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Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1950's. (1954)
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Started by Prince Namor,

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS OCTOBER 1954

Here's a bonus for the month! Dan DeCarlo tries his hand at a straight romance story with this 5 pager in Secret Story Romance #11 (one of those comics created to compete with S&K's regular output...). I had never seen this until now, and... you can see his hand in this, but... wow, he handles the genre great! Some old fashioned ideas about romance there (no writer listed), but tell me you weren't happy for Carol at the end!

Cover is by Vince Colletta, who may've been a stinker as an inker, but he did some quality work as an artist at the time on the romance books.

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS NOVEMBER 1954

So Stan Lee, having lost My Friend Irma, would put together the comic book that would take the world by storm... Homer, the Happy Ghost! 

Ok, not exactly. This is pretty much a straight rip off of Casper the Friendly Ghost, right down to Dugan the tough ghost (also with a hat like Spooky), and the ghost family living in an old wooden house... I guess as Atlas/Marvel prepared to glut the market, they looked for some of the safest things to imitate. Casper had been around since 1945 as a cartoon. As a comic, Casper debuted in Harvey Comic Hits #61 released in August of 1952 - so at this point 2 years and 3 months. Safe, family friendly fare. I've included a few Casper pages for comparison...

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS NOVEMBER 1954

Meanwhile Jack had a solo adventure for one of the stories in Fighting American... Notice Fighting American's wisecracks while fighting crime? yeah, that wasn't invented in the 60's... the art here, if you can tell, isn't actually Jack Kirby's layouts, it's Joe Simon, with Kirby possibly inking it. Joe Simon -script....

It's also, bears an uncanny resemblance to a previous story he wrote in Adventure Comics #75...

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Edited by Prince Namor
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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS NOVEMBER 1954

Jack also did the cover and 2 stories for Mainline's In Love #3 (a rare comic to find...), though the one story used paste ups from a previous syndication idea that didn't work out. In particular from his 'Artist Loves Model' story, is the page below... and the interest that's been sparked from it by Kirby fans. There's a great write up by Kirby historian Harry Mendryk from the Kirby Museum web site and I've included it below:

https://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/simonandkirby/archives/1041

InLove3.jpg

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1954

Ditko was still out sick and the Comics Code was putting the finishing touches on its new 'Stamp of Approval'.

Prize's 'Justice Traps the Guilty' was the first that I could find to carry the stamp on their cover, released to the newsstands December 1st.

Atlas/Marvel would be the quickest publisher to start using the stamp on ALL of it's cover beginning the following week. ALL of it's comics carried the Code seal for the comics released to the newsstands for the month of December.

No one else jumped that quick...

The only other comic I can find that shows a newsstand release in December is Archie Comics' Jughead Annual #3 that had it, released on December 27th.

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS DECEMBER 1954

Atlas/Marvel wasted no time trying to expand their line and they knew some publishers would have a hard time keeping up. Stan and Dan DeCarlo replaced My Friend Irma with My Girl Pearl, a... straight forward copy of the previous book, complete with one page quick joke stories and full page Paper Dolls...

All of Atlas/Marvel's books this month would have the Comic Code Seal...

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS DECEMBER 1954

So with Ditko out sick and the Comics Code in place, 1954 ends.

Here are some numbers...

Stan Lee 'writes' 17.25 comics for the year out of 367 titles Atlas/Marvel releases - that's only 4.6% of their books!

Joe Maneely does 87 covers, and 65 stories covering 371 pages!

None of those stories are with Stan Lee.

 

Kirby would do 24 covers (about 2 per month)

and 45 stories, but at 303 pages... (not to mention the touch-ups, corrections, soft layouts, etc.)

 

Dan DeCarlo, did 17 covers, and about 380 pages of art...

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Simon Comics

Simon Comics

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On 6/14/2022 at 2:41 AM, Prince Namor said:

ON NEWSSTANDS DECEMBER 1954

And from Mainline Publications we got Bulls Eye #4... this is a tough issue to find, and I have yet to see it reprinted anywhere or digitized!

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These haven’t been reprinted anywhere or digitized because they’re under copyright still by the Simon and Kirby estates.

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MattTheDuck

MattTheDuck

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On 6/10/2022 at 2:58 PM, Prince Namor said:

ON NEWSSTANDS JUNE 1954

Stan was back for the books released on the newsstand in June, with Millie The Model #56 and My Friend Irma #46.

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I picked up a copy of this MFI at a yard sale this morning only because I saw it in this thread.  It has a rodent-chewed lower left corner, a detached centerfold and various other "problems" but so what?

Edited by MattTheDuck
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