Another story originally meant for SPIRIT WORLD #2, this one is about a man who has psychic abilities, and uses them to help the police solve crimes.

This is an interesting story, reads like something out of a 1950s issue of BLACK MAGIC, with a few pretty gory scenes and sudden violence. The art is what makes it, with sharp inks by Mike Royer really capturing the setting and the dark mood.

Also in this issue is a one page text feature on the subject of psychic mysteries, with a Kirby collage on the borders.

Published 1972

This 1970 comic reprints a Kirby/Ditko story from TALES TO ASTONISH #13 from 1960.

Very nicely paced story about a man who comes across a photo of the Abominable Snowman, and starts on an obsessive search through the Himalayas for the mythic beast. The exotic locales come through nicely, and the story builds cleverly to the inevitable conclusion. Definitely one of the better overall Atlas stories, and the Ditko inks over Kirby are always a treat.

Published 1970

BLACK CAT MYSTERY #57, 1956. I can’t decide what I like best about this cover, the surreal concept, the fish taking notes or the fish with the slide projector controller. In any case, definitely one of my favourite of Kirby’s covers for Harvey in that period.

Fin Fang Foom is probably the epitome of the Kirby monster, both in look and name, oft reprinted and brought into the Marvel super-hero lore many times by subsequent creators.

FANTASY MASTERPIECES #2 reprints the original story, from STRANGE TALES #89 (1961). Inked magnificently by Dick Ayers, and for some reason coloured orange rather than the original green. I don’t usually pick splash pages to post, but this one is just too perfect.

I just love that image, how Kirby mixes human and monster features with wild abandon to create something so memorable.

The story is about a resident of Formosa (Taiwan), derided as a coward by his father due to his his dedication to ancient studies rather than joining the army, acting as Red China prepares to invade by releasing the legendary beast Fin Fang Foom to unwittingly demolish the Red Chinese forces.

The character also inspired what is perhaps the most absurdly wonderful bit of comic related merchandise ever.

This issue of FM also reprints a Don Heck story, “Orogo”, for which Kirby did the splash page. I wonder if he drew that first, or was asked to do it after the original was done to punch up the story a bit. The cover of this issue is a collage of images from the three stories reprinted.

Published 1966

In the 1970s, Joe Simon re-packaged some of the stories done by the Simon&Kirby shop in the 1950s for nine issues of BLACK MAGIC at DC. There was one or more S&K story in every issue, as well as work by Mort Meskin, Bill Draut and others.

#9 featured a reprint from STANGE WORLDS OF YOUR DREAMS #3 (1952), “The Woman in the Tower”. It’s a visual interpretation of what’s allegedly a dream sent in by a reader, involving being trapped in a tower with screaming voices from the other cells and a cloaked figure, followed by an interpretation that this is actually a good dream. Weird. The purpose of course is to showcase the heavy atmospheric horror art that S&K did so well, with dark inks, claustrophobic layouts and the darkly evil looking figure in the robe.

Published May, 1975

This 12 page story is one of four that were intended for SPIRIT WORLD #2 and then published in various DC horror anthology books. This story is inked by Mike Royer, and, though he’s uncredited, written with Mark Evanier (see the article linked to below for details).

“Toxl” is visually the best of those, with some great images, including one of the best two-page spreads I think Kirby ever did. Lot’s of amazing action in here, with the story of Toxl, the leader of a primitive tribe leading a rebellion against a group of technologically advanced conquerors. A little bit of a strange story, but lots of fun to read.

A JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR article on SPIRIT WORLD, including a penciled page from this story and comments by Mark Evanier is available here.

This issue also includes a two page article by Kirby on the topic of UFOs, “They’re Still Up There”, illustrated with four Kirby collages. Fun enough, although I always thought that Kirby’s collages looked to be too much work for stuff he could more effectively do with a pencil, and were never done enough justice by the mediocre printing of the era.

Published October 1972

THE DEMON was a bit of an uneven book, but had some clever stories with great artwork (inked by Mike Royer) throughout.

This fourth issue is the first of a two-part story pitting Etrigan against some foes of his master Merlin. As is typical in Demon stories, the more interesting stuff occurs with the Jason Blood and friends (Randu and Harry in this issue) sequences, while the Etrigan segments provide some great action.

One of the interesting concepts that Kirby introduces here is the Kamara, a “Fear-Monster” that feeds on terror while disguising itself in the form of a meek white monkey. Of course, the Moore/Bissette/Totleben team would clearly find some possibilities in that a decade later and use the character in an early issue of their SWAMP THING run.

Published 1972

Interesting the stuff you get when you pull out a random Kirby book.

GIANT-SIZE CHILLERS #3 (August 1975) reprints “The Monster”, a 7 page story from CHAMBER OF DARKNESS #4 (April 1970). The credits have it as written and pencilled by Jack Kirby and inked by John Verpoorten, but that’s really only part of the story.

Part of the background is told in THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #13 (reprinted in the third COLLECTED JKC, with a teaser here), in an article that promises more details would probably be in Mark Evanier’s still-upcoming biography of Kirby. In a nutshell, Kirby submitted the original story, was quite proud of it, then someone at Marvel insisted on wholesale changes, which Kirby made, and then Kirby scripted it, and Marvel made yet more changes after that. From the pencil and margin notes photocopies in the article, it was a much better story before the changes. With editorial help like that from Marvel, it’s not surprising that Kirby took the contract DC offered not too long after.

The actual published story is okay, but nothing special. I don’t know if my opinion is weighed down by knowing the background, or by comparing it to the original (which has some much nicer action scenes that are omitted in the final version), but overall it just seems to drift a bit and then just sort of end with a pat moral.

The art is still mostly good, and Verpoorten was a pretty good inker for him (Verpoorten only inked a handful of Kirby covers in that era, he would do some full issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA and ETERNALS when Kirby returned to Marvel). A few of the panels shown in the page above are close to how they looked in the original, and I just love the old-world castle architecture that Kirby does so well so often in his work (stories with Dr. Doom and the Demon being notable examples).