RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books JACK KIRBY: A tribute to the King...

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One of many photos of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby together, during their lengthy collaborative years from 1941-1958. After the extreme comics industry recession and market collapse in comics when the Comics Code began in 1955, Joe Simon apparently decided at some point to break up the partnership and try his luck in advertising illustration.



While Kirby made attempts at working for just about every comics publisher remaining in the late 1950's, working for DC initially from 1956-1958, on SHOWCASE, CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, HOUSE OF MYSTERY, HOUSE OF SECRETS, TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED, MY GREATEST ADVENTURE , and a Green Arrow backup series in WORLDS FINEST. Up till Kirby and editor Jack Schiff had a dispute over the "Sky Masters" newspaper strip, where Kirby sold it to a syndicate through Schiff's contacts, and then Schiff alleged Kirby shorted him on the compensation they agreed on. Schiff won the case when it went to court, and then Schiff blacklisted Kirby at DC and denied him further work after that, and Kirby did not return to DC until Schiff retired as editor there, and Kirby signed a contract to come back to DC literally the day Schiff left in 1970.

Kirby began doing the bulk of his work for Marvel in late 1958, and while not content at Marvel, he found the most work there. But also did work for Gilberton (CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED publisher) on their WORLD AROUND US series in issues 30-36, that Kirby found very tedious in the amount of historically accurate detail and art changes they demanded on the smallest of historical assignments.
At some point I learned that the reason Kirby suddenly found so much work at Marvel is that Stan Lee's primary and most prolific artist up to that time, Joe Maneely, suddenly died, and by chance Kirby approached Lee for work at precisely that time, and by arriving when he did, Kirby filled a huge void at Atlas/Marvel left by Maneely's death. Maneely apparently had very bad vision, and having lost his glasses one night, unable to see where he was going, fell between rail cars on the subway trying to get home.

In 1958-1959 between other work, Kirby did a last joint venture with Joe Simon, doing two brief series, ADVENTURES OF THE FLY, and
THE DOUBLE LIFE OF PRIVATE STRONG , both for Archie Comics.
https://viewcomiconline.com/the-double-life-of-private-strong-1/
https://viewcomiconline.com/the-fly-1959-issue-1/

And FIGHTING AMERICAN, previously 7 issues for Headline comics in 1954 , was partially reprinted in a a one-shot 1966 annual issue by Harvey (with some previously unpublished inventory stories.)

Also for Harvey, Kirby did a 3-issue series titled RACE FOR THE MOON, about astronauts in space, visually similar to Kirby's "Sky Masters" comic strip previously with Jack Schiff. Most interesting on a number of stories in these 3 issues, Kirby's pencils were finished by Al Williamson.
https://viewcomiconline.com/race-for-the-moon-1/

A few years later, Kirby did another one-shot issue in 1965, BLAST-OFF, that also had Kirby/Williamson art.
Despite producing an enormous amount of work for Marvel from 1958-1970, Kirby clearly was not content with his work situation a Marvel, and still produced a lot of other non-Marvel work, sampling the waters at just about every publisher during those years.



Joe Simon disappeared from comics for about a decade, then re-surfaced in 1968 with the notoriously awful BROTHER POWER THE GEEK 1 and 2, written by Simon, with art by some substandard artist I never heard of before or since, named Al Bare. Seeing is believing !
https://viewcomiconline.com/brother-power-the-geek-issue-1/

And then there was PREZ in 1973-1974 (scripted by Joe Simon, with Grandenetti art), that ran for 4 issues before being mercifully cancelled.
https://viewcomiconline.com/prez-1973-issue-1/



Simon and Kirby briefly rejoined for what was initially a one-shot issue in 1974 on SANDMAN issue 1.
A year later, continued by Michael Fleisher and Ernie Chan, who did issues 2 and 3. (with Kirby covers)
Kirby later joined writer Michael Fleisher on SANDMAN in issues 4-6, and an unpublished issue 7, "The Seal Men's War on Santa Claus", , that finally saw print in BEST OF DC blue ribbon digest 22, a 100-page collection of Christmas stories, in 1982.
And in xerox form, in CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE (in KAMANDI 61).
https://viewcomiconline.com/the-sandman-1974-issue-1/
https://viewcomiconline.com/cancelled-comic-cavalcade-002/
https://offthebeatenpanel.blogspot.com/2013/12/hidden-gems-sandman-saves-christmas-in.html

Simon also did several new series tryouts in 1st ISSUE SPECIAL in 1975.
THE GREEN TEAM in issue 2 (Joe Simon, with Jerry Grandenettti art).
And THE OUTSIDERS in issue 10 (again scripted by Simon, with Grandenetti / Flessell art)..
https://viewcomiconline.com/1st-issue-special-issue-2/
https://viewcomiconline.com/1st-issue-special-issue-10/
GREEN TEAM also had two more issues by the same creators that were never published, and ended up in CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE after the DC Implosion in 1978.
https://viewcomiconline.com/cancelled-comic-cavalcade-001/

Simon's work from 1968-1978 all lands squarely in the "so bad it's good" category.
But it has an odd charm to it.


But back in the day, in the 1940's and 1950's, the Simon / Kirby team were among the most sought-after comics creators.
And Jack Kirby, soon after the Simon & Kirby partnership ended , famously began his long collaboration with Stan Lee, and arguably both did the most acclaimed work of their careers on FF, THOR, HULK, AVENGERS, X-MEN, SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS, NICK FURY AGENT OF SHIELD, a revived CAPTAIN AMERICA series, and a ton of other new characters at Marvel.