What do you think?
Rate this book
The Simon and Kirby Library
The Simon and Kirby Library: Crime
The creators of Captain America and the Boy Commandos produced some of the hardest-hitting crime comics of the 1950s.
Often featuring real-world criminals like Ma Barker, Al Capone, and Pretty Boy Floyd, and true-to-life events like the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, these adventures were torn from post-prohibition headlines. Explosive enough to draw the attention of the congressional committee on juvenile delinquency, they remain action-packed for today's graphic novel audience.
These are the best of the Simon and Kirby Crime comics, fully restored and collected for the first time.
Often featuring real-world criminals like Ma Barker, Al Capone, and Pretty Boy Floyd, and true-to-life events like the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, these adventures were torn from post-prohibition headlines. Explosive enough to draw the attention of the congressional committee on juvenile delinquency, they remain action-packed for today's graphic novel audience.
These are the best of the Simon and Kirby Crime comics, fully restored and collected for the first time.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published October 25, 2011
1 person is currently reading
52 people want to read
About the author
Joe Simon
360 books26 followersJoseph Henry "Joe" Simon (born Hymie Simon) was an American comic book writer, artist, editor, and publisher. Simon created or co-created many important characters in the 1930s-1940s Golden Age of Comic Books and served as the first editor of Timely Comics, the company that would evolve into Marvel Comics.
With his partner, artist Jack Kirby, he co-created Captain America, one of comics' most enduring superheroes, and the team worked extensively on such features at DC Comics as the 1940s Sandman and Sandy the Golden Boy, and co-created the Newsboy Legion, the Boy Commandos, and Manhunter. Simon & Kirby creations for other comics publishers include Boys' Ranch, Fighting American and the Fly. In the late 1940s, the duo created the field of romance comics, and were among the earliest pioneers of horror comics. Simon, who went on to work in advertising and commercial art, also founded the satirical magazine Sick in 1960, remaining with it for a decade. He briefly returned to DC Comics in the 1970s.
Simon was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1999.
With his partner, artist Jack Kirby, he co-created Captain America, one of comics' most enduring superheroes, and the team worked extensively on such features at DC Comics as the 1940s Sandman and Sandy the Golden Boy, and co-created the Newsboy Legion, the Boy Commandos, and Manhunter. Simon & Kirby creations for other comics publishers include Boys' Ranch, Fighting American and the Fly. In the late 1940s, the duo created the field of romance comics, and were among the earliest pioneers of horror comics. Simon, who went on to work in advertising and commercial art, also founded the satirical magazine Sick in 1960, remaining with it for a decade. He briefly returned to DC Comics in the 1970s.
Simon was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1999.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 15, 2018
Another excellentic works by Simon and Kirby!
The book features both real know and less know mobs & criminals, murder, insurance scams, fix games etc. So for those who like crime related stuff then this book is for you.
The book features both real know and less know mobs & criminals, murder, insurance scams, fix games etc. So for those who like crime related stuff then this book is for you.
June 28, 2021
‘The Simon And Kirby Library: Crime’ is another fine volume in the Titan books series collecting old works by these stars of Golden Age comics. Most readers will be more familiar with Kirby’s super-hero stuff, but super-heroes were not as popular in the era after World War II and creators turned to other genres. As Kirby grew up in New York’s rough lower east side during the roaring twenties, crime suited him just fine.
This volume contains thirty-four tales in nearly three hundred pages of powerful panels. Most of the work is from 1947-48 and originally appeared in ‘Clue Comics’, ‘Real Clue Crime Stories’, ‘Headline Comics’ and ‘Justice Traps the Guilty’. Those used to Kirby’s vast panels of muscular heroes, complex machinery and Kirby Krackle may be interested to see how he drew real life. There’s plenty of fighting and gunfire but quiet interior shots, too. These show his composition skills in getting a foreground, middle ground and background into a small space and making it visually attractive. Some of the art is sloppy, but that’s the nature of fast production and deadlines. Opinions differ on how much of the drawing Joe Simon did but I think he scripted some of these text-heavy stories, usually in the hard-boiled first-person narrative style popular at the time. He did it well, too.
There’s an introduction by crime writer Max Allan Collins, a friend of Mickey Spillane. Collins tells us that Spillane started his writing career in the early 40s at Funnies, Inc. alongside Simon and Kirby. Also, Collins has featured some true life gangsters in his own fiction, including a few characters used here and he lets us know which parts of their stories are genuine.
There’s the rub. Most of the stories here purport to be true. Many are sort of true. Just for fun, I looked them up on Wikipedia. It would be tedious to check every real-life fact against an eight-page comic story and there’s no doubt that a lot of ‘artistic licence’ went into the tales. They also excluded adult content like abortion, adultery and bigamy that happened but would have been unsuitable for the medium. Even so, there is truth at the core of many, including these.
‘King Of The Bank Robbers’ is about George Leonidas Leslie, who studied architecture and used blueprints to plan his bank robberies. The eight-page short story gives a brief overview of his career and death.
‘Come With Me And Die!’ is another fact-based yarn about a Jack the Ripper style lady killer who operated in London during the Blitz. Max Allan Collins wrote a novel about this case, ‘The London Blitz Murders’.
‘Gang Doctor’ is anonymised here as Doctor Black, but in real life was Joseph P. Moran. When alcohol addiction ruined his legitimate business, he became an abortionist and served time in jail. The criminals he met there became his future clients and he had close ties to the mob in Chicago. His end was as portrayed, but no one’s sure who did it.
‘The Terrible Whyos’ were a real-life gang in 1880s New York led by Danny Lyons and Danny Driscoll, who stipulated that a man had to kill someone to become a member. They were all Irish and I think the film ‘Gangs Of New York’ was based on this era.
‘Let Me Plan Your Murder’ is the true story of H.H. Holmes, America’s first serial killer who did indeed build a murder castle in Chicago.
‘Headline Comics’ stories all ended with the warning caption in big black letters: ‘Crime Never Pays!’ They even did this on the Guy Fawkes story, just in case any American kids were planning to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Putting poor old Guy on a par with John Dillinger and Babyface Nelson is a bit unfair. He wasn’t in it for the money.
The stories are often very short and, at first, I found it hard to get into the book. When I did, I more or less read it straight through and liked it. There are surprisingly brutal scenes for one who grew up in the age of the Comics Code Authority, which these tales predate, but nothing terrible by modern standards. Full of flying bullets, gunplay and gangsters, ‘The Simon And Kirby Library: Crime’ is an action-packed endorsement of the second amendment to the United States constitution. Remember kiddies: ‘Crime Never Pays!’
This volume contains thirty-four tales in nearly three hundred pages of powerful panels. Most of the work is from 1947-48 and originally appeared in ‘Clue Comics’, ‘Real Clue Crime Stories’, ‘Headline Comics’ and ‘Justice Traps the Guilty’. Those used to Kirby’s vast panels of muscular heroes, complex machinery and Kirby Krackle may be interested to see how he drew real life. There’s plenty of fighting and gunfire but quiet interior shots, too. These show his composition skills in getting a foreground, middle ground and background into a small space and making it visually attractive. Some of the art is sloppy, but that’s the nature of fast production and deadlines. Opinions differ on how much of the drawing Joe Simon did but I think he scripted some of these text-heavy stories, usually in the hard-boiled first-person narrative style popular at the time. He did it well, too.
There’s an introduction by crime writer Max Allan Collins, a friend of Mickey Spillane. Collins tells us that Spillane started his writing career in the early 40s at Funnies, Inc. alongside Simon and Kirby. Also, Collins has featured some true life gangsters in his own fiction, including a few characters used here and he lets us know which parts of their stories are genuine.
There’s the rub. Most of the stories here purport to be true. Many are sort of true. Just for fun, I looked them up on Wikipedia. It would be tedious to check every real-life fact against an eight-page comic story and there’s no doubt that a lot of ‘artistic licence’ went into the tales. They also excluded adult content like abortion, adultery and bigamy that happened but would have been unsuitable for the medium. Even so, there is truth at the core of many, including these.
‘King Of The Bank Robbers’ is about George Leonidas Leslie, who studied architecture and used blueprints to plan his bank robberies. The eight-page short story gives a brief overview of his career and death.
‘Come With Me And Die!’ is another fact-based yarn about a Jack the Ripper style lady killer who operated in London during the Blitz. Max Allan Collins wrote a novel about this case, ‘The London Blitz Murders’.
‘Gang Doctor’ is anonymised here as Doctor Black, but in real life was Joseph P. Moran. When alcohol addiction ruined his legitimate business, he became an abortionist and served time in jail. The criminals he met there became his future clients and he had close ties to the mob in Chicago. His end was as portrayed, but no one’s sure who did it.
‘The Terrible Whyos’ were a real-life gang in 1880s New York led by Danny Lyons and Danny Driscoll, who stipulated that a man had to kill someone to become a member. They were all Irish and I think the film ‘Gangs Of New York’ was based on this era.
‘Let Me Plan Your Murder’ is the true story of H.H. Holmes, America’s first serial killer who did indeed build a murder castle in Chicago.
‘Headline Comics’ stories all ended with the warning caption in big black letters: ‘Crime Never Pays!’ They even did this on the Guy Fawkes story, just in case any American kids were planning to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Putting poor old Guy on a par with John Dillinger and Babyface Nelson is a bit unfair. He wasn’t in it for the money.
The stories are often very short and, at first, I found it hard to get into the book. When I did, I more or less read it straight through and liked it. There are surprisingly brutal scenes for one who grew up in the age of the Comics Code Authority, which these tales predate, but nothing terrible by modern standards. Full of flying bullets, gunplay and gangsters, ‘The Simon And Kirby Library: Crime’ is an action-packed endorsement of the second amendment to the United States constitution. Remember kiddies: ‘Crime Never Pays!’
July 15, 2023
Titan Books know how to do Kirby reprints right. Employing the formidable talents of Harry Mendryk for art restoration and colors, this whopping 319-page collection of crime stories looks great, printed on matte (not shiny) paper that's vibrant white, making the colors pop.
Collecting 34 prime comics stories, mostly from the '40s, the collection really delivers. Like his romance material from the same time period, these are prime Kirby written, penciled and likely inked tales, each one driven with drama and human interest, like mini, pre-code Warner Bros. films. (Kirby extracted his new last name from James Cagney, the premiere Warner Bros. embodiment of crime-entrenched hoodlum-hood at the time). Read one of these and you'll want to read them all; the staging, body language, dialogue, and artwork is second to none. If Kirby had passed away in 1950, before the Marvel universe and everything else he created, we'd still be reading these comics.
Collecting 34 prime comics stories, mostly from the '40s, the collection really delivers. Like his romance material from the same time period, these are prime Kirby written, penciled and likely inked tales, each one driven with drama and human interest, like mini, pre-code Warner Bros. films. (Kirby extracted his new last name from James Cagney, the premiere Warner Bros. embodiment of crime-entrenched hoodlum-hood at the time). Read one of these and you'll want to read them all; the staging, body language, dialogue, and artwork is second to none. If Kirby had passed away in 1950, before the Marvel universe and everything else he created, we'd still be reading these comics.
June 29, 2021
This is made up of mostly true-crime stories from the 1940s. They were a little do similar to read back to back like this, so I'm sure that colored the experience. My main complaint is similar to one I had with the Science Fiction volume. There just isn't enough editorial content. You're given an into and then you're off. I would have liked it if the issues had more commentary or were broken up into sections. As is it just felt like a content dump and it wasn't a particularly enjoyable read. Still, as a fan of early comics history, I'm glad to have read it. (My copy has a bookplate signed by Joe Simon, so that made it extra cool.)
January 5, 2024
I can see how these pushed boundaries at the time, but they are kinda flat now. The best stories are about women, because men being corrupt is taken as a given, and a corrupted woman is considered more shocking. With female protagonists, Simon bothers to dramatize that process of corruption. "I was a secretary for broken bones inc". is a highlight in this regard. It's also the story where Kirby's gruesome illustrations pop the most.
Overall, I thought I would like this more. But as the intro admits, these were mostly made for bored, barely-literate GI's.
Overall, I thought I would like this more. But as the intro admits, these were mostly made for bored, barely-literate GI's.
January 3, 2018
I didn't like this near as much as the Horror collection, but Horror comics are probably my favorite genre so that's not really a surprise. These stories are mostly based on true crime cases. The art is gritty and ahead of its time, but the stories are a little wordy which happened a lot in the Golden Age. Overall though its not a bad read and very interesting from a historical perspective.
April 4, 2015
Jack Kirby stories I've never read before are always worth a look. This handsome volume of Simon & Kirby crime stories is a must-have for fans of the man's work. I found this book to be a bit much for reading straight through. The stories tend to blur together after a while. It's probably best to dip into now and again, reading something in between to cleanse the palate. While this might not represent Kirby's best work ever, it's still uncommonly good. Jack at his worst was still better than many at their best. Definitely worth reading!
April 28, 2012
"For sheer audacity and exuberance, these guys are tough to beat. Best reproductions of Simon and Kirby art I've seen so far. I'm rationing these out because I don't want to finish it too quickly."
August 19, 2012
I love Simon and Kirby, and this book was a lot of fun. Kirby's art was becoming even more dynamic by this point, and the stories have more depth than some of their earlier work.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews