Eventized: A Michael Neno Blog: The Fly

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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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