Monthly Archives: December 2004

New Kirby – Smithsonian Book…

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Just confirming the recent release of the previously mentioned anthology, THE NEW SMITHSONIAN BOOK OF COMIC BOOK STORIES: FROM CRUMB TO CLOWES (ISBN 1588341836). As promised, it has a reprint of “The Hate-Monger” from FF #21, in black and white. Looks very sharp, though I again question the choice given the less than stellar story and one of the lesser Kirby inkers

Amazon and presumably other online sellers have a pretty decent discount on it right now, and it should be showing up in most library systems.

Year-end weblog tally

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I know I’ve gotten some new readers recently thanks to plugs at Fred Hembeck’s site and others, and I wanted a quick reference page for posts I’d made, so here it is. To date, for those who care about such things:
178 posts in 111 days
204 Kirby books posted about
(plus two card sets)
116 of those books Kirby just did covers for
88 had Kirby interior content
15 posts announcing new/upcoming publications
19 posts of links to other sites
7 assorted administrative posts, like this one

Main Posts
100-Page Super Spectacular #DC-15
1st Issue Special #6 – Dingbats of Danger Street
2001: A Space Odyssey #7 – The New Seed
A DC Universe Christmas – Santa Fronts For The Mob
Adventures of the Fly TPB
Amazing Heroes #100
Best of DC #22 – The Seal-Men’s War on Santa Claus
Black Magic (DC) #7 – “The Cloak” and “Freak!”
Black Magic (DC) #9 – The Woman in the Tower
Black Panther #10 – This World Shall Die
Black Panther #7 – Drums
Blast-Off #1
Brave and the Bold “Annual, No 1” – The Invasion of America
Buried Treasure #1 – The Mad White God of Palm Island
Buried Treasure v1#2 – “Inky” – proposed S&K strip
Captain America #112 – Lest We Forget
Captain America Collectors’ Preview #1 – The Case of the Hollow Men
Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers #1
Challengers of the Unknown #79
Chamber of Darkness #7 – I Found the Abominable Snowman
Classics Illustrated #35 – Last Days of Pompeii
Comic Reader #100
Dead of Night #10 – I Dream of Doom
Demon #4 – The Creature From the Beyond
Destroyer Duck #1 – It’s Got the Whole World…in Its Hand!
Devil Dinosaur #1 – Devil Dinosaur and Moon-Boy
Eternals #1 – Day of the Gods
Fantastic Four #51 – This Man, This Monster
Fantastic Four #78 – The Thing No More
Fantasy Masterpieces #2 – Fin Fang Foom
Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #6 – The Psychic Blood-Hound
Forever People #4 – The Kingdom of the Damned
Giant-Size Chillers #3 – The Monster
Giant-Size Defenders #1 – Surfer / Hulk reprints
Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu #3
Giant-Size Spider-Man #1 – On The Trail Of The Amazing Spider-Man
Gunslingers #1
House of Mystery #199 – He Doomed the World
Jack Kirby Checklist
Jack Kirby’s Heroes and Villains
Jimmy Olsen #141 – Will the Real Don Rickles Panic?
Jimmy Olsen #144
Journey Into Mystery #59 – I Unleashed Shagg Upon the World
Journey into Mystery v2 #18
Journey into Mystery v2 #19 – When the Mummy Walks
Justice, Inc. #4 – Slay Ride in the Sky
Kamandi #32 – Me
Kamandi #40 – The Lizard Lords of Los Lorraine
Ka-Zar #2
Kirbyverse cards
Kobra #1 – Fangs of the Kobra
Machine Man #1 – Machine Man
Marvel Tales #123 – The Reason Why
Marvel Tales #193 – The Fabulous FF Meet Spider-Man
MGC #43 – Klaw – The Murderous Master of Sound
Mighty Marvel Western #44 – Doom in the Desert
Millennium Edition – Young Romance #1
Monster Menace #3 – Zzutak
Monsters on the Prowl #15 – The Thing Called… It!
New Gods #2 – O’ Deadly Darkseid
New Gods #7 – The Pact
Not Brand Echh #3 – The Origin of Sore
Our Fighting Forces #155 – The Partisans
Our Love Story #12 – He Was Perfect – But I Lost Him
Rawhide Kid Special #1
Sandman #1 – The Sandman
Satan’s Six #1
Shocking Tales Digest #1
Silver Surfer 1978 Graphic Novel
Strange Tales #120 – The Torch Meets the Iceman
Strange Tales #136 – Find Fury or Die
Strange Tales #145 – Lo! The Eggs Shall Hatch
Strange World of Your Dreams #3
Super Powers v1#1
Superman Gallery #1
Tales of Suspense #19 – The Green Thing
Thor #159 – The Answer at Last
Thor #177 – To End in Flames
Two-Gun Kid #55 – The Outlaw
Unpublished Archives trading cards
Wanted #9 – The Adventure of the Magic Forest
Weird Mystery Tales #2 – Toxl the World-Killer
What If #11 – The Fantastic Four Were the Original Marvel Bullpen
Where Monsters Dwell #27
Where Monsters Dwell #36 – The Impossible Tunnel
Who’s Who #15
Who’s Who #16
Who’s Who #17 – OMAC & Orion
Who’s Who #2
World’s Finest Comics #187 – The Green Arrow’s First Case

Covers
Amazing Spider-Man #35 – Cover
Avengers #157 – Cover
Black Cat Mystery #57 – Cover
Black Goliath #4 – Cover
Defenders #44 – Cover
First Romance Magazine #42 – Cover
Hi-School Romance #54 – Cover
Iron Man #80 – Cover
Marvel Mystery Comics #12 – Cover
Sandman #2 – Cover
Skull the Slayer #8 – Cover
Tales of Suspense #36 – Cover
Tales to Astonish #52 – Cover
Thor #249 – Cover
1940s Covers
1940s Kirby covers
1950s Covers
1960s Covers
1970s Covers
1970s retro covers
A half century of Covers
Ancient Cover Gallery
Another Cover Gallery
Cover Gallery
Cover Gallery – Airboy, Two-Gun Kid, Hulk, Bombast
Cover Gallery – FF, Ghost Rider, 3-D Man
Cover Gallery Decision 2004
Covers to go
Horror/Monster Covers
Late Period Covers
Lesser Villains of the early 1960s
More 1970s Marvel covers
More 70s Marvel Covers
More covers
Number One Cover Gallery
Random Covers
Romance Covers
This Hostage Cover
This Post, This Cover Gallery
Three Covers
Trio of Cover
Various 1960s covers
Various genre covers
War Cover Gallery
Wartime cover gallery
Western covers
Yet Another Cover Gallery

Links
–Link– 1977 Kirby con program art
–Link– Ben Grimm and Religion
–Link– Evanier’s Kirby stuff
–Link– Fin Fang Foom day
–Link– Fred Hembeck
–Link– Joe Sinnott website
–Link– Kirby and Judaism
–Link– Kirby Collector
–Link– Kirby in the Marvel Universe
–Link– Kirby interview video
–Link– Kirby tribute site
–Link– Kirby’s Legacy at Slate
–Link– Kirby’s Monsters
–Link– Kirby’s NCS bio
–Link– Kirby’s Superman
–Link– Lords of Light
–Link– Monster Blog
–Link– Oddball Comics by Shaw!
–Link– Upcoming Ayers autobio comic

New/Upcoming book announcements
New Kirby – Adventures of the Fly
New Kirby – Essential Iron Man #2 etc
New Kirby – Jack Kirby Reader Volume 2
New Kirby – Jimmy Olsen v2
New Kirby – Marvel Masterworks Avengers v4
New Kirby – Marvel Visionaries Jack Kirby
New Kirby – Unleashed, Collector, Hulk
New Royer – Radioactive Man #9 [#197]
Upcoming Kirby – March 2005
Upcoming Kirby – March 2005 Marvel
Upcoming Kirby – Marvel early 2005
Upcoming Kirby – Marvel Visionaries Stan Lee
Upcoming Kirby – Modern Arf
Upcoming Kirby – Panther and FF reprints
Upcoming Kirby – Smithsonian Book…

Admin posts
2004 – A Kirby Odyssey
Cheap Attention-Grabbing Contest
Comments
Kirby inking
Taking a break
Welcome

1st Issue Special #6 [1975] – Dingbats of Danger Street

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What better way to end a year?

Definitely the oddest piece to come out of Kirby’s five year stay at DC in the 1970s (at least among the published works) is his try at an updated kid gang, the Dingbats of Danger Street. This is strange by Kirby standards, and this is a guy who created a flying cosmic surfer.

The Dingbats are Good Looks, Krunch, Non-Fat and Bananas, as they announce to us on the first page. Orphans all, who have formed their own gang to get by on Danger Street. In their debut adventure, they unintentionally help cop Terry Mullins capture the villain Jumping Jack, and in the process Non-Fat almost chokes on the film strip canister Jack was smuggling and hid in his hot dog. And then Jack’s partner the Gasser shows up, and things get really kooky.

It all has an odd charm, but I think it does deserve some of the mockery that’s been heaped on it over the years. I did find Lt. Mullins kind of interesting, and wonder if he’d have become a gruffer version of Jim Harper to the Dingbats with time.

Mike Royer inks on this one, so that always looks nice.

The job codes (as documented in the JACK KIRBY CHECKLIST) suggest that Kirby drew the first issue shortly after MISTER MIRACLE and THE DEMON were canceled, while he was also working on the middle issues of KAMANDI and the early issues of OMAC, and he drew at least three issues in a few months (some have suggested even more exist, but I don’t think pages have ever turned up). For some reason DC didn’t rush it into print, and only published the first issue as one of the “1st Issue Special” one-shots some time later. About half the pages from the other two known issues have seen print in the various fanzines, mostly THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR (including the full 2-page spread meant for this story, modified to a single page as published), and are actually even more fun than the first, if you can judge based on such a random sampling of pages scattered across a half-dozen books. The second issue had a great two-page spread. I’m sure someday soon we’ll see a deluxe hardcover collecting all three issues.

Published September 1975.

Journey Into Mystery #18 [1975]

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This mid-1970s reprint book has two Kirby/Ayers classics from the early 1960s. From TALES OF SUSPENSE #31 is “The Monster in the Iron Mask”, a 7-page story. In this one, an invading alien race sends an advance scout to soften up Earth before their full force attacks. The alien is first seen by the son of a struggling stage magician, and (seemingly foolishly) announces to the boy that his one weakness is gas, which he’s protected from by his mask.

Journey Into Mystery #18 [1975]

The military keeps trying and failing to defeat him, hoping to get him to remove his mask, including an attack with an A-Bomb (they were pretty cavalier about A-Bombs in these stories). They fail until the magician from the beginning realizes that the alien’s announcement was a bit of mis-direction, and he was fully vulnerable to gas and the “mask” was his real face. Those aliens are tricksy.

Cool monster, although coloured a bit silly in this reprint. I also liked the boy’s dog who appears throughout this story, even if he didn’t have a story purpose.

From TALES TO ASTONISH #30 is “The Thing From the Hidden Swamp”, a 6 page story. A plain-looking woman unhappy with the lack of romance in her life goes on a cruise and then goes rowing alone in a swamp, where she finds a space-ship and an alien monster. Nice scene where we have both her and the alien’s thoughts for a few panels, as the alien is as afraid of her. She ends up helping the alien, and later finds that he’s made her attractive. Not a very satisfying story, but the art has several nice scenes, including the moody opening page.

New non-Kirby cover for this issue, allegedly illustrating “Hidden Swamp”, but amusingly completely missing the point of the story on several levels.

Published 1975

The Amazing Spider-Man #35 [1966] – Cover

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Here’s one that always fascinated me. The Spidey figure on the cover of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #35 is a Kirby figure (usually attributed to Ditko inks, but I never quite saw that). Don’t think it’s ever been reprinted in any other version in English (unlike some other covers with paste-ups which reverted in reprints), but someone dug up this foreign reprint. Click for a closer look at both covers.

AmazingSpiderMan35_190a.jpg

(see comments for more, including a reprinting of the original in an English edition that I didn’t know about)

I will say that the modified version is the more attractive cover, with a great Spidey figure. I’m not sure exactly why the original was seen as needing altering, though. Too unflattering a pose for the hero? Did it make Spidey’s butt look too big?

AmazingSpiderMan35_190.jpg

Marvel’s Greatest Comics #43 [1973]

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MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #43 offers an almost complete reprint of “Klaw – The Murderous Master of Sound” from FF #56 in 1966, including the cover. Joe Sinnott inks, of course. In the main story, Klaw, from the recent Black Panther storyline, returns to attack the FF with new powers and a new costume, hoping to lure in the Panther. He seals off Reed and Ben in the lab while attacking Sue. There’s some great Reed/Ben interplay in their scenes this issue, like Ben asking “How come ya never cook up any gizmos that work better on guys who can stretch?”.

Marvel's Greatest Comics #43 [1973]

The FF prevail in the end, thanks to a remote assist from T’Challa with a delivery of vibranium.

As all this occurs, the Inhumans remain imprisoned, with Black Bolt becoming injured trying to escape, while Johnny and Wyatt Wingfoot continue their search for the Inhumans with Lockjaw, the teleporting dog. God, I love all these characters introduced in just the previous year of the book.

Unfortunately, this issue removes the last tier of panels from the final page, which set-up the Surfer/Doom storyline, since they were skipping it in this book, having reprinted it in MARVEL TRIPLE ACTION the previous year (which, looking at the dates now, is odd. They were reprinting the second major Surfer story in one book while reprinting the first one in another).

Published 1973

Lesser Villains of the early 1960s

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A trio of Kirby-on-the-outside books from the early Marvel Universe, showing not everyone was a Doctor Doom, Magneto or Modok.

STRANGE TALES #112, 1963. Inker unknown, possibly Ayers? Nicely drawn figure, but the Eel has one of the dullest costumes ever. Which I guess is fine for his profession, but doesn’t make for splashy comics.

TALES OF SUSPENSE #45, 1963. Don Heck inks. I dunno, I just find it amusing that Happy and Pepper got such a big build-up on their first appearance. Well, they probably did deserve it more than Jack Frost.

TALES TO ASTONISH #47, 1963. Dick Ayers inks. Ah, menaced by a giant piano playing hand. Is it any wonder that they added growing powers just a few issues later?



Super Powers #1 [1984]

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The first SUPER POWERS mini-series was five issues, with Kirby doing all the covers, plotting the first four and writing and penciling the last issue. In a bit of an coincidence, when this series came out, Kenner released a line of action figures that had the same eight heroes and four villains that are featured in this book. What are the odds.

In addition to the cover of this issue, Kirby also drew an ad for the series that, kind of redundantly  appears in the first issue. Both cover and ad are inked by Mike Royer.

Super Powers #1 [1984]

I like how the play it coy about who the master villain is in the ad and in this first issue. It’s pretty subtle, that shadowing figure in blue and grey whose minions appear with a loud “Boom”.

I’d be curious to read what Kirby’s actual plot for this issue was. It’s not a bad first issue, given the extended ad nature of the book. Pretty much just Darkseid sending his minions to give extra powers to various Earth villains. The art by Adrian Gonzales and Pablo Marcos is nice, except that there’s too much of an attempt to make it look like Kirby on the surface elements. Lots of squiqqles and cosmic energy dots, while shades of their own style seem to bubble through at times.

Worth a look, but not too long a look.

Published 1984

2004 – A Kirby Odyssey

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A quick survey of Kirby related releases in 2004. I still have to pick up a few of them, and I don’t get the Marvel Masterworks volumes, but I think I can safely say my personal pick of the year is THE JACK KIRBY READER v2, for its volume and variety of choice material I haven’t read before in a nice format. Second place, and more recommended for casual fans for whom more of it will be new-to-them, is MARVEL VISIONARIES – JACK KIRBY.

Archie’s entry in the Kirby derby was ADVENTURES OF THE FLY. Mostly excellent reproduction, some questionable layout choices, fun late 1950s material.

DC had two entries, finishing up the Kirby runs of two major series, JIMMY OLSEN BY JACK KIRBY v2 and CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN ARCHIVES v2. I prefer the format of the JIMMY OLSEN book, and hope they do more like that in the future. The only semi-concrete Kirby on their future schedule seems to be KAMANDI, in the Archives format.

Greg Theakston’s Pure Imagination published THE JACK KIRBY READER v2, an excellent selection of pre-1960 material from a variety of publishers, showcasing the various genres Kirby worked in nicely. Possibly more books from Theakston will follow in 2005.

Marvel had some nice stuff this year.

In the trivial department, only two new books in the Essential line had any Kirby, both trivial. One cover and an FF crossover issue (#73) in ESSENTIAL DAREDEVIL v2 and several covers and 10 pages of a Namor crossover issue (from TtA #82) in ESSENTIAL IRON MAN v2 (the covers duplicating those already in ESSENTIAL CAPTAIN AMERICA v1). Next year should be better, with new Thor and FF volumes likely.

The Marvel Masterworks line finally finished re-releasing old volumes (often with some corrections, additions and shuffling from the original printings, plus some being released in softcovers exclusively to Barnes&Noble) and added some new ones. Trivial Kirby content in AVENGERS v4 (one partial cover) and X-MEN v4 (three covers), major Kirby content in FF v7 (everything) and HULK v2 (about half the book in pencils or layouts). Next year should see more FF, Golden Age CAPTAIN AMERICA and maybe more.

Marvel also did a paperback reprint of the MADBOMB storyline from Kirby’s mid-1970s return to CAPTAIN AMERICA. At least a BLACK PANTHER book will follow in this format next year.

The big one from Marvel was MARVEL VISIONARIES – JACK KIRBY, of course. Good format, excellent price, mostly good reproduction, fair story selection. Future volumes in the series will include Stan Lee and Steve Ditko (with some Kirby art in the Lee volume).

Fan publisher TwoMorrows had a good selection, with two tabloid issues of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, a fourth volume of THE COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR reprinting earlier issues and the re-issue of KIRBY UNLEASHED. Also of note from TwoMorrows, ALTER EGO #36 had a section on Joe Simon, with some Kirby art and information, and #39 had a page with some of the DC S&K stuff, including a neat house ad from 1943 touting the team and their various features. I suspect some other fan publications like COMIC BOOK ARTIST or BACK ISSUE might have had some minor Kirby content, but I didn’t get those. Same with any AC Comics publications. Feel free to follow-up with any info on those if you got them. Nothing too minor to warrent a mention.

Also this year, Ronin Ro’s biography of Kirby, TALES TO ASTONISH, was published. Still haven’t read it so no opinion offered. The only Kirby art in it was the cover with detail sections of an early 1970s Kirby drawing that’s been printed in TJKC.

And editing to add a late edition here, THE NEW SMITHSONIAN BOOK OF COMIC BOOK STORIES also came out in 2004, with a black and white reprint of FF #21.

And, I only just found this looking for other Kirby publications, Graphitti Designs did a t-shirt with some Kirby/Royer art, featuring the Galactic Bounty Hunters, which apparently someone might be doing as a series for Dark Horse in the future.

New Kirby – Unleashed, Collector, Hulk

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More when I actually get copies, but just a quick note that within the last few weeks the following Kirby items were released:

KIRBY UNLEASHED, a new edition of the early 1970s volume that had a biography of Kirby (updated for this release), along with various rare artwork, and the plates from the GODS portfolio and other extras.

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #41, focussing on the 1970s Marvel period, and you know what that means: Devil Dinosaur!

MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE HULK v2 (which oddly I can’t seem to find on any of the major on-line bookseller sites). Collecting Hulk stories from TALES TO ASTONISH #59 – #79, so a lot of Kirby covers (17 of the 21 assuming they include non-Hulk covers which they usually do), plus three stories he did the pencils for, nine others he did layouts, with Esposito/Kane/Powell/Everett/Romita finishing. Plus work by Steve Ditko and Dick Ayers.

Later, 2004 in review for the Kirby fan. At least 12 major releases. Feel free to post your favourites.