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Another big year for Kirby reprints and related projects in 2011, a year that sadly ended with the recent passing of Kirby’s long-time  partner Joe Simon.  Fortunately, Simon had a productive final year in his publishing partnership with Titan, including the book of the year, THE SIMON & KIRBY LIBRARY: CRIME hardcover, a massive collection of some of the best work by the duo, about half of their work in that particular genre.  There was also an affordable softcover edition of FIGHTING AMERICAN, the comedy super-hero classic and lots of stories about Kirby in Simon’s autobiography JOE SIMON: MY LIFE IN COMICS.

DC continued to get more of their Kirby work in print, with the most interesting book being  the hardcover THE JACK KIRBY OMNIBUS VOL. 1, collecting just about all of Kirby’s 1950s work for the company (other than Challengers of the Unknown), plus some stray 1940s material. All of Kirby’s Green Arrow stories and a lot of never-reprinted short stories, some inked by Kirby. There was also an $8 sampler with a selection of stories for those not ready to commit to a hardcover. Meanwhile, KAMANDI, THE LAST BOY ON EARTH BY JACK KIRBY VOL. 1 collected the first 20 issues of the long running 1970s series in one book, hopefully this time we’ll see the next 20 issues completing Kirby’s run come out, and for those who didn’t get the hardcovers from a few years ago, JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS VOL. 1 came out in softcover, and the next three matching volumes should be out within the next year. And to be complete, there was also a trivial black and white reprint of a reprint in SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE WITCHING HOUR VOL. 1 of a 1950s story also reprinted in the KIRBY OMNIBUS VOL. 1.

TwoMorrows got out two issues of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR in 2011, which apparently ends the tabloid sized run.  The next issue is imminent, with a complete departure from the regular format, and then a new format (standard magazine size with colour section) launches with #59.

Dynamite Entertainment began publishing new comics based on characters created and owned by Kirby under the collective title KIRBY GENESIS.  Kirby’s “Pioneer plaque” appeared as a story element in KIRBY GENESIS #0 (which is available to read free online), as did several pages of Kirby character designs, not sure if any other actual Kirby work has appeared in the line, which has expanded to include CAPTAIN VICTORY, SILVER STAR and the upcoming DRAGONSBANE. And, I did not know this until now, but apparently a digital edition of Kirby’s original SILVER STAR mini-series is available for purchase for $9.

And oddity of the year, Abrams published THE SOMEDAY FUNNIES, a massive hardcover book for which Kirby wrote and drew a 2-page story in the early 1970s.

And Greg Theakston’s PURE IMAGINATION published his two volume biography of Kirby, JACK MAGIC, in 2011.

And, as usual, Marvel published a lot of stuff, as they will continue to do in 2012.  We should also see a few more books from DC in 2012 as well, including the aforementioned softcover FOURTH WORLD books, a large reprint of Kirby’s SPIRIT WORLD from the early 1970s and a single volume hardcover edition of Kirby’s dozen CHALLENGERS issues from the 1950s.  Plus there’ll be more issue of TJKC from TwoMorrows, and hopefully Titan’s line of S&K reprints will continue, although nothing’s been announced yet. Published an upcoming books are updated here as information becomes available.

Sad to hear of the passing of Joe Simon at age 98. His importance in Jack Kirby’s career is immeasurable, working together on thousands of pages of comics from 1940 to the late 1950s, co-creating features like Captain America, The Boy Commandos, The Newsboy Legion, Fighting American and Boys’ Ranch, as well as genre-defining work on crime, romance and horror comics. I’ll refer you to Harry Mendryk’s great S&K blog for an in-depth look at all facets of Simon’s career, with and without Kirby, in particular the posts in his Art Of J. Simon series. And of course, check out Simon’s recent autobiography JOE SIMON: MY LIFE IN COMICS published by Titan.

And fortunately Simon lived to see and participate in several deluxe volumes reprinting his work in the past few years, in particular these from Titan:
THE SIMON & KIRBY LIBRARY: CRIME HC [Titan]
FIGHTING AMERICAN TPB [Titan]
THE SIMON AND KIRBY SUPERHEROES HC [Titan]
THE BEST OF SIMON AND KIRBY HC [Titan]

And these from DC:
THE BOY COMMANDOS BY SIMON & KIRBY HC [DC]
THE NEWSBOY LEGION BY SIMON & KIRBY HC [DC]
SANDMAN BY SIMON AND KIRBY HC [DC]

Art above is from a Simon&Kirby cameo in a story from BOY COMMANDOS #1 [1942], as reprinted in MISTER MIRACLE #6 [1972], full page below.

At least according to some sources, this is what greeted people on the newsstands on Tuesday August 8, 1961, fifty years ago today:

That’s Jack Kirby’s FANTASTIC FOUR #1, for the one or two who don’t know.  Kirby would go on to draw over 2500 pages of FF stories, covers and features (not even counting numerous sketches for fans and cartoon storyboards).  And while certain elements were already in place (most notably including Captain America, Kirby’s co-creation with Joe Simon, Bill Everett’s Namor and Carl Burgos’ original android Human Torch) FF #1 is justifiably considered the launch of the collective universe that includes Kirby creations and co-creations like Thor, the Hulk, Iron Man, the X-Men and the Avengers, as well as the creations of many other talented writers and artists.  The universe I like to call Jack Kirby’s Third World…

[And yes, of course, he would have drawn it several months earlier, and by August 8 was probably at least into #3, where he introduced the team uniforms, the Fantasti-Car and the Baxter Building.  But let's not quibble, it's good to have a day to call the anniversary, and today's the best choice]

Among the stories reprinted in THE BOY COMMANDOS BY JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY #1 [2010] is the never-before-reprinted “A Break For Santa” from DETECTIVE COMICS #71 [1943].

Yes, even dressed as Santa with the rest of the Boy Commandos, Brooklyn isn’t taking off that derby hat. Though I wonder what baseball results he’s looking for around Christmas…

Doesn’t look like we’ll see any more Kirby releases this year, so here’s the year-end roundup.

Book of the year, not much doubt:

THE SIMON AND KIRBY SUPERHEROES HC

Especially if you don’t have the previous FIGHTING AMERICAN reprint and the other scattered reprints of some of the other material. The presentation in this volume greatly improves on any prior reprint, of course, and there’s a lot of never-reprinted work.

No official word on what’s next for Simon’s publishing deal with Titan, although Amazon is showing both his new autobiography and an affordable paperback edition of FIGHTING AMERICAN in the first half of 2011. Hopefully we’ll get some confirmation on that soon.

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TwoMorrows got out two issues of the venerable fanzine:

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #54
THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #55

Along with the usual varied selection of articles and artwork, complete story reprints included three stories from Gilberton’s THE WORLD AROUND US #36 [1961] in #54 and “The Thing In The Fog” from BLACK MAGIC #7 [V2N1] [1951] in #55. Next issue promises to have some wild stuff.

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Two major Kirby reprint books from DC are second and third place for book of the year:

THE BOY COMMANDOS BY SIMON & KIRBY VOL. 1 HC
THE NEWSBOY LEGION BY SIMON & KIRBY VOL. 1 HC

Lots of classic Simon&Kirby work in those. Just got my copy of the BOY COMMANDOS book, and it looks excellent. There’s a lot more BC to go (and some post-war NL), so hopefully we’ll see more volumes, although first it looks like we’ll get a KIRBY OMNIBUS collection of all of Kirby’s 1950s work for DC other than Challengers of the Unknown.

Also from DC, single 1970s Kirby stories in these collections of other material:

KOBRA: RESURRECTION TPB
SUPERMAN: THE COMING OF ATLAS TPB

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And a few volumes of public domain reprints that include some Kirby. The PI book is a re-issue of the old Eclipse collection, and the IDW book includes some 1940s Kirby funny animal work. PI also had a re-issue of the Eclipse REAL LOVE on the schedule, but that seems to be running late.

TEEN-AGED DOPE SLAVES AND REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS TPB [Pure Imagination]
GOLDEN COLLECTION OF KLASSIC KRAZY KOOL KIDS COMICS [IDW]

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And that brings us to Marvel, as usual with a wide variety of Kirby reprints in a wide variety of formats.

Most interesting stand-alone book was a hardcover collection of the Thor back-up series Tales of Asgard, although with some very modern colouring. Softcover coming out soon.

THOR: TALES OF ASGARD BY STAN LEE & JACK KIRBY HC

The black and white Essential line is mostly in the 1970s now, so a few books had runs with Kirby on the covers, and Captain America got into the first half of Kirby’s final run on the character:

ESSENTIAL CAPTAIN AMERICA VOL. 5 TPB
ESSENTIAL AVENGERS VOL. 7 TPB
ESSENTIAL FANTASTIC FOUR VOL. 8 TPB

Hardcover Masterworks line continues. Most noteworthy is that THOR v9 finishes up the Kirby run, and means just about all of Kirby’s silver age super-hero work has been reprinted in that format (with some trivial exceptions like NOT BRAND ECHH). Lots of monsters in the ASTONISH and SUSPENSE books. A few more Vision stories in the GOLDEN AGE MARVEL COMICS volume. Trivial Kirby cover work in the PANTHER and FURY books. None of the 2011 scheduled book so far have Kirby.

MARVEL MASTERWORKS: ATLAS ERA TALES TO ASTONISH VOL. 3 HC
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: BLACK PANTHER VOL. 1 HC (one Kirby cover)
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: ATLAS ERA TALES OF SUSPENSE VOL. 3 HC
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: SGT. FURY VOL. 3 HC (one Kirby cover)
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THOR VOL. 9 HC (final Kirby issues)
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: GOLDEN AGE MARVEL COMICS VOL. 5 HC (Vision)

Softcover Masterworks line continues mostly following the original release order, so lots of Kirby, a few trivial amounts. More of the same in 2011, with some Kirby in 10 of the expected volumes if they don’t shuffle the order.

MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE FANTASTIC FOUR VOL. 3 TPB
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: CAPTAIN AMERICA VOL. 1 TPB
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: IRON MAN VOL. 1 TPB
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: SILVER SURFER VOL. 1 TPB
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN VOL. 4 TPB (one partial cover)
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: DAREDEVIL VOL. 1 TPB (a few covers)
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THOR VOL. 1 TPB
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: SILVER SURFER VOL. 2 TPB
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE FANTASTIC FOUR VOL. 4 TPB
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: DOCTOR STRANGE VOL. 1 TPB (some covers)

Every now and then Marvel will stick a reprint in the back of a new comic for whatever reason. These aren’t always announced in advance, so I may have missed some, but

CAPTAIN AMERICA – FOREVER ALLIES #1 (reprints 1965 origin of Captain America)
GORILLA-MAN #2 (reprint from TtA #28)
GORILLA-MAN #3 (reprint from TtA #30)
STEVE ROGERS – SUPER-SOLDIER #1 (reprints 1941 origin of Captain America)

And sometimes their collections will have some small amount of Kirby, either covers or back-up material or part of a theme for the collection:

X-MEN VS. AVENGERS PREMIERE HC
X-MEN VS. FANTASTIC FOUR PREMIERE HC
AVENGERS: I AM AN AVENGER TPB
X-MEN: WE ARE THE X-MEN TPB
THOR VS. HERCULES TPB

THOR: SIEGE AFTERMATH TPB
AVENGERS: THE ORIGIN HC
THOR: IF ASGARD SHOULD PERISH HC (some Kirby covers)
THOR: THE MIGHTY AVENGER VOL. 1 TPB

Expect a lot more in 2011, especially with a number of movies based on Kirby characters coming out. Omnibus hardcovers of the first few years of Thor, the 1960s Captain America and the 1970s Captain America. A lot of other Thor books with some Kirby material.