The Simon and Kirby Library: Crime Hardcover – Illustrated, November 1, 2011

'The Simon and Kirby Library: Crime [Titan Books; $49.95] reprintsnearly three dozen tales of con men, gangsters, and killers by thelegendary team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. As odds as it seems inreference to crime fiction and kind of sort of non-fiction, thesestories are big fun. Where the more successful Crime Does Not Paycomics used huge blocks of copy to drive home the moral expressedin its title, the Simon and Kirby approach put storytelling beforedetail and preaching. They never failed to portray crime and itsperpetrators as true blights on society, but their writing was morebold and Kirby's art was more action-packed than that seen in othercrime comic books of the era. Characters move across the "stage"and emotions are portrayed in such an in-your-face manner that it'slike watching a 3-D movie.Included in this 320-page, full-color collection are a handful ofstories starring recurring characters: the mysterious Gunmaster andspecial investigator "Red Hot" Blaze. There are tales of criminalspast and present, some of them "true" in the sense that they onlyplay slightly loose with actual facts. There are character studiesof criminals who, sometimes too late, regret the bad choices theymade. Some of these characters even seek to make amends for theircrimes beyond serving their prison sentences.Like every other book in Titan's Simon and Kirby Library, Crime isworthy of award consideration. I treasure my copy and recommend itto all fans of the legendary team and also to all serious studentsof American comic books.

If you like anthology comics, well this Simon and Kirby book is for you. Babyface Nelson, John Dillinger , and the Al Capone gang, are just a few of the real life FBI cases shown here in this book. The Guy Fawkes story was very interesting for me. The one character that gets four stories is the Gun Master, a obscure crime fighter from the golden age, he appeared in Clue Comics. There is a cover gallery in last 13 pages of the book. There are stories from Clue Comics, Real Clue Comics, Headline Comics, Justice Traps The Guilty, and Police Trap. Highly recommend this for your Jack Kirby collection.

I can't really say much more than my two fellow reviewers have emoted thus far. Simon and Kirby's art and style is just masterful. I had some laugh outloud moments with the audaciousness of some criminals and their wise acre remarks while they're shooting it out with the "Bulls." I also read Crime Does Not Pay: Blackjacked and Pistol Whipped. By comparison, you can see just how much more refined Simon and Kirby were. However, you must remember that Simon and Kirby had the advantage of being able to stand on the shoulders, as it were, of the aforementioned publication. To me, Simon and Kirby's stories could have contained more by the way of 'ultraviolece' and 'the old in-out in-out', but that's just me. Good stuff and a beautiful collection. Highly recommended.

Over 300 pages of 1940s crime stories by Simon and Kirby! Wow, this collection is great! It seemed like each story (mostly 8-10 pages each) got better and better as I read through it. Lots of true crime tales which prompted me to hop online and research the real-life criminals after reading the Simon/Kirby version of their exploits. I really can't recommend this enough. Looking forward to more volumes of the Simon/Kirby Library!

Good Kirby-Simon work, I love their horror and sci fi work, this is the next best stuff.

Jack Kirby is awesome! I am so happy that I purchased this book as anything by Kirby is worth getting and his Crime works with Joe Simon are fantastic artistically and super fun to read..

Love these books

My brother is a big reader! I gave this book to him as a gift for his birthday. He told me he enjoyed it because Jack Kirby is one of his favorites.

This is the latest volume in the Simon & Kirby Library, reprinting 32 stories from titles published from 1947-49, and 2 from 1954 & 1955, for a total of 299 pages of comics. The titles are Clue Comics 1947 (4 stories), Real Clue Crime Stories 1947 (6), headline Comics 1947-48 (13), Justice Traps the Guilty 1947-49 (9), and one each from Police Trap #2 and #6, 1954 & 1955. There is also a cover gallery of 13 covers, one of which is a photo-cover featuring Jack Kirby as a nervous-looking safecracker facing Joe Simon's police revolver.The stories range from 4 to 15 pages, but are mainly longer rather than shorter. Although set mainly in the `gangster' era, there are a couple of historical stories, and a couple set in Europe. Some are `true' stories and many are pure fiction - Max Allan Collins describes one of the `true' stories in his Introduction as being a `flirtation with fact'. Also, as Mr Collins notes, although dealing with crime, some of the stories are from other genres; there is a western, a couple of historical, and several are written in the `true romance' format, though also featuring machine guns. Of the `historical' (in relation to the 1940s that is, not just to us today) - one is the story of Guy Fawkes, which is actually quite accurate, despite being rather more melodramatic than was actually the case - but this is a comic-book! (Thinks... Mel Gibson as Guy Fawkes - misunderstood war hero who tries to save England - and Scotland - for the Catholic church, but ends up being tortured and executed for his courage in challenging the Evil British Empire...) Some stories are in theory documentary - but Joe & Jack manage to make them stand out from the drab stories of `Crime Does Not Pay' - see  Blackjacked and Pistol-Whipped: The Best of Crime Does Not Pay  for examples of those; here however, in "Gang Doctor" for example, a 7-page story, the second page, comprising six panels, is given over to a bank clerk on his first day at the job, who is shot by Dillinger in the final panel of the page. In the ensuing robbery, one of Dillinger's men is shot, and the services of the titular Gang Doctor is thus required, leading us on in to the main story. That page of the bank clerk was not relevant to the plot (and could be construed as filler by the uncharitable), but it `worked', and it showed Simon & Kirby adding that extra touch to the story that lifted their work above so many of their contemporaries.Note that Dark Horse are going to produce an Archive series of `Crime Does Not Pay' - I recommend you check the `Best of' referenced above and compare the stories in this volume. I gave it 5-stars in my review, which it deserved for what it was, but this book is worth 15 stars by comparison. I will still be buying the Dark Horse series, because I collect stuff, but Simon & Kirby are the undoubted Kings of Crime. Blackjacked and Pistol-Whipped: The Best of Crime Does Not Pay

cant fault this book,really good collection,would recommend you get it, stories from the masters of comics

Mooi boek en de prijs was ook redelijk. En de verzending was redelijk snel. Zelfs een dag eerder dan aangekondigd. Maar de verpakking is zoals altijd slecht en onvoldoende. Het boek was beschadig. De stofomslag was gescheurd en de hele rug aan de achterkant binnen in het boek was totaal opengescheurd. Daar moet Amazon echt wat aan gaan doen. De verpakking is meestal zeer slecht en minimaal en daarom is de kans op beschadigingen tijdens het transport zeer groot. Dus weer een onvoldoende.