Before Lee & Kirby...there was
Simon & Kirby!As we mentioned in our entry on
The Blue Bolt, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were the first "super-team" in comics!
In fact,
their names on the cover were a
selling point at a time where most creators labored in anonymity!
Yes, I know
Siegel & Shuster came
before them, but their fame was based totally on
Superman. (Admittedly one hell of a creation [and multi-media sensation], but still, a single character!)
On the other hand,
Simon & Kirby created dozens, if not hundreds of characters and series, many of whom had astonishingly-long runs for the mayfly-lived comics business! A number of them (particularly
Captain America) are still going strong today!
The new book about them,
The Best of Simon & Kirby, certainly lives up to it's title!
Edited by Joe Simon himself, and with intro and info from Mark Evanier, a tv / film scripter, comics historian, and both close friend and co-worker with Jack Kirby from the late 1960s until his untimely passing, the book is a must-have for anyone with...
1) interest in comic books (particularly the Golden Age)...
2) a need to know how sci-fi / fantasy creators come up with all those nifty ideas...
or...
3) a burning desire to gaze at page after page of lovingly-restored and reproduced comic stories (Many of which have NEVER been reprinted!)
Best of all, it's the FIRST in a projected series of S&K tomes, each one covering a
different genre (And S&K hit ALL of them, so there's A LOT of material to re-present!)
The Best of Simon & Kirby would make a helluva Father's Day or graduation (elementary, junior high, or high school) gift!
And to make it even
better, why not combine it with a kool
Atomic Kommie Comics™ kollectible like a mug or t-shirt featuring classic cover art from one of the featured books (including
The Blue Bolt himself)?
Even if you don't go with one of our kool kollectibles (why you wouldn't is beyond me...), BUY
The Best of Simon & Kirby!It's a "must-have" for ANY "pop culture" fan!
Good Lord! I'm doing "Kirby Quotes"!
Famous Gangsters comic cover showing John Dillinger's death in the alley of the Biograph Theater
