Newsboy Legion 2

I actually ordered this book 14 months ago, and as a big-time fan of Simon and Kirby, I have been waiting impatiently for its publication. Now I've got it, AND IT SUCKS! In almost every way imaginable, IT SUCKS! Kirby art is almost totally missing - he did layouts for only six of the 32 stories and pencils for a bunch of horribly rushed covers, and that's it. The studio artists who did contribute give us lazy, unimaginative junk work, including the two stories credited to Joe Kubert, one by Curt Swan and two others by Gil Kane. I expected a certain drop-off in quality, since they were rushing to complete stories before entering the service, but not this garbage. Plus, this has to be an all-time low in production values for DC Comics. I'm shocked that Rick Keene and Harry Mendryk, who scanned and restored this junk, even wanted their names to be credited here, without using aliases. It is inexcusable to allow this book to be printed and sold in this condition by an experienced, top of the line publisher. The purple skin tones mentioned in earlier reviews are just the most obvious problem, and they appear on every page of every story, from the first to the last. This is the kind of work that you send back and demand a re-do or a complete refund. The color errors alone make this collection almost unreadable. They are an insult to those of us who paid good money for this publication. The people who produced it should be ashamed of themselves. Those who promoted this volume without a stern warning to potential buyers about the dramatic drop-off in production values, and the total lack of expected Simon and Kirby quality... those folks ought to be arrested and imprisoned! This work demonstrates almost criminal negligence. It really is just that bad. Have I made myself clear here? I am practically never critical of 40s reprints, even when others have found them flawed. I'm just grateful to have a chance to read them. I'm a booster and a fan of every single book of Simon and Kirby comics that DC has ever produced, up to this volume, but I'll stand by every negative statement in this review. It's that bad... and worse. My fingers just got tired of typing, and besides, I don't want to think about it anymore. It makes my teeth hurt.

The Newsboy Legion is early Kirby, so you shouldn't expect the same narrative drive and polish of, say, his classic Fantastic Four/Captain America/Thor sagas, nor his stunningly creative Fourth World, Demon, and Komandi work done at DC. But that in no way means this work isn't entertaining and worthy of any Kirby fan's attention. It's pure fun from an earlier age. I'm very happy I found both the Newsboy Legion and the Boy Commandos on sale during the holidays. I bought the 3 that are currently available and I just smile when I read them. Be sure you look at samples so you're not surprised by the content; it honestly is early stuff that won't appeal to an audience that wants today's gritty tone or Kirby's classic creative tsunami of new characters and ideas and on and on.

Sadly I waited six months for this copy. I love Jack Kirby's work from this period, and that was the reason I ordered It. But the quality of this book is Of such poor quality that it makes it almost unreadable. The quality of the paper is not the highest, the colors are so dark and muddled that the book can only be read in the brightest of light. The color transfer is so bad that most of the characters faces are purple. Low quality paper, poor transferring, coloring so dark as to almost render it unreadable. Couldn't you have used some computer software to clean and brighten it ? The quality in Volume 1 is slightly better, but plagues the rest of the DC Kirby reissue series. I can only recommend this book for no other than the long lost story material. Perhaps DC will take a little more time and care in there next efforts.

C'mon, its Simon & Kirby, its golden-age - you KNOW you want it, you KNOW you'll love it (except the last couple of stories w/o the Guardian). So get it, NOW.

A disaster. Poor quality paper and lazy coloring.

Nice addition to my Simon & Kirby reprint collection plus Kubert, Swan, and others.

Crude color artwork. Funny crime stories, one of the crooks was a cross dresser, a big deal in the 40's. The suicide slum dialog is funny as well. Buy it today, youse mugs!

Unfortunately not the high quality gloss paper normally associated with Archive Editions but excellent value non the less.Prompt delivery.