The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio, edited by author Mark Evanier, is many things: it's a gorgeously designed coffee-table book (heavy enough to knock someone unconscious with), it's a nearly 400-page collection of scans of original art, and it's a roughly chronological record of the work produced by the famous studio (with an afterward by Jim Simon, son of Joe).
No one needs an excuse to study original Jack Kirby art, and most of what's been published here hasn't been seen by the casual reader or devout Kirby fan. It's fascinating to see the '50s censors eviscerating a harmless Boy's Ranch story, and to study the studio's productions methods (very little of Kirby's art needed white-out or adjusting).
The big news here is the amazing work by Bill Draut, penciling and inking in the school of Noel Sickles/Milton Caniff but, like Frank Robbins and Lee Elias, taking it to a different plateau. His crime stories printed here are a revelation. Doug Wildey, utilizing a lush illustrative style, Mort Meskin and Al Williamson also surprise and delight.
Reading a mixture of The Fly and Private Strong stories printed together remind the reader of how Kirby's DNA course through the entire history of comics. These stories use themes hearkening back to 1941 and would be revisited in the '70s series The Sandman and Machine Man (and one plot element may have influenced Steve Gerber's melancholy Omega the Unknown). The only small drawback, if a book this fine and essential can be said to have one, is that the stories written and drawn by Joe Simon alone are frequently incomprehensible. All in all, though, the book is emphatically recommended.
Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 1994 promo poster. Approx. 11 x 15 1/2", folded
to 7 3/4" by 11". Other Viz merchandise advertised on back. Very good
condition. $7.00 ppd.
Gone With the Wind. Charles Gerhardt conducting the classic Max Steiner
score. CD in like new condition. Record club edition. $8.00 ppd.
Lobby Cards: The Classic Films coffee table book. 1987, 175 pages, slick
paper, lobby card reproductions from 1919 to 1941, plus notes and a
forward by Joan Bennett. Nice condition; has dust jacket. Two small red
overstock marker dots on top and bottom of book. $12.00 ppd.
Classic Adventure Strips #4,
published by Dragon Lady Press in 1985. Features Buz Sawyer by Roy Crane
and Johnny Hazard by Frank Robbins. Magazine-sized, 64 pages, Very Good
cond. $7 ppd.
I accept PayPal payments on all the comics below, payable to: mneno@columbus.rr.com.
Classic Adventure Strips #4,
published by Dragon Lady Press in 1985. Features Buz Sawyer by Roy Crane
and Johnny Hazard by Frank Robbins. Magazine-sized, 64 pages, Very Good
cond. $7 ppd.
The Sixth Gun: Sons of the Gun #4. Near mint, $6.00 ppd.
Demon Knights #1-3, near mint, $10 ppd. for all three.
Reggie's Jokes #32. 1975. Fine. $6 ppd.
I'm not sure where this ('60s?) Sickles illustration first appeared (can anyone help me out?).
One thing that's clear, though, is that Sickles continued to grow both in technique and in influence as an artist.
Just as his loose, noirish, chiaroscuro-based style made its big impact on Milton Caniff in the '30s (culminating in the styles of Alex Toth, Frank Robbins, Lee Elias and so many others), so this '60s style predates and sets the stage for many of today's indie cartoonists of what could be called the Fantagraphics/New Yorker school, any one of whom could have drawn the figure at the top of Sickle's illo.
A classic comic strip logo by Frank Robbins.
