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)

Jack Rabbit & Lockjaw The Not-Dog

Sleep continues to grow more erratic, leaving me less and less functional between slumber sessions - what there is of them. But finally grabbed enough Zs to make words, so let's pretend this is Sunday Morning Funnies - even if the sun is setting in these parts.

A few years back, during the King Kirby 100, we got a gander at some of Jack Kirby's Funny Animal comics. Lockjaw The Alligator and Earl The Rich Rabbit ran in Punch & Judy Comics back in 1947. I kind of thought i'd ran them all, but apparently not. So here's another trio of tales from The King in a different style -

BTW - it's worth noting that Earl The Rich Rabbit debuted a year before Scrooge McDuck, so there's no copyrabbiting happening here...
 

Jack could have had a very different career path, no?

Now to go see if maybe caffeine and food will help...

page art by Jack Kirby from Punch & Judy Comics v.2 #s 11 & 12, v.3 #1 (1947)

No Candlesticks

Slowly finding my body again. While bod & brain get reacquainted, how about a little quick Jack to get the day rolling.

First, a couple of one-pagers from Jack Kirby - a bit different than one might be used to seeing, from the pages of My Date Comics...

In an entirely different vein, we've got another caveman comic, though this one is a bit younger than most, being both a boy and from way back in Captain America Comics #1 from 1941. Tuk, Caveboy appeared in four out of the first five issues of Captain America before going extinct. All were written by Simon & Kirby, but only the first installment was drawn by Kirby -

Damn. I'd have liked to seen Kirby drawing Atlantis here.
Ah, well...

I expect we'll be seeing more Kirby later today, if the ol' peripatetic mind can be herded. Otherwise, we'll continue our King Kirby Weekend on the morrow. But for now, i've got this overwhelming urge to read the run of Jack Kirby's Black Panther comics...

page art by Jack Kirby from My Date #s 1 & 2 and Captain America Comics #1 (1941, 1947)