Tag Archives: Joe Simon

Guarding the Legion

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It’s now Day 4 of Howard Simp­son’s month-long cel­e­bra­tion of Jack Kir­by! Open to all cre­atives, you can find the work on all social media plat­forms hash­tagged #Kir­b­yArt­Trib­ut­es.

Today’s prompt is the Guardian and the News­boy Legion! They’re anoth­er Simon and Kir­by cre­ation which clicked with fans, run­ning from their debut in Star-Span­gled Comics #7, all the way through issue #64.

The News­boys were a group of orphans who lived in Sui­cide Slum. Offi­cer Jim Harp­er became their legal guardian. Frus­trat­ed with red tape, Harp­er also adopt­ed the iden­ti­ty of the Guardian to fight crime off-duty in more direct ways than he could while on-duty. You can’t see much of it here, but the Guardian had a shield shaped like a badge, which he made very effec­tive use of.

Clock­wise from the Guardian cen­tered at the top are Big Words (in the glass­es), Scrap­per (in the cap), Gab­by, and Tom­my Tompkins.

Hope you enjoy, and maybe we’ll see you again here tomorrow!

Allied against the Axis

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We’re at Day 3 of Howard Simp­son’s month-long cel­e­bra­tion of Jack Kir­by on social media! Open to all cre­atives, you can find the work on your favorite social media plat­forms by the hash­tag #Kir­b­yArt­Trib­ut­es.

Today’s prompt is the Young Allies. I must admit that once you get out­side of Cap­tain Amer­i­ca, the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner, I am less famil­iar with the Time­ly char­ac­ters than I am with DC’s Gold­en Age offer­ings. Cre­at­ed ini­tial­ly by Joe Simon and Jack Kir­by, the Allies were a kid gang group that appar­ent­ly first appeared in the pages of Cap­tain Amer­i­ca under the name “the Sen­tinels of Lib­er­ty.” They proved pop­u­lar enough to be spun off into their own title. Simon and Kir­by did­n’t stick around for that long.

The Allies were anoth­er kid group who fought the Axis. Led by Cap­tain Amer­i­ca’s side­kick Bucky and the Human Torch’s side­kick Toro, the rest of the group (from upper left) includ­ed Hen­ry “Tub­by” Tin­kle, (-cringe-) “White­wash” Jones, Jef­fer­son “Jeff” Sandervilt, and Per­ci­val Aloy­sius “Knuck­les” O’Toole.

The Young Allies sto­ries haven’t been reprint­ed very much, and for good rea­son. If you both­er to dig up art­work online (like I had to in order to do this draw­ing), you’ll see why. Poor White­wash is treat­ed in this hor­ri­bly racist way in the strip. Not that the oth­er char­ac­ters appeared to be much more than a col­lec­tion of stereo­types either (the fat kid who’s eat­ing all the time, the tough kid who’s always look­ing for a fight, etc.).

Any­way, I hope you enjoy what I did with them. See you again tomorrow!

Commandos Calling

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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!