-Link- Evanier on Kirby / Marvel settlement

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Mark Evanier comments briefly on the announced settlement between the Kirby family and Marvel, which comes just ahead of when the Supreme Court would have made a decision on whether or not to hear the case. No details on the settlement are forthcoming from him, but “real happy” is good news. While I don’t expect financial details to come out, I’m pretty sure that any settlement that Evanier feels would have made the Jack and Roz Kirby “real, real, real happy” would include a noticeable increase and the presence and prominence of Jack Kirby’s credits in conjunction with characters he created or co-created at Marvel appearing in print and on screen (credits which usually currently range from “completely absent” to “buried and weakly worded as ‘based on comics by…’ or ‘special thanks to…'”), so keep an eye on that in months to come.

Also good news is another post indicating that recent events mean he can finish his long-awaited biography of Kirby. Until then, don’t forget that THE ART OF THE SIMON AND KIRBY STUDIO is out soon (Evanier recently reporting he already has his copy and describing the book).

 

Kirby #1 in May

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Diamond Comics has released their sales charts for May 2014, and I’d just like to highlight one thing:

jkaeThe top ranked book on their “Graphic Novels” chart by dollars is the JACK KIRBY NEW GODS ARTIST’S EDITION from IDW. I’m sure IDW will be selling a lot of those direct mail and at conventions over the summer, as well, so hopefully that’ll mean a big payday for Mike Royer and for the Kirby Estate.

NEW GODS Artist’s Edition photos

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Chris Ryall of IDW posted these photos of the NEW GODS Artist’s Edition on his Tumblr page. Normally I’d just link to the post, but I can’t figure out how to link to a post on Tumbr. Looks good, especially the foldouts of the colour presentation pages, which must be huge. Ordering info in this post. JKNGAE07 JKNGAE06 JKNGAE05 JKNGAE04 JKNGAE03 JKNGAE02 JKNGAE01

New Kirby – NEW GODS ARTIST’S EDITION

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ngaeApparently out in comic stores this week and shipping direct from the publisher now is the NEW GODS ARTIST’S EDITION, reproducing the artwork for six issues of NEW GODS (1, 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Apparently the first issue was added sometime after the original solicitation) at the originally drawn size. If you want your comic shop to get it, use the order code DEC130371, or you can get it direct from the publisher over here for US$125 plus shipping. I think IDW also sells them direct at major conventions. Note that “A variant cover edition of this title will be made available at a later date”, according to the publisher page. I don’t know what that means, either. Generally the variant editions seem to be signed versions, which in this case I guess would have to be by Mike Royer, inker of four of the issues included, but it could be something else.

Upcoming Kirby – ART OF S&K STUDIO

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skstudioMissed it, but a few weeks ago Abrams ComicArts publisher Charles Kochman talked about upcoming projects:

After years of neglect on my part getting sidetracked by other projects, we are finally releasing this Fall The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio by Mark Evanier and the Joe Simon Estate, featuring 386 pages of original art from their archives at an affordable price and manageable format.

I’m not sure if this listing (October release, $60 cover price) is still valid or if it’s from back when the book was first announced over five years ago. More when I know more.

Edited to add, apparently that is still a valid listing, and here’s the cover to go with it. Mark Evanier writes about the decision to include one particular Mort Meskin story over here.

New Kirby – S&K Library Horror

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sklibThe latest in Titan’s series of hardcover reprints, THE SIMON & KIRBY LIBRARY: HORROR, is out now, comic stores should be getting it in tomorrow (DEC131287) and the various other usual sources should have it now or soon (ISBN 978-1848569591). This reprints Kirby’s work from BLACK MAGIC and STRANGE WORLD OF YOUR DREAMS, some great imaginative and sometimes disturbing work. Check out Harry Mendryk’s series of posts about BLACK MAGIC for more about the stories.

And don’t forget, still available are:
S&K LIBRARY: CRIME
S&K LIBRARY: SCIENCE FICTION
S&K SUPER-HEROES
BEST OF S&K
FIGHTING AMERICAN (softcover)

-Link- Evanier on 20 years after Kirby’s passing

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Sorry for the lack of posting recently. No promises, but I hope to get some more stuff up soon.  In the meantime, I did want to note Mark Evanier’s post today about Jack Kirby on the 20th anniversary of his passing.

2013 – A Kirby Odyssey

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(I know, this is technically a year late, but retro-actively dated. Somehow I forgot to post this at the end of 2013)

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Big year for for Kirby reprints, the book of the year was easily  Titan’s THE SIMON & KIRBY LIBRARY: SCIENCE FICTION, which included some remarkable 1950s work, better than it ever looked. Those Al Williamson inked stories are just amazing. Following very close behind is the IN THE DAYS OF THE MOB collection from DC, which includes the mostly completely unpublished (and hard to find in the places where parts of it were published) second issue with Mike Royer inks. Gorgeous. DC’s second JACK KIRBY OMNIBUS was mostly leftovers, interesting but hardly essential, including a lot of stuff Kirby drew but didn’t write, or only plotted, but there are a few jems in there like Atlas, Manhunter and Dingbats from the 1970s (unfortunately none of the unpublished Dingbats stuff known to exist). There were also two issues of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR in the year, with lots of interesting art.

Marvel has it’s usual large selection of books with some Kirby, ranging from the entire book to a a handful of covers, most of it already reprinted multiple times. Probably the most interesting was the ORIGIN OF THE INHUMANS book, which collects the various issues from the middle of Kirby’s FANTASTIC FOUR run featuring the characters, and the back-ups from THOR.

Jack Kirby Anthologie

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This looks like a cool book.

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The Angoulême Comics Festival has announced their Official Selections for next years awards, and in the Heritage category is this collection of Jack Kirby’s work for DC published by Urban Comics. See the link for a few preview pages and full contents. Looks like a pretty decent selection, one from all the major features he worked on for DC in the 1940s, 1950s and 1970s, DC should think of doing something like that in English.

Upcoming Kirby – S&K Horror and New Gods original art

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Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Just wanted to quickly note a few major Kirby publications set for next year.

Titan’s S&K LIBRARY series continues next year with the HORROR volume, which should have all the Kirby drawn material from BLACK MAGIC and STRANGE WORLD OF YOUR DREAMS from 1950 to 1954.

And IDW is publishing an “Artist’s Edition” of Kirby’s NEW GODS.  That’ll be a 12″x17″ hardcover reprinting numbers 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of the series (the first inked by Vince Colletta, the rest by Mike Royer) as facsimiles of the original artwork. It’ll be especially interesting to see #7, “The Pact”, in this form, since every reprint DC has ever done of it has had several of the sound effects altered from the original printing (apparently for a language that uses upsidedown exclamation marks and doesn’t use the letter “w” much). Anyway, I don’t think mainstream booksellers get these speciality publications, so if you want it you’ll probably have to order it from a comic shop (order code DEC130371) or direct from IDW when they add it to their on-line store.