Category Archives: New Kirby

New Kirby – Collector #56 and lots of Marvel

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THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #56 is out now out, look for the bold and more than slightly strange early 1970s Galaxy Green cover:

There have also been a lot of Marvel releases with Kirby reprints in the last few months.  A lot of Thor and Captain America for some reason…  Most notable is ESSENTIAL CAPTAIN AMERICA VOL. 6, which reprints the balance of Kirby’s 1970s run picking up where v5 left off.  So Kirby’s full 1970s run on Cap, including the tabloid, has now been reprinted three times. Who’d have predicted that a decade back?

New Kirby – Boy Commandos

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Probably the last major Kirby publication of the year, DC’s first volume of the S&K classic BOY COMMANDOS is out this week, featuring the early adventures of the team from their debut in Detective through the first two issues of their solo series.  Over two-thirds of this book has material never reprinted since it was first published.

Also out recently, THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #55 has the usual selection of art and articles, with an emphasis on Kirby’s Hollywood related material, including his later animation work.  Also included is a reprint of “The Thing In The Fog” from BLACK MAGIC #7 [1951].

We’ve also had the usual assortment of Marvel reprints lately, all listed here. Most notably, the last few issues of Kirby’s run on THOR are now available in the hardcover Masterworks series.  I think that’s the last of the Silver Age super-hero stuff from Kirby to appear in that format.  Still a lot of sci-fi/fantasy, western and romance work to go, of course.

New Kirby – S&K SUPERHEROES full release

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Some people may have had it in advance, but this past week saw the official release of THE SIMON & KIRBY SUPERHEROES 480-page hardcover.  Got my copy on Wednesday, and it’s a gorgeous book as you’d expect from the precedent Titan set with THE BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY last year.

A lot of details on the contents of the book from Harry Mendryk over here.  Harry did the art restoration for the book, and if you compare this to things like the 1989 Marvel FIGHTING AMERICAN book or the 2004 Archie reprint of THE ADVENTURES OF THE FLY you’ll see the quality of his work.  Better than having the original comics, and at a fraction of the price.

Several sites on-line have been given sample stories from the book to share:

Captain 3-D in “The Man From The World Of D”
Stuntman in “Curtain Call For Death”
The Fly in “The Strange New World Of The Fly”
Stuntman in “Rest Camp For Criminals” and Private Strong in “Ultra-Sonic Spies”

New Kirby – S&K Superheroes

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The 480-page Titan hardcover THE SIMON & KIRBY SUPERHEROES, featuring Fighting American, Stuntman, The Fly, Captain 3-D, Private Strong, The Black Owl and The Vagabond Prince (and a Neil Gaiman introduction), should be available in comic book stores this Thursday. Hopefully it’ll show up sooner rather than later from other sources (especially since that includes my order…), but it should be everywhere by the end of the month, at least.

New Kirby – S&K SUPERHEROES [in San Diego only]

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While the rest of us will have to wait a few weeks, if you’re in San Diego this weekend Titan Books will have copies of the new SIMON AND KIRBY SUPERHEROES book, with a special signed bookplate.  If you get it, feel free to gloat and such in the comments.  For those not getting a copy there, very hefty pre-order discount right now at that previous link and from other retailers.

Booth 5537 will also be the only place you can get hold of a copy of the brand new TANK GIRL: SKIDMARKS trade paperback, signed by Alan Martin and Rufus Dayglo, and signed advance copies of the gorgeous SIMON AND KIRBY SUPERHEROES! With a specially designed bookplate featuring Fighting American and Speedboy, these copies are signed by Joe Simon himself; plus a limited number are also signed by Neil Gaiman, who provided the introduction to the book, giving fans two autographs for the price of one! Outside of their work for Marvel and DC, this hardback compendium features all of the duo’s finest superhero stories and characters, including Fighting American, The Fly, Lancelot Strong and The Stuntman, fully restored to their original glory.

Booth 5537 will also be the only place you can get hold of a copy of the brand new TANK GIRL: SKIDMARKS trade paperback, signed by Alan Martin and Rufus Dayglo, and signed advance copies of the gorgeous SIMON AND KIRBY SUPERHEROES! With a specially designed bookplate featuring Fighting American and Speedboy, these copies are signed by Joe Simon himself; plus a limited number are also signed by Neil Gaiman, who provided the introduction to the book, giving fans two autographs for the price of one! Outside of their work for Marvel and DC, this hardback compendium features all of the duo’s finest superhero stories and characters, including Fighting American, The Fly, Lancelot Strong and The Stuntman, fully restored to their original glory.

New Kirby – Mid-year update

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Busy half-year for Kirby publications. Highlight of the half-year is the Newsboy Legion reprint of golden age S&K material from DC.

Only one issue of TwoMorrows’s long running fan magazine, with some interesting stuff on 1960s Marvel, plus some stories from Kirby’s work for Gilberton’s WORLD AROUND US.

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #54

A few reprints from DC. Obviously the Newsboy Legion one is the most important. Really good stuff, and their reproduction from printed comics improves with every book.  A few of Kirby’s more obscure 1970s creations with only one published story each get reprinted in books collecting later appearances of the characters.

THE NEWSBOY LEGION BY SIMON & KIRBY HC
KOBRA: RESURRECTION TPB
SUPERMAN: THE COMING OF ATLAS TPB

A few reprints of public domain material, Lockjaw and Earl the Rich Rabbit in the IDW book and a few crime stories in the Pure Imagination re-issue of the 1980s Eclipse collection.

GOLDEN COLLECTION OF KLASSIC KRAZY KOOL KIDS COMICS [IDW]
TEEN-AGED DOPE SLAVES AND REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS TPB [Pure Imagination]

And of course a raft of reprints from Marvel in various formats. The recent re-coloured reprints of the Tales of Asgard back-ups get collected. The old hardcover Masterworks line has one volume with a lot of Kirby monsters, while the softcover line has a whole lot of his super-heroes. The black-and-white Essentials line gets to some 1970s material where Kirby did the covers, and a few other reprints had single Kirby stories.

THOR: TALES OF ASGARD BY STAN LEE & JACK KIRBY HC
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: ATLAS ERA TALES TO ASTONISH VOL. 3 HC
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: CAPTAIN AMERICA VOL. 1 TPB
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: DAREDEVIL VOL. 1 TPB
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: IRON MAN VOL. 1 TPB
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: SILVER SURFER VOL. 1 TPB
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN VOL. 4 TPB
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE FANTASTIC FOUR VOL. 3 TPB
ESSENTIAL AVENGERS VOL. 7 TPB
ESSENTIAL FANTASTIC FOUR VOL. 8 TPB
AVENGERS: I AM AN AVENGER TPB
X-MEN VS. AVENGERS PREMIERE HC
X-MEN VS. FANTASTIC FOUR PREMIERE HC

No slowdown in the second half of the year.  The highlight should be the second book Joe Simon is doing through Titan, THE SIMON AND KIRBY SUPERHEROES, a 480 page hardcover including just about all the non-DC/Marvel superhero work the duo did, including the complete Fighting American, Stuntman and a lot more.  Last I heard the hope was to have some copies out for the San Diego Con in a few weeks, and general release soon after.  Also highly anticipated from DC is THE BOY COMMANDOS BY SIMON & KIRBY HC, the first book of one of the great kid-gang feature.  Also one more issue of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR this year, probably some more public domain reprints and of course a bunch of stuff from Marvel, heavy on the Thor for obvious reasons.  Updates over here, as usual.

New Kirby – Teen-Aged Dope Slaves reprint

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The new Pure Imagination edition of the 1989 Eclipse collection TEEN-AGED DOPE SLAVES AND REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS is now available.  I assume the same two S&K stories that were in the original, “The Bobby Sox Bandit Queen” (HEADLINE COMICS #27 [1947]) and “I Worked For The Fence” (HEADLINE COMICS #28 [1948]), are included, but if anyone can confirm I’d appreciate it.

For some more substantial S&K, Harry Mendryk has a sampling of some of the work that will be in the 480 page SIMON & KIRBY SUPERHEROES book.  Looks like it should be out in late summer, with the hope of having copies in time for the San Diego Comicon.

New Kirby – NEWSBOY LEGION and others

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A busy week for new Kirby, highlighted by the release of THE NEWSBOY LEGION BY SIMON & KIRBY Hardcover, the first few years of the classic golden age feature.  Joe Simon provides a new introduction, the majority of the stories never reprinted before (and most of the prior reprints were almost 40 years ago).  I’m looking forward to getting it.

Lots of stuff from Marvel as well.  The recoloured versions of the 49 “Tales of Asgard” stories get collected, the hardcover Marvel Masterworks get to the third volume of Tales To Astonish reprints, and the softcover versions break the order of the original releases in order to get the first Iron Man book out ahead of an upcoming movie.

Catching up on recent weeks, a new KIRBY COLLECTOR came out last week, and recently softcover Masterworks of Captain America v1 and the Fantastic Four v3 came out.

New releases are listed over here, as usual.  And I’m still working on it, but if you’re buying the books from Amazon check out this site’s Amazon Store for all your shopping needs.

New Kirby – A few minor Marvels

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First week of the year has a few minor Kirby reprints from Marvel.  ESSENTIAL AVENGERS VOL. 7 TPB has the mid-1970s run  which includes several new covers by Jack Kirby, as well as one issue which reprinted part of AVENGERS #16 with a new framing sequence.  And X-MEN VS. FANTASTIC FOUR PREMIERE HC and X-MEN VS. AVENGERS PREMIERE HC each reprint a 1980s mini-series backed up by the original 1960s meeting of the title teams (FF #28 and X-MEN #9, respectively).

New Kirby – JKQ #15 in America and more

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Just did an overdue update on the Kirby releases page. Usual mix of new stuff from Marvel, latest JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR is out, apparently last year’s JACK KIRBY QUARTERLY #15 shipped to comic shops in North America this past week.

And THE BEST OF SIMON AND KIRBY should be available just about everywhere books are sold now, and it’s quite gorgeous. In fact, I’ll say right now, if I had to pick a single Kirby book to recommend out of the hundreds that have come out since I started tracking them for this weblog in 2004, weighing the quality of the material, the quality of the production and the value for the price, this would be the winner.