The Simon And Kirby Dream Works!

The Strange World of Your Dreams was a truly oddball comic book series from the Simon and Kirby duo. They were casting about in the days of the horror comic backlash for a different way tell a creepy story. With the eyes of the country's censors eager for comic books to foul up the industry was nervous. Books like this which had a staid style and were couched in a cloak of psychoanalysis offered a way in.

Actually for the true Simon and Kirby devotee there is relatively little of their work here. They contributed some evocative and memorable covers and each of the first three issues had a Simon and Kirby story but the key artist on the project was Simon and Kirby studio artist Mort Meskin. Meskin was a complicated fellow who seemed unusually suited for a comic book dealing with folks troubled by their dreams and his artwork was ideal for this kind of storytelling. Other members of the studio like Bill Draut offered up stories.

The stories vary a little, but mostly we have our narrator, a pipe-smoking expert named Dr. Richard Temple who would listen to some poor patient's dream and then offer up a rational explanation which usually put the patient's mind at rest, but sometimes not. Temple was a handsome fellow, aided by a lovely secretary who stood by as the resolute voice of absolute reason in and around the irrational images of the dreams.

Some of the stories read as more straightforward mystery tales, minus Temple's influence. Meskin usually did those. Later issues of the short run began to feature stories which focused oddly on Astrology as a key plot element. There were so many that you got the feeling you were reading a different comic. This was an interesting experiment with an oddly stately feel which allowed even the text stories (all featuring Temple) to be unusually readable.

There was to be a fifth issue of the series but it never materialized as the series wrapped after four installments.

There was another story which didn't feature Temple by name but was for all intents and purposes another Temple story which appeared in an early issue of Black Magic.

If you want to see these glorious stories at their best I recommend the Yoe Books collection which has some background information along with the tales themselves in an oddly handsome design.

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To Read, Perchance To Dream!

The summer is fading and another year of educational folly looms. But before the avalanche of eager learners descends upon me, I'd like to read a little bit more choice Jack Kirby goodness. The theme (such as it is) this month is dreams and that means taking a look at the Simon and Kirby studio offering The Strange World of Your Dreams, a four issue oddity which many devoted fans of the dynamic duo regard as some of their best.

And of course there is The Sandman from the pages of Adventure Comics, the venerable DC feature Simon and Kirby took over (alongside Manhunter and new features Newsboy Legion and Boy Commandos) when they took their talents across NYC to the still developing "Distinguished Competion". Simon and Kirby were bonafide stars when they signed with DC during this period and Sandman was a mainstay.

So identified with them that they finished off their decades long collaboration after a many year hiatus with a single issue Sandman which updated the concept. Kirby went on to draw more of these though Simon dropped off, and we'll take look at those too.

The "100 Days Of The King" feature finishes up as we close in on the centennial celebration of the King's birth. I've saved some of my favorites for the finale so hopefully we have something to look forward to.

Early on expect a review of the very first Inhuman stories from the pages of the Fantastic Four. Clearly Kirby was exerting more and more control of the plotting as he introduced and continued as a long-running sup-plot the saga of the genetically enhanced denizens of the Hidden Land.

And turning to another Kirby epic, I'd like to take a gander at Tales of Asgard, the back up feature with came to be a most significant expression of Kirby's interest in gods both old and new.

In the "Favorite Covers" daily feature, the Dojo presents this month and next some of the many dandy covers Jack Kirby produced for Marvel when he returned to the House of (mostly his) Ideas in the Bronze Age. He became a go-to cover artist for Marvel and generated some exciting images.

All that and whatever else comes across me noggin as August proceeds. Hang in amigos.

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The Usual Suspects!

This cover for Justice Traps the Guilty from Prize Comics features a cover by artist Marvin Stein. As promised by the title a  woman is identifying one man in the police line up as the guilty party. It turns out that tall perpetrator is modeled on editor Joe Simon. Also in this motley crew are a bunch of comic book talents. From left to right you have Ben Oda, Simon, Joe Genola, Mort Meskin and Jack Kirby. A lovely and daffy bit of comic book nonsense.

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby had appeared on their comics before, the one above an issue of Headline Comics which showcases Kirby as the hood and an edited Joe Simon as the cop.

According to some, the duo are on call again in the very next issue as a hold up is about to be foiled.

Seeing artists in comics is always a neat thing, and was made very famous at Marvel some years later. But as we see, it's a practice which had been going on for quite some time.

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The Good, The Bad, And The Brightly Clad!

This vintage Fred Hembeck cover from those long ago days of 1980 is a crack up of the highest order. Three brilliantly and blindingly hued heroes joined to create a crisis of color in the Hembeckian world at large. It's genius!

Jack Kirby and Mort Meskin

Captain 3-D, created for Harvey Comics during the Atomic Age by the Joe Simon and Jack Kirby duo is the oldest of this trio of colorful protagonists. Created to take advantage of a fad which seems to reappear every several years, Captain 3-D is a surprisingly serious character with echoes of Fawcett's Captain Marvel bonded with the more surreal elements of later comics. Here's a glimpse.

The Prankster is from the final throes of the Silver Age, a one-shot hero created by Denny O'Neil in his guise as "Sergius O'Shaugnessy" and top flight artist Jim Aparo.

Created for Charlton Comics, this futuristic gadfly battles an oppressive and humorless government in the distant future city of Ultropolis.

Pat Boyette

Never cover-featured, the Prankster made his one and only appearance in the tenth and final issue of Thunderbolt, the original Charlton run.

 And perhaps most obscure of all is Steve Ditko's Odd Man. The Odd Man was a truly bizarre creation.

Scheduled to debut in the pages of the ninth issue of Ditko's Shade the Changing Man, the exotically hued hero made his first actual appearance in the dubious offset rarity Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, a victim like so many of the infamous " DC Implosion" of the late Bronze Age.

Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez

Thankfully though he did get a colorful presentation when that story was dusted off, revised and presented to a broader reading public in the pages of Detective Comics.

As you can see, Odd Man is perhaps the biggest eyesore among these disparate brothers-of-the-brightly-clad, his whole look seemingly designed to create a clash.

Only Fred Hembeck would think it a good enough joke to dig out these most obscure heroes (remember it was in those halcyon pre-internet days) for his devoted audience. Good show Fred on a true classic gag!

This Hembeck classic is reprinted in the awesome The Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archives Omnibus, though I fear the color might be missing. I hope not.

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Strange Dreams!

The Strange World of Your Dreams from YOe Books and IDW Publishing collects the four issues of the Simon-Kirby short-lived, but nonetheless classic series. Weird is a good word to describe these offbeat surreal nightmare tales produced int he early 50's for the Crestwood/Prize brand. These are peculiar but very well crafted, from a time when comics reflected a broad range of interests. In addition to artwork by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, there are stories by Mort Meskin, Bill Draut, and Bob McCarty.  I was undecided on this book until I actually saw it and the mattress ticking cover treatment (which is plush by the way) won me over. YOe Books always comes up with clever gimmicks which make a volume sing.

In addition to the stories there is a nice essay on the use of dreams in comic strips over the decades, especially Windsor McCay's Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. Also included are some unpublished art pieces including two covers by Simon and Kirby which didn't get to the newsstands.

Here are the covers that did. 

There is included a story from this issue of Black Magic which served as an intro to the Simon and Kirby's new comic.

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Adventures Inside Earth!

Bruno Premiani

Bernard Bailey

Bernard Bailey

Joe Kubert

Mort Meskin

Lee Elias

Lee Elias

Lee Elias
Is there any prospect that DC will be reprinting these vintage sci-fi adventures of Cave Carson and his brave comrades anytime soon? I'd love to buy a volume full of these very particular journeys into the mysterious realms beneath the planet we live upon. DC has done a few slim Showcase reprints (Eclipso, Bat Lash) and this series seems a very likely candidate. The current move to reprint the Showcase run is laudable, but it will be quite a while before they get around to these stories. And that won't help for the stories in The Brave and the Bold.

With talents like Bruno Premiani, France Herron, Lee Elias, Bob Haney, Jack Miller, Joe Kubert, Bernard Bailey on hand there's all sorts of great reasons to get these stories back into the hands of readers, this reader in particular.

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