Daily Archives: December 18, 2004

1940s Kirby covers

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Another trio of covers from the 1940s

CHARLIE CHAN #3, 1948. These S&K Charlie Chan covers really look cool. It’s almost a shame he apparently didn’t do any full stories (apparently just a splash page or panel in two issues).

GREEN HORNET #10, 1942. A Killer Clown is always a winner. They seem unusually common in comics, compared to reality. Kind of like pirates.

BOY COMMANDOS #8, 1944. That’s an awfull big porthole, isn’t it? Anyway, as Kirby was off to Europe, the Commandos were off to Japan.



Kamandi, The Last Boy On Earth #40 [1976]

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This is Kirby’s final issue of KAMANDI. He didn’t write the last handful at all (and was heavily rescripted on the few before that), so it doesn’t really feel right in the story, and that comes through a bit in the art as well.

Before his encounter with “The Lizard Lords of Los Lorraine”, I did like Kamandi’s battle with a giant parrot in the opening pages, though.

Kamandi, The Last Boy On Earth #40 [1976]

It’s mostly downhill from there, with the new character Arna being a little annoying and a race of lizard men who are pretty blandly designed compared to the earlier animal races. One odd thing is the talking burros, physically unchanged from pre-Great Disaster animals. Horses were always one of the types of animals unchanged, still used as riding animals, in the earlier stories.

Mike Royer was back on the inks for the last few issues, so that was okay, while Joe Kubert drew the cover.

Published 1976