As the movie Thor is about to be released, I thought it’d be helpful to briefly present the two Thors that Kirby drew before he co-created Thor with Marvel’s Stan Lee and Larry Lieber.

2009 reprint of 1942’s “The Villain From Valhalla!”

1969 reprint of 1957’s The Magic Hammer

2011 June recoloring of 1962’s – The Stone Men From Saturn page 8

In National Periodical Publications’ June 1942 Adventure Comics 75, Kirby and his partner Joe Simon produced the cover-featured ten page Sandman story “The Villain From Valhalla!” The story involves Sandman and Sandy stopping Thor and his crew from plundering the city. Thor throws his hammer and is invulnerable to police bullets. The art is notable for not only a cover and an opening story splash, but an internal splash, as well.

Fifteen years later, in National’s August 1957 Tales Of The Unexpected 16, Kirby produced a a six page story “The Magic Hammer!” A western tale, it tells of a man’s discovery of a hammer that, when thrown to the ground, brings thunder, lightning and rain. It’s also shown to destroy a tree. The man makes some money as a rainmaker and considers the riches the hammer could bring, when the god Thor shows up to retrieve his hammer, which was stolen from him by the mischievous Loki.

And then, five years later, in Martin Goodman’s August 1962 Journey Into Mystery 83, came the Marvel Comics Thor. In Kirby’s thirteen page story with Stan Lee and Larry Lieber, frail, vacationing Dr. Blake wanders the coast of Norway, where he hides in a cave to escape aliens who have just landed and left their spacecraft. Blake finds a cane and attempts to use it to move a boulder to block the cave entrance, but fails. In frustration, he strikes the boulder with the cane, which causes Blake to be magically transformed into Thor and the cane into his magic hammer. Blake/Thor discovers the powers of the hammer, which involve the aforementioned transformations, the boomerang-like return if thrown, its invincibility (demonstrated with the breaking of a tree), control of the weather, and by throwing it and maintaining his grip, personal flight.

Jack Kirby had a lifelong interest in mythology, beginning with stories told to him by his mother while a growing up in the ghetto.

(Scans adjusted in Adobe Photoshop for fun. – R)

Wikipedia: Thor

The 25 page document titled “Three Presentations” by “Jack Kirby & Ted Pedersen” contains some rare Kirby pencil art for “RAAM” and “The Golden Age of Prester John.” A third presentation, “Time Diver,” doesn’t include any illustrations.

Prester John, a legendary character popular from the 12th through the 15th centuries in Europe, was also used by Kirby in “Whosoever Finds The Evil Eye!” published in Martin Goodman’s June 1966 Fantastic Four 54.

The two scans below illustrated the Museum’s Newsletter in John Morrow’s Spring 2011 Jack Kirby Collector 56; also in that issue were better scans of the RAAM art, which Jack dated 1972.

Coincidentally, John printed a letter from Shaun Casey of Kenmore, WA who knew Ted Pedersen, who passed away in 2010. Shaun included a condensation of some emails they exchanged regarding Kirby. Apparently, Kirby was Pedersen’s writing partner’s neighbor in Thousand Oaks. Pedersen also says he, Kirby and SF writer Jack Vance pitched a series that CBS was interested in, but never bought. Pedersen also says he introduced Kirby to Ruby-Spears.

It woud be interesting to learn more about the timing of these events. Please contact us either through email or in the comments to this post, if you can provide some insight.

The Golden Age Of Prester John pencil art photocopy

The Golden Age Of Prester John details pencil art photocopy

Three Presentations cover

So I’m looking through the pages and pages of photocopies in the museum’s holdings, this one batch being in an 8 1/2 by 11 three-hole looseleaf binder, and one piece jumps out at me – a pitch page from the Big Barda And Her Female Furies comic.

I contact John Morrow, who’d never seen it, so we spend some time deciphering the poorly photocopied pencil marks at the top of the page. We come up with:

“Barda and gals bring Lump to Earth with them. [illegible…] powerful, the Lump has an inferiority complex–and the gals try to help him overcome it, while the Lump helps them out of scrapes… traps…”

“Barda and gals run “Beauty Rock” island we talked about–which is center for spy activity–and paid for by free nation govts.”

“Island is cover for military training base for gals–”

Barda was eventually introduced in Mister Miracle 4, Lump in Mister Miracle 7, the Female Furies in Mister Miracle 8, Head in Mister Miracle 10, and Apollo was introduced in OMAC 7.

John published the pitch page in his Spring 2011 Jack Kirby Collector 56.

I suspect Kirby created a third page detailing Barda and the Furies themselves, but we’ll just have enjoy what we’ve seen so far.

Barda And her Female Furies presentation pencil art photocopy

Big Barda And Her Female Furies original pencil art

Below are scans of three OMAC pencil art photocopies in our holdings. I can’t recall this first piece ever having been printed, presented or mentioned anywhere before: It’s become a favorite of mine, and I dream that the original pencil art piece will be found, to be scanned for the OADA. Also, we have photocopies of Kirby’s OMAC presentation from 1973.

OMAC pinup pencil art photocopy

1973 – OMAC presentation page 1 pencil art photocopy

1973 – OMAC presentation page 2 pencil art photocopy

There are quite few more scans of OMAC pencil art photocopies in our Gallery.

Also included in the exhibits for the Marvel Worldwide, Inc. et al v. Kirby et al legal proceedings is a scan of an unused page of Kirby Fantastic Four art. This looks like an unused page from “The Mad Menace of the Macabre Mole Man!” – first published in Marvel Comics’ October 1964 Fantastic Four 31 – where Sue Storm finds out her father has escaped from jail and visits him without revealing she is his daughter.

1964 – Fantastic Four 31 unused pencil art

Up till now, three pages were known, which were presented in TwoMorrows’ Fall 2004 The Jack Kirby Collector 41.

John Morrow’s TJKC 41 article stated that the pages were “in Larry Lieber’s closet all these years.” Interestingly, all five Hulk pages are included in a filing that includes Larry Lieber’s testimony for the Marvel Worldwide, Inc. et al v. Kirby et al legal proceedings.

1962 – Newly discovered Hulk 6 unused page 8 pencil art

1962 – Newly discovered Hulk 6 unused page 9 pencil art

1962 – Hulk 6 unused page 11 pencil art

1962 – Hulk 6 unused page 12 pencil art

1962 – Hulk 6 unused page 13 pencil art

In his testimony, Larry says:

“… Jack Kirby came out of Stan’s office from — and from the direction of Stan’s office. He may, probably, he had come out of Stan’s office, and he seemed upset. And he took the drawings, he had these drawings, he took them and he tore them in half and he threw them in a trash can, a large trash can.

“And I, since I was such a big fan of his, I knew that at the end of the day, they would be discarded, you know, and would be trash. And I — I saw it as an opportunity to have some of his originals to keep, to look at and study, and so I took them out of the trash can.

“And there were other people in the office, but nobody else seemed to have noticed this, which I was glad about, and I just took them, walked over to where I was sitting and put them in my case. And I took them home and I taped them together, you know, I taped them all, and I kept them and I’ve kept them all these years to look at them and, as I say, to study them.”

The two “new” pages appear to be numbered pages 8 & 9, leaving page 10 unaccounted for in the sequence. John Morrow wonders if it was a Hulk-only page that was used in a subsequently published story.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to scan these pages for our Original Art Digital Archive.

Thanks to John Morrow, the eagle eye of Glen David Gold, and the quick-thinking Larry Lieber!

Thanks to the generosity of designer Alex Jay, the Kirby Museum now has a copy of Ragnarok 2 in its collection.

1972 New York Comic Art Convention – Joe Sinnott and Jack Kirby

1972 New York Comic Art Convention – Jack Kirby and Mr. Miracle cosplayer

1972 – Ragnarok 2 cover

Among other features, this fanzine contains Tom Fagan’s review of the 1972 New York Comicart Convention, which Jack Kirby attended, with accompanying photos.

Click here to view Ragnarok 2(17 M pdf)

Ragnarok 2. Publisher – Mark Collins: Orange, New Jersey, USA.

I recently came across this one-sheet in my personal files, in a folder called “Kirby Interview” – from 1992 when Andrew Mayer and I interviewed Jack Kirby at the San Diego Comic-Con.

1992 – The Unpublished Works Of Jack Kirby one-sheet

The lithographs are featured in Jim Cardillo’s gallery at Comic Art Fans.

Inspired by some of the recent activity on Jon B. Cooke’s blog, 365 days of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World, here are some pieces related to the cover of the first issue of The Forever People.

First is a photostat of Kirby’s pencil art with a logo. This photostat was gifted to the Museum by Greg Theakston.

Second is the inked original art that was scanned at New York Comic Con 2010 thanks to Joe and Nadia Mannarino as part of the Museum’s Original Art Digital Archive project. The Forever People’s figures are on a separate piece of paper that has been glued onto a larger piece with an added Superman. Frank Giacoia inked the piece. If you are registered at the What If Kirby website, you can zoom in to see more details of this piece.

Note that Big Bear’s mustache, which Kirby indicated in the pencils, is not inked. Super City also became Super Town.

1972 – Forever People 1 cover pencil art photostat

1972 – Forever People 1 cover original art

Comparison of Big Bear’s face between Kirby’s pencil art and Giacoia’s ink art

1971 – Forever People 1 cover color guide

1972 – Forever People 1 cover

1999 – Jack Kirby’s Forever People – trade paperback cover

Third is the color guide taken from the recent Jack Kirby Collector 55, where John Morrow notes that since this was from Kirby’s files, Kirby would have done the color work.

Fourth is the printed cover. Although dated March on the cover, the interior indicia state February-March 1971; this comicbook was on the stands in November or December 1970, with Kirby and DC doing most of the production a month or two before that.

Last is the cover to 1999’s “Jack Kirby’s Forever People” trade paperback, with color and a different Beautiful Dreamer by Digital Chameleon.

I would love to present more iterations of this Kirby-Giacoia artwork. If you have editions in other languages, or any version with notable production differences, please contact me at rhoppe@kirbymuseum.org, and I’ll add them to this entry.

– Rand HOPPE

A photocopy of pencil art.

11″ by 17″

Kamandi In Yoke At Sacker’s pencil art photocopy