Fully Authorized By The Kirby Estate
A 100-PAGE ISSUE SPOTLIGHTING SIMO N & KIRBY!
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Feature-Length Interview with
Joe Simon As he discusses the S&K Shop
Jack Kirby Talks about his Golden Age work With Joe Simon
Interview with
John Severin The Unpublished
Boy Explorers The Story Behind
Mainline Comics Special Art & Features:
Stuntman Sandman Captain America Kid Gangs Unpublished Art including published pages Befo re They Were Inked, And Much Mo re!!
1999 Eisner Awards Nominee for “Best Comics-Related Publication”
Captain America, Red Skull TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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JUBILANT JUGGERNAUTS OF JARGON GERMANE TO JACK (AND JOE!) ITEM! Don’t miss your chance to own a copy of ARGOSY Vol. 2, #2, featuring Kirby’s 10-page autobiographical STREET CODE story (printed from his pencils!). Publisher RICHARD KYLE found a couple of forgotten boxes of copies, and we’re making them available to Kirby fans! But they’re going fast, so don’t wait! Only $12 each postpaid ($14 Canada, $17 elsewhere), from TwoMorrows! ITEM! Remember Kirby’s awesome LORD OF LIGHT conceptual drawings, which we spotlighted back in TJKC #11? All 14 plates are being made available in a limited edition (500 copies) set from Lord of Light producer BARRY GELLER! These are full-size (20” x 24”) black-&-white contact prints (NOT offset-printed), individually made directly from the original negatives of Jack’s art, on heavy archival photographic stock. The full set is $800, or individual plates are $75 each from Barry Ira Geller Productions, PO Box 4753, Sunland, CA 91041. Check out their web site at: www.lordoflight.com/kirbyart/ ITEM! Didja hear? TwoMorrows received TWO EISNER AWARD NOMINATIONS in the SAME CATEGORY this year! Both THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR and Jon B. Cooke’s COMIC BOOK ARTIST magazines were nominated for “Best Comics-Related Periodical”, and the results (voted on by industry professionals) will be announced at this year’s COMICON INTERNATIONAL: SAN DIEGO. (As if the competition wasn’t tough enough in the past, now we’ve gotta compete against each other!) Our thanks to everyone who’s supported TwoMorrows’ publications in the past; we couldn’t do it without you! ITEM! Now shipping is the 176-page COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, VOLUME THREE (our third TRADE PAPERBACK collection, reprinting TJKC #13-15 plus over 30 NEW pieces of Jack’s art)! It also features a heartfelt introduction by STEVE BISSETTE, a foreword by JIM AMASH, and a little something extra for folks who’ve been clamoring to see more of Kirby’s unpublished SOUL LOVE magazine from 1970! Plus, VOLUME ONE (240-pages, reprinting TJKC #1-9 plus new material) is only $21.95 postpaid ($24.95 Canada, $34.95 elsewhere), and the 160-page COLLECTED TJKC, VOLUME 2 (reprinting TJKC #10-12 plus new stuff) is only $14.95 postpaid ($16.95 Canada, $24.95 elsewhere).
ITEM! If you’d like to see just why COMIC BOOK ARTIST picked up an Eisner nomination its first year, check out CBA #5, which shipped in July! It’s the sequel to our top-selling first issue, DC COMICS: 1967-74. Behind a fabulous NICK CARDY cover you’ll find articles, interviews, and rare and unpublished art by the pros who made that era great, like CARDY, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, MIKE KALUTA, HOWIE POST, SAM GLANZMAN, DENNY O’NEIL, NEAL ADAMS, and more! Back issues of #1-5 are still available for $5.95 each, and you can subscribe for four issues for only $20! We’re always looking for rare art, and people to write for CBA, so if you’re interested, contact JON B. COOKE, PO Box 204, W. Kingston, RI 02892-0204, or e-mail him at: jonbcooke@aol.com And look for CBA #6 in September! ITEM! The first solo issue of Rascally ROY THOMAS’ classic comics ’zine ALTER EGO was released in late June to rave reviews! Ol’ Roy is pulling out all the stops to make A/E live up to its legendary reputation among fans, with rare art, new articles, features, and interviews with the greats of the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Ages. Fans and historians worldwide have spoken: No publication brings comics history to life like ALTER EGO, so look for it at your
JOHN’S JUKEBOX As I sit here wrapping up this 25th issue of TJKC, I find myself thinking back to all the hard work that’s gone into this ’zine—by myself, and also by our many contributors over the years. But when it comes to hard work, no one can touch the output of the #1 team in comics history, Simon & Kirby. When did Joe and Jack sleep? For nearly 25 years, they just kept cranking out one hit after another, from their early success on CAPTAIN AMERICA, through the DC war years (with my personal favorite, the NEWSBOY LEGION), their postwar triumphs with the introduction of Romance Comics, their superb work at Harvey, right up to their illfated self-publishing company, Mainline, and their encore with PRIVATE STRONG and THE FLY. Though this magazine’s focus is on things Kirby, you can’t discuss the first half of Jack’s career without talking about Joe Simon—so this issue, I wanted to spend more time on the OTHER member of the S&K team. Everywhere Joe went at last year’s SAN DIEGO CON, he was constantly mobbed by fans, and it’s nice to see him getting the recognition he deserves. Hopefully, this issue will further that trend, as we present transcripts of Joe’s lively panels from San Diego ’98. Joe’s comments—as well as the plethora of S&K art and articles our hard-working contributors rounded up for this issue—will hopefully give us all a clearer picture of what it was like in the S&K shop. It seems particularly appropriate to me that we celebrate that fabled group of creators with this, our first 100-page issue of TJKC. Long Live Simon & Kirby!
ITEM! By the time you read this, we will have just about wrapped up what CBA editor Jon B. Cooke has so delicately dubbed “The TwoMorrows Big Summer Push of Convention Hell.” After absolutely spectacular trips to WONDERCON in San Francisco in April, and the NEW YORK COMIC SPECTACULAR at Madison Square Garden in May (where Mighty MIKE GARTLAND was a constant source of encouragement, transportation, and assistance), we had a presence at the RAMAPO CON in New York (MIKE G. did that one solo for us—thanks again, Mike!), but had to bow out of HEROES CON to make time to get our Summer publications to the printer. Our journey to WIZARD WORLD in Chicago in July, and COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL in San Diego in August (where this issue of TJKC will debut) will be over by the time you read this. But if you haven’t seen enough of us, look for Jon B. Cooke at the SMALL PRESS EXPO (September 17-19 in Bethesda, MD)! Thanks to everyone who stopped by our booths to chat—it was great meeting y’all!
TWOMORROWS CHECKLIST For full descriptions of each issue, see page 99 SORRY, TJKC #1-6, 8-12, 14, and 15 ARE SOLD OUT!! THE COLLECTED TJKC, VOLUME ONE: 240-page trade paperback reprinting TJKC #1-9, plus new art! $21.95 ($24.95 Canada, $34.95 elsewhere) THE COLLECTED TJKC, VOLUME TWO: 160-page trade paperback, reprinting TJKC #10-12, plus new Kirby art! $14.95 ($16.95 Canada, $24.95 elsewhere) THE COLLECTED TJKC, VOLUME THREE: (NEW!) 176-page trade paperback, reprinting TJKC #13-15, plus new Kirby art! $16.95 ($19.95 Canada, $26.95 elsewhere) THE JACK KIRBY CHECKLIST: (NEW!) 100 pages! $5.00 ($6.00 Canada, $8.00 elsewhere)
John Morrow, Editor TwoMorrows 1812 Park Dr. • Raleigh, NC 27605 • (919) 833-8092 FAX (919) 833-8023 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com local comics shop, or subscribe directly from TwoMorrows! (See the ad this issue for a peek at what’s coming in September in ALTER EGO #2!) ITEM! If you want more bang for your advertising dollar, consider running an ad in COMIC BOOK ARTIST or ALTER EGO! Current rates are: Full-page: $300, Half-page: $175, and Quarter-page: $100. But right now, when you prepay for two same-size ads in CBA, A/E, or a combination of the two, you’ll get an additional $100 discount on two full-pagers, $50 off two half-pagers, and $25 off two quarter-pagers! If you’re interested in advertising in either or both publications, contact John Morrow at TwoMorrows, and he’ll answer all your questions! (Sorry, display ads aren’t available for THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR.) ITEM! TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING is continually updating our Web Site (maintained by RANDY HOPPE) located at www.twomorrows.com which features sample art and articles from each issue of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, COMIC BOOK ARTIST, and now, the new, solo ALTER EGO! There’s also ordering info for back issues and subscriptions, so check it out! And if you love getting tons of e-mail from fellow Kirby fans, join the KIRBY MAILING LIST by sending an e-mail request to Randy Hoppe at kirby-l@fantasty.com
BACK ISSUES: $4.95 ($6.00 Canada, $8.00 elsewhere) TJKC #7: 36-page KID GANGS theme issue! Few left! TJKC #13: 52-page SUPERNATURAL issue! Few left! TJKC #16: 52-page TOUGH GUYS theme issue! BACK ISSUES: $5.95 ($7.00 Canada, $9.00 elsewhere) TJKC #17: 68-page DC theme issue! TJKC #18: 68-page MARVEL theme issue! TJKC #19: 56-page ART theme issue! TJKC #20: 68-page WOMEN theme issue! TJKC #21: 68-page issue on Jack’s WACKIEST WORK! TJKC #22: 68-page issue on Jack’s VILLAINS! TJKC #23: 68-page issue where ANYTHING GOES! TJKC #24: 68-page GREATEST BATTLES issue! COMIC BOOK ARTIST: $5.95 ($7 Can., $9 elsewhere) #1: (100-pages) DC Comics: 1967-74! ADAMS, INFANTINO, KIRBY, KUBERT, SEKOWSKY, CARDY, new ADAMS cover, and more! (Plus ALTER EGO!) #2: (100-pages) Marvel Comics: 1970-77! STAN LEE, KANE, STERANKO, WINDSOR-SMITH, STARLIN, PLOOG, new KANE cover, more! (Plus ALTER EGO!) #3: (100-pages) NEAL ADAMS: THE MARVEL YEARS! New ADAMS INTERVIEW, thumbnails, unused X-Men Graphic Novel pages, and more! (Plus ALTER EGO!) #4: (148-pages) WARREN issue! JIM WARREN interview, WRIGHTSON, FRAZETTA, CORBEN, WILLIAMSON, DAVIS, KURTZMAN, and more! (Plus ALTER EGO!) #5: (132-pages) DC COMICS: 1967-74! WRIGHTSON, KALUTA, CARDY, ADAMS, GLANZMAN, O’NEIL, WEIN, ARAGONES, and more! (Plus ALTER EGO!) ALTER EGO #1: (84-pages) STAN LEE, JULIE SCHWARTZ, JERRY ORDWAY, IRWIN HASEN, H.G. PETER, MR. MONSTER, FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA, new color Ordway cover and more!
VISIT THE NEW TWOMORROWS WEB SITE: www.twomorrows.com 2
Issue #25 Contents Jack Kirby in the Golden Age .............4 (a revealing interview with the King) Sandman in All-Star Comics .............1 2 (S&K’s rare stories in the Justice Society) The Mystery of Jon Henri .................1 5 (who drew those masked men?) Prof. Reinstein, I Presume?...............1 6 (of Eugenics and super-heroes) Classic Kirby Text Illustrations..........1 9 (some little-known spot illos) The Best of S&K’s Golden Age..........2 1 (war, romance, red underwear, and werewolves!) Just For Laughs .................................2 7 (the humorous side of Joe and Jack) S&K’s Swipe File ...............................2 8 (we caught them red-handed!) John Severin Interview .....................30 (John tells us why “They were aces!”) Joe Simon Interview .........................3 3 (he’s more than your average Joe) Centerfold: Captain America.............5 0 (the oldest surviving S&K original art?) Sid Jacobson on Simon & Kirby .......5 2 (Captain 3-D’s editor speaks) Simon & Kirby and the Kid Gang ....5 4 (an overview of S&K’s kid groups) Re-Examining the Boy Explorers ......6 1 (a fresh look, plus an unfinished story!) The Edge of the World .....................7 2 (a complete 1946 Boy Explorers story) The Mainline Comics Story..............8 6 (an initial examination of S&K’s shortlived self-publishing company) Classifieds.........................................9 6 Collector Comments.........................9 7
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Front cover inks: Dan Adkins Back cover inks: John Severin Cover color: Tom Ziuko Photocopies of Jack’s uninked pencils from published comics are reproduced here courtesy of the Kirby Estate, which has our thanks for their continued support. Our sincere thanks to Joe Simon for his cooperation and assistance with this issue! COPYRIGHTS: Boy Commandos (Brooklyn, Andre, Tex, Percy, Jan, Alfy, Rip Carter), Demon, Guardian, Jed, Jim Harper, Losers, Mister Miracle, Newsboy Legion (Gabby, Scrapper, Tommy, Big Words, Flippa Dippa), Orion, Sandman, Sandy, Starman, The Mist TM & © DC Comics, Inc. • Bucky, Captain America, Dr. Strange, Falcon, Ikaris, “Man From the Wrong Time Track”, Man-Thing, Red Skull, Silver Surfer, Sis-Neg, Sleepy Eyes, “Speed Will Be My Bride”, Thing, Vision, Yellow Claw TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. • All the 1930s and ’40s early drawings are © Jack Kirby. • All Joe Simon solo drawings , The Fly, Private Strong, Silver Spider © Joe Simon. • Boy Explorers (Commodore Sindbad, Gadget, Mr. Zero, Smiley, Gashouse), Boys’ Ranch (Dandy, Wabash, Angel, Clay Duncan), Bullseye, Captain 3-D Tigra, Don Daring, Fighting American, Foxhole, In Love, Inky, Invisible Irving, Jack McGregor’s Bluff, Nancy Hale, Night Fighter, Panda, Police Trap, Round Robin, Speedboy, Stuntman, Vagabond Prince, Young Brides, Young Love, Young Romance © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby. • Headline Comics, Justice Traps the Guilty © Prize Publications. • Champ Comics, Champion Comics, Front-Page Comics, Speed Comics © Harvey Publications. • Crime SuspenStories © EC Comics. • Popeye © King Features. • The Duel © Gilberton Publications. • Cockeyed © Whitestone Publications. • Real Clue Crime Stories © Hillman Periodicals. • Green Hornet © The Green Hornet. • Sick Magazine © Headline Publications. • Blue Bolt, Green Sorceress © Novelty Press. • Blue Beetle © Fox Publications. • Crazy, Man, Crazy, From Here To Insanity, I Love You © Charlton Publications.
In 1977, Steve Robertson bought this unused cover for Justice Traps the Guilty #1 from Jack. Jack felt bad that it wasn’t finished, and offered to finish it up. Steve declined, since he wanted to preserve it as it was, so Jack sold it for the princely sum of $20! Jack signed and dated it 1977, but then changed the date to ’57, saying, “That’s when I did this!” (It should’ve been ’47!) The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 6, No. 25, Aug. 1999. Published bi-monthly by & © TwoMorrows Publishing, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. 919-833-8092. John Morrow, Editor. Pamela Morrow, Asst. Editor. Jon B. Cooke, Assoc. Editor. Single issues: $5.95 ($7.00 Canada, $9.00 elsewhere). Six-issue subscriptions: $24.00 US, $32.00 Canada and Mexico, $44.00 outside North America. First printing. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All artwork is © Jack Kirby unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors. PRINTED IN CANADA.
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Jack Kirby In The Golden Age Interviewed by James Van Hise, and originally published in Golden Age of Comics #6, November 1983. © James Van Hise. (Our thanks to James for permission to reprint the text of this interview.) JAMES VAN HISE: Before you worked in comic books, some of your earliest work was doing newspaper strips, wasn’t it?
of course, nobody knew anything about. VAN HISE: Did you have a special liking for the Solar Legion? Because in the late Thirties you’d revive it whenever you had a new forum. KIRBY: Yes I did, because first of all, The Solar Legion involved a lot of characters. I grew up among a lot of people and being born in New York’s lower East Side, which was a crowded section, there were people everywhere—and so I think it was natural for me to think in terms of groups, and of course I’d be included somewhere. My recollections of different types of people would be reflected in different themes in the comic strips. So if I did The Solar Legion, I might include different types of people that I knew. They’d have that kind of temperament. Some of them would be cool. Some of them would be hot-tempered, and they’d be people in conflict and people who’d (above, below, help each other.
JACK KIRBY: I did work for a small syndicate which had about four hundred papers called the Lincoln Newspaper Features Syndicate. I did a variety of work there and I was grateful for that because it prepared me for doing a variety of comics. I did editorial cartoons. I did a cartoon called Your Health Comes First where I gave ordinary prescriptions, and I did comic strips.
and following pages) Early Kirby pencil drawings, circa the 1930s.
VAN HISE: This is where you used different styles drawn under different names? KIRBY: No, the styles looked different because the theme was different, but actually I didn’t disguise my style, I just changed the name on the strip. One strip would be done by Jack Curtiss and another strip would be done under another name. That gave the syndicate the aura of having a larger staff.
VAN HISE: How much of your own writing were you doing then? KIRBY: All of it. I’ve always done my own writing.
VAN HISE: What were the big influences on your work at the time? The adventure strips? The pulps? KIRBY: The adventure strips were only just beginning at the time. Dick Tracy was, of course, the first real adventure strip, and Buck Rogers was one of the early ones. So having been an admirer of that type of thing, I felt that I’d like to do that as well. I picked themes along those lines, but I did them with a sciencefiction flavor which most of the others didn’t have. I would do a story about an airplane which went back into time.... VAN HISE: That was the Solar Legion, wasn’t it? KIRBY: Oh yes. I had an atomic cannon which was fairy tale stuff at that time. This was a time when there weren’t even jets. No one could even conceive of jets, so if you did an atomic cannon you were sort of an avant garde, far-out type of writer. I began doing things that people would speculate about, but which, 4
Early comic strip attempt by Kirby (signed “Jack Curtiss”), done in 1931 at age 14.
When I got into comic books I began needing people like Joe Simon, and finally Joe and I got together to do Captain America. We were both professionals and we were both capable of writing the stuff, but Joe did most of the business. He was a big guy, six foot three, very impressive, and he had college experience which I didn’t have— but I had a unique storytelling ability, so although he was quite capable of doing so, he never had to write the stories. I’d write the stories on Captain America or whatever we’d be working on and Joe did business with the publisher because he could meet the publisher on an equal footing. I was younger and I was the kid with the turtleneck sweater who was always working. VAN HISE: What was the actual breakdown of work between you and Joe Simon on Captain America as far as penciling, inking, etc.? KIRBY: Well, I did most of it and Joe did some of it, but I did most of it because I had the time. I was constantly working. Joe had duties as an editor and he might be an editor in the publishing house and he’d be having contacts with the publisher that I didn’t. VAN HISE: Stan Lee was at Timely already by then, wasn’t he? KIRBY: Yes, he was a young boy then and he was a member of the publisher’s family so he got a job there. I don’t know what his duties were but from time to time he’d come into the office and play a flute or the clarinet while he was working and that was the extent of it. VAN HISE: So Joe Simon edited Captain America himself? KIRBY: Joe Simon edited all the [Timely] books. It wasn’t called Marvel yet at that time, but the publisher was the same. At any rate, we left [Timely] and we
Newsboy Legion page from Star-Spangled Comics #19 (April 1943).
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Englishman Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, coined the term Eugenics (from a Greek stem meaning ‘good in birth’) in 1883. He concluded in his studies that natural ability, intelligence, and talent were bestowed by heredity. “Could not,” he pondered, “the undesirables be got rid of and the desirables multiplied?” He saw the encouragement of good marriages as the best way of accomplishing this end. Interest in eugenics grew when an obscure Austrian monk’s experiments in breeding peas became widely known. Another mystery of human heredity was seemingly revealed when Gregor Mendel discovered genetically-transmitted dominant and recessive traits. In the US, Charles Davenport established a center for research in human evolution at Cold Spring Harbor, NY. Davenport believed that socalled single-unit genes caused such traits as feeblemindedness and alcoholism. He thought that by keeping their carriers from reproducing the world could eradicate the problem. Advancing Galton’s theory, Davenport wished for human matings to be placed on the same plane as horse breeding. For prostitutes and their “innate eroticism,” as he called it, he advocated eugenic castrations. Historian Daniel J. Kevles’ In the Name of Eugenics (1985) covered the various philosophies found in the nineteenth-century fervor surrounding the strange movement. The early eugenicists identified human worth with the qualities needed to pass through schools, universities, and professional training. They were not alone. On both sides of the Atlantic, people (in the ruling class) felt themselves and
A solo drawing of Captain America, by Joe Simon.
Prof. Reinstein, I Presume? Eugenics, Simon, and Kirby, by Jerry Boyd their children’s future to be threatened. Some of America’s WASP ascendancy felt the country was taking a wrong turn by admitting so many Italians, Poles, etc. In Britain, members of the upper class felt they would be swamped and overly-taxed by the overbreeding of the lower orders. The ‘superior’ man had to assert himself while there still was time! He would have to establish new laws and re-invent himself— through science if necessary.
aptain America Comics #1: Two men step into a room of astonishinglysophisticated scientific machinery. The room is partitioned off by plate-glass windows behind which an eager group of intelligence agents and scientists shuffle anxiously in their seats while waiting to view “the fruits of their experiment.” The two men standing before them do not introduce themselves to their audience. One man is short, stocky, and his dark, long hair is streaked with white. He addresses the small crowd and his frail young charge, gently reassuring the volunteer and explaining his serum’s effects to the stunned onlookers as it takes hold. The Army-rejected volunteer literally grows before their eyes. His arms and shoulders grow heavy and thicken. Power surges through his growing muscles and his intelligence is immediately heightened. Somewhat taken aback himself by his success, the scientist recovers enough to issue a godlike “Behold! The crowning achievement of all my years of hard work!” Now he names his “Adam.” “We shall call you Captain America, son! Because, like you, America shall gain the strength and the will to safeguard our shores!” Whether the then-new team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby knew it or not, the very pivotal character of Prof. Reinstein was more than just a throwaway catalyst for a new character’s origin. He was actually part of a socio-scientific movement that had taken root prior in the consciousness of many nations.
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The Reign of the Supermen Some people have said that truly great creators have the gift of prophecy. I wonder if Siegel and Shuster had heard that when they were shopping the incredible concept of a character with supernatural abilities about. (Professors Reinstein and Horton were just around the corner. Joe Simon’s Red Raven is trained and made into a super-being by an advanced race of winged beings in Red Raven #1. Billy Batson, a superior boy, is selected by Shazam to hold superior powers. And it went on.) Shortly before comics exploded with a reign of their supermen, Aldous Huxley, in his 1932 novel Brave New World, imagined future childbirth as a very systematic process in which state-sponsored brainwashing would create a better social efficiency. (Huxley’s sociopolitical statement was obvious: If the government didn’t control the eugenics business, then a laissez-faire eugenics would emerge from the millions of parents making free choices and things might go crazy.) Huxley’s scenario made some sense then. Some American states were forcibly sterilizing the “feebleminded,” and Adolf Hitler had praised these policies in his book, Mein Kampf. (Hitler actually followed a list of distinguished individuals who gave eugenics their support: Darwin, Teddy Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, Alexander Graham Bell, the young Winston Churchill, and Calvin Coolidge, who declared during his vice-presidency that “Nordics deteriorate when mixed with other races.”) In the littered minds of the Nazi hierarchy, eugenics became a cause célèbre. The people they deemed ‘inferior’ became answerable to state policy and part of an intolerable situation the Nazis felt “raciallybound” to correct. They killed or jailed them. The mentally retarded
The Roots of Eugenics In centuries past, the ‘national or tribal superman’ began with an almost-mythical notion of what the superior man was all about. In almost all instances, he was highly intelligent, innately noble, articulate, loyal, and heroic. Physically, he was tall, lean, sinewy, possessed of animal-like quickness, and always superb in face and physique. The Germans had Siegfried, the ancient Israelites had King David and Samson, the English held Galahad and King Arthur in high esteem, and there were enough warriors, braves, shoguns, and others (real or imagined) for all the peoples in the world. “But how to increase the numbers of superior individuals?”, some came to ask. 16
were sent away to special facilities to be put to death. Many of the parents Goering, Himmler, and Hitler would’ve victimized embraced their new country and so did their children. Boys by the names of Eisner, Kane, Siegel, Shuster, Simon, and Kirby created “All-American heroes” named Colt, Wayne, Kent, and Rogers (among others). While Hitler was imagining his army of blond super-soldiers conquering the world, Jack and Joe embodied all Americans into one Private Steve Rogers as created, not by a mandated sociopolitical doctrine, but by a brilliant (Jewish?) European immigrant doctor who had embraced democratic freedoms and felt a need to contribute to his adopted land.
Steve Rogers took over the new Avengers and moved into the moreestablished Iron Man’s book, Tales of Suspense. The Marvel Comics Group hung in there with him and he began to grow on the readership again, thanks to the House of Ideas’ policy of getting their characters noticed in as many of their titles as possible. Cap showed up in the FF, X-Men, Spider-Man, and Sgt. Fury. The icing on the cake was Fantasy Masterpieces, which introduced younger Marvelites to Cap and Bucky’s Golden Age exploits by Simon & Kirby. (Someone at Marvel may have been nursing a grudge against Joe because the credits were never present on the reprinted stories.) To young comic enthusiasts of my generation, the Forties represented a vague notion of what WWII was all about, Three Stooges and Little Rascals comedies, and Universal horror movies that came on TV Saturday afternoons. Cap was the tie-in; the great legacy that linked the early days of graphic excitement to the present. The stories also showed the crude, yet passionate energy of Jack Kirby. This was where the genius began. Though FM was an all-reprint book, the stunning new cover art by Kirby and Giacoia, the comic relief of the blustering Sgt. Duffy, the tough Betty Ross, and the plucky heroism of Bucky Barnes made the title a must-have. Two years after the shield-slinger’s return, he was in complete acceptance by fandom and the earlier successes of Simon & Kirby were largely responsible. The old origin expanded during the Kirby-Lee years. The Red Skull even explained his beginnings to his captured nemesis on one occasion. “Super-heroes with super-problems” took over slowly from the old stern-jawed, ridiculously capable crimebusters of yore. Cap was among them, looking within and often. Stan renamed the good doctor “Erskine” for the ’60s. Doc didn’t get the introspection treatment but he got more lines and Cap finally got his powers outlined in a short but exciting novel from Bantam Books. Dr. Erskine was a
“Captain America represents us and he’ll fight for us. He’ll put his body across the line for us and the other super-heroes are the same way. They see us in a protective attitude because it’s an unfair situation between us and super-heroes, so in all fairness super-heroes have to come to our aid because we’re the underdog and we can’t possibly fight in their league. But in this fantasy, they represent us. They’re us. They do the things that we feel that we’d like to do.” Jack Kirby, 1983
Cap & His Doctor Golden Age characters always retain a certain charm. They’re always ready for anything as soon as they put on their outfits. S&K’s Manhunter, Rip Kirby, Sandman, Stuntman, and Captain America are all from the same mold. Stern-jawed, powerful, righteous in judgment, confident, they all have great deductive reasoning (making them fabulous detectives) and incredible fighting skills. (No one shows frail, unfit-for-duty Steve Rogers how to throw a punch but seconds after he receives that serum, he’s knocking out an armed spy.) Cap instantly becomes a fighting machine. Jim Harper, the Golden Guardian, never got close to a “magic elixir” in his origin but it’s tough to see Cap and him not fighting to a draw. They’re from the same mold. It was a great mold, though, and the team’s success reflected it. S&K’s characters (just like Batman, Dr. Fate, the Destroyer, and all the others) were never introspective. (That idea would come with a guy named Lee some two decades later.) Evil was present and they had to defeat it. “Safeguarding America’s shores” was how Reinstein put it and Winghead and his masked kid ally never veered from that purpose. Timely’s unwillingness to make the hot, young team a more profitable deal sent them over to National, and Cap—under Al Avison, Syd Shores, Don Rico, Stan, and others—continued to do well. The stories were still entertaining but it was clear that Jack and Joe’s followers were working from their blueprint. Cap continued to make short, stirring (Simon-like) speeches just before he and Bucky lowered the boom on their enemies. In a well-executed tale by Stan Lee and Al Avison (Captain America Comics #16) in which Cap and Bucky had been beaten, humiliated, and tortured(!) by the Red Skull, Cap declared near the story’s end (in a reference to Pearl Harbor), “I’m just like my country, Skull... I won’t be caught napping again!” The fast-producing team of Simon & Kirby (Jack estimated that sometimes they turned out as much as 6-10 finished pages in a day) were charting out new territories over at DC and the people ghosting their strips followed their unique brand of storytelling in much the same way Timely did. Despite ol’ Winghead’s popularity (and the legion of other super-patriots he inspired), he became just another crimebuster at the war’s end. Revived by Kirby and Lee in ’64, the starspangled Avenger wasn’t altogether popular at first. Older comics fans were thrilled by his return but younger readers felt the old boy just gummed up the Avengers. Complaints continued to mount when
Captain America by Kirby.
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More Than Your Average Joe Excerpts from Joe Simon’s panels at the 1998 Comicon International: San Diego Transcribed by Glen Musial, and edited by John Morrow (The following are combined excerpts from last year’s Joe Simon Panel and the Kirby Tribute Panel at Comicon International. Both panels were moderated by Mark Evanier.) MARK EVANIER: We are delighted to have Joe Simon at the convention this year. When I first met Jack, I started asking questions about Joe Simon. At that time, I didn’t know much about Joe—other than he was the other name on all those comics I loved. And the very first thing Jack said to me about Joe was, “Joe could do everything! Joe could write ’em, he could pencil ’em, he could ink ’em, he could letter ’em.” But the thing that he was most impressed about with Joe was that Joe could do the best covers—either he could draw them or he could just lay them out—and Jack felt that was what sold all those books—that the covers were the best-designed covers. That Simon & Kirby had a reputation for the best covers in the business and that Joe deserved 90% of the credit for the covers, even if he didn’t do the finished art. It was his sense of design, his layout that made those books sell—and Jack enormously respected Joe through the years. Now, as we all know Jack was not the greatest interview in the world and once or twice when he was interviewed people would get him mad—y’know you could push his hot buttons occasionally and make him mad about something; and sometimes he didn’t know the value of what he was getting mad at. He gave some quoted interviews where he said some things about Joe that he regretted; and he said to me—one of the last times I saw him—that he wanted to call Joe and apologize to him or interview someplace else and make up for it. He passed away before that could happen. A couple of days after Jack passed away, I was with Roz and she asked me to please try to tidy up a couple of those little things that had not been done before Jack passed away—a couple of legal matters and a couple of things— outreach to people that I’m in touch with. I got in touch with Joe and it was really one of the most wonderful things in my life to know this man. There are a few people in this world that we treasure their friendship, and we treasure the fact that somebody that has that kind of talent and influence in the business is your friend. And the more I learn about what Joe did for Jack in his career, the more I learn about what he did for Jack during all the years they were together; when, later on, Joe protected the rights to a lot of things that Simon & Kirby co-owned, he gave Jack his share—things a lot of people wouldn’t touch at the time. He voluntarily took the expense and the trouble to legally protect those things. I just—that’s why I really love this man. I want to tell you all that I am happier to have Joe Simon here than anybody who could be here this year except for Roz. Thank you, Joe! (applause) Joe, I know this is a tough question—can you remember the first time you met Jack?
Vagabond Prince page from Black Cat Comics #8 (Oct. ’47). Kirby supposedly penciled the odd-numbered pages of this story. (above) Joe Simon in 1998.
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JOE SIMON: It was at Fox Comics. I guess you all know about Victor Fox. He was a little chubby guy. He was an accountant for DC Comics. He was doing the sales figures and he liked what he saw. So, he moved downstairs and started his own company called Fox Comics, Fox Publications, Fox Features Syndicate, Fox Radio, Fox this, Fox that—and he didn’t have a staff there, but Eisner and Iger were supplying art and editorial material. I happened to get a job; I went over to Fox and became editor there, which was just an impossible job, because as I said there were no artists, no writers, no editors, no
Simon & Kirby and the Kid Gang by Rich Morrissey
Simon & Kirby’s first kid gang originated as an offshoot of their first great success, Captain America. Although not the first patriotic hero (Editor’s Note: Way back in TJKC #7, we were only able to print a few in comic books (he had been preceded by The Shield at MLJ), he quickly excerpts from this article, due to our limited page count. We’re pleased to became the most popular, thanks to excellent scripting and Kirby’s finally have this opportunity to present a much lengthier version of it here.) dynamic penciling. From the very beginning Cap had a boy sidekick, hile Jack Kirby is known for more innovations in the field of comic Bucky Barnes. Possibly added as an afterthought, Bucky was admittedly books than any other individual who’s worked in the field to date, inspired by the success of Robin the Boy Wonder, “the character find his earliest original concept—in that it introduced an entire subof 1940” added to Batman’s adventures by creator/artist Bob Kane and genre to the field that became immensely popular—was what came to writer Bill Finger. Many other heroes had also followed Batman’s lead be called the “kid gang.” Features with multiple protagonists were hardly in taking on young sidekicks, a few (like Hourman with his “Minute Men new, but Jack Kirby—together with his partner Joe Simon—introduced of America”) taking on more than one before the end of 1940. But not a take on them that, like Kirby’s Marvel work with Stan Lee decades until 1941 would S&K’s definitive take on the concept make its debut. later, influenced most subsequent comics that even touched on the idea. In Captain America #6 (August 1941), Cap and Bucky teamed up with some unidentified boys from Bucky’s class at school to battle the villainous Camera Fiend—who, in what seemed an unusual case of wish-fulfillment, proved to be the boys’ teacher in disguise! The story evidently impressed both the readers and the creators, because very soon after, Young Allies #1 (dated Summer 1941) appeared. Although not written or drawn by Simon & Kirby (it’s said to have been written by freelancer Otto Binder, with art by S&K assistant Al Avison), the two, as Marvel’s first editors, very likely were responsible for it, and supplied a series of splash pages for it. It carried the setup of the Camera Fiend story one step farther by teaming up Bucky with three specific other boys nicknamed Tubby, Knuckles, and Whitewash, also adding in Marvel’s other major boy sidekick of the time—The Human Torch’s young friend Toro. Avison, who also took over as artist on Captain America after Simon & Kirby left Marvel, continued to draw the Young Allies for a number of years. In the meantime, the success of Captain America hadn’t gone unnoticed elsewhere, and in late 1941 DC introduced its own patriotic pair, created by the company’s own star writer, Superman creator Jerry Siegel. While company policy refused to allow a hero to make his debut in his own title as Captain America had done, DC came close by giving The Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy several stories in each issue of the similarly-named Star-Spangled Comics. Siegel’s own contribution to the concept seems to have been the idea that the boy (rich Sylvester Pemberton) would lead the team and the adult (chauffeur/ mechanic Pat Dugan) would be his sidekick. Yet, although the stories featured a wide variety of unique villains like The Needle and some above-average writing, StarSpangled Comics didn’t really catch on— perhaps due to the less than stellar art of co-creator Hal Sherman. So, with Star-Spangled Comics #7 (April 1942), the title character was relegated to a secondary slot while new characters were introduced. DC had reached the reasonable A page from Star-Spangled #19 (April 1943). The name “Gashouse” would be reused later in Boy Explorers. conclusion that the best way to duplicate 54
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the success of a Simon & Kirby feature was with Simon & Kirby themselves, recently lured to DC from Marvel. “The Newsboy Legion, Starring The Guardian,” like “The Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy,” gave kids top billing over an adult super-hero, and the name might have been contributed by editor Mort Weisinger, who had always been fond of the word. (The Seven Soldiers of Victory, who starred in Leading Comics, were also known as the Law’s Legionnaires; many years later Weisinger would introduce the still-successful Legion of Super-Heroes.) But everything else in the feature was pure S&K. The Newsboy Legion wasn’t a group of middle-class kids like the Young Allies or the Minute Men of America, but a street gang of young orphans. Tommy, Gabby, Scrapper, and Big Words made what little money they had by selling newspapers, giving them their name, but they initially weren’t averse to augmenting their income by petty pilfering. The Guardian was literally just that: a young policeman named Jim Harper who had initially arrested the boys, but then saved them from reform school by getting himself appointed their legal guardian. At first the boys resented him, but, after Harper adopted the identity of a costumed hero to rescue them from hardened adult criminals, they became fonder of the cop, whom they didn’t know but frequently suspected to be the costumed Guardian. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first instance of a hero whose identity was regularly suspected by his supporting cast: Lois Lane didn’t begin to regularly suspect Clark Kent of being Superman—also in comics edited by Mort Weisinger—until some years later. The young protagonists, and the criminals and situations they faced, may well have been inspired by Page from Boy Commandos #3 (Summer 1943), “Cyril Thwaite Rides Again.” S&K’s earlier work on the Young Allies, With the Newsboy Legion as its lead feature (where it would remain as well as by influences outside comics. The late E. Nelson Bridwell has until #65), Star-Spangled Comics became one of DC’s more successful cited the then-contemporary Dead End Kids movies as a major influence, titles. The team’s next DC project combined the theme of the Newsboy and MGM’s Our Gang comeLegion with the wartime action Simon & Kirby had so enjoyed in dies, with a cast averaging a Captain America, but that DC policy had refused to allow until the few years younger than the United States had formally entered World War II. The Boy Commandos Newsboys, were still successwere introduced in Detective Comics #64 (June 1942), and, like the ful—but they were also Newsboy Legion, featured four boys and an adult mentor battling the rooted in the reality of the forces of evil, this time the Nazi hordes overrunning Europe. In a twist streets on which Kirby had perhaps inspired by the Blackhawk series Will Eisner and Chuck Cuidera grown up, with the wise but had created for Quality Comics, each boy represented a different Allied friendly adult mentor, as country: Alfy, Jan, and Andre from England, Holland, and France Ray Wyman has noted in respectively, with a tough American kid known only as Brooklyn The Art of Jack Kirby, reflecting (closely resembling a slightly older Scrapper) being the most prominent. the lessons of Kirby’s own Officially the mascots of a Commando unit under the supervision of Hal Sherman’s Star-Spangled Kid. boyhood. Captain Rip Carter, the boys saw more action than most adult soldiers, 55
Originally published in the low-distribution, subscriber-only Boy Explorers #2 (Sept. 1946). Reprinted here courtesy of Joe Simon.
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The Mainline Comics Story: An Initial Examination by and © Robert Lee Beerbohm f Joe Simon and Jack Kirby had not picked Leader News to be the comic book distributor for Mainline Comics—their ill-fated selfpublishing venture back in 1954—we might very well have witnessed them invent “The Mainline Age of Comics” by the time the 1960s Second Super-Heroic Revivals were in full sway. Mainline Comics most likely would have introduced us in some form to Challengers of the Unknown, The Fly and/or Spider-Man, The Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, quite possibly The X-Men, etc. Simon & Kirby would have owned whatever was created in the early ’60s, lock, stock, and barrel. Think about it. Leader News was also the distributor for Bill Gaines’ line of Entertaining (EC) Comics, and the self-publishing team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito issued such titles as Mr. Mystery (1951-1954) and Mr. Universe under MR Publications, Get Lost! (Feb-July 1954) under MikeRoss Publications, and many other titles through a still littleunderstood quasi-partnership with Stanley Morse. As we shall see, the fate of Mainline and other small independent publishers being distributed through Leader News was forever intertwined with Gaines’ high media profile line of New Trend titles which centered on the horror, crime, suspense, war, science-fiction, and humor genres. For more than a decade by 1953, the team of Simon & Kirby was
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Splash panel from Bullseye #2 (Sept. 1954).
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synonymous with betterselling comic books— actually, the word “phenomenal” would be much more apropos—so much so that Simon & Kirby was the first creative team to have their byline printed on the cover of comic books as a specific selling tool. Jack & Joe formed an equal partnership circa 1940, and for almost 20 years worked for many of the various comic book publishers, ofttimes creating some of that company’s star attractions before moving ever onwards to promised greener pastures. They broke into the comic book business through the sweat shops of Eisner and Iger, Lloyd Jacquet, etc. when a fully finished page brought a creator a mere $5 a page—if he was good. From S&K, Martin Goodman got his top-selling title back in 1941, Captain America, followed a few months later with The Young Allies, among many other classic strips, which sold over a million an issue through all of World War Two. He would renege then—and again 25 years later—on royalty compensation promises made while the business was being built. Joe Simon told me, “Martin Goodman lied to us. He cheated us.” (Martin’s relative Arthur Goodman said recently he now believes Simon & Kirby got a raw deal at Timely back then.) Team Simon & Kirby soon thereafter went from Goodman to Liebowitz (following a very brief pit stop at MLJ, where Jack—sans Joe—basically drew just one cover) with the promise of huge royalties based on the number of copies sold increasing in the titles they contributed to. They accomplished what they were anticipated to do: They spiked upwards nearly everything they touched. DC sold many millions of Boy Commandos, clearly demonstrating a noticeable sharp upwards rise on Detective Comics’ sales curve, prompting a breakaway title of its own dated Winter 1942. Joe told me, “All the service men were reading Boy Commandos. For a while, we were told by Jack Liebowitz that Boy Commandos was DC’s #1 book.” In addition to Sandman and Manhunter in Adventure Comics, they did The Newsboy Legion in Star Spangled. While they were away for the war they got substantial royalties from DC/National. The brash young team was easily
where the term “hot” was coined as far as a creator’s personal name stamp causing sales to go up— and they were very much in demand from nearly all the publishers they might want to work for. (This was not a phenomena of the later era of the Direct Market. S&K sold out far higher numbers consistently, even more so than Claremont and Byrne at the height of that shortlived team’s X-Men popularity and copy count salability, or the wunderkinden of the former Image Comics consortium in their pre-Image days at Marvel or DC—to give it an historical slant for you younger readers trying to comprehend the many myths of the comics business I have been seeking to unravel for several decades now.) Flush from victory after World War Two, and able to command a substantial profitparticipation in their books (between 25% and 50%), the creative team of Simon & Kirby (above) Splash from Bullseye #4 (Jan. 1955). (below) Detail from the same story, showing the kind of action S&K could add to westerns. basically created and then lucky publishers working with them. popularized the romance comics genre aimed at mainly female readers M. R. Reese, General Manager of Crestwood Publishing Co., Inc. with titles such as My Date, Young Romance, and Young Love. Innumerable wrote it thusly in the March 1952 issue of Newsdealer in an article romance-oriented knock-off titles from all publishers became legion. entitled “The Comics Are Growing Up”: S&K’s supernatural entries were Black Magic and Mort Meskin’s brainchild, The Strange World of Your Dreams. The crime genre was “...It remained for an astute observer to foresee the coming of the cycle covered by them in titles like Justice Traps the Guilty and Headline Comics. and to make future plans accordingly. A case in point is the team of The magic that was Simon & Kirby was making a lot of money for the Simon & Kirby. They are two artist-writers whose high flying, hard punching Captain America and Boy Commandos had already earned a prominent place among the other bestselling comic characters of their type. “It took a war to give Jack Kirby and Joe Simon a new perspective, a position where they could observe at close range the people who were reading comics—the boys who were now men and demanding comics for men. And it stood to reason 87