It’s Day 2 of Howard Simpson’s celebration of Jack Kirby on social media! I explained a little more about it yesterday. It’s basically open to all creatives, and if you want to find out what people are doing on your favorite social media platforms, you can use the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.
Today’s prompt is the Boy Commandos. They were a Simon and Kirby creation for DC Comics back in the Golden Age, and a big sales success that lasted well beyond WWII, running from 1942 all the way to 1949. Simon and Kirby had a lot of success with kid gangs. The Commandos were a group of orphans from different countries who fought the Axis, commanded by Capt. Rip Carter (upper right corner). At the very bottom left corner in the derby is Brooklyn (I don’t know if he was ever given a last name), and on his right is Jan Haasan from the Netherlands. Above them are André Chavard of France on the left, and to André’s right is Alfie Twidgett from England.
I hope you enjoy, and stay tuned for tomorrow’s drawing!
Yep. What a great idea to include the kids by the creators back then. Your vivid colors really set the memory of my mind afire. Copies of this title were still floating around when I was young. In the long forgotten process of “trading comics” back in the mid to late 50’s people still had one or two of the issues. I manged to have my hands on four or five issues for a time. Thanks Mark. It might be time to bring this team back to pull younger kids into comics. Thanks Mark
Glad you like it, Joe. Yeah, this was a real hit for DC back then. Evidenced by the fact they kept the title going well beyond the end of the War! It doesn’t surprise me to hear that there’d be back issues still floating around that late.
As to the color thing: I set a challenge for myself with all of these that I would stick to the limited color palette used in the comic interiors where these characters originally appeared. It was combinations of cyan, magenta and yellow in only 25%, 50% or 100% increments. That meant you only had 64 colors to work with! Kind of amazing when you look back, what some people were able to accomplish with such limitations.