Magazines I've Recently Read, February 26, 2024

 

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Comics I've Read Recently, June 3, 2022

 

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Recently Read: The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio, Edited by Mark Evanier

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. 

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Original Pencils and inks by Jack Kirby and Alfredo Alcala for Destroyer Duck

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Recently Read: Apama the Undiscovered Animal

Apama the Undiscovered Animal, created by Ted Sikora and Milo Miller, and illustrated by Spanish cartoonist Benito Gallego, is the superhero equivalent of a sugar rush. Reading the Volume 1 trade paperback, collecting the first five chapters, is like reading a more-adult, previously undiscovered, mid-to-late-'70s Marvel series, in the vein of Steve Gerber. Using a style uncannily like John Buscema when he inked his own pencils, Gallego captures and employs the kind of easy-going, flowing comic book storytelling that was once common practice. Ted Sikora's colors are also very fine.

The character of Apama has a long history I won't go into here (Google it). What's important is that the protagonists and villains are interesting, the origin provocative, the writing suspenseful. The book collection includes a look at Gallego's working process, essays and pin-ups (by the likes of Bob Burden and Sal Buscema). Looking at the website (http://www.apamanation.com/), I'm not seeing any new work posted since the publication, last year, of this collection, but I'm very much hoping the series continues and, as we used to hope in the '70s, goes on for a hundred issues.

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Comics I've Read Recently December 24, 2014

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Comics I've Read Recently, December 6, 2014

 

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