Please Excuse Me While I Ramble On

I am in a funny situation. Since I am involved in the Titan book deal you would think this blog would be a great source for all sorts of information about the project. Actually that is far from the case. For instance I was scooped on the Titan press release. Not only that but one investigator reported on the deal months ago (and no I will not say who he was and how he did it). It is not that I do not know what is going on. Often I do (however not always) but it is not my position to pass that information along. All news about this project has come from Titan in the past that will continue to be the case in the future. I will pass information along only when it becomes official. I suspect that this blog will not be the first to report project news.

Some people have offered various types of help. It is certainly gratifying to see how willing people are to further not just this project but any that is related to Jack Kirby and Joe Simon. Unfortunately I cannot respond to those offers, at least now.

Although I cannot talk much about the project I do not think it would be wrong for me to comment about the people. I am greatly pleased about the commitment I have seen. Titan wants these volumes to be as good as possible. I do not think fans will be pleased with the books when they are released, I think they will be thrilled. I believe that is what everyone on this projects wants.

Let me wrap this up by expanding my subject matter beyond the Titan book project and talk a bit about recognition. In the past Jack Kirby did not get the credit that he should have. Sure Kirby fans knew how important Jack was, but the public at large did not have a clue. You would have thought that the blockbuster movies based on characters Kirby co-created would have changed the public’s perception (or more accurately lack thereof). But it did not happen. I think that now it is changing and I credit Mark Evanier’s book “Jack Kirby: King of Comics” with being pivotal for that change. However Jack Kirby was not the only one who did not get the recognition that he deserved, Joe Simon did not get the proper credit either. This was particularly depressing to me because some of this neglect originated from people who should have known better. The general attitude was that in the Simon and Kirby collaboration all the art tasks were handled by Jack and Joe only did the business end and some inking. I feel that this is changing as well. More and more I am hearing comments about Joe’s importance. I wish I could say that this blog was instrumental to this change but I know that simply is not the case. My readership is much too small for my efforts to have been the cause. If I am right about the shift in recognition for both Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, the future should be very exciting times for their fans.

One thought on “Please Excuse Me While I Ramble On

  1. RAB

    “I wish I could say that this blog was instrumental to this change but I know that simply is not the case. My readership is much too small for my efforts to have been the cause.”

    But we then spread the word on to other people. This site definitely expanded my awareness of Simon’s career and affected the way I approach writing about his collaborations with Kirby, and I’m sure the same is true for those who’ve written about him or referred to him in JKC and elsewhere. You’ve provided a central resource, and just because the information gets disseminated through a couple of extra layers before it reaches a wider audience doesn’t make your contribution less crucial — quite the opposite!

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