Broken Frontier

Standing before the rock, face gazed upward, an unsurmountable climb awaits you. The challenge of a lifetime. That's how Steve W. Saffel must have felt when starting The Best of Simon and Kirby, Titan Books' first foray into putting together an extensive Simon and Kirby library, stretched out over several genres. The Broken Frontier talked to Steve W. Saffel about the challenges involved in this ambitious project.

BROKEN FRONTIER: Congratulations on starting such a huge project: publication of the entire Simon & Kirby library; how did this idea start to germinate in the minds of Titan Books?

STEVE W. SAFFEL: I had been working with Joe to see if we could interest some publishers in a couple of projects, and we had some interest from three different American publishers. Then I mentioned the projects to Nick Landau, Titan’s owner, and he jumped at the opportunity, personally meeting with Joe to discuss an ambitious publishing program that could encompass the full output of the Simon and Kirby Studio. It was a terrific meeting of minds, and the result has exceeded Joe’s greatest expectations.

BF: Were there any major hurdles you had to overcome? Was this idea not very daunting in an overwhelming sense?

SWS: Perhaps the most daunting task has been choosing the material—Simon and Kirby produced a massive body of work, encompassing the finest storytelling in every genre. Their first million-seller was a super hero, the second was a military adventure, and the third was the first romance comic book ever published.

BF: Joe Simon handpicked the selection of stories in The Best of Simon & Kirby. Did you work together with Joe on this? Did you have many discussions on what exactly to include or exclude?

SWS: Joe and I worked together, and S&K expert Harry Mendryk was pivotal in the selection process. Harry has been working with Joe for years, restoring the S&K stories and blogging about them extensively on the Jack Kirby Museum web site. He and I have our own favorites, and we know Joe’s tastes pretty well, so the collaboration was very natural, and great fun.

BF: What were your criteria for picking the right stories for all the chapters?

SWS: The trick was to find stories that represented the best traits of each series, while choosing tales that would be exciting to read. The reader’s experience was the primary concern, since our goal was to show everyone what blockbuster material Simon and Kirby had yielded. For example, Blue Bolt was Joe and Jack’s first published collaboration, yet the first Blue Bolt story was written and illustrated by Joe on his own, and the second didn’t quite have that S&K magic—not yet. By issue four, though, the collaboration really hit stride, so that was the one we chose.


There were a few more straightforward choices. The Captain America story introduces the Red Skull, and knowing the secret origin of the Red Skull, I was naturally inclined toward it. The Sandman story is the first time Jack ever drew Thor, and the Boy Commandos story actually guest-stars Joe and Jack (“New characters interviewed from 9 to 12”). “My City is No More” is one of Joe’s personal favorites, and is a jaw-dropping comment on the atomic bomb.


We were limited somewhat by the laws of physics. A true Best of Simon and Kirby could be a 1,000-page book, and would be prohibitively expensive. We wanted the readers to be able to afford the book, so we limited ourselves to a reasonable number of pages, while still offering more material than other such books on the market. As for the stories we couldn’t include, well, that what the official Simon and Kirby Library will be for.

BF: Does Joe Simon have a final say about the product? Does it roll from the printers with his complete stamp of approval?


SWS: Joe reviewed the material at every stage—the outline for the book, printouts of the stories, the essays written by Mark Evanier (which he loved!). He reviewed the page proofs before they went to the printer.


However, Joe is a true professional, and he treats others that way, as well. When a question came up about the layout of the introduction pages, he thought the designer was terrific, and instructed us to let him do his job. So Joe knows when to take control, and when to relinquish it to the benefit of the book.

BF: Jack Kirby seems to always bring out the best in people, just like that other big Kirby hardcover out there Mark Evanier's Kirby, The Best of Simon & Kirby is also impeccably designed. Is there something inherent in the manic energy of those comics that transfers itself to whomever is working on a project that involves Kirby? What are your feelings about this synergy between the material and the person handling it?


SWS: I’m prejudiced here, since I think Kirby is spectacular. But his collaborations did yield brilliant results, and the way he worked with Joe—as described in Joe’s introduction for the book—was unique. They both could do everything that was needed, and the way they collaborated was so organic, so focused upon the needs of the story, that what they produced went far beyond the scope of a normal collaboration. And they both gave it their all. No one would have expected the creators of Captain America to do such quirky and incredible romance comics, yet Mark quoted Jack as saying, “You shouldn’t do a comic if you’re not prepared to give it your all.”

BF: How hard was it to restore the original colouring? Are they shot from the actual comics and processed in Photoshop?

SWS: Harry Mendryk has been restoring S&K stories for years, and will be working on the entire Simon and Kirby Library. He scans the pages from the actual comics, then addresses all of the flaws, from the yellowing of the pages to off-registration printing. His goal is to have the reader re-live the experience of plucking that comic off of the newsstand for the first time. But thanks to Harry and his love of the material, the reader gets to see what would have happened if that comic book had been perfectly printed.

BF: The Best of Simon & Kirby feels very much like a sampler book, admittedly one of very high quality but it feels a bit as if you're teasing the reader with 'Don't you want to check out the rest of our up- and coming books?' Was this an intentional marketing move?

SWS: Yes and no. Of course it would be great to have everyone support the entire Simon and Kirby Library, and that would be terrific for Joe and the Kirby Estate. But I remember the experience I had when Jules Feiffer’s The Great Comic Book Heroes introduced me to Will Eisner, Shelly Moldoff, Jack Cole, and of course, Simon and Kirby. The Best of Simon and Kirby was produced to give readers that same rush, so that if this was the only book they picked up, they would be left stunned and satisfied.

BF: What is it like, working side by side with a legend like Joe Simon?

SWS: Great fun. I enjoy it every time I go up to his studio and we sit down to work. Joe lives for work—nothing makes him happier—and that feeling is highly contagious. Occasionally I think to myself, “How can this be? How can I be working with the man who helped to create an entire medium?” But I don’t let myself get too carried away, and at the end of the day it’s just a delight to know that he considers me a friend.

BF: To what degree is Joe Simon involved in the planned collections?

SWS: Pretty much as I’ve outlined for The Best of Simon and Kirby. We’ll review all of the stages, make the major decisions, and he’ll let us do what we do, confident in the outcome.

BF: Do you think that Simon without Kirby or vice versa would still have had this enormous impact on the comic industry?

SWS: It’s hard to say, because either of them might have hooked up with someone else. Certainly, the best talents in the industry—artists like Bob Powell, Al Williamson, and Mort Meskin; letterers like Howard Ferguson—enjoyed working with Joe and Jack. Whereas many publishers couldn’t themselves write or draw a comic book story, both Simon and Kirby could do it all. They had the respect of their peers, and that brought a lot of people into the studio.

But their collaboration was unique, and it’s hard to imagine either of them having the same sort of relationship with anyone else.

BF: Do you yourself have a personal Simon & Kirby favourite?

SWS: It depends on the day. Since they conquered every genre, I find myself looking at a given story and saying, “that’s it—that’s the best.” But then the next day I’ll look at another and change my mind. Blue Bolt is one of my favorites, since it shows us what it was like when the comic book medium really started to explode.

BF: What has working on this book taught you?

SWS: It opened my eyes more than ever to the sheer scope of the work Joe and Jack produced. It reminded me of the joy that comes from working with a wonderful team. Beyond Joe and Harry, everyone on the Titan side was terrific, and they all gave 150 percent or more. When Joe got his first look at the finished product, he pointed to it and said, “There’s a lot of love in this book,” and he was right.

BF: So what else is coming up from Titan Books in regards to Simon & Kirby?

SWS: The next book will be Simon and Kirby Superheroes, and we have a few surprises in store for the fans. After that we have collections of their detective fiction, horror, and romance, and Joe is working on his definitive autobiography. So at age 95, he has a seven-book deal with Titan, and shows no sign of stopping, much to the delight of his legions of fans.

BF: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Steve and good luck with your upcoming projects!

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The Best of Simon and Kirby is published by Titan Books and is a 320 pages, full colour hardcover. It retails for $39.95 and is available at comic shops and finer bookstores internationally.