Jack Kirby Collector #52 Preview

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR FIFTY-TWO IN THE US

$995

Contents

THE NEW

KIRBY OBSCURA! OPENING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 (Simon & Kirby are back!)

UNDER THE COVERS . . . . . . . . . . . .3 (are you ready for some football?)

JACK F.A.Q.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 (Mark Evanier examines whether Lennon and McCartney ever worked Marvel Method)

ISSUE #52, SPRING 2009

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GALLERY 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 (unedited last pages from some of the final issues of Jack’s comics) KIRBY OBSCURA . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 (Barry Forshaw goes Negative) UNEARTHED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 (we’ve got Fish In A Barrel) INNERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 (a 1972 interview with Jack) JACK KIRBY MUSEUM PAGE . . . .27 (visit & join www.kirbymuseum.org) ADAM McGOVERN . . . . . . . . . . . .28 (Joe Casey, Glen Brunswick, and others on the Kirby influence) INCIDENTAL ICONOGRAPHY . . . . .31 (ve vant to drink your blood) INFLUENCEES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32 (Steve Englehart speaks) GALLERY 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 (savor these unused Thor pages; you’ll need them in a moment) ORIGINAL ART-IFACTS . . . . . . . . .45 (let’s go find Galactus!)

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERIES . . . . .46 (trying to make sense of THOR #168-170) KIRBYSCURA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56 (how Jack casts a shadow) HIYA, HAI-YAH! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 (a hard-hitting look at Kirby’s unused Bruce Lee comic) NUTS & BOLTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 (a glimpse at Kirby’s work in commercial illustration) UNEARTHED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 (Kirby Masterworks questions) FOUNDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62 (a Kirby Western Tale) CROSSUNDERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66 (Kirby was big in 2008) TORCH BEARERS . . . . . . . . . . . . .68 (DC’s Dan DiDio interviewed) KIRBYIONAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70 (Kirby, the CIA, & the Lord of Light) COLLECTOR COMMENTS . . . . . . .78 PARTING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 Front cover inks: DON HECK Front cover colors: JACK KIRBY Back cover inks/color: JACK KIRBY The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 16, No. 52, Spring 2009. Published quarterly by & ©2009 TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. 919-449-0344. John Morrow, Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $13 postpaid ($15 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $50 US, $60 Canada, $84 elsewhere.

All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All artwork is ©2009 Jack Kirby Estate unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is ©2009 the respective authors. First printing.

PRINTED IN CANADA. ISSN 1932-6912

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(above) Page 9 of “King” Kobra #1 (Feb. 1976); this issue had wholesale art and text changes, but note how the “obscured” face in panel 3 has been restored to Jack’s original version. Inks by D. Bruce Berry. Kobra TM & ©2009 DC Comics.

COPYRIGHTS: Aquaman, Arna, Batman, Brute, Challengers of the Unknown, Count Dragorin, Darkseid, Death of the New Gods, Demon, Devilance, Dingbats of Danger Street, Dr. Canus, Dr. Fate, Esak, Final Crisis, Firestorm, Flash, Forever People, General Electric, Glob, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Highfather, In The Days Of The Mob, Jed, Jimmy Olsen, Kamandi, Kobra, Losers, Martian Manhunter, Negative Man, New Gods, Oberon, Red Tornado, Robin, Sandman, Shilo Norman, Super Powers, Superman, Witchboy, Wonder Woman TM & ©2009 DC Comics • Balder, Captain America, Devil Dinosaur, Dr. Doom, Eternals, Falcon, Fantastic Four, Galactus, Giant-Man, Hulk, Ikaris, Iron Man, Karnilla, Loki, Machine Man, Magneto, Moonboy, Odin, Secret Invasion, Sgt. Fury, Sif, Silver Surfer, Sub-Mariner, Thermal Man, Thor, Warriors Three, Watcher, Wolverine TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. • Bruce Lee art, Captain Victory, Cover hero, Football art TM & ©2009 Jack Kirby Estate • Black Magic, Bullseye, Fighting American TM & ©2009 Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estate • Fish In A Barrel, Western Tales TM & ©2009 Joe Simon • The Avenger/Justice Inc. TM & ©2009 Conde Nast • Blue Bolt TM & ©2009 respective owner

Opening Shot

by John Morrow, editor of TJKC

ou may (or may not) have noticed a slight difference in the size of this issue. No, that page count’s the usual 84, but I’m talking about the physical size of the mag. I trimmed an extra half-inch off the height this time out (and will on all future issues). This small change allows subscription copies of TJKC to fit in some nifty, rigid mailers, which should protect them better in the mail system, and get them in subscribers’ hands in much better shape. Back in May 2007, the US Postal Service passed some new regulations that required all Standard Mail (which is how we usually ship subscriber copies, to save them money) to be flexible, so we had to eliminate the backing boards we’d been sending them with. Now, we’re standardizing on the rigid mailers for TJKC, and using Media Mail instead of Standard Mail. Since it’ll cost us more to mail each copy, we’ve had to slightly increase the US subscription rate. I think readers will agree that it’s worth a small price increase to ensure their subscription copies arrive in good condition.

Since this issue’s theme is “obscure Kirby work”, it’s only fitting that I get to announce the pending release of London-based Titan Publishing’s new tomes featuring a d ate the work of the best-selling team in comics history, Joe -main cre r might-and and by shee infant form e Spirit rted with an Simon & Jack Kirby! While most Kirby fans are intiTh sta of ] r by ato Kir d cre “[Simon an LL EISNER, , art, and genre.” — WI ntor. In script whole new was my me on mately familiar with Jack’s work from Marvel in the Sim Joe tered comics , when I en E “Lucky for me the master!” — STAN LE s were ter rac cha 1960s and later, they’re not nearly as well acquainted was e his editing, he it looked lik wing style; dynamic dra , ing rst bu this with the first 20 years of his comics career, most of “[Kirby] had panels.” r of ned by the inning autho barely contai litzer Prize-w Clay CHABON, Pu & which was spent in partnership with Joe Simon.

L r AE lie CH va el MI Ka — of Chap Adventures that Sistine He painted The Amazing one else— stradamus. colors every No of the te Titan’s plans start with a deluxe full-color hardcover s let wa pa a ers, a brush and e all the oth “Kirby, abov book environment with ch.” mu ny fun too of is g Best of Simon and Kirby book (shown at left), to be praise ceilin emulates. No fiction grand master to this day— ce LISON, scien EL AN RL released in May 2009, and as I write this, I just — HA of comics. He e pioneers ter, he e of the tru “Joe was on could draw, he could let say, returned from the New York Comic-Con, where Joe he ed to could write, edit. Kirby us hest n, he could t was the hig e.” could desig tha d was on hand to sign limited edition lithographs an ,’ leagu comics ‘Joe knows stow on a col Jack could be Kirby: King of Comics of compliment r tho au promoting the new book. Each litho is limited to a , ANIER — MARK EV hundred copies, and are individually hand-numbered—one is of Fighting American, the other is of “The Girl Who Tempted Me!” from Young Romance #17 (Vol. 3, No. 5, January 1950).

The Best of Simon and Kirby book features a healthy sampling of S&K’s most famous characters, including Fighting American, Stuntman, and The Fly, plus other stories from titles like Black Magic, Justice Traps the Guilty, and Young Romance, the first romance comic. And through the cooperation of Marvel Comics and DC Comics, The Best of Simon and Kirby will include stories featuring Captain America, The Vision, Sandman, and The Boy Commandos. The art has been painstakingly restored by Harry Mendryk, and Joe Simon is overseeing the process, and will provide behind-the-scenes commentary on the original stories.

That volume will be followed by The Simon and Kirby Superheroes, which will feature more extensive collections of stories of costumed heroes such as Blue Bolt, Fighting American, Stuntman, and the Fly. Then, Titan will launch The Official Simon and Kirby Library beginning in late 2009. The library will include volumes collecting the greatest horror, detective, and romance stories ever produced by Joe and Jack. Titan plans to release two books a year, and all these books are authorized by both Joe Simon and the Kirby Estate. Finally, Titan will publish a new illustrated autobiography of Joe Simon, tentatively titled Joe Simon, The Man Behind the Comics, in 2010. (above) I saw color proofs of (And one other Simon & Kirby item to note: DC will soon be releasing an Archive edition Titan Publishing’s new Simon & Kirby book at the of Joe and Jack’s Golden Age Sandman stories, which New York Comic-Con, and I’m penning the Introduction for, and Mark Evanier is trust me; you’re going to writing the Afterword.) love this!

Lastly, let me mention a couple of our own Kirby Blue Bolt, Fighting American TM & ©2009 publications I hope you’ll consider. We still have a few Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estate. • Captain America TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters, copies of the Limited Hardcover Edition of Kirby FiveInc. • Superman TM & ©2009 DC Comics.

Oh!, our huge 50th issue of TJKC, done as a book. It Football images ©Jack Kirby Estate. includes a Kirby pencil plate not in the softcover version, and is limited to 500 numbered copies, so order Limited quickly before they’re gone. And just on sale is Hardcover: $ Collected Jack Kirby Collector Volume 7, which compiles 34 95 the last of our first 30 “regular-size” issues (before we went tabloid-size with #31). It also includes 30 pieces of Kirby art never published before, so if you’ve missed any of our old issues, they’re all finally back in print through those seven books, with some nice extras. Don’t miss ’em! ★

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Mark evanier (below) Though Sgt. Fury #18 (May 1965) credits Dick Ayers as the artist, Kirby drew this splash page, and the final, pivotal page of the issue, demonstrating his input into other artists’ books. (next page) Did Simon & Kirby work “Marvel Method” on books such as Black Magic?

Here’s the cover to the Sept. 1952 (Vol. 2, #10) issue.

Sgt. Fury characters TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. Black Magic Characters TM & ©2009 Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estate.

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Jack F.A.Q.s

A column answering Frequently Asked Questions about Kirby

by Mark Evanier reader named George Parker asked me to weigh in on a discussion that seems to pop up every twenty minutes on one message board or other. Someone likens the team of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby to the team of John Lennon & Paul McCartney, and suddenly folks are arguing over whether Stan is John and Jack is Paul or Paul is Jack and John is Stan and does that mean Don Heck is Ringo and Flo Steinberg is the Walrus?

Most analogies only go so far and stop. This one doesn’t make it to the Negative Zone and barely gets halfway across Abbey Road.

The first place it breaks down, of course, is that John and Paul didn’t have a clear division of work. Both wrote lyrics. Both wrote music. There was nothing one did that the other did not, whereas Lee and Kirby had somewhat different job descriptions and skills.

Also, though they might not have felt so at times, both Beatles received sufficient accolades and cash for their work while Lee and Kirby were both grossly underpaid and their fame was confined to a small niche audience. It has only been in the last few years that Stan Lee

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has become the household name that he certainly deserves to be.

But you can draw some comparisons, largely in the way each duo reinvented the area in which it worked, kickstarted an industry and set the model and bar for countless others. And certainly in both alliances, you have some fuzziness over who contributed what. We know that Paul largely did “Yesterday” all by himself and that it was Jack’s idea that Galactus have a silver herald on a gleaming surfboard, but there are many instances where the men involved couldn’t say... or agree.

Of most Beatles songs, you can only declare, “That’s by Lennon and McCartney,” and you can’t go much farther than that.

True, you can say that with “It’s Getting Better” on the Sgt. Pepper album, Paul wrote the lines, “I’ve got to admit it’s getting better / A little better all the time,” and then John interjected the part that goes “It couldn’t get much worse.”

But it’s still by Lennon and McCartney. Even on a song where one guy did 80% of the work and the other did 20%, it’s still a Lennon-McCartney creation. And the only reason we know who did what on that song was because it was one of the instances where recollections and anecdotes agreed, which is not always the case.

The story of John and Paul is one of two guys working increasingly apart. Early on, they wrote in the same room, practically in each other’s faces, about as “together” as two songwriters could be, and the recording sessions went in much the same manner.

Then by ’64 or ’65, they were moving more into individual efforts but contributing snippets and amendments to each other’s drafts as per the above example. Eventually, perhaps inevitably, they went their separate ways.

Which is where I see the strongest Lee-Kirby parallel.

Throughout the sixties, Stan and Jack moved slowly apart. In fact, they split on very close to the same timetable as John and Paul. Kirby told Lee he was leaving Marvel in March of 1970.

McCartney announced the following month that the Beatles would be splitting up.

Leading up to both severances were periods of growing and laboring apart. The early Lee-Kirby collaborations were closer than the later ones. Early on, Jack would come into the office and they’d talk through ideas, sometimes with Jack sitting at a drawing table, batting out sketches. The depiction of Stan and Jack at work in Fantastic Four #10 was pretty much accurate, except for the part about Doctor Doom walking in on them. That almost never happened.

(One other quibble with sequences like that is that they conveyed the erroneous impression that the comics were written and drawn by Lee and Kirby working together in an office each day.

Actually, Jack did his work at home and only came in for a few hours once a week, if that often. Stan did much, often most of his scripting at his home and primarily handled editorial and administrative work at the office, sometimes only coming in two or three days a week.)

Whatever the level of closeness was, it lasted only so long. As Marvel expanded, Stan got busier and Jack cut back on his visits to the office. With so many pages to produce, Kirby could ill afford the time to take the train into Manhattan, nor did it fit with his personal schedule. The busier he got, the more nocturnal he became. His peak creative hours were late at night, after Roz and the kids were asleep and he could forget about family responsibilities and live

Gallery 1

Hit the road, Jack

ack Kirby, with his city boy upbringing, was about as far from being a cowboy as possible. But considering his early love of movies, he undoubtedly saw more than his fair share of Western films, where the heroic cowboy always rode off into the sunset at the film’s end. That image must’ve stuck with him, as you’ll see on the pages that follow.

Presented here is the last page of several of Kirby’s final issues of his various runs on comics. While the last panel on his final issues was often edited or redrawn for publication (particularly on books that were being cancelled), we’re showcasing what Kirby originally had as his last shot on some of his many strips. In some cases, there’s a “next issue” blurb for a following issue that was never published (a giveaway that Jack wasn’t aware he was ending the series until after the story was drawn, which gives readers a taste of “what might have been” if he’d stayed on the series). Other times, it’s clear that Jack knew he was calling it quits, and he utilized a parting shot of the story’s leads walking away from the reader.

It’s interesting to note that, on first issues, he tended to make the final panel a straight-on shot of the character looking directly at the reader, to lure you to buy the next issue. But on ones where he decided (or was told) to hit the road, the characters are generally walking away, cueing the reader that the show’s over, and imbuing a sense of melancholy. ★

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(this page) Final panels from: (top row) Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #148, Captain America #214, Forever People #11, Silver Surfer Graphic Novel (middle row) Black Panther #12, Machine Man #9, 2001: A Space Odyssey Treasury Edition, Manhunter #1 (bottom row) Demon #16, Dingbats of Danger Street #3, OMAC #8, Atlas #1 TM & ©2009 the respective owners.

by John Morrow

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TM & ©2009 DC Comics.

Obscura

Barry Forshaw A regular column focusing on Kirby’s least known work,

by Barry Forshaw

eople are once supposed to have thought that the streets of London were paved with gold, but as a boy growing up in the North of England in the 1960s, I knew—with absolute conviction—where the streets were paved with something far more interesting: Any street in Anytown, USA. Every burg in America (I knew for sure) boasted streets clogged with drug stores selling a host of US comics books, with their wonderful four-color interiors—surely the most desirable items on Earth, particularly for those of us who consumed such material only via the chunky 68-page black-&-white UK reprints. What’s more, these same American kids (who clearly didn’t know how lucky they were) had endless disposable income; Brit kids had to make a judicious financial decision every week (as half-a-crown pocket money only went so far): The shilling Race for the Moon or Forbidden Worlds? Or the more affordable sixpenny Superman, Batman or Superadventure (as World’s Finest was retitled in the UK)?

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Looking for inexpensive reprints of the stories featured this issue? House of Mystery #84 (March 1959) was reprinted in House of Mystery #194 (Sept. 1971) and Showcase Presents Vol. 1: House of Mystery (2006). All the Challengers stories were recently reprinted in a DC Archive edition, and Bullseye was collected by Marvel in the 1990s.

Challengers, Negative Man TM & ©2009 DC Comics.

Bullseye TM & ©2009 Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estate.

CRISP BLACK AND WHITE But if the truth be told, I didn’t lament the absence of the original books—they did turn up from time to time (like manna from heaven) and the British shilling reprints were very handsome and desirable items: glossy color covers, good value (at least a quarter of an inch thick)—with spines, yet, like a paperback book!

(Something the US books didn’t have.) So you could look at your set of Blackhawk or The Flash side-on and have an extra aesthetic frisson (not that I would have known what to call such an experience back then). And the contents of those books! Before the UK packager Alan Class took over and began using much cheaper paper, the original reprint books (courtesy of such reprint merchants as L Miller and the various titles published by Thorpe and Porter) used good quality white paper, so the crisp black-&-white artwork positively leaped off the page.

Twelve-year-old aficionados like me quickly recognized that there was an artist whose eye-jolting work seemed to blossom in this setting, with his bold dynamic lines and brilliantly canny use of solid blocks of blacks. But who was he? Those few school friends in the loose freemasonry of 1960s comics fans (before there was any such thing as comics fandom in the UK) would talk about this ‘good’ artist—and what made it an edgy discussion was the fact that he was somewhat controversial; not everyone liked his highly stylised approach—the very thing, in fact (though we didn’t of course know it at the time) that gave his artwork problems at DC when he worked on their mystery and SF books, as it didn’t quite conform to the house style.

ENTER THE NEGATIVE MAN Take for instance, a back-up tale in one of the shilling books called “The Negative Man.” It showed a bizarre human-shaped figure of pure energy, lifting a ship out of a dock with snaking arms of crackling force, while two scientist gape in shock. Who knew, in a time when comics had no credits beyond the name of Bob Kane on Batman, who drew this? (Or, for that matter, who knew then that stories with Bob Kane’s name on them were not drawn by him, but by one of his ‘ghosts’?)

It was years later that I tracked down House of Mystery #84 (DC, March 1959) and saw for the first time where The Negative Man had originated. It was the cover, still striking, but with a cover clearly drawn by another artist—and by now (as an adult) one could track down these anonymous artisans—the cover was, in fact, drawn by Bob Brown, who was subsequently to take over another strip by the artist of the Negative Man, Challengers of the Unknown. But the dynamism of the story, seen for the first time in full color! Every panel bristled with a maximum dramatic impact— such as the shot of a scientist being hit by a devastating blast of radio energy which would, of course, produce the eponymous Negative Man, soon to dispense mayhem on massive scale (starting with melting a torch in his hand and ending with the dockside ship-juggling mentioned earlier).

WHO’S THE MYSTERY ARTIST? In this era, many a journeyman artist would concentrate all the artistic impact they seemed to have under their belts into the splash panel, with everything else in the succeeding pages being somewhat low-voltage. But not this artist! Many panels in the tale could have passed muster as splash panels: Such as the image of The Negative Man using his power to direct a host of bank notes over the heads of a stunned crowd after a robbery, or the strange creature at bay, surrounded by tractors armed with lead shields.

Looked at in the 21st Century, the story is still the best thing in H of M #84. The first tale, by the usually reliable Nick Cardy (“The 100-Century Doom”) looks rushed, and the pieces by George Roussos and Sheldon Moldoff are frankly ordinary. But, boy, that Negative Man—worth the price of admission, whether you encountered him in a ten-cent US book or a shilling UK reprint!

And did you notice that I didn’t once mention the name of the

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Innerview

Train of Thought Part 2 Interview from Train Of Thought #6, circa 1972 Submitted by William Cavitt

(below) The original announcement that local San Diego fans would be appearing as characters in Jack’s Jimmy Olsen strip. This appeared in an early 1970s San Diego Con program book. Courtesy of Shel Dorf.

[Editor’s Note: This year, Comic-Con International: San Diego celebrates its 40th anniversary, and the con is inviting back all the founding members who volunteered their time and effort to launch what’s become the country’s biggest comics convention. Shel Dorf was the convention’s founder, and got to know Jack Kirby well after he moved from New York to California. Shel in turn befriended numerous young comics fans in the Southern California area, and took them to meet Jack at home on several occasions. The following interview came out of one of those visits, and the questions here were asked by Shel Dorf and/or several of the various fans who were visiting Jack’s home that day. Lacking proper credits when it was published circa 1972 in Mike Towry’s fanzine Train of Thought #6, we can only thank Shel Dorf and some or all of the guys who would become the San Diego Five-String Mob in Jimmy Olsen: Scott Shaw!,

John Pound, Bill Lund, Roger Freedman, Barry Alfonso, and the aforementioned Mike Towry. Mike, if you’re out there, Comic-Con’s trying to find you to appear this year, so get in touch; we want to feature a Five-String Mob reunion photo here!]

TRAIN OF THOUGHT: Do you like what Peter Max does?

JACK KIRBY: Yes. Oh, I’m crazy about it. I think Peter Max has taken a greater step than Picasso. I think Peter Max has really taken a realistic stance as far as art is concerned. He’s made art less harsh, and art more rich, and given it more form and more grace. I just can’t explain the kind of admiration I have for Peter Max. TOT: Do you think that it’s legitimate, though, that he merchandises his art?

KIRBY: Sure it’s legitimate. That’s where Peter Max lives. That’s where you live. I mean if exploitation is available to you and you don’t want to use it, that’s fine. If exploitation is available to you and you want to use it, why not? If you feel that it’s going to help you in some way, you exploit. If you feel that you’re going to get nothing from it, or if you want something else from it, you just don’t exploit it.

TOT: Would you ever want any of your characters to be exploited?

KIRBY: Yeah, they’ve been using Captain America to promote a chain of pants stores. They’ve been putting him on shirts and such to sell pants.

TOT: Captain America to sell pants? He should sell leotards.

KIRBY: Listen, you can keep talking, but you’ve destroyed my ego. But, of course, I think it’s right. They exploited something that they felt would help their business. They picked him up and used him just like you would a pencil.

TOT: Would you care to expound upon your work at the Fleischer studios?

KIRBY: Yes, Fleischer animation studio, like any animation studio, is a factory. It’s a factory with long rows of tables. It looked just like my father’s place. My father worked in a factory with long rows of tables with sewing machines on them. My father used to sit by them and turn out his quota of merchandise. That’s what I was doing at Fleischer’s. I was sitting at one of these long rows of tables with lights underneath. They’d give me this in-between action. I would finish the action on seven sheets of paper, and I would give them the seven sheets of paper. That was my importance.

TOT: What would have happened if you’d have gotten into the story writing for the animation and the design aspect?

KIRBY: Probably I might’ve done well, but I just couldn’t wait for that. I just didn’t want to be a nothing, like anybody else.

TOT: How did you get the job at Fleischer’s?

KIRBY: I applied for it. I showed them some sample drawings, and they needed an in-betweener. I got the job. It was a good opportunity—I’m not knocking it.

TOT: Did they pay well?

KIRBY: No, at least not according to today’s standards, but whatever you made in those days counted for a lot. I mean I could get into a movie for 50¢. You couldn’t get into the washroom today for that. So whatever I made then counted. I never knocked the money, I just knock the life. I felt that I was well treated at Fleischer’s. It was a good organization, but it was a big organization and I was just a 17-year-old kid. So who the hell was I, and that was the question I always asked myself. I’d say, “Who the hell are you?” and when I didn’t get the right answer I 19

TOT: When you first went into comics, did you look upon it as your chance to finally make an individual effort?

KIRBY: Sure. I like comic books. There were no standards in comic books at the time. I knew I wouldn’t be faced with stuffy people.

In other words, I talk to a syndicate and they greet you with an established manner, an established attitude. You knew what was going to happen to you right away. That you were just a street urchin coming in with samples of drawings, and you had no reputation. And although the people would treat you kindly, you might as well be part of the wallpaper.

TOT: Comics were in their infancy then.

How did it feel to have your name on the title page of a comic?

KIRBY: I was never concerned with that. I never signed my name. Sometimes they make me sign my name.

TOT: I’m talking about, say, when Captain America hit, and you’d go over to somebody and they’d say, “What do you do for a living?” and you’d say, “Well I write a comic book.” How did that strike you then?

Because it seems public attitudes were a lot different then.

KIRBY: For some reason I can’t explain, it was never my idea to be actually somebody of importance. I did the best I could to stay on the same level as anybody I talked to. I was a little guy, to boot. I wasn’t more than maybe 4' 11" to 5' 1", so I was in fights all the time, and I’d get kicked around a lot. It was just a matter of if I could stand still for 5 minutes and hold a conversation with a guy and have him believe me, and have me try to believe him. It wasn’t the fact of seeing my name on a magazine. I like to tell a good story. I like to do that. It’s never been an ego trip with me. I’ve never had any hostility toward anybody.

tried for something else.

TOT: Wasn’t it a kick, though, to go to the movie theater and see the action and know that it’s your work?

KIRBY: I admit that there was some fascination to it, but it wasn’t the uppermost thing in my mind.

What was in my mind was to do what was required better than eight other guys could do it. I had to duplicate what was being done—something that I wasn’t trained for. So I had to figure out how to do it the best way possible so that it would look better than the other guys. I used to define the human figure for myself. When I used to have to draw creases on an arm, I could feel the muscle flex or I could draw out that arm to its extreme. It’s nice to play around with the human figure like that. I did some extreme drawings, and maybe that’s where all the motion format comes from. And I like that sort of 20

thing. I always felt that Captain America was more of a ballet than a fight. I used to choreograph it. I’d have Captain America fighting 25 guys, and while he was hitting one guy, another guy was coming over the library shelf and another guy was coming in through the window. As this guy was falling, Captain America would turn around and get this guy from the shelf. Meanwhile the guy from the window would grab Captain America’s leg. It would be a dance, each man having his own part. It was never a fight. I never liked fighting. I never liked the results of it.

TOT: Did you have a chance to see the first releases of Superman when the kids were taking it around to everybody and they couldn’t sell it?

KIRBY: In that stage? No. I wasn’t there. I don’t recall who was editor at that time. It might have been Whitney Ellsworth.

TOT: How about your motivation for the craft?

KIRBY: My interest in the craft stems strictly from survival. I’ve never had any idea of being a Michelangelo, or a Leonardo Da Vinci, or a Milton Caniff. I never gave two thoughts to Caniff as a human being. I never gave two thoughts to any other cartoonist as a human being.

TOT: I was making a comparison from early films to comic books when they were in their infancy.

KIRBY: Comic books are still in their infancy.

TOT: Right. But when film actors would have assumed names and wouldn’t go out and admit they were film actors—because for a stage actor to be a film actor was demeaning. Was that attitude present in comic books?

KIRBY: It’s not an attitude. It’s a world. My name isn’t Kirby. Nobody ever used their real name.

There was one guy named Ricardo Cortez, and his name was no more Ricardo Cortez than my name is Jack Kirby. That was the kind of world it was. When I tell you my generation lied or died I’m not kidding.

My generation lied to survive. I changed my name

Adam M cGovern Know of some Kirby-inspired work that should be covered here? Send to: Adam McGovern PO Box 257 Mt. Tabor, NJ 07878

These interviews were conducted by e-mail on 11/11/08-11/12/08 with Joe Casey; 11/13/08 with Andy Suriano; 11/11/08 with Glen Brunswick; and 11/11/08 with Dan McDaid (all vowels translated from the British).

(right) We don’t have to beat you over the head with the Kalibak references—but where’s the fun in not?

Chuck Amok (corner) meets his match, from Charlatan Ball #1.

TM and ©2009 Joe Casey and Andy Suriano

(below) Un-“Pact”: A group of Fourth Host impersonators mix their Kirby metaphors, from Charlatan Ball #4.

TM and ©2009 Joe Casey and Andy Suriano

(next page, bottom) Tough crowd: Magician Chuck Amok prepares to disappear.

TM and ©2009 Joe Casey and Andy Suriano

(next page, top) Star-crossing lovers Barock and Zoe ride the, um, silver diving-board?

TM and ©2009 Glen Brunswick and Dan McDaid

(following page, top) Another powerful pinup of the bruiser with the Kenyan-sounding name, Barock!

TM and ©2009 Glen Brunswick and Dan McDaid

(following page, bottom) Deities in drag: The Jersey Gods do their part to cure our oil addiction in this Michael Allred alternate cover.

Jersey Gods TM and ©2009 Glen Brunswick and Dan McDaid

As A Genre A regular feature examining Kirby-inspired work, by Adam McGovern

KIRBY INCOGNITA ack Kirby was known for taking his readers and his artform to unprecedented heights, sailing the currents of cosmic spectacle and piercing the horizon of near-divine insights.

As befits the fearless explorer, he also crashed the spaceship and detoured into some logical black holes from time to time (did somebody say Fighting Fetus and Goozlebobber?)—but as anyone who’s ever opened the wrong Egyptian tomb or picked a bad necronomicon to recite will tell you, these are worthy adventures too.

At least they are to two intrepid creative teams turning some of Kirby’s wackier traditions into whole new genres and essential reading at Image Comics—Joe Casey (yes, Gødland’s Joe Casey) and Andy Suriano on the ongoing Charlatan Ball, and Glen Brunswick and Dan McDaid on the juststarting Jersey Gods.

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That Rabbit’s Dynamite Tom Scioli, Casey’s collaborator on the over-the-top-and-throughthe-ceiling cosmic odyssey Gødland, once told me he felt they were holding back. On Charlatan Ball (a surrealist farce signaled by even a title that looks like a typo), Casey, at least, is holding back not so much. It’s the story of, well, that’s a good question, but there’s this D-list strip-club stage magician who gets yanked out of our reality as a pawn in the quantum chessgame between a bunch of actuallymagic space warlords, in a nightmare dimension-shuffle of worlds where anything can happen, including the infatuation of a 50-foottall warrior goddess and the mutation of the fake magician’s hatrabbit into a murderous man-bunny (a kind of Red Queen and March Hare as if Martin Goodman had told Kirby to jazz up Lewis Carroll and paid him in dope). Casey’s free-associative narration, Suriano’s Wagnerian hotrod art, and Marc Letzmann’s hallucination colorpalette make it unlike anything in comics. TJKC asked Casey and Suriano what the hell is going on…

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: Gødland expands on the Kirby contributions that are most fondly remembered and widely emulated—the idealized heroics and inspiring cosmic spectacle. Charlatan Ball seems like an attempt to squeeze value from the Kirby that no one’s

in a hurry to claim—the grotesque techno-ogres from Atlas Monsters to MODOK; the speaking-intongues story structure or writing style of a Sandman or Devil Dinosaur. These may access some primal fairytale narrative juice and unlock some visionary ways of thinking… or not, though it seems to be working that way in Charlatan Ball. Is there no road into Kirby that doesn’t lead to genius, and are some routes more bumpy than others?

JOE CASEY: There can definitely be bumps in the road, at least in this case. Certainly Charlatan Ball has been a bit more of a headscratcher for a lot of readers, even those who embrace Gødland fairly unconditionally. Let me put it this way... if Gødland is my New Gods, then Charlatan Ball is definitely my Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers. I love both of those Kirby books, so obviously these things are all subjective. But in all honestly, on a purely conceptual level, the Kirby aspects of the series come mainly from my collaborator/co-creator, Andy Suriano. I just come up with wacky concepts like the Gang of Four Gods and Donnarama and Andy goes to town on the designs. And he’s definitely got a Kirby thing to his art. For me, I was trying to bring a bit of my Peter Milligan/Brendan McCarthy influence. Freakwave, Rogan Gosh, Mirkin the Mystic... all great, underrated classics of the medium that really affected me as a reader. But then again, I think McCarthy has more than a bit of Kirby in him, too... so it’s all part of the Great Chain.

TJKC: Books like Gødland and Charlatan Ball deal with the most exaggerated characters possible, from the lowliest loser like Chuck Amok in Charlatan Ball, to the loftiest icon like Iboga in Gødland— and yet they seem more true-to-life than many comics with much grittier and everyday settings. What’s to be learned by both reader and creator from these extreme types of characters and worlds?

CASEY: Characters have to be relatable to the reader, no matter how big or small they’re meant to be within the reality you’re creating.

Yeah, they may be extremely exaggerated, but in Charlatan Ball especially, I don’t have any real inclination to write them as unknowable. That’s part of the fun of it. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to

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Influencees

Steve Englehart Speaks could do many things but he couldn’t write, and Stan could do many things but he couldn’t draw. It certainly wasn’t true that Stan just dialogued Kirby’s stories—first, because it wasn’t, and second, because “just dialogue” would not have made us care so much about the characters and their personal situations. On the other hand, we know it wasn’t true that Jack just drew Stan’s stories—first, because it wasn’t, and second, because “just drew” would not have made the characters so heroic and dynamic. But to say either Stan or Jack was secondary is, I think, faith-based rather than reality-based. FF #48-50 would not have been the classic it is without both of them.

Interviewed by Shane Foley

(above) Blurb from the box at the top of Steve Englehart’s Captain Victory #1 script, page 1, and (next page) Paul Gulacy’s cover for that never-published first Topps issue. (below) Kirby Marvelmania button art, circa 1969.

Captain Victory TM & ©2009 Jack Kirby Estate. Silver Surfer TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

(So read the opening page of Steve Englehart’s script (above) for his unpublished Captain Victory series. Here obviously is a writer who has great respect for King Kirby.

Steve Englehart is well respected for his work as a writer in comic books since the early ’70s. Previous TwoMorrows’ interviews can be found in Comic Book Artist #2, 7, 18 and Back Issue! #8 (mainly regarding his ’70s Marvel work), Comic Book Artist Collection, Volume 2 and Back Issue! #3 and 10 (regarding his Batman work), TJKC #33 and Back Issue! #11 (comments on the Fantastic Four).

And he keeps turning up in other Back Issue! editions as books he was involved in keep being covered. Together with great info on his writing methods, the most recent career-spanning interview is on show in Write Now! #12. And no doubt there are a few more I’ve overlooked.

This interview came about after I was looking over Steve’s website, found at www.steveenglehart.com (where else?). There is lots of background info there on all his series and it is highly recommended.

What really grabbed my eye, and became the springboard for this article, was when I saw that Steve had his unpublished Topps’ Captain Victory scripts for sale. Now these I just had to see. Together with his aborted West Coast Avengers plots, I bought #1. So often, I’ve found that writers don’t seem to ‘get’ Kirby characters in a way that I find satisfying, so I was hedging my bets when I only bought the first script. But to my immense pleasure, I thought his take on CV felt pitch perfect! So in short order, I also bought scripts 2 and 3. Now I want 4, 5 and 6. Pity they don’t exist. This exchange was conducted by e-mails beginning early 2007.)

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: You’ve stated a number of times that your first exposure to Kirby was the Galactus trilogy from Fantastic Four #48-50. Do you think, “This is a Kirby story, dialogued by Stan Lee” or do you think the Lee/Kirby productions are not that easily divisible?

STEVE ENGLEHART: I think it’s Lee/Kirby, and the reason is, comics are a hybrid medium. That same art with a different writer would have been a different experience, and vice versa. But Lee and Kirby fed off each other at that time. Jack

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TJKC: A hot topic amongst Kirby fans is the debate about his scripting ability. Some love it. Others hate it. And there are those, like me, caught in the middle. Your letter published in Comic Book Artist #7 mentioned Kirby’s “tin ear”, showing where you stand. Any comments on that?

STEVE: I’ve never liked Jack’s scripting. It does not sound like human speech, and IT puts the emPHAsis in the WRONG places.

When I was asked to do Captain Victory, I had to go back and plow through all the books, and I discovered that there was a lot of Kirby magic in them, but it was hard to make out behind that tin wall. At one point, I suggested to Topps regarding Captain Victory—and later to DC regarding the Fourth World—that they republish Kirby in English. Meaning, hire a real writer (i.e., me, since it was my idea) to redo the dialogue so as to make clear what Kirby was intending to say, and add personality as Stan used to do. I think particularly with the Fourth World, everyone says “Oh, great classic series,” but very few people actually want to read it. But if you were to do the “remastered” version, of that or Captain Victory or any of his other self-scripted stuff—staying absolutely true to what he was trying to say, but making the words flow like the art—they could all be reborn.

Having now pissed off all of Jack’s true believers, I’d go back to your kind introduction where you vouch for the fact that I wrote a Captain Victory you found satisfying. I revere Jack for everything but the scripting, and I’d love to bring his self-written stuff to its full potential, to make those later series as “satisfying” as the FF or Thor.

TJKC: We know opinion is divided about Kirby’s scripting. On the other hand, no one can argue that he didn’t have great conceptual ideas. But what about his actual plotting? What do you think of his actual method of story construction?

STEVE: His plotting was great. Everything was great except human speech.

TJKC: Do you think there are many elements of your approach to writing that are heavily influenced by Kirby’s approach?

STEVE: I’m sure there are, but at this point it’s hard to say.

Which means, when I was learning my craft, I was influenced by all the great stuff around me, and Kirby was a major figure in that realm—but it’s all evolved into my own style now so I can’t pick out anything unique to Jack, or anyone else. Maybe others can see things I can’t.

TJKC: What are your thoughts on Kirby’s Fourth World? Do you think it was a case of “too much, too quick”? Do you think the scripting, more than the torrent of ideas, was a problem?

STEVE: Yes, the scripting was a problem; that will always be true for me. But beyond that, imagine a universe where the FF, Thor, and, oh, Spider-Man and Ant-Man had to function as a separate, four-headed entity. You immediately run into problems with one head demanding more attention than another, some series speeding up and others slowing down so they stay in sync—

Characters TM & Š2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Gallery

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Thor Unused

Journey Into Mysteries

I Can you help us track down any unused pages from this Thor sequence, or published pages with margin notes? If so, get in touch, so we can conclusively solve this mystery!

Characters TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Avenger R

t wasn’t all that unusual for Jack Kirby to occasionally end up with some unused pencil pages from his stories. He worked very instinctively, not sitting down to write out a plan of attack for the art in a new issue. He generally worked it all out very roughly in his head, then went full speed ahead drawing pages, sometimes in story “blocks” that he’d combine later. So once in a while, he’d end up with an extra page that needed to be cut, and he’d set it aside, with the thought that he might one day be able to reuse it in another story (something that rarely ever happened, since he’d constantly be off to new ideas).

What was unusual was for Jack to end up with the better part of a full issue of unused pages, as with Thor #169 (October 1969).

Let’s recap: Thor began a quest to seek out the origin of Galactus back in Thor #160 (January 1969), launching Jack’s final multiissue Thor epic, with Ego, the Recorder, the Wanderers, the Watcher, and Galactus all woven together into what began as a pretty amazing tale. We got a brief look at Galactus’ origin in #162, then took a two-issue detour in #163-164. “Him” returned in #165-166, in a story full of sub-plots about Loki, Karnilla, Balder, and the Watcher, with Odin still searching for Galactus. As Thor battled “Him”, he succumbed to the dreaded “Warrior Madness”, and at the end of #166, Odin punished Thor by sending him on a mission to find Galactus. Thor finally found Galactus in #168, and...

6

they sat around talking to each other. And from then on, Jack’s Marvel output was downright mundane. What happened?

I touched on this back in TJKC #14, as I’d tracked down a handful of unused pencil pages that seem to have been intended for #169. Since then, this mystery has plagued me, and I’ve been trying to make sense of why there were so many leftover pages, and why the published versions of issues #168-170 were such a convoluted mess. I’ve been struggling to put together some conclusive evidence to support my hunches about it, and the deeper I’ve gotten into it, the more questions have been raised.

I’ve finally reached the point where I’m ready to air my theories, and throw this open to our readers, in hopes they can shed further light on the mystery. But to get to this point, I enlisted the help of Shane Foley and Sean Kleefeld to give me their opinions, and their input was invaluable to this article.

Putting #168’s Pieces Together The first step is to try to rearrange Thor #168 into Jack’s original order, so that the unused page 15 (with Balder, Karnilla, and Haag) from the Marvelmania Portfolio falls in the right place, and here’s our best shot at making it fit:

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8

Unknown missing sub-plot page, likely featuring Loki/Karnilla

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15

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Re-Assembled

The mystery surrounding Thor #168-170 , examined by John Morrow, with help from Shane Foley and Sean Kleefeld

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2

3

4

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Nuts & Bolts

Jack Kirby: Illustrator

by Steven Brower

(this spread) Kirby illos from The World Around Us #30 (Feb. 1961), published by Gilberton World-Wide. ©2009 Gilberton World-Wide.

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equential art is its own entity, distinctly different from other forms of the visual arts. It is arguable the most difficult of all.

Rather than a single creator, often it requires the talents of many: writer, penciler, inker, colorist, and letterer working in consort towards a common end. The fact that it ever succeeds on any level, let alone so many, is nothing short of astounding.

Illustration, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter.

As an art director for over twenty years I have commissioned hundreds of illustrations from myriad illustrators. The difference between illustrators and comic book artists is profound. While the repartee between illustrator and art director is collaborative—

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a give and take between editorial needs and selfexpression— ultimately it is the work of a single artist creating a single panel, akin to a fine art painting.

In addition the mission of an illustrator is very different from that of the sequential artist. It is their directive to convey a message allegorically or metaphorically. The essence of the article or book has to be boiled down to magazine spreads or a book jacket to grab the reader’s attention and encourage their entering or purchasing the written work. In various ways this is a more difficult task than that posed for the sequential artist, for it requires the ability to convey a message in single frames, whereas the comic artist has several panels and pages to tell his or her story. It is the role of the illustrator to intrigue, to titillate, to create curiosity that gets the reader involved. Unlike a comic book artist, the illustrator should never tell the complete story. There is no resolution needed; rather inference is what is required, to draw the reader in. It is the text of the story or book that tells the entire tale; it is the illustrator that entices the reader to get involved.

Still it pales in many ways in the face of sequential art, which encompasses art, storytelling, pacing, design, point of view and cinematic sequencing. Imagine my surprise to discover Jack Kirby, in my opinion the greatest comic book artist of them all, pulling duty not as a sequential artist, but rather as an illustrator. I was aware that he had done so in conjunction with Joe Simon in pulps in the early 1940s, but here he was twenty odd years later, applying his talents to a very different discipline, albeit within the comic book environ. Kirby’s skills in storytelling are beyond reproach. As one of the seminal founding fathers he established early on the art of storytelling through the use of action, emotion and dynamism, influencing generations to come. Indeed he set the standard for decades, a benchmark for others the follow.

Unlike others in his field, when things got tough following the crackdown on comics championed

by Dr. Fredric Wertham and congress in the early ’50s, Kirby did not change careers and enter into the advertising

A Masterworks Mystery

Unearthed

by Wade AuCoin I need your help solving a mystery. On December 14, 2007, I bought a very special copy of Jack Kirby Masterworks. This copy has hand-written notes in red pen sprinkled throughout the book with very revealing information about Jack Kirby. But for the life of me, I cannot identify the writer of the notes. But I’m pretty sure that someone out there among the readers of the Jack Kirby Collector will be able to. I’ve reprinted a few of the most relevant pages to help you along.

I found the copy of the book in a great little comic shop in Montreal, Canada owned by Marc Parenteau. I was there with my comic-book collecting buddy, Ron Koomas. Both of us live in different parts of Canada, but we were

S Are there clues about Jack’s career here, or just some fan with bad handwriting? Let us know!

Characters TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

in Montreal to celebrate an important chapter in Ron’s life, and what better way for us to celebrate than to seek out new comics stores! Marc specializes in comic-book oddities, and has many.

Sifting through his over-sized treasury books on the bottom shelf of one of his cases, I noticed something different, something that looked hidden and had not been seen in a number of years.

When I showed it to Marc, he looked puzzled, as if he had forgotten he even had it. I popped it open and discovered a treasure. I had never seen or heard of the Jack Kirby Masterworks, but immediately fell in love with. It looks almost like a regular issue of the current Jack Kirby Collector looks now, but I discovered that it was published in 1979 by Privateer Press.

My eyes were immediately drawn to the notes, but they were very hard to make out. As I thumbed through the pages, I fell upon majestic pencil-sketched pages of the Silver Surfer that I had never seen before. This was pretty exciting for me because I am a life-long fan of the Surfer and have tried to get every single appearance of the character that I can get my hands on.

The book was worn and not in the best of shape. As much as I wanted it, I wasn’t sure if I could justify the $20 price tag on it with everything else I was getting that day (you know how it is).

But I thought it would be fun to try to decipher the notes and discover who the mystery writer is. And it would be a nice addition to my Silver Surfer collection to boot! Besides, Marc told me that if I didn’t buy it, he would simply put it on eBay, which was a prospect that I did not relish. I plunk down my last few remaining dollars and plead with Ron to pay for my supper. I was pretty hungry since we had skipped lunch. Time flies when you’re going through comic boxes.

When I got home the next day, I started examining the notes in more detail, but I soon realized that I would need more help.

As much as I have grown to love Kirby’s artwork, I am by no means a Kirby expert. A couple of days later, I sent an e-mail to John Morrow, ye old editor of this very magazine, and he agreed to help me out. I sent him paper copies of the book, and a few days later he e-mailed me the following message: “Fascinating! There’s a mystery here, which I hope we can eventually solve. Here’s what I’ve been able to piece together: The writer: • Likely knew Roz Kirby • Likely knew (and maybe worked with/inked) Steranko • Probably inked Kirby’s pencils • Was alive after 1979, when the Portfolio was published • Probably worked at Marvel in the 1960s • Is likely fairly old, based on the scratchy handwriting

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Foundations

A Western Tale Art reconstruction and commentary by Chris Fama

956 was a lean year for the King. Jack’s output was extremely low, having returned to Prize and the once lucrative romance genre for the bulk of his work. Jack also found some work at Harvey with longtime collaborator Joe Simon.

This story from Western Tales #33 (July 1956) enjoys what appears to be Joe Simon’s talented hand at the inks.

As an aside, issue #33 is one of the hardest Kirby books to find.

Earlier issues featuring Boys’ Ranch reprints and “Davy Crockett” stories are relatively abundant and affordable. But for some reason unknown to me, this issue is downright scarce. A few years back, I stumbled onto a coverless copy, Simonized for this issue’s Foundations installment. It would be another two years before I found one with a cover.

Since then not a single copy has appeared on eBay, so enjoy this truly scarce material. ★

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Western Tales ©2009 Joe Simon.

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Torch Bearers (next page) DC’s Death of the New Gods cover art by Jim Starlin. (below) Final page from Mister Miracle #18 (Feb. 1974), showing yet another final panel of characters walking (or in this case, running) off into the sunset.

Characters TM & ©2009 DC Comics.

Dan DiDio Interview

Interviewed by Douglas Toole an DiDio is a prominent figure in today’s comic-book business.

After working for years as a scriptwriter, story editor and vicepresident with the computer animation company Mainframe Entertainment and as a public relations manager and an executive director with Capital Cities/ABC, he joined DC Comics in January 2002 as Vice President–Editorial. Last year, he was promoted to the position of Vice-President–Executive Editor of the DC Universe imprint. In that position, he helps to develop new titles and to chart

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the future of DC’s heroes and villains—including some of Jack Kirby’s best-remembered creations. Mr. DiDio was interviewed by telephone on February 29, 2007, and copy-edited this transcription.

TJKC: Thanks for making time for this interview.

DiDIO: This is actually a fun one for me, because so much of what we have been working on has been building off of the material Jack Kirby did in his time with DC. And so many people have gotten excited by the fact that we have been reintroducing it and bringing it back and playing with it in this fashion.

TJKC: I’ve read that you have been a fan of comics for more than 30 years. What were some of the early comics that stood out for you?

DiDIO: In my early days of collecting, I was a big fan of the monster comics from both Marvel and DC. I remember reading everything from Where Monsters Dwell and Where Creatures Roam to House of Mystery and House of Secrets. I was also a big SpiderMan fan.

TJKC: What were some of the early Kirby books you remember reading?

DiDIO: The Kirby books are easy ones to remember, because when I was growing up, they looked so much bolder than the other books on the stands. I pretty much collected everything Kirby did for DC in the 1970s, although I started a little later than others did. The first one I remember picking up was an issue of Mister Miracle with Shilo Norman on the cover. It was probably issue #15, or around that time.

By that point, New Gods and Forever People had already ended. I was just getting a taste of the Fourth World from what was happening in Mister Miracle, but I enjoyed that issue so much that I started to look for the back issues of Mister Miracle, New Gods, Forever People and even Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. I also picked up Kamandi, The Demon and—a personal favorite of mine—the three issues of Weird Mystery Tales with Kirby stories in them. Those in particular were a lot of fun for me to read because it combined his storytelling style with the anthology format that I enjoyed in comics.

TJKC: Going from Mister Miracle #15 or 16 to the rest of the Fourth World books must have been an adjustment for you. By that point in the Mister Miracle series, most of the issues had stand-alone stories, and the earlier Fourth World books were much more interconnected.

DiDIO: They were more stand-alone. But you have to remember that in Mister Miracle #18—the final issue of the series, when Scott married Barda—Darkseid appears, a reference is made to the Pact [between Apokolips and New Genesis]

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Kirby, The CIA and the

Kirbionage

Reprinted from Comic Art Forum #2, 2002 Submitted by James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook

(throughout this article) Some of Kirby’s concept art for the Lord of Light film and theme park. Inks by Mike Royer.

All art ©2009 Barry Geller.

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n 1978, Jack Kirby realized that he was not going to be able to follow his dreams any further working for the two major comics companies and began to consider other uses for his talents. He made an arrangement to fulfill the remainder of his Marvel contract by doing storyboards and production drawings for the Fantastic Four cartoon produced by Saturday morning cartoon moguls Hanna-Barbera. This gave him inroads into the animation industry, where he would find employment for the next decade. Kirby had moved to California with the hope of expanding his horizons into film and as his comics career dissolved, he almost immediately got involved in a particularly ambitious movie project. In 1978 writer/producer Barry Ira Geller contacted Jack to collaborate on a film adaptation of Roger Zelazny’s Hugo Award-winning novel Lord of Light. The thirteen extraordinary drawings Jack completed were then inked by Mike Royer and made into a limited number of “Media Kits” by Geller for promotional purposes. The complex structures Jack designed were to have been realized as film sets and eventually function permanently as a theme park, but unfortunately after an initial burst of publicity, the project fell into a legal morass.

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In 1979 during the Iranian hostage crisis, six American diplomats were successfully smuggled out of Tehran. At that time much of the credit went to the Canadian Government for their role in the mission to save the lives of the six Americans, who had survived by hiding in the Canadian Embassy. But 20 years later in an unusual event honoring their fiftieth anniversary, the Central Intelligence Agency decided to honor some of its unsung heroes and revealed that the escape had been part of a covert action executed by their operatives. As the startling details of this story emerged, it turned out that the whole plot hung on Jack’s artwork. The following is an interview with Barry Ira Geller, the man responsible for putting Jack’s work into the hands of CIA spies in this strange saga of real life intrigue, glamour, adventure and Hollywood mayhem.

Interview with Barry Ira Geller

by James Romberger JAMES ROMBERGER: The Lord of Light drawings were a great use of Jack’s talents; it’s a shame the project wasn’t consummated. I have to admit being intrigued by a letter in the Kirby Collector about a Bravo show that referred to your project in a strange

Lord of Light context, that of a front for an anti-terrorist task force bent on freeing hostages in a foreign land. The conspiratorial scenarios multiply as one freely conjectures, not the least concept that the CIA are Kirby fans.

BARRY IRA GELLER: I agree with your perception regarding the different kind of work I employed Jack for—it was the perfect evolution of his total mastery.

Buildings were going to be based upon them—that would have put the Earth on its ears had we been able to do it. Actually, the half hour program was made by WGBH Boston where the CIA’s master spy admitted publicly to ripping off the Lord of Light script and Jack’s drawings to set up a phony production company front in Iran to (successfully) get out six almost-prisoners. This was kept secret all these years. I have the video and will be editing it, and will put it up on my site. It is quite astounding. It turns out my makeup man, John Chambers (Oscar winner for Planet of the Apes) was also the CIA’s chief makeup consultant and gave the script to the spy for whom he worked, Mendez, who was the real Mission: Impossible dude... hahahaha. I was terrified when first seeing the show, but then found “enlightenment”—as I began to acknowledge the wonders of a million coincidences to bring everything up to that point, from me conceiving the project and then getting Jack to do the work, getting Chambers involved, etc... that’s six people alive instead of maybe dead. I am certain Jack would have loved the “Touch of God” relationships here. I miss him terribly to not be able to share the joke.

JAMES: Jack never knew of the CIA plan?

BARRY: No, Jack never knew since the situation was only “declassified” (crime admitted to) this past year. Had Jack still smoked cigars, we would have shared some big expensive sticks on the humor of it all either way.

JAMES: On History Channel last night they had another show about the CIA operative Mendez, on This Week in History. They didn’t show Jack’s drawings but it was obvious they were referring to that same operation to free people holed up in an embassy. They said the film was to be called Argo and that in 1980 they had taken the ads out in Hollywood trade papers about the movie, causing Hollywood to go all abuzz.

BARRY: Fascinating. I remember reading about the Argo project. The reason they didn’t show Jack’s drawings (most likely) was that they didn’t want to pay me any release money, or give credit to Jack or myself.

engineers. Actually, I knew there would be “real life” engineering problems, but it was my inner joke to always watch their horror and with Jack I always told him to “make it like he would imagine it and not worry about engineering.” He appreciated this. So Jack and I had a ball thrashing out themes. As he knew, I wanted a “Master” design to then give to all others to do their thing with. We laughed a lot when our architectural consultant screamed holy hell about how impossible it was to make the cantilevered floating gardens of “The Chambers of Brahma, Exterior.”

JAMES: If the backing had all gone through, what aspects of the realization would Jack have been involved in? In terms of a film, would he have been creating additional production design and/or continuity?

BARRY: My offer/deal with Jack was he was “Design General.” Also gave him points in the Gross Profits. This means everyone worked under him. All Science Fiction Land. All film. We designed each drawing to be used both as a set description and theme park description. As I said previously, I was always amazed how he managed to capture the correct POV each time—well, all except one, which I gave him back and it is in The Art of Jack Kirby [by Ray Wyman Jr. and Catherine Hohlfield, 1992, Blue Rose Press–Ed.] as the Angel.

JAMES: Do the scale of the little people in the drawings accurately reflect the intended scale? It would’ve been like seeing Babylon and the Colossus of Rhodes, for real, amped to the Nth degree!

BARRY: As far as I can determine, absolutely correct. The scale was close to how I envisioned it on most drawings and talked with architects about. The best example of scale was “The Chambers of Brahma Exterior.” Wow! Yes. I have to admit walking around the city and imagining the giant buildings right there. And there was more: I had gotten Buckminster Fuller along for the ride, and 3M interested in funding a floating dome over the whole thing. 1/2 mile high and 3/4 mile long.

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JAMES: How did you end up hearing about the CIA plot?

BARRY: The Associate Producer of the Bravo show contacted me and I heard about the show afterwards. Like I said, John Chambers had told me he’d done “some” work for the CIA in 1979 in a discussion we had about making Marlon Brando look 20 years younger using some special makeup he’d invented, which he said was used by the CIA. Hadn’t a clue (or anyone else) that his work was so prominently placed. [laughter] The important thing to know about John’s work was that it wasn’t simply makeup; like Bill Tuttles’s work for the Wizard of Oz, it was makeup which became part of the living identity of the character. This is what won him the Oscar, both for Hollywood and, apparently, the government. There are things in the works to find out more about the CIA thing. You will hear about it soon.

JAMES: Could you elaborate for me what Jack meant when he said, “I think this film and the way we are conceiving it could contribute to saving the world”?

BARRY: The concept of the god’s “psychic abilities” which were turned into, over 1000 years, full blown aspects and attributes, were of awesome nature and I think what Jack appreciated most aside from the obviousness of these being characters perfect for him to develop, was the fact that they were still “real people” (i.e. same kind of emotional problems, etc.). The “save the world” thing I believe was attributed to showing the world that we all have the same psychic capabilities—and through the toy line I was developing (with magnetic levitation) and the buildings of Science Fiction Land, the purpose was to showcase the future in a whole new way— by employing many scientists to develop new technologies in various areas, then showcasing the results. Same thing which got Ray Bradbury and Paolo Soleri working with me, too.

JAMES: The prints resemble architectural drawings; were they meant to be literally and faithfully translated into reality?

BARRY: Absolutely. You can’t imagine the heart attacks I was giving to a few

KIRBY COLLECTOR #52

Spotlights Kirby’s most obscure work, like an UNUSED THOR STORY, his BRUCE LEE comic, animation work, stage play, and see original unaltered versions of pages from KAMANDI, DEMON, DESTROYER DUCK, and more, including a feature examining the last page of his final issue of various series BEFORE EDITORIAL TAMPERING (with lots of surprises)! Color Kirby covers inked by DON HECK and PAUL SMITH! (84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_57&products_id=745

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