Robert Greenberger writes a decent brief overview of Kirby’s original ETERNALS series as part of the hype machine for a new series that is apparently coming soon.

http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68747

Just a note that the Free Magazine Day at the TwoMorrows website has been extended to (appropriately enough) tomorrow thanks to enough demand that slowed down their servers. Go over and pick out one available issue of ALTER EGO, BACK ISSUE, DRAW or WRITE NOW that you need and they’ll send it to you free of charge (in the United States. $2 to cover shipping to Canada, $3 International). I highly recommend almost any issue of ALTER EGO, but a few notables:

#9 – John Romita
#15 – John Buscema
#17 – Lou Fine
#24 – Mort Meskin
#28 – Joe Maneely
#36 – Joe Simon

Kirby shows up frequently in ALTER EGO, especially any issue with a focus on the Golden Age or 1960s Marvel. BACK ISSUE has also had some Kirby in their “Rough Stuff” section of pencilled artwork, including in #1 and #3.

Might take a while to get through to the site (try during the night or early tomorrow), but it’s worth it.

Free Magazine Day

Via Mike in a comment to a previous post, Marvel has some of their comics in a web format, including three by Kirby (ETERNALS #1, BLACK PANTHER #1, FANTASTIC FOUR #1). The interface seems more than a bit clunky, and you have to register (for free) to see more than a few pages of each issue, and there are other oddities (check out the date they claim ETERNALS #1 was published!), but check it out if you want.

http://www.marvel.com/digitalcomics/

Over on YouTube is a French version of the opening title sequence of Thundarr, one of the cartoons Kirby did design work for in the 1980s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0GRUEOJgAw

Saturday is Kirby Day over at Kevin Church’s BeaucoupKevin blog. Check out the first two entries and go back every week for more.

http://www.beaucoupkevin.com/

If you live around or plan to be in Milwaukee this summer, the Milwaukee Art Museum is hosting the first tour stop of the MOCA Masters of American Comics exhibition from April 29 to August 13 at the Baker/Rowland Exhibition Galleries. Kirby is one of fifteen featured artists, and if it’s the same as the Los Angeles show covered in the latest KIRBY COLLECTOR you’ll get a chance to see about 50 pages of Kirby artwork covering several decades of his career, and a lot more. The Yale University Press book that serves as the catalogue of the exhibit is also available. The show then moves to the New York / New Jersey area in the fall.

http://www.mam.org/exhibitions/exhibition_details.aspx?ID=66

Jack Kirby is nominated for a 2006 Eisner Award, for the FANTASTIC FOUR OMNIBUS reprint.

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books

* Absolute Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (DC)
* Buddha, vols. 5-8, by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)
* The Contract with God Trilogy, by Will Eisner (Norton)
* DC Comics Rarities Archives, vol. 1 (DC)
* Fantastic Four Omnibus, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (Marvel)

Complete list of nominees

Steve Thompson takes a look at Jack Kirby’s SPIRIT WORLD, one of the two black and white (or blue and white in this case) magazines that DC released in the early 1970s.

http://booksteveslibrary.blogspot.com/2006/03/jack-kirbys-spirit-world.html

Yeah, linking to my own other weblog, how gauche.

Inspired by comments on a recent post, I’ve started a little gallery of creators being credited on comic book covers prior to 1980. Of course, most of the examples I know off-hand are Kirby (Don’t Ask! Just Buy It!) and S&K, but there are some other interesting ones. Let me know about the many I probably missed.

http://fourrealities.blogspot.com/2006/03/credits-on-comic-book-covers.html

Long time readers know that one of the biggest gaps in this weblog is my lack of access to the bulk of the Simon&Kirby material, in particular from the post-war period to when the team split in the mid-1950s. Harry Mendryk solves that problem by giving me a new Simon & Kirby blog to point you to, where you’ll learn a lot about their work together, as well as the many other fine artists who worked for the busy S&K studio, plus work from other time periods. Harry’s got access to some amazing first hand research material, and the first few posts already have a lot on editing in the S&K books and the scripting technique than can be seen on some early 1960s Marvel art.

So give it a read, bookmark it and spread the word.

http://simonandkirby.blogspot.com/