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Contents

The Magic Of LEE &KIRBY, Part ONe!

OPENING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2(Lee & Kirby together again—andagain!)

UNDER THE COVERS . . . . . . . . . . . .3(inking some familiar faces)

CRIB NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4(a guided tour of Stan and Jack’sNew York haunts—be sure to wearyour comfortable shoes!)

RETROSPECTIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6(when Jacob met Stanley)

INCIDENTAL ICONOGRAPHY . . . . .11(you’re not getting older, you’regetting better)

THE MAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12(Stan Lee speaks!)

GALLERY 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16(a look at Kirby’s incredible inkersduring the Marvel Age)

JACK F.A.Q.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24(Mark Evanier’s on hiatus this ish,so we dug up one of his earliestpublished works to embarrass him)

TRIBUTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25(the 2008 Kirby Tribute Panel,featuring Jerry Robinson, and JoeRuby & Ken Spears)

ADAM McGOVERN . . . . . . . . . . . .34(Jack’s rock ’n’ roll influence)

GALLERY 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36(lost and found Fantastic Fourpages)

KIRBY OBSCURA . . . . . . . . . . . . .52(Barry Forshaw recommends morethings to spend your money on ina down economy)

JACK KIRBY MUSEUM PAGE . . . .55(visit & join www.kirbymuseum.org)

FOUNDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56(a silver bullet for your heart)

RETROSPECTIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62(Stan & Jack’s genre comics, pluscomments for the whole blamedMarvel Bullpen about Lee & Kirby)

QUESTIONABLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74(a game of “What If?”)

COLLECTOR COMMENTS . . . . . . .78

PARTING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80(Stan and Jack and the Surfer)

This issue is dedicated to the verydedicated Jerry Boyd, a man whoseenergy and devotion to comics historyand fandom leaves me in awe. - JM

Front cover inks: GEORGE PÉREZBack cover inks/colors: JOE SINNOTTFront cover color: TOM ZIUKO

The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 16, No. 53,Summer 2009. Published quarterly by &©2009 TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614,USA. 919-449-0344. John Morrow,Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $14 post-paid ($16 elsewhere). Four-issue subscrip-tions: $50 US, $60 Canada, $84 elsewhere.All characters are trademarks of theirrespective companies. All artwork is©2009 Jack Kirby Estate unless otherwisenoted. All editorial matter is ©2009 therespective authors. First printing.PRINTED IN CANADA. ISSN 1932-6912

THE NEW

C o l l e c t o rISSUE #53, SUMMER 2009

COPYRIGHTS: Ant-Man, Atlas Monsters, Avengers, Beast, Black Bolt, Black Knight, Black Panther, Black Widow, Bucky, Captain America, Captain Mar-Vell, Cobra, Crystal, Dr. Doom, Fantastic Four, Gabe Jones, Galactus, Giant-Man, Goom, Groot, Hate-Monger, Hawkeye, Hercules, Him, Hulk, Human Top, Human Torch, Iron Man, Janus, Ka-Zar, Kid Colt, Loki, Mad Thinker, Magneto, Modok, Mr. Hyde, Nick Fury/Sgt. Fury, Odin, Puppet Master, RawhideKid, Red Ghost, Red Skull, Sandman, Scarlet Witch, SHIELD, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, Sub-Mariner, Thing, Thor, Trapster, Two-Gun Kid,Wasp,Watcher,Wizard, X-Men, Yellow Claw TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. • Batman,Boy Commandos, Demon, Forever People, House of Mystery, In The Days Of The Mob, Losers, Orion, Robin TM & ©2009 DC Comics. • Sky Masters TM & ©2009 Jack Kirby Estate. • Black Magic, Fighting American, Win APrize, Young Romance TM & ©2009 Joe Simon and Jack Kirby Estate. • Captain 3-D, Hi-School Romances TM & ©2009 Harvey Comics. • Thundarr the Barbarian, Ookla, Video Rangers TM & ©2009 Ruby-Spears.

(above) They aren’t Stan and Jack, but these two men are responsible for the great Lee/Kirby creations of the 1960s. Who are they?Turn to page 2 to find out! (And then thank these guys!)

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hange of plans! This issue’s theme, “The Magic ofLee & Kirby,” came together nicely with the help ofJerry Boyd, Kirby fan and TwoMorrows Contributor Emeritus. But after assembling all the usual “must-have”

pieces for this issue—columns, galleries, Kirby Museum page, and this page, for what it’s worth—the usual problem set in: There justaren’t enoughpages to dojustice to thetheme! So likemany of thegreat Lee &Kirby epics ofthe 1960s, I’ve

decided to make this a two-parter, tobe “Continued Next Issue!” (as allthose last-page blurbs used to say).I hope you’ll be back for Part Twonext time.

Now, where do you begin to discuss a creative team as important to the history of comics as StanLee and Jack Kirby? At the beginning, I guess. Their first collaboration (if you’d call it that) was whenStan was the office boy at Timely Comics in the 1940s, and wrote a text filler page for Captain AmericaComics #3. But Jack was already teamed up with Joe Simon, and they both viewed young StanleyLieber (Stan’s given name) as more of an annoyance than a fellow creator, since Stanley spent a lot oftime sitting on desks, playing his ocarina, and distracting Joe and Jack from their work. (Reader StanTaylor has noted the memorable splash page in Captain America Comics #7, where the Red Skull iscausing chaos by playing a flute—he wonders if this was inspired by Stan’s antics.)

Simon & Kirby went on to produce a string of hits until the anti-comics backlash spearheadedby Dr. Fredric Wertham’s book Seduction of the Innocent took its toll on the entire industry. Joe and

Jack dissolved their partnership in the late 1950s after their company Mainline went under, and Jack was back to freelancing.But due to a dispute with DC Comics editor Jack Schiff over royalties for Jack’s Sky Masters comic strip, he became persona non grata at DCComics, which left Marvel Comics (then called Atlas, formerly known as Timely) and editor Stan Lee as one of his few avenues for work.(So, here’s a tip of the hat to Mssrs. Wertham and Schiff for inadvertently causing the formation of the Lee & Kirby team; without them,who knows if Stan and Jack would’ve ever crossed paths, let alone created so many classic stories and characters. I’m celebrating bothmen by featuring their mugs on Page One of this issue!)

The Lee & Kirby “team” didn’t really exist the way we as fans were led tobelieve in the 1960s Marvel Bullpen and letters pages. (For that matter, there

wasn’t really a “Bullpen” of Marvel artists and writ-ers, all working together in one big room, the way itwas depicted in the comics.) And as the 1960s drugon, the pair had less and less direct involvement, asboth men did most of their respective work fromtheir homes. As tends to happen with many creativesuccessful teams, disputes and animosities arose,and we’ve covered some of that in this magazine’sprevious issues. But the focus this time out is strictlyto celebrate their achievements, rather than exposeany hidden underbellies, or get caught up in a “whodid what”melee.Without either gent, the end resultwouldn’t have been the same, and almost certainlywouldn’t be as successful, or commercially viablesome 40+ years later.

So sit back and relive some of the triumphs ofStan Lee and Jack Kirby, from their earliest collabo-rations on Marvel’s monster and western yarns, tothe creative tour de force that was (and still is) theMarvel Universe. (And thanks to Jerry Boyd forhelping me wrap my head around these two issues,right down to this issue’s cover concept.)�

Opening Shot by John Morrow,editor of TJKC

(above)Stan and Jack share alaugh at a 1966 New Yorkcomic convention.

(below) Both men in the1970s, after they went theirseparate ways.

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Stan & Jack,TogetherAgain—Twice!

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by John Morrow

his issue’s cover is a bit of a “Brady Bunch” riff, utilizing a wide variety of mug shots of various StanLee/Jack Kirby characters, all taken from the Valentine’s Day sketchbook Jack did as a gift for RozKirby in the late 1970s. While Stan wasn’t involved in the creation of Captain America or the Red

Skull, those characters were major players in their 1960s work together, and Stan’s first professional comicswork was a text filler page in Simon & Kirby’s Captain America Comics #3 (May 1941). So it seemed only appropriate that Cap got the center “Alice the maid” spot.

When it came time to choose an inker for this medley of faces, I naturally tried to think of an artist who’s known for working on books that feature large groups ofsuper-characters. It took about two seconds for the name George Pérez to pop in my mind. George is known for his work on the Avengers, Teen Titans, and of courseCrisis on Infinite Earths, which featured practically every DC Comics character ever created. So I figured a mere 23-character cover image would be easy for him to ink.

Which remindedme of an e-mail Georgesent me back in 2008(presented here to giveyou an idea of the kind ofguy George is): “If there’sever an opening for someoneto ink a really heavily popu-lated Kirby cover, pleasekeep me in mind. It would bea real honor.”

The honor’s all mine,George! When he saw thepencils, he even askedwhether I thought heshould try to correct anyof the mistakes Jack made,as he didn’t want to bedisrespectful by “fixing”Kirby’s work. And in typi-cal Pérez fashion, heturned around the inks injust a few days. (Specialthanks to Mike Manley for“bluelining” the pencilsfor George to ink over.)Then, colorist Tom Ziukoand I felt that this piecewas crying out for a morebasic, 1960s-style colortreatment, so we chose a“big dot” effect, and Iworked up a similar lookfor photos of Stan & Jackto complete the piece.

Our back cover isboth inked and colored byJoe Sinnott, who shouldneed no introduction toreaders of this publication(but just in case you do,check out our MarvelInkers Gallery this issuefor a brief overview of Joe’scareer). In the 1970s, Jackdid this “Cisco Thing”drawing for Joe’s sonMark, and Joe added hisalways-lush inking to it, toproduce yet another stellarKirby/Sinnott collabora-tion. (As you can see, Joe’scoloring abilities are asamazing as his inking.)Thanks to Mark Sinnottfor sending this beautyin!�

Characters TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters,Inc.

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Under The Covers T

Crib Notes

A tour of Lee & Kirby’s New York, by Martin Bartolomeo

ny true fan of Jack Kirby, by now, has seen his 10-pageArgosy piece entitled “Street Code,” said to be Jack’s onlyautobiographical work. The work includes a double-page

spread which reflects most street photos taken at the time (circa1917), that of a busy and noisy street with too many pushcartvendors and crowds of people huddled together. This area isreferred to as Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where most immi-grants coming to New York found themselves in the early part ofthe last century. It is roughly bounded by East Broadway to theeast and south, East Houston Street to the north, and the Boweryto the west (although historically it included the Bowery,Alphabet City, the East Village, Little Italy, and Chinatown.)

The Kirbyfamily’s 1910Census addresswas 138 SuffolkStreet, but Jackwas born at 147Essex Street onAugust 28, 1917(this is the addresson Jack’s father’sWorld War I draftcard circa 1917).The family eventu-ally moved twoblocks over to 76Suffolk Street (at

the corner of Delancey Street and Suffolk Street, now containinga building under renovation, which is most likely not the originalbuilding either). Their 1920 Census address was 131 SuffolkStreet (at Rivington Street), indicating a lot of moving about, butalways within a few blocks of their previous address.

What was life like growing up there? It was rough for Jackand the family. Interviews indicate that Jack lived in the typicalapartment house of the time, the notorious “tenement” building.Tenements were mostly constructed, with few building coderules, in the second half of the 19th century. Three quarters ofManhattan residents lived in them (who were mostly of Jewish orItalian descent). Generally speaking, conditions in the tenementswere appalling by the standards of the time, and to modern dayNew Yorkers, almost unimaginable. Many of the tenements had

no steam heat, hot running water, nor even a toilet. Since bath-tubs were placed in kitchens, the lack of privacy tended to makeresidents go out to the public baths. Rooftops and fire escapeswere the only relief from the summer heat. A typical tenementflat was about 350 square feet (three rooms), which is the size oftoday’s typical one room studio apartment units.

Jack, a short and stocky scrapper, was a member of theSuffolk Street gang, one of many kid street gangs that foughtevery other gang that would come their way, and in one inter-view Jack expresses the fact that he actually enjoyed the almostdaily experience of street fighting. This rough-and-tumble mind-set greatly influenced his future writing and artwork. It camethrough in the Simon & Kirby collaborations of the “NewsboyLegion,” the Boy Commandoes and Boy Explorers and all throughthe Marvel Age and beyond (don’t forget the one-shot Dingbats ofDanger Street!). The streets also figured into the pages of theFantastic Four (Yancy Street) and the Fourth World (Armagetto).The cinema contributed to this genre, starting in the 1930s withthe Dead End Kids, later called the Little Tough Guys, later calledthe East Side Kids, and finally called the Bowery Boys.

Jack did everything he could in order to get himself and hisfamily out of the Lower East Side. His future was in his art. Earlyon, Jack became part of the Boys Brotherhood Republic, a localclub at 290 East 3rd Street which served as a haven to keep kidsout of trouble. (The “BBR” exists to this day.) He later workedfreelance, and did a relatively short stint at the Max FleischerAnimation offices at 1600 Broadway, as an in-betweener (Jackwould draw the in-between motion of the characters while thehead animators would draw the extreme poses). Later he workedfor Will Eisner, then located at 202 East 44th Street, and then forVictor Fox at Fox Studios (480 Lexington Avenue, Room 912 inthe same building as DC Comics at the time), eventually meetingup with artist Joe Simon.

The Simon & Kirby team were so prolific that during theirlunch hours at the Victor Fox company, they rented a studio inone of the buildings in the East 40s known as Tudor City Placeand moonlighted (between 1st and 2nd Avenues and between41st and 43rd Streets). They produced many innovative titles fordifferent publishers, with the following being each firm’s addressduring the 1940s: Prize Publications (also known as Crestwood)at 1790 Broadway, Harvey Comics at 67 West 47th Street, andmost notably Timely (later Marvel) at 330 West 42nd Street (theMcGraw Hill Building). In the second half of the 1950s, Jack didwork for National Periodical Publication (DC) at 480 LexingtonAvenue (currently at 1700 Broadway). Then Stan Lee came intothe picture.

Jack first met Stan around 1940, when Martin Goodman,publisher at Timely gave his relative, Stanley Leiber, work as anoffice “gofer.” Joe Simon was editor at the time, with Jack as artdirector. Stan started out better—at least in a finer neighbor-hood—than Jack, having been born on Manhattan’s upper westside. However, the Great Depression forced the family to relocatefurther north to Washington Heights (upper Manhattan). Heattended DeWitt Clinton High School up in the Bronx (at 100West Mosholu Parkway South and East 205th Street), a schoolwhich also graduated Batman co-creators Bob Kane and BillFinger. Stan wasn’t a scrapper like Jack, and led his young life abit of a loner, with his head in the books. He was very active inschool, typical of an extrovert, and was part of the law society,chess club, and the public speaking club among others (and wasnicknamed Gabby). Stan eventually became a writer by just“being there” at the Timely offices, waiting for his opportunity,and it finally came. He wrote the text pages for early issues ofCaptain America, the pages that nobody ever reads, which in turn

There Goes The NeighborhoodA

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Below: Lower East SideA) 138 Suffolk StreetB) 147 Essex Street (Jack’s

birthplace)C) 76 Suffolk Street (corner

of Delancey Street andSuffolk Street)

D) 131 Suffolk Street (atRivington Street)

E) 290 East 3rd Street(Boys’ BrotherhoodRepublic)

Next Page: ManhattanA) 1600 Broadway (Fleischer

studios)B) 202 East 44th Street

(Eisner & Iger)C) 480 Lexington Avenue

(Victor Fox Studios, whereJack meets Joe Simon;also National PeriodicalPublications/DC)

D) S&K Studio at Tudor CityE) Prize Publications (at 1790

Broadway)F) Harvey Comics at 67 West

47th StreetG) Timely (later Marvel) at

330 West 42nd Street (theMcGraw Hill Building)

H) Atlas Comics (Park Avenueand East 47th Street)

I) Marvel Comics’ 1960saddress (625 MadisonAvenue)

(right) Jack at work in the late1940s at his home studio,367 Congress Avenue, EastWilliston, NY.

(next page, top) Stan, aboutage 30, writing at his LongIsland terrace home at 226Richards Lane, HewlettHarbor, New York.

Retrospective

by Ger Apeldoorn

ecently, Marvel made headlines with a romantic comicseries about a couple of teenagers who meet each other at aholiday camp and get into serious trouble of the relationship

kind. The series by Mark Millar and Terry and Rachel Dodsonattracted all that attention because it is set ‘some years ago’ andthe main characters are called Ben, Richard, Mary and May, leav-ing open the possibility that this story is about the parents ofPeter Parker, how they met and maybe even how the futureSpider-Man was conceived.

The story we are about to tell here is just as surprising andfraught with emotion. It is about the parents of the FantasticFour, how they met and how they conceived an entire universe.

Looking For WorkMost books on Jack Kirby or his contemporaries make it

seems as if the period from 1955 till 1959 was one big step. He

set up his own company with Joe Simon and when that failed hewent to Stan Lee. Even Jack himself was guilty of that, puttingtogether all memories of those four years in one big lump. Thisarticle is an attempt to pull all those memories apart again andsee if a detailed look at the work Jack produced in that period cangive us a clue as to what was going on behind the scenes. Some ofthe stuff I came up with is pure conjecture, but all of it is at itsvery least not contradicted by what we know of the work, theperiod and the people involved.

We start in 1955, when the collapse of their publishing com-pany Mainline forced Jack Kirby and Joe Simon to break up their15-year partnership as a creative team. They sold some titles andinventory to Charlton and made a deal to produce at least oneissue of From Here To Insanity for them, but that was not enoughto live on. Joe Simon found work as an editor for Harvey and JackKirby had to find work on his own. He was immediately hired byJoe to produce some covers for the Harvey romance and war linesand some interior work as well as covers for their horror comicBlack Cat Mystery. This may have been a part of the deal Harvey

made with Joe Simon, or they may have not cared whoSimon hired. It is not clear if he did all those covers in onego or if they were ordered a couple each month. True Bride-To-Be Romances #19, published August 1956, has a Kirbycover about a trailer bride which does seem to belong to astory called “Trailer Bride” inside, but it doesn’t fit the storyin any way. It could have been drawn before or after thestory was written. Same goes for the cover forWarfront #34,published much later in September 1958. It seems to illus-trate the story “Tomorrow’s War,” but it has no connectionto that story other than the title. So they could have beendrawn all at once and assigned to different titles later—which doesn’t answer the question of why a story about atrailer bride would be in a title called True Bride-To-BeRomances, but comics historians can only explain so much.

At the same time Kirby went back to Prize and starteddoing romance stories for them again. Together with JoeSimon he had launched the whole romance trend, but atthis point most of the life was pressed out of it by the ComicsCode and repetition. Kirby kept doing these stories until thelate Fifties, so they formed a reliable part of his income, buthe was never challenged by them as he was earlier on, andas a whole they were not very interesting.

He also stepped up his efforts to get into the newspaperstrip business, starting all sorts of strips with different inkers.None of them were picked up, but it did get him some work,first as a temporary replacement for Johnny Hazard and lateron as penciler for Frank Giacoia’s Johnny Reb.

Still, that wasn’t enough. Or the Harvey work sloweddown. After drawing a full issue of Black Cat Mystery publishedin September 1956, it took the company a whole year to pub-lish the next issue. Whatever the reason, Jack Kirby decidedto go back to Marvel (or Timely, as it was called then).

Inventory StoryThis can’t have been easy. Joe Simon and he had not

left the company in the best of circumstances almost 15years earlier. After they had found out that they were notgetting their full share of the Captain America profits, theysecretly made a deal with DC to come and work there.While they were fulfilling their contract at Marvel/Timely,they were starting up the DC work on their lunch breaks.Stan Lee, who was at that moment no more than a young

When Jacob Met StanleyCompare the timidromance work Kirbydid for this cover toHarvey’s Hi-SchoolRomance #54 (Aug.1956, below, courtesyof Heritage Auctions)to the action-packedsplash page for thestory “UFO, theLightning Man” fromYellow Claw #3 (Feb.1957, next page).

Hi-School Romance TM &©2009 Harvey Comics. YellowClaw TM & ©2009 MarvelCharacters, Inc.

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guy doing odd jobs around the office and annoyingeveryone by playing his recorder, followed them to theirsecret hideaway. Years later, Kirby loved to tell the tale ofhow Stan found them out, how he promised not to tellhis ‘uncles’ and how he snitched on them anyway. A veryunpleasant meeting with the Goodman brothers was theresult and that led to their departure and years of badfeelings between Martin Goodman and Joe Simon. To goback to Stan Lee and ask for work, must not have beeneasy for Jack. He may not have had much reason to hatehim after 15 years, but he had no reason to respect himeither. But while people of his generation may have hadfeelings like that, they certainly didn’t dwell on them. SoJack went to Stan. And he may even have had a goodexcuse to make the situation a little bit easier.

This whole article started when someone on theYahoo Atlas Newsgroup mentioned that the first twostories Kirby did for Atlas (the name given to all Marvel/Timely titles because that was the name of the distribu-tion company also owned by Goodman) may have beeninventory stories from his Harvey run. These stories inAstonishing #56 and Strange Tales Of The Unusual #7 aresimilar to Jack’s Harvey work in subject and inking style.If Jack had done all his Harvey work in one go, maybeeven including those that weren’t published until a yearlater, he could have walked into Stan’s office with thosepages and said something like: “Hey, Stan. I did these forHarvey, but I don’t think they are going to use them. Isthere anything in there for you?” That certainly wouldhave made an awkward situation easier.

But is there any hard evidence for this, except for a similarity in style? Well,there always are the job numbers. At Atlas, all stories were given a job title, thatcan usually be found on the splash page (if the coloring or the printing hasn’tobliterated them). For the first 10,000 or so (actually slightly more) they consistedof four numbers. After that they consist of a letter and three numbers. Not all let-ters were used and there are some instances known of numbering going over 999,but all in all it is a great way to track the stories for collectors. The numbers weregiven out by the Atlas staff for keeping track of the payments, of course. Theywere given out with story assignments to the writers or when they came in, butthey give a rough indication in which order certain artists did certain stories aswell. So how can we use them to tell us something about the supposedly inventorystories Kirby did for Atlas?

Well, if Kirby brought in the two stories together, completely drawn andwritten, they would have to have consecutive numbers. When asked in the AtlasNewsgroup, Doc Vassallo provided the numbers for all stories Jack Kirby did inhis mid-Fifties run at Atlas (above).

As you can see, Kirby did quite a bit of work for Stan Lee in a short period. IfKirby was expecting trouble at Atlas, he certainly didn’t get it. Stan Lee knew agood thing when he saw it and gave Kirby a couple of plum assignments. We arenow familiar with the idea of Kirby and Lee working together, but it wasn’t allthat logical at that point. Kirby had just come from a long period of workingtogether with Joe Simon. He hadn’t had any big successes in a while. Stan Lee hadmore than enough artists. And still he took Yellow Claw away from his favoriteartist, Joe Maneely, and gave it to Jack. When that didn’t work out, he put him atwork on a couple of western titles of his own. Stan Lee was a smart man.

And he bought two inventory stories and gave them the next two job numbersavailable: K-651 and K-652.

Not only that, he also gave him a war story to do: K-282. This was one of thescripts that was laying on his desk, so the numbering is lower than that of thehorror stories, even though they are all published at about the same time. It can’thave taken Jack more than a week to deliver that war story, so that makes sensetoo. But the job number list tells us more.

The Yellow ClawTwo other story numbers are close to the numbers the old Harvey stories

got: K-663 “Mystery in Cabin 361!,” which was the second story in Yellow Claw #2,which was published at the same time as Astonishing #56 and Strange Tales Of The

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KIRBY MID-1950s ATLAS STORIES courtesy Dr. Michael VassalloJOB # ISSUE DATE TITLE PAGESK-282 Battleground #14 Nov 1956 “Mine Field!” 5 pagesK-651 Strange Tales of the Unusual #7 Dec 1956 “Poker Face!” 4 pagesK-652 Astonishing #56 Dec 1956 “Afraid to Dream!” 4 pages

K-915 Yellow Claw #2 Dec 1956 “Concentrate on Chaos!” 5 pagesK-663 Yellow Claw #2 Dec 1956 “Mystery in Cabin 361!” 5 pagesK-648 Yellow Claw #2 Dec 1956 “The Yellow Claw!” 4 pagesK-868 Yellow Claw #2 Dec 1956 “Temu-Jal...The Golden Goliath 5 pages

L-67 ? Yellow Claw #3 Feb 1957 “The Microscopic Army!” 5 pagesL-68 Yellow Claw #3 Feb 1957 “The Yellow Claw Captured!” 4 pagesL-69 Yellow Claw #3 Feb 1957 “UFO the Lightning Man!” 5 pagesL-70 Yellow Claw #3 Feb 1957 “Sleeping City!” 5 pages

L-181 Quick-Trigger Western #16 Feb 1957 “The Vengeance of Growling Bear!” 4 pages

L-391 Yellow Claw #4 Apr 1957 “The Living Shadows!” 5 pagesL-392 Yellow Claw #4 Apr 1957 “Five Million Sleep-Walkers!” 4 pagesL-393 Yellow Claw #4 Apr 1957 “The Screemies!” 5 pagesL-394 Yellow Claw #4 Apr 1957 “The Thought Master!” 5 pages

L-907 Black Rider Rides Again #1 Sept 1957 “The Legend of the Black Rider 7 pagesL-986 Black Rider Rides Again #1 Sept 1957 “Duel at Dawn!” 6 pagesM-40 Black Rider Rides Again #1 Sept 1957 “Treachery at Hangman’s Bridge 6 pages

M-480T Gunsmoke Western #12 Sept 1957 “No One Can Outdraw Him!” 5 pages

M-526 Gunsmoke Western #47 July 1958 “Trouble in Leadville!” 4 pagesM-615 Gunsmoke Western #51 Mar 1959 “The Raiders Strike!”M-556 ? Kid Colt Outlaw #86 Sept 1959 “Meeting At Midnight!” 5 pages

Stan the Man talks about the Lee and Kirby super-teamsInterview conducted by Jerry Boyd

(Stan Lee is considered by many to be comicdom’s greatest editor (andyou can add this fanzine contributor to that list of supporters) for notonly his sterling work in overseeing the Marvel Age of Comics, but hispure instincts in gathering/nurturing talent as the de facto art direc-tor, and his wonderful dialogue and concepts.

A hero was a true hero under Lee. Whether it was Kid Colt or theRawhide Kid seeking to redeem themselves for their youthful indiscre-tions by taking down the unredeemable outlaws of the Old West, orPeter Parker fighting off his insecurities to launch himself into a battleonly Spider-Man could win, Stan taught his readers responsibility,strength through adversity, and triumph over pain and loss. The workwasn’t just entertaining, but also inspiring.

With “King” Kirby, Mr. Lee co-created three super-teams (five ifyou count the Howlers and SHIELD—and this time out, we’ll includethem). During the 1960s the Lee and Kirby team (a super-team in

and of itself!) would not onlyinvigorate the medium butshow all the difficulties pos-sible for driven individualswith supernatural assets (superpowers and super problems).

Stan’s very busy these days,but he has our thanks for graciously

taking time out to do this new question-and-answer session for the Jack Kirby

Collector. This interviewwas conducted by e-mail in

March, June, and September of2008 and transcribed by IrvingForbush.)

THE JACK KIRBYCOLLECTOR: TheFantastic Four camefirst. At a casualglance, you haveReed Richardswho’s all of the

tall, square-jawed, pipe smoking

scientists in the sci-fi films of the 1950s. Johnny’s atypical rock-and-roll loving, hot rod obsessed youngster.Sue’s the domesticated, Code-approved blonde bomb-shell, and Ben’s an atomic age monster. Were any ofthese comparisons in your thinking or Jack’s as youbegan work on the title?STAN LEE: I can’t speak for Jack, but you hit the nail onthe head. Your descriptions are just as I thought ofthem, and just as I wanted them. On top of Jack’s otherincredible talents, I think he was also able to read mymind—and then improve on what little he found there.

TJKC: Did the success of the Fantastic Four surprise you?STAN: Yes, but not very much. I personally liked thebook so much that I’d have been surprised if it hadn’tbeen well received.

TJKC: I remember you having Reed threaten corneredvillains with lines like, “Talk! Or I’ll turn you over to theThing!!” Sometimes Mr. Fantastic would have torestrain Ben from doing bodily harm (see FF #3 for oneexample) to a beaten baddie. But by the sixth issue, Bengot a real sense of humor and was becoming more‘cuddly.’ Did you and Jack feel he had to be toned downa bit?STAN: Yes. (How’s that for exercising verbal restraint?)

TJKC: You came up with exceptional supportingcharacters. Did you look at DC’s Justice League of America,

for example, and take note that their supporting casts weren’t verystrong and then made sure your line-up provided alternatives?STAN: Truth to tell, I don’t remember ever reading any JusticeLeague comics, although I occasionally thumbed through them tosee how the artwork looked. I wouldn’t have had any idea whotheir supporting characters were.

TJKC: The FF truly became a family after Sue and Reed got married,making the Torch and Mr. Fantastic brothers-in-law, and Ben agodfather after little Franklin was born. Before that, there wasromantic tension involving Namor—a love triangle. Did you everconsider scrapping the marriage to keep that angle going ormarrying Reed and Sue off to other characters?STAN: No. From the beginning I intended for Reed and Sue tomarry. But it was fun letting Namor have a crush on her. I eventoyed with the idea of Dr. Doom wanting to take her away fromReed, but somehow I never seemed to get around to that.

Meanwhile, At Avengers Mansion...TJKC: The Avengers’ success came out of the individual successesof Ant-Man and the Wasp, the Hulk, Thor, and Iron Man. Wasthis title as much fun for you and Kirby to do as the FF ? Or was itmore difficult—due to you having to maintain continuity betweenthe Assemblers as a team and as solo acts in their own series?STAN: I can’t speak for Jack, who never seemed to have troublewith anything art-wise or plot-wise, but as for me, I preferred

(above) A rarely-seen1960s photo of Stan Lee,hard at work in his Marveloffice.

(below) This AstonishingAnt-Man piece was drawnby Jack and Dick Ayers forpromotional use in theearly 1960s.

(bottom center) Customhead shots done by Kirbyfor the 1970 Marvelmaniasticker set.

All characters this spread TM & ©2009

Marvel Characters, Inc.

Team PlayerThe Man

12

Gallery 1 Marvel Age of InkERS

Charles Eber “Chic” Stone(January 4, 1923 – July28, 2000)

Chic Stone broke into comicsin 1939 at age 16, workingfor comic-book packagerEisner & Iger. In the 1940s,he worked on the originalCaptain Marvel for FawcettComics, and Boy Comics forLev Gleason Publications. ForTimely Comics, he con-tributed to Blonde PhantomComics, Joker Comics, AllSelect Comics, and KidKomics.

He left comics during the1950s to become an artdirector for magazines, butreturned during the 1960s towork for the AmericanComics Group (ACG) onAdventures into theUnknown. At Marvel Comicsin the 1960s, he inked Kirbyon Fantastic Four, X-Men,The Mighty Thor, and numer-ous covers.

Later he freelanced for DCComics on Batman, occa-sionally ghosting for artistBob Kane. He pencilednumerous stories for TowerComics’ T.H.U.N.D.E.R.Agents, worked on Nemesisin ACG’s Forbidden Worldsand Unknown Worlds, plusdid work for Dell Comics,Skywald Publications’ black-and-white horror magazines,and in the late 1970s and1980s, he worked for ArchieComics, including its “RedCircle” and “ArchieAdventure Series” superherolines. Stone was inking forMarvel as late as The MightyThor #321 (July 1982). In theearly 1990s, he drew com-missioned art in Silver AgeKirby-Stone style for salesthrough dealers.[source: en.wikipedia.org]

(this page) Journey IntoMystery #106 splash page(July 1964).

TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Stan Lee paired Jack Kirby with some exceptional inkers during the 1960s at Marvel, each lending a unique style to his pencils. Here are some of the best.Scans courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

16

byJohnMorrow

17

Paul J. Reinman(September 2, 1910 -September 27, 1988)

Paul Reinman enteredcomics in the 1940s atAll-American Comics(which later merged intoDC Comics) working onsuch characters as theGolden Age Green Lantern,Wildcat, The Atom,Starman and WonderWoman. He also workedfor MLJ on the BlackHood, the Hangman andthe Wizard. Golden Agework for Timely Comicsincluded Human Torch andSub-Mariner stories inCaptain America Comicsand elsewhere. He workedin other genres forMarvel’s 1950s predeces-sor, Atlas Comics.

In the late-1950s,Reinman became a fre-quent inker of Kirby’s workin Strange Tales andJourney into Mystery, aswell as on the espionageseries Yellow Claw. Hewould eventually ink Kirbyon numerous landmarkMarvel books, includingIncredible Hulk #1, X-Men#1-5, and Avengers #2, 3and 5.

In 1965, Reinman andJerry Siegel created TheMighty Crusaders forArchie Comics’ short-livedsuperhero line. He alsoproduced work for theAmerican Comics Group,and remained activethrough at least the mid-1970s, penciling Ka-Zar#1 (Jan. 1974) and assist-ing John Romita on thepencils of Amazing Spider-Man #132 (May 1974).[source: en.wikipedia.org]

(this page) Journey IntoMystery #102 “Tales ofAsgard” splash page(March 1964).

TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

(Conducted Sunday, July 27, 2008, at 10 a.m. as part of Comic-ConInternational: San Diego, and featuring comic book legend JerryRobinson and animation producers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears.Kirby attorney Paul S. Levine was also present on the panel, but timerestrictions limited his input. Moderated by Mark Evanier, andtranscribed and edited by John Morrow.)

MARK EVANIER: In honor of Jack Kirby, will you all please setyour cell phones on “explode.” (laughter) This is the annual JackKirby Tribute Panel, so inevitably I’m Mark Evanier. (applause)I’d like to apologize for the hour; I do not make the schedule forthis convention, I just live in it. We’re gonna divide this intothree chapters. The first part is going to be a brief rambling byme, kind of a “state of Kirby” speech. Then I’m going to haveannouncements, and if you have a Kirby-related announcementyou’d like to make, that’d be the time to do it. The third part iswe’re going to be talking to these gentlemen about Jack andtheir relationship to him. Let me introduce them to you.

On my immediate left is one of the great legends of thecomic book business. People have been coming up to me forseveral days at this convention, saying, “I can’t believe I just metthe guy who created the Joker, and drew all those neat Batmanstories.” When they gave the Bob Clampett HumanitarianAward to this man, that’s what it was meant for. When theygave it to me, they made a mockery of it. (laughter) This is Mr.Jerry Robinson, ladies and gentlemen. (applause)

As we’ll discuss when we get to Act Three of these proceed-ings, Jack had a lot of career turmoil in the late 1970s and early

1980s. He felt very alienated from the comic book business. Hewas unhappy in it for a number of reasons—not the least ofwhich was that it was still the comic book business after allthose years. He found an escape route; Mister Miracle managedto get out of the comic book business and the prison that it wasfor him, and worked very happily in animation for many years.He worked very happily for these two gentlemen, who had andstill have a very fine animation studio named Ruby-Spears.These are Mr. Joe Ruby and Mr. Ken Spears. (applause)

On the far end is the Kirby family attorney. Jack had twowonderful lawyers working for him during the original art battlewhich you all know about, and some of the other battles hefought. Now this gentleman represents the Kirby Estate andmany other people you know, even me. This is Mr. Paul S.

Levine, folks. (applause)I’m going to start this by talking at some length about Jack,

and a thought that occurred to me. A lot of people here did nothave the opportunity to meet Jack; that’s one of the reasons wedo these panels, so those of us who did can pass on that won-derful little glow we got from being near the man. When youmet Jack, you might come to him and say, “I want a sketch ofthe Thing” or “I want an autograph.” What you got that wasmost valuable—he usually wouldn’t do a sketch for you. Hewould sometimes autograph, depending on how his drawinghand was at the time. But what you got from Jack, if you wereperceptive enough to receive it—which many people werenot—was always a philosophical concept. Because the mostvaluable thing Jack had, even more so than his ability to drawgreat looking monsters and such, was a perception.

You’ve heard me talk or write in the past about how Jackpredicted this and that. People have asked me if he had psychicpowers. I don’t believe in psychic powers; if I ever did I wouldbelieve that Jack had them. I still don’t believe people have psy-chic powers, but I do believe that some human beings on thisplanet are just smarter than other people, and some of them aremore perceptive than other people, at least in certain areas.Those of us who knew Jack can itemize areas where he was notperceptive; this is a man who could not drive a car because hewould drive off the road inevitably. But when it came to grandvisions of the future—where something was going—he didn’tknow where he was always going, but he always knew where thefuture was going. One of the concepts Jack gave me to think

about a lot—he’d throw out new ways of looking at it over theyears—was something that might be called “the passing of thetorch.” I met Jack in July of 1969; it is scary to me—and one ofthose thoughts I can’t quite wrap my brain around—that at thatpoint, Jack was younger than I am today, by a couple of years.He seemed old to me; not old in a bad way. He seemed like anadult, an experienced guy with years and years on him, and Iwas this stupid, geeky kid who knew too damn much aboutcomic books, and look where it’s got me. (laughter) And I don’tfeel like I’ve changed, but obviously something has changed.

This is my 12th panel of this convention, and I have five ina row today. It dawned on me as I was looking at my schedule—the next panel in this room is a tribute to a man named DaveStevens. Dave was even younger than I am, and we lost him this

2008 Kirby Tribute Panel(below) Left to right,that’s Jerry Robinson,Joe Ruby, and KenSpears. Photos by theincomparable ChrisNg, who’s always onhand to snap shotsfor our use; thanks asalways, Chris!

Tribute

25

year. We also lost a friend of ours—a friend ofJack’s, who we’ll be talking about a little later today,because he worked with Ruby-Spears a lot—namedSteve Gerber. It is stunning to me that I am presidingover memorial services for people like this. It’s onething to post on my weblog that Creig Flessel hasleft us; Creig Flessel was what, 94? It’s sad when youlose these people, but 94 is not a bad age to go thesedays. (laughter) In your fifties—Steve Gerber wasjust barely 60—that’s kind of jarring, especially forthose of us who are 56 years old. (laughter)

I’m conscious of the fact that Jack was one ofthe few guys when I got into comics in 1970, whoreally embraced that idea that it was time for hisgeneration to step aside, and a new generation totake over. There were lots of people in comics wholoved the fans, as long as they stayed fans. Theunspoken sentiment, or occasionally spoken by acouple of people out loud, was, “You’re not here toreplace us, you’re here to appreciate us. You’re hereto support us, you’re here to buy our stuff, you’rehere to slobber over us. But you’re not going toreplace us.” Jack’s attitude to every new kid who cameto him was, “Welcome to the business. It’s going tobe yours any day now.”

One of the comics Jack did at the time I firstknew him was a book called The Forever People. Ofall the comics that Jack did during our association,where I feel that I have a certain understanding ofwhat he was going for, the one that I think leastcame out the way he intended was The ForeverPeople. He was having a lot of trouble with New GodsandMister Miracle, because he was getting all thisstrange input from different sources, and he hadtoo damn many ideas to cram into too few issues.But in Forever People, what he envisioned was notthe comic he did. Forever People—you can see someof this between the panels, and it’s in some of thepanels—was a book about the passing of the torch.It was about how the Old Gods had to step aside tomake way for the NewGods; not because they wantedto, but because that’s just the way it works. Jackquoted to me one time a line that was, I think, attrib-uted to William F. Buckley, who also just passedaway. It said, “The job of a political conservative isto stand astride history and yell ‘Go back in theother direction.’” (laughter) And Jack’s answer was,“What a stupid idea,” (laughter, applause) if for noother reason than that it never works that way. Even

if you want it to, it doesn’t work that way. So Jackwas very supportive in an amazing way, of the newgeneration.

I met Dave Stevens at Jack’s house around 1971,and Jack was encouraging him. Now, Jack encouragedeverybody. You could come to Jack with the worstartwork in the world, and Jack would say, “You’regreat! Keep at it! Keep working hard!” (laughter)Because even though he might not believe in yourartwork, he believed in energy, and youthful enthu-siasm, and human spirit, and he believed that itshould never be squashed or discouraged. So therewas no way Jack ever discouraged anyone. But Jackhad two kinds of encouragement. He had theencouragement he gave to everybody off the streetwho came to him with stuff scrawled on the back ofloose-leaf notebook paper—these bad tracings ofFin Fang Foom. “You’re great! Keep at it!” And hehad the encouragement he gave to people with gen-uine talent—the encouragement he gave to DaveStevens, the encouragement he gave to Scott Shaw!,

the encouragement he gave to a girl namedWendyFletcher, who’s now known as Wendy Pini. And itwas a different kind of encouragement, in manycases an encouragement not to get into comic books—not to think that inking Spider-Man was a life goal.Jack would say to them in various permutations thephrase, “I’ve done about as well as you can do incomics, and it ain’t all that fabulous.” On one ofthese panels years ago, Wendy Pini said Jack, whenhe saw her work, said, “If I catch you working forMarvel, I’m gonna spank you.” (laughter) Becausehe believed that so many other things were possible.He was very frustrated that, for him, working at DCand Marvel were the only options for so long, untilhe met people like Joe and Ken here.

I have no real finish for this, other than itseemed like an appropriate thing to mention,because after this is over, we’re going to have to sithere and talk about Dave, and Dave was a guy Jackwas very proud of.

We have in the room a person or two who are

26

Mark Evanier moderated the panel.

actually related to Jack Kirby, but in a certain sense we areall second cousins and nephews of this guy.

You know the reason we do these panels? I like spendingan hour with people who are smart enough to appreciateJack Kirby. (applause) If you want to get applause in a room,you just compliment the audience. (laughter, more applause)Anyway...

To the extent that I can leave you with a philosophicalconcept the way Jack always did—and I’m nowhere near asgood at it as he was; nobody is as good at it as he was—ifyou stay for the Dave Stevens panel, or you have to leave andyou can just think about Dave and Steve Gerber and peoplelike that, remember that the future only works in one direc-tion. One of the geniuses of Jack was that he was alwaysrunning out to get ahead of everybody. He would take youback to World War II gladly, but he didn’t want to live there.It was a cautionary note; World War II was a very importantmetaphor in Jack’s life, so it couldn’t be forgotten, the wayyou shouldn’t forget the Holocaust, or you shouldn’t forgetthings that destroy people’s lives, and their world, and makesure you don’t replicate them—because God knows we don’twant to get into an unnecessary war again. (groans fromaudience, laughter) The thing that you need to remember, ifyou think about Jack, was there’s always a bigger picture,and the world keeps expanding, and getting bigger. And theonly way to aspire to what Jack did is try to keep getting outin front of it, and being ahead of everybody. In Jack’s case, hesometimes got a little too far ahead of everybody, but thatwas what I thought I should say today at this panel. Thankyou. (applause)

We are now going to segue to the Kirby Announcementssection; I have a couple. One is that Lisa Kirby, who couldnot be with us today, wanted you to know that there isanother volume of Jack Kirby’s Galactic Bounty Hunters in theworks, coming soon to a bookstore near you. We are sohappy to see the new work being done in the Kirby traditionand the Kirby name, the Kirby milieu.

Last year on this panel I was sitting with Neil Gaiman,and we got to talking about our favorite work, and Neal andI share a mutual love for a book Jack did called “The Losers.”There was a gust of enthusiasm in this room for “The Losers,”and in the back of the room, a man named BobWaynehauled out his Blackberry, texted DC and said, “We’ve gottareprint ‘The Losers’ next.” (laughter) DC is going to reprint“The Losers” next. (applause)

I have a prediction I have made—and please understandthis is my prediction; it’s not an official announcement—that everything major Jack ever did will be in print withinfive years. They’re going to get to it, and we’re going toannounce a few more before time is out here. The onlyexceptions might be things like 2001 or Justice Inc. where

therewerelicensingissuesinvolved. I suspect even those will eventually be surmounted. My prediction does notinclude those, although it would not surprise me if those were out there. He is ascommercial as he’s ever been; the books that Jack did that were considered failures atthe time are now hits; this is the most amazing legacy to remember about Jack.

I am now going to play Oprah here, and segue out into the audience. I’d like you tomeet Jack’s grandson Jeremy. (applause)

JEREMY KIRBY: Hey, how’s everyone doing? (applause) On behalf of the whole family,I’d just like to thank everyone for being here; it’s great to see the panel growing in sizeevery year. So on behalf of the entire family, including my sister who’s about to givebirth, we all say “thank you,” and it’s heartfelt. Really, thank you so much. (applause)Of course, Mark Evanier who puts this on every year, this is just amazing. We love him;he’s just as much a family member as I am to my grandfather, so thank you Mark.(applause) And the other panelists up here, thank you, guys. We appreciate it, and I’mexcited to hear everyone speak. (applause)

(previous page) DaveStevens’ gorgeous inksand colors, which weran as the centerfold ofTJKC #19.

(above) Splash pagepencils from Our FightingForces #154 (April 1975),featuring the Losers.Check out DC’s newLosers hardcover collec-tion for some of Kirby’sbest 1970s work.

Captain America and Bucky TM &©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. LosersTM & ©2009 DC Comics.

27

Jack’s grandson, Jeremy Kirby.

Gallery 2 FF Lost & Found

36

In 2008, Marvel Comicsreleased Fantastic Four: TheLost Adventure, wherein

editor Tom Brevoort brought tofruition his grand plan of gettingStan Lee and Joe Sinnott togeth-er to complete all the Kirbypages we’d assembled fromJack’s rejected story, originallyplanned for FF #102. Parts of ithad been rejiggered and sand-wiched together with JohnBuscema art to make FF #108,after Kirby had already leftMarvel for DC in 1970. But Tomhad seen the pencil pagereassembly we’d attempted herein TJKC, and figured it would becool to present it in finished formfor the world to see.

Only problem was, try as wemight (and believe me, I did!),there were still one full page andrandom panels missing fromJack’s original story. So Marvelhad Ron Frenz draw some bridgeartwork to fix the gaps where themissing art went, and with JoeSinnott’s inks, it held togetherpretty nicely. I highly recommendyou pick up a copy if you haven’talready.

But as luck would have it, ashort while after Marvel releasedFF: Lost, the missing pencil pagefrom that story surfaced, and I’mdelighted to present it as thisissue’s centerfold. And in thespirit of the Thor reassembly wedid last issue, I figured it wastime to re-present our detectivework on this lost issue at largersize than we’ve run it before.Enjoy!

If you know the whereaboutsof the remaining missing panelsof Kirby pencil art, please let usknow, so we can eventually getthe complete story totallyreassembled. �

Fantastic Four TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters,Inc.

A regularcolumn focusingon Kirby’s leastknown work,by Barry Forshaw

A MUST FOR YOURKIRBY LIBRARY

I know times are tough. Most of uslive in a heightened nervous

state, not sure whether or not we’ll havejobs tomorrow—so we’re perhaps less

inclined to splash out on luxury purchases.But even if you have to go without food, any

self-respecting Kirby aficionado will need to buyThe Best of Simon and Kirby, which has just

appeared in a sumptuous hardback from Titan Books.(Actually, the book is reasonably priced—and isn’t

really a bank-account-busting item.) This is the firstvolume in The Official Simon and Kirby Library, the only

collected editions authorized by Joe Simon and the estateof Jack Kirby, showcasing the work of the most acclaimed

creative team in the checkered history of the comics medium.Painstakingly overseen by Joe Simon himself (and studded

with his observations and behind-the-scenes revelations), thisbumper-sized, glowingly full-color hardcover boasts some ofthe most striking stories ever told in the graphic medium,lovingly restored by Simon & Kirby historian Harry Mendryk.Compiled by editor and friend of Joe Simon, Steve Saffel, thecollection showcases the team’s groundbreaking work inevery genre of comics, including super-heroes, science-fiction, war and adventure, romance, crime drama, westerns, horror, andhumor, and each section is accompanied by a brand new intro-duction by Kirby Collector’s Mark Evanier (whose own Kirby:King of Comics is a necessary adjunct to this book). The choiceof material reprinted here (while mostly exemplary) is open toargument, but more on that later.The Best of S&K sports the duo’s most famous characters,

notably Fighting American, Stuntman, and TheFly, along with choice

selections fromsuch groundbreak-ing titles as BlackMagic, Justice Trapsthe Guilty, and theindustry’s firstromance title, YoungRomance. There are alsopieces from the team’syears at Timely Comics:“Captain America and theRiddle of the Red Skull”(from Captain AmericaComics #1, March 1941) and“The Vision” (from MarvelMystery Comics #14, December1940), along with two storiesfrom their move to DC Comics:Sandman in “The Villain fromValhalla” (from Adventure Comics#75, June 1942) and “Satan Wears aSwastika” (from Boy Commandos #1,Winter 1942).As you may have noticed from this column, I consider some of Kirby’s finest work to be done for such

companies as Harvey in the 1950s, and I’m naturally a little disappointed that the glorious Race for theMoon is represented by only one story—and though “The Thing on Sputnik 4” is excellent, it’s by nomeans the best work the team did on the title (I’d have sacrificed one or more of the earlier, cruderpieces S&K did in the 1940s—full of energy, but lacking the finesse of their later work). However, theriches here are abundant, and the large format does total justice to the matchless artwork. Even if you

Barry Forshaw

House of MysteryTM & ©2009 DC Comics.Fighting America, YoungRomance, Win A Prize TM &©2009 Joe Simon & JackKirby Estate.

Looking for inexpensivereprints of the storiesfeatured this issue? Sorry,Win A Prize #1 and #2(1955) haven't beenreprinted, but House ofMystery #85 (April 1959)was reprinted in DCSpecial #11 (March1971).

52

Obscura

Foundations Black-&-White Magic

n late 1950, YoungRomance and YoungLove were already very

successful monthly titlesfor Simon & Kirby. Butromance comics weren’tthe only successful genreon the stands; horrortitles like Tales from theCrypt were also making asplash. Simon & Kirby’sBlack Magic beganpublication in late 1950,competing against ECtitles later consideredsome of the best comicsever produced.

If you compare thisstory to Young Romance#30, both cover datedFebruary 1951, the dif-ferences are remarkable.While the YoungRomance story is veryformulaic artistically, “ASilver Bullet For YourHeart” is Simon & Kirbyfiring on all eight cylin-ders. All you need do islook at this splash to seetwo men raising theirown artistic bar to newstaggering heights. Thismay also be one of thefirst uses of KirbyKrackle (see page 7 ofthe story).�

Art reconstruction, color,and commentary byChris Fama

I

56

If you enjoy these amazing vintage Simon & Kirby stories, look formany more of them—in full-color—in Titan’s Best of Simon & Kirby

(out now), and the subsequent follow-up volumes coming soon.

TM & ©2009 Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estate.

An overview of the Lee and Kirby forays into fantasyby Jerry Boyd

imon and Kirby had made a commendable effort into self-publishing, but the comic landscape of the mid-’50s wasrapidly changing, and their titles, while memorable and oftenwonderful, didn’t garner the readership of earlier successes at

Timely and National.From Here to Insanity, Fighting American, Black Magic, and

others had to fight for exposure on the overcrowded newsstandsand spinner racks. Newer readers were taken with EC Comicsand the pressure of PTA groups and socio-political watchdogshad been a threat to creativity that made many creative types gointo hiding, or advertising… wherever their talents could thrive.

Jack Kirby was still determined to go on to new heights inthe comic industry. Like other cartoonists, he had to be shakenby the angry backlash that spawned the Comics Code and its(sometimes ridiculous) restrictions, but he’d weathered worsetrials. He’d survived the Great Depression, and the combat zonesof Western Europe near the end of WWII. He’d get through this.

The King had to contemplate the stability of hisreordered field and decide which company orcompanies could best serve his needs and that ofhis growing family.

His clients in the latter part of the decadewould include Harvey, Atlas, Charlton, and DC,

but a conflict with Jack Schiff would eventually exclude the latter.Charlton paid less than any other publishing house and theirdistribution was shaky. Harvey was marginalizing the type ofheroic adventures Jack was keenly adept at, and would come tobe dominated by funny animals and funny kids and funnierdevils, ghosts, and witches, etc., as time went on.

Martin Goodman’s Atlas Comics wasn’t a top payer either,but Goodman had weathered the storm also, so Kirby went totheir offices and shook hands with Stan Lee, the sole editor-in-chief of the comic line in 1955, and began doing stories. By 1961it would pay off handsomely in terms of stability and creativityand take both men into a universe neither one could’ve seen inthe making at the time they began work together.

Monsters, Aliens, and Robots—Fantasy As You Like It!

The moviegoers of America were tantalized by monstersthroughout the ’50s, but with television sets becoming moreprevalent by the end of the decade, something slightly differentwas in the air.

Television stations were hungry for product to fill the air-waves. Movie studios, finally realizing that TV was here to stay,decided to play ball, and sold their film libraries to these stationsand networks. Old movies (and even ones that weren’t that old)got shown on “The Late Show” and “Afternoon Theater.” (In mynative North Carolina, a local station from the city of Durhambroadcast a “Jungle Theater” in the early ’60s that specialized inany old feature with Tarzan, Jungle Jim, and so on in it.) Othersfocused on horror, sci-fi, and fantasy films. Their gore-shockswere banned in comics, but welcome to squealing young viewerswho’d never seen such cinematic thrills before.

Was Stan influenced by any of this?“Of course we were,” he told me by e-mail. “We were influ-

enced by everything that went on around us…”Journey into Mystery, Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish, and Tales

of Suspense all began as horror and science-fiction anthologies inthe 1950s. But if youngsters were running to movie houses to seetowering monsters like Godzilla, Konga, and Gorgo (just to namethree), then Stan would give ’em toweringmonsters. Giant creatureswere Code-proof. Stan had done them before the comic watchdogshad come around, so it’d be a simple matter to continue them.

This time, Lee had the makings of what would be the“founding fathers of Marvel” with him. Steve Ditko, Don Heck,Joe Sinnott, Paul Reinman, Vince Colletta, Larry Lieber, DickAyers, and Jack Kirby became the new regulars on these monsterbooks and others. Taking a cinematic cue from “The Late Show,”Kirby drew an astonishing amount of brutish behemoths thatcame from within the earth’s innermost recesses, beyond thegalaxy’s farthest reaches, and wherever else his collaborationswith Lee would place them!

Martin Goodman’s company once (before the infamousAtlas implosion—see Kirby Collector #18) put out plenty of comicmagazines. But the Code, lowered sales, and Goodman’s distribu-tion deal with competitor DC left the line-up depleted. Happilyfor Jack and Stan, the four aforementioned monster books andadditions Amazing Adventures (which began in 1961) andWorld ofFantasy (1958-59) were there to add to their paychecks.

Though letters columns were not de rigeur during the late’50s at Atlas, Stan noticed that the distinctive styles of Ditko andKirby were drawing readers in. Kirby got more cover assignmentsand the two artists often shared space in the same mags. Ditkooccasionally inked Kirby’s pencils. This winning combination

(below) “Groot,” oneof a seemingly end-less stream of would-be world-conqueringmonsters from Lee &Kirby. This splashpage is from Tales ToAstonish #13 (Nov.1960), with inks byDick Ayers. Otherartists did monsterstories, but few did’em as eye-catchingas the King.

(next page) Detail of ahard-riding Two-GunKid from Kirby’s finalissue of the character,#62 (March 1963).

Characters TM & ©2009 MarvelCharacters, Inc.

S

Genre ComicsRetrospective

62

was not lost on Stan, who continued this “Marvel team-up” into the ’60s.The formula of the monster books was fairly simple. A formidable creature

would, in the course of 6-8 pages (or a expanded multi-parter, if Jack and Stanreally wanted to stretch out!) announce his designs on conquering our haplessworld. As the tension and action mounted, a tall, lean, pipe smoking (a pipesmoker was automatically believed to be a ‘wise man’ in the ’50s/early ’60s)scientist/doctor/researcher would discover a way to utterly defeat the diabolicalgiant and restore order. (David and Goliath were at play here.) The gargantuanhulks usually towered way over the Earth people they encountered and were sosure of their eventual triumphs that they gloated with supreme confidence alongthe way. And then the Lee and Kirby team defeated their aims through their pipesmoking proxy, and often through simple ruses.

Stan was so obviously taken with the EC Comics-style “twist ending” that hadserved Al Feldstein, Bill Gaines, and Johnny Craig so well in their wildly success-ful horror, crime, and sci-fi yarns years earlier, that he made it a point to endmany of his stories the same way. Diablo, for example (Tales of Suspense #9), was agigantic smoke-thing, seemingly impervious to harm. Though he sent thousandsinto panic-mode by blanketing large areas with his dark vapors, one imaginativehuman made him go far away just blowing out the smoke from his cigarettelighter and announcing he’d do the same to Diablo, unless….

“Spragg, Conqueror of the Human Race!” (Journey IntoMystery #68) mass-hypnotized his human slaves into building hismountainous frame a huge platform from which he could movebeyond Transylvania (that’s right, Transylvania) and subju-gate all of mankind. The hero, putting his pipe aside, wasable to fight off the hypnotic powers of his enemy andinstead set the platform’s controls to jettison Spragg far outof Earth’s atmosphere forever. Other creatures were similarlyoutwitted by “puny humans.”

Sometimes these yarns became morality plays.Aliens from beyond weren’t always despotic innature or would-be rulers of earth dwellers. In “AMartian Walks Among Us” (Strange Tales #78),the sinister Martian invasion scout is thwartedby a benevolent Venusian, who just happensto be our unheralded, unseen aide. Tales toAstonish #30’s “The Thing from The HiddenSwamp” told of a plain but pleasant-temperedspinster who does a good deed for an alienstranded in a bog, spacecraft and all. Forhelping him, er… it, she’s rewarded withbeauty to match her selfless compassion forothers. Good things happen to good folks.

Robots could be good and bad in Stanand Jack’s worlds. “Mr. Morgan’s Monster”(Strange Tales #99) was a sophisticatedhumanoid created to convince a skepticalpopulace that robots could still be benefi-cial to society. Morgan kept his intimidating(but inwardly heroic) creation hidden until thetime to unveil him was right. Unfortunately, some ofthose pesky outer space power seekers came to our world andtried to seize Morgan’s invention to learn its secrets. The creaturefought back. He held out long enough for the sleeping townspeople to rally andinvestigate the noises of the strange battle. The aliens, thwarted, scurried to theirstarships, escaping without the “monster.” Sadly, Morgan’s girlfriend tells himthat since his creation was found in the streets outside of its safe haven (where itwas ordered to remain), it has proved its “unreliability.” The monster’s energyfading, its last actions reveal… a lone tear. In just a few pages, Jack and Stan couldpull on your heartstrings as well as any team in the business.

Other robots, however, were out for themselves. In “Beware! He Isn’t Human!”(Journey Into Mystery #77), an egotistical movie monster maker creates a robot todestroy a woman who’s jilted him. Twist ending—the woman’s a robot, also, andthanks to the movie man, she’s got her ideal mate. The two humanoids edgetoward the special effects man until he falls out of an open window.

Lee had a ball with the names of his co-creations. Zzutak, Gor-Kill, Titan,Rorgg, Lo-Karr, Orrgo, Fin Fang Foom, the Creature from Krogarr, Trull, Moomba,Groot, Monstrom, Sporr, Kraa, Bruttu, Goom, Oog, and Googam, Son of Goom(!) were all monikers to give readers reason to pause! (Ditko, Heck, Ayers, and

others got their fair share, as well.)Kirby told Comic Scene Spectacular in ’92, “It was the names of the monsters

that struck me funny. It would be names like ‘Bazoo.’ It was that kind of time—the 1950s, when the adventure stories weren’t selling. But horror always sells.”

Stan recalled, forMarvel Spotlight: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (2006), “I thinkwith the monster stories that I did with Kirby, those crazy titles, I think there Iwould just say, ‘Jack, get a guy who crawled out from under a rock and he’s 20 feettall and we’ll call him Gazoom and we’ll…’ and then he did the rest of it, and I putin the dialogue.”

Time travelers offered all types of possibilities, also. Some journeyed forwardinto the future for knowledge or power. Others sought to use their knowledge todominate the past. Lee sent Heck, Ditko, and Kirby out to visually imagine thevariations on that H.G.Wells-type theme. Sorcerers and fantasy tales had to borderon the fantastic and away from the realm of vampires, werewolves, and zombiesthat had helped create the Code. Dr. Druid (born “Droom”), in Amazing Adventures,was somewhat of a precursor to the forthcoming Dr. Strange.

With Rod Serling’s exemplary TV hit The Twilight Zonegarnering critical and audience applause, Jack and Stan’svariations on the “situations monster-ous” were also worthyof accolades in the early ’60s. The creatures the menconceived of could be formulaic or they could havedepth, reason, and angst. The time for one-dimen-sional ho-hum style storytelling in sequential art

could be discarded and improved upon, if only it wasexecuted properly.But how? And in what genre? The monster titles were

solid sellers for Atlas, but the Kirby-Lee team grew a littletired of them as the ’50s gave way to the ’60s. Their monsters,aliens, futuristic spacemen, and robots could be good and theycould be evil, but there was only so much the guys could do

with this particular genre. Any othercreative prospects would have to presentthemselves elsewhere. Still, for themoment, Jack had to be somewhatpleased. Five full years had passed sincethe Comics Code had transformed the

industry, but Jack had found work within its restrictiveperimeters and made a new niche for himself. Atlashad solid winners in their monster/mystery line-up,and he was a large part of its success.

Western GunsmokeShortly after the end of the American Civil War, a battle-

weary nation turned its eyes to its western frontier. Manycitizens packed what they had left after living through fouryears of the national conflict and left their war-ravaged regionsfor a fresh start. Once again the west seemed the place to go,farm, and find riches, and the promise of excitement and adven-ture co-mingled nicely into that prospect.

The frontiersman had been a subject of fascination sinceDaniel Boone and Andrew Jackson captured their young nation’s

attention in the early 19th century. Trailblazers like Kit Carson and DavyCrockett followed. But it was Wild Bill Hickok, who was interviewed in Harper’sMagazine a few years after the war, that sealed the deal. Hickok, a former Unionscout and Pony Express Rider, came off like a longhaired, buckskin-wearingsuperman who’d already mastered the sweeping vistas, wild animals, and warriorIndians of the Great Plains and beyond. The fact that Hickok was also a dangerousgunman only added to his reputation.

Wild Bill was the template for the legendary gunfighter where myths, lies,and truth converged in plays, pulps, and Wild West shows eagerly consumed byAmericans who wanted to feel good about the promises of their country again.After Hickok, stylish gunmen/gamblers like Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, andWyatt Earp would emerge. And then there were the ‘kids.’ There was a real TexasKid, a real Apache Kid (Atlas had non-Kirby stories about these two), theSundance Kid, and the biggest of them all—Billy the Kid.

Stan edited or wrote as many gunslinging kids into his western books forAtlas as possible. For the aforementioned special ish ofMarvel Spotlight, the Manlater recalled, “It’s funny, my publisher, Martin, he loved the word ‘Kid.’ I mean

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Parting ShotDavid Folkman submitted this wonderful sketch, about which he said: “Jack gave me the Silver Surfer softcover graphic novelhe and Stan did together and drew the pencil sketch on the opening blank endpaper. Stan signed it for me when he attendedour National Cartoonist Society Los Angeles chapter holiday brunch at the Friars Club in Beverly Hills, 1997.”Silver Surfer TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #53THE MAGIC OF STAN & JACK! New interview with STAN LEE,walking tour of New York where Lee & Kirby lived and worked,re-evaluation of the “Lost” FF #108 story (including a new pagethat just surfaced), “What If Jack Hadn’t Left Marvel In 1970?”,plus MARK EVANIER’s regular column, a Kirby pencil art gallery,a complete Golden Age Kirby story, and more, behind a colorKirby cover inked by GEORGE PÉREZ!

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