Monthly Archives: November 2004

Journey Into Mystery #59 [1960] – I Unleashed Shagg Upon the World

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Steve Ditko inked the cover over Jack Kirby for this issue, while Dick Ayers handled the inks for the lead story, “I Unleashed Shagg upon the World”. This is really one of the weaker Atlas monster stories, with a man finding a hidden lever next to the Sphinx, bringing it to life as the alien conqueror Shagg.

Journey Into Mystery #59 [1960]

Shagg proceeds to rampage across Europe then onto America, before realizing that his fellow alien conquers aren’t around, and he was re-animated early. So he, um, just reverses everything with his cosmo-gamma electro-magnetic waves, which also makes everyone forget him, and returns to his Sphinx position.

As I said, weak story, but the art is nice, especially the Kirby/Ditko cover. And the rest of the book has some nice Ditko and Heck art.

Published 1960

Trio of Cover

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ADVENTURE COMICS #97, 1945. Very dynamic S&K cover of Sandman and Sandy facing off against aliens.

HOUSE OF MYSTERY #79, 1958. The monster on this cover is kind of weak, but the foreground figure is nice, with some nice inking from that period.

DEFENDERS, THE #43, 1977. Al Milgrom inks, with a nice big Hulk figure. Kirby drawing Doc Strange always looks a bit wrong, though.



–Link– Kirby and Judaism

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Thanks to Scott Saavedra for pointing out this article from a few years back, from the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, about some aspects of Kirby’s religious life and how it figured into his work. Fun stuff.

Check out Scott’s Devil Dinosaur sketch while you’re at his site, too.

http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=7322

Chamber Of Darkness #7 [1970] – I Found the Abominable Snowman

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

Chamber Of Darkness #7 [1970]

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

Three Covers

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SANDMAN, THE #3, 1975. Gotta love the monkey with the mechanical brain. Royer inks.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #53, 1959. Giant robots attack, more Atlas sci-fi fun. The actually story for this cover was drawn by Don Heck.

STAR SPANGLED COMICS #42, 1945. More from the wartime stretch when Simon&Kirby just did the covers for the Newsboy Legion stories. Y’know, they’re lucky those criminals kept coming up with elaborate traps with lions rather than, I dunno, just shooting them.



Upcoming Kirby – Smithsonian Book…

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There’s a Kirby story in the upcoming anthology THE NEW SMITHSONIAN BOOK OF COMIC BOOK STORIES: FROM CRUMB TO CLOWES (ISBN 1588341836). It’s a reprint of FANTASTIC FOUR #21, which seems like an odd choice, not really one of the best or even representative of his career, but there you go.

Book Description
The definitive collection by the most celebrated (and notorious) comic book artists of our time.

A panorama of some of the most creative and subversive art of our times, this one-of-a-kind anthology celebrates the artistry and insight of comic book art, graphic novels, and graphic journalism from the 1960s to the present. Classics such as R. Crumb’s I Remember the Sixties, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s Spider-Man saga “The Final Chapter” (from Spider-Man #33), and Dan Clowes’s Caricature are featured, plus new sequences of work by Chris Ware and Ben Katchor created exclusively for this volume.

Other sections include work by Gilbert Shelton and Paul Mavrides (“The Death of Fat Freddy”), Harvey Pekar and R. Crumb (“Jack the Bellboy and Mr. Boats”), Carol Tyler (“Labor”), Stan Lee and Jim Steranko (“The Strange Death of Captain America”), Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (“The Hate Monger”), Bob Kanigher and Joe Kubert (“Enemy Ace”), Will Eisner (“Izzy the Cockroach and the Meaning of Life”), Rick Geary (“Farewell to Charlie Chaplin”), Kaz (“Dream of the Pork Rinds Fiend”), Charles Burns (“Robot Love”), Gary Panter (“Jimbo”), Art Spigelman (“The Honeymoon” from Maus), Frank Miller with Klaus Janson and Lynn Varley (“Born Again” from Daredevil), Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (“Dr. Manhattan” from Watchmen), Neil Gaiman with Charles Vess and Malcolm Jones III (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” from The Sandman), Joe Sacco (“Hebron”), Jaime Hernandez (“Locos”), Gilbert Hernandez (“Pipo”), Dori Seda (“The Do-Nothing Decade”), Eddie Campbell (“Nobody Left at the Café Guerbois”), and more. The book is divided into four main galleries: Underground Comics, Silver Age Super Heroes, A Raw Generation, and Dark Fiction and Deep Fantasy, and includes a special supplement of four-color work by Lynda Barry and others as well. In his lively introduction Bob Callahan celebrates the achievements of American comic book art from the late 1930s to the present. An indispensible collection. 100 color, 300 b/w illustrations.

The Adventures Of The Fly #1 [2004]

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The recently released collection of the first four issues of ADVENTURES OF THE FLY from 1959/1960. The first issue is all Simon&Kirby, as is half of #2.

Mostly very good reproduction on the Kirby stories, except for one story which is clearly taken from a printed copy and is a bit wanting. The covers (only the first by Kirby) are also taken from printed copies, but look pretty good since obviously they were on better paper.

“The Hide-Out”
A quick two-page feature from THE DOUBLE LIFE OF PRIVATE STRONG #1, introducing the character. Nice preview (the first of two, the second by Joe Simon is also in here), where Kirby gets to draw his trademark thugs getting punched by a briefly seen Fly.

“The Strange New World Of The Fly”
The origin of the Fly, which is about as silly as you’d expect, with orphan Tommy Troy getting sent to live with an old couple, finding a ring which summons Turan, emissary of the Fly People, and transforms him to a super-hero. Fun stuff.

“The Fly Strikes”
The conclusion of the origin, with the Fly rounding up the bad guys who were shaking down the orphanage.

“The Fly Discovers His Buzz Gun”
Hard to believe it took him this long to discover it, it’s right there strapped to his leg. Also introduces Tommy’s neighbour, Dolly Lake.

“Come Into My Parlor”
Great opening, which would have been a centerfold page in the original, but is printed on a single page sideways here. Not sure about that display choice, but it still looks nice. This is the best story in here overall, with great art and the introduction of Spider Spry, a great looking deformed Kirby villain.

“Magic Eye”
Very silly and quick story about a fight with a robot, and I’m still not sure what the title means, but this has some great fighting

“Marco’s Eyes”
The only weak reproduction of a Kirby story in this collection. Still not too bad, just a bit splotchy with the linework and lettering after the double page spread (again printed sideways on one page) that opens the story is great, and it does appear to be from the original art, fortunately. Anyway, it’s a nice story about a hypnotist turned evil, very much with the feel of old Fawcett Captain Marvel stories, I thought.

“The Master Of Junk-Ri-La”
This time the Fly takes on Hans Yunkman, a junkman inventor who makes a safe robbing plane out of junk. Yeah, it looks that silly, too.

fly
Non-Kirby work includes Joe Simon (including a new introduction), Dick Ayers, Al Williamson and others, a cover by Joe Staton and Bob Smith.

Published 2004

Upcoming Kirby – Marvel early 2005

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This is the Kirby stuff from Marvel’s tentative schedule for the first few months of 2005, as posted to rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe.

MARVEL VISIONARIES: STAN LEE HC (some FF and THOR)
BLACK PANTHER BY JACK KIRBY VOL. 1 TPB (#1 – #7)
MARVEL WEDDINGS TPB (one story, which is also reprinted in the MV:STAN LEE book)
MARVEL MASTERWORKS HC: THE FANTASTIC FOUR VOL. 8 (#72 – #81, Annual 6)
BEST OF THE FANTASTIC FOUR HC (FF #1, #39, #40, #51 and probably the cover to #176)
ESSENTIAL THOR VOL. 2 TPB (JiM/THOR #113-#126, Annuals #1, #2)

The last one is the most exciting to me. The most odd is the BLACK PANTHER book.

Note two other books of some interest on their own merits, although the Kirby content will likely only be a handful of covers.

MARVEL VISIONARIES: STEVE DITKO HC
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN VOL. 2

Details of the Kirby books:

JANUARY 2005

MARVEL VISIONARIES: STAN LEE HC
ISBN: 0-7851-1693-1
$29.99
304 Hard Cover Color
Collects:
“Captain America Foils the Traitor’s Revenge,” CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS #3, Stan’s first story, a two-page text piece! “The Red Skull’s Deadly Revenge,” CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS #16, the defining Golden Age Red Skull story! “The Raving Madman,” SUSPENSE #29, Stan’s satire on Frederick Wertham and the comics witch hunts of the ’50s! “Your Name Is Frankenstein!” MENACE #7, a modern Frankenstein story, featuring many of the elements of the later Marvel books! “Where Walks the Ghost,” AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #11, a short, twist-ending story by Lee and Ditko! Plus: “Spider-Man,” AMAZING FANTASY #15; “A Visit With the Fantastic Four,” FANTASTIC FOUR #11; “How Stan and Steve Create Spider-Man,” AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #1; “In Mortal Combat with Sub-Mariner,” DAREDEVIL #7; “The Final Chapter,” AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #33; “Bedlam in the Baxter Building,” FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #3; “And Who Shall Mourn for Him?” SILVER SURFER #5; “Brother, Take My Hand,” DAREDEVIL #47; “And Now, The Goblin,” “In the Grip of the Goblin,” “The Goblin’s Last Stand,” AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #96-98; “No More the Thunder God,” “When Gods Go Mad,” “One God Must Fall,” THOR #179-181; “While the World Spins Mad,” MARVEL PREMIERE #3; and “The Circle of Life,” SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN SUPER-SPECIAL 1995

FEBRUARY 2005

BLACK PANTHER BY JACK KIRBY VOL. 1 TPB
ISBN: 0-7851-1687-7
$19.99
136 Pages Trade Paperback Color
Collects: Black Panther (1977) 1-7

MARVEL WEDDINGS TPB
ISBN: 0-7851-1686-9
$19.99
200 Pages Trade Paperback Color
Collects: FF Annual 3; Incredible Hulk 319; Avengers 59-60, 127; FF 150; ASM Ann 21; X-Men 30

MARCH 2005

MARVEL MASTERWORKS HC: THE FANTASTIC FOUR VOL. 8
ISBN: 0-7851-1694-X
$49.99
272 Pages Masterworks HC Color
Collects: FF 72-81, Annual 6

MAY 2005

BEST OF THE FANTASTIC FOUR HC
ISBN: 0-7851-1702-2
$29.99
360 Page Hard Cover Color
Collects: FANTASTIC FOUR #1 – “The Fantastic Four,” FANTASTIC FOUR #39-40 – “Battle of the Baxter Building,” FANTASTIC FOUR #51 – “This Man, This Monster,” FANTASTIC FOUR #116 – “The Alien, The Ally and Armageddon,” FANTASTIC FOUR #176 – Impossible Man by Roy Thomas and George Perez, FANTASTIC FOUR #236 – “Terror in a Tiny Town,” FANTASTIC FOUR #267 – Sue loses the baby, MARVEL FANFARE #15 – Barry Smith Thing story, FANTASTIC FOUR #347-349 – “The New Fantastic Four,” FANTASTIC FOUR v3 #56 – Ben is Jewish, FANTASTIC FOUR v3 #60 – Imaginauts.

ESSENTIAL THOR VOL. 2 TPB
ISBN: 0-7851-1591-9
$16.99
584 Trade Paperback B&W
Collects: Thor 113-126, Annual 1-2

Black Panther #10 [1978] – This World Shall Die

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Some people seem to have a problem with the fact that, on launching the new BLACK PANTHER series in 1977, Kirby mostly went in a completely different direction from what was done with the character in the previous years. I never quite got that, but then I haven’t read much of that non-Kirby stuff.

What Kirby did was a fast-paced action-adventure book, a bit silly at times, but enjoyable.

Black Panther #10 [1978]

I like the middle panel on this page, it has a very nice Kirby dynamic and sense of playfulness. Plus those other members of the Wakanda royal family can be pretty funny.

Joe Sinnott inked the cover while Mike Royer inked the story.

Published 1978

Cover Gallery Decision 2004

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WYATT EARP #22, 1959. Kirby only did a handful of covers for this book, this one is attributed to Christopher Rule inks.

TALES TO ASTONISH #53, 1964. Okay, I’m going to hope that Kirby didn’t have anything to do with designing the Porcupine, and just worked with what he was given. That’s just a sad looking character. Good pose for Giant-Man, though. Brodsky inks.

MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #20, 1976. Inked by Frank Giacoia. I dunno why, but U-Man as drawn by Kirby kind of cracks me up.