Number 2586: I read the news today, oh boy — boys can fight!

Newsboys, once a common sight in big cities, sold newspapers on the street. In the pre-television and pre-Internet days they hustled their papers to the many people on the sidewalk, morning and afternoon. Newspapers are becoming passé, and kids selling them on the street are gone. Jack Kirby and Joe Simon used newsboys as another kid gang. Their token adult was the Guardian, a civilian who put on a costume and used underage boys to help him fight.

The Newsboy Legion, along with the Guardian, were created in the early '40s and got cancelled later in the decade. Simon and Kirby also created Boy Commandos, which followed much the same arrangement of team members. A male adult, and some underage boys. I have always assumed the boys were meant to bring interest to teenage and younger boys who would identify with some kids their own age kicking the butts of criminals or America’s enemies. That feature also came to an end in the late '40s.

Jack Kirby could draw action, and perhaps it was about what he said a few times in interviews: when he was a kid he fought a lot. When people got socked in a Jack Kirby panel you know it had to hurt. In that way Jack could reminisce at the drawing board about the fists that had flown in skirmishes from his youth.

From Star-Spangled Comics #14 (1942):

Number 2579: The short-lived Stuntman

The story I have told once or twice over the years is that Stuntman, a comic book from Harvey Comics, written and drawn by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, was canceled over a glut of comic books after the war. Simon and Kirby moved on to Hillman, and then Prize. The latter publisher was aptly named. Simon and Kirby hit the prize with romance comics for Prize.

Stuntman may have suffered a bit by changing tastes among comic book readers. Stuntman wore his circus costume, then added a helmet and went from circus stuntman and daredevil to two-fisted costumed hero. The artwork is dynamic, but costumed heroes were passé, and if comic books truly glutted the market, then many potential readers might not have seen it. It is also possible the distributors didn’t give shelf space to a comic book with no sales record.

Harvey not only published the original Stuntman #1, but also reprinted “Killer in the Big Top” twice, in Black Cat #9 (1948), and Thrills of Tomorrow #19 (1955). What I think is precedent is the first page banner that asks the reader to “Save this first issue of Stuntman comics...it will be a valuable souvenir someday.”

From Stuntman #1 (1946):

Number 2549: Chain killer...another dope addict turned to murder

Red-Hot Blaze has the files on crime. He figures that the killer of one woman is actually the killer of four women, with consistency in the killer’s modus operandi from victim to victim. But, as Red-Hot tells his young unnamed pal (unnamed but for “sonny” and “kid”) he has the real clues in his files on who is committing those egregious crimes, a chain murderer, no less. Red-Hot says to the lad that he is sending the files to Headline Comics to solve the mystery. Golly gee, Mr Blaze...would sending the information to the police be a wiser choice?

(Was “chain murderer” used in the past to describe what is now known as serial killer? Or is the term a figment of Red-Hot Blaze’s imagination?)

The story, in the all-Kirby and Simon Headline Comics #24 (1947), ends up with some dope dissing, part of the tactics in those days to try and keep kids off drugs.

Number 2511: Those murdering Fleagles

Jack Kirby did a short history of the infamous Fleagle Gang, bank robbers. They robbed a bank in Lamar, Colorado, in 1928, and it's where their life of crime began to catch up with them. The story hits the high notes of the bank robbery and aftermath and is fairly accurate judging by other sources I have read of the Fleagles’ history. A gang member was shot in the jaw by the bank president as the bank was being robbed. Later, a doctor was called to treat the wounded man. Apparently the treacherous Fleagles' solution for not having health insurance was to kill the doctor when his usefulness was over.

Jack Kirby is credited with the artwork, but no writer is given. The 1947 issue of Hillman Publishing’s Clue Comics (Volume 2, Number 3, whole number 15), was the last issue.

 

 

Hillman’s “obscene” crime

I have been re-reading Greg Theakston’s Complete Jack Kirby books. In a volume on Kirby’s output in June-August 1947, several crime comics stories by Kirby and Simon are shown. A point Theakston made about Hillman Publishing, where Kirby/Simon art was published for a time after World War II, was that in 1940 a newsdealer who carried a Hillman black and white magazine, Headquarters Detective, was raided by police and all copies of the magazine confiscated. There was a law in several cities, including New York, that publications devoted exclusively to crime were considered obscene. The newsdealer went to jail, and it took a Supreme Court ruling in 1947 that there was uniform freedom of the press, even for publications that were devoted to lurid crime stories.

Theakston made a claim I have never before heard: “By 1947, one of every three periodicals sold in the United States was a comic book. This is an important statistic to consider when examining the war against comics.” Theakston then added, “Who stood to benefit by the condemnation of the comic art form? Using ‘follow the money’ logic we can dismiss the actions of mothers and fathers, teachers and librarians. The real enemies of the comics were the other media. Comics had cut deeply into the sales of movies, magazines and newspapers.”

Theakston did not use any footnotes to guide us to specific evidence his claim was true. I know comic books were big sellers, but were they one third of all American periodical sales? That I don’t know.

Sadly, Greg Theakston is not here to ask. He died in 2019, at age 65.
 

Number 2505: I shot the “sherriff”

The Bob Marley song, “I Shot the Sheriff,” is playing on my radio. The criminal in this story didn't exactly shoot the sheriff, but he tried.

This is another one of the “Red Hot” Blaze tales. “Red Hot” Blaze is a Simon and Kirby character, a freelance reporter who sells stories to Headline Comics. In this story he tells the story of a mystery: who shot Carl Nissen? Also, why is the radio playing loud dance music when the sheriff shows up at the scene of the crime?

For me, as former ninth grade spelling bee champion, the crime in this story is the constant misspelling of the word “sheriff” as “sherriff.”I grit my teeth to see the word misspelled several times. I don’t even know if I should blame letterer Howard Ferguson, or the person who wrote the script (perhaps Jack Kirby?)

Grand Comics Database attributes both penciling and inking by Jack Kirby. From Headline Comics #24 (1947):