Back Before Jack

To end our King Kirby Weekend, let's go back to the beginning. Back before Jacob Kurtzberg became Jack Kirby. 

In the first three issues of Jumbo Comics from 1939, Jack drew three different strips under three different names. They were all serialized in four page chapters, spread across three different genres. We had they mystery adventure series, The Diary of Dr. Hayward, drawn under the name of Curt Davis...

Using the name Fred Sande, Kirby delivered one of his first Westerns - Wilton of the West ... 

Okay. I lied in the title. It wasn't entirely "before Jack" since Jack Curtis is the name he used on the Literary Adaptation of Dumas' classic novel, The Count of Monte Cristo...

You might have noticed that there were only 8 pages on the last strip. That's because Kirby only drew the first two issues on that one. Interestingly enough, all three strips were taken over by the same artist - Lou Fine. (Oddly, even bizarrely, this seems to be the first time we've mentioned Lou Fine. That'll have to change.)

I believe Jack left the strips because that was when he hooked up with that Joe Simon fellow and the two of them decided to show everyone else how comics were done. But that's just top of my head thinking without checking actual dates.

page art by Jack Kirby from Jumbo Comics #s 1-3 (1939)

Getting Smoke In Your Eyes

I've herded those kittens i call a mind back towards posting, so let us see if TPTB will play along. I'm going to split today's post into two, just to lighten the image load. Working with no hard drive here - OS and files all on USB sticks. Combine that with the hate i've been getting from Blogger lately, and you might realize that i'm rambling mostly from fear-stalling the image uploads.

So, let's push on - and back to visit Munson Paddock once again. This time his artwork appears under the name of Joe E. Martin, but it's Munson. What first drew my eye to Smoke Carter is prominently displayed in the first splash panel. Leaning heavily into fluid brush strokes and stark contrasts, he adopted what could most appropriately be termed a 'smokey' style  for the strip...

Smoke Carter only appeared in the first six issues of Speed Comics. Since there's just a half dozen half-dozen page tales, we'll run them all. But, as noted above, i'm splitting it into two batches to alleviate postings struggles.

Here are the next two stories:

Next Time:
Crime With A Crawl
Death Races The Fire Fiend
and
Flames Lick The Stamp That Seals His Doom

Gotta love that 3rd title.

page art by Munson Paddock from Speed Comics #s 1-3 (1939)