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 2487: Kirby Unwanted

 

No, no! Jack Kirby is not unwanted, the story is “Unwanted,” and from Young Romance #10 (1949), drawn by Jack Kirby and inked by Joe Simon. Mona Carter, in the story, has just gotten out of prison. She promises the warden she’ll go straight, but stepping out of the joint and into freedom she is met by her old criminal boyfriend.

I think it was audacious of Simon and Kirby to go into love comics. They supposedly created the genre, but is that true? Were their love comics the first on the stands? Someone enlighten me, please. When I think of Jack Kirby and Joe Simon I think of running, jumping, and flying fists. Action! Despite a panel in the middle of one of the pages showing a shootout in a bank, it is a love comic, and romance is generally talk and tears.

 

Number 2482: “The five weapons that shook the world!”

I raised a smile on my face, even on a stay-at-home pandemic day. (I am writing this in September, 2020.)  Mrs Pappy and I watched the filmed Broadway musical Hamilton, and a few days later I found the above panel. That coincidence was enough reason to show the whole story. It is from a Boy Commandos tale, and beyond the Alexander Hamilton reference, the story seems a not uncommon gimmick story for DC Comics. A bad guy has collected weapons tied to famous people and events, and wants to use a machine gun to wipe out Rip Carter to give himself, and the weapon, notoriety.

The Boy Commandos were nearing the end of their run in 1940’s comic books. Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in 1942 as a group of boys fighting in World War II, it ended as a postwar boy gang having adventures with the sole adult in the group, Rip Carter, carrying on from the war years as their leader. Boy Commandos stories were published from 1942 until 1949. They appeared in their own comic book for 36 issues, as a backup feature for Detective Comics (86 issues) and World’s Finest Comics (33 issues) before they were bumped. It was a time of transition in comic books. The old costumed, super and urban heroes were giving way to other types of heroes, like cowboys and Wild West stories.

From Detective Comics #143 (1949). Illustrated by Curt Swan and Steve Brodie.