Monthly Archives: May 2005

–Link– Chabon on Barda

Author Michael Chabon writes about his admiration for Big Barda and about Kirby in general in an essay posted on his website.

http://www.michaelchabon.com/archives/2005/03/a_woman_of_valo.html

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Upcoming Kirby – August 2005

Marvel continues its “feast or famine” scheduling, with just a trivial Kirby bit in their latest solicitations. MARVEL MASTERWORKS: DOCTOR STRANGE v2 continues the STRANGE TALES reprints and also promises a gallery of ST covers with Doc (the first volume was the only Masterwork without cover reprints). A few of those will be by Kirby.

AC Comics has this thing scheduled:

AMERICA’S GREATEST COMICS #13
by Various
Comics’ greatest artistic talents explore fantasy, sci-fi and humor in this cross-section of classics- Kirby on “Donnegan’s Daffy Chair”; Meskin for “Invisible Link”; Powell does “Asylum”; Ditko draws “King of Planetoid X”; Cole does “King of Dopi Island”; Krigstein contributes “Bush Track Sentence”; and Kubert “Corsairs From The Coalsack.”
52pgs, B&W SRP: $6.95

That’s a silly but fun four page story with some nice art.

And Pure Imagination has this:

COMPLETE JACK KIRBY CD ROM VOLUME 1
by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
The first two volumes of The Complete Jack Kirby in one CD-Rom. Almost four hundred pages reprinted chronologically with historical analysis by Kirby historian Greg Theakston. CD extras include over 200 perviously un-reprinted examples of his comic strip work, rare photos and a previously unpublished interview. Works on Macs and PCs, Adobe Acrobat reader included. Pages can be printed.
CD-Rom SRP: $20.00

Very good stuff in the print version of those two books, so this is definitely worth it if you don’t have those. Even with those I’m tempted by the further examples of Kirby’s comic strip work and the interview.

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2001 – A Space Odyssey #1 – Beast-Killer

After first adapting the movie for a tabloid format special, Kirby launched a monthly series to explore some of the ideas of the movie with his own unique flavour.

The first half of the story goes into the prehistoric past and explores the life of Beast-Killer, an early man who was given an evolutionary push from the mysterious monolith, gradually making more and more sophistocated weapons to aid in his hunting. We then leap forward to the exciting future of 2001 and astronaut Woodrow Decker, whose ancestor was Beast-Killer, in the asteroid belt.

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Decker and another astronaut are stranded on an asteroid with various mysterious artifacts and a strange beast. Decker is then taken by the Monolith on a cosmic journey, ages rapidly and turns into a “New Seed”, one of the flyiing space babies from the end of the movie, going off to explore the cosmos. Pretty much a straight variation of the story from the movie, fortunately Kirby would inject more of his own ideas in future issues. This one does have some great artwork, in particular the prehistoric stuff (a great peek ahead to his DEVIL DINOSAUR run).

Kirby also provides a text page, “The New Seed”, where he talks about a few of the ideas that the mysterious concept evokes in him and that he plans to explore.

Cover and story inked by Mike Royer.

Published 1976

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Admin – Back again

Okay, ready to start posting again, although maybe not daily for a while. Meanwhile, I’ve updated the Announcement page with whatever has come out recently, and added a few links to available and upcoming books in the sidebar (including a good discount on the upcoming FF OMNIBUS from Amazon).

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Quick update

Still no time to update, but a quick mention that THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #42 is in comic stores this week. Should be a good one. Also BEST OF THE FANTASTIC FOUR VOL. 1 HC and AVENGERS: KANG – TIME AND TIME AGAIN TPB.

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