Did Jack Davis work under the name "Kirk"

[Drusilla lives!]

I was looking at some scans of The Thing issue #17 (from November 1954) and noticed a number of panels in the stories "Through The Looking Glass" and "Wishful Thinking" reminded me of Jack Davis. Both stories were signed by someone named "Kirk." Does anyone out there know if Davis worked under this name during the early 50s? GCD has no other info either.

[Drusilla lives!]

Here's some more... that last page has some panels that look like classic Davis if you ask me.

[MDG]

I see some Davis there, but I'm inclined to think that they're swipes. Besides, he was getting plenty of work from EC--including doing many house ads--so I doubt he would've been looking for other work at the time.

[MWGallaher]

This looks at best to be a Davis-influenced artist, if not an outright swiper (but some of those Davisesque panels look awfully familiar). I don't think Davis was capable of doing the less-polished panels quite so crudely as they turned out.

[Drusilla lives!]

I have my doubts as well, but you never know. Many of the EC artists did freelance work on the side... and even though Davis had a heavy workload, he was a very fast penciler/inker. But even though he was fast, I still don't see him doing such careless work. I can see definitely why he wouldn't want to use his real name on these pages (if he indeed did the artwork)... not even remotely like the quality he is known for.

Here's most of the rest of "Through The Looking Glass," not very Davis like (except maybe the last page)... BTW for those concerned, as far as I know these comics are in the public domain.

[Slam_Bradley]

I can see this being someone swiping Davis. But his work from the era is much more polished.

[Drusilla lives!]

And here are most of the missing pages to "Wishful Thinking" (pages 13 and 16).

I did a search on GCD and noticed there was one other pencil job credited to "Kirk," one for "Dear Lonely Hearts" issue #6 (June, 1954) from Comic Media. It just so happens that there are scans for this issue available... I'll check it out for any Davis like panels.

[Drusilla lives!]

Well, it looks like this is one big swipefest. Judging by the art for "Love Pirate" in Dear Lonely Hearts issue #6, this is NOT Jack Davis. I guess some of it looked like classic Davis to me because it was classic Davis... swiped classic Davis! :)

Now all that remains is to see if I can identify the original Davis panels... looks like at least ten different swipes.

[Lone Ranger]

It's by Steve Kirkel

His info:

Steve Kirkel (http://www.bailsprojects.com/(S(ha2e05qns3ub0b55ajgfuw45))/bio.aspx?Name=KIRKEL%2c+STEVE)

[Jesse Hamm]

Guess we should be thankful he abandoned comics for that acting career. I loved him on Family Matters.

[Drusilla lives!]

Thanks for the info Lone Ranger... I notice "Love Pirate" isn't on that list. I wonder why. :)

[InfoBroker]

BTW for those concerned, as far as I know these comics are in the public domain.

Just an observation, and I am by no means the definite here, but you might want to check to insure the status of these pages. (Which I did enjoy seeing, I will admit).

The copyright mechanics for material of this nature consists of time (which I'm not sure has expired yet) if the publisher is still an intact entity. If the publisher has ceased, or they choose to surrender their rights, then the mechanics reverts this material back to the creators for their lifetime. Should they cease to exist, their estates have a set period of time to hold the copyrights.

A few pages copied here, falls under "fair use" aspects of copyright material. Why not play it safe and just show 2 or 3 pages instead of the entire story, until you are sure this material has indeed fallen into the public domain.

Otherwise you are putting yourself and the CBR site into an area of infringement.

-jb the ib-

[Drusilla lives!]

Just an observation, and I am by no means the definite here, but you might want to check to insure the status of these pages. (Which I did enjoy seeing, I will admit).

The copyright mechanics for material of this nature consists of time (which I'm not sure has expired yet) if the publisher is still an intact entity. If the publisher has ceased, or they choose to surrender their rights, then the mechanics reverts this material back to the creators for their lifetime. Should they cease to exist, their estates have a set period of time to hold the copyrights.

A few pages copied here, falls under "fair use" aspects of copyright material. Why not play it safe and just show 2 or 3 pages instead of the entire story, until you are sure this material has indeed fallen into the public domain.

Otherwise you are putting yourself and the CBR site into an area of infringement.

-jb the ib-

Thanks for the heads up ib.

I was very reluctant to post entire stories (hence, my original posts only contained select pages). But then I realized that in order for someone to make a fair and conclusive assessment of whether this was indeed Davis, one would need as much of the material as possible... that is, the rest of the artwork for the stories in question. As some may have already noted to themselves, these are low-res (as low as I felt possible to be effectively used as an aid to artist identification) copies of higher-res scans, taken from a collection of scans for the entire comic book of which these are a part (which in turn were dutifully researched and found to be in the public domain by the website from which they were obtained... this site is very careful about such matters as they are well aware of the problems that could arise from rights infringement).

Bottom line, I believe in this case there's no infringement involved in their use... particularly at the resolutions with which they are presented and for the intended purpose of comparative analysis. Nevertheless, I don't intend on making a habit of this in the future, basically it was for discussion purposes only. :)

BTW, I was looking at the art for Love Pirate again and honestly, it really isn't that bad (for a romance story). In addition, there are definite stylistic similarities between the panels of that story and some of what is found in the first two. As far as direct swipes of Davis material, I've looked at most of the VofH and TftC stories and couldn't find any panels that looked like direct swipes, but there are many stories featuring characters and situations that look very much like what is found in the two Thing stories. I suspect it's a case such as MWGallaher has suggested, an artist given the task of illustrating a horror piece (who wasn't that experience with the genre) and turned to Davis (and probably others) for inspiration/influence. Bottom line, careless if it was Davis, but not too bad for someone other than Davis... especially in light of the fact that Charlton paid next to nothing and cared even less about what they printed (comic book wise).

[Scott Shaw!]

Thanks to his work at EC, Jack unintentionally inspired a number of imitators from then on. These have included Howard Nostrand (FLIP!), B. K. Taylor (NATIONAL LAMPOON), W. T. Vinson (a myriad album covers), Bruce Steffanhagen (HOT ROD CARTOONS), Shawn Kerri (CARtoons), Daryl Cagle (editorial cartoonist), Fred Boatman (CARtoons), Jack Jackson (many underground comix)...and even Herb Trimpe (THE INCREDIBLE HULK)!

Aloha,

Scott!

[Red Oak Kid]

Btw, Mel Keefer also contributed to Peterson mags such as Car-toons, Drag-toons and Cycle-toons. Man, I miss those magazines.