and seems to have been planned as a recurring character. In BCM #58 Mr. Zimmer was presented in the first, featured, story. However in BCM #59 Mr. Zimmer became delegated to the final story in the book. While the title Black Cat Mystic would suggest the horror genre the contents were predominately science fiction. So perhaps Mr. Zimmer fall from grace was just a recognition that he was somewhat out of place in the direction the title had gone. But then again horror, although a rather mild version suitable for the Comic Code, would continue to play a roll in the title. In any case this would the last appearance of Mr. Zimmer.