Jack Kirby Collector #74

Bullseye TM & © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estates.

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR SEVENTY-FOUR

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Contents

THE

The PAST! OPENING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 (the past is now, the future is then) KIRBY AS A GENRE . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 (to pulp returnest, with Tom Scioli) FOUNDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 (not our first Kirby romance story...)

C o l l e c t o r

ISSUE #74A, SPRING 2018

BROTHER BOYD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 ( Jerry’s bro shows us Wolf Waco’s two-shot appearances) STRIP CLUB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 (Davy Crockett, hiding in plain sight) KIRBY OBSCURA . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 (what did Jack do best?)

RE-FOUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 ( announcing the hardcover Jack Kirby Checklist: Centennial Edition) JACK KIRBY MUSEUM . . . . . . . . . 29 (visit & join www.kirbymuseum.org) INFLUENCEES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 ( the terrific Roy Thomas remembers Jack Kirby) COLLECTOR COMMENTS . . . . . . . 44 INNER-VENTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 (take a trip in Jack’s time machines) COLLAGE: “ABOUT TIME” . . . . . . 48 THE FUTURE! . . . . . . . FLIP US OVER!

Numerous images in this issue are courtesy of the Jack Kirby Museum and whatifkirby.com, which have our eternal(s) thanks! (right) This issue’s “Past” cover started life as a gorgeous late1960s Bullseye drawing.

Bullseye cover inks & colors (Version A): BILL WRAY

Don’t miss our alternate TIGER 21 cover (Version B)!

COPYRIGHTS: Alarming Tales, Boy Explorers, Bullseye, Stuntman, “You’re Not The First!” TM & © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estates • Big Jim’s P.A.C.K. TM & © Mattel • Thundarr the Barbarian TM & © Ruby-Spears Productions • Conan the Barbarian TM & © RE Howard Estate • “About Time”, Captain Victory, Egghead, Limousine Drawing, Moses, Tiger 21 TM & © Jack Kirby Estate • Davy Crockett TM & © the respective owner • Avengers, Black Panther, Bucky, Captain America, Colossus, Dr. Doom, Dr. Strange, Falcon, Fantastic Four, Giant-Man, Gunsmoke Western, Hawkeye, Howard the Duck, Hulk, Human Torch, Invaders, Iron Man, Jack Frost, Liberty Legion, Miss America, Nick Fury, Patriot, Power Man, Rawhide Kid, Red Raven, Scarlet Witch, SHIELD, SpiderMan, Sub-Mariner, Thing, Thor, Toro, Two-Gun Kid, Union Jack, Wasp, Watcher, Wolf Waco, X-Men TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. • Funky Flashman, Houseroy, Lightray, My Greatest Adventure TM & © DC Comics

The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 25, No. 74, Spring 2018. Published quarterly by and © TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. 919-449-0344. John Morrow, Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $12 postpaid US ($18 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $46 Economy US, $69 International, $20 Digital. Editorial package © TwoMorrows Publishing, a division of TwoMorrows Inc. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All Kirby artwork is © Jack Kirby Estate unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors. Views expressed here are those of the respective authors, and not necessarily those of TwoMorrows Publishing or the Jack Kirby Estate. First printing. PRINTED IN CHINA. ISSN 1932-6912

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Opening Shot

...The Future Is Then. by editor John Morrow

[Focus on the image of Jack in the center, and move your head backward and forward.]

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[Focus on the image of Jack in the center, and move your head backward and forward.]

by editor John Morrow

Opening Shot

The Past Is Now...

Kirby As A Genre

To Pulp Returnest

A conversation with graphic biographer Tom Scioli, conducted by Adam McGovern

(This page) The myths both young Jacob Kurtzberg and the prototypical Jack Kirby were born from.

All images by and © Tom Scioli.

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ing Kierkegaard told us that life must be lived forward but it can only be understood backwards; in a life like Kirby’s, many things are seen far ahead of their time, and we can gain something new each time we look back. One of the artists best known and regarded for taking Kirby’s legacy forward is undertaking a voyage to its very beginning. Titled simply Kirby, in his signature, this new life story by Tom Scioli (8-Opus, Godland, Transformers vs. G.I. Joe) turns back every page on what we know about Jack and what we’ve seen of his achievements. Taking Kirby’s epic approach to the quieter realities of the artist’s own life, Scioli’s narrative collages the comics being produced at the time with the elusive essence of the decades and locales themselves, for a major work in the making. On February 12, 2018, I got on the phone with Scioli to go back to the most important drawing board in comics.

TJKC: The current, declarative form is also a medium for telling a historical account with as much objectivity and accuracy as possible.

SCIOLI: I wanted to take a just-the-facts approach, no comicbook hoopla and salesmanship.

TJKC: And yet there is a feast of period flavor in the way you render the story—the settings feel like we’ve walked into old photographs, machinery looks straight out of a vintage catalogue, etc. How did the way we see those times influence the way you show it?

SCIOLI: When you’re telling Kirby’s story, you’re telling the story of the 20th century—he’s there at the outset of comics, he serves in WWII, he’s there for the ’60s cultural revolution. And as this story progresses, we’ll see it progress in those styles too.

TJKC: Is this unintrusion of you as the storyteller a reason for the vérité use of untranslated languages at the beginning?

SCIOLI: Yiddish is a super-interesting [hybrid] language; Kirby says that’s the first language he learned. That happens a lot with children of immigrants, and then they go to school, and it’s almost like the parents learn English from the kids. That’s how it was in the Kirby household. Language fascinates me so I have maybe way too much fun with those early episodes, where it’s almost a pantomime.

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: When did you start telling this story?

TOM SCIOLI: A bit before Kirby’s 100th birthday.

TJKC: The full pages at your own site are dynamically composed, but it also had a feel of completeness when I was first seeing it one panel at a time on Instagram…

SCIOLI: I want this to be extremely accessible, so layouts are very no-nonsense. When it goes to print, I might throw in some splash pages, etc.—at that stage, you’re solving book-design problems.

TJKC: True, the unfamiliarity of many readers with the language(s) being spoken enables (and necessitates) pure visual storytelling; befitting for the comics medium.

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SCIOLI: These are some of his earliest memories, so a preverbal form of storytelling makes sense.

TJKC: What sources did you draw on in recounting Kirby’s life?

SCIOLI: Probably a lot of the same stuff you’ve read; I’ve been reading and studying Kirby since I was 18. Even back then there was a ton of stuff, and I just read all of it. In reading everything there is about Jack Kirby, the story of Jack Kirby is in my head. A lot of times I’m not sure I’m remembering something right, and I’ll go back and verify, and it’s right—and occasionally while I’m doing it I’ll realize something I hadn’t before, or connect the dots for something we hadn’t before. Chronology becomes clearer—like realizing that Kirby’s first super-hero work was on the Blue Beetle. When we think of Jack Kirby, we don’t think of Blue Beetle, but there it was.

TJKC: Shows how encompassing his mark across all comics was, even on characters and books we don’t primarily associate him with. Have you seen any of the (few) other treatments of Kirby’s life, like Crystal Skillman and Fred Van Lente’s King Kirby play?

SCIOLI: I’m aware of it, haven’t seen it yet, but it looks awesome.

TJKC: It is, though that version of course condenses his story, and has a retrospective view that calls for interpretation. In your version we journalistically learn this story as he lives it, but there’s a great amount of feeling that rises out of that unexpectedly, from the texture of his experiences and his real-time reactions.

SCIOLI: I’m trying to keep in that mode, even though [the narration is] him telling the story at a much later date.

TJKC: At this point, we could imagine him telling this not just from later in his life but from after, which lends to this feeling like an account relived rather than just a story retold.

SCIOLI: Unfortunately Kirby never gave a full account like this; it was more like puzzle pieces [of anecdote]. I was reading an interview, where he was talking about Stan Lee, and he says “Have

you ever read What Makes Sammy Run? [Bud Schulberg’s 1941 novel about a deceitful social climber] That’s Stan Lee”—so I read it myself; I’m trying to get inside this story, follow the breadcrumbs, the trail of clues.

TJKC: One personal account we have—really just the beginning of one—is of course Kirby’s late-career short story “Street Code” [a vignette of Kirby’s childhood fighting in gangs amongst New York’s ethnic ghettos]…

SCIOLI: “Street Code” was very informative; I had to avoid the temptation to just redo “Street Code”! It shows all the things he was hinting at in his work, what was behind Armagetto, and all the rooftop fights Captain America would get involved in. As with a lot of his work, you look at “Street Code” and say, why aren’t there a hundred issues of this?

“Street Code” is so unsentimental; for something that takes place in his childhood, it’s so unsentimental and so brutal, it was hard to approach that era of his life; really hard to capture all those contradictory things.

TJKC: My own way into that is through the stories my dad tells, since he was born only seven years after Kirby…

SCIOLI: When I think of that era, I picture what my grandfathers were up to, so it’s one more generation removed.

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SCIOLI: As far as I know, Kirby’s work was the only therapy he had—in a way, he’d always been doing a life story; there’s a magical, almost medical aspect to it.

TJKC: What else have you yourself been learning by telling this story?

SCIOLI: They recently released a collection of Sky Masters [Kirby’s 1950s newspaper comicstrip]. I’d never read it in its entirety before; the pacing is more like a modern comic book. [At that time] his strips were leaps and bounds ahead of his comic books. The comics would be snappy eight-page stories that would end sooner than you’d want them too; whereas the strips just unfold really satisfyingly, and with almost cinematic pacing. The comics were more staccato, you’re-in-andyou’re-out; the strips were closer to those multi-issue epics he then did in the ’60s.

TJKC: Sometimes I think that allows a writer or visualizer to connect with an era more observantly—as if you’re coming in like a time-traveler. Speaking of, in looking at your Kirby I can’t help but think of [fellow Pittsburg-based cartoonist] Ed Piskor’s X-Men: Grand Design, which also goes back through comics history and uses that yellowed, literal-pulp aesthetic. These days we’ve got the sleek movies, but is this perishable aesthetic like the papyrus scripture of the future we now live out, to be respected in that form?

SCIOLI: The similarities with Ed’s X-Men can’t be a coincidence; I know it isn’t, we bounce ideas off each other and are swimming in the same stream, and have similar likes and dislikes.

There’s definitely a “Pittsburgh look,” we just sorta share that taste; Jim Rugg too. Speaking for myself, that just feels like a comic to me; that yellowing, that paper grain, just looks real to me. I’d love to come up with another solution that conveys the mood and the ambiance, but this still defines it.

Sometimes it does coincide with the [period] subject matter, though that’s largely intuitive, and maybe [all] comes out of an aesthetic. I’ve spent almost my entire adult life trying to reverse-engineer Kirby, and this may be the best way to do that. And as I’ve moved more from inks to drawing mostly in pencil, the story of this guy who spent almost his whole life with a pencil in his hand, it was almost too perfect.

TJKC: You referred before to the difficulty of approaching some painful stages of his life—I wonder if it might actually be easier for a separate person to face.

SCIOLI: [In interviews] you’d hear him say “nobody wants to hear that!”, while it’s fascinating to anyone who didn’t live through that stuff—you may be the worst person to make that call, ’cuz it’s old news to you but to nobody else!

TJKC: And he was of a generation, especially the males, who had a “keep it to yourself ” credo.

TJKC: It felt like an old-school comic strip, and true to his earliest roots, when I first saw your Kirby epic unfold image by image on Instagram.

SCIOLI: That’s the closest thing, now, to having a newspaper comic—if you wanna reach a lot of people, it just seems like the logical place to put it. Kirby’s comics

are in many ways more modern than what I’m doing here—Fantastic Four #1 is told totally out of chronological order!

TJKC: How much more of your own chronology will be spent telling this story?

SCIOLI: It feels like, okay, I’m living somebody else’s life, in what seems like real time; I’ve been working for six months and covered 14 years; I’m guessing it will get slower—as landmark events happen in his career, I’ll have more to cover. The definitive story of his life (in the medium that was his own). H Meet Kirby for a new first time at Scioli’s site, www.ambarb. com.

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(previous page) The past, and a foreign country: The Kurtzbergs’ long walks through history. (left) Simon & Kirby culinary culture-clash! (center) Stan Lee’s origin at Marvel Comics. (below) Roz Kirby enters the fray.

All images by and © Tom Scioli

Foundations

Here’s a never-reprinted romance story, from Young Romance #29 (V4 #5), January 1951.

Restoration and color by Chris Fama.

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Brother BOyd

The Western One-Shot W

by Dwight Boyd

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(above) Just for the record, this scenario wasn’t part of the Wolf Waco story, and this baddie wasn’t even Wolf! Still, the fusion of this back-up story scene and the main tale was another nice effort by Kirby and Ayers. (next page, bottom) Waco fights the Rawhide Kid in this page-anda-half action sequence from RK #18, Oct. 1960. (right) Another Wolf Waco met the original Two-Gun Kid in TGK #59, April 1961.

Watch Out For Wolf Waco!

Wolf Waco (great moniker—it just screams cow-

he real Old West was full of bullies, raging sociopaths, and territorial no-goods who rode from town to town, alone or in small bands, hell-bent on robbing banks, stagecoaches, ranches, or trains.

Some of their stories are quite ugly, and were certainly too ugly or warped for the Codeapproved western ten-and-twelve-centers that youngsters found enthralling during the Eisenhower years.

So, the legends of the West got cleaned up considerably and made homogeneous for television and comics.

Billy the Kid, for example, over at Charlton Comics, wasn’t such a bad guy, especially since this Billy was a relative of his more famous relative. And this Billy rode the trail to clear his family name by doing good deeds.

Other legends “lost some of their shortcomings” at other publishers’ offices, also. With Lee and Kirby in the early 1960s (before the Fantastic Four), the western frontier was dominated by the Two-Gun Kid (a carryover from the post-WWII era) and the Rawhide Kid, a tall, buckskin-clad, blond straight-shooter with fists as quick as his draw. Two-Gun was blond also; the pair was practically interchangeable.

In time, Jack and Stan would take the names and change everything else except their self-sacrificing heroics. The readers came to accept these changes, and the Kids, along with Kid Colt (who, like Batman following DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, needed no changes) continued to star in modest-selling series throughout the ’60s.

But this article’s not about the Kids, really. It’s about a one-shot gunhawk they both faced on separate occasions. “Say what?” you may be asking. I’ll explain.

town villainy with two smoking pistols!) led a gang of outlaws, and it was young Johnny Bart’s misfortune to run afoul of them in Rawhide Kid #18 (Oct. 1960), in just his second Lee/Kirby/Ayers issue. After a narrow escape from the townsfolk who’ve just recognized the outlaw, the Kid spots a seemingly abandoned mine where he hopes to rest. Nope, Waco is there and the two get into a fistfight. The Kid’s smaller, lighter, but determined not to be bullied by the gruff, domineering Waco. (Bullied… I’ll get back to that later.) Wolf’s men show up and point their guns in the Kid’s direction, ending the pummeling their leader’s taking. Wolf’s temper subsides and he offers the Kid a chance to join his group. Rawhide thinks, “And why shouldn’t I join up with them? There’s no place for me anywhere else!”

Aloud, he announces, “All right, Waco, yuh got yoreself a new man!” (Peer pressure, right? I’ll return to that later, as well.)

Still, as gangs are wont to do, the Kid has to “prove” himself. He’s told to throw a bunch of lit dynamite sticks at the mail train a-comin’, a notion that quickly eats at his conscience. If he doesn’t do it, Wolf and his men tell him he’ll be shot down from behind... at their hands. But Johnny outwits them and tosses the explosive bundle back over his head at his bloodthirsty “friends.” The smoke and shock allows him some time to make it to the train. There, he “proves” himself to the train people. He blasts their guns out of their hands and then quickly returns them, explaining that he’s not going to rob them. He only wants another chance at Waco and his men. As most of the Wolf Waco Gang turn tail, Wolf and the Kid return to throwing the fisticuffs. The enraged young gunman and his foe move unwittingly toward a cliff and the treacherous owlhoot goes over. This marked the end of Wolf Waco… or did it?

Wolf Waco II: No Good, Just…

BadWolfAnd Ugly!

Waco became a

one-shot bad man again… in Two-Gun Kid #59 (April 1961). This new Wolf (no one without Marvelous super-powers could’ve survived that fall!) was just as much a bullying, lowlife cur as the other gunnie who shared his name.

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With Two Six Guns!

Stan and Jack might have liked that name, I think. The team had a knack for impressive “handles”, as Stan called them. Dakota Dawson, Sundance Slade, Dead-Eye Dawson, Blackjack Borden, Crow Mallon, Don Drago, Moose Morgan, and Bassett the Badman—all rode the hard, dusty trails in the west where Kid Colt, the (masked) Two-Gun Kid, and the Rawhide Kid ruled with faster draws.

The original TGK (the non-masked Clay Harder, blond and draped in the type of allblack outfit that Hopalong Cassidy favored), rides into the typical wide open frontier town, and some townspeople implore him to do something about Wolf Waco, who’s running roughshod over the occupants of a nearby saloon.

Being the self-sacrificing heroic type, Harder immediately takes up their cause and confronts the swaggering Waco. Hey, it wouldn’t be a “mighty Marvel western” if things had gone peaceably after that, so the two gunslingers clash. Things get worse when the cowardly Waco hurls a lantern at the Kid, and fire breaks out. Harder leaves the saloon last—a young boy is trapped and the Kid drags him out, but at a huge cost. His hands are badly burned.

That’s the news a doctor gives him—news overheard by Waco. Wolf’s got a new deal going now. He’s going to have the Kid escort him around town. Waco will steal from, bully, and cheat anyone he wants and the Kid will seem to be his back-up and friend, all animosity forgotten. The unknowing townsfolk are bewildered. Why does a mostly silent TGK now travel with the despised Waco?

Wolf’s not telling. He plans to kill the Kid before his fast-drawing hands heal and he gets the doc to look at them every day to make sure the process isn’t going too fast. Cruel deeds, including bank robbery, aren’t enough; Wolf adds laughter to it all. He can’t lose.

(All together now: “That’s what he thinks.”)

One day, the two men chase down a stagecoach outside of town. It isn’t enough for Wolf to rob it; he doesn’t want witnesses. The Kid’s had enough and after a brief argument, he dismounts and moves into his famed fighting stance.

Fine with Wolf, he was ready to end his “arrangement” with Harder anyway, and again—he can’t lose! Clay’s hands are still no good according to the town doctor. Wrong. The Kid blasts Waco’s gun out of his hands in the best Code-approved fashion.

(Real gunslingers always shot to kill, but on TV and most funnybooks…) He follows up with a pummeling of the brute with those “useless gun hands.”

Humiliated in defeat, Wolf wails, “The doc wouldn’t have lied to me!” O. Henry ending time: The Kid tells him that the doc risked his life by lying because the boy Two-Gun saved from the saloon fire… was the doctor’s son!

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they slunk off, “never to be heard from again” (as Stan often put it) or they were jailed.

The two Wolf Waco characters were bullies. They used peer pressure in both stories to bend the Kids to their will and they took perverse pleasure in trampling on others’ pride or feelings. And not a second thought came into their conniving heads when it came to shooting down innocent people. But when they got their comeuppances and learned their lessons, the readers learned some lessons, also…

Lessons Learned

(above) In Two-Gun Kid #59, Waco forced the Kid to be his partner as he “treed the town”, knowing the other men of the town wouldn’t dare to buck the fast-drawing twosome. (right) Swaggering bullying outlaws on the frontier gave Kirby and Lee plenty of menaces to work with during the early 1960s. This quartet of impressive Kirby/Ayers covers range from 1960-63.

[Special thanks to Jerry Boyd for research and some writing assistance.]

Trailblazers

Kirby and Lee were trailblazers of a sort in their western material. They successfully fused the old and new. The “good badman” was made famous during the silent film era in exciting Hollywood shoot-’em-ups put together by William S. Hart. Kid Colt, Outlaw got his start long before the Code showed up, but he, like Rawhide, were wronged youngsters who were braver and more inclined to follow the law than some of the lawmen or bounty hunters who pursued them. The masked Lone Ranger was certainly part of Jack and Stan’s thinking when they came up with the masked Two-Gun Kid. The original TGK was, like the original Rawhide, a typical upstanding and outstanding gunman who hated bullies, killers, thieves, and outlaw bands. They were vigilantes, without masks, capes, or super powers.

By stacking up their 10-cent and 12-cent treasures against the television cowboys, Lee and Kirby made sure their readers got the same type of morality plays.

Lessons were taught and learned. The bad men got defeated. If they survived their fracases with the heroes, 18

Cyber-bullying is done a great deal online these days. Among too many youngsters (who didn’t grow up with the Kids and TV westerners), bullying is hip now, a skill to get through the awkward school years, a weapon… even something to take pride in. And peer pressure is employed to bring other kids in with them, even when some know what they’re doing is wrong. Some grownups act in similar ways in other venues.

I didn’t read Gunsmoke Western; Two-Gun Kid; Rawhide Kid; and Kid Colt, Outlaw as they came out.

I was too young. But I watched Bat Masterson; The Rifleman; Bonanza; Have Gun, Will Travel; The Virginian and others as they dominated TV and in syndication. Their morality plays mirrored the ones

by Jack and Stan. I wish youngsters had heroes in comics today as pure as the Kids of yesterday/yesteryear. If some of them had been exposed to them earlier in life, the effects might have cut down substantially on cyber-bullying and perhaps, the troubling rise of teen suicide—things absent from the landscape of the 1960s.

At the stories’ ends, beaten and removed from power, Wolf Waco—the one-shot owlhoot with two guns—showed readers that peer pressure misused, and bullying others, is never acceptable or shouldn’t be condoned. Two versions of the hulking, brutal coyote rode into Atlas Comics towns shortly before the Marvel Age began and ran afoul of two better men than he. Those two men were Lee and Kirby heroes and the world of comics, and pop culture itself perhaps, would be better with more like them… H

Hiding In Plain Sight!

Strip Club

by Rand Hoppe, director of the Jack Kirby Museum

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Kirby ghosted three weeks of Davy Crockett daily strips in the 1950s. (right) January 14-19, 1957 dailies. (below) February 24, 1957 Sunday strip. (next page, top) Sunday strip from March 3, 1957. (next page, bottom) January 21-26 and January 28-February 2, 1957 dailies.

Courtesy of Bill Blackbeard’s San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University.

n August of 2012, the Jack Kirby Museum posted a reworked translation of Jean Depelley’s article (seen in TJKC #64) about Jack Kirby’s ghosting of the Davy Crockett, Frontiersman comic strip. What was notable about the article, originally published in French earlier that March, was that Jean and Bernard Joubert found evidence that the work was, in fact, a comic strip reworked to comic-book-size in Marvelman (UK), and digest-size in Zoom (France).

Since then, Hans Kiesel sent the Museum an e-mail in late 2015, letting us know that he and fellow comics researchers in Germany found a Crockett Sunday strip in black-and-white translated into German, that was obviously by Kirby. Hans also included a mention from Allan Holtz’ Strippers Guide stating that Kirby had ghosted two Sundays. I continued, on-and-off, researching the strip, along with Kirby’s Blue Beetle daily strips in the 1940s, on the Internet without any results regarding Davy Crockett.

In early 2018, however, meticulous comics researcher Michael J. Vassallo (also known as “Doc. V”) shared on Facebook and his blog the color version of the same Sunday strip we’d had in German. Doc. V had embarked on an ambitious project involving scanning and cataloging the Sunday comics sections of the New York Daily News. Finding the strip in a big NY newspaper felt somewhat ironic after I’d scoured obscure daily news-

papers on newspapers.com. This raised the question, though: “Did any daily strips also run in the New York Daily News?”

The Kirby Museum has had a pleasant relationship with collector, scholar and collage artist Tom Morehouse since our formation in 2005. In fact, Tom allowed us to scan his copies of the Crockett reprints in Marvelman in 2011.

Since I’m comfortable researching newspaper microfilm at the New York Public Library—you know, the big one with the lions in front on 42nd Street & 5th Avenue—Tom suggested we go there together and look at the Daily News microfilm.

And, voila!

But what about that other Sunday strip? Well, on one of the Facebook comics groups where Doc. V shared his discovery, Mark Evanier mentioned that the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum has a large collection of comic strips.

I dove into their search engine, and found that they did, indeed, have 19

both Sunday strips, courtesy of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection of Bill Blackbeard.

And, it seems it is complete: Three weeks of dailies, and two color Sundays.

It wouldn’t be right to end this article without mentioning Matthew Gore. You see, Matt posted Crockett scans from Marvelman #231 on his website all the way back in 2002! Can anyone provide reasonable guesses when the Marvelman issues #231, 232 and 233 were published? Seems that information is currently unavailable. H (This was originally posted February 6, 2018 on the Kirby Museum website: www.kirbymuseum.org)

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Obscura

Barry Forshaw Barry Forshaw is the author of American Noir, British Gothic Cinema, and The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction (available from Amazon) and the editor of Crime Time (www. crimetime.co.uk); he lives in London.

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

by Barry Forshaw

populated by aliens, preparing to take over the world (and before you start yawning, the clichés are kept at bay here, not least by Jack’s splendid artwork), but re-reading the story for this column drew to my attention the fact that there were two things that Jack (despite his many talented rivals) did better than anyone else. And if you doubt my conclusions in the following paragraph, look at the issue’s Kirby story which was reprinted in the Jack Kirby Omnibus Volume 1 (DC), with an introduction by Mark Evanier.

WHAT DID JACK KIRBY DO BEST?

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et’s face it, it’s the essential job of all the writers on The Jack Kirby Collector to extol the virtues of the man this magazine is all about. It goes without saying that from our hard-working editor down, we are all admirers of Mr. K.—but not blinkered ones; we’ll admit that towards the end of his remarkable career, Jack’s infallible touch had at times become... fallible.

In fact, I’m one of the luckiest writers of this magazine, because there are no missteps in Jack’s 1950s and early 1960s work, and any discussion (such as that which follows in the next paragraph) of his DC Comics work in this era is pretty well always a thumbs-up. Under consideration this month?

The anthology title My Greatest Adventure, #15, published by DC in May/June of 1957.

And it’s a perfect opportunity to discuss the things that Jack did best, all evident in this issue. The book itself has a rather unpromising Reuben Moreira cover, in which a sweating hero finds himself on trial in front of a jury of historical (and fictitious) villains. And surely even readers in 1957 wondered why the villains had to have labels with their names on their chests, from Simon Legree, Blackbeard and Macbeth to Circe and Merlin (British readers, if they got the chance to see this issue, might have wondered what our most famous magician was doing in a gallery of villains).

But the issue itself is a cherishable one. The first story, “I Hunted the World’s Wildest Animals”, features the splendid artwork of the man who in this period almost rivaled Kirby in accomplishment, the talented Nick Cardy, with the hunter hero tracking down such mythological beasts as a unicorn and a griffin. The tale is dispatched with all the skill that we expect from Cardy in 1950s DC, but it’s the second tale in which things move up a notch with Jack Kirby’s “I Found the City Under the Sea”.

In his compact bathysphere, the hero of the piece investigates a submarine city

FUTURISTIC CITIES, GROTESQUE ALIENS

On the second page of “I Found the City Under the Sea”, as the hero’s bathysphere descends into the depths, we are given a glimpse of something that was a Jack Kirby speciality—a panoply often (oddly) seen from above: a glittering and fantastic futuristic city. The city scene in the story almost rivals the equally splendid one seen in the classic Challengers of the Unknown story in which the quartet visit the far-future. And once again, as there is virtually no crosshatching or specific detail, everything is reduced to basic lines of design. And it’s in this area that one sees how prodigal Jack’s invention was. His futuristic 21

cities, admittedly, look like each other, but even the most casual study will show how different they all are.

But that’s not the only impressive Kirby element here. Aliens in DC comics of the 1950s— presumably because of fears of Comics Code interference—were often humanoid and of not particularly grotesque appearance. Even Julius Schwartz’s magnificent Mystery in Space (preAdam Strange) was given to identifying aliens only by giving them avian beaks (a Gil Kane specialty he carried over into Green Lantern). But the fecund and inventive Jack Kirby was having none of that. His aliens in this tale are truly bizarre and very pleasing to science-fiction aficionados: Eight-feet tall, wearing glossy blue costumes, their features fish-like, with only bulbous eyes and strange vegetation-like orange hair with tendrils extending. If there were Comics Code strictures in place, Jack wasn’t interested.

But then it has to be said that no other DC artists of the period could match him in this area. The final piece in the issue is the unexceptional Jury of Villains story, but for the first two pieces alone, this is a very collectable issue.

KIRBY WHAT-IFS

Readers of this magazine will be well aware of Jack Kirby’s sometimes fractious, sometimes friendly relationship with DC Comics in the 1950s—and some will even be familiar with the painful divorce from the company that followed his altercation with editor Jack Schiff. But without rehearsing the ins and outs of that sorry business (which of course led to DC losing its most talented illustrator), I’m going to discuss a notion I haven’t seen discussed at length before: Why wasn’t Kirby given more plum assignments in his time at DC? One has to assume that Jack Schiff—even before the rupture—possibly recognised that Kirby’s style (while only just fitting into the requisite DC house style) was more accomplished than that of virtually anybody else working for the company. But Schiff, as a company man, knew the rules—the company ethos reigned supreme—and that might be why he rarely gave The King key stories in the anthology comics he edited (despite the fact that Kirby utterly transformed the pieces he was given).

A good example of the syndrome occurs in the very next issue of My Greatest Adventure after that discussed above, #16 from July/August 1957. The Ruben Moreira cover, “I Built the 22

Super Cage”, shows a bizarre form taking shape behind the bars of the cage (in darkness even though the scene is brightly lit) and “the thing” described by one of the onlookers is clearly going to be something bizarre and unsettling. And who better to illustrate this particular story than the ultimate Master of Monsters, Jack Kirby?

However, Schiff assigned that particular story to Moreira, an efficient enough artist, of course, but there is no question that Kirby could have delivered something more outrageous in the unseen creature (although there is a twist, not to be revealed here). What Kirby is given, however, is a highly unlikely tale, “I Died a Thousand Times”, in which an explorer cheats death and (in the fashion of the Challengers of the Unknown) joins a club in which other “death cheaters” appear to enact their greatest dangers in miniature form. But—spoiler alert!—the hero appears to be the only living member of the club as all the others are in fact victims of the catastrophes they enact. The story is very much Kirby by-the-numbers—which is not to say that it is not drawn with an extreme elegance and economy, qualities that the artist dispensed without even trying. But there is no opportunity for the artist to draw even one “killer” panel.

CRITICAL MASS

There are certain books in which there are multiple tales by Kirby, making purchase an absolute necessity—critical mass of entries means that you simply have to obtain it. In Harvey’s Alarming Tales #2 (November 1957) that phrase has a perfect application. We start with “A Hole in the Wall” in which a humiliated elderly man with very little to live for discovers an inexplicable source of heat behind a picture in his rundown room. After throwing a shoe into it, he receives a variety of strange otherworldly objects in return. It is, of course, only a matter of time before he goes through the hole itself to make a startling discovery. This is very much a Kirby character piece with perfect, economical drawings of various character types, most notably the tired and past-his-best central figure.

There is not much in the story which gives Kirby a chance to demonstrate his talent for the fantastic, except for the last panel (which I won’t describe), but it’s a demonstration that, as well as the spectacular action sequences that were his forté, the King could dispatch intimate character dramas with just as much skill.

After a SF two-pager by Bill Draut (who worked with Simon & Kirby on such titles as Black Magic) we have a real collector’s item by JK, “The Big Hunt”, which has a striking splash panel in which the title of the story is embedded in the body of the grotesque animal that a hunter in a pith

often in these Simon/Kirby titles of the period, the very best is saved for last.

If you want a demonstration as to why Jack Kirby was the most creative illustrator in the history of the comics, look at the powerful splash panel for “I Want To Be A Man”, with its bizarre asymmetrical robot, unlike anything we’d ever seen in comics before (or, for that matter, since). It’s interesting that Kirby gives the looming machine, reaching down to the human hero, two very different mechanical arms—and its ungainly look is actually the point of the story (the robot has a tragic awareness of its own appearance). In a brief five pages, Kirby gives us a wonderful (and rather personal) drama. The hulking machine which is at the centre of this piece is a reminder that only a few years earlier, Hollywood science-fiction films presented ludicrous mechanical men with blank features— Kirby was always going to do something different, as this very satisfactory conclusion to this issue of Alarming Tales conclusively proves. H

helmet is taking aim at. The tale may owe something here to Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” (memorably adapted for EC Comics by Al Williamson) with hunters leaving the world of here and now to enter another dimension. We have a delightful little egg-like machine which effects this transport, but the real pleasure of the story comes from Kirby’s creation of odd inter-dimensional animals—a skill at which JK had few equals. If the tale is rather too quickly over within a few pages, with an ending that can quickly be picked apart, it is still a cherishable item. And once you’ve read the piece, you can answer the following (spoiler alert) question—a question that will mean absolutely nothing to you if you haven’t read the story: Why doesn’t the hunter simply go back to the new dimension and shoot another animal?

DOUBLE WHAMMY

This highly collectable issue concludes with a double punch of Kirbyana—both pieces, it has to be said, are all too brief, but their very brevity allows them to deliver maximum, focused impact. “The Fireballs” are alien visitors who follow jeeps and other vehicles for no apparent reason, until, finally, communication with humanity is achieved. Personally, I remember from my youth (and the black-&-white reprints of this issue in a chunky English copy) the multiple panels in which one of the fiery spheres swoops down and engulfs one of the men following it. His face partially obscured, the human conduit to the aliens explains their purpose—and it’s an unsettling image of the kind that Kirby delivered with aplomb. But as so 23

Announcing The Release Of The Hardcover

Re-Found

Jack Kirby Checklist: Centennial Edition

by Richard Kolkman

“Comic book fans are pussy cats compared to the insatiable collectors who roam this world like predators in search of priceless and forbidden artifacts.”

U

(above) The new Jack Kirby Checklist: Centennial Edition is now shipping from TwoMorrows. It’s been dramatically expanded from the previous 2008 paperback version, up to a whopping 272 pages.

It’s available only as a hardcover edition (limited to 1000 copies), and is crammed full of details about Jack’s life and work. (next page, top) An example of the rarities you’ll find detailed in the new Centennial Edition: This 1930s drawing is the earliest known comics art by Kirby. It appeared on the television program Antiques Roadshow in February 2011. (next page, bottom) One of the rare “Beta” versions of the Kirby Checklist we produced in November 1997— an interim edition for the purpose of getting preliminary feedback, and receiving numerous additions and corrections before going to press with a “final” edition in 1998.

— Jack Kirby (March 1977, Black Panther #2, below)

nknown in Kirby’s time, a third evolution has emerged: The super-fusion of comic book fan and collector. The kind of creature who claws their way through dealers’ long-boxes at conventions—and virtual long-boxes online.

In 2017 we celebrated the August 28, 1917 birth of Jacob Kurtzberg. On July 14, Disney threw a party in honor of Disney Legends at D23 Expo—to the delight of comic book and movie fans.

Hollywood and fandom meet every year at Comic-Con International, a celebration that began in Jack and Roz’s living room in 1969. We owe the Kirbys much.

Priceless old comic books, long considered junk culture, are now germinating billion-dollar movie universes that promise to electrocute you in the mind! These flickering franchises rest upon the shoulders of giants. We are watching the twin worlds of culture and commodity collide.

Crack open those slabbed comics! The real treasure is within—not without. Comic book collectors exist in a duality: Spiritualism (collector fans) and materialism (collector $peculators). The Kirby Checklist: Centennial Edition is for them all!

The purpose of the Centennial Edition is best described by plagiarizing the Jack Kirby Museum mission statement: The Checklist is organized for educational purposes; more specifically, to promote and encourage the study, understanding, preservation and appreciation of the work of Jack Kirby.

We share the same mission. The new 272-page Checklist is a trusty road map that navigates all the way back to the streets of the Lower East Side in New York City. (See Argosy V3#2, “Street Code”.)

To the purist, comic books are a fun, ridiculous, authentically collectible art form. After 18 successful Marvel films—comic books are now all the (panther’s) 24

rage. The seeds that sparked this 21st century mythology (ie: modern legendary) sprouted from the rich soil of a sea of colorful, wonderfully odoriferous off-white newsprint treasures.

When stepping back and looking at the big picture, the Centennial Edition tempts us to explore the connections of Jack Kirby’s story-art in all directions. Through time and travail, the Hand of Fire writ quite a trail. For most of his working life, Jack Kirby seemed to be at the junction of everywhere.

The Checklist connects the road signs that reveal “Kirby was Here.” From the Lower East Side—to Brooklyn—to Long Island (take the train to Manhattan)—to California, what a long, historic trip it’s been. Even though now it’s more important than ever to document Kirby’s work, it has not always been easy.

For many years, the flame of Kirby’s legacy dimmed as his final Marvel books hit the newsstand on September 17, 1978 (Devil Dinosaur #9 and Machine Man #9).

I was a disciple of 1972 Kirby [who was] a serious cartoonist, culturalist and thinker. I held on through the end of 1978 due to awed interest, but Kirby’s later wonky-weird comics didn’t hold a candle to Spirit World and New Gods. From July 1972 to September 1978, I didn’t miss a single issue. (Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles was the greatest!)

Then, Kirby was gone—a day I never remembered. I was a senior in high school, and cars and girls were far more interesting than Moon Boy’s fever dreams.

Kirby research was a fun hobby. In 1990, while wandering the byways of Kirby’s vintage comic books, I saw an information gap and submitted Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #134 to Overstreet (Vol. 21, 1991) as the first appearance of Darkseid. That’s when the price on that issue started to rise.

The only Kirby interview I had ever read was in FOOM #11— fifteen years prior. When I read Jack and Roz Kirby’s interview in Comics Journal #134 (Feb. 1990), it was as if a pile of Origins of Marvel Comics had gone up in flames. I was now a galvanized “Type A” Kirby nut. I was fired-up, and on the march—because history had turned a page.

In 1992, The Art of Jack Kirby by Ray Wyman, Jr. and Catherine Hohlfeld contained a complete Jack Kirby Booklist (A-Z)! Robert Crane’s Publication Timeline (1938-1991) of Kirby’s published comics added immensely to our collective knowledge of Kirby’s work. I fearlessly marked my corrections in pencil.

I was an avid Comics Buyer’s Guide reader (and back issue dealer) when Topps unveiled their Kirbyverse titles in 1993: Bombast, Captain Glory, Night Glider, and Satan’s Six were derived from Kirby’s Secret City concept art (1968). I went along for the ride—I “asked” and still bought them all! Image’s Phantom Force was also fun. Then Jack Kirby died on February 6, 1994: A day we’ll never forget.

In April 1994, I wrote a consolation letter to Rosalind Kirby. I wanted to convince her that Jack would never be forgotten. Amid the fan gushing, I volunteered to curate a future Kirby Checklist. Roz Kirby was a gracious lady who had written to me once before (on the gold and white Sapra Street letterhead). I had previously written to her—curious about Jack in retirement. Apparently, the fake Kirby comic book covers I created and sent amused them. (Those covers were printed on TJKC #14’s “April Fools” insert and later in Collected Jack Kirby Collector Vol. 3.) Life goes on... but little did I know what was ahead.

When the first issue of The Jack Kirby Collector was published by John Morrow (September 5, 1994), the sample copy that arrived in my mailbox was a complete surprise. The first TJKC was a 16-page hand-signed photocopied ’zine. It was a delight to read—fannish and real. I won the sound-effect panels contest in the first issue.

Having a photographic memory for Kirby earned me a year’s subscription. Taaru!

The long-time subscribers to TJKC fondly remember the customized Kirby illustrated envelopes that issues #1-22 were mailed in.

Those are now known as the “old days.”

Mr. Morrow’s iconic ’zine had an exuberant sense of community mixed with the serious study of a favorite, long-neglected subject.

Jack Kirby Quarterly (UK) was off my radar, but it also was a fine read (which I finally achieved in 2017; more on that later).

The Checklist Habit (1981–1995)

One summer day, Kirby was back! Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers #1 leaped out at me while I was scanning for Robert Crumb’s Arcade and Weirdo at 25th Century Comics in Bloomington, Indiana. In my dorm room over the next two years, I hallucinated to Captain Victory #1-13 and Special #1, Destroyer Duck #1-5, Silver Star #1-6, New Gods #6 (1984), and The Hunger Dogs (1985).

In Jack Kirby Treasury Vol. 1 (1917-1947), a Jack Kirby Checklist (A-J) was printed. It revealed much about Kirby’s pre-1961 work— and I wanted to know more.

A curiosity from that list: House of Mystery #92 (Nov. 1959) turned out to be House of Secrets #92 (July 1971). “After I Die” by Mark Evanier and Bill Draut (based on a Black Magic #1 story) certainly wasn’t published in 1959 (when Mark was seven). I also improved the list’s legibility by highlighting the entry title heads.

Jack Kirby Treasury Vol. 2 (1948-1960) included a Jack Kirby Checklist (K-S). The 1950s material reproduced in Vol. 2 was breathtaking. Long before Fantastic Four, Kirby stories had the same fire and vitality recognized by his fans. Through JKT V2’s checklist I discovered (and purchased) Super Powers (both series, 1984-1986). The less said about them the better.

With greater awareness (but without the JKT V3 checklist T-Z), I stumbled onto Who’s Who (1985-1987) for nuggets of clunky Kirby.

How many Kirby collectors have explored DC’s Who’s Who? (You’ll have to consult the Checklist to find out what issues are key.)

The Beta Checklists (1996–1998)

By February 1996, I had convinced John that I was the “Man for the Job” by sending him corrections and new data when the call for a volunteer went out in TJKC #3 (January 1995).

I collected serious information from the newly connected legion of committed Kirby researchers. There were more of them than I expected. Maybe interest in Jack Kirby wasn’t moribund after all. Jim Long and Ray Owens both contributed long, complete lists of their own that clarified many entries.

I duly catalogued the contents of TJKC #1-22. The 25

The Gold Edition (2008)

cross-referencing (at this stage) of comic books’ original stories to their reprint appearances was a huge advancement.

I had access to my dentist’s vast comics collection (we collected Kirby together as kids in the early 1970s). Dr. Thomas Sodano’s impressive collection dwarfs my own.

Under the watchful gaze of a framed original art page from Spirit World #1 (“House Of Horror” page 5), I was able to inspect dozens of comic books in person. Dr. Sodano also has an incredible memory for detail.

Ten years after the “Final Edition”— Jack Kirby Checklist: Gold Edition was published in April 2008. TwoMorrows’ Gold Edition was a bit bigger (at 134 pages) than the previous edition. A squarebound, gold-hued book on bright, white paper; it added much needed information and tightened-up the previous edition’s accuracy.

Gold added more to fine art and exhibitions. It added Kirby’s novel The Horde and short stories. The animation section was expanded (more detailed), along with movie development, videos, DVDs, radio, television, and miscellaneous items. Cover recreations were listed last because they represent the least creative aspect of Kirby’s storied career.

A listing of the Kirby Estate Original Art Photocopy Archive first appeared here as an added bonus.

My personal favorite section first appeared in Gold Edition: Unpublished/Untitled/Unknown.

What a gasser! My best Gold Edition typo: “Fabtastic Four”—it’s in there somewhere.

Contributors always mailed photocopies of their finds. This insured they existed, and were not flights of fancy, or mirages.

Nick Caputo’s knowledge and treasure trove of Marvel western comics documentation was impressive. It was just what the Checklist needed. Through the mail, I met gentlemen like Jean Depelley, Al Milgrom, and Mark Alexander.

In November 1997, a beta version (#1) of the Checklist was published by TwoMorrows in a concerted effort to let the experts read it over and suggest improvements (or omissions).

A second beta version (#2) of the Checklist was published (August 1998) to make sure everything was “correct” for the publication of fandom’s first self-standing Kirby Checklist.

The Checklist Mission (2009–2017)

In December 2010, the Checklist was updated for The Jack Kirby Museum and archived for future use. I also got to know my friend Rand Hoppe. After 15 years of research, I felt a kinship with those of us like the Recorder and Metron—there is always more to learn.

I took the next five years off, but was still collecting raw data.

I casually kept up-to-date with Bob Heer and Kirby Museum online publication updates. The Grand Comics Database (comics.org) is an incredible resource.

The flood of Marvel movies created an avalanche of reprinted material featuring Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Avengers, Groot (Guardians of the Galaxy), Ant-Man, and Black Panther.

The television successes also added to the workload: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, and the Inhumans. This was no longer fun, but I soldiered on.

By October 2015, the mess of paper and scraps of paper in envelopes (I always printed everything out) was intimidating and overwhelming. In a haze of cigar smoke and big band music, slowly... through the nights, order prevailed. As Charles Hatfield’s Hand of Fire (2012) intimates—Jack Kirby Checklist is an obsessive mission.

I want to thank my mystery benefactor for lending me Jack Kirby Quarterly #1-9 and #14-15. I had never seen them before. On March 13, 2017, I dug the FedEx box full of JKQ out of a snow drift on my front porch. It was like Christmas morning! For legal reasons, I can’t reveal the lender’s identity, but his name rhymes with “borrow” and he lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

I re-read TJKC #50-70 (of course). When I found a lost Kirby collage in Fantastic Four #110, I was glad to expose it in TJKC #63 (the collage had been hiding in plain sight). I dug deep into Gerber’s Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books Vol. 1-4 and re-read Overstreet cover-to-cover—twice! (2007/2015) I double-checked publication dates and publishers. I finally standardized listing bi-monthly cover dates. The second month is now always listed (as most often reflected on published comic covers).

I planned to be finished by Kirby’s 100th Anniversary, so with one final push—I re-reviewed Kirby: King of Comics, the Titan books,

The Final Edition (1998)

In December 1998, the “Final Edition” Jack Kirby Checklist was published. The updated Checklist included newspaper comic strips, periodicals, books, posters, portfolios, cards, animation, unpublished material, and much more. A list of DC Comics’ “X-Files” (a list of production art by the numbers) was a nice bonus. The “Final Edition” was wrapped in an attractive silver-toned 100-page package. Some of my best blunders are in that book. The newsprint is now well-browned.

The Checklist Hobby (1999–2008)

In August 1999, I attended Comic-Con International as an exhibitor (The Protista Chronicles, Seriocomics) and finally met my friend John Morrow, Mark Evanier, Jon B. Cooke, and Jim Steranko (one of my best back-issue customers and a Maneely fanatic)—the original Kirby researcher!

There was no Kirby Tribute Panel that year (of all the years)— but hanging out with Infantino, Alcala, Freas, Cuidera, Heath, and Adams was the trip of a lifetime to an Indiana boy at heart.

While still compiling new (and old) information, I was always impressed by what Kirby collectors found. I marveled at Tom Morehouse’s Timely pulp magazine discoveries. Pure Imagination’s Complete Jack Kirby books 1-5 were incredibly important. I received great contributions from Sue and Lyle Boxell (The Comic Strip Jack Kirby), Shane Foley, Harry Mendryk, John Morrow, Chrissie Harper, Jerry Boyd, and Stan Taylor.

I studied TJKC #23-49 diligently. When unknown unpublished pages appeared, it was as if by magic. It was all being documented, and not lost to time. I want to go on the record and say that the oversized Jack Kirby Collector #31-57 were amazing.

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the seventh time, the Centennial Edition now included everything up to, and including August 28, 2017 (Kirby’s Centennial). Whew!

The Centennial Edition was finally finished on September 10, 2017 (4:46 PM). That was the same day Len Wein died—a great comic talent, and the first person to conduct and publish a fan interview with Kirby in Masquerader #6 (1964).

The Centennial Edition (2018)

Take my word for it—the Centennial Edition far surpasses 2008’s Gold Edition. And 1998’s quaint “Final Edition” is a fond memory in the rear-view mirror. I tried to list every reasonable and legitimate item that formed Kirby’s career (and fine art). From a caricature of a Rabbi (1925) to commissioned art (1980s) and cover re-creations (1993), it’s “all” here.

Jack Kirby was an endlessly creative, intuitive storyteller. His work will stand the test of time, and will inspire generations to come.

The hardcover Centennial Edition weighs in at 272 pages. This expansion is fed by a number of improved sections: • The pulp magazine section features its own two pages of detailed entries. Tom Morehouse, Blake Bell, and Dr. Michael Vassallo rock.

• As always, it’s important that affordable reprint editions are easily located. These books are listed with comic books because of the predominant comic story content. (Example: Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio, Simon and Kirby Library (series), Complete Jack Kirby Vol. 1-5, Jack Kirby Reader Vol. 1-2, Fireside Books, Marvel Masterworks (did you ever think you’d live to see Not Brand Echh collected in hardcover?), Marvel Essentials, and DC Archive Editions, etc.)

Joe Simon’s autobiographies, Stan Lee’s autobiography, and other books on The Man. I stared at the beautiful pages in The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio. I re-read every Kirby story-art comic book published from 1951 (Black Magic) to 1994 (Phantom Force). There were some interesting posthumous books also, like Jack Kirby’s Galactic Bounty Hunters #1-6 on Marvel’s Icon imprint, which didn’t accurately make it into the old Gold Edition.

I obtained fanzine and memorabilia data from Dale’s Fanzine Price Guide (2015’s edition claims the 1998 Jack Kirby Checklist is worth $30—huh?) and J. Ballmann’s Full-Color Guides to Marvel Silver and Bronze Age Collectibles. I even got to inspect King-Size Kirby in person—page-by-page at a local comics shop. The slipcased book weighs about 20 lbs. and is the size of a backpack.

The Centennial Edition was initially finished on July 29, 2017 (4:29 AM). When I made the final set of printouts of the entire Checklist for the first time since 2010, it was with great relief.

However... August brought a new flood of Kirby comics and books that I hadn’t anticipated, so I included: Comic-Con International Program Book (2017), Kirby 100, TJKC #71-72, DC Comics’ special variant covers, Glenn Fleming’s interview DVD, and Marvel’s True Believers (series). After profreading the Checklist for

• As usual, Original Kirby Content (in bold face) was often published alongside reprinted material (listed in non-bold type), and is designated as such.

• Quotes by Kirby (where applicable) and by significant others tastefully pepper the entries, if only to clarify a point-of-view or fun fact. I wanted the improved Checklist to be readable—with a sense of looking behind the curtain.

• Kirby’s layout art at Marvel now lists the artists who finished the art—Demeo (Esposito), Gavin (Roth), Heck, 27

(previous page, top) Reverse-side box art for Mattel’s 1975 Big Jim’s P.A.C.K. vehicle, the Beast. (left) Cover and interior Kirby illo for Marvel’s 1977 Calendar. (below) Marvel’s 1966 Christmas card.

Steranko, and others. (See Strange Tales and X-Men) • Scripters are now listed where commonly known. I didn’t hazard any guesses if unlisted in credits.

• More major and minor characters first appearances (or deaths) are listed and cross-referenced to their sources. You never know who will be on the movie screen now. Witness Groot (Tales to Astonish #13). I’m not particularly into listing “prototypes.” I often find them to be over-reaching. (Exception: Alarming Tales #1 (Sept. 1957) “The Last Enemy”—now that’s something all Kamandi fans should read. It can be found in Shocking Tales Digest #1 (Oct. 1981). Good luck finding it!)

• Foreign comics are listed if something is unique to it and not published in an American comic book. (See Captain Britain, Sheriff Classics #978, 997, World Illustrated #528 and Wags #6471) omic book story titles have been •C fixed to better reflect Kirby’s (or Simon’s) intent.

Example one: Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth #29 “The Legend” (verified by issue #28’s announcement, and on the cover of #29).

(above) Published in the Netherlands in 1967, Sheriff Classics #978 featured an unpublished Kirby cover meant for Kid Colt Outlaw #97 (March 1961, bottom). (right) Moses, a personal piece Jack had hanging in his home. (next page) Astonishing #56 (Dec. 1956) featured the 4-page story “Afraid To Dream” which was Jack’s first published work at Marvel (then Atlas) in the 1950s. It was actually a surplus Harvey Publications story Jack had when he came in looking for work.

Example two: “King Redeye’s Last Raid” in Boys’ Ranch #4 is often referred to as “Clay Duncan’s Rifle” because original type has fallen off the top of the hand-colored original art. Centennial Edition reverts to the published version.

Example three: True Life Divorce (unpublished DC magazine, 1971) is referred to by its correct title, and not “True Divorce Cases.” These are just three examples.

• Memorabilia that features Kirby art is listed for items concurrent to Kirby’s duration of work for publishers.

DC Comics (1940s/1970-1976/1984-1989), Marvel (1963-1970/1975-1978) and a few others.

• The Comic Strip and Panels section has been filled out with separate listings for syndicates—in order to find their features easier. Also, the legendary Sky Masters and the Space Force is broken down into its individually-titled chapters and run dates.

• The Periodicals listing has grown to 38 pages, encompassing everything from major media magazines to the most obscure fanzines. Kirby was very generous with his time and talents.

• The main Kirby inkers are listed and cross-referenced to interviews (with them) and articles (about them) regarding their time spent working with Kirby (with inker totals at the end).

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• Letterers—the underdogs of comics. From the Simon and Kirby studio to Marvel and DC, these guys were indispensable. Short entries on each is in Periodicals.

• Animation section has been super-friend-sized with more detailed listings of episode titles and air dates (when known). This is an under-documented area of study. There is simply no access to hundreds of concept boards from the 1980s.

• Strap into your seat belts for the greatly expanded Unpublished section. It cross-references conceptual art/unused cover variations and concepts/unpublished penciled pages/known commissioned art (new)/known convention sketches (new). The Unpublished section features more wasted effort and unrealized follies than you can shake a pencil at. ( Note: The Unpublished section in 1998 was only four pages. The Unpublished section in 2008 was eight whole pages. It’s now 32 pages!)

• The shadowy world of Unpublished/Untitled/Unknown has grown to three pages—beefed up from Gold Edition’s half-page offering. Some of these items may never be found—the stuff of legend, only to be hinted at. Did Kirby really draw Batman in 1942?

New Sections in the Centennial Edition:

• Collages (inspired by John’s list in TJKC #59) are enhanced with page/panel location designations listed chronologically with their published sources.

• Self-Portraits/Family Portraits/World War II art is featured in a chronological listing. This list is impressive—Kirby really was everywhere—in many different locales and guises. World War II gave Kirby a worldview that grounded him.

• Jack Kirby Interviews/Essays/Speeches/Panels listing builds upon Rand Hoppe’s excellent work. I threaded Kirby’s text essays into Rand’s existing interviews list previously posted on the Jack Kirby Museum website.

Reading Jack Kirby’s words and ideas really adds to

Here is a list of Kirby Checklist contributors since 1995: Kelly Akins Brad Alexander Mark Alexander Nick Alexander Ger Apeldorn

Blake Bell Derrick Bostrum Sue & Lyle Boxell Jerry Boyd Garrie Burr Aaron Caplan Nicholas Caputo Steve Coates Daryl Coats Jon B. Cooke Jean Depelley

Rich Donnelly Jean-Pierre Dupont Mark Evanier Shane Foley Russ Garwood William Gee Jeff Gelb Glen David Gold Matthew Gore Paul Gravett Chris Green

Gene Kehoe Dennis Keller Ted Krasniewski John Libertine Jim Long Geoffrey H. Mahfuz Emanuel Maris Clifton Marley Karl Mattson Harold May Mark Mayerson

Shawn Hamilton Christopher Harder Chrissie Harper Ed Hatton Bob Heer Pat Hilger Rand Hoppe Richard Howell Sam Hyde Frank R. Johnson Axel Kahlstorff

Rich Mayone Harry Mendryk Al Milgrom Tom Morehouse John Morrow Rick Norwood Ray Owens David Peñalosa Phillipe Queveau Steve Robertson Scott Rowland

Barry Sandoval Steve Sherman Andrew Smith Fred Smith Dana Snow Robin Snyder Dr. Thomas Sodano Jim Steranko Greg Stomberg Carl Taylor Stan Taylor

Daniel Tesmoingt Greg Theakston Joel Thingvall Mort Todd Michael Tuohey Gary Usher Jim Vadeboncoeur R.J. Vitone Jamie Wilson Ray Wyman, Jr. Bruce Younger

understanding how his mind worked, and what kind of man he was.

• Also included is a basic listing of Joe Simon Interviews and Essays (and two books). Simon’s knowledge of Kirby’s work from 1940 to 1959 is firsthand. We salute Joe for always looking out for Simon & Kirby’s business interests—during and after they worked together.

• Kirby Tribute Panels are indexed (1994-1998, 2000-2016) where comics professionals, peers and family speak. They sometimes tell the same stories over and over—but always with insight and affection.

• Pen Names/Ghosts are cross-referenced in their own list. This section manages to untangle a web of secret identities and mystery names. This section also includes a speculative discussion of Simon & Kirby’s ghosted and published (yet unknown) work for National (DC) in early 1942.

Does it exist?

After 22 years of caretaking the Jack Kirby Checklist, the Centennial Edition is the most complete listing of Kirby’s work. Almost every known thing about our hero’s prodigious output and his cosmic-cultural multimedia ideas is listed in the Centennial Edition.

Like the Monolith, the Centennial Edition is in front of us. Reach for it, and find what you’re searching for.

Happy hunting, pussycats. H

The Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center is organized exclusively for educational purposes; more specifically, to promote and encourage the study, understanding, preservation and appreciation of the work of Jack Kirby by: • illustrating the scope of Kirby’s multi-faceted career, • communicating the stories, inspirations and influences of Jack Kirby, • celebrating the life of Jack Kirby and his creations, and • building understanding of comic books and comic book creators.

To this end, the Museum will sponsor and otherwise support study, teaching, conferences, discussion groups, exhibitions, displays, publications and cinematic, theatrical or multimedia productions.

Annual Memberships with one of these posters: $50*

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If we say so ourselves, our Kirby Digital Archive is amazing, and allows us to help publishers and scholars around the world. We'd like to take this moment to thank those who have recently helped us build it: Bechara Maalouf, Tod Seisser, John Hom, Lisa Kirby, Steve Robertson, Albert Moy, Steve Donnelly, Hans Kosenkranius, Metropolis Collectibles, Mike Burkey, Alex Jay, Gordon Bartik, IDW, and those who wish to remain anonymous!

Captain America—23” x 29” 1941 Captain America—14” x 23”

Strange Tales—23” x 29” Super Powers—17” x 22” color

with one of these posters: $60*

And, of course, thank you to all those who have helped over the last 11 years!

Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center PO Box 5236 Hoboken, NJ 07030 USA Telephone: (201) 204-0532

All characters TM © their respective owners.

*Please add $10 for memberships outside the US, to cover additional postage costs. Posters come “as-is” and may not be in mint condition.

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Marvel—14” x 23”

Galactic Head— 18” x 20” color

Incan Visitation—24” x 18” color

Influencees

The Terrific Roy Thomas A comic book legend reflects on the King of Comics

(below) In 1946, material was prepared for Stuntman #3 and Boy Explorers #2, but the post-War newsstand glut caused those titles to be cancelled prematurely. So Harvey Comics produced a black-&-white edition of each, which contain this ominous notice at the top of the first page: “PUBLISHER’S NOTE: For the present emergency, newsstand sales will be temporarily discontinued and subscribers alone will receive copies of these issues. Hope you like them.”

[The following panel was held August 18, 2017 at TerrifiCon, at the Mohegan Sun Expo Center in Uncasville, Connecticut. It was moderated by Matt Herring of the Secret Identity podcast, transcribed by Steven Tice, and copyedited by Roy Thomas and John Morrow.]

MATT HERRING: Welcome to Celebrating Jack Kirby.

This would have been his 100th year if he were still with us today. And I’m pleased and excited to have Mr. Roy Thomas here, so let’s hear it for Roy Thomas. [applause] Roy will be able to give us some insight into the world of Jack Kirby, whereas myself, my name’s Matt Herring. I am the co-host of the Secret Identity podcast, which we’ve been doing for twelve years, almost 800 episodes. [one person claps] Thank you to the guy who was in Episode #8! We are winding down on Episode #800 and doing a music podcast, because talking about comic books is great, but twelve years of it has been a little much. But when I was asked to moderate this panel about Jack Kirby, I was ecstatic.

My introduction to Jack Kirby goes back to 1975. I was probably seven, eight years old, and my parents used to bribe me with comic books to be good in church, to do good in school, and to do stuff around the house. I was a big war comics guy, so the first time I ever saw Jack Kirby’s work was in Our Fighting Forces #154, which was “Bushido!” And it was when the

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Losers ended up getting dropped onto a Pacific island, and they had to go kill a guy, or they had to go take out an officer. And they assaulted him, all sorts of crazy things happened. But that was my first introduction to Jack Kirby, and what I loved about it was—as a young kid not having any frame of reference because there was no Web, there was no nothing—I remember thinking, “Wow, this Jack Kirby guy is pretty good. I think he’s going to have a good career.” [laughter] Not realizing that he was already thirty, forty years into his career. It was his second stint at DC, which had a lot of just amazing stuff. But, Roy, I will ask you, since—has anybody here met Jack Kirby before? [silence, Roy raises hand] All right, so we’re going to go to Roy. What was it like when you first met Jack Kirby?

ROY THOMAS: Well, the funny thing is, I remember the day I met a number of people—Stan Lee, sort of Steve Ditko, John Romita, Bill Everett, and a lot of different people, but I don’t remember the exact day I met Jack Kirby. The only thing I can be sure about is it was on a Friday, because Friday was the day that Jack, who lived out on Long Island, would come into Manhattan, usually delivering some work, and he and Stan would often go out to lunch. Sometimes they even drove home together. They would drive, and John Romita might also be in the car. And sometimes [Jack] would go out to lunch with some of the rest of us: Stan Goldberg, Sol Brodsky, John Romita, and myself. One or two other people might be around. I was the little kid of the group. The rest of them were all seasoned pros. Once in a while Stan would join us. But I don’t remember the exact day [I met Jack].

I just remember I was really impressed, because, since the age of about five, or six, or seven, somewhere back in there, one of my— right after Joe Kubert, my favorite artists in comics were whoever “Simon & Kirby” was. I didn’t know if that was one guy, or two guys, or twelve guys, or whatever. I just knew that, whenever their names were on a story, it was pretty

exciting, just like with Joe Kubert’s name. It had a certain dramatic look. The Simon & Kirby stuff was very exciting, and it was always of interest, no matter what the subject matter was, it seemed to me. And so it was fascinating to me to actually meet this person, because by now I even had much greater appreciation for him than I had back in the late ’40s, when he was doing stuff like Stuntman and things that were not—they were good comics, but they weren’t going to add to his luster the way Captain America had, or the way that the Marvel Silver Age stuff would later on. But he was a nice, amiable person. Kind of friendly and outgoing. You very quickly figured he wasn’t giving away too much. He was a little guarded. But he was friendly, and very unpretentious.

He’d been around a long time. He’d been up, and he’d been down, and he was sort of up, then. Being up was better.

HERRING: About what year was this?

THOMAS: This would have been 1965, because I went to work there in the Summer of ’65, and somewhere in that first two or three weeks I would have met Jack.

HERRING: So that was in the time when he and Stan still had the good working relationship. He was still kind of “the guy” at Marvel.

THOMAS: When I came in there—of course, other things were on the stands, but some of the first stuff that I was seeing [in terms of original artwork around the office] was those stories that were slowly introducing the Inhumans. And it was right before, two or three months before the Galactus Trilogy started, and even more before Black Panther. So things were really beginning to build to a real high. Not that I, necessarily, or anybody knew that at the time, but it was really coming close to the peak of their work. Obviously, there were strains, and within a very few months, I saw those strains, especially when this article came out at the turn of 1966 in the New York Herald Tribune, where the reporter made it look as if Stan was everything, and made Jack look like just some clown—mostly because Jack didn’t say that much, the reporter somehow assumed that Jack wasn’t contributing that much to Marvel, and he was just some guy who did whatever Stan told him to do. And, unfortunately, Stan kind of took the rap for [the tone of the article] from Jack and Roz, who somehow felt that Stan was trying to grab credit away from him, and though Stan could do that, he wasn’t doing that in this instance.

HERRING: When you look back at that—.

THOMAS: I was in part of that conference. I was a firsthand witness to some of it, and the way the guy described it was just his interpretation. I don’t think it had any objective reality to the situation.

HERRING: And, obviously, you were there, we weren’t. And when we read about it years later, you know, Stan Lee, as we all know—and I’m a marketing major, and Stan Lee is one of those guys—you look at, like, Gene Simmons of KISS. They know how to market what they’re doing. It could be garbage, and you know what? Gene Simmons is going to put such a

Posted by Sean Howe online, is likely the earliest known recording of Stan Lee speaking in public, recorded at Princeton University in March 1966. In it, Lee announces that Steve Ditko has left Marvel, and gives props to Kirby for his creativity.

STAN LEE: Now we just lost the artist that does “Doc Strange,” Steve Ditko, who also does Spider-Man. [audience gasps and hisses] I feel as badly about it as you do. He’s a very... peculiar guy. [audience laughs] He’s a great talent, but he’s a little eccentric. Anyway, I haven’t spoken to this guy for over a year. He mails in the work, and I write the stories, and that’s the way he liked to work it. One day he just phoned and he said “That’ll be it.” So that was it. This is the acid test now, because he was such a popular artist. I think that we’ve managed to find people to replace him, where those “boos” will change to a chorus of cheers. I know how it is; you get sentimental about an artist, especially one as good as he, and I feel the same way. But at any rate, we’re so tight, and we’re so limited with men, that if we lose one artist, it’s a major crisis.

STAN LEE (discussing the Marvel Method): Now I give an artist the synopsis, and he draws this for himself, and I have no idea what I’m going to get. Sometimes it comes out so far removed from what I expect. Now a guy like Kirby who’s every bit as imaginative as I am—I love to say this for public consumption: Probably a lot more—we discuss a plot, he throws in an idea, and I do, and a few days later I get the drawings back, and by God they... for instance, we have this new thing, the Silver Surfer. [audience laughs, applauds] I’ll have to tell Jack about [your applause], because it was as much of a surprise to me as it was to you. He brought the strip in, and all we had discussed was Galactus! And I said, ‘Who’s this naked nut running around...?’ [sustained laughter] He says, “That’s the Silver Surfer!” [more laughter] ‘Jack, you’ve gotta be kidding!’ He says, “No, Stan, he rides the air currents of space!” [laughter, applause] To hear the full 20-minute audio, go to: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=A73KehrmpOU This is just one example from the wealth of interviews we’ve gathered and excerpted for next issue’s double-size book edition, Kirby & Lee: Stuf’ Said! In it, we examine the creation of the Marvel Universe, through the chronological recollections of both Stan and Jack, and others including Steve Ditko, Wallace Wood, John Romita, and Roy Thomas.

It’s our attempt to paint an accurate picture of how it evolved, and how perceptions changed over time. The 160-page Trade Paperback serves as TJKC #75 and ships in September!

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big spin on it. And, like you said, it seemed like Jack never—if you don’t say anything, you’re basically not getting any credit for what you did, and it definitely—you read it now and you’re like, “Huh. I can see where the misconception happened, where the disconnect happened,” but it’s such a sad time. But, at the same time, after that, he went to DC and sort of unloaded a lot of books that weren’t really that popular at the time, but nowadays, DC would not have their mythos if not for what Jack set up with the New Gods and all of that stuff. And, on the outside, what were your thoughts of seeing Jack’s work at DC?

(below) Lightray, who Kirby likely meant to be Balder’s descendant. (next page) Kirby pinch-hit on this 1966 Tales to Astonish #82 Roy-scripted tale when Gene Colan fell ill.

THOMAS: I wasn’t that wild about it. I mean, I obviously admired the artwork and the inventiveness of his coming up with all these concepts and characters, but it just seemed like a mish-mash to me, very disorganized. Just throwing out so many things. There was genius in it, but the thing that was wrong with them was that he didn’t have anybody in charge of it. Before, he had Simon, who was a talented enough guy on his own. He wasn’t Jack Kirby, but he was a talented guy, he was the business

guy. He kind of reined Jack in. And Stan was sort of like that. Stan himself was just a wild man. I remember, for example, and this relates to the New Gods, so it’s not unrelated: There’s a “S.H.I.E.L.D.” story [1966’s Strange Tales #142, left] that, somewhere in the first couple of pages—you probably remember this; I don’t know if it was a full page or two-thirds of a page panel of some S.H.I.E.L.D. robot in the story that Jack penciled that was called “Wild Bill” or something. It was just some multi-armed robot spinning around doing crazy stuff.

And you turned the page wanting to see more of what this robot does. Nothing. Jack just drew one panel of this robot, got it out of his system, and never drew it again. It might as well have just been a page that he threw in that he had done twenty years before.

And Stan was always going crazy with it, because Jack would throw these things in and then he wouldn’t develop them. And Stan knew that you need to develop something and really make readers want to see more of it, and then show them a little more of it. And when he got to DC, he had nobody to rein him in. They were just giving him his head. They had decided, in their own minds, that the genius, the sole genius of Marvel was Jack Kirby, that Stan was—of course, maybe Jack believed this, and of course they played it up to Jack, that he was the whole show, and Stan was simply riding him and taking all the credit. Of course, Stan’s promoting himself a lot, sometimes more than the artists for various reasons—partly personal, partly because, if you promote one artist, the other artists then feel kind of put aside. So there were maybe some good reasons for some of that. But then Jack is just throwing out all these ideas. He’ll throw out four or five ideas in one story, the Deep Six and this or that, and then the next issue you don’t see any sign of them.

You see a bunch of new guys.

And it doesn’t work that way, as I discovered when I was doing All-Star Squadron.

I’d get bored with doing a couple of characters and I would do somebody else, and as a result, the readers don’t grab onto the characters as much. But at least I was kind of doing it on purpose. I think Jack was just throwing it all out there because he was an elemental force. But there was nobody to rein him in, and I think he needed some reining in. But they were brilliant things in their own way.

HERRING: I always looked at Stan and Jack, kind of going into the music world, like John Lennon and Paul McCartney, that together they were unstoppable, and whether or not one did all the song but they both got credit, and one would always be able to help reel in somebody else. John would tell Paul, “That’s pretty corny.

You’ve got to do something a little bit different.”

Paul would say, “John, that’s way too political.

You’ve got to do something to kind of smooth it out a bit.” And then, when they were apart, they had nobody to tell each other what they were doing—.

THOMAS: Yeah. I still like music by both of those guys, but I don’t like it nearly as much as when they were together, even if I know

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that sometimes back during the Beatles days it was all Lennon and, probably more often, it was all McCartney. But the fact remains, they were sort of there for each other, and they were part of a group, and it didn’t matter exactly which one did it so much as the fact that they would inspire each other, and they were sort of acting as both an inspiration and a brake on each other. And so Stan and Jack do have certain vague resemblances to those two, Lennon and McCartney. I was more like Ringo. [laughter]

to just do the dialogue, and if Jack did something he didn’t like, he’d tell him and they would fix it later on.

But the trouble is, when Jack came back, Stan didn’t have that kind of direct contact with him anymore. That bond had been broken in 1970, when Jack called him coldly one day just to say, “I’m quitting and I’ve already started working for DC.” You know, that’s not the way you would tell somebody that you’re quitting if you ever think you might want to come back. Which is why when, in ’74, I had this lunch in San Diego with the Kirby family, including his son Neal—there were at least the three of us—and I didn’t know that I was only a couple of weeks away from quitting being editor-in-chief, myself, so that wasn’t a factor. But they asked to meet with me, and I said fine, and the thing I remember about it is Jack was very friendly, because I was still in awe of Jack, you know? Despite the fact that I had hit the wall with that New Gods stuff and everything. And I was just getting the feeling he wasn’t that happy at DC. I mean, obviously, when you go to Kamandi and The Demon, this is not the same inspired stuff as New Gods was. It was a step down for Jack, even if it in some ways was maybe more successful, and he starts saying, “Well, you know, I don’t know, I just haven’t been really all that happy there,” made some mumbling sounds, and, “What would Stan think, do you think, if I were to want to come back?” I had no question. He wasn’t really talking to me so much. I was officially the editorin-chief, but Stan was still there and he would make the ultimate decision as the publisher. So I said,

HERRING: And another thing that I think about with Jack Kirby was, when he went back to Marvel probably 1977, ’78?

THOMAS: No, it was about ’75, I think. They might have been dated ’76, but he was starting with the stuff around ’75.

HERRING: There was Captain America, the Madbomb, and all that stuff was coming out.

THOMAS: Yeah. Jack and his son [Neal] and maybe somebody else had asked to meet with me in 1974 at the San Diego Comic Convention, because already, by this time, he’s been at DC, what, three, four years, since ’70 or ’71? And now it’s 1974, and he started talking about coming back to Marvel. This is a year before he actually did. And he talked to me about it, so that’s why I know that it was the next year, ’75, that he actually did. His DC thing didn’t last too long.

HERRING: No. Like you were saying, he was just putting out stuff like crazy. And then I remember when—reading the stuff at Marvel, I was reading Captain America. Do we have any Captain America fans from the Seventies that can remember any of those crazy arcs?

THOMAS: “The Madbomb.”

HERRING: “Madbomb”, right into the “Alamo II” thing, right into Arnim Zola—.

THOMAS: And let’s not forget the Black Panther coming on with “King Solomon’s Frog.”

HERRING: Right, “King Solomon’s Frog.” We had “The Swine.”

And it was like, when you read these things, and you can even throw that Black Panther arc in there, you could have pretty much put any super-hero, any character into these stories. It almost to me seemed like Jack had the story of “some super-hero’s going to get caught in Central America and be captured by a guy named The Swine. Arnim Zola’s going to be in the swamp right next to it.“ It could have been anybody. Did you see or think anything like that, that the [Eternals] could have been—to me it was the New Gods, but Marvel. And was a lot of that going on, and did you see that? Like it was just, “Here’s my story. I’m just going to throw whatever character I want in.”

THOMAS: Well, I was partly responsible for him being on Black Panther, for example, because that book wasn’t going anywhere in terms of sales. I know that Don McGregor poured his heart and soul into it. He had been working on these rather adult storylines, but it didn’t ever sell very well. And so, Gerry Conway, during the 37 minutes that he was the editor-in-chief, was asking me for a little bit of advice. I’d helped Gerry get that job, even though it didn’t last that long. He quit it. But when he asked me for advice about the Black Panther, I said, “Yeah, if it’s not going anywhere, why don’t you just put Jack on it and see what happens?” And that didn’t work out that well, but it didn’t work out any worse sales-wise than it was doing before. It’s just a shame that by then—I think that, by the time he came back, Jack was just—he wasn’t running on empty, but he was just kind of coasting. And it’s not like he didn’t come up with some interesting ideas, but it wasn’t the same Jack Kirby that it had been in the ’60s. Even though he was doing full plotting, especially on the later stuff with Stan, and Stan was happy to have it that way.

He didn’t care. He just wanted the books to be good. He was happy 33

(below) Roy doesn’t recall this specifically, but someone at Marvel (Verpoorten, Brodsky, or Stan Lee perhaps) loaned him a set of pencil photocopies of Captain America #193 for feedback. After Roy wrote his honest assessment of the issue (though today he wishes he had used a slightly less opprobrious adjective than “lousy”), someone at Marvel mailed these in-house copies to Jack—a thoughtless move at best, and one that helped get Kirby’s 1970s Marvel tenure off to a rocky start.

“Jack, Stan would really like you back. He obviously never wanted you to leave.” I wanted to point out that he wasn’t given any choice, but instead I just said, “He didn’t want you to leave. He’d be overjoyed to have you come back.” I said, “The only thing in the way, really— he was kind of hurt and bothered when you did that Funky Flashman stuff in that one title, where you made a character who was a rather vicious—.” You know, I’m just honest with Jack. I mean, I didn’t know him that well, but I’m going to tell him the truth, because I knew how Stan had felt about it. I said, “Now, you had this character called Houseroy.” I said, “I didn’t mind about that because I didn’t feel you were really aiming that at me. I was just Stan’s flunky and this and that.” Okay, so I am Stan’s flunky or whatever. And Houseroy is a clever name. I didn’t really mind that much. And I was almost a sympathetic character. But it was such a nasty lampoon of Stan.

And Jack gives this nervous little laugh and says,

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“Well, you know, it was all in fun.” And I had to pretend to let that go, because if there was one thing I was sure about, it was that Funky Flashman was not ‘all in fun.’ It was Jack, it was his repressed—as close as he had come to slugging Stan in the nose. But I just pretended to believe that it was all in fun and just let that go, and I said, “I’m sure we could arrange something.” And it took him a little while. I don’t know if Jack got cold feet….

But suddenly, several months later—by this time I’d quit [as editor-in-chief], and Stan and I were on good terms once we weren’t arguing over things anymore; so I came in one day, as I did two or three days a week to check things out, and by that time Len [Wein] and Marv [Wolfman] were the people in charge. I forget which of them it was that week. And Stan calls me into his office and says, “Listen, I’ve got news! Jack’s coming back!”

Of course, he knew I had talked to him, so it wasn’t a surprise for him to tell me that. “Well, that’s great,” I said. He said, “I think we can get him to come back. He’s interested in coming back.” So he says, “What do you think about it?

I said, “Well, have him come back. Don’t let him write.” I didn’t mean plot; I meant write the dialogue, because he just really didn’t have it for our audience.

And Stan said, “Well, Jack says if he comes back, he has to write.”

I said, “Okay, then let him write. It’s still better to have him at Marvel than it is to have him at DC, because he might do something well for Marvel. You never can tell at DC. He just belongs at Marvel at this stage. He doesn’t belong at DC, he never really fit there.

Get him back, find something for him to do.”

And Stan said, “Well, you know, that’s the way I’m thinking, but—.” He didn’t ever tell me who, but he said there were a couple of prominent people on staff, people whose opinions he respected up to a point, and “they told me that they really just don’t think I should get Jack back.”

And I said, “They’re—”. I won’t say the exact word I said. “They’re crazy!” [laughter] I said, “Ignore them. Just get Jack back.”

He said, “Okay. Well, that’s what I was going to do.” I wasn’t under any illusion that I was convincing Stan to get Jack Kirby back, but I was glad to see that I was more in sync with him than some of the members of his staff. And even though his return didn’t last more than a couple of years, because then they wanted him to sign the work-for-hire contract and Jack wouldn’t do it, the fact remained that even having him back for that two or three years—The Eternals was kind of an interesting series. And there were moments, certain things in Captain America and Black Panther, even if they weren’t exactly vintage Kirby. I kept hoping that they’d find some way to really harness Jack in some good ways, but The Eternals is the closest that I think Jack ever came to doing anything close to the level of New Gods or the later Kirby [1960s] work.

HERRING: His stuff definitely, when he was writing—I remember as a kid, I would tell my parents, if one of them went shopping, “Can you get me one of those adventure comics?”

And what I was trying to say was war comics, because that’s what I was reading at the time, but I would say “adventure comics.” My dad would always come home with G.I. Combat, Unknown Soldier, Sgt. Rock, Sgt. Fury. But my mother would always come home with literally an adventure comic like Justice Incorporated, which was all this stuff that Jack Kirby was doing. And I remember opening it up, and every time it’d be “Edited, written, and drawn by Jack Kirby,” the stories were very easy to digest for a young kid. I was probably eight or nine. So that was why I think a lot of the Captain America stuff really appealed to me back then. Arnim Zola; Doughboy, who was this big, doughy thing that would engulf you, and then you had no oxygen.

And it was just, like, the weirdest stuff, but as an eight-year-old kid, I’m like, “This is awesome!

He’s inside of it, and there’s a window, and there’s a window because doughboy can make himself transparent! What is this crazy stuff?”

But it was a lot of fun. But I do understand now, when you’re looking back and wanting to match the Lee and Kirby of that first fifty, sixty issues of Fantastic Four. When you think about Jack Kirby now, and his whole run in history, what are some of those things that jump out to you, like his biggest projects? What is it that really stands out?

THOMAS: A handful of things. Captain America, because, even though it was Joe Simon’s idea, without Jack Kirby we’d just as soon be remembering the Shield or Captain Freedom or somebody. There are other really good things like Stuntman, and “Green Arrow”, some of that stuff. But the next thing, to me—despite the fact that I would pick up Simon & Kirby things over (above) Mister Miracle #6 pencils (Jan. 1972), from the notorious “Funky Flashman” episode. Both Stan and Roy had updated their look by then, but Jack based the likenesses on photos such as these from the late 1960s. the years—it jumps all the way to the day I saw Fantastic Four #1 on the stands. Because I had Kirby’s career. After that, I don’t think there’s anything—Eternals is seen all these monster things, and I knew that was Kirby—I guess the closest you come, as far as I’m concerned. But that’s just me as a some of them were signed “Kirby.” But I didn’t like that kind of reader and as a long, long, long-time fan of Jack Kirby. material, so I never bought a single one of those things. Never. And then, the day Fantastic Four #1 came out, I bought two copies of it, HERRING: And being a huge fan of yours when I was growing up because I felt like this could really be something, just looking at it. It and reading the Invaders, because that was, to me, the perfect comic had some excitement about it. When I read it, I realized that I had of—I got my war stuff, I got my Nazis getting done a wise thing. beaten up, and then I had Captain America.

And then, from there on, he didn’t reach the heights right My first time I ever saw—. away, but in a few years he really reached his plateau on the THOMAS: I wish we’d had more like you.

Fantastic Four and Thor around the same time, with that great There were some, but there weren’t quite as Thor/Pluto/Hercules cycle he did, and a couple of stories around many as I’d hoped. that time, plus a couple of other things. And, though it was, to me, somewhat diminished, although others think differently, I would HERRING: My first issue of The Invaders say that the Fourth World material at DC still had enough going for I ever bought, or the first time I ever saw it to say this is still a major plateau, or at least a minor mountain, in Captain America, I’m going to say, other 35

than the Mego action figure, was Invaders #1, and I was there buying every single one of them. And then all of a sudden I remember probably maybe issue #2. I don’t think he did the first cover.

credit for the plots. I mean, I would guide him as the editor, because I would be the editor and the scripter. I could even give him first credit on the page, because, since he was doing the plot and that’s part of the writing, it wouldn’t disturb the regular balance, so that all of a sudden you’d have writers and artists arguing about which one’s name came first. But I told Jack, if he’d do the plot and penciling, I’d write it.

Jack agreed to do it—under one condition. He insisted that I plot out the stories, panel by panel, and send him that to pencil from. And I balked at that. I could see that Jack was determined that he wasn’t going to add one incident, one thought, to the story that I hadn’t given him. And if I was going to have to do that, I really didn’t see any special value in having Jack pencil the FF at that point. I’d prefer to work with Rich Buckler or someone else Kirbyinfluenced. So that was the end of my attempt to get Jack to do Fantastic Four.

Just the same, I was responsible for Jack’s last true Fantastic Four story for the comics, in What If #11. I came up with the concept “What If The Original Marvel Bullpen Had Become The Fantastic Four?” I told Jack, “Look, Stan will be Mr. Fantastic, you’ll be the Thing, and I’ll be Johnny Storm,” and Flo Steinberg, who wasn’t around anymore, but just because she’d been there, she’d be the Invisible Girl. And Jack said, “Great.” And I was originally going to write the dialogue for the story. But when the pencils came in, I saw that Jack had double-crossed me. Instead of having me be a character, he had made Sol Brodsky [Marvel’s production manager from 1964–70] the Human Torch, rather than me.

Remember, being the series’ editor, I could have made him change that, or I could have refused to accept it. But then I got to thinking about it, and I said to myself, “You know, this really makes a lot of sense. Sol Brodsky, while not known that well to the readers, was around before I was. He was the production manager, and he even was the guy who inked Fantastic Four #3 and #4, and he was around with Flo and Stan, so I said, “I’ll just let Jack write the whole thing.” I had no real interest in writing it at that point. That became the last, not counting something made out of the animated stuff, Fantastic Four story, in essence, that Jack ever really did.

I’m kind of proud that I got him to do one last Fantastic Four story, even though, God knows, I had trouble steering that through Stan—because, for one thing, for some reason Stan, once “Stanley Lieber” became “Stan Lee”, did not like being called “Stanley.” That had been his name. He’s not ashamed of it. He writes it himself. But he didn’t like being called it, and Jack loved to call him Stanley. [laughter] I think Jack just did it because he knew Stan didn’t care much for being called Stanley. So all the way through that story, every time Jack wrote “Stanley”— and there were a number of them—Stan said, “I want all those Stanleys changed to Stan.” I would have left them all. I would have loved it, because it’s the way Jack talked.

That’s the way Jack often addressed Stan, so it would have been realistic. But Stan felt that he was Stan Lee now; he wasn’t going to be Stanley. That was the end of the relationship.

Then, of course, soon after that Jack was gone. But he was always a nice enough guy. There was a lot of hostility in him, in general and toward Stan, and before that, toward Simon, all his partners. Toward Carmine Infantino, I think, at a certain stage, too, the guy who brought him over to DC. I loved Jack, but I think he was one of these guys who, whenever he got a partner or was working with somebody, it was inevitable that before long he would just hate them. Jack was an unfettered kind of guy in his mind,

THOMAS: No. Robbins and Romita did the first [Giant-Size Invaders] cover, and Romita did the second, which was Invaders #1.

HERRING: Yeah. And then I think it was, like #2 to about #12 or #13—.

THOMAS: It was Jack.

HERRING: I remember getting those covers, going, “Oh, that’s the guy who did Our Fighting Forces featuring the Losers! That new guy!”

THOMAS: And I was thinking, “Can I get Kirby to do them?” I didn’t ever see him, but we were both in California. I would just call him up and get him to do the covers. As long as I could get Jack Kirby to do the covers of Invaders, I was going to do it. If I could have gotten him to do a whole issue—see, this is an interesting thing, but I was going to come back as editor-in-chief for a second time in ’76, for about a week before I reneged on it, after Marv and Len were both leaving that job. I was trying to figure out a way to get Jack back on Fantastic Four. Since Stan was knocking himself upstairs and trying to keep out of stuff, I decided I would write Fantastic Four again, and I would get Jack to work with me on it. And I had a great plan. I would have Jack do the plots and get

36

but he was not a confrontationalist. I don’t know how he was with Simon, probably the same, but he wouldn’t stand up to Stan. He wouldn’t stand up to Carmine. He just kind of took it, was polite, and then he went home and released an atomic explosion.

I remember when Gil Kane, in this very historic interview that was published in my early Alter Ego [Vol. 1, #10, 1969]—it was really a major interview for the time—Gil talking not about his own work but about the field, and talking a lot about Jack.

And he took a few quotations out of the interview he did with John Benson before they were published—would not let them be used. One of my favorites was about Joe Kubert, who he said had “a certain yellow-belly attitude.” He didn’t feel Kubert was adventurous enough with his art. He said, “If I draw a rock, or Jack Kirby draws a rock, it’s a rock. It’s got some form. If Kubert draws a rock, it’ll be a formless, meaningless rock.” When I read that, since Kubert is a favorite artist of mine, I wondered—was Gil right? So I picked up a copy of Kubert’s Tarzan, and—I don’t know if you remember, but when Tarzan goes to the city of Opar, there’s a big rock he stands on before he enters, and Joe drew that as a big panel.

And I had to admit—it was the most formless, meaningless rock. [laughter] It might as well be a balloon, because there is no stone-ness to it.

And the other great Gil Kane quote excised from that interview was about Jack. He had a wonderful image for Jack, which he then wouldn’t allow to be published once he realized he was going to have to go back to the comics after the failure of His Name Is Savage. He said: “Jack lives for that drawing board. Every evening about the end of the day, Roz [his wife] comes in and wheels him and his drawing board into the closet, where Jack sits and vibrates until morning. [laughter] And then she wheels him out again.” Hyperbole, sure—but a priceless image. He was saying that Jack sort of lived at that board, and he would talk about being confrontational, and I’m sure he was probably a scrapper as a kid—but he just wanted to support his family, and he would never take a chance on jeopardizing that. Like, he would only quit Marvel when he actually had another job waiting for him. I’ve been the same way myself, so I’m not begrudging Jack for being that way. I’m just saying that he would act like he was confrontational, but he wasn’t.

HERRING: We were talking about The Invaders and how you were saying how you would have loved to have had him draw some. He was in one issue, though. The reprint issue of #10, the Reaper.

THOMAS: That’s not Jack.

HERRING: That wasn’t a reprint of Jack’s Cap stuff?

THOMAS: No, that’s a later story. What happened is there was this guy in Canada—anybody here hear of Captain George? He’s dead now, George Henderson.

He was the guy in Canada who had run into a lot of photostats of Marvel stuff that they had shipped up there to be published during the Second World War. He published that story even though it actually was technically still owned by Marvel. But he published a lot of that stuff, so it was one of the only ways we had to get good reproduction of the early stuff. But this was not Simon & Kirby. The Simon & Kirby stuff was in Fantasy Masterpieces. That is all redrawn and rather mediocre-ly put back together. But that “Reaper” story was two or three other artists. Because Jack was at DC at that time.

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(previous page) Back in 1976, Roy designed Union Jack’s costume, and provided Invaders #7’s artist Frank Robbins a sketch of what it should look like for his debut. After seeing Kirby’s cover to #8, Roy requested and received the original art as a professional courtesy from Jack. It hung in his home for nearly three decades. (above) Splash page pencils from What If? #11 (1977).

(below) For the 1978 DePatie-Freleng Fantastic Four cartoon series, Roy worked “Marvel-style”, providing Kirby a plot first, then scripting from Jack’s storyboards.

The “Olympics of Space” episode was inspired partly by Fantastic Four #93 (with a Torgo standin, and sans the Star Trek-inspired gangsters).

Roy doesn’t recall ever speaking with Jack directly during this period, only with Stan Lee, who may have told Roy which villains, etc. to use, leaving Roy to come up with stories that utilized other characters.

HERRING: Did anybody read the Invaders? So there was a lot of those issues where you would have the story and then, because of one thing or another they’d throw a reprint in there, and with the Reaper one—.

THOMAS: That was me. I had gone through a divorce.

I had left New York, come out to LA, La-la Land, trying to get a new life at the time and so forth. And I just wanted to write what I had to write, but I really wasn’t in it as much as I had been, so I’d kind of fall behind, but I had some stuff that I could sort of find ways to toss in. And it wasn’t as if I was just throwing in a recent reprint. It would be a story kids hadn’t seen.

HERRING: Oh, yeah, that was stuff I never saw before, where Captain America mentioned something about the Reaper, and then—like, it was two pages because Spitfire was shot, and they had to transfer blood to her.

THOMAS: “Well, while we’re doing it, let’s tell the story about what happened in 1943.” [laughter] HERRING: And that was exactly it. They’re like, “Oh, she’s at death’s door. The Reaper’s...?” And then Cap goes, “Hmm, that reminds me of this story about the Reaper.” And then you had a reprint.

THOMAS: Which is funny, because it was probably about a 1940 to a ’43 story, remember. The comic book took place in ’42, so that’s as close as I can remember the age of it.

HERRING: It was so, so good. So, as we were talking about Jack Kirby, does anybody have any questions? I

38

don’t want to monopolize all of this time with Roy. I could easily do it.

THOMAS: I’m not an expert on Kirby, but I did personally know him, and I’ve admired his work for so many years, so I feel like I—.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Other than what you said, are there any other anecdotes you can share about Kirby?

THOMAS: If somebody asks me something, maybe I’ll think of something. If something occurs to me, I’ll throw it in. I’ve thrown in most of them, but there may be a few others. I never spent a lot of time with Jack. It was mostly in the company of others. I do remember one day at lunch—Stan wasn’t there this time, or I probably wouldn’t have said it quite this way—but it was probably me, and Romita, and John Buscema, and maybe Stan Goldberg, a couple of people from the office. Most of the old guys, and me as the 24-, 25-yearold youngster or whatever. And somebody asked him, “What do you think will be next, Jack?” You know, everybody’s always looking for trends. “I don’t know,” he says, “but one thing I know—it won’t be me, and it won’t be Stan Lee. It’s going to be two kids in a garage somewhere.” I think he was thinking about himself and Simon, “two kids somewhere that are going to come up with something.” And I thought of that when I think of things like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which is basically exactly what Jack said. It would just come out of nowhere. If you could predict where it was going to come out of, you could control it and be rich. And nobody knows where it’s going to—.

Who knew where Jack Kirby was going to come from? In 1961, Stan just stumbled into suddenly having the greatest comic book action artist of all time working for him for cheap wages, simply because he had been

in a lawsuit with a DC editor who was so vengeful that he got him blacklisted from DC Comics. With only two or three companies in the field, Jack was forced into coming back to Timely for these cheap rates. Mark Evanier, in his book on Kirby, says that somebody asked the artist Mike Sekowsky, who drew Justice League for years and had worked for Timely: “Who won the lawsuit between Jack Schiff”—that was the DC editor—“and Jack Kirby?” And Sekowsky said, “Stan Lee.” [laughter] Which is, I think, one of the most profound things that anybody ever said about the field.

Jack was sort of at Stan’s mercy wage-wise and work-wise—but at the same time, he was one of the two or three artists that Stan most admired! There’d been Joe Maneely, who was dead, and there was Jack, and I don’t know if there was any third person, really, at that stage. And when you combine that with then the rise of Ditko, who just happened to be there—you can’t describe it any better than to say it was a “perfect storm” that happened that nobody could control, nobody could have predicted. And that’s why everybody keeps trying to explain it, because some people say it was all Stan Lee—and some people fervently believe it was all Jack Kirby, which is at least equally ridiculous. And what it really was, was some particular combination, the same way that The Wizard of Oz turned out such a great movie even though you had second choices in several of the roles—no Shirley Temple, no W.C. Fields, and not even the guy who was supposed to play the Tin Woodsman originally…

(below) A missing Wasp and change of the antagonist’s costume befell this cover to Marvel Triple Action #29 (May 1976) prior to publication.

SOMEONE: Buddy Ebsen.

THOMAS: Buddy Ebsen. It was a whole second choice of people, and it ended up being a wonderful movie. Just sometimes these things work out in spite of everything.

Sometimes they work out bad, sometimes they work out good. Marvel was a place where they worked out good.

HERRING: So if I learn one thing today at this panel, it’s that Buddy Ebsen was the choice for the Tin Man. THOMAS: Oh, yeah. He did some tests, and it turned out he was very allergic or something to aluminum the Tin Man had to put on, so they had to replace him with Haley, who never did anything else, particularly, in movies, that anybody knows about. I guess he was in a couple roles, but he had no great career like Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, and so forth. And Judy Garland. And Frank Morgan, for that matter.

HERRING: See? I want to write that one down. [laughter] Friedrich on Ghost Rider. With Jack, I was just there as somebody who was around in 1965 and who could report on a few things.

So I really don’t know much about how and when. I mean, Neal was always kind of a Crusader Rabbit for whatever cause he got interested in, and, of course, his main success was the Siegel and Shuster thing, which he and Jerry Robinson engineered. And maybe he had something to do with the Jack matter. It’s certainly not beyond the pale. I just don’t know anything about it. I wasn’t involved in it at all. I just went and did my deposition, and I don’t even remember what I said there. [laughter]

THOMAS: [indicating audience] These people already know this. You’re just behind the curve.

HERRING: Yes. AUDIENCE MEMBER: How was the deal brokered—from what I understand, Neal Adams was involved, and others in the industry, to get Kirby credit and his family monetary reimbursement—?

THOMAS: You mean just a few years ago?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah. Well, I heard there were a few different actions over the years.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Everybody knows that, let’s be honest, a lot of comic book artists copy Kirby in terms of his anatomy, in terms of the way he made the men, the women look. My question is, Mr. Thomas, did he ever talk to you about that? When you were doing the books, did he ever mention about what he thought was

THOMAS: To tell you the truth, I really don’t know much about it.

I did a deposition not for or against Kirby, because, thank heaven, I wasn’t involved in the way I was in matters like Marv Wolfman on Blade, or Steve Gerber on Howard the Duck, or my friend Gary 39

(below) A couple of minor “fixes” were done on this cover to Invaders #6 (1976).

Note on the inset from the published cover, how Miss America’s hand was altered, and Sub-Mariner’s right arm was added (probably by inker Joe Sinnott). (next page) The first Sunday page for Kirby and Steve Gerber’s proposed 1980s Thundarr the Barbarian newspaper strip.

important in anatomy, or how he got it to look the way that it looked?

THOMAS: No, I never talked to Jack about that, and I don’t think Jack very often articulated how he worked. I think Jack was an instinctual artist. I’ve got an interview coming out, an article, actually [in Alter Ego #149, right, now shipping], that Gil Kane wrote back in ’74, and he talks about his influences, and in particular guys like [Harvey] Kurtzman, and there’s a lot about Kirby in there. He talks about certain people that he feels are naturals, and certain people that sort of built up their talent. He feels Hal Foster was one of those people who wasn’t a natural, but built it up. I don’t know if that’s right or not, but, obviously, one of the great naturals was Jack Kirby. It was an interesting thing that, fortysomething years after Gil wrote the article, it’s still

40

true. Gil said there are a lot of people [editors] who would accept Jack’s anatomy on a story. I don’t mean just Stan, but [other editors and publishers] over the years, they would accept his anatomy, his version of the way he saw things, and those same people would reject Gil’s anatomy. And it wasn’t like he was bragging because he thought his anatomy was better, although he had studied it more and was always practicing, and Jack just drew whatever came to him. Stan always said about Jack, “He can’t fix anything.” He was unwilling to. If Stan wanted him to redraw something, he would redraw something, if it was just a case of redrawing it.

But if you wanted Jack to fix a leg on one of his characters, or a hand, and do something a little different, Stan was rarely happy with the correction; and that’s because, I think, Jack saw that hand this one way and put it down, and if Stan didn’t like that, Jack wasn’t a guy who could just turn the hand this way or that.

You were better off getting a John Romita or somebody to actually just draw a new hand, than you were trying to get Jack Kirby to fix his old one.

The funny thing is, as much as I respect both men, I don’t think Jack and Stan ever really understood each other. I think I understood more about the relationship from watching them—and I’m sure I’m not alone there—than Stan and Jack understood about each other, because I was less surprised than Stan when Jack quit, and so were a lot of other people. Because other people knew—and I wonder if it didn’t ever get back to Stan—that Jack would go off to lunch and just rage about Stan. Not these little dinners with me and Romita and these people, but in other places. And yet, somehow or other, Stan thought, well, now that we’ve got these new credits on the stories—that it’s a “Stan Lee/Jack Kirby production,” which was Jack’s idea for the wording; it wasn’t something Stan imposed on him—he thought maybe he had settled the problem. But he’d just put the cork in the volcano until the next time it blew.

You know, when you get a person with a really strong viewpoint—like Ditko, who just walked in one day and quit and went to get work at Charlton for much lower rates— well, when people have that kind of artistic temperament, you just have to accept the fact that it’s not that they’re right or they’re wrong. They just have a temperament that forces them to do something like that. To me, the amazing thing is that, for a little over a hundred issues, Stan and Jack worked together and produced what Gil in his article calls “the most sustained, excellent performance I’ve seen in comics.” And you could argue that you can’t find many other things where, for fifty or a hundred issues,

even if it was falling off that last couple of years, you’re not going to find many long, sustained performances like that. You could say, okay, sixty or seventy issues where Sekowsky did Justice League, but while that was good, there was nothing “excellent” about that run.

It was just a competent job. But Jack was, at the very worst, supercompetent, and often inspired.

HERRING: I don’t want you to destroy the myth, but I’m going to ask you, and maybe you’ll have to destroy the myth. Did you see him smoking cigars like he is depicted doing all the time?

HERRING: You were mentioning the Fantastic Four, that amazing run, and as a young kid in the ’70s, I was reading Marvel’s Greatest Comics and getting those reprints, not Fantastic Four, and I had no desire to read that or look at it simply because I loved what Jack did. And taking the Thing and bringing him to a planet so he could fight Torgo, all of that stuff was just so magical. And I remember watching Thundarr the Barbarian when that cartoon came on, and I’m like, “Oh my God, this is a Jack Kirby comic book come to life, with super-science and all sorts of other weird things that I don’t understand.” Do you see a lot of the—I don’t know what you’re seeing or reading now. Do you see a lot of Jack Kirby’s work and his style still prevalent in the industry today?

THOMAS: Oh, he always did, from the earliest days when he and Joe Simon both smoked them in the office. He was always working with a cigar. He didn’t smoke around the office, but I saw him with one quite a few times. Stan was the one who used a pipe or a cigarette as a prop and never actually lit the damned thing. [laughter] He and Sol Brodsky and I started smoking little cigarillos or whatever [in the late ’60s], but that didn’t last long. Stan really wasn’t a smoker. He just thought it made him look sophisticated. [laughter] And so he did it.

Jack had to smoke the damned thing. When Jack quit, someone at Marvel put together a memorial “Jack Kirby Stogie” or something like that and hung it on the wall. Anyway, thank you very much, and please know that anything I said is written with a tremendous respect for Kirby as a man, as an artist. I mean, everybody has his faults, his foibles, and you could argue about what those are; but Jack was one of the handful of supremely talented people to come out of the comics field, one of the biggest influences, and I’m only sorry that I, instead of he, am up here today to celebrate his 100th birthday. I wish he was doing it himself.

THOMAS: Oh, he smoked cigars, sure.

HERRING: In my head I see him just, one after another.

THOMAS: Well, I don’t see that much. I think probably less than it used to be. But I like that title that my publisher John Morrow uses in his Jack Kirby Collector, where somebody writes a series called “Kirby as a Genre.” And that’s pretty close to right. He’s still an influence, but there aren’t as many artists who draw at all like Jack Kirby. It’s a little more subtle, because the storytelling has changed.

I mean, where Jack would have told one story in twenty pages, nowadays that comic will be a novel like Gone with the Wind by the time you told the same story that Jack and the other old-time artists would’ve told in one issue.

HERRING: That would be an awesome 100 years. So he might have got lost coming up here, too.

THOMAS: [laughs] Well, thank you very much. [applause] H 41

C o l l e c t o r

The JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR magazine (edited by JOHN MORROW) celebrates the life and career of the “King” of comics through INTERVIEWS WITH KIRBY and his contemporaries, FEATURE ARTICLES, RARE AND UNSEEN KIRBY ART, plus regular columns by MARK EVANIER and others, and presentation of KIRBY’S UNINKED NS PENCILS from the 1960s-80s (from EDITIO BLE photocopies preserved in the KIRBY AVAILAALL ARCHIVES). Now in FULL-COLOR, it FOR S! showcases Kirby’s art even better!

ISSUE

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KIRBY FIVE-OH!

TJKC #50 covers all the best of Kirby’s 50-year career in comics: BEST KIRBY STORIES, COVERS, CHARACTER DESIGNS, UNUSED ART, and profiles of/commentary by the 50 PEOPLE MOST INFLUENCED BY KIRBY’S WORK! Plus a 50-PAGE PENCIL ART GALLERY and a COLOR SECTION! Kirby cover inked by DARWYN COOKE, and introduction by MARK EVANIER. (168-page trade paperback) $24.95 (Digital Edition) $7.95 ISBN: 9781893905894

KIRBY COLLECTOR #62

KIRBY COLLECTOR #64

KIRBY COLLECTOR #65

KIRBY100

KIRBY100 features an all-star line-up of 100 top comics pros who choose key images from Kirby’s career, and critique Jack’s PAGE LAYOUTS, DRAMATICS, and STORYTELLING SKILLS to honor his place in comics history, and prove Kirby is King! Celebrate Jack’s 100th birthday in style with this full-color, double-length book edited by JOHN MORROW & JON B. COOKE, with a cover inked by MIKE ROYER. (224-page COLOR softcover) $34.95 • (Digital Edition) $12.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #67

KIRBY COLLECTOR #68

KIRBY AT DC! Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, updated “X-Numbers” list of Kirby’s DC assignments (revealing some surprises), JERRY BOYD’s insights on Kirby’s DC work, a look at KEY 1970s EVENTS IN JACK’S LIFE AND CAREER, Challengers vs. the FF, pencil art galleries from FOREVER PEOPLE, OMAC, and THE DEMON, Kirby cover inked by MIKE ROYER, and more!

SUPER-SOLDIERS! We declassify Captain America, Fighting American, Sgt. Fury, The Losers, Pvt. Strong, Boy Commandos, and a tribute to Simon & Kirby! PLUS: a Kirby interview about Cap, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, key 1940s-’50s events in Kirby’s career, unseen pencils and unused art from OMAC, SILVER STAR, CAPTAIN AMERICA (in the 1960s AND ‘70s), the LOSERS, & more! KIRBY cover!

ANYTHING GOES (AGAIN)! A potpourri issue, with anything and everything from Jack’s 50-year career, including a head-tohead comparison of the genius of KIRBY and ALEX TOTH! Plus a lengthy KIRBY interview, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, unseen and unused Kirby art from JIMMY OLSEN, KAMANDI, MARVELMANIA, his COMIC STRIP & ANIMATION WORK, and more!

UP-CLOSE & PERSONAL! Kirby interviews you weren’t aware of, photos and recollections from fans who saw him in person, personal anecdotes from Jack’s fellow pros, LEE and KIRBY cameos in comics, MARK EVANIER and other regular columnists, and more! Don’t let the photo cover fool you; this issue is chockfull of rare Kirby pencil art, from Roz Kirby’s private sketchbook, and Jack’s most personal comics stories!

KEY KIRBY CHARACTERS! We go decade-by-decade to examine pivotal characters Jack created throughout his career (including some that might surprise you)! Plus there’s a look at what would’ve happened if Kirby had never left Marvel Comics for DC, how Jack’s work has been repackaged over the decades, MARK EVANIER and other regular columnists, and galleries of unseen Kirby pencil art!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #69

KIRBY COLLECTOR #70

KIRBY COLLECTOR #71

KIRBY COLLECTOR #72

KIRBY COLLECTOR #73

KIRBY’S PARTNERS! Cap/Falcon/Bucky, Sandman & Sandy, Orion & Lightray, Johnny & Ben, Dingbats, Newsboys, plus features on JOE SIMON, MIKE ROYER, CHIC STONE, DICK AYERS, JOE SINNOTT, MIKE THIBODEAUX—even ROZ KIRBY! Also, BATTLE FOR A 3-D WORLD, the 2016 Comic-Con Kirby Tribute Panel, MARK EVANIER, and galleries of Kirby pencil art! Cover inked by JOE SINNOTT!

KIRBY: ALPHA! Looks at the beginnings of Kirby’s greatest concepts, and how he looked back in time and to the future for the origins of ideas like DEVIL DINOSAUR, FOREVER PEOPLE, 2001, ETERNALS, KAMANDI, OMAC, and more! Plus: A rare Kirby interview, the 2016 WonderCon Kirby Tribute Panel, MARK EVANIER, unpublished pencil art galleries, and more!

Cover inked by MIKE ROYER!

KIRBY: OMEGA! Looks at endings, deaths, and Anti-Life in the Kirbyverse, including poignant losses and passings from such series as NEW GODS, KAMANDI, FANTASTIC FOUR, LOSERS, THOR, DEMON and others! Plus: A rare Kirby interview, the 2016 Silicon Valley Comic-Con Kirby Panel, MARK EVANIER, unpublished pencil art galleries, and more! Cover inked by WALTER SIMONSON!

FIGHT CLUB! Jack’s most powerful fights and in-your-face action: Real-life WAR EXPERIENCES, Marvel’s KID COWBOYS, the Madbomb saga and all those negative 1970s Marvel fan letters, interview with SCOTT McCLOUD on his Kirby-inspired punchfest DESTROY!!, rare Kirby interview, 2017 WonderCon Kirby Panel, MARK EVANIER, unpublished pencil art galleries, and more! Cover inked by DEAN HASPIEL!

ONE-SHOTS! Kirby’s best (and worst) short spurts on his wildest concepts: ANIMATION IDEAS, DINGBATS, JUSTICE INC., MANHUNTER, ATLAS, PRISONER, and more! Plus MARK EVANIER and our other regular panelists, rare Kirby interview, panels from the 2017 Kirby Centennial celebration, pencil art galleries, and some one-shot surprises! BIG BARDA #1 cover finishes by MIKE ROYER!

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This final, fully-updated, definitive edition clocks in at DOUBLE the length of the 2008 “Gold Edition”, in a new 256-page LTD. EDITION HARDCOVER (only 1000 copies) listing every release up to Jack’s 100th birthday! Detailed listings of all of Kirby’s published work, reprints, magazines, books, foreign editions, newspaper strips, fine art and collages, fanzines, essays, interviews, portfolios, posters, radio and TV appearances, and even Jack’s unpublished work!

(256-page LIMITED EDITION HARDCOVER) $34.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-083-0 • NOW SHIPPING!

KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID! (JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #75)

This first-of-its-kind examination of the creators of the Marvel Universe looks back at their own words, in chronological order, from fanzine, magazine, radio, and television interviews, to paint a picture of JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE’s relationship—why it succeeded, where it deteriorated, and when it eventually failed.

Also here are recollections from STEVE DITKO, WALLACE WOOD, JOHN ROMITA SR., and more Marvel Bullpen stalwarts who worked with both Kirby and Lee. Rounding out this book is a study of the duo’s careers after they parted ways as collaborators, including Kirby’s difficulties at Marvel Comics in the 1970s, his last hurrah with Lee on the Silver Surfer Graphic Novel, and his exhausting battle to get back his original art—and creator credit—from Marvel. STUF’ SAID gives both men their say, compares their recollections, and tackles the question, “Who really created the Marvel Comics Universe?”.

(160-page trade paperback) $24.95 • (Digital Edition) $11.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-086-1 • SHIPS FALL 2018!

COMIC BOOK IMPLOSION

AN ORAL HISTORY OF DC COMICS CIRCA 1978

Things looked bleak for comic books throughout the 1970s because of plummeting sell-through rates. With each passing year, the newsstand became less and less interested in selling comic books. The industry seemed locked in a death spiral, but the Powers That Be at DC Comics had an idea to reverse their fortunes.

In 1978, they implemented a bold initiative: Provide readers with more story pages by increasing the pricepoint of a regular comic book to make it comparable to other magazines sold on newsstands. Billed as “THE DC EXPLOSION,” this expansion saw the introduction of numerous creative new titles. But mere weeks after its launch, DC’s parent company pulled the plug, demanding a drastic decrease in the number of comic books they published, and leaving stacks of completed comic book stories unpublished. The series of massive cutbacks and cancellations quickly became known as “THE DC IMPLOSION.” TwoMorrows Publishing marks the 40th Anniversary of one of the most notorious events in comics with an exhaustive oral history from the creators and executives involved (JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, and AL MILGROM, among many others), as well as detailed analysis and commentary by other top professionals, who were “just fans” in 1978 (MARK WAID, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, TOM BREVOORT, and more)—examining how it changed the landscape of comics forever! By KEITH DALLAS and JOHN WELLS. (136-page trade paperback with COLOR) $21.95 • (Digital Edition) $10.95 • SHIPS SUMMER 2018!

ISBN: 978-1-60549-085-4

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: The 1990s

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: THE 1990s is a year-by-year account of the comic book industry during the Bill Clinton years. This full-color hardcover documents the comic book industry’s most significant publications, most notable creators, and most impactful trends from that decade. Written by KEITH DALLAS and JASON SACKS. (288-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $44.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.95 • SHIPS FALL 2018!

ISBN: 978-1-60549-084-7

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THE 1990s was the decade when Marvel Comics sold 8.1 million copies of an issue of the X-MEN, saw its superstar creators form their own company, cloned SPIDER-MAN, and went bankrupt. The 1990s was when SUPERMAN died, BATMAN had his back broken, and the runaway success of Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN led to DC Comics’ VERTIGO line of adult comic books. It was the decade of gimmicky covers, skimpy costumes, and mega-crossovers. But most of all, the 1990s was the decade when companies like IMAGE, VALIANT and MALIBU published million-selling comic books before the industry experienced a shocking and rapid collapse.

Collector

Send letters to: THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR c/o TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • See back issue excerpts at: www.twomorrows.com

Comments

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

(Write about a past issue, or a future one—we don’t care which!)

[Some issues really surprise me, and this was one of them. The “future/past” theme didn’t really grab me initially, but once I started working on putting it together, strange serendipities occurred, and things seemed to fall magically in place. I hope you’re as pleased with the result as I am. Now then, let’s get on to your letters:] Just watched your video on YouTube (nice!) and also the Disney Legends presentation you referred to in the new TJKC [#73]. I have a question: In the Disney presentation, at the 2:57 mark—are those PENCILS from FF #28 I see there? Be great if they are—you don’t have many from that period! Do you have them for TJKC? Shane Foley, AUSTRALIA [Wow, it’s amazing that you caught that. I totally missed it. Looking more closely at the screen capture above, it looks like an ink wash on Marvel Girl in panel 2, so I think Chic Stone was just using watered-down ink, and this is what the original art looks like now. Since you can clearly see the inker’s brushwork on Marvel Girl’s legs, I dug around on Heritage Auction’s site, and found the scan of the original art (at right) and it’s a match. So I’m pretty sure this was just the original art, not pencils. Dang it!]

I’ve been reading the first IDW Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR ARTIST’S EDITION and notice a lot of Wite-Out in the original art to FF ANNUAL #6. Reading the story, Annihilus takes backpack harnesses from Reed & Ben (Johnny apparently doesn’t need one) which prevent them from escaping the Negative Zone. Eventually, they work out a trade with Annihilus for their harnesses and are able to escape. However, looking at scans of the original art, it’s obvious that Reed and Ben were originally drawn throughout the issue still in possession of their harnesses and the story was originally inked this way, so I’m wondering exactly what happened to cause the harnesses to be eliminated from so many pages of the story after it was already inked.

I’m particularly curious as to whether Stan decided to deviate from Jack’s margin notes, or if Jack himself made a mistake in the art that was caught late in the game. Do you have access to Jack’s photocopies for this issue? I’d be very interested in seeing them and finding out if they reveal something of substance

about the evolution of this story.

In the process of making the art press-ready, most of Kirby’s original margin notes were obscured, cropped or erased, but a few still remain.

In addition to the extensive WiteOut regarding the harnesses, I also wonder if Kirby named Annihilus, since the margin notes that remain in the Artist’s Edition refer to him only as “villain.”

Lynn Walker, Spanish Fork, UT [Sorry Lynn, we don’t have access to any pencil copies from FF ANNUAL #6, but you never know—they may turn up sooner or later, so don’t give up hope!]

A couple of corrections to the Kirby chronology at the end of the KIRBY100 book...

1. “September [1956]: This begins an initially sporadic, but ultimately long-running teaming with writer/editor Stan Lee... December [1958]– January 1959: Kirby’s first work for Atlas’s STRANGE TALES (#67) and TALES OF SUSPENSE (#2) is published, beginning an unbroken association with editor/ writer Stan Lee that lasts for a decade.” My comments on creation of the properties aside, it appears that you’re including the monster books in the association. Lee, who always signed everything, did not sign a single Kirby monster or science-fiction story. The Lee-Kirby “collaboration” began in 1960, 44

with Lee’s signature appearing in TWO-GUN KID #54 and RAWHIDE KID #17. Prior to that, Kirby submitted pages to, and received assignments from, Lee. 2. “January–February [1966]: After months of no direct communication with Lee, Ditko turns in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #38 and resigns.”

In a blog post (http://www.newsfromme. com/2005/09/28/missed-it-by-that-much/), Mark Evanier wrote that “Ditko quit Marvel the week of Thanksgiving 1965.” This means Ditko was already gone when Lee was badmouthing him to Nat Freedland and hinting that Ditko’s job was on the line in the HERALD TRIBUNE interview.

Thank you for your gracious response to Joe Frank regarding Kirby’s instigation of the Spider-Man concept. Marc Toberoff believed that Spider-Man presented one of the strongest cases for copyright reassignment to the Kirby family, complete with a paper trail that would stand up in court. Frank and Geraint Davies simply ignored the evidence presented in the Taylor article, while Stephen Mumford, by contrast, suggested another connection in Spider-Man to Kirby’s previous work that Taylor hadn’t noticed. As I write this, Rand Hoppe is in the process of digitizing another important article for the Museum site, the Janet Bode VILLAGE VOICE piece, “Jack Kirby’s Sixyear Slugfest with Marvel,” cited by Taylor in the Spider-Man article. It will provide some good material for your “he said, he said” issue.

Which brings us to Shane Foley’s letters research. Contrary to the subtitle, the Marvel

I just stumbled across the attached still [left]. I don’t know if this has been pointed out before. Note the Hulk poster in the background of this shot from the 1970 Peter Seller’s movie THERE’S A GIRL IN MY SOUP. Bret Mixon, Los Angeles, CA

knock letters are not controversial. To expend so much effort to prove Kirby’s (and Shooter’s) impressions were wrong about the negative letters seems misguided.

Shane’s hypothesis: “I’ve read every single letter and you know, they really aren’t that bad.”

Cut to the chase: Show the brutal examples from CAP and BLACK PANTHER, and call the case closed.

Ralph Macchio’s letter, printed a month before he joined the staff, portended the demise of the medium with the fanboy call for “continuity and verisimilitude,” and provided the template for many letters to come.

Editor/publisher Robin Snyder, in his letter to BLACK PANTHER, asked for some respect for Kirby and an end to the knock letters.

This isn’t a question of balance, and a comparison to the LOC pages of other editors proves nothing. What Shane has left out of the discussion is that Stan Lee wouldn’t have printed a negative letter. The meaningful comparison would be with ’60s letter columns, with Lee writing and answering letters in FF and signing Stan Goldberg and Sol Brodsky’s names: “Your comics are a cut above!” “Our readers are more intelligent than most!”

The knock letters were the tip of the iceberg of Kirby’s treatment at the hands of the “nest of vipers.”

As we know from stories on the old Kirby mailing list, it was part of a coordinated campaign to discredit him, causing him to take the extreme step of wrestling control of the letters pages away from New York. The campaign was orchestrated by young men of lesser talent who without a shred of gratitude wanted to ride Kirby to success the way Lee had. When Kirby declined, they showed a unanimous lack of class and belittled the guy who made their careers possible. His perception of negativity doesn’t bear contesting: It was Kirby’s perception, and calling him overly sensitive adds insult to injury.

Thankfully, Shane’s piece is immediately followed

by Gary Picariello’s Madbomb article, and he puts the letters in their proper place.

Mike Hill, Toronto, Ontario, CANADA Here’s a tentative list of upcoming themes, so get writing!

FAMOUS FIRSTS! All the ways Jack was a pioneer in comics and life, by being the first to create or champion characters and concepts!

JACK KIRBY: THE BIG PICTURE! All-visual comparisons issue, including two-page spreads!

FATHERS & SONS! Odin, Zeus, Darkseid, and other lousy parental role models!

Based on the visual evidence, I’m strongly convinced that Jack’s drawing of Captain Britain/Captain America (shown repeatedly in TJKC #73) was actually inked by Frank Giacoia. For me the ink brushstrokes depicting the folds of fabric in Captain America’s boots are a stylistic tip-off that points directly to Frank rather than Stan’s brother Larry Lieber.

Thanks for yet another highly detailed, interesting issue. I appreciate you maintaining the regular quarterly schedule, which must not be easy considering all your other responsibilities in running your successful company. Congrats also on all the very positive Kirby happenings circa 2017. I saw BLACK PANTHER (2018) last weekend and it was quite gratifying to see Stan and Jack’s creator credits in large typeface and located in close proximity to the many producers’ credits near the top of the credits queue.

Paul Vespignani, Columbus, Ohio I’m a bit behind in my TwoMorrows reading, but thought I’d comment on TJKC #72. Thanks first for the cover, which I thought benefited from excellent inking and coloring as well as having the magazine title on the side as opposed to at the top. I hope you’ll have more of Kirby’s pencils treated in a similar way by Haspiel and Ziuko. As to your prediction that Kirby’s work at DC in the 1970s will eventually be more influential than his work at Marvel in the 1960s, I don’t think I’ll live to see it. There are several billion dollars of movie income to overcome, and DC doesn’t seem quite as gifted as Marvel is at monetizing their inventory.

I really appreciated the “Ted O’Neil” reprint from PRIZE #8, since that’s not something I’d ever get to see otherwise, and I’m glad you waited until your conversion to slick paper and color to do it. Also great to see was Will Murray’s history of Marvel’s Kid Cowboys, which spanned a part of Goodman’s publishing I probably won’t be exposed to, and stitched together some of the bits and pieces of knowledge from decades of Atlas/Marvel westerns I’d picked up previously. One article which captured my attention more than usual was Jerry Boyd’s “Police Story.” While I enjoy the sort of “nuts ’n’ bolts” history that goes into many of your magazine’s articles, this one had an approach which held my interest as I tried to figure out all the references and locate the many Easter eggs throughout. I thought this was a very unique and creative look at the material. Thanks for another great issue, and I’m looking forward to KIRBY 100.

Doc Pelzel, Millbrae, CA MONSTERS & BUGS! Atlas Monsters, Thing vs. Hulk, Frankenstein, Deviants, Mantis, Forager, Ant-Man, Lightning Lady, and others!

PIVOTAL DECISIONS! How key choices Jack made worked out well—or not—for him, and how we fans benefited from them nonetheless!

GOT A THEME IDEA? WRITE US! We treat these themes very loosely, so anything you send could get used.

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(below) Utilitas zoth#74 Credits: ecas fermentet bellus

John Morrow, Editor/Designer/all-else saburre. Perspicax Eric Nolen-Weathington, Proofreader syrtes spinosus cir(and yes, we intentionally leftutthe word cumgrediet ‘profreader’ misspelled in this issue!)

THANKS TO OUR CONTRIBUTORS: Dwight Boyd • Jerry Boyd Jane Brettschneider • Robert L. Bryant Norris Burroughs • Jon B. Cooke Michael Coste • Jean Depelley Mark Evanier • Chris Fama Shane Foley • Barry Forshaw Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com) Matt Herring • Rand Hoppe Larry Houston • Sean Howe Sean Kleefeld • Richard Kolkman Tom Kraft • Ted Krasniewski Adam McGovern • John Misselhorn Alex Ross • Tom Scioli The cast of the 2017 Kirby Tribute Panel • Roy Thomas Michael “Doc V” Vassallo • Bill Wray and of course The Kirby Estate The Jack Kirby Museum (www.kirbymuseum.org) and whatifkirby.com If we forgot anyone, please let us know!

Contribute!

The Jack Kirby Collector is put together with submissions from Jack’s fans around the world. We don’t pay for submissions, but if we print art or articles you submit, we’ll send you a free copy of the issue it appears in.

Submit art & articles by mail, or e-mail to: twomorrow@aol.com

NEXT ISSUE: TJKC #75 is a doublesize BOOK titled KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID! It looks back at the creators of the Marvel Universe’s own words, in chronological order, from fanzine, magazine, radio, and television interviews, to paint a picture of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s relationship—why it succeeded, where it deteriorated, and when it eventually failed. It also includes recollections from STEVE DITKO, WALLACE WOOD, JOHN ROMITA SR., and other Marvel Bullpenners, and a study of the duo’s careers after they parted ways as collaborators in 1970. This one is EXTREMELY research-intensive, so will take a little longer than usual, so ships September 2018.

It counts as two issues of your subscription!

INNER-Vention

The Time Machine

by Ted Krasniewski

(this page) Scenes from Fantastic Four #5 (July 1962). (next page, top and center) Doom’s time machine at rest and at work from FF #19 (Oct. 1963). (next page, top right) In Tales of Suspense #3 (May 1959), Jack had an earlier opportunity to draw a more “conventional” time machine (if there is such a thing). (next page, bottom) For one of his final comics stories, Jack one again returned to time travel, but in a much more futuristic vein. Details from Captain Victory Special #1 (Oct. 1983), (page 48) A Kirby collage, undated and untitled—but we’ll just call it “About Time.”

D

rawing a time machine is an opportunity for an artist to really get creative. Being one of those things that yet eludes invention, neither its appearance nor the depiction of its operation need conform to any preexisting rule.

The design of the one that Dr. Doom takes credit for creating (we know it was Kirby) produces a wonderful effect that I’ve never seen duplicated by any other such machine. But we only see this effect in a single panel on the last page of Fantastic Four #19 (Oct. 1963), a full fourteen months after the device’s debut in FF #5 (July 1962)! It’s as though Jack himself isn’t initially aware of just how beautiful a design he’s crafted, discovering the way to its full delineation only by increments.

Doom’s apparatus (go straight to page 5 in FF #19, atop the opposite page, for the best depiction of the time machine at “rest”) doesn’t seal the traveler inside some protective capsule; it consists of a plain rectangular

transmission platform, flush with the floor, and—some feet away—a control panel and chair, both of which remain behind, along with the operator. (It’s a revealing reflection of Doom’s personality that his design completely separates the traveler from the operator, and requires the former to cede all control to the latter!)

When Doom sends Reed, Johnny, and Ben back into the 18th century for pirate treasure in FF #5 [above], we see the machine in action for the first time (page 9, left). That novelty, however, is tempered by the rather conventional imagery Jack seems content to employ in describing the way the machine sends its travelers out: The transmission platform begins to glow; the travelers become transparent; the travelers disappear. When the team has occasion to journey into the past again 14 issues later (FF #19, page 5), there’ll be no alterations to this model.

But if the manner in which Jack sends the team out each time can be characterized as 46

uninspired, not so the way he returns them!

He hangs a luminous wafer in the air above them in FF #5, which endures as the only visible object when the rest of the scenery vanishes in a blinding glare. Reed commands his team not to move, recognizing the floating lozenge above them as the time machine’s platform, being maneuvered by Doom to effect their retrieval back to present-day Latveria. It begins to drop down towards our sojourners through time, and they raise their hands to weather an eerie substance-less collision. The enigmatic glare dissipates, and Doom stands before the team again; they’re back (page 19, panels 1–3).

Markedly more original, yes? In fact, a more surreally arresting sequence doesn’t easily suggest itself, I’d wager.

And when Jack, at the conclusion of FF #19 [left], shepherds our noble tempunauts back one more time to the 20th century, he sets his hand to a bit of culminating

elegance that truly shines, providing at last (on page 20, above) the wonderful “breakthrough” composition that might’ve graced the series two Springs sooner: Two separate timescapes juxtaposed simultaneously for the viewer’s pleasure, one atop the other, with our adventurers physically present in both (Johnny alone surmounting the bisection in fiery exultation), as Alicia at the control panel guides them home! Both the desert sands of ancient Egypt and the present-day chambers of Doom’s abandoned castle are here united in a single modestly glorious panel, the decisive insertion of the time machine’s descending platform making that clean juxtaposing of the two landscapes possible— our Fantastic Foursome shedding a prior reality as they appear to rise up into their “destination-reality”! Sweet!

One can appreciate how close Jack comes to bringing together the components of the “breakthrough” panel while he’s still working on FF #5. Look at the central panel on page 19 of that issue: All Jack has to do is fill in the empty upper portion with a view of the interior of Doom’s castle (as we see it right there in the panel beside it). That’s all that’s missing; the time machine’s platform is in the correct position for a clean separation of the two landscapes, and the time travelers, while not as much as one might wish, are present on both sides of the dividing plane.

But Jack, for whatever reason—his genius charting some further juncture, perhaps—leaves it be. He’ll be back; we’ve seen the future. It’s just a matter of time. H 47

Contents

THE

The FUTURE! GALLERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 (futurepast) INNERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 (Kirby’s filled with K-Power) INCIDENTAL ICONOGRAPHY . . . . . 12 (pre-history to post-history Kamandi)

C o l l e c t o r

ISSUE #74B, SPRING 2018

FIFTH WORLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 (Kirby gets credit for Justice League) KIRBY KINETICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 (Captain Victory, past & future) JACK F.A.Q.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 ( Mark Evanier moderates the largest Kirby Tribute Panel ever) ANIMATTERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 (back to the Futuremen) SPACE-OUT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 (Kirby’s star children in 2001) COLLECTORISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 (two nerds in a pod) SPACERACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 (the nine lives of Tiger 21) COLLAGE: “TIGER 21” . . . . . . . . . 48 THE PAST! . . . . . . . . . FLIP US OVER!

Numerous images in this issue are courtesy of the Jack Kirby Museum and whatifkirby.com. You have our thanks forever, people!

This issue’s “Future” cover is a 1966 redesign for Tiger 21. Drawing & colors (Version B): JACK KIRBY

Don’t miss our alternate BULLSEYE cover (Version A)!

COPYRIGHTS: Big Ugly, Blackmass, Bombast, Brother Pias, Captain Victory, Coal Tiger, Egghead, Kamandi of the Caves, Starman Zero/Tiger 21, Tiger 21 collage, Unused Captain America design TM & © Jack Kirby Estate. • Atlas, Batman, Beautiful Dreamer, Big Barda, Big Words, Boy Commandos, Demon, Flash, Flippa-Dippa, Forever People, Fourth World, Gabby, Granny Goodness, Jimmy Olsen, Justice League, Kamandi, Kanto, Losers, Mark Moonrider, Merlin, Mister Miracle, Mother Box, New Gods, Newsboy Legion, OMAC, Orion, Parademon, Robin, Sandman, Scrapper, Scrapper Trooper, Steppenwolf, Super Powers, Superman, Tommy, Virmin Vundabar, Wonder Woman TM & © DC Comics. • Captain America, Devil Dinosaur, Dr. Doom, Eternals, Fantastic Four, Herbie, Machine Man, Moonboy, Mr. Fantastic, Thing TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. • Naga Goho and related characters TM & © Jack Vance. • The Black Hole TM & © Walt Disney Productions. • Justice League film, 2001: A Space Odyssey TM & © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. • Captain Nice, the NBC peacock symbol TM & © NBC Television. • La Guerre De Kirby TM & © Marc Azéma and Jean Depelley • Futuremen/Future Force TM & © Ruby-Spears Productions. • Bullseye, Fighting American TM & © Joe Simon and Jack Kirby Estates.

(above) An illustration apparently intended for a 1970s comics adaptation of the first of Jack Vance’s sci-fi Planet of Adventure novels, City of the Chasch (first published in 1968). In it, astronaut Adam Reith’s futuristic spaceship crashes in a star system 212 light years from Earth, and he encounters Naga Goho, the tyrannical ruler of a technologically primitive society, visualized here by Kirby.

The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 25, No. 74, Spring 2018. Published quarterly by and © TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. 919-449-0344. John Morrow, Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $12 postpaid US ($18 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $46 Economy US, $69 International, $20 Digital. Editorial package © TwoMorrows Publishing, a division of TwoMorrows Inc. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All Kirby artwork is © Jack Kirby Estate unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors. Views expressed here are those of the respective authors, and not necessarily those of TwoMorrows Publishing or the Jack Kirby Estate. First printing. PRINTED IN CHINA. ISSN 1932-6912

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Gallery

F UTURE PAST A Kirby art trip through the ages, with your tour guide Shane Foley

(left) Devil Dinosaur #2 cover.

Kirby’s super-intelligent scarlet tyrannosaur lived in the prehistoric past, not some other dimension or Ka-Zar’s Savage Land.

But elements of a sci-fi future— Kirby style—were not far away, with aliens and UFOs appearing very early in the series. I always found these particular ape-men of Kirby’s unconvincing. They had the facial hair and features of modern day ruffians, yet the total body hair of an ape—they looked to me like men in hairy suits.

(Then again, I guess I really do know some people like that! And their social manners are fairly Neanderthal!)

But look at this cover—only Kirby could make a dinosaur leaping like this look convincing!

Yet why was the copy flopped for publication? I can’t see a reason.... (page 3) First Issue Special #1 (Atlas), page 8 Moving chronologically forward somewhat to a time not unlike the Hyborian Age of Conan, Kirby’s “Atlas” dripped with potential. Would he have chronicled the stories of Kubla the Oppressor, the Headless Idol, the Gorgon masks, and the Warwomen of Nefra, as postulated in his presentation sheet? He certainly began with Chagra and the Crystal Mountain, as also presented there—yet we know from his OMAC presentation that he often went in a totally different direction as the muse caught him. Notice, on this page, that panels 1, 2 and 4 are not quite complete, with extra blacks being added by Jack before passing it on to be inked.

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(page 4) Demon #2, page 6 From there to medieval times, where Merlin and his demon Etrigan come hurtling into our modern day. Merlin as a presence soon faded from the book, but instead, episodes of Etrigan’s escapades in the past informed many of the stories, ensuring the Demon’s links to the past were maintained. This tightly drawn page

by Kirby was expertly inked by Mike Royer; the only change being where he insisted on adding his lettering credit!

(this page) Fantastic Four animation boards The pirate days of the 1700s and Blackbeard are where the FF time-hopped to, both in the original FF #5 and here, in these late ’70s storyboards, which reimagines the same story. The detail in these pencils is amazing, with a perspective in the lower frames that only Kirby could make work. I wonder if the lack of Kirby Krackle in the second and third tier is simply a choice by Kirby, or whether he was convinced that his miraculous creation would not work effectively in a moving cartoon?

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(page 6) Forever People #7, page 19.

Moving even closer to our own times, the Forever People’s brief banishment in time at the hands of Darkseid took them to the mid-1800s and Abraham Lincoln’s America. This is a neat episode where the young Supertowners nearly changed history by preventing Lincoln’s assassination. What an energyfilled page, with tension and drama drawn into every panel! (page 7) Jimmy Olsen #139, page 9.

Suddenly, we’re in the modern era, but with ideas of the future crashing in. When Kirby created these pages, cloning was an idea that few understood or even believed. But he saw the potential and ran with it. What we see scientists doing in this field today would surely not surprise him at all.

A surprisingly light-on copy of his pencils this time, with a few minor blacks added onto the published page—probably added by Kirby himself; but with Colletta at the inking helm, one can never be too sure. (page 8) Machine Man #2, page 13.

Conceived as Mister Machine in 1977, and debuting in a comic called 2001—yet being very much in the 20th century while displaying a fanciful technology far beyond its years—the Machine Man series certainly belongs in a “Futurepast” Kirby showcase. In his twelve-issue run (three in 2001: A Space Odyssey), Kirby went all-out to envisage what machine-like gimmicks could be attached to or included in MM’s technobody. Some of it was really offbeat, such as this sequence where he attaches unused car tyres (“tires” to you Americans) to his body, with Kirby even describing the detachment process. Some other ideas of Kirby’s were more unbelievable, such as where we find MM has retractable caterpillar tracks running just below the surface of his arms (MM #1, final page), but whatever gimmicks appealed or didn’t to the reader, it’s clear his ideas were as left-field as ever—and he wasn’t afraid to run with them!

(page 9) Eternals #2, page 8.

This series is another amazing mix of the ancient with the alien (read: futuristic). This page clearly demonstrates Kirby’s understanding that, often, an abstract shape or design can evoke a feeling of exotic and unknown possibilities, and when applied in an ancient format, gives the impression that the futuristic/alien has collided with that long-dead past. This notion was in overdrive in the Eternals, where his designs and locales depicted that collision on an epic scale. Of course, the genius of Kirby was that many of those designs were exactly the same as he used in totally futuristic settings, yet when drawn to appear carved in granite, our mind defaults to thinking of the past—and Kirby has succeeded in creating a convincing scenario yet again.

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(page 10) OMAC #2, cover.

This is a future that isn’t just an escapist read—it seems to me to be deliberately more prophetic of what Kirby feared could happen, albeit cast in a super-hero form.

As New Gods was to Thor (both about the gods on Earth, yet so very different in tone), so OMAC is to other futuristic strips Kirby did. And he’s relating a nightmare!

The possibilities of science in the hands of tyrants, and the fallout this can bring, is fodder for much of Kirby’s work. And such is the case with OMAC—yet OMAC has a very different quality to it. It seems harsher—more realistic (if that term can be applied to such a wild comic)—more down-to-earth. Its scenarios seem less like the plots of raving super-villains, and more along the lines of what real villains would do.

Note that DC added word balloons to the already wordy cover—and then greyed out the background to help clarity.

9

10

Innerview

(J) K-Power Interview Submitted by Jon B. Cooke

(below) In those pre-Macintosh days, K-Power briefly shone a light on the Atari, Commodore, and TRS-80 computers that helped start the revolution of personal computing.

(bottom) An Egghead commission piece, that may’ve been used by or pitched to B-movie studio Full Moon Productions. See if you can spot this illo elsewhere in this issue!

B

ack in 1984, K-Power magazine began its short life as “The Magazine for the Computer Generation.” Produced

by Scholastic, Inc., there were only eight issues published from February to November of that year.

Fans have long pondered what Jack Kirby would’ve been able to accomplish, if he had access to today’s desktop computer technology (especially how he could’ve used modern scanners and Photoshop to create his collages), but the first Macintosh personal computer didn’t debut until January 24, 1984, just as Kirby was winding down his career.

(Photoshop didn’t make the scene until 1988.) But that didn’t stop K-Power from picking The King’s brain about computers and robotics.

Issue #4 (May 1984) ran this (very short) Kirby interview. The interviewer, Jane Brettschneider, told us, “Around 1984, when John Holmstrom was editing K-Power magazine, I did some writing for him, including an interview with Jack Kirby about robots. All I knew about Mr. Kirby was that he had done something called Machine Man and had a character named Egghead, but wasn’t familiar with either. He quickly realized what a doofus I was, and graciously conducted the interview for me!

“Holmstrom assigned me to interview various people about robots, including Kirby. It was Kirby who felt sorry for me and conducted the interview.

I recorded it on my home answering machine—what happened to that tape? I transcribed the conversation and submitted it to Holmstrom, who was surprised I didn’t put any polish on it (obviously I was kinda dim). The Kirby section of the article in K-Power ended up as just a couple of short paragraphs that somebody else wrote from my notes, not in interview format. But what a great experience.” H 11

PreHistory...

Incidental Iconography

...To PostHistory!

An ongoing analysis of Kirby’s visual shorthand, and how he inadvertently used it to develop his characters,

by Sean Kleefeld

I

n this issue’s column, I’ll be taking a look at Kamandi, the last boy on Earth. You might think it odd to devote an entire column ostensibly talking about how Jack changed his character designs over time to center around certain iconic elements to a character whose design was scarcely more elaborate than a naked person.

But there are some interesting things to look at here, as with any of Jack’s work.

Despite Kamandi debuting

that survive, so we have to guess a bit at the plot, but we clearly have the strip labeled with Kamandi’s name.

While Arkamandas (presumably later nicknamed Kamandi) bears little physical resemblance to the last boy on Earth, Roag looks pretty familiar, wearing only a tattered loincloth and loose boots, with a small circlet keeping his long hair in place. Naturally, he doesn’t wield a gun like the later Kamandi, but he does keep a sheathed knife on his hip in the same spot. In effect, Roag’s garments are a prehistoric version of the same outfit we see Kamandi in when he first paddles past the destroyed Statue of Liberty.

It would seem that when DC editor Carmine Infantino approached Jack with the Planet of the Apes-inspired “kid alone in a post-apocalyptic world” idea, Jack (probably subconsciously) pulled some elements out his own work from the past to start developing Kamandi. The loincloth was updated to torn denim shorts, the boots became proper boots instead of leather wrappings, and the knife sheath became a gun holster. And while Roag’s circlet didn’t carry forward, Jack did give Kamandi a small bracelet on his left wrist in his initial pitch design [left], but this was dropped by the time Jack began working on the first issue.

in 1972, the design actually harkens all the way back to 1958. As you may recall, Jack spent some time in the late 1950s trying to launch some newspaper strips, the most successful of which was Sky Masters of the Space Force. One of his proposals that didn’t go anywhere was another adventure strip called Kamandi of the Caves, in which aliens land on a prehistoric Earth and leave a young Arkamandas there, to save him from being killed by the ruling class of their home planet. He’s evidently taken in by the primitive Roag the Hunter (not to be confused with Doctor Roag from Jack’s 1990s Topps Secret City Saga) and they likely have adventures together. There are only a handful of uninked sample strips 12

scrapped before even finishing the first issue.

Which leaves us back with the long-haired boy in torn shorts and boots, and packing heat. Curiously, it’s an amazingly memorable work for as derivative as it appears at first glance. The basic idea was swiped from a popular movie, and the name and seemingly simplistic character design were lifted from Jack’s older unsuccessful work. In theory, it shouldn’t be worth paying much attention to, but Jack quickly developed it into something iconic enough to be his most successful book at DC at the time! H Now you might think that’s pretty much it. Jack did give Kamandi longer hair in the story than his original pitch, but that stayed remarkably consistent (for Jack) throughout his run. In fact the published comics vary little in design, and pretty much all of the changes are explained as part of the story. (For example, when Kamandi is captured and his gun is taken away from him—a surprising attention to continuity that I know I certainly don’t normally associate with Jack’s work!)

Even the loose-fitting boots really never slip into skin-tight ones or gain a rollover cuff or anything.

However, there is one other interesting element worth mentioning: Kamandi’s shoulder-holster. You probably don’t recall this because it never made it to the published page, but in Jack’s original pencils, there is clearly a shoulder strap of some sort going across Kamandi’s chest and over his left shoulder. It’s not included consistently and, for some reason, it’s only visible from the back. It shows up twice on page four [right] and twice on page five of the first issue, but that seems to be it. Whether inker Mike Royer left it out because Jack never drew it from the front, or because Kamandi wouldn’t need a shoulder-holster when he kept pulling his gun from the holster on his belt, I don’t know. But it does seem to be a design idea Jack at least toyed with for a short while. Ultimately, though, it was an idea that he seems to have

13

Fifth World

Kirby’s Credit

by Robert L. Bryant Jr.

From Justice League: A parademon (right), Steppenwolf (below), and three Mother Boxes (center).

(bottom) In a dream sequence from Zack Snyder’s 2016 film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Batman views Darkseid’s signature Omega symbol amidst his troops’ carnage.

But this precursor didn’t lead to an actual appearance by Darkseid in the Justice League movie, just a name-drop. (next page, top) Amazons attack in a scene similar to the cover of Super Powers #3 (1984). (next page, bottom) You call this a Boom Tube? A missed opportunity from Justice League.

“Fourth World created by Jack Kirby.” hat’s what it says in the end credits of Justice League, Warner Bros.’ tentpole release for Thanksgiving 2017, the much-reshot, muchrewritten, much-CGI’d mash-up of DC’s movie heroes.

The credit, floating amid a torrent of listings for nearly every special-effects house and computer wizard in Hollywood, says a lot and says a little at the same time. Since no one in the movie uses the term “Fourth World,” the typical moviegoer might get a little… confused.

Zack Snyder, who directed most of the film before being sidelined by a family tragedy (Avengers director Joss Whedon completed the movie), told Comic Book Resources in 2016 that he was heavily tuned into Kirby’s Fourth World frequency during production. “Kirby’s crazy in a great way, and there’s a lot of influence, you know, the New Gods stuff, we were digging on that—and that’s the Mother Boxes and that sort of Apokoliptian world and all that,” he told CBR. “The kinda scope-y sci-fi cool, what I think is fun stuff. I think inherently when you start to talk about a bad guy that would justify the Justice League, you have to have a good threat that’s fun and kinda crazy. And the Mother Boxes are always fun, DC weird tech, you know?”

Let’s look at how much of the Fourth World— the god-war between Apokolips and New Genesis that played out in Jimmy Olsen, The New Gods, Mister Miracle, and The Forever People in the early 1970s— makes it into the movie.

DARKSEID: Justice League name-drops the granite-faced ruler of Apokolips, but he is not seen or heard. When the film was planned as a two-parter, many people assumed that the sequel would bring out Darkseid as the uber-villain. That’s still an option, but any sequel is now free to go in different directions… and it probably will, considering how poorly many critics responded to the Fourth World concepts. (Mother Box? Hee hee.)

T

APOKOLIPS: Darkseid’s hell-planet is alluded to, but not seen or mentioned by name. Maybe, maybe not, more to come in the sequel.

STEPPENWOLF: Kirby created the film’s big bad guy, but the movie Steppenwolf is not Kirby’s Steppenwolf.

Kirby’s character was a vicious warrior, a member of the elite with an eye for Apokolips politics but no apparent super-powers.

In the film, Steppenwolf is a huge goat-man-godthing, powerful enough to fistfight Superman himself.

(Kirby’s Steppenwolf was also Darkseid’s uncle; no such family connection is mentioned in the film.)

The movie Steppenwolf also commands a swirling army of …

PARADEMONS: Again, it’s Kirby’s name and concept, but the execution is far different. Kirby’s parademons were intelligent, speaking beings, soldiers of Apokolips, sort of flying trolls whose bodies were weapons. (Kirby: “Nothing equals the parademon for ferocity and speed!”) In the film, they are explained as victims of Steppenwolf who’ve been zombiefied and who seem to have been reborn as cyborg-robot-insect things with buzzing wings and glowing eyes. They do not speak.

And—get this—they feed on fear. Fear draws them like a discarded taco draws gnats. So if, say, Steppenwolf himself should fear for his life… you get the idea.

MOTHER BOXES: Again, a total Kirby concept, but used in a radically different way. Kirby envisioned Mother Boxes as living computers, linked to the Source, that aided their wearers in large and small ways.

Orion’s Mother Box soothed his Apokolips rage and smoothed his Apokolips face; they also allowed their users to “phase out” and dodge danger. Kirby’s Mother Boxes were benevolent god-tech you could carry in your pocket—cellphones with a soul. The Justice League 14

movie reimagines them as weapons of mass destruction, very much like the Tesseract from the first Avengers film (a gimmick apparently based on Kirby’s “cosmic cube” from his Marvel days). In Justice League, three Mother Boxes were hidden on Earth thousands of years ago to keep them from Steppenwolf. As Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) says in the movie, the Mother Boxes don’t “contain” power, they are power. If joined together, they can wreck a planet. At the same time, they can create what Steppenwolf calls the “unity.” The what? We never get a clear explanation, but it’s implied this can somehow remake Earth to Darkseid’s tastes or bring him here. In Justice League, Mother Boxes are crates full of doomsday… not at all what Kirby imagined.

BOOM TUBES: We never hear that phrase in the movie, but Steppenwolf travels by being swept into and out of swirling cylinders of light. Unlike Kirby’s creations, however, these things are vertical, not horizontal… and they don’t go boom when they appear. Could be Boom Tubes… or wormholes… or just the Apokolips Rapid Transit Authority.

NEW GODS: Steppenwolf uses this phrase in the film; he also refers to “old gods” who are gone now. Wonder Woman, he says with admiration, has the blood of the “old gods” in her veins.

Ah, well. At least Kirby has gotten some singular shout-outs from mainstream film critics savvy enough to know the Fourth World from the Fantastic Four—even if it all wasn’t cheers. (The A.V. Club’s reviewer griped, “Whether spoken in Gadot’s Israeli accent or in (Ben) Affleck’s Batman growl, the word ‘Mother Box’ sounds consistently ridiculous—one of those pieces of Jack Kirby-coined comic-book-ese that should never be spoken out loud.”) H JUST ANNOUNCED AT PRESSTIME! The word from high is that Warner Bros. has green-lighted a live-action film of Jack Kirby’s New Gods, helmed by acclaimed A Wrinkle in Time director Ava DuVernay (right). Look sharp, look up, and look out, Fourth World fans! The Great One is coming to a big screen near you soon!

15

An ongoing examination of Kirby’s art and compositional skills

Captain Victory, Past & Possible Future

DC

(above) These figures appeared on a 1981 Pacific Comics press release, announcing Jack’s upcoming Captain Victory series. The inking is undoubtedly Mike Royer’s work, indicating these were done well before Pacific decided to publish the series, so we believe these were drawn to accompany Jack’s original Captain Victory screenplay.

Comics and Warner Brothers, in an attempt to establish a cohesive cinematic DC Universe to match Marvel’s, is gradually introducing us to some of the early ’70s Kirby characters from the Fourth World, such as Steppenwolf, and even the villainous Darkseid. It is only a matter of time before we will see the relationship between Darkseid and the Source.

This should be an interesting cultural moment because at some point more people will begin to see a similarity between those concepts and another high profile sci-fi film franchise.

At some point, DC will probably introduce Orion into the mix, and his status as Darkseid’s son and potential heir to the “Dark Side” of “The Source” will also be outed into the mainstream. What then? How well will they cinematically elucidate Kirby’s somewhat Manichean cosmology?

What is fascinating is that very late in Kirby’s career, he revisited those concepts in order to put an entirely different spin on them for at least one possible future.

After leaving Marvel for the last time, circa 1978 Kirby created Captain Victory, which was eventually published by Pacific Comics in 1981. Throughout the Seventies, as a result of a boom in sci-fi-based films such as Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the notion that Earth would be visited by beings from another world was an idea that the King also felt compelled to exploit. In Kirby’s series, the extra-terrestrials visiting Earth were not nearly as friendly as the cuddly E.T. or the seemingly benevolent aliens from Close Encounters, and a force of Intergalactic Rangers was necessary to fend them off.

With Pacific Comics, Kirby retained the copyrights as well as complete creative control over his creations.

The King proceeded to let his imagination run wild, exploring the strange edges of precisely what a Galactic Ranger might be composed of.

Captain Victory was a powerful and enigmatic addition to the Kirby-verse, as well as another reason to unleash dynamic spectacles for his readers’ enjoyment. Here in CV #1 [left] is one of my favorite double-page spreads, with a bravura display of Kirby’s uncanny sense of spatial design, as the Captain uses an amazing device to fend off invaders as they burst through a space wormhole.

In the twelfth issue [above], Captain Victory reveals his incredible past, when he tells a group of amusing alien creatures how he came to be a Captain in the Rangers. He tells them of his home planet, and its description is quite similar to the 16

New Gods dark world, Apokolips.

When we see the young Captain, we are instantly reminded of Kamandi, or perhaps Angel from Boys’ Ranch.

The long blond-haired boy is some sort of archetype that Kirby has used several times throughout his career. We see the boy in the presence of a hideous creature called Big Ugly [right]. Through the older Captain’s recounting of his boyhood, we learn that he once served his grandfather, helping him to defeat and subjugate the elder’s enemies.

The grandfather is referred to as “Blackmass.” In the following pages, we learn that the boy has been shocked and horrified by the treatment meted out to the defeated.

On page fifteen [below], he speaks to an advisor named Brother Pias about his own unsuitability for being a part of the ruling elite family. When the boy leaves the room, we hear the ominous voice of Blackmass, instructing Pias

to “Leave him to me!” This is all beginning to again sound vaguely familiar.

The boy confers with a giant computer named Turai, whom he has befriended. The computer seems to encourage the boy in his revolt against authority. He tells the boy that “Victory is Sacrifice” and “Continuity is tribulation!” These words will be heard again from a different character.

When Big Ugly later shows himself to be savage beyond reason, the young Captain shoots him. The boy then decides to escape, and the computer will assist him. The voice and shadow of Blackmass pursue the boy as he flees down a corridor [below]. When he is cornered, the boy realizes that the voice has no actual power of its own, and is only a voice and a shadow. Turai helps the boy to reconstruct a vehicle that will allow him to travel throughout space.

That vehicle, the astro-harness, is based on a design by his father. By these and other clues, we are forced to come to the conclusion that he is the son of Orion, and that grandfather Blackmass is the spent and dissipated life force that had once been Darkseid.

Eventually crash landing on another world, the young Captain Victory meets a space ranger named Captain Flame, who is conducting strange experiments on the native

population in order to get them to evolve in a hurry. Flame is attacking them with ever increasing technical complexity, forcing them to continuously adapt and to defend themselves and counterattack. Flame gets the boy to agree to join the Galactic Rangers, and in exchange he agrees to stop the war on the people. As the boy flies off, Flame keeps his promise to end the war by deactivating the force field around his compound, enabling his attackers to destroy him.

In his last musings to himself, he uses the same words that Turai,

the computer did in speaking to the boy. “Victory is sacrifice.

Sacrifice is continuity. Continuity is tribulation.” This is a powerful statement that is likely close to Kirby’s own experience and realizations that he has internalized.

So, one possible future is that DC will get the rights to Captain Victory and this nuanced backstory will be woven into the greater scheme of things. One can dream. One never knows…. H 17

Mark Evanier

Jack F.A.Q.s

A column answering Frequently Asked Questions about Kirby [This has to be the largest Kirby Tribute Panel ever conducted, in terms of number of panelists.

Since Comic-Con 2017 commemorated Jack’s 100th birthday, it’s only fitting that the stage ended up fully packed, with not enough chairs for everyone. So rather than give a full list of the panelists—some who never got to speak due to the all-star crowding—we’ll just let readers be surprised as they read the responses, and see the special guests in the photos. Enjoy!]

2017 Comic-Con International Kirby Tribute Panel

Photos by Chris Ng

MARK EVANIER: Good morning everyone. This is the Jack Kirby Tribute Panel. I’m Mark Evanier. This is the Centennial Jack Kirby Tribute Panel... [applause] As I’ve been telling people, if Jack had been as immortal as his creations, we’d be celebrating his 100th birthday with him on August 28th of this year. But, you know, while I miss this guy every day, when I come to a convention like this, I look around and I see Jack everywhere. Not only do I see characters he designed; not only do I see Kirby artwork; I see people who were inspired by Jack or people who were inspired by people who were inspired by Jack. And it’s not just comic books. It’s movies, it’s television, it’s sciencefiction, it’s video games... I haven’t seen a video game yet that didn’t have some Kirby element in it someplace.

Held July 23, 2017 at Comic-Con International: San Diego.

Transcribed by Sean Dulaney, and copy-edited

by Mark Evanier and John Morrow.

(right) Sunday, January 6, 1980 Black Hole strip. Jack penciled it, working from the supplied rough layout (next page, top right), then Mike Royer inked it, making minor adjustments when needed to keep the characters on-model. (next page, bottom) January 25, 1987 Sunday Los Angeles Times article on Jack, which delved into his original art battle with Marvel Comics.

I am a very happy person this year, because I see Jack’s fame expanding. Last weekend at D23, which is what this convention would look like if Disney owned it, they made Jack a Disney Legend. Now some of you will say, “Wait a minute.

Jack Kirby didn’t really work for Disney.” He only did one real job for them, The Black Hole newspaper strip, and Mike [Royer] got him the job. [laughter] Isn’t it nice how it turns around and Mike Royer is getting Jack Kirby work? [applause] So, watch that video. If you think it’s odd that Jack was made a Disney Legend, watch that video on YouTube of the film 18

package they did and listen to the lovely acceptance speech Jack’s son Neal gave, which was just perfect and touching and on-target and on-point, and you’ll see Jack Kirby credited—as he always should have been—as the full-fledged co-creator of all those characters. [applause] As many of you know, this came about because of a lawsuit: A legal situation. I wish that I could stand here and tell you Marvel put Jack’s name on that stuff out of decency and a sense of rightness and justice... [laughter from audience] but I made that argument for thirty-some years and individuals at Marvel always said, “You’re right. You’re absolutely right,” and someplace, some corporate type would stop it. And finally, they did it. I actually think Disney may be bending over backwards a little bit to try and right the record, because they recognized how long Jack’s role was not acknowledged. [applause] But, I’ll tell you one little thing here. When the lawsuit came up, as many of you know, I spent way too many hours of my life testifying and working with [Kirby attorney] Marc Toberoff, and getting depositions. This fellow sitting up here, Jamie Coville, who’s been to most all these panels and he audiotapes—well, it’s not tape anymore, but you know what I’m saying. He records these things and he puts them online.

This is where you listen to panels you didn’t get to attend, or hear them again, and the people at Marvel found his website and hired someone to listen to every single one, listening for me. [laughter] Any word I said. And we improvise up here. I’m not giving a prepared speech and I say things wrong sometimes and get the words out of order and screw up and sound like the President of the United States every so often. [laughter] So, meanwhile, some of the people supporting the Kirby side come to me saying, “This guy, Jamie.

He works for Marvel, right? He’s going to panels and recording everybody.” It got very paranoid and very obsessive—but I spent, at least, a good hour in deposition explaining things I said on the 1997 Kirby Tribute Panel. “What did you mean by this?” And I go, “No, no. You got the words wrong...” And all that’s in the past. All these guilt feelings and upsets and things are in the past. I think all we as Kirby fans need to do is let it propagate. Let it spread to all the people around the world. It may take a year or two or three. There’s no books in print that say otherwise. But eventually the whole world is going to accept that these characters were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. End of argument. [applause] You know, there’s always that saying from during the Vietnam War, which is “say we won and go home.” I think Kirby fans should say we won and go home. I’m so happy with all of this.

Anyway, with this panel we’re going to have an awful lot to

cover here, so I’m not going to talk much. Folks, you all know Mr. Mike Royer. [applause] You know Mr. Paul Levitz. [applause] You may not know as well, but you should really know one of the best editors I’ve ever worked for, Mr. Jim Chadwick. [applause] The attorney for the Rosalind Kirby Trust, Mr. Paul Levine. [applause] And I—please be brief—I would like to have anybody in the room tell us, briefly, about any Kirby-related projects they have going. You get one minute, folks.

This is Barry Geller. [applause] BARRY GELLER: Thank you. One of the most interesting things that has happened this past year is the recognition that the work that Jack and I did is now in [The International] Spy Museum [in Washington, D.C.], showing Jack’s pictures and my script. And it shows, more important than anything else, that Jack’s work affected our culture and—it changed everything. So that’s always there. It’s something phenomenally in my heart. The Jack Kirby Museum President, Tom Kraft, and I have completed a set of museum-quality prints of those, and they are at the museum and online. And it shows, again, that part of history that was shared.

And we’ll have a film of Mike Royer, myself, and Tom going over all the details of what Jack wanted and why

(right) Images from the 52-minute French documentary La Guerre de Kirby (“Kirby At War”), directed by Marc Azéma and Jean Depelley. The film was very successful in France, being aired all over the country on local stations of France 3, the country’s public television network. Interviewed for the documentary were François Cochet, Joan Sfar, Boris Cyrulnik, José Ladrönn, Dominique Sardin, Rand Hoppe, Mark Evanier, Lisa Kirby, Tracy Kirby, Jillian Kirby, Jeremy Kirby, and TJKC editor John Morrow. It features some amazing video footage, including a home movie showing Jack at his drawing table sketching Darkseid. (below, left to right) Andrew James, Arlen Schumer, Tom Kraft, and Rand Hoppe.

he wanted [it], and, of course, all the secrets you never even knew of Mr. Mike Royer’s indomitable inking. And finally—but not for least—Valhalla Entertainment and Universal Cable Productions have decided to turn Lord of Light into a four-to-five-year TV series. [applause] Of which, a percentage of my salary will be going to the Estate, but that’s how this whole movement or its life is coming together this year. [applause] EVANIER: Andy, you’ve got one minute.

ANDREW JAMES: I’ll keep this very brief.

Titan Comics is producing a brand new series of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s Fighting American, continuing the original Fighting American story with the original Fighting American and Speedboy in the present day.

It’s going to be written by Gordon Rennie with art by Duke Mighten and we hope to capture the original series’ madcap energy and fabulous invention, emotion and humor. It’s fully endorsed by the Simon and Kirby families. We’re delighted to have their support and enthusiasm. The first issue will be on sale in October and is available for preorder through your local comic store now and at the convention. Our booth is just inside Hall C, and we have this special ashcan preview. We have a flip-cover by Kirby and pencils of issue #1 by Terry Dodson. It reprints the original origin story and pages from the new #1. We hope you stop by and check it out. Thank you very much. [applause] EVANIER: Arlen, come up. We don’t get into enough depth sometimes about Jack’s work in these panels.

I wish we had dozens of these panels. But one of the people who does very interesting analysis and lectures and such is our good friend, Arlen Schumer.

ARLEN SCHUMER: Thank you, Mark. I was very lucky to be able to present my Jack Kirby visual lecture yesterday.

If you 20

missed it, you can go to my website, arlenschumer.com.

If you’re in the New York area in October, the day after the New York Comic-Con ends, I’ll be presenting the Jack Kirby Centennial visual lecture at the 97th Street Y in Manhattan. I look forward to seeing you all there, and thank you very much. Glad to be here. [applause] EVANIER: We often talk about the fine work of the Jack Kirby Museum. Let’s hear from the two gentlemen who made it possible, Tom Kraft and Rand Hoppe. [applause] You only get ninety seconds because there are ten people left to speak.

TOM KRAFT: We’ve been working on a number of projects, including myself with The Lord of Light. Also, I designed and finally got IDW to publish Pencils & Inks last year. There was an announcement earlier in the year that we’re going to do a second volume that’s going to be based on splashes and covers. That will probably come out next year at some point. I haven’t designed it yet.

RAND HOPPE: We’re going to have a few events around the New York City area. We’ll show up at the Baltimore Con and the New York Con and there’ll be a “draw-off ” event. There will be a party the weekend of August 25th through the 28th in New York City. Haven’t pushed the button on the location yet, but it will happen. So if you’re around, check the social media. I guess that’s it. Come to our website. Come to the booth. [laughs] [applause]

EVANIER: Jean?

of my grandfather this year, that would be amazing. Thank you so much for all your support. [applause]

JEAN DEPELLEY: I am Jean Depelley from France and we are working on a documentary film on Jack’s time at war in France.

Because as you know, he fought in the DornotMoselle area. This film will be programmed on French TV at the end of the year. It will pay tribute to Jack, his time there, and all the G.I.s who died at the Battle of Dornot. We will try to show the consequences of this war on the man and his art. [applause]

EVANIER: Continuing with the Kirby relatives, that’s Tracy Kirby over there. Tracy, take a bow. [applause] And Jeremy Kirby over in the first row… [applause] I want to talk about some other Kirby comic projects starting with Jim. Jim is an editor at DC. Would you tell them what DC is up to these days with Kirby?

JIM CHADWICK: So, basically this project was conceived by our co-publisher Dan DiDio, who is in the audience here. [applause] He handed it to me to edit and basically the directive was that we want to honor Jack’s creative things for DC, of course, and we assembled an all-star lineup of creators— cross-generational—and Dan’s directive was, basically, let them go nuts and have fun. So, starting August 2nd, which is a week from Tuesday, every week of the month we’ll be doing a special that is based on one of Jack’s creations. That will be every week in August except the last week in August when we do two. So it will be a New Gods Special with Shane Davis that includes an Orion story by Walter Simonson. We’re doing a Newsboy Legion meets Boy Commandos story by Howard Chaykin. We are doing a 1940s Manhunter Special which is written by Keith Giffen, Dan, and drawn

by Mark Buckingham. That will also have a short Demon story with art by Steve Rude. Paul [Levitz] is doing a short OMAC story for us with art by Phil Hester. Mark [Evanier] is doing a Darkseid story with art by Scott Kolins. And then we have a Black Racer Special by Reggie Hudlin, Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz. And, I think... did I cover everything? Anyway, the hardest thing about doing this was saying “no” to people. Because once word got out we were doing this, the phone was ringing constantly. “Can I get in on this?” “Is there room for me to do this?” And, unfortunately, there were a lot of people we just had to say no to. But I do think you’ll enjoy it. Basically, all these people just love Jack. That’s why it was easy to get people to contribute, because they all want to do something with his characters, and the legacy lives on. [applause]

EVANIER: John Morrow. Come on.

JOHN MORROW: New Kirby Collector.

Kirby100. Both shipping on Jack’s birthday next month. [applause] EVANIER: John is a guest of honor at the convention this year. Rightfully deserved. [applause] For the balance of our time you’re going to be hearing from a lot of important people in the world of Jack Kirby, but none more important than the wonderful guests we have in the audience. I want to first introduce Lisa. This is Lisa Kirby, Jack’s daughter. [applause] Next to Lisa is Jillian Kirby, Jack’s granddaughter. [applause] Jillian, I don’t know if all these people were at the other panel. Would you like to come up and say something about Kirby for Heroes? Come on up. [applause] This is an amazing cause and maybe she can tell you the numbers.

JILLIAN KIRBY: If you weren’t at the “Kirby Friends and Family” panel the other day, I founded a charity campaign called Kirby for Heroes in 2012 which raises money for the Hero Initiative, which provides medical and financial assistance to comic book creators, writers, and artists in need. Since 2012, we have raised a little over $70,000 for the Hero Initiative and we hope to reach $100,000 this year in honor of my grandfather’s 100th birthday. Comic book retailers across the country, individuals, and other organizations have been donating money to the Hero Initiative in honor of my grandfather’s birthday each year. So if you want to check us out on Facebook or our website and donate to the Hero Initiative on behalf

(top) Now shipping from TwoMorrows is Back Issue #104, covering the Fourth World After Kirby. With a spectacular Steve Rude cover, it features numerous takes on Jack’s characters by other top creators, including many of the talented folks featured in this Tribute Panel. (bottom) An “extra” tier of Sunday art for Jack’s Sky Masters newspaper strip, used to fill up excess white area that was on some newspapers’ funny pages.

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DAN DIDIO: Let me jump in on that too, because while we have the Kirby 100th birthday specials, we’ve also been doing Kamandi Challenge for the entire year. That really kicked it off back in January. And I have to add to what Jim said, the reason we did Kamandi Challenge the way we did—which is basically a different creative each book—is because so many people wanted to be involved in the project. And this was a great way for everyone to celebrate something that inspired them to be creators. And even if they weren’t able to work on the interiors or write it, they did covers... any other way to touch it. It’s been such a great project for us. I think—and I’m always going to go back to Paul [Levitz] on this—one of the things Paul did with DC Comics was make sure we keep all this product in print all the time. [applause] The main goal for us is all the Kirby material will always be in print because we feel it’s such an important part of our legacy, but also it’s just great material and it’s fun stuff to read. We always encourage everybody, if you want to know what to pick up for somebody’s first comic, these are some of the best things to read. [applause]

to enrich the DC mythology and enrich what the toyline could eventually be developed as. Jeanette Kahn and I were both enormously sympathetic to what Jack had been going through, and generally sympathetic to the older generation of creators, not having gotten the opportunities economically that, in a better world, they would have. And we figured out that, “Well, we can’t completely undo the past. But if we hire Jack to redevelop and add to the New Gods mythology—do some new drawings, do some new thinking; he remained one of the great creative minds ever in comics, obviously —maybe we could justify going back and turn the clock back a little bit and give him a piece of the action on what would ultimately be the licensing and TV exposure, because we would integrate these characters into the Hanna-Barbera Super Friends/Super Powers materials. Some toys, but also good creative tools. Working with Paul Levine and Steve Rohde, who I guess was your partner?

PAUL LEVINE: No. Steve was my boss. I was a very young lawyer. In 1983 I had been out of law school for a total of two years, when my boss comes into the office one day and says, “I’d like you to meet Jack Kirby.” And I said, “Who?” [nervous laughter from audience] And he explained Jack’s history, as Paul just said, with Marvel, etc. And I looked up at Jack... Actually, he looked up at me because I was taller than him [laughter] and I confessed to him that when I was a kid, I only had read DC Comics and had never read Marvel Comics.

He smiled and said to me, [imitating Kirby’s voice] “Kid! We’re gonna get along just fine.” [laughter] It was my great pleasure to work with Paul and negotiate, what was probably then the very first deal I had negotiated. Paul was very kind and took great pity on me. And we ended up crafting an agreement, which I still have a copy of to this day, saying exactly what Paul just said. You know, as a lawyer, you

CHADWICK: We’re doing a 1970s Sandman Special with art by the super-talented Jon Bogdanove who is... over here.

EVANIER: Jon? Come on up. [applause] I don’t have a nameplate for Jon, sorry. Now we’re going to talk with Jon in a moment. Paul, you were very much responsible for Jack having been real happy with DC Comics. Can you talk a little bit about what happened there?

PAUL LEVITZ: So, in the early ’80s, Jack was in a very frustrated period, in particular with his relationship with Marvel, but sort of with what had happened over the course of his career. We had reached the point in the comic book business where creators’ rights and creator deals were starting to get civilized, and Jack unfortunately was in the stage of his career where... there was a limited degree from where he could take advantage of it. Most of his great creations had already been done and he was fighting some battles with Marvel over the return of some original art—rather publicly—and many of us had great sympathy for that.

DC had just gone out and started development of a new line of super-hero toys, what would eventually become Kenner’s Super Powers line, and one of the challenges for DC in those years was that we didn’t have as many great villains as we would have liked. The suggestion came up of using Darkseid and some of the elements of the New Gods and Fourth World material 22

never quite know what the ramifications and implications are of what you’re doing at the time. For lawyers it’s contracts and words on the page. But the words on the page ended up creating what we now know.

LEVITZ: Jack, for the rest of his life—because the struggles with Marvel in one fashion or another went on past his own lifetime—Jack and Roz were both kind enough on any number of occasions to express their joy that... they didn’t make a ton of money off Darkseid and the New Gods material, but they got to take pride in the fact that they were making money off it and were making more money off it than they were making off all of his creations for the rest of the Marvel Universe.

I’m thrilled he’s now made a lot more money off the Marvel characters... [applause] but I’m really happy to have made him happy during his lifetime and, hopefully, I don’t know, bought Lisa a Christmas present somewhere in the process [laughter], or bought the bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah present for one of the grandchildren along the way, or something useful and made their life a tiny bit better.

EVANIER: Thank you, Paul. [applause] I’m one of the first persons to bash publishers when they don’t do the right thing. I am so pleased that DC Comics has this strong tradition of being creator-friendly, being good to people, righting past wrongs… and Jack was not the only past wrong that they’ve righted at DC. I’d like to bring up a friend of mine, the daughter of Bill Finger, Athena Finger. Come on up. [applause]

FINGER: Oh, it’s been so wonderful to see Bill finally get the recognition and the credit that he sorely deserves… [drowned out by applause] part of the inspiration for other creators and writers and artists. He really was an influence for many of us. So it’s just been wonderful to see all of the recognition.

ATHENA FINGER: Hello. I’m seeing a lot of friendly and familiar faces, which is nice. This is great. I’m so honored to be here.

EVANIER: And we’re glad that Athena’s with us because she’s going to come out a lot more to help represent Bill Finger. And incidentally, the recipient of this year’s Bill Finger Award is… Jack Kirby. [applause] Also, the other day Jack received this convention’s highest award, the Icon Award, which they don’t usually give posthumously. They changed the rules for Jack, which is appropriate because every place Jack went, he changed the rules. [applause] We’ve got one more chair open at the moment.

I think we should bring up one of the best writers who keeps on the Kirby tradition, Mr. Kurt Busiek… [applause] Kurt is also one of the judges of the Bill Finger Award, I don’t mind adding. Kurt, you, like me, are very

EVANIER: I have this great weight on me I talk about at other panels about Jack not getting his proper credit. I have a smaller, but still very present weight about Bill Finger. I knew Jack a long time and I met Bill Finger for about a whopping seven minutes once. And it bothered me for years, and—this is just something I have to share, how full my heart is about this stuff. I’m so happy when I see credit for these people. I’m so happy when I see Jack’s name on something, when I see Bill’s name on something… you must be delighted about this.

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(above) Cover pencils for Super Powers #5 (second series) by Jack, one of the final jobs of his career. (previous page) Cover pencils for Sandman #4. (below) Bill Finger, in one of the few known photos of him, from a 1980s Eclipse Comics card set.

(below and opposite) Jack was not only drawing several books a month of his own at 1960s Marvel—he was doing layouts for other artists like George Tuska, as shown here from Tales of Suspense #70 (Oct. 1965).

happy to see Bill Finger’s name on stuff, to see Jack’s name on stuff. Talk a little bit about it.

KURT BUSIEK: I’ve always been very interested in comics history. What went on behind the scenes, not just… I mean, anyone who has read my work knows I’m very interested in what went on between the stories. But also, who did what, how things worked… what was the human side of things?

And as I learned more about comics’ history, two things that you knew were Jack Kirby was never going to get proper credit for all the work he did, and Bill Finger was never going to get credit for Batman. And they did. [smattering of applause before he continues] The world changed.

It’s wonderful to see an injustice—or, in this case, two—that you just knew, “Oh, it’s a matter of contracts

and it will never be fixed,” and… it got fixed. I was going to say “we” got it fixed. I meant “we”, the industry.

I didn’t actually play a part. [laughter] But, yes. Very happy.

EVANIER: Thank you, Kurt. Now, tell us briefly, how do you feel when they come to you and say, “We want you to write this Jack Kirby character”? Is it different from other assignments you get?

BUSIEK: In some cases, it’s hugely different. Recently—a couple of years ago, I did a project for Dynamite Comics with Alex Ross called Kirby: Genesis, where we got to take all of the Kirby creator-owned properties. Not merely the ones that saw print, but just this cornucopia of sketches, notes, and concepts, and built the project out of those. In some cases we’d be working with something, that I want to say and be appropriate, it was only a sketch. “Here’s a character named Andron,” who—with Kirby—“only” a sketch meant so much.

Because just looking at a single drawing of a character, you can tell so much about the character. There was so much implied. So much atmosphere and… flavor to it, that I didn’t feel like I was co-creating something off of an artist’s sketch. I felt like I was unearthing what was implicit in that drawing. [applause] EVANIER: Jon, talk to us about drawing Kirby characters.

JON BOGDONOVE: Well, there is no artist working in super-hero comics—the good ones anyway—that aren’t profoundly influenced by Jack Kirby. It doesn’t matter if they know it or not. You can’t really understand or place anything of value in the medium without having absorbed some of the lessons. I guess I’m up here because I’m one of the artists who is lucky enough to know that I stand on the shoulders of giants. Because Jack did more than just create all these immortal characters that have indeed become part of our cultural mythology. He also really invented, or elevated to the point of invention, the visual language of super-hero comics, as well as a lot of other genres, but in my case… virtually all of the techniques of visual storytelling that we use, come from things originally from Jack’s imagination. They’ve been processed and reprocessed by every succeeding generation. I don’t think I ever draw a line that isn’t influenced by Jack. I don’t ever solve a storytelling pictorial problem, that isn’t in some way either drawn directly from a lesson I learned from Jack Kirby or is an outgrowth from something I learned from Jack Kirby. And this only increases as I get older.

The closer I come to mastering my craft, the more I appreciate what the greatest master of us all did. So it makes me enormously glad and happy to be part of a generation who gets to see Jack receive the recognition that he deserves, and it makes me really happy to be part of a comics community that saw that through.

I guess I’m supposed to plug Sandman, but Jim’s done a good job with that, so I’d just as soon not, [laughter] but I was really lucky to participate in a few

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Jack tributes this year and I think my favorite was doing a 14-page Sandman ’75 story. This is not Neil Gaiman’s version and it’s not… I think maybe this is the wonkiest version. [clapping and laughter] You know, generally speaking, Jack’s in everything I draw but I draw in a variety of styles. I’m sort of known as the guy who can draw like dead guys. [laughter] But when I cut loose and just draw super-heroes the way I want to draw them, Jack just comes through a lot and this was an opportunity to just completely geek out, so I leaned into it really hard. And it’s not like I was trying to imitate Jack, because here’s the interesting thing. I can draw like pretty much any Silver Age guy who ever worked at DC. Tell me to do Dick Sprang, I can do Dick Sprang. Tell me to do Curt Swan, I’ll do Curt Swan. I can pretty much differentiate between the guys who worked in the Shuster shop. But those guys are all sort of on a tier of talent that is equal to me, so I can pretty much nail them.

Jack is another level entirely. I didn’t try to imitate Jack so much as draw in my own natural style, but really letting all of my nerdom out, so that whenever I felt like I needed to rely on a Jack thing, it came out. And it ends up looking... pretty Jack-like. I don’t know. I’m actually very keen to get the feedback on it when it comes back. But one of the things about all these tributes—especially the ones that Jim has been editing—is they are just brimming with love.

They are clearly a labor of love and I’m really lucky to have been part of it.

EVANIER: Thank you, Jon. [applause] Let’s hear from some other artists who’ve done some important work with Jack’s characters. Mr. Brent Anderson is back there. Come on up, Brent. [applause] Also, Mr. Walt Simonson. [applause] BRENT ANDERSON: I’ll take this chair here on the end so I can escape. [laughter] EVANIER: Actually, why don’t you stay here with me and let’s call up Marv Wolfman [below right] and Louise Simonson. [applause] What do Jack Kirby characters mean to you as an artist?

and winning. Those were the characters I enjoyed. The characters Jack created, he created from the greater world. I create my characters in his. Thank you. [applause]

ANDERSON: Okay. Mark, thank you for inviting me to the tribute to say a few words about Jack.

My tribute to Jack Kirby, could really fill the hour, so just let me say this. I started drawing comics when I was 12 years old, about 15 minutes after reading my first Fantastic Four Jack Kirby comic book.

EVANIER: One of the things that I learned from Jack was that he wanted people to learn from him to be creative, but not to imitate him. There’s a quote from Jack I’m sure you’ve heard. There’s a new, revised version of my 2008 Jack Kirby book on sale... [applause] There’s some new stuff and we fixed a lot of typos and added one new one. [laughter] There’s a story, and I couldn’t believe I didn’t have it in the first one, but there was a time when Jack was looking at a fanzine and some current artist was taking over one of his old books and he said he was going to do stories in the “Kirby tradition.” And Jack said, “The kid doesn’t get it. The ‘Kirby tradition’ is to create a new comic.” [laughter] A little bell went off and I said, “I’ve got to save that.” That explains an awful lot about Jack. He loved that people drew new stuff that had his energy and creativity, but he really didn’t care if they drew stuff that people would mistake for his work. One person who did an awful lot of work on Jack’s characters whose

FROM AUDIENCE: Which issue was it? [laughter] ANDERSON: Which issue? Oh... hmm. Just keep this under two minutes. Trying to think. One minute now. [laughter] Of all the characters Jack created, the ones that appeal to me are the feisty little guys who will stand up to overwhelming odds and defeat them. Characters like Popeye knocking out Bluto. Mighty Mouse flying around and beating up the villainous cats. And Captain America going up against the Axis war machine 25

post-Kirby. I’m one of the post-Kirby guys. I took what I could. I never wanted to be the guy who “did Jack Kirby”, because you would always be second-, third-, fourth-, or fifth-rate Jack Kirby. I’m not a bad forger. I can do it if I have to. But it’s a lot of work. [laughter] I know Jon does it, but it takes a lot of work to try to “be” those guys. I’m better off being a first-rate Walt Simonson than like a fourthrate Jack Kirby. [clapping] Thank you. But I thought he remade everything. The way comics were story-told. Their energy. One of the things about Jack you don’t hear as much is the “acting” of his characters. Everyone is so wowed by his energy, which is phenomenal, but his acting is phenomenal. When he had Kanto of the Fourth World at DC, he’s bowing and wearing a Renaissance costume and his movements are like what you would imagine a Renaissance guy would be like. I don’t have a time machine, I can’t go back and look, but that’s the way it came across. So, that to me is what Jack was. I can’t think of any other artist I would regard as a watershed artist in that same way, where there are “pre-” this guy and “post-” that guy. Jack is the man standing in the middle who was “that guy” who split the industry between old and new. That’s one thing.

The other is, I didn’t think it was possible to appreciate Jack Kirby more than I already do. That turned out to be wrong. This is not meant to be a plug for any product, but one of the things that the Artists Editions that have been coming out from IDW and now from other companies have done, is they enable you to see facsimile editions of the actual art, scanned full-size reproductions of the artwork. They show the art, they show the cut lines, the rubber cement stains... they show everything. You see the art. And if you see some of Jack’s work in those full-sized books, especially the twice-up stuff, it is astounding!

We just thought, “Newsprint and crappy printing”—and it still looked great. But to see it in its full size... I was completely wowed.

It’s like discovering Jack again... for about the 25th time. It was just astounding to see that work and to see what he was able to accomplish at a time when it was piecework and he was just—he was doing it for love, clearly. And to make a living for his family and everything else Mark would say about it. It’s amazing stuff. If you get a chance, you know, buy one.

It’s absolutely worth it to look at one of those books and see what that work looks like in real life. It’s incredible and, as I said, I couldn’t actually have appreciated Jack more... and I do, which is really irritating. [laughter and applause]

art had all that dynamic quality and exciting freshness was Walt. [applause] Walt, talk about how a Kirby assignment is different from a non-Kirby assignment.

WALTER SIMONSON: Well, you can’t live up to the original for one thing. You just have to do the best you can do. I have two things I can say about Jack.

One of them is—I came up with this at this convention in another interview—which is, to me, Jack is like Prometheus. He brought fire to man. When he did his work, to me, in the ’60s at Marvel—I know the guys were there in the ’50s, but I don’t think the audience was as big as my generation. So, in the ’60s with Jack and his brilliant work at Marvel Comics, he reinvented the form to me, so he’s a watershed artist where you have artists who are pre-Kirby in the super-hero genre, maybe other genres as well, and you have artists who are

BOGDANOVE: Mike [Royer] has a great book of this sort out, where he has a photograph of Jack’s pencils next to the finished inks. And it does exactly what Walt said. It also shows the phenomenal fidelity of Mike’s inks, which is why he’s everyone’s favorite Kirby inker.

But that’s a really good one. Also, if you’re studying to be an artist and you’re trying to get these great Kirby lessons—everybody talks about the Kirby krackles and the Kirby machines and the extreme foreshortening and all the... stereotypical Jack tropes that you notice 26

when you’re ten. But the stuff that you notice when you’re 59 is even more amazing and it often comes down to what Walt was saying: The small storytelling solutions. The way the characters act. The way it’s staged, the way the scene is lit—which is another reason why Jack is a huge influence, not just on us, but on all kinds of filmmakers in all sorts of genres, not just the super-heroes.

EVANIER: If you go on the Internet, especially on Facebook, you’ll see an awful lot of debates about who was the best Jack Kirby inker. My tastes change from time to time, my views change. My tastes have currently evolved to where I feel that if they didn’t get the emotion of the faces, they aren’t very good inkers.

And some of them have done beautiful stuff—slick and wonderful and dynamic and they got that krackle—but they lost the expression in the faces and I think that’s like a doctor when the patient died.

Mike... I keep saying to people that I was an utterly unnecessary assistant to Jack, and it’s true. I had so little input. Maybe I fixed a typo on one page of script.

Jack got robbed so much of credit, I feel like I want to make sure nobody ever thinks I did anything really that important on his work. Somebody the other day gave me a good answer for this. Someone came up to me and said, “You always call yourself an unnecessary assistant. When people ask what you did for Jack, you say ‘nothing’. Why don’t you just say, ‘I helped him get a damn good inker’?” [laughter and applause] Now, I’m going to let Mike actually say something in a moment, but first I also want to emphasize that we have another great Jack Kirby inker in the audience who Jack loved dearly as a person but does not want to come up here, but let’s see if we can’t get Mike Thibodeaux to come up… [applause] There were only three inkers that Jack ever really hired in what we call the late postSilver Age, and they were Mike Royer, Bruce Berry, and Mike—this other Mike. He told a story at the “Friends and Family” panel the other day and I’d just like to tell an abbreviated version in here. That Jack met this Mike, not as a potential artist. He met him as a kid he liked. They hung out and invited him over and spent hours with him, giving him pointers and encouragement. And then one day, he said, “I want you to ink a piece of my work,” and you thought you did a dreadful, terrible job.

He gave you another chance. Pick up the story from there. How did you feel when he handed you a whole project to ink?

four weeks, and I did not have that ability, and looking at his art, I was too afraid to even work on it. But I asked him if I could just pick up a page or two—I was about a half-hour away from him, so I could just drive over and pick up one or two pages so I could take my time and ink this. [To Evanier] You want me to talk about the doughnut story? Is that where I’m going with this? [laughter] [Editor’s Note: See last issue for Mike’s charming doughnut story.]

EVANIER: The thing is, I think it’s—Jack didn’t just change all of our careers. He changed a lot of our lives.

Mike, is there a case of where you think of something, “Oh, Jack told me about that,” or we talked about this years ago, where you still hear his voice reminding us of things and influencing us? How did Jack Kirby change you as a human being?

THIBODEAUX: Everything he did. Gosh. I got to know the family really well. Jack found out I was into surfing at one point and said, “Why don’t you take my daughter out and go surfing?” [To Lisa] Do you remember this?

LISA KIRBY: I remember. [laughter] THIBODEAUX: But he was an extremely kind man. You wouldn’t believe how kind he was. But… I’m not sure.

You know, this is a huge question. I need to really think about it. You need to talk to Mike Royer. He’s got all the answers. [laughter] EVANIER: Well, since you’re up there, come on up. [applause] You talk a lot about the extended family.

How you didn’t just work with Jack, suddenly, you’re part of the family.

MIKE ROYER: I’m one of the few people that Kirby—Kurt yesterday talked about when he was very young,

MIKE THIBODEAUX: When I inked the first piece, he was very… he complimented me, but I knew it was just Jack. He complimented everyone. I was waiting for him to give me another piece to ink, and it seemed like he didn’t do that for about two years. [laughter] Jack liked to draw really quick, and he would give it to you and expect you to ink it within three or 27

(previous page) Kanto charms Granny Goodness in this page of pencils from Mister Miracle #8. (below) June 7, 1936 panel from the Flash Gordon newspaper strip, by Alex Raymond. Jack has always lauded Raymond as a major influence on him, but compare just how he used that influence.

This Boy Commandos #23 (1947) cover definitely takes its inspiration from the Raymond illo, but there’s no actual swiping or copying going on.

(below) From Mister Miracle #5, here’s a page where Mike Royer took it upon himself to pretty-up Big Barda’s face. As you can see, Jack took exception to the change, and proceeded to cut out his original penciled face from panel 3. He pasted it over Mike’s inked face, then had him re-ink it to match what he’d originally drawn.

calling the Kirby household and being invited out, and I almost stood up and said, “I’m that guy that Jack called.” [laughter] I was very, very lucky. And that first day with the Kirbys I was so incredibly intimidated, because Jack said, “You can just sit at my drawing board and ink it.” And it was like, my God, every 15 minutes he’s looking over my shoulder. Then we break for lunch, Roz made sandwiches. But by two hours, I felt like I was part of the family. And he was able to assess whether the inking came from my hand—he would have never known, if I’d gone home, who might have helped me with it. I found this out later.

But, the only time Jack was ever critical about my work was on, I think, Mister Miracle #5. It was a splash page of Big Barda holding a cannon, and I was influenced at the time by several other artists and I, quote, “prettied up her face,” unquote, in my mind. And Jack called, and he said, “Don’t. Change. The Faces.” [laughter] And he was absolutely right. And years later when I lobbied the people at Disney that the only artist who should draw The Black Hole is Jack Kirby, I said, because I’ll be in-house, I’ll ink it, letter it. And,

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Jack being an impressionist, I will make changes to the robots so they will be able to protect the trademarks.

But when he turned in the first Sunday page, I lettered it and inked it, and then the head of our department turned it over to another artist to “fix the faces.” [A moan from the audience] It only happened one time, because I marched into the boss’ office and said, “Don’t.

Change. The Faces.” [laughter and applause] EVANIER: Louise, you’ve been sitting here patiently listening to all this. Now, you were in the Marvel offices an awful lot as Jack’s work came in and out. You’ve worked on a lot of comics. What is different about the Kirby characters?

LOUISE SIMONSON: Oh, gosh. I approach it as a lowly writer as opposed to the important people, the artists, but I love his Fourth World stuff particularly. There’s so

much faith in his work and so much drama and so much power and emotion. And those are all things, when I try to make up a character or when I try to write a story, I go back to Jack because, obviously, he was the best at it. That’s kind of it, I guess.

express himself verbally as well as he could with a pencil. His mind raced from topic to topic and he would leap around and it was hard to stay ahead of him and understand what he was talking about. He would say things to me and I would say, “Yeah, Jack! That’s right.” I would have no idea what he was talking about. And then eight weeks later I’d go, “Oh! I get it now.” He was finishing a conversation we had six weeks earlier or something like that. Or sometimes he’d say something to me about Captain Marvel, and I wouldn’t understand at all what he was talking about. And then I’d say, “Oh, wait! Captain America.” It makes sense if you plug in Captain America. [laughter] He just got one noun wrong. And all the stories are like that. They’re very strong once you get through that. This is one of the reasons you don’t change the faces. You also don’t change the intent, because the intent is so brilliant. Even if you can come up with a different storyline or attitude about it…

EVANIER: Did you find that people were kind of jockeying for position? Where writers wanted to get on the Jack Kirby characters more and the artists wanted to do the X-Men? LOUISE SIMONSON: Well, I had the X-Men as an editor first, and yeah. But there were a lot of reasons they might have wanted to draw the X-Men. But, yeah. Everybody… yeah. The Fantastic Four, oh, seriously. And the Avengers, all of the Avengers characters. I kind of have the feeling they kept me away from those guys and gave me the X-Men, but they didn’t want me anywhere near the old Kirby characters and I have some understanding of this, but I just… I just love them. And I particularly love the power and emotion. [pause] And don’t change the faces. [laughter]

ROYER: Can I add? Everyone at this table is tremendously influenced

by Jack Kirby. And a lot of people don’t know that for 21 years, I was a product designer and character artist for Disney. The most creatively rewarding time of my career. But I always felt Jack was looking over my shoulder, so that everything I drew had to be, whether it was one static character, it would not be a static situation.

He really influenced me and even when I was drawing funny animals, it was always, “Jack would do this,” or “How would Jack do this?”

And I think everyone here will say that he definitely had an influence on them, whether you’re writing or drawing or whatever, and he had this influence on the whole world.

EVANIER: I’m looking at the stage’s Where’s Waldo assemblage up there. Is there a person I invited to be here that snuck in when I wasn’t looking? Good. I didn’t want to neglect some of the other people who said they were going to try and drop by.

The theme here seems to be that, Number 1: “Don’t change the faces…”.

LOUISE SIMONSON: Absolutely. That’s where the emotion is showing.

BUSIEK: That’s one of the reasons I’m very happy Kirby got the Finger Award this year. That, as a writer, I’ve never drawn a page of comics that’s been published, but a number of times I’ve approached a page and thought, “What would Kirby do?” Now I’m stuck on how to get this scene across, this emotion, this thing, this idea, and I’ll think, “Well, if it was a Kirby comic, what would it look like?” And then I’ll write that and it works. That’s the power of Kirby’s writing.

It’s in the art. In fact, Frank Miller just the other day said—an alternative point to all of this—somebody asked him, what was more interesting, the writing or the art. He said, “You’re talking about it like its two different things.” Because it’s all a piece, and Kirby was writing and drawing simultaneously with every line he put on paper.

It’s hugely influential whether you are drawing a comic or whether you’re writing, because he was showing us the way.

EVANIER: Number 2: Jack’s characters are these most fertile things that other people can continue to invent upon. And that they shouldn’t imitate him. And that’s one of the things we got to know with this panel.

LOUISE SIMONSON: Do you have anything about him being so strong thematically when he wrote and created stuff? The themes were massive.

EVANIER: No, but that’s good. You can expand on that.

LOUISE SIMONSON: Oh, dear. I thought you were going to. [laughter]

EVANIER: Well, Jack had this… The only thing I see comparable is EVANIER: Thank you, Kurt. A couple of our panelists have to leave when I’ve worked with improv comedians. Jack always knew where for another panel, so I’m going to end this about five minutes early he was going, but he’d change his mind along the way. And he, so we can have time for a good group photo shot. So I’d like to thank somehow, instinctively had these overarching themes going and he all these people. [applause] H had these storylines going, and sometimes you’d read a whole comic and you don’t know what it’s about. You read it again and you see, here is what Jack was sneaking up on. I remember kind of startling him one time when I mentioned the famous Galactus storyline, and Silver Surfer, and out of nowhere I said, “Were you thinking of the way different corporations were coming in and buying up smaller companies and devouring them, leaving them stripped of all their assets? Is that Galactus feasting on planets?” And Jack said, “No, no…

Well, yeah.” [laughter] And then I reread those stories—the way I sometimes try to read those comics, ignoring specific dialogue and looking at the pictures, asking myself, “What story are these pictures telling?” Which is not always the story the dialogue is telling. Sometimes they were the same and sometimes they were not. And when I read those issues of FF, looking back, I saw that storyline. It was in there. It was very subtle in places. I don’t know if Stan Lee was fully aware There was a lot of Kirby love at Comic-Con 2017, especially in the Tribute Panel. of it, because Jack may not have been fully aware of it. And Not everyone was in this group shot at the end, but hopefully you got a good sense of the experience of being there. Happy 100th, Jack! those of you who knew Jack know that he couldn’t always 29

Animatters

Back to the Futuremen

by John Morrow

P

reviously, all we knew about the Ruby-Spears concept Future Force is what we could glean from the 1994 Comic Images card set Jack Kirby: The Unpublished Archives—simply that its premise was heroes battling villains from the future. But digging through Jack’s archives uncovered the original penciled concept art, titled Future Men (possibly changed later since there was a female lead character).

Where they would’ve time-traveled and what villains they’d have fought, is lost to the sands of time.

But these presentation pieces (and several others we don’t have room to show here) give a glimpse of Jack’s creative thinking about the team, and a look at yet another example of a Kirby time machine design. H

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Space-Out

Star Children & New Seeds Jack Kirby’s Interpretation of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, by John Misselhorn

(below) Page 7 pencils from Jack’s 2001: A Space Odyssey Treasury Edition (1976).

Throughout the 1970s, you can find echoes of Arthur C. Clarke’s novels in Jack’s work, from OMAC (consciousness transferred into new, healthy bodies) to Eternals (the UniMind hearkens back to Clarke’s Overmind). (next page, top) Dave Bowman prepares for the (final) ride of his life. (next page, bottom) The final page of the 2001 Treasury Edition originally had a blurb alluding to the new ongoing series, but it was jettisoned for a typeset alternative.

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n 1976 Jack Kirby did a comic book adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey in a Marvel Treasury Edition format [right]. Then he continued with a comic book series expounding further on the ideas presented in the movie and novel. The opinion of extant scholarship on these works has been mixed. Indeed, the series has been described as weird (see the bibliography at the end of this article)! Kirby’s adaptation of the movie/ book, although very psychedelic like the movie, is fairly straightforward. But his real interpretations of the story and his own creativity are revealed in his ongoing series that followed. This article does not intend to review the past opinions, but rather present a fresh understanding of Jack Kirby’s 2001: A Space Odyssey comic book series as it relates to Arthur C. Clarke’s original novel.

First, it is necessary to present the most important themes of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel. Clarke was obsessed with the evolution of Homo sapiens into higher beings.

It was this aspect of Clarke’s themes that Kirby was most interested in. In his previous novels, Clarke had

speculated about human evolution and the possibility of immortality. In Childhood’s End (1953), the children of the last generation merged with a great cosmic being known as the Overmind.

In The City and the Stars (1956), the consciousness of each of the inhabitants of the city Diaspar was stored in a giant computer to be retrieved and placed into a physical body. Clarke would continue his musings on this theme in his novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

In Chapter 32 of 2001: A Space Odyssey, titled “Concerning ETs”, astronaut Bowman speculated how the aliens had created the Monoliths and were guiding human evolution—and by extension, how humans might be able to travel massive distances throughout the galaxy, and how they might evolve to accomplish this. Human bodies are so fragile, wear out, and have a short life span. Perhaps initially organic human brains could be transplanted into machines. Eventually the consciousness of the individual would be transferred into these machines, and the organic parts could be completely discarded. Finally all physicality could be abandoned, and we could become beings of pure energy, indestructible and immortal. Clarke even speculated how this is really no different from spirituality or even God: “There were other thinkers, Bowman also found, who held even more exotic views. They did not believe that really advanced beings would possess organic bodies at all. Sooner or later, as their scientific knowledge progressed, they would get rid of the fragile, disease-and-accident prone homes that Nature had given them, and which doomed them to inevitable death. They would replace their natural bodies as they wore out—or perhaps even before that—by constructions of metal and plastic, and would thus achieve immortality. The brain might linger for a little while as the last remnant of the organic body, directing its mechanical limbs and observing the universe through its electronic senses—senses far finer and subtler than those that blind evolution could ever develop.

“Even on Earth, the first steps in this direction had been taken. There were millions of men, doomed in earlier ages, who now lived active and happy lives thanks to artificial limbs, kidneys, lungs, and hearts. To this process there could be only one conclusion—however far off it might be. And eventually even the brain might go. As the seat of consciousness, it was not essential; the development of electronic intelligence had proved that. The conflict between mind and machine might be resolved at last in the eternal truce of complete symbiosis... But was even this the end? A few mystically inclined biologists went still further. They speculated, taking their cues 32

from the beliefs of many religions, that mind would eventually free itself from matter. The robot body, like the flesh-and-blood one, would be no more than a stepping-stone to something which, long ago, men had called “spirit.”

“And if there was anything beyond that, its name could only be God.” (Clarke 173–174) In Chapter 37—“Experiment”—from a universal perspective, Clarke finally describes how the ETs, who have been assisting in humanity’s evolution through the Monoliths, achieved their own immortality: “And now, out among the stars, evolution was driving toward new goals. The first explorers of Earth had long since come to the limits of flesh and blood; as soon as their machines were better than their bodies, it was time to move. First their brains, and then their thoughts alone, they transferred into shining new homes of metal and of plastic.

“In these, they roamed among the stars. They no longer built spaceships. They were spaceships.

But the age of the Machine-entities swiftly passed.

In their ceaseless experimenting, they had learned to store knowledge in the structure of space itself, and to preserve their thoughts for eternity in frozen lattices of light. They could become creatures of radiation, free at last from the tyranny of matter. Into pure energy, therefore, they presently transformed themselves; and on a thousand worlds, the empty shells they had discarded twitched for a while in a mindless dance of death, then crumbled into rust. Now they were lords of the galaxy, and beyond the reach of time. They could rove at will among the stars, and sink like a subtle mist through the very interstices of space. But despite their godlike powers, they had not wholly forgotten their origin, in the warm slime of a vanished sea. And they still watched over the experiments their ancestors had started, so long ago.”

(Clarke 186) Just as Moon-Watcher’s evolution had heralded the evolution of pre-humans into Homo sapiens, it is logical to think that so would Bowman’s evolution from Homo sapiens into the Star Child herald humanity’s evolution to the next stage. In Chapter 5, “Encounter in the Dawn,” of Part One,

“Primeval Night,” Moon-Watcher becomes fully cognizant of his newly evolved power: “For a few seconds Moon-Watcher stood uncertainly above his new victim, trying to grasp the strange and wonderful fact that the dead leopard could kill again. Now he was master of the world, and he was not quite sure what to do next.

But he would think of something.” (Clarke 32) Clarke next describes the “ascent of man” in Chapter 6, as all humans follow Moon-Watcher.

(Clarke 35-37) Finally at the end of the novel, after Bowman’s transformation into the Star Child: “Then he waited, marshaling his thoughts and

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ASoMonolithic Theme Jack Kirby’s interpretation of

Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in his series is consistent with the main theme of the novel, which is why this essay has attempted to elucidate Clarke’s main theme as interpreted by Jack Kirby.

In issue #1, the Monolith teaches a caveman how to make stone knives and spears, which he uses to kill a sabre tooth tiger. Then his modern counterpart, astronaut Decker, is marooned on an asteroid battling a monster in some ancient alien ruins. He enters the star gate of the Monolith, then streaks through time and space before finally landing in an idyllic rural setting and undergoing the transformation into the New Seed, which is Kirby’s term for Clark’s Star Child. In the final page of issue #1, the New Seed travels off into the cosmos. Like Clarke’s Star Child, Kirby’s New Seed can survive in the cold vacuum of space and travel freely throughout the universe without the aid of machines or spaceships.

Interestingly, even Clarke’s ETs required their consciousness to be contained within machines to survive before evolving into beings of pure energy. Apparently, human evolution into Star Children was even more dramatic, allowing our physical beings great power to move and exist in space; however, Clarke’s Star Child was still physical because its presence in space is detected by Earth’s atomic weapons defenses as it approaches Earth at the end of the novel. As we shall see, Kirby’s New Seed is also still physical.

In the second issue, Kirby begins with a story of early prehistory: A female, Vira the She-Demon, is able to communicate with

brooding over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something.” (Clarke 222) The Star Child was indeed a powerful being, but was still corporeal; however, it appears that it also had the power to transform itself into a non-physical entity: “But the child scarcely noticed, as he adjusted himself to the comfortable glow of his new environment. He still needed, for a little while, this shell of matter as the focus of his powers. His indestructible body was his mind’s present image of itself; and for all his powers, he knew that he was still a baby. So he would remain until he had decided on a new form, or had passed beyond the necessities of matter.” (Clarke 219) I think it is clear that Clarke intended that all of humanity, not just Bowman, would eventually evolve into Star Children—just as Moon-Watcher had heralded the evolution of pre-humans into Homo sapiens, and this is what Kirby chronicled in his series. So I think that the evolution of all of humanity into Star Beings, or as Clarke describes them, Star Children, assisted by a superior alien intelligence, is the real theme of Clarke’s novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Kirby was expanding on this theme. Interestingly, Clarke’s own sequels did not expand on his own theme of human evolution; Kirby, however, concentrated on this theme in his ongoing series.

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the Monolith in her search for food. She becomes so powerful that her tribe gives her food as an offering.

Then the female astronaut Vera Gentry on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede encounters hostile aliens. Fleeing into a cave, she discovers the Monolith and enters it in a time/space portal. Again, Kirby give us lots of very cool psychedelic images.

Finally Vera finds herself swimming in a swimming pool. After her exercise, she relaxes and transforms into a New Seed. She also departs to explore the universe. Of course, Jack Kirby does not discriminate—women can also evolve into higher beings!

In issue #3, we get the tale of Marak, the barbarian warrior king, who leads his Stone Age warriors in battle. He meets an old man who wields a metal weapon. The Monolith has taught him how to forge weapons out of metal.

Marak discovers the Monolith and it communicates with him as well. Marak has a vision of a powerful female named Jalessa, who beckons him to find her. He then forges weapons and armor out of metal, skills he learned from the Monolith, and embarks on a quest to find Jaleesa. In the process, he also discovers the wheel! [above] In issue #4, Marak leads his army, newly equipped with metal weapons, in battle against Jalessa’s army. But Jalessa can also communicate with the Monolith. Marak and Jalessa meet, as destined, and rule together.

The scene abruptly changes to its modern setting. Marik is commander of a space station that is being bombarded in a meteor shower. During a spacewalk, he encounters the Monolith, is swept into it, and ends in a world that is a paradise [right]. He meets a beautiful woman who has been awaiting him.

They decide to live together happily but, interestingly, do not transform into New Seeds. So apparently, not all humans are ready to evolve into New Seeds. But they do find love, and live together in peace. In these initial stories, Kirby is also chronicling the evolution of early technology, from stone tools to the skill of smelting metal and the use of the wheel—all, of course, guided by the Monoliths.

In issues #5 and 6, Kirby omits the story about early human evolution guided by the Monolith, and launches directly into the story of Norton of New York in the year 2040.

Norton has become bored with his illusionary life, trying to be a super-hero in Comicsville; he encounters the Monolith, and decides to pursue a real heroic life in space. During a mission orbiting Neptune, he finds an alien spaceship with a beautiful female alien princess. Norton becomes infatuated with her. Suddenly they come under attack by aliens who want to capture the princess. Norton resolves to save her. They escape in the alien princess’s ship to her galaxy, still being pursued by the hostile aliens. Although he saves the princess, he is severely wounded and transformed into the New Seed by the Monolith. So, all of Kirby’s stories have a great deal of variety. Each is a tale of human evolution and each is unique, within the context

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(previous page) Pencils showing Jack’s juxtaposition of past and future in 2001 #1 (top) and #2 (bottom). (below) Not every Homo sapien in Jack’s 2001 series evolved to a New Seed. Some, like Marik (below, in #4 pencils), find contentment after a lifetime of conflict.

an elegant poetic prose style. But they are really not so different. The difference is really only superficial and stylistic. Indeed, Kirby’s prose is also often beautiful and even subtle. Although I think that Kirby displays his own poetic eloquence—mainly in his Fourth World epic—his 2001 series also contains a few gems, as cited above.

In Kirby’s 2001: A Space Odyssey comic book series, Jack Kirby chronicled the evolution of Homo sapiens into Star Children or New Seeds, as he called them, following the pattern of the movie/novel, but he then speculated about what we would do with our new-found power after we became Star Children/ New Seeds. It is so unfortunate that only in issue #7 was he able to explore this possibility and expand on this theme.

So Jack Kirby actually took Clarke’s idea one step further.

What would the Star Children, the New Seeds, do with their power?

Would they help to create a better universe? Kirby, the optimist, believes the answer is affirmative. Imagine the storylines Kirby could have created if he had been able to continue this line of thought.

Instead, perhaps at Marvel’s insistence, he pursued the Artificial Intelligence theme, creating the Mr. Machine/Machine Man character, who became a sentient computer.

So perhaps Kirby’s 2001 comic series was not such a weird comic after all; actually, he expounds rather creatively on Clarke’s ideas. And so maybe Arthur C. Clarke and Jack Kirby were not so different either. You see, like Arthur C. Clarke, Jack Kirby also believed that humanity could evolve and change into something greater—perhaps something better than we are now. H

of Clarke’s main themes of human evolution guided by a superior alien intelligence.

Issue #7 is quite different. It begins with an astronaut’s transformation into the New Seed. The New Seed travels the cosmos, observing, searching for purpose in the universe. There is of course a lot of Kirby cosmic psychedelia! The New Seed approaches a planet, destroying itself in a raging war. The New Seed is spotted and some thugs attempt to kill him; he merely disarms them, causing no harm. All life is sacred to an evolved being. So Kirby’s New Seed as well as Clarke’s Star Child appear to be physical beings; although as we have cited previously, Clarke alludes to the possibility that the Star Child can evolve into a purely energy or light being by the force of its own will. (Clarke 219) But interestingly, when describing the possibility of evolving into a being of pure light, he also uses the words “spirit” and “God.” (Clarke 172) In issue #7, two lovers on this war-torn planet are brutally murdered [above]. Kirby has the New Seed ask the question: “Is this the universal will? Does life struggle to evolve, and race madly to a cut-off point? It cannot be so… It cannot be a process without reason…

No more than the New Seed can exist without reason…”. The New Seed concludes: “Find the reason and unlock the secret of the universe! To do this there must be life—there must be a living will to seek…” (Kirby #7, 26) The New Seed takes their DNA, and in a glowing sphere of light, places it in the primeval sea of a young world. This is the most tragic yet beautiful issue of the series. In the last few panels [below], Kirby narrates: “Perhaps here, a way of being may find the why of being… Until then, the New Seed decides to seek the answer himself. What if it turned out to be merely—simple!!” (Kirby #7, 31) So Kirby’s own theme in this series is that we must all evolve in order to discover our own purpose in the cosmos, and also to discover the purpose of the universe itself! Is Kirby equating the universe with the concept of God? Is he really asking what God’s purpose is? Both Clarke and Kirby mused about the most important metaphysical, even spiritual questions of our existence.

Kirby was not just replaying the plot of the original again and again; he was continuing the theme in many different contexts, and building on it. If all of humanity was evolving, we would all have our own unique stories! He was demonstrating this in this series, describing the variety of human evolution into higher beings. Although Clarke would largely ignore this evolutionary theme in his own sequels, in many ways Jack Kirby’s 2001 series is the true sequel to Arthur C. Clarke’s original novel.

Kirby’s 2001 series is full of Kirby-style monsters, aliens and tough guys, and that is why many see a clash between Kirby’s series and Clarke’s novel, with its combination of science and mysticism expressed in

Bibliography Alexander, John P., “Graffiti on the moon: Kirby Vs. Kubrick—A Commentary on Jack Kirby’s 2001: A Space Odyssey,” The Jack Kirby Collector #31 (2001, March): 53-57.

Bryant Jr., Robert L., “Kirby’s Space Oddity,” The Jack Kirby Collector #15 (1997, April): 37.

Clarke, Arthur C. 2001: A Space Odyssey. New York: The New American Library, 1968.

Cooke, Jon B., “Jack Kirby’s Infinite and Beyond,” The Jack Kirby Collector #15 (1997, April): 38-39.

Darius, Julian. The Weirdest Sci-Fi Comic Ever Made: Understanding Jack Kirby’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. 2013.

Kirby, Jack. 2001, A Space Odyssey #1-10. New York: Marvel Comics Group, 1976-1977.

Kirby, Jack. 2001, A Space Odyssey, An Official Adaptation of the MGM/Stanley Kubrick Production. New York: Marvel Comics Group, and with permission of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 1976.

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Collectorism

Two Nerds In A Pod...

by Shane Foley

Some “Rodneys” and “Nortons” visit Jack at home in Irvine, California on Nov. 9, 1969. Little did they know what the future held for them!

From left to right: Richard Alf, Wayne Kincaid, Jack Kirby, Mike Towry (in back), Dan Stewart, Bob Sourk, and Barry Alfonso (in front). Richard, Dan, Bob, Barry, and Mike co-founded Comic-Con with Shel Dorf. Mike was 14 in this photo, Barry was 12, and Richard 17.

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ost comic book lovers, like most artists and dreamers, know what it’s like to be “outside.” They don’t fit in with the crowd. Some are almost total pariahs—others, who socialize a little better, are still seen as a bit strange if they confess their interest too loudly.

As R.A. Jones wrote in his “Comics in Review” for Amazing Heroes #100 (August 1986, page 85): “Those of us who collected comics—and perhaps more so those who aspired to create them—were slightly out of step with our friends. We marched to a drummer they could not hear.”

Comics-loving people all know that feeling—of knowing and almost living in a world that others can’t fathom. Of being misunderstood and often looked down upon because of our strange, perceived-as-childish hobby. (And if you are a religious person, like me, that makes you doubly afflicted, and doubly a “stranger in a strange land”.)

Some, because of peer pressures, or because of other, more basic interests and desires, decide to leave.

They stop absorbing the

worlds of comics. They stop drawing (“I used to draw when I was kid”). And they rein-in the dreaming.

They give in to mundane “real” life (which is usually not “real” at all, but merely an acceptance of a more unimaginative existence).

But others won’t. And don’t! And can’t!

Like Jack Kirby!

Kirby must have lived in his other world big time, often cut off from his peers and feeling out of place.

He was a comic and sci-fi reader—absorbing the big and oddball ideas often presented there.

He was a dreamer —seeing beyond what he read and imagining what very few others could begin to perceive.

He was an artist— not just any artist, but one who increasingly smashed barriers and created methodologies and artistic language that had never been seen before.

To create as much as he did, year after year, from the beginning of his career, he must have thrived on quietness and his own company, and the worlds 37

that formed in his own mind, above much human company.

There simply isn’t usually the time or energy in one human life to do both.

Laboring in a field that was (once) hugely popular on the one hand, yet derided as necessarily childish on the other, Kirby never stopped believing comics were so much more than most believed. He saw beyond the small visions of those who couldn’t see the potential and symbolism that many of his stories carried.

Even then, in the comics field he managed to enter, while other artists admired and envied him, there were publishers and editors who didn’t understand, as he was dreaming and thinking beyond what they did, and created, and thought would sell. For every success they lauded him for, there were visions they couldn’t appreciate or believe in. So he would have known that “outside” feeling there as well.

And, of course, Kirby saw and knew so many of his readers were also where he was—different and often “outside.”

In the ’70s, Kirby created at least two stories directly about those people: The comic lovers who lived as strangers in their strange world, marching to the drum others couldn’t hear!

One was in the past—in World War II. The other was in the future—in New York in 2040.

Rodney Rumpkin

Rodney Rumpkin served in some small capacity in the American Army in Our Fighting Forces: The Losers #153. He was a little guy whose love for sci-fi perplexed those around him—yet at the same time, something in what he loved ignited an idea in another. By building a fake, yet convincing mock-up of a machine from Rodney’s imagination (or based on one in one of his stories—it doesn’t matter), the Losers were able to expose a hidden weapon of the Nazis and destroy it. Rodney himself was always all too aware that his weapon was a fake—it was others around him who saw the potential in what he could do.

And they were right. So what was Kirby saying in this little story? Surely, at least, it says that even the nerds—the dreamers and fantasy lovers—have their part to play and something to offer in life.

Perhaps he is saying that often the quiet, hidden, unassuming people, including the nerds,

don’t know their own value. And surely, he is wanting such people to realize that value in a much better way than Rodney seems to have done. His actual message is written plain and simple on page 18 of the story: “To all the Rodney Rumpkins: Victories are won yesterday… recognition must wait for tomorrow…”.

Perhaps that last advice is from his own experience.

Every time I see Captain America: The First Avenger, I am reminded of how right he was. And every time I have watched it, I find I get emotional—to see Cap’s shield so convincingly and powerfully thrown and returning, and to know that Jack never lived to see it. The same emotion grabbed me when I saw Thor and his hammer in action in Thor: Ragnarok. He never lived to see it.

That’s terrible. Yet he was so right! That’s brilliant!

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emotionally connecting with Kirby’s Ben Grimm or Orion?

And there is the other side too—the one Kirby wouldn’t take. How many readers have learned to justify rage and revenge as legitimate, because that was a template for life reflected in their (non-Kirby) hero?

In both stories, Kirby is hinting very loudly that interests such as the Rodneys and Nortons have, can and do play a vital part in social life, whether the reader is a Rodney (who can’t see it for himself), or whether he’s a Norton (who just needs the right motivation to bring it to life).

And what would Kirby say now, seeing just how much of his work affects life and movies at so many levels?

From what we know from those who were close to him, he’d say, “Yeah—I knew it!”

And he’d like the rest of us comic nerds and artists and dreamers to know it too. H

Norton of New York

Harvey Norton of 2040 (2001 #5–6) had as many differences as similarities to Rodney. It seems he was attracted to the comics world—here prophesied by Kirby in a way that yet surpasses what today’s cosplayers do, yet looking more and more like what will soon be—yet he disdained many others who did likewise. He didn’t want to live in a fantasy—he wanted a real world beyond his own. Comics helped him dream of worlds beyond, but a fantasy version of them was not good enough for him. Yet as Kirby’s story progressed, we see Norton was informed by, and motivated by, concepts he absorbed in comics.

In the reverse of Rodney’s world, where his peers could see in Rodney’s interests what he himself could not, Norton’s peers derided him for it. It is Norton himself who seizes on the concepts he’d absorbed in his comic reading, and acts on them.

And he was right!

Just like oddball Rodney, oddball Norton’s comic interests gave him vision for what could and should be done!

(An interesting facet of the Norton story is the limitation that Kirby was forced into. Here is a story of a man’s interests in comic book mythology informing his future actions, yet those actions are told themselves in a fantasy-filled comic book story. Kirby must have smiled at the absurdity of it. It’s like a myth, telling of how a man bettered his life by believing in myths.)

But his message is clear.

Comic books, especially at their best, are like myths, wrapping real-life conundrums into tightly packed episodes of adventure. That’s how the story of David and Goliath works and why it is still so well known. Its mythological power works whether it is a historical story or not.

How many young people have learned the importance of humility and how to cope with defeat by reading Thor in the mid-’60s work of Kirby and Lee? Or learned not to take the road to despair because of feeling ugly or a misfit, by 39

(previous page, top) In Our Fighting Forces #153, was Jack channeling his younger self as an avid reader of sci-fi pulps? (left) In 2001 #5, Harvey Norton assumed the alterego of “White Zero”, a name that says a lot about how he felt about himself. But his years fantasizing of being a hero would soon pay off in issue #6 (below).

RETROFAN #1

RETROFAN #2

ALTER EGO #153

ALTER EGO #154

ALTER EGO #155

THE CRAZY, COOL CUTURE WE GREW UP WITH! LOU FERRIGNO interview, The Phantom in Hollywood, Filmation’s Star Trek cartoon, “How I Met Lon Chaney, Jr.”, goofy comic Zody the Mod Rob, Mego’s rare Elastic Hulk toy, RetroTravel to Mount Airy, NC (the real-life Mayberry), interview with BETTY LYNN (“Thelma Lou” of The Andy Griffith Show), TOM STEWART’s eclectic House of Collectibles, and Mr. Microphone!

HALLOWEEN! Horror-hosts ZACHERLEY, VAMPIRA, SEYMOUR, MARVIN, and new interview with our cover-featured ELVIRA! THE GROOVIE GOOLIES, BEWITCHED, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, and THE MUNSTERS! The long-buried Dinosaur Land amusement park! History of BEN COOPER HALLOWEEN COSTUMES, character lunchboxes, superhero VIEW-MASTERS, SINDY (the British Barbie), and more!

Remembering Fabulous FLO STEINBERG, Stan Lee’s gal Friday during the Marvel Age of Comics—with anecdotes and essays by pros and friends who knew and loved her! Rare Marvel art, Flo’s successor ROBIN GREEN interviewed by RICHARD ARNDT about her time at Marvel, and Robin’s 1971 article on Marvel for ROLLING STONE magazine! Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

ALLEN BELLMAN (1940s Timely artist) interviewed by DR. MICHAEL J. VASSALLO, with art by SHORES, BURGOS, BRODSKY, SEKOWSKY, EVERETT, & JAFFEE. Plus Marvel’s ’70s heroines: LINDA FITE & PATY COCKRUM on The Cat, CAROLE SEULING on Shanna the She-Devil, & ROY THOMAS on Night Nurse—with art by SEVERIN, FRADON, ANDRU, and more! With FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

Golden Age artist/writer/editor NORMAN MAURER remembered by his wife JOAN, recalling BIRO’s Crime Does Not Pay, Boy Comics, Daredevil, St. John’s 3-D & THREE STOOGES comics with KUBERT, his THREE STOOGES movie (MOE was his father-inlaw!), and work for Marvel, DC, and others!

Plus LARRY IVIE’s 1959 plans for a JUSTICE SOCIETY revival, JOHN BROOME, FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY and more!

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The Nine Lives of Tiger 21

SpaceRace

by Jean Depelley & John Morrow

In 1958, Jack tried to turn Starman Zero into a CBS show, and changed its name to Tiger 21 (an old photostat of the first Sunday has it titled Starman Zero, but the actual art that sold at auction had a Tiger 21 logo penciled where it used to say “Starman Zero”).

The mind-transference depicted below was likely inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s 1950s sci-fi novels.

I

n the late 1940s, in the midst of their success with Young Romance, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby tried to diversify their activities, adventuring into the field of comic strips. Several strips were imagined, including Inky, Red Hot Rowe, and Starman Zero, this last one produced

by Jack Kirby on his own. For this science-fiction project, Kirby drew several Sunday pages in pencil, plus ink/wash presentation pages of the character [right].

Starman Zero tells the adventures of an astronaut whose mind is transferred into an android to survive long interstellar journeys, one of which is to the star system Tiger 21.

The first six Sundays for Starman Zero are presented here, but additional ones were produced. Also, as you can see at right, the strip was definitely titled Starman Zero in Jack’s handwriting on this early photostat, with a Tiger 21 logo added later to the still-existing first Sunday art [below]. We’ll explore why in a moment; for now, just enjoy these rare strips!

41

42

43

All those newspaper projects failed to find syndication, and rather than let them languish in a file drawer, Joe and Jack decided to do some creative recycling. Part of the Inky art was reworked into their self-published Mainline romance comic In Love #3 (December 1954), for the story “Artist Loves Model”.

Simon and Kirby also recycled some unsold Starman Zero art to make the Fighting American episode “Home-Coming: Year 3000” in issue #4 (October 1954) for publisher Prize Comics.

None of the art from these first six Sundays was reused, so Jack must’ve drawn at least a couple more not shown here. No other stats have surfaced to date, so Fighting American #4 gives us our only opportunity to read the recycled material. Awkwardly integrated as it is, parts of that Fighting American story do fit thematically with the direction Jack began in these Starman Zero Sundays.

Not So Happy Days In The 1950s

With Simon & Kirby’s Mainline company closing its doors in 1956, the pair looked for other avenues of income, including writing scripts for the flourishing television industry in New York. Fish in a Barrel didn’t hit, and while they signed a contract in March 1957 to exploit their TV script The Messiah (a.k.a. Halo, per Joe Simon’s book My Life in Comics), nothing ever materialized.

In October 1958, while working on his new science-fiction comic strip Sky Masters of the Space Force for the George Matthew Adams Syndicate, Kirby was approached by an agent who, based on what Jack told Steve Sherman (as recounted in TJKC #11), “had a deal with NBC.” Kirby proposed developing his unused Starman

Zero concept, and retitling it Tiger 21.

The network felt it showed promise, but just before production started, the producer chose a rival project presented by his boss’s brother-inlaw instead: The TV series Men Into Space, starring William Lundigan.

It’s been suggested that the agent who approached Kirby was John Graham from NBC. But herein lies some confusion: Since Men Into Space aired on CBS (not NBC), it’s more likely Kirby was working with CBS in the

CBS or NBC?

Some confusion exists about which 1950s network and executive Jack dealt with. Here are some facts: Lawrence K. Grossman spent 1955–1961 at CBS in its advertising department, before joining NBC in 1962. He became vice president in charge of advertising at NBC before leaving in 1966 to form his own New York advertising agency.

He was named president of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 1976, and became president of NBC News in 1984.

Beginning in the early 1950s, John Graham served as NBC-TV’s in-house art director, staying with the company the rest of his television career. He created the NBC peacock logo in 1956, and was named Director of Design for the entire network in 1966. He retired from NBC in 1977.

Men Into Space was first broadcast from September 30, 1959 to September 7, 1960 by CBS. The syndicated series depicts future efforts by the United States Air Force to explore and develop outer space. The series’ star, William Lundigan, played Col. Edward McCauley.

44

1950s. Since John Graham was firmly entrenched at NBC from the early 1950s till the end of his career, he wouldn’t have been in a position to pitch anything to CBS. However, Lawrence K. Grossman was at CBS from 1955–1961, and could’ve been Jack’s contact at the TV studio during that period. Grossman played a part in Tiger 21’s next misfire, making it more likely he was also involved in 1958. And since NBC would definitely be the home for Tiger 21’s next chance at life, we’re betting Jack was just confusing the studios involved in the 1950s and 1960s.

What isn’t in dispute is that in 1958, one of those networks wanted to produce a live TV drama dedicated to space exploration, and Tiger 21 just missed taking off.

Face It, Tiger—You Missed The Jackpot

In December 1966, with the success of the Marvel Super-Heroes cartoons by Grantray Lawrence, Kirby was contacted by John Graham. As Design Director for NBC,

Graham wanted to give a Marvel look to their new sitcom Captain Nice, starring William Daniels [right]. While working with Graham, Kirby took the opportunity to repurpose his Tiger 21 concept, pitching it to NBC with a redesign of the character for the occasion. That presentation art [see next page] recently resurfaced in France, and serves as this issue’s alternate cover. It was purchased from the Kirbys by a private collector in the ’80s and has recently been sold.

Its graphic aspects (size and technique) clearly indicate its time of production.

In February 1966, Kirby imagined the Coal Tiger (a Black Panther prototype) and in April of the same year, Jack designed a new costume for Captain America (in case Joe Simon, then suing Marvel for the character’s copyright, won), with the same kind of paper, and also using pencil with watercolors. For later concept pieces, Kirby would have his presentation pencils inked by Don Heck and Frank Giacoia, before watercoloring them himself (see his New Gods and Asgardian Gods concept drawings).

For this 1960s version, he updated the concept: On a secret underground moon base called Command D, a young hero faces dangerous aliens and Russian spies, assisted with his ultra modern vehicle, Tiger 21. Jack created a diagram of the underground bunker [above], and (we believe) a collage depicting an astronaut riding his space age vehicle to help sell the idea. [The collage was eventually used in the 1970 Marvelmania Portfolio, and is shown on page 48 of this issue.]

On December 28, 1966, Kirby signed an agreement [left] with both John Graham and Lawrence K. Grossman, to share equally in all proceeds from 45

developing the Tiger 21 property. This begs the question: If Grossman had already left NBC by this point to start his own advertising agency, why would he be part of the agreement?

This lends more credence to the idea that Grossman was involved with the earlier 1958 version at CBS—his prior involvement may’ve given him claim to any profits from the new updated NBC version.

But in 1966, Marvel didn’t want to share its main creator with another medium. Kirby was told that he had an exclusive contract, even though he was just a freelancer for the publisher. Thus, the TV project dropped dead, and Kirby retained the original drawing of Tiger 21 [below].

Shane Foley noticed that the Tiger 21 design is taken directly from one of Jack’s unused Captain America redesigns, above. Jack obviously knew a good design when he saw one, and wasn’t about to waste it.

(Stripes must’ve been a hot fashion trend during this era, since he used them on Captain Nice, Coal Tiger, and the new Cap costume...)

46

The Cat Lands On His Feet

developed by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross finally came out in Kirby: Genesis #0, with a design by Ross, based directly on Jack’s 1980s sketch [below].

After 53 years, the curse over Tiger 21 was finally lifted! H

In Spring 1985, as he was working as a concept artist on the Centurions cartoon series for Ruby-Spears, Kirby did new drawings of Tiger 21 but, again, did not succeed in selling the project to the Californian producers.

In 1993, Topps Comics decided to launch a Kirbyverse line of comic books, mostly from undeveloped projects Jack had remaining in his files. After Jack Kirby’s Secret City Saga, Captain Glory, Bombast, Night Glider, Victory, Teen Agents and Silver Star, Topps planned Tiger 21 as a seventh title, using Jack’s 1985 version of the character—but poor sales of the line eventually froze its production. Writer Kurt Busiek detailed the plans back in TJKC #31.

KURT BUSIEK: We were planning a new series called Tiger 21 that would have spun out of the Victory mini. Jim Salicrup wanted to do something with Darren, the black crack addict who’d been saved by one of the Secret Citizens, and who was still hanging around. Readers hated him, considering him an ethnic stereotype, so Jim wanted to fix the problem without killing off the only black character in the series. He thought we should redeem Darren and turn him into a super-hero, and his choice was Tiger 21, another sketch of Jack’s that he had.

So over the course of Victory, I was going to have Darren wind up on Captain Victory’s ship, the Dreadnought Tiger, and find a set of powersuits intended for use by envoys/spies on the various planets Victory’s civilization had contact with. Darren would have put on one of the suits—the one labeled “Tiger/21,” or its alien equivalent—and wound up having super-powers. After the mini, he’d be launched in his own series, going back to New York and picking up his old pre-crackhead life, but having problems due to the fact that the suit gave him the power to do good, but the galactic government that created the suit now thought he was a spy on Earth—their spy; but, well, that never happened either....

(next page) This collage, which we believe was created for the 1966 Tiger 21 NBC proposal, was printed in black-&white in the 1970 Marvelmania Portfolio.

Jack Kirby died in February 1994. And Tiger 21 remained in limbo... until 2011, when Dynamite Entertainment released a new line of comic books using Kirby concepts. A new version of Tiger 21 47

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