Daily Archives: October 5, 2004

Covers to go

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TWO-GUN KID #72, 1964. Excellent Frank Giacoia inks on a dynamic cover.

MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #54, 1975. One of the covers Kirby did for the 1970s reprint books, although by this time reprinting non-Kirby stories. A nice generic Hulk scene. Colletta inks.

BLACK MAGIC #16, 1952. Love the extra-dark moody inking S&K used for BLACK MAGIC. Plus Kirby being free to use his full skills at the grotesque.



–Link– Kirby’s Legacy at Slate

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The Hogan’s Alley site at Slate features a few comic creators discussing Kirby and some of their favourite moments, including Steve Gerber, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller and Neal Adams.

http://cagle.slate.msn.com/hogan/features/kirby.asp
http://cagle.slate.msn.com/hogan/features/kirby2.asp
http://cagle.slate.msn.com/hogan/features/kirby3.asp

House Of Mystery #199 [1972]

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In addition to Challengers of the Unknown and Green Arrow, Kirby’s stint at DC in the 1950s saw him do 30 short stories and some covers for the various fantasy and science fiction anthologies.

Several of those stories were reprinted in the 1970s, including this one in HOUSE OF MYSTERY #199.  Originally printed in MY GREATEST ADVENTURE #17 as “I Doomed the World”, here it’s called “He Doomed The World” to accommodate the introduction by host Cain.

hom199

The story is a typical not-entirely-plausible ending story, where a rich inventor is hypnotized by aliens to send four explorers to the extremes of the Earth in a plane to destroy the world. The art is excellent, though, with lots of detailed images. I especially like the panel highlighted in the scan there, where Kirby draws this incredibly good looking and complex statue. There’s really no reason for that to be there, but I kind of like that he goes to that extra effort.

Published February 1972.

Not Brand Echh #3 [1967] – The Origin of Sore

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NOT BRAND ECHH was of course Marvel’s title for self-parody. Kirby had stories in some of the early issues, doing parodies of the various characters he drew at Marvel (FF, Thor, Surfer), plus a, um, Forbush Man story.

I’m not a huge fan of the book. A lot of the parodies read to me a bit too much like someone read the “how to do a parody” strip in MAD #17 by Kurtzman and Wood, and didn’t quite get that it was a joke. But just by sheer volume there are always some good gags, and some of the art is good.

In #3 it was Thor who was up, under his gag-name of “Mighty Sore, Son of Shmodin”, against his arch-nemesis Hokey. Yeah, I know. Sore is kind of a good design, with a carpenter hammer, long blonde hair in braids, a chicken on his helmet and buttons that keep changing.

nbe3

Among the better gags in this one, I like the pile of newspapers with stories about Sore, except the Daily Bugle running “Spider-Man is a Fink” as the headline. The page shown above also has the expression “kirbyesque” referring to Hokey’s cannon, which might be the first time that expression was ever published. And for no explained reason, when the Warriors Three are shown, “Bullstag” has a sign on his chest saying “Legalize Potatoes”.

The 8 page story is inked by Frank Giacoia, who does a great job on it, very clear and faithful. The Kirby checklist notes an art assist to Marie Severin, which would seem to be the panel showing a crowd of tourists in Asgard, including caricatures of many celebrities of the day.

Published 1967