Thread by @jeffs_comics

A 1954 Pre Code war comic book cover by Jack Kirby

This comic is Foxhole #1, by Mainline Comics

Mainline was a very short lived line, but a storied one anyway.

First though - wow, what a cover! Remember that the Korean War had only 'ceased firing' in the summer of 1953

Contrast Foxhole no 1 with this 1947 government comic book on the new atomic Cold War with the Communists.

Foxhole no 1 is published in September 1954, a few months after Edward R Murrow eloquently attacked Senator Joe McCarthy on tv, 'See it Now'

Before there was Twitter, there was Murrow

Go back again to Foxhole no1 September 1954 publication date.

This is only a few months after the 1954 Senate Hearings on #juveniledelinquency with Wertham and Gaines and would have a historic impact on the business of comic books

I was reading "Lee and Kirby The Wonder Years" which relates how Joe Simon and Jack Kirby watched the televised 1954 Senate hearing on #Juveniledelinquency together in an apartment in midtown Manhattan.

On watching Gaines testify, Simon chided "stupid, stupid, stupid"

The result of the 1954 Senate hearings on #Juveniledelinquency were the Comics Code Authority ("the comics code") and stress on publishers. Publishers like Fox went out entirely (selling Blue Beetle to Charlton) and others like EC survived just as MAD magazine

The advent of the Comics Code Authority didn't just hurt comic book publishers, but also printers. As Joe Simon said, "the printers were frantic".

Comic books were born in 1933 from a desire to keep expensive presses running, and 1954 was no different.

The good folk at @PrintMuseumCA gave me some advice on what kind of printing press may have run off the first comic books of 1933. I don't know the kind of presses in use around 1954, but the economic pressures to meet overhead remained.

The printers needed material to print

So all this wraps right back around to that 1954 Foxhole war comic. Its by Mainline comics, which was established and owned by the those famous comic book legends and partners, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

Is Mainline the first Creator Owned company?

I'll ask @ErikJLarsen

According to 'Lee and Kirby The Wonder Year', the pressures on comic books had Kirby and Simon use a smaller distributor, Leader News.

Things went south. The books weren't getting to newsstands, and Leader News no longer had the money to advance them to pay the printers

Simon and Kirby's Mainline publications went insolvent.

Not only was Mainline a casualty, but so was the 15 year partnership of Simon and Kirby. According to Wikipedia, Simon gave Kirby permission to take their last project to DC - Challengers of the Unknown

Its a strange parallel to see the dissolution of Simon and Kirby's partnership in the mid 50s, to what would happen with Lee and Kirby later (and in both cases, Kirby went to DC)

The Foxhole comics by Mainline do not appear to be in the public domain.

However, there is a review of Foxhole no 1 (and others) at the Jack Kirby Museum.

kirbymuseum.org/blogs/simonand…

Which brings us back to Foxhole number 1 as a moment in American history, in comic book history, and in the career of Jack Kirby - as well as one fantastic cover all by itself.

I'm not educated enough to discuss the art itself, but I welcome anyone that wants to chime in

The idea for this thread came from reading Kirby Five-Oh by twomorrows.com that I got from a Humble Bundle offering.

In the section for 50 Best Kirby Covers, Foxhole 1 was chosen by Mark Evanier and Bill Morrison. That cover stopped me in my tracks

The black and white image of Foxhole 1 is from Kirby Five-Oh, while others images are internet grabs.

1954 was a long time ago - but the comic book cover is a moment in the culture, and still speaks to morality, censorship, war, fear, control, public pressure and politics

@threadreaderapp unroll