Jack Kirby Collector #92 by TwoMorrows Publishing

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #92 $10.95

WINTER 2025

King Kirby Takes You To Doomsday And Beyond--

In The News!

Superman, Jimmy Olsen, Guardian, Newsboy Legion TM & © DC Comics.

Satiate Your Sinister Side!

“Heh-heh-heh! It’s me again—the CRYPTOLOGIST—

All characters and properties TM & © their respective owners.

and my ghastly little band have cooked up a few more grisly morsels to terrorize you with! Amongst them is ROGER HILL’s conversation with diabolical horror (and superhero) comics artist DON HECK! For something even more gruesome, STEVEN KRONENBERG slices up his favorite severed hand films! BARRY FORSHAW brings back the otherworldly horrors of Hammer’s QUATERMASS, while TIM LEESE spends more Hammer Time on that studio’s output. Then, editor PETER NORMANTON prepares a viewing of horror-inspired covers from the Shadow’s own 1940s comic book! We’ll cover another Killer “B” movie classic: CONRAD VEIDT and “The Man Who Laughs!”, along with more preCode comic books, and PETE VON SHOLLY gives his twisted take on cartoon horror. So peer into the dark side with TwoMorrows Publishing’s latest terror—scribed just for retro horror fans!” (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

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CRYPTOLOGY #3

CRYPTOLOGY #4

CRYPTOLOGY #5

This third wretched issue inflicts the dread of MARS ATTACKS upon you—the banned cards, the model kits, the despicable comics, and a few words from the film’s deranged storyboard artist PETE VON SHOLLY! The chilling poster art of REYNOLD BROWN gets brought up from the Cryptologist’s vault, along with a host of terrifying puppets from film, and more comic books they’d prefer you forget! Plus, more Hammer Time, JUSTIN MARRIOT on obscure ’70s fear-filled paperbacks, another Killer “B” film, and more to satiate your sinister side!

Our fourth putrid tome treats you to ALEX ROSS’ gory lowdown on his Universal Monsters paintings! Hammer Time brings you face-to-face with the “Brides of Dracula”, and the Cryptologist resurrects 3-D horror movies and comics of the 1950s! Learn the origins of slasher films, and chill to the pre-Code artwork of Atlas’ BILL EVERETT and ACG’s 3-D maestro HARRY LAZARUS. Plus, another Killer “B” movie and more awaits retro horror fans, by NORMANTON, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, VOGER, and VON SHOLLY!

We dig up a few skeletons in the closet of our SKULL & BONES ISSUE! Ghost Rider from comics to movies, skeleton covers from Atlas Digests and pre-Code horror comics, HY FLEISHMAN’s 1950s skeleton covers and stories, Disney’s ’70s Pirates of the Caribbean models and Last Gasp’s Skull Comics, the films of William Castle, and Killer B films: House on Haunted Hill, The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake, plus our Hammertime section! It’s bone-chilling retro horror from NORMANTON, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, VOGER, and VON SHOLLY!

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Contents

THE

IN THE NEWS! OPENING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 stop the presses! PAPER CLIPS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Lincoln Features and Kirby

C o l l e c t o r

ISSUE #92, WINTER 2025

INNERVIEWS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 it’s a 1973 comic strip con, with Neal Adams and Jack Kirby SPIN-ITCH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Socko the Sailor Man KIRBY OBSCURA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Archie’s dynamic duo THE CLIP JOINT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 newspaper clippings about Kirby JACK FAQs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Mark Evanier’s 2024 Kirby Tribute Panel, featuring Patrick McDonnell, Henry W. Holmes, and Kirbys! ARTVIEWS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 the LA Kirbyvision exhibition FOUNDATIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Johnny Reb & Billy Yank INCIDENTAL ICONOGRAPHY. . . . . 48 DC gets an Edge GALLERY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Superman’s pal and the newsboys STRIPPER: MIKE MANLEY. . . . . . . 56 FOUNDATIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 man steals train! STRIPPER: DAVID REDDICK . . . . . 69 KIRBY KINETICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Johnny Storm, rebel with a cause CLUBBING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 the Boys Brotherhood Republic COLLECTOR COMMENTS. . . . . . . . 78 Cover inks: DAVID REDDICK Cover color: GLENN WHITMORE COPYRIGHTS: Batman, Big Barda, Clark Kent, Deadman, DNAliens, Dubbilex, Forever People, Green Arrow, Guardian, Jimmy Olsen, Mister Miracle, Mokkari, Morgan Edge, New Gods, Newsboy Legion, Simyan, Spectre, Superman, Terry Dean TM & © DC Comics • Blondie, Flash Gordon, Popeye, The Phantom TM & © King Features • Captain America, Dr. Doom, Fantastic Four, Galactus, Giant-Man, Hulk, Inhumans, Iron Man, Lockjaw, Spider-Man, Sub-Mariner, Thor, Wasp, Watcher, X-Men TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. • Animal Hospital TM & © Ruby-Spears Productions • The Man Who Stole A Train TM & © Joe Simon and Jack Kirby Estates • Captain Victory, Jupiter Plaque, Montrose, Sky Masters TM & © Jack Kirby Estate • Destroyer Duck TM & © Steve Gerber and Jack Kirby Estates • Abdul Jones, Black Buccaneer, Blue Bolt, Captain 3-D, Cyclone Burke, Dash Dixon, Detective Riley, Facts You Never Knew!, Healthy, Wealthy and Wise!, Johnny Reb & Billy Yank, Lone Rider, Master Jeremy, Romance of Money, Socko the Seadog TM & © the respective rights holders • Black Hole TM & © Walt Disney Studios • Private Strong TM & © Archie Publications • The Fly TM & © Joe Simon Estate • Ben Casey TM & © Bing Crosby Productions • Judge Parker TM & © North American Syndicate, Inc.

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[above] While way too busy for Jimmy Olsen #138 (June 1971), this unused cover is perfect for this issue of TJKC! The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 31, No. 92, Winter 2025. Keeping the presses running quarterly by and © TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. 919-449-0344. John Morrow, Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $15 postpaid US ($19 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $53 Economy US, $82 International, $19 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

Opening Shot

Stop The Presses!

Examining how many comic strips Kirby drew, by John Morrow

ack’s earliest work was done for newspaper strips, since comic books weren’t yet established when he was pounding the pavement in the mid-1930s. He met, and was influenced by, top strip artists like Walter Berndt, creator of the Smitty strip. He reminisced about those days during his interview on David Gerard’s 1986 Los Angeles cable access TV show This Is The Story:

JACK KIRBY: I gravitated to the newspapers, where I began to meet the people that worked at places like the Daily News and the Daily Mirror and the Daily Journal. I became friends with the people who worked for the Hearst newspapers. Finally I landed this job at the Fleischer studios, animating Popeye, and was quite gratified that I was able to make my way along those lines. I did syndicated stuff for a small syndicate called Lincoln Features, in which I had the opportunity to do editorial cartoons, individual illustrations, and I even did a panel cartoon called Your Health Comes First. [laughs] I believe it helped me, and the reader.

This issue, I only scratched the surface of Jack’s experiences with comic strips and newspapers. Here’s a chronological list of his known strip work—I tried to fit examples of most into this issue:

• Red Hot Rowe (1946) • Starman Zero/Tiger 21 (1947); the complete strips are in TJKC #74. • Inky (1948–1949); these were recycled for In Love, as shown in TwoMorrows’ book Best of Simon & Kirby’s Mainline Comics • Boy Commandos (late 1940s); art by the Simon & Kirby studio • Montrose (1950s); unfinished sample strip about a pugilistic dog • Master Jeremy (1956) • The Career of King Masters (1956); the full set of Kirby/Giacoia King Masters strips are in TJKC #51. • Chip Hardy (1956) •D avy Crockett, Frontiersman (Jan. 14–Feb. 24, 1957) • Johnny Reb & Billy Yank (July 28, 1957–Feb. 2, 1958) • Kamandi of the Caves (1958) • S ky Masters of the Space Force (Sept. 8, 1958–Feb. 25, 1961) • Surf Hunter (1959); all these Kirby/Wood strips are in TJKC #65. • On the Green with Peter Parr (1960–1961) •T he Black Hole (Sept. 2, 1979–Feb. 24, 1980) • Animal Hospital (early 1980s) • Thundarr the Barbarian (1981) • Valley Girl (1982–1983); inspired by Moon and Frank Zappa’s hit single (see TJKC #16, 30, 55)

• K’s Konceptions (early 1930s); for the BBR Reporter, shown this issue • Lincoln Features strips (1935–1939); see next page • The Lone Rider (Jan. 9–Feb. 18, 1939); signed “Lance Kirby” • The Blue Beetle (Jan. 8–March 9, 1940); signed “Charles Nicholas”

Is that a complete list? There are rumors of others he ghosted, and knowing Jack, there’s still more to be discovered, so worry not, Kirby fans. Any more that turn up will be featured in future issues. Now, let’s get to strippin’! H

[Looking at old strip examples in Kirby Unleashed] KIRBY: These were the comics I did for Lincoln Features. It gave me a lot of experience, personal experience in doing my own stories, doing my own illustrations, and combining both to make them sell. Abdul Jones was a satire, and I love satire. Satire is a kind of uplifting type of thing, and humor is beneficial in any atmosphere. [About the Lone Rider, shown below] KIRBY: Yes, I love westerns, and I’m a habitual movie-goer. What you see reflected in my comics is what I saw on the screen. I wanted to do my own movies, and this was my only way of accomplishing them. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to work in this kind of formula. [About the Blue Beetle newspaper strip] KIRBY: I didn’t create the characters. It was done by a fellow named Charles Nicholas, and then I became “Charles Nicholas.” I assumed the pen name because they wanted the pen name carried on.

[above] The Lone Rider from 1939. [top] In 1976, Jack drew his younger self as a newsboy character in Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles.

paper Clips

Lincoln Features

Kirby’s earliest comic strip work for H.T. Elmo explored by Richard Kolkman

n the early 20th century, newspapers were the binding force of urban society. Before radio and television, the comic strip pages provided both a welcome respite from the day’s news, and a springboard for the imaginations of a generation of youth that absorbed the comics, and wanted more. Some dedicated their lives to cartooning as they propelled this new art form forward. As Joe Kubert remembered in 1994: “…every Sunday

[this page] Here are two of Jack Kirby’s earliest professional jobs. The Black Buccaneer hails from 1937, when Jack was a mere 20 years old. Amazingly, this original art is still in existence. Jack’s mother Rose saved clippings from newspapers her son’s work appeared in, and many of those are the source material for images in this issue. Below is a previously unpublished Abdul Jones strip, drawn at the tail end of 1937, for release to papers in early 1938.

Features. Elmo most likely saw promise in Jacob’s earnest sample strips, and hired the young cartoonist who signed his work “Jack Curtiss” among a host of other pen names. H.T. Elmo [above] was born Arazio Theodore Elmo on April 3, 1903—the sixth of Joseph and Josephine Elmo’s seven children, in Manhattan. Elmo’s early art training is unknown, but his earliest known strip is Little Otto (1926), a daily for Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. He is rumored to have done some amateur pages in Judge magazine. By 1926, Elmo went by the name “Horace T. Elmo” or H.T. Elmo, now a lifetime resident of the Bronx. Elmo opened the doors of Lincoln Newspaper Features at 130 West 46th Street in New York City. Lincoln found a successful niche by servicing hundreds of small newspapers across the country. Ambitious and nimble, Elmo went where the major syndicates didn’t. It’s unknown if Elmo had sales agents or even how far his features reached, but John Morrow’s own research found that Socko the Seadog (usually accompanied by other Elmo features) got some decent geographical coverage with these now-defunct papers:

when the color comic strips came out, I’d lay on the floor and just kind of wrap them around me, around my head.” That was the world the boy cartoonists lived in. Kirby described his influences to biographer Greg Theakston: “I admired the newspaper strips of my childhood… we had a lot of daily and Sunday papers in New York—The Daily News, The Herald Tribune, The Journal American… I followed Tailspin Tommy, Smitty, Toots and Casper, Moon Mullins, Dick Tracy, and Buck Rogers—and they were all as near as the corner ash can. I thought, ‘I could do this!’” At age 12, Kurtzberg joined the legion of newsboys hawking newspapers in New York’s Lower East Side, while drawing crude comic strips for The Boys’ Brotherhood Republic Reporter. He rapidly improved his art and storytelling as he developed multiple strip concepts: untitled samples featuring family humor, space Vikings in spaceships, and nautical intrigue of pirates and plunder. At the end of 1935, while contemplating his departure from Max Fleischer’s animation factory, Jacob eventually landed (he likely answered an ad) at the doorstep of H.T. Elmo’s Lincoln Newspaper

•T he Rutherford Courier (Smyrna, Tennessee) •T he Dixie Democrat (Murfreesboro, Tennessee) • S cottsbluff Farm Journal (Scottsbluff, Nebraska) •T he Fillmore Chronicle (Fairmont, Nebraska) — the first Kirby Socko (#136) ran Sept. 14, 1939 •T he Indiana Democrat (Indiana, Pennsylvania) • I ndiana Weekly Messenger (Indiana, Pennsylvania) — Socko ran Jan. 2–Nov. 20, 1941 •N ational Road Traveler (Lewisville, Indiana; population 531 in 1940—now that’s a small paper!) •T he Lathrop Optimist (Lathrop, Missouri)

was distributed by the “Keystone Press Feature Service, Ltd.” • The Black Buccaneer (1937) by Jack Curtiss (weekly); Elmo used many different pen names for Jack and his other artists to give the illusion of a large staff of creators. Here, Kirby reverts to his earlier pen name: “Jack Curtiss.” Weekly continuity strips were notoriously hard to sell and difficult for readers to follow. It started mid-story and ran in The Crescent Times from April 8–May 27, 1937. • Curious Customs and Oddities (1937) by Barton or Bob Dart (weekly); similar to Facts You Never Knew, this strip also went by Curiosities and Oddities. It was inspired by Robert Ripley’s popular feature, Ripley’s Believe it or Not. Most all of the Lincoln comics known to exist today are from Rosemary Kurtzberg’s scrapbook of Jack’s proof sheets lovingly saved by her—his proud mother. • “Cyclone” Burke (1937) by Bob Brown (weekly); this adventure strip stars ace World War I pilot James “Cyclone” Burke, who is transported by an aerial black lightning mass portal into a world of scientific madness, which includes robots, and Burke under the influence of a “psycho wave recorder.” Kirby work appears in The Crescent Times from April 8–May 27, 1937 with Black Buccaneer. • Dash Dixon (1939) by Dean Carr (Larry Antonette); previously unknown for years, Kirby did one fill-in strip [#137] as the feature transitioned from the newspapers into comic books—notably, into Hillman’s Miracle Comics #1–4 (Feb. 1940–March 1941). It was obviously inspired by Roy Crane’s Buzz Sawyer strip.

• The Crescent Times (Crescent, Oklahoma) • Oklahoma Register (Guthrie, Oklahoma) • McIntosh County Democrat (Checotah, Oklahoma) – Socko ran Feb. 15, 1940 through April 16, 1942 • Cherokee Messenger (Cherokee, Oklahoma) — first Kirby Socko (#136) ran Oct. 3, 1939, and continued through May 13, 1941 • Putnam County News (Philipstown and Cold Spring, New York) • The Medina Tribune (Medina, New York) — Socko started its brief run on May 30, 1940, but didn’t get to Kirby’s strips. • The Bozeman Courier (Bozeman, Montana) • Gallatin County Tribune and Belgrade Journal (Bozeman, Montana) • The Missoula Times (Missoula, Montana) — the first Kirby Socko (#136) ran Sept. 15, 1939 (one day after Nebraska, above) • Three Forks Herald (Three Forks, Montana) — first Kirby Socko (#136) ran Jan. 21, 1943.

• Detective Riley (1937–1938) by Richard Lee (weekly); Kirby evidently did not work on this strip inspired by Alex Raymond’s Secret Agent X-9, until—like Dash Dixon—he was called in to draw a #137 bridging strip, so it could start over with reprints. • [Editorial cartoons] (1937–1939) by Jack Curtiss or Davis (weekly panel); over 285 editorial (also known as political) cartoons were created by Kirby. Often of a local New York flavor, Kirby was castigated by Elmo for illustrating panels far beyond his experience. Many examples exist [see top left].

• The Saybrook Gazette and Arrowsmith News (Saybrook, Illinois) — first Kirby Socko (#136) ran March 19, 1942, and the paper kept reprinting Socko as late as 1950 • The Newark Issue (Newark, New Jersey) It bears mentioning that the publication date of a strip in one newspaper, especially weekly newspapers, could be much earlier or later than another newspaper, so publication dates are unreliable for determining provenance. With that caveat out of the way, what did Jacob Kurtzberg produce for Lincoln and its cadre of clients? Listed here are the features young Jacob drew at his family’s kitchen table: • Abdul Jones (1938–1939) by Ted Grey (daily); few strips exist about this boy and his mule traversing the Middle East and Baghdad. His everyman character is molded from film comedian Harold Lloyd in his round framed glasses (decades before Harry Potter’s). Abdul’s mule, Bubbles, is similarly bespectacled. A sales Press Kit exists showing January 3, 1938 as the date of the first strip. Abdul

• Facts You Never Knew (1936–1939) ghosted for H.T. Elmo 4

from comedy to straight adventure. The pen name “Teddy” is derived from H.T. Elmo’s middle name, Theodore. I was shocked in 2006 to see three Socko strips (#195, 196, and #205) exactly mirror three unpublished installments of a college comic strip of mine, The Occupants—I had swiped what I thought would be “untraceable” ideas from a 1936 edition of The Toastmaster’s Handbook checked out of my local library. I believe Jack and I stole from the same source—the only difference is, I did it in 1987. • The Missoula Times began running Elmo’s strips on March 27, 1936, but didn’t add Socko till Sept. 15, 1939 when it ran strip #136 (the first Kirby?). After #141 appeared on Oct. 20, they went backwards to Elmo’s #101–106 for Oct. 27–Dec. 1, 1939 (#100 and #107 never ran). Then it jumped forward to Jack’s Socko #145 on Dec. 8, and continued running in numerical order for a long time, but they’re missing the same ones other papers of this era are (particularly #229–252, which is a huge gap of missing strips).

(weekly); this Ripley’s-inspired strip was also signed Jack Curtiss or Bob Dart (1938–1940). This format, favored by Elmo, is derived from an earlier work by him: Did You Know That (1932–1933) in the film magazine Picture Play. Coincidently, a similar comic feature appeared in 1932 named Did You Know by R.J. Scott (Topps) and is listed in Editor & Publisher’s Syndicate Directory. Installment #77 (Sept. 18, 1936) may be the first Kirby strip. The feature was continued by Irv Tipman and ended in Sept. 1945. • Healthy, Wealthy and Wise (1939) by Jack Curtiss (panel); reprinted from an earlier feature, Your Health Comes First, the sound advice is just as good the second time around. • Hollywood Tidbits (1937) unsigned weekly gossip column illustrations and possibly other text features as well. Only one known example has surfaced, and it’s “zoftig.”

• [Sports cartoons] While being interviewed in Lucca, Italy, Kirby made this off-handed claim while referencing Lincoln Features: “I did sports cartoons…” (from Nov. 4, 1976—see TJKC #12)

• Laughs from the Day’s News (1936–1937) by T. Lawrence (weekly panel); similar in concept to Facts and Your Health, but more light-hearted and funny by nature. Young Kirby was having fun. • Our Puzzle Corner (1937–1939) by Brady (weekly panel); with interesting visual challenges that Kirby either “borrowed” from contemporary sources, or created on his own (unlikely), this feature would have been popular with readers of any newspaper.

• Your Health Comes First (1936–1937) by Jack Curtiss (150 weekly panels); as Greg Theakston said, this panel seemed to feature advice from a Jewish mother. Focusing on sunlight, fresh air and (ughh) milk, it hopefully steered the readers toward good health. It appeared in over 350 newspapers. Mother knows best. #99 looks to be the first Kirby strip (Dec. 23, 1936). The feature was later recycled in 1939 as Healthy, Wealthy and Wise.

• The Romance of Money (1937 and 1942) ghosted for H.T. Elmo (panels); instead of being published in newspapers, this feature about the history of money was only published by Natamsa Publishing as a promotional booklet for National Savings Bank of Albany, New York. The first edition, published in 1937, featured a black/blue cover. Weighing in at 24 pages, this 5.5" x 6.5" comic book is quite rare, and is finally listed in Overstreet’s promotional comics section. The even scarcer 1942 second edition is black/red and is only 16 pages. A replica edition was published in 2010 by the Jack Kirby Museum, thanks to Rand Hoppe.

After Kirby left Lincoln for greener pastures (Fox, Novelty, Timely, National/DC), Elmo continued with dozens of other creators and features and eventually morphed into Elmo Features Syndicate (1945–1948 and 1960–mid-1970s). Many of those later comics are featured in Joe Getsinger’s book Finding Jack Kirby in a Pile of Zinc (Sunbury Press; 2023). Getsinger discovered a warehouse full of zinc comic strip printing plates, and details them in his book. It’s up to the reader to decide how much Kirby is there, but it’s a handsome book featuring early work by Will Eisner, Bob Kane, and many others. Joe Simon claimed Kirby brought some Lincoln comics

• Socko the Seadog (1936–1939) by Teddy (roughly 285 daily strips); welcome to the main event. This strip was Kirby’s flagship feature, as it was the most popular and most widely distributed of Lincoln’s actual comic strips. Obviously inspired by E.C. Segar’s popular pugilist Popeye, Kirby’s take was uniquely his own. Socko didn’t need spinach to kick ass. Throughout Socko’s run, the strip veered back-and-forth 5

• Biff Baxter’s Adventures (1935–?) by Bob Dart (Larry Antonette) • Chuckle Corner (1941–1946) by Ted or Teddy (weekly panel) • The Fizzle Family (1935–1939) • The Goofus Family (1935–1939) by H.T. Elmo • It’s Amazing (1941–1946) by H.T. Elmo and Phil Berube (weekly panel); it derived some of its content from Curious Customs and Oddities and Facts You Never Knew. • Little Buddy (1938–1939) by Bruce Stewart • Nappy (1939–1943) by Irv Tirman • Puggy (1960–mid-1970s) • Rhyming Romeos (1950s) by H.T. Elmo (weekly) • Sally Snickers (1941–1946) by Jackson or H.T. Elmo (weekly); a Nancy clone, the Jackson pen name is likely for Jack Greenall • Some Fun! (1941–1946) by Ted or Teddy (weekly panel) • Tell Me (1960–mid1970s) • Useless Eustace (1941– 1946) by Jackson or Elmo (weekly panel); again, the Jackson pen name is likely for Jack Greenall

with him to Simon & Kirby’s studio. Evidence of this can be seen in one-pagers in Black Magic #20 [Jan. 1953] and #33 [Dec. 1954]. H.T. Elmo went on to create comic features such as “Little Aspirin” for Timely’s Oscar Comics (1947–1949). And according to the Grand Comics Database, Elmo also created one-page fillers such as “Quick Quiz” for various National (DC) comics from 1951 to 1955. From the 1950s to 1961, Elmo created mass market paperback books for Ace: 150 Games to Play, 101 Things to Make and Play, The Complete Book of Space, Modern Casanova’s Handbook, Hollywood Humor, and Mad Avenue. Elmo distributed a couple of his comic features into the 1970s, but after that he dropped off the radar. Horace T. Elmo died in the Bronx on October 23, 1992. H

Dash Dixon #136 (not by Kirby)

For completeness, here’s a listing of H.T. Elmo’s later non-Kirby features:

Dash Dixon #137 by Kirby (1938)

[Richard Kolkman lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is the curator of The Jack Kirby Checklist, and also the creator of the newspaper strip Big Flat City, syndicated from 1988–1996.] WORKS CITED:

Alter Ego V3 #76 (March 2008), “Simon Says” Joe Simon interview (TwoMorrows)

Detective Riley #136 (not by Kirby)

Comics Journal, The #172 (Nov. 1994), The Joe Kubert Interview (Fantagraphics) Comic Strip Jack Kirby, The by Greg Theakston (Pure Imagination; 2006)

Detective Riley #137 by Kirby (1938)

Though Kirby had nothing to do with the creation of Dash Dixon and Detective Riley, both strips’ #136 end on cliffhangers. H.T. Elmo called in young Jack to hurriedly wrap-up both storylines, so newspapers could go back to rerunning their adventures from the beginning.

Art of Jack Kirby, The by Ray Wyman, Jr. and Catherine Hohlfeld (Blue Rose Press; 1992)

(The author acknowledges input from, and many thanks to: Joe Getsinger, Alex Jay (Stripper’s Guide), Tom Kraft, Buddy Lortie, John Morrow, Grand Comics Database (www. comics.org), Wikipedia, and our ever handy Jack Kirby Checklist: Centennial Edition)

Complete Jack Kirby, The Vol. 1 by Greg Theakston (Pure Imagination; 1997) Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists (1924–1995) The Complete Index by Dave Strickler (Comics Access; 1995)

InnerviewS

Comic Strip Con

Excerpts from the 1973 San Diego Comic-Con, featuring Neal Adams and Jack Kirby • Held August 16–19, 1973 at the Sheraton Hotel, Harbor Island, San Diego, CA • Thanks to Jon B. Cooke for the audio recording

[The following excerpts are likely from August 16, 1973. This was the first year the convention was officially called the San Diego Comic-Con, and it opened with keynote addresses by Guest of Honor Neal Adams, Carmine Infantino, and Mike Friedrich. At this first panel, comic strip artists were well represented, with both Kirby and Adams having produced syndicated strips. The discussion focused on production, and specifically coloring:]

areas that are not to have a particular color, on acetate prints of the pages. And they have to do about nine of these acetates prints. And they photograph these onto a plate through a screen. The screen may be a 50%, or a 25%, or a solid. This way, they put together 50%, 25% of each of the colors on separate plates. It’s a very, very crude method. It’s called “fake separation” because that’s exactly what it is. Maybe one day we’ll get out of that, and get into really good color separation. At National Comics for a while, we were doing reprints of old ’40s material, which we did not have black-&-whites of. We photographed the color, and washed the color out. And what we do is, photographically, they would aim for the highest contrast of black-&-white, and then they would hire someone to sit down with white paint and go over and try and wash out all the registering of the other colors that came up in black-&-white. Red would always show up on a black-&-white, and so we’d have to go over and take white paint over all the values of red that would come through. We had problems with lettering on that too. If there was lettering on balloons—this was a slow, painful process, and there isn’t really any better way to do it at this point, at least economically. Shel has something to say about that.

GUS ARRIOLA (creator of the comic strip Gordo): I send in an indication of what I want. I have a black-&-white photostat made of the Sunday page, and then I color that in exactly the way I want it to appear—and plus that, they’ve given me a chart of the screens and the numbers, so there’s no mistake. So I not only color it, but I put the number of the color screen that I want, according to that chart, and it comes out very close. You wanted to know what medium I use to color that indication—it’s colored India inks. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Neal and Jack, do you both use colored India inks to do indications before you send in an issue? JACK KIRBY: Mike Royer [left, photographed at this 1973 con] works on my strips before I send them back to New York. As far as color goes, DC’s equipped to do that job, and has very competent people to do that job, and I rely on them in that respect, and I’m quite satisfied in what they do.

NEAL ADAMS: I try to get to color my own stuff, and a couple of artists do, because possibly you can be very personal about it, and possibly they think there are things they want SHEL DORF (co-founder of the San Diego Comic-Con, and one-time to get. I like to do my stuff with Dr. Martin’s Dyes. Some people do letterer of Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon newspaper strip): Jerry Bails it with watercolors. Some people do it with India ink. The problem asked me to do some of the work on his strips, for Who’s Who in is, comic book reproduction has, at its fingertips, only 64 colors to American Comic Books... I told him that I’d been playing around work with. Now, that sounds like a lot of colors, but it’s really not with trying to drop reds. As you know, when you photograph red, a lot of colors. What that means is that, comics books have in the it turns black. So you’ll see these pictures of people’s faces, and it red family, three values of red to use: 100% of red, 50% of red, and looks like they’ve got some disease. They have all these little black 25% of red. They have those same values in other colors, yellow and marks on them. One of the methods I discovered is, if you use panblue, as we all know, right? Printing colors are made of red, yellow, chromatic film and a red filter, it drops it and blue. Those are the only three colors that out, it becomes invisible. All the reds drop [l to r] Jack Kirby, Neal Adams, Mike are used, and all the other colors are made Friedrich, and Bernie Lansky. out. The only problem with that is, all the by combinations of those colors. And unforblues turn black. [laughter] So when we’re tunately, you only have three values to work shooting for Batman, this was the hardest with. If you multiply those colors togethone. [He] has a pink face, and a blue and er—in other words, 25% of red and 25% of black costume. You shoot for red, and all blue and 25% of yellow, you get gray. 100% the blues turn black. You shoot for the blue, of yellow and 50% of red, and you get a nice the blues drop out white, and the red turns bright orange. These are the limitations of the black. So what we did, we shot two negacomic book reproduction method. They’re tives; one dropping the blues, one dropping very grave limitations, and the people who do the red. We made a sandwich, we made one color the comic books have to operate within print, and all of them dropped out together. these limits. Just to clarify; what happens It takes a little bit of experimentation, but to the color guides is, they’re taken to—in they came out. But it’s very expensive. the case of most comic book companies— Chemical Colorplate in Connecticut. Ladies ADAMS: National Periodicals has a pseudoin the area, and one or two gentlemen, work genius production department, outside of on a freelance piecework basis, and what they the fact that sometimes we think it’s part of do is, they take photographs of all the pages, their job to mess up our artwork. [laughter] and with this red paint, they paint out all the The fact is that there are people in there 7

due to his Ben Casey strip work from 1962–1966]

that have more ideas than I ever heard of, having to do with reproduction. And Jack Adler, who is one of the heads of the production department at National Periodicals, has developed a method of combining filters so that they drop out the red. Now remember, we’re talking about photographing a printed comic book page, and just trying to get the black in the photograph. All that color’s got to go away. So they put on a filter that kind of eases out the yellow, and a filter that eases out the red, and a filter to kind of ease out the blue, and they shoot it. All that stuff also eases out a lot of the black, so they have to shoot it very strong, and very carefully, so that they pull up the black and stop it before the other color comes out. And they’ve worked out a method to do this; all those reprints you see in National Periodicals are done this way. What happens is, some of the black does come out, and they have to have guys to touch it up, so there are freelance artists who, at the beginning of their careers, will be able to say that they touched up all those old comic books, because that’s what they did to earn some extra dough, until they became professionals.

ADAMS: The difference between syndicated strips and comic books... they’re multifarious. Jack knows the feeling of meeting that deadline every week. He had Sky Masters to work on, which is the one that stands out in my mind, but I think a lot of other ones, too. But Sky Masters is like, the glowing thing that I remember. You have all kinds of very strange problems in syndicated strips. You have the problem of “cut-off”. On some Sunday pages, they take off the first three panels in some papers. Sometimes they take off one of the three panels. You’ll do a large panel and two small ones, and they take off the little dinky one on the right, and somebody said something important there, and it goes. If you work for a particular syndicate, and you draw your page one way—in other words, if you draw it horizontally, and do deep panels, which you’d have to do if you draw it horizontally, then the bottoms of the panels get cut off. If you do dailies for the news syndicate, for example, you have to leave extra stuff on the bottom of the dailies that will get cropped off; that happens to you a lot. You also have to leave space in the upper lefthand corner, where you don’t necessarily put the logo of the strip on a daily strip, but some papers decide they’re going to put it in there, and they do it. You have to be prepared for papers not printing color very well. The Times-Advocate So there might’ve been some disadvan(Escondido, CA) from tages. Your audience is different. You can’t tell Aug. 14, 1973. as long a story. You can’t get as much into the soap opera quality of the story as you can with a strip. I found it a lot more comfortable and a lot more free and a lot more adventuresome in that—the syndicated strip business is not exactly what it was. Those with humor strips are surviving a lot better than those with realistic strips. They syndicates are not very receptive to realistic strips anyway. The comic book business is flowering like crazy. I’d like nothing better than have some of the comic book thinking go back into the comic strip world. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I am delighted in the comic book business, but again, there are difficulties. There are difficulties with the lack of control and the color.

[on syndicated newspaper strips—Adams speaks as a veteran of the field,

KIRBY: Although the coloring is usually... from my own experience, I’ve seen the coloring done at the publishing house itself, by the particular people who—well, they’ve gathered up the experience in the field to handle that sort of thing, and actually, they do it very well. I rely on them all the time I’ve been in the business. Of course, the printers themselves can do it. The printer has the means to do it, and often does. It’s done on what we call silver prints. It’s something that evolved; it’s like a photostat that involves a quality of paper, and this paper takes color very well. The 8

colorist uses the silver prints to make their color guides, and these guides go down to the printer. Of course, this kind of stuff can be bypassed by having the printer do it. But usually I feel that a lot of publishers and editors or people involved with the strips themselves, rely on the publishing house, rather as a kind of a last look at the strip to see what they really produced, and will have the coloring done at the publication house. ADAMS: Comic book artists, and comic strip artists— realistic ones especially, and humor ones... humor artists, I found, go through the same thing, in a little different direction. But almost every artist I know, has a morgue or scrap file or research file, that’s pretty generally a swipe file. A chasing file. For an accurate medical strip—well, you get as accurate as you have to be. I personally enjoyed researching material. I’ve interviewed surgeons and stuff, and I discovered operations that have still not been announced, that are in the research stage, and it’s a really big kick for me to get involved in that. And I did it more for fun than research, because the stories are pretty mundane things, and they follow the soap opera aspects of them. I never got a letter from a doctor that said I was doing the Trendelenburg position wrong, or any of that stuff. But comic book artists, everyone that I know, has a good morgue. Comic strip artists do a lot of research as far as reading, and keeping things around they can be inspired by. Jack, maybe you can say something about that.

the logotype on the cover, and everything that goes with the book, and everybody involved with it sells that book. ADAMS: The other guest that’s just arrived—I’m a particular fan of one particular area that has to do with production, and it’s the area that we don’t necessarily think about as being artistic as often as we should. Comic book artists and comic strip artists take full-color illustrations, and turn them into black-&-white illustrations, and then probably with the crudest color method possible, turn them back into color illustrations. And Gus Arriola has done some of the most creative color work in comic strip form.

KIRBY: I think it all involves a personal choice in doing a story, in which you have a very effective scene. If you want to present it in a very dramatic or a personal way, you’ll indicate it to the colorist. In other words, you may not want a flesh color, you may want it all red. You may want to set a figure off in red, in order to dramatize, so you’ll indicate that to the colorist. Otherwise, the colorist will do the standard job, and a good job. And we can’t do that throughout the strip, cause it’ll make the eye strain. If the eye strains, you lose the thread of the story. So one or two good outstanding, dramatic scenes will carry whatever you want in the story. [Next is a panel for the Academy of Comic Book Arts, with (at right, l to r) Jack Kirby, Gus Arriola (creator of the comic strip Gordo), Bernie Lansky (creator of the comic strip Seventeen), Mike Friedrich, and Neal Adams] ADAMS: I’d like to introduce the two new members of the Board. I don’t know why I’m introducing them, but apparently it’s the job, and I’m delighted to introduce somebody who needs no introduction. Jack Kirby. [applause] KIRBY: Well, the production of comic books of course involves what we call editorial; the written material, the drawn material, and the inked material. What we call production, per se, involves the correction process, it involves the lettering, it involves engraving. That’s what we refer to professionally as production. We like to think that the original stuff, the drawing and story, are important. But we realized that good lettering, or good imaginative color theories of the printer, will certainly add to the book. The book is all these things, all these facets, and I believe that’s what really sells the book: everything that’s in it, including the lettering, including

Why don’t we open up to questions? [Neal asks people to avoid fannish questions, and focus on comic book production questions.] The question is what size are the original pages of comic book art. Most of the stuff is 1/3 again larger than the printed comic book page. KIRBY: I think the standard page might average out to 10" x 15" or so. I like to work as large as I can, but the standard page measures around those dimensions. The largest is maybe 12" x 18". But 10" x 15" seems to be the size most comic books have settled for. ADAMS: Pencilers try as much as possible, to give the inker as close to an idea as possible what they want when it’s inked. I’ve seen Jack’s pencils, and if he penciled with a harder pencil, and then spilled some ink on it, and then wiped it off real quick, it would be inked, because that’s exactly the way it should look. It’s very hard to get to that quality. H 9

[top] Neal’s back cover for this 1973 convention’s program book. [previous page, top] Sky Masters teaser from the Honolulu Star Bulletin, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 1958. [previous page, bottom] At age 21, Neal Adams took over the syndicated comic strip Ben Casey (based on the popular TV show) on November 26, 1962, and continued till its end on July 31, 1966. Here’s Neal’s April 5, 1966 strip. He was hired as a freelancer by DC Comics in 1967.

Spin-Itch

Socko the Sailor Man by John Morrow

Kirby’s surviving continued Socko stories are: #136–145 (at the gym, Polynesian islands) #148–154 (in Baghdad) #155–158 (sea battle) #253–260 (shown here) #273a–285a (Max the mule, Mexico bullfight) #269b–285b (starts at end of #285a’s bullfight with “El Falfa” the bull, then Blatwood Blotz tries to get Socko to pilot his submarine)

ocko the Seadog is an obvious rip-off of Elzie Segar’s Popeye, but it’s not without merit—mainly, that it was an early training ground for Jack Kirby. Socko started its numbering with #100 and a 1936 copyright date, and strips through at least #107 were likely drawn by H.T. Elmo himself, using the pen name “Teddy” (from his middle name Theodore). Kirby joined Lincoln Features in 1936, and having experience working on Max Fleisher’s Popeye cartoons, took over Socko around strip #136 (sadly, no #108–135 examples exist). After extensive searching through numerous newspaper archives, it’s clear that most papers running Socko were weeklies (or twice a week at best), and would often run strips out of order. After reassembling the

There is a running continuity within Kirby’s Socko, but not always with consecutive numbering. The more loosely rendered, unconnected gag-a-day strips are randomly interspersed within Jack’s continued storylines, so presumably Elmo had some daily clients who could run continued stories without confusing their readers. Why are there “a” and “b” versions in those above numbers? Because there were 17 final continuity strips that reused the numbers 269–285. That final sequence abruptly ends with a beautiful French reporter “Evonne Evonne” trying to trick Socko into piloting Blatwood Blotz’ submarine. So I’m calling those last continuity strips #269b–285b. They’re in the correct order on the pages that follow, so you’ll see what I mean. During my research, I discovered the Saybrook Gazette and Arrowsmith News (published in Saybrook, Illinois) was running Socko as late as 1950. So either Elmo was still making sales that late, or that paper was just reusing old proofs in their files (that newspaper first ran Socko from its non-Kirby beginnings withstrip #101 on Feb. 5, 1942; #100 never ran). Despite some ethnic stereotypes that are looked upon unfavorably today, this strip shows Jack’s early skill at storytelling, and add#100 (The Crescent Times ran this debut strip on April 8, 1937, but ended Socko at #107, before Kirby arrived) ing a maximum of impact in just a few panels. By the end of Kirby’s run, he was using a crosssurviving strips numerically, there are numerous misshatching technique in his inking, akin to what he used Strip sources, in ing ones, including #108–135, 142–144, 171, 229–252, on the more serious Blue Beetle strip of the time. The addition to Jack’s own 270a–271a, 280a–282a, 281b, and #283b. Either those evolution shown across these examples indicates just files: strips never existed, or more likely there’s no surviving how quickly Kirby was improving during this era. H https://chronicling examples america.loc.gov/ due to their https://nyshistoric running in newspapers.org small town https://panewsarchive. psu.edu newspapers that are lost https://libguides. njstatelib.org/ to time and digitized-newspapers World War https://newspaper II paper archive.com drives. #136 (presumably the first Kirby strip, since there are no surviving examples of #108–135 to search for an earlier one)

#229–252 are missing strips, so this starts mid-story

#254

#256

#257

#259

#274a

#275a

#276a

#277a

#278a

#279a (#280a–282a are missing)

#283a

#284a

#285a

#269b (duplicated numbering start here)

#270b

#271b

#272b

#273b

#274b

#275b

#276b

#277b

#278b

#279b

#280b

#282b

#284b

...just as Jack tried an experiment having an image run across two panels.)

OBSCURA

Barry Forshaw

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

Barry Forshaw is the author of Crime Fiction: A Reader’s Guide and American Noir (available from Amazon) and the editor of Crime Time (www.crimetime. co.uk); he lives in London.

#1 and #2, from June and August 1959.

two books appearing. The standard story of the termination, disputed in several quarters, was that Goldwater had received a cease-and-desist order from DC Comics which obliged him to kill the book. The reason was similar to what did-in Captain Marvel earlier that decade: the character had aped the daddy of all superheroes, DC’s Superman. It’s been pointed out that while Captain Marvel was indeed a clone of The Man of Steel, there was some attempt to make The Shield more individual. Yes, he could fly, but his unusual dexterity in dodging bullets was stressed, as was the ability to generate crackling energy from his hands. However, of course, his costume was skintight blue Lycra with red trunks and boots; no cape, but still...! However, it might be pointed out that another superhero had been using that color combination for a while, and it could also be argued that Kirby was more inspired by his own creation with Joe Simon: Captain America—not to mention his newer version of that character, Fighting American, the latter a character whose reign stretched to a variety of successful issues. Whatever the reason, The Shield was a briefly glowing comet in the night sky, and after one spectacular first issue and a perhaps less impressive second issue, he was gone. That first issue has been discussed in this column before, but we haven’t turned the spotlight on issue #2—the final issue. It’s time…

KIRBY CLONES KIRBY

If you’ve been reading this column over the years, you’ll know that I’ve been pretty thorough in investigating all the work by Jack Kirby which belongs in the category described in the title—that’s to say, “Obscura,” rather than mainstream. If the truth be told, I’ll admit that I frequently moved into territory other than that reserved just for the cognoscenti. Are the Challengers of the Unknown obscure these days? They haven’t had their own book for quite a while and made only fitful appearances in the DC animated shows. The men living on borrowed time are, it has to be said, largely forgotten heroes, although I’d guess that readers of this magazine will have at least those first issues illustrated by The King (or collected in the handsome DC hardback edition, which I imagine isn’t cheap these days). So, yes, Obscura. But what about Private Strong, he of the “Double Life”? Or, if you prefer his superhero moniker, The Shield? As with so much of Kirby’s immensely creative work in the 1950s, this particular costumed character only had a couple of outings in The Double Life of Private Strong—just two comic books before a half-hearted revival later with other less accomplished artists. And his newsstand demise at the hands of Archie Comics’ John Goldwater was not due to faltering sales; there was hardly time to even register the requisite figures with only a measly

ARCHIE’S DYNAMIC DUO

The Double Life of Private Strong had hit the ground running with the first issue, featuring some of Kirby’s most energetic work in the period, and was as impressive as its equally short-lived companion title, Adventures of The Fly (although more modest talents were to produce subsequent issues of The Fly after Kirby said goodbye). The second issue once again features the memorable notion of a filmstrip across the top and down the righthand side of the cover showing The Shield in a lively little mini-adventure, kayo-ing spies before returning to his secret identity of a none-too-bright farmboy turned soldier—the Private Strong of the title. And those of us old enough to remember the appearance of this comic in the UK—where both issues were much seen (unlike such DC titles we were desperate to see, such as the early Showcase 19

question—how much did he actually draw? As Harry Mendryk has noted, Kirby drew virtually all of the first issue, but in fact played a peripheral role in the second, despite the book looking largely Kirbyesque. Even the dynamic cover, which looks every inch Kirby, may well be from a Joe Simon layout, as are several action shots of The Shield in the issue—in fact, they may be Joe Simon repurposing Kirby images of the very similar Fighting American. There’s a very clear presence of what looks like Al Williamson inking on page 5 of the Toy Maker story, and the rather unfunny tale of a bullied Private Strong and the deluded tailor in the Shield costume is the work of George Tuska—a professional enough illustrator, but his stiff figures nowhere near in the class of Jack Kirby’s. When we get to the one tale which is illustrated by Kirby, the finale with the ultra sonic spies, it’s perfectly clear that Joe Simon (if we assume he was the guiding force behind the issue) has saved the best till last. In fact, the various pages talking up the contemporaneous Adventures of the Fly comic often outshine this disappointing second appearance of The Shield. Nevertheless, let’s be charitable: there are only two issues of The Double Life of Private Strong, and whether you seek out the originals or buy them in the handsome volume Simon & Kirby Superheroes (which contains all the Simon & Kirby work for Archie comics, but not the unexciting George Tuska stories), they need to be in the collection of any self-respecting Jack Kirby fan.

issues of Green Lantern or The Brave and the Bold debut of Justice League of America) will remember the impact of the covers. The second one is livelier than the first, showing The Shield smashing through a window while an obese villain directs a variety of toys to attack him. It’s an eye-catching cover which is matched by the fun first story, “Lovable Lou, the Toy Master”, which has the deceptively avuncular (and obese) friend of children turning out to be (surprise, surprise!) a spy with the destruction of America as his goal. In fact, it has to be said virtually all the villains that The Shield tackled in his brief tenure were spies. The Lovable Lou story is bursting with typical dynamic Kirby storytelling—or is it? With this comic, a variety of issues arise—issues which, if you’re prepared to tackle them, will show whether you are a dedicated Kirby aficionado or just a casual one.

THE OTHER ARCHIE HERO

After the paragraphs above discussing Archie Comics’ shortlived superhero The Shield, it surely makes sense to take a look at the company’s other hopeful entry in the superhero stakes, The Fly, another splendidly inventive Simon & Kirby venture that deserved a far longer shelf space than it achieved (although the green-clad, cowled figure had slightly more staying power than his star-spangled stablemate). The Adventures of the Fly in August 1959 was every inch as visually striking and dynamic as the premiere outing for Private Strong. The cover (which promised something called the “Wide Angle Scream—first time in comics!”) showed the eponymous crimefighter hanging onto a giant spider web above a city while an obese antagonist (“Spider Spry,” the logo informs us) crouches above him with two thugs below. It’s as eye-catching as one could wish from The King of Comics, as is the splash panel for the first story, which once again begins parceling out the issue in bite-sized chunks. The first begins “The Strange New World of The Fly” with the hero holding four criminals from the top of the building, each holding the one below him (one wonders how strong these guys had to be before they took a death plunge). Interestingly, the inspirations for the story are twofold: we have a juvenile hero who is transformed into a muscular adult à la Billy Batson and Captain Marvel (clearly the source here). Young Tommy Troy discovers a magic ring and the gateway to another dimension, from which a strange semi-human figure grants him the super powers of The Fly. But the other inspiration? No less than Charles Dickens: Tommy, surrounded by his fellow starving orphans in their nightshirts, resolves at the beginning that he will be the one to ask the crooked orphanage owner Creacher for food. In fact, he even uses Oliver Twist’s plea “Please sir, I want some more.” But unlike the British writer’s badly treated young hero, Tommy Troy—later to become an adult in the short run of the comic—is given a splendid new physique and powers. The last panels of the first story (particularly as seen in the impressively recolored Simon & Kirby Superheroes volume) are a reminder of how nobody could beat Kirby when demonstrating a heroic physique in motion. Despite his slightly ridiculous abbreviated wings (which are far too small to actually allow him to fly), the emerald-clad Fly is just as visually striking as Kirby’s contemporaneous The Shield,

WHO DREW ISSUE #2?

Like the first issue, the second outing for The Shield has a strange fragmentary structure—four separate stories plus a series of standalone pages, with nothing really given a chance to develop. It was a strategy that worked very well in the first issue, but is less successful here, even though the bursts of action have the liveliness that one associates with Jack Kirby. The first story has The Shield tackling the villainous toymaker, while the second has the sad sack Private Strong being bawled out by his snarling sergeant (and, incidentally, tackling a flying atomic tank). The third piece is played strictly for laughs, and concerns a plump middle-aged tailor who imagines himself to be The Shield, and even makes an ill-fitting costume. But it’s really only the last tale, “The Ultra Sonic Spies”, in which The Shield gets to cut loose with the kind of dynamic Kirby action that was all over issue one. But here’s the $64,000 20

and this should have been a launch pad for a lengthy comics career for the character— sadly, it was not to be.

SLIVERS OF KIRBY

The structure of this first issue of Adventures of the Fly duplicates the piecemeal approach of the initial outing for The Shield; interestingly, his first very brief adventure, “The Fly Strikes”, is (it’s now generally accepted) not the work of Kirby at all, although it appears to be. Closer inspection shows, as pointed out by Nick Caputo and others, that it’s almost certainly the work of The King’s partner Joe Simon, sometimes using swipes from the team’s earlier superhero Fighting American. And more borrowing is at work in the next ultra-brief outing, “The Fly Discovers His Buzz Gun”. The template this time is actually from unused work by the S&K team for the Mainline company—the stillborn Night Fighter (who can be seen only in a couple of rescued pages of preliminary artwork), but certainly his goggles and general appearance prefigure The Fly. Joe Simon was not one to waste a good piece of artwork. However, it’s undoubtedly Kirby’s work in the most famous story of the issue, “Come Into My Parlor”, in which the superhero tackles a squat loathsome villain mentioned above named Spider Spry (presumably in one of their brainstorming sessions, Simon and Kirby had realized that a hero called The Fly had to go up against a villain called “Spider”). This is the story that features the wide angle gimmick trumpeted on the cover: a panel spread across two pages, with the two antagonists facing each other as per the cover, and leaping off the page in a way that simply wasn’t seen in 1950s comics—although it was to became the norm

with Kirby in his memorable Marvel period with Stan Lee. The last story of the first issue of The Double Life of Private Strong was vintage Kirby, but that’s sadly not the case for his Archie counterpart with the last piece, which has The Fly up against a robotic opponent. The art here is by low-key professional George Tuska and one wonders if he was daunted by having to follow The Master, which he does capably, but no more than that. But if this last story disappoints, there is at least the compensation of another issue for The Fly to follow—that’s to say, another issue with choice Kirby contributions. H

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the Clip Joint

A collection of newspaper clippings about all things Kirby

From Mort Weisinger’s article in Pic Magazine, Feb. 1946.

[above] An article espousing the wonders of Kirby’s Fourth World, from the Wilmington Journal (Wilmington, Delaware), Feb. 23, 1972.

[previous page bottom] A little over three months later on June 1, 1972, the same writer (Terry Zintl) pens “Ax Falls on Two Comics Series” for The News Journal (also of Wilmington, Delaware), stating that “despite public protest,” New Gods and Forever People will be discontinued, but Mister Miracle will continue on. Jack is quoted saying, “The sales on the magazines were not as high as we anticipated. There was a definite lack of audience somewhere”—that they appealed to college-age readers, but younger readers wanted “a different type of story with more simple, straightforward action,” which his new books The Demon and Kamandi would deliver. Jack also stated that there is talk of DC occasionally publishing issues of New Gods in “large paperback form.” Readers in California are mentioned as circulating protest petitions about the cancellations, which Kirby said was “very gratifying, of course, but you’ve got to be logical and practical. Your audience is never static—you have to take in new types of readers, and most of the new readers are young.” Also shown is a clipping from the Nov. 28, 1974 Los Angeles Times with a quote from Carmine Infantino bemoaning the same thing. [above] Profile of Jack from the Ventura County Star Free Press (Camarillo, California) on Sun., June 24, 1973. [left] Notice in the New York Daily News, July 2, 1972, announcing Jack’s appearance at that year’s New York comic convention. 23

AP story from The Tribune (Seymour, Indiana), Dec. 15, 1982.

[this spread, top] Profile from the Simi Valley Star (Simi Valley, CA), Dec. 10, 1982. [previous page, bottom] From the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 29, 1986. [right] Article about Barry Geller’s plans for a Lord of Light theme park, from the Aurora Sentinel (Aurora, Colorado), Nov. 30, 1979. [below] Los Angeles Times West Magazine from Sept. 10, 1972, featuring Jack’s “Jupiter Plaque” idea.

Article about the launch of Sky Masters, from The Pittsburgh Press, Sept. 7, 1958.

From the Austin AmericanStatesman (Austin, Texas), Nov. 21 1992. 25 25

Mark Evanier

JACK F.A.Q.s

A column answering Frequently Asked Questions about Kirby

2024 San Diego Kirby Tribute Panel Held July 28, 2024 at Comic-Con International • Moderated by Mark Evanier, and featuring Tracy Kirby, Jeremy Kirby, Patrick McDonnell, and Henry W. Holmes.

[right] Back row, l to r: Tracy Kirby, Patrick McDonnell, Patrick Reed, Jeremy Kirby. Seated: Mark Evanier, Henry W. Holmes.

Transcribed by John Morrow Copy-edited by John Morrow and Mark Evanier

[below] Unpublished Master Jeremy strip from 1956. [next page, top] Editor John Morrow’s birthday is right around the time this issue is in your hands. If anyone out there owns this wonderful sketch and wants to gift it, you’d really make his day special—it’s even prognosticatedy personalized to him by Jack! [next page, bottom] We’ve no idea why Lockjaw from the Inhumans has a barbarian-looking dude riding on his back. Maybe this was an animation idea Jack pitched?

Photos by Chris Ng and John Morrow

MARK EVANIER: We have a different panel than was advertised because two of our people are sick. We also have a friend of mine—Henry, come over here and sit next to me. I’ll tell you who this man is in a moment, but first I have to greet one of my dearest friends. [pause as Henry Holmes makes his way to the podium] You’re probably wondering who this man is. Over the years, there were a lot of people who fought for creators’ rights in comics. I have been in the industry long enough to have seen how bad it was. When I got into comics, there were problems with Work For Hire, and the way they treated people—you didn’t get to keep your originals, they would treat people very badly. When I met Jack Kirby, one of the things that stopped me from trying to make my career in comics was seeing how unhappy Jack was with the way they had treated him. And I thought, “If they could treat Jack Kirby that way, think what they’ll do to me.” So I never did comics full-time, but I was around for this struggle and watched the industry change, and this is one of the men who changed it a lot. You may remember a comic book Jack worked on called Destroyer Duck. That was a benefit comic book to raise money, because Steve Gerber was locked in a

lawsuit with Marvel Comics over Howard the Duck—the ownership of it, and his firing from the company. We had to raise money, because Steve’s legal bills were getting to be astronomical, and Marvel was intentionally trying to drive them up. “We can outspend this guy. Maybe we can’t beat him in court, but we can beat him in his wallet.” So even with people chipping in, and people loaning him money that they never got back, it was still very financially ruinous. Steve fortunately had a very good attorney, who did wonderful things for him, got a great settlement out of it, and along the way helped open up the entire industry for creators to get much better deals. He negotiated some of the first creator-owned deals. That lawyer did the contract for my book called the DNAgents. He negotiated the contract when we took Groo to Marvel, and got the first real good creator deal ever out of Marvel. That lawyer’s name was Henry W. Holmes. This is Henry W. Holmes. [applause] We’re going to talk about other things first, and then we’ll talk to Henry in the second half of the panel. I will tell you, Henry represented some of the biggest stars and executives in Hollywood. His client list was insane; I’ll go through it. I am the only client he ever had that I’ve never heard of. [laughter] It’s amazing. In addition to Henry, we have some other wonderful people. Over the years I have been amazed at how Jack Kirby inspired so many other people in the creative arts. Obviously, he inspired a lot of people who wanted to draw big giant super-heroes beating up on each other. We understand that. But he inspired people who were poets and authors and musicians and dancers. I even got a fan letter one time after Jack passed away, from a guy who was a spot welder, who wanted to explain to me how Jack Kirby inspired him to be a better spot welder. I can’t figure that out to save

to get there, it closes on August 3rd. They’re hoping to work partnerships out with other galleries, to have this exhibit in other places, especially on the East Coast. So fingers crossed for that. I also had the chance—there’s a gentleman named Ray Wyman who did the Art of Jack Kirby [biography] awhile back. He is going to be launching a very cool podcast starting next Spring, and he has been working on about forty hours of recorded conversations with Jack. It’s really awesome, because it’s just offthe-cuff, completely out-there conversations, just letting Jack talk about everything. So I’ve been sitting and helping the guys at booth 1803, so come and say “Hi.” [spots the Kirby Museum guys in the audience] Oh, you’re right there! [laughter, applause] Jeremy? JEREMY KIRBY: I’m just here to see you guys! [laughter] Thank you all for being here. I’m excited. MARK: I’m always fascinated to ask Kirby relatives a question about this. I told this on another panel, but it belongs on this panel. As you may know, I broke my ankle earlier this year. It was a mess, a terrible situation, with agony—you’d never believe the pain I was in for a while. I broke it in the bathroom upstairs in my house. Four burly firemen, each one of whom should’ve had a superhero costume of his own, [laughter] showed up to carry me down the stairs. It should’ve taken a whole brigade. [laughter] They get me down the stairs, they put me on a gurney, they wheel the gurney out to the street, and they’ve got one of these fire rescue trucks out there—an ambulance, basically. And they put me in the back of the truck, and one of the guys is driving, and one is riding with me. I was almost screaming in pain, it was so excruciating. And I’m on this gurney, and he’s saying, “We’ll get you there, we’ll get you there...”, a very sympathetic person. And at one point he says, “Your house has a lot of comic books in it.” [laughter] And I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Did you ever hear of a guy named Jack Kirby?” [laughter] “Jack Kirby? Let me tell you...!” All the way there, I told him about Jack. I love telling people about Jack, I love the reactions I get. I think I’ve told this story too many times, about the kid in Costco who looked at me. I had a CD-Rom of Jack Kirby comics, and this kid was boxing things, and he says to me, “These comics are by Jack Kirby, the greatest comic book artist ever. Marvel f*cked him over.” [laughter] You’d be surprised how many times in my career as a writer for TV shows and such, I’d walk into meetings and the people there say, “Never mind the thing you came to pitch. Tell us about Jack.” [laughter] What kind of reaction do you get these days, from people who know you’re related to Jack Kirby?

my life, but he did. [laughter] If you’re familiar with a comic strip called Mutts, you know it’s a brilliant, clever, funny comic strip, that people love, with characters people love around the world. You’d never think that guy was inspired by Jack Kirby—well, he was. He’s Patrick McDonnell, sitting right here. [applause] And what would a Kirby panel be without Kirbys? [laughter] Say hello to Jack’s grandkids: Tracy Kirby and Jeremy Kirby. [applause] Tracy, Jeremy, what news have you got for Kirby fans, about things that are going on in Jack’s world? Oh, and we have an announcement a little later about something special, but first, Tracy, tell us about what you’re working on.

TRACY: I get a lot more reactions than I used to, that’s for sure. The cool thing is that, over the most recent years, my kids have been getting a lot of reactions, and some of the teachers know who Jack Kirby is. My daughter’s got a Kirby gene in her, for sure. She’s definitely a much better artist than I am. She was in advanced art in middle school, and she said, “Mom, this has been cool. They did a comic book inspirational piece,” so the art teacher who found out

TRACY KIRBY: Well, now that my children have been getting a little bit older, thank goodness, I’m able to dedicate more time to my own career. My creativity stems in landscape design; that’s about as good as I could get, with drawing circles on paper. [laughter] I stuck with that. But I’ve been really excited to start working with the wonderful guys who created this amazing nonprofit, the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center. Hopefully there will be, one day in the future, a brick and mortar [location], which would be amazing. The pop-up exhibits have been going great. If you are in the L.A. area, there’s two more weeks of the Kirbyvision exhibition at the Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles. It is amazing! The first time I stepped in, it was like, “Finally, a professional, amazing exhibit that is dedicated to Jack Kirby and his inspiration, instead of it always being Jack Kirby art as part of another exhibition.” So this is a really wonderful exhibition. If you have a chance 27

how Google works, and for a while, I couldn’t figure out why they kept showing me pictures of vacuum cleaners. [laughter] And I realized there were Kirby vacuum cleaners, and I was searching for Jack a lot. And now if you go in and type in “vacuum cleaner,” it’ll show you a picture of Jack Kirby. [laughter] TRACY: That’s funny, I received that exact same reaction. When I would say my last name, I always got the joke: “Oh, are you related to the Kirby vacuums?” And honestly, for the last ten years, I have not received that joke. [laughter] It’s usually the opposite now.

Sydney is Jack Kirby’s great granddaughter kind of let it slip out to the class. [laughter] And Sydney said it was kind of weird; it was the first time a couple of the kids near her went “No way!” [laughter] So it’s kind of cool, because probably ten years ago, I would say “Jack Kirby” and people would say “Who?” or “Oh, isn’t that Stan Lee who created everything?” Not a lot of people knew, and now when I’m at work or people will see a movie and say, “Hey, I think I saw your grandfather’s name on the movie credits.” So it’s been nice. It’s been a long time coming... I definitely feel like we get a lot more people coming up. It’s cool letting people know who my grandfather is, and what he did. And of course, everyone will get on their phone and start googling it and go, “Oh my God, you’re right! Whoa!” [laughter]

HENRY W. HOLMES: Stan Lee didn’t have a vacuum cleaner named after him. [laughter] MARK: Before we move off of Tracy and Jeremy here to get to our next guest, do you find that there are people who go, “Could you draw me a picture of Captain America?” TRACY: I immediately tell people I did not get the gene. When I did archaeology, I used to get made fun of for not being able to draw pottery shards. I’m creative in other ways, but I’m definitely not the artiste. My daughter, though, is actually getting people to ask her to draw pictures. In fact, she got her first little commission by another artist at the Kirbyvision exhibition.

JEREMY: I agree. [laughter] Absolutely. It’s a big change from years past. It used to be the opposite. I was never ashamed, but I would kind of hide it a little, cause you don’t know what reaction you’d get if you told them, “Yeah, my grandfather was instrumental in creating this character,” and their first thought was “the other guy.” And then you’d have to explain things, and after a while you just got sick of explaining it. I’d say, starting fifteen years ago or so, when credits started to finally go on some of the movies, and comic art started getting more popular, and people started deep-diving on the Internet—sometimes the Internet can be a good thing. Now it pops up in the weirdest places. I run a software company; we work with digital forensics for the federal government, and state and local agencies. I was on the phone with the head of HSI [Homeland Security Investigations], their cyber division. We were talking, and he brought up my last name, and he’s like, “Y’know, Kirby’s an interesting name, blah, blah, blah,” and I brought up [my grandfather] was an artist, and he goes, “I was hoping you were related to that Kirby. He’s awesome.” [laughter] And a police chief, literally just two weeks ago, one of my guys that works for me was on a live Teams meeting with him, talking about our products. And he saw a bunch of comic book stuff in the back, and said, “I’m the biggest Jack Kirby fan there is.” And they obviously [bought] the software and everything else. [laughter] And I sent him one of my grandfather’s comics, and said, “Thank you so much for what you do.” [laughter] We’re seeing it in so many new places that we’d never have seen it in the past, and it’s awesome.

JEREMY: She’s amazing. You’ll definitely be seeing her in the future. She has the gift. Her ability to draw—it’s awesome. MARK: One of the things I’ve tried to convince people of over the years, is that Jack was more than a guy who drew. Jack was more importantly a guy who thought, a guy with good ideas. Somebody on the Internet said, “Well, I like John Buscema’s Silver Surfer better than Jack Kirby’s.” That’s fine if they like John Buscema’s art, there’s nothing wrong with that at all. But I think sometimes they don’t get that John Buscema and Jack Kirby were not doing the same job. Drawing a comic book, drawing a character, is only a small piece of what Jack Kirby did. John Buscema did not approach his work as—and this is not a knock on John Buscema or any of those guys—“Okay, how do I revolutionize the business with this story? How do I create something new that will spin off into other avenues, and make the company more successful? How do I take comics to another level, moving in new directions?” One of the things that Jack was not that good at was looking backward. He really didn’t want to do the same characters over and over again. He wanted to come up with the next idea, the new idea, and his time at DC was very frustrating, because some people at DC didn’t want new ideas, especially from the guy who did those awful Marvel ideas. He was up against a bunch of people who, first of all, I think did

MARK: In the early days of Google, I was searching for things, learning 28

not appreciate what he had to offer; and secondly, who thought Marvel comics were not very good. And getting Jack away from them? Well, that would hurt Marvel, and maybe the Marvel fans would come over and realize how great Superboy is, and Aquaman is. One of the people who was supposed to be on this panel, but cancelled because of illness, was Paul Levitz, who took over as the head of DC. I wanted Paul to tell the story of how New Gods, and Forever People, and Mister Miracle sold pretty well. You’ve all seen people knock those books, but they actually sold very decently. When Carmine Infantino was in charge of DC, in my opinion, one of the main mistakes that company made was they cancelled new ideas too fast. Bat Lash wasn’t a hit as of its second issue; they cancelled it. Anthro wasn’t a hit as of its second issue; they cancelled it. If you’re doing something new, you’ve got to give a chance for the audience to find it. You’ve all seen cases where a TV show was in trouble. There were people at CBS that wanted to cancel M*A*S*H halfway through its first season. If they’d cancelled it, that would not have been a failure of the material, it’d been a failure of the network. I think, too often, people do not recognize that the failure of some comic books was the failure of the publisher, and not of the creator. And Paul would’ve told the story of how, one of the last things Carmine Infantino did before he was ousted there, was he cancelled a book Mike Grell was doing called Warlord. And then when Jenette Kahn came in, she looked at the recent sales figures and said, “Why the hell did he cancel that?” and put it right back on the schedule. And if Kirby had still been there, she would’ve put New Gods and Forever People and Mister Miracle back on the schedule, because they sold very decently. You were maybe too young to see how devastating that was to Jack when they cancelled those books. It is one of the saddest memories I have of him, is the day... JEREMY: The feeling was still around, that pressure. My grandfather’s kind of sadness or disappointment that they were cancelled, it was still around. It lingered, absolutely. MARK: Jack was a very strong man. He was courageous. My admiration for him does not just have to do with what he put on paper. It was who he was, how he talked; I learned from him as a human being. That was the only time I really saw weakness on Jack’s part. He was pale, sad—then he rallied and called Mike Royer and said, “Hey Mike, we’ve got some new books, and they’ll be even better,” and all of a sudden, The Demon and Kamandi were there. And they were very good books, too. I’m going to move the conversation to Patrick for a minute. You’ve got a new book out. Tell people about that book. PATRICK McDONNELL: Sure, sure. It’s called The Super Hero’s Journey, and it’s a love letter to Jack Kirby and the early Marvel comics. I’ll namedrop here; I just had the amazing opportunity—I did a book with the Dalai Lama about the environment: his words, my pictures. And I was trying to figure out, “How do you follow up a book with the Dalai Lama?” [laughter] The great editor from Abrams Books, Charlie

Kochman over there, came up to me and said, “Patrick, would you be interested in doing a book with the Marvel superheroes?” Oh yeah, you follow up a book with the Dalai Lama with Jack Kirby! [laughter] Made total sense. So I had the opportunity to do something with those characters. You had mentioned before about Jack being more than an artist. I think that was his inspiration for me. When you look at my Mutts comic strip, you wouldn’t necessarily think of Jack Kirby being an influence. What he inspired for me was his imagination. I don’t think there’s another artist in the history of the world, who invented more characters, costumes, and whole worlds, and that amazing imagination was always an inspiration for me. Mutts came out—Jack’s inspiration is definitely there. MARK: Tell me the earliest Jack Kirby comic you remember reading. PATRICK: I’m old enough to have had the pleasure of seeing that whole Marvel world appear before me and my brother’s eyes. I had an older brother, so he told me and my younger brother what we were allowed to collect. [laughter] He gave me X-Men. So probably X-Men #11, with the Stranger, which is a really strange comic. I was blown away by that. MARK: Not long before Jack got off that book... it’s interesting. Jack started drawing X-Men, and the idea when he started the X-Men, was they were going to have him do the first couple of issues, and then they would pass the book to [inker] Paul Reinman as artist. Paul Reinman was a longtime comic book artist, and he didn’t want to be an inker. He was doing it because he needed the work, and this was to break him in on the characters and Jack’s style. And Reinman was never quite able to pencil anything Stan Lee was happy with—not so much the drawing, but because of plotting, telling the story. So Reinman never took over, and the same thing happened with Chic Stone, who followed Reinman as the inker on X-Men. He didn’t want to be an inker, he wanted to pencil, and they thought they could break him in. He still never quite was able to plot a story the way Jack could, though he could draw nice pictures. So Jack finally stopped drawing X-Men, and they gave it to a man named Werner Roth to pencil over Jack’s layouts. And Werner Roth was exactly the kind of artist that Stan Lee didn’t want to have 29

[previous page] Unused 1956 Chip Hardy strip, and a 1971 letter from DC’s circulation manager, asking why In The Days of the Mob #1 never made it to many newsstands. [below] Patrick McDonnell’s new book The Super Hero’s Journey. His heartfelt take on growing up Marvel is a delight to read, and visually original, as you can see from this sample art page from the book.

[below] The 26th and final Black Hole strip, from Feb. 24, 1980. [right] If you wrote Marvel asking for an X-Men sketch in the 1960s, Werner Roth would oblige! We also have access to ones of Beast and Cyclops. [next page, top] Mixed media page from Patrick’s book. [next page, bottom] Unused Ditko Hulk pencil page from Tales to Astonish, circa 1964.

at the company. Werner Roth was a very fine artist, but he was the kind of artist that Stan used to reject, saying, “Too DC.” It looked too much like a DC comic, his work wasn’t exciting, his figures didn’t leap out at you, and things like that. But they were desperate for people, and Werner Roth was apparently such a nice man, and having worked from Marvel for years, they said, “Well, maybe if he works over Jack’s layouts.” So there were a couple of issues where Jack did layouts, although Jack occasionally penciled a page in there—a splash page, and one or two others. And finally Jack said, “I’m not doing layouts any more,” so Stan did one issue with Werner Roth without Jack Kirby layouts, and then gave the book to Roy Thomas to write. [laughter] PATRICK: Well, because of my brother, I collected everything Jack did, so I did get to see all those. For my particular book, I think I was mostly inspired by the Fantastic Four, where Reed and Sue got married [FF Annual #3]. When Charlie asked me to do a Marvel book, I was thinking, “What storyline can I do that had almost every Marvel character in it?” That marriage issue was a major

inspiration for The Super Hero’s Journey book I did. MARK: At any point in your life, did you ever want to draw Kirby-type comic books? PATRICK: Yeah, when I was that age with my brothers and I. That’s part of the book; it’s autobiographical about how big and important those comics were to us. My brothers and I put a little company together called The McDonnell Boys, and we did our own superheroes based on Jack. I soon discovered that my forte was silly, funny animals more than superheroes, and my anatomy wasn’t that good. MARK: For my own interest—you were on our Walt Kelly panel the other day, talking about how Walt Kelly was an influence. Tell me some other names of people who influenced you. PATRICK: Well, obviously the main one was Charles Schulz, and Peanuts. I feel very lucky; I grew up, and Charles Schulz was changing the world of comic strips, and Jack Kirby was changing the world of comic books, and the Beatles were changing the music world. It was an exciting time to be a little kid, seeing all that stuff happen. MARK: And you’ve been doing Mutts for how long? PATRICK: Actually, this September is thirty years. [applause] MARK: My friend Mike Royer inked Jack for quite a while, and then he worked for Disney. He segued into doing Disney comics. He’s talked about on these panels how working on Jack’s work inspired what he does with Donald Duck and Winnie the Pooh. So you see a similar lineage; that’s kind of what your book is about in a certain way. Tell them [again] the title of the book. 30

PATRICK: The book is called The Super Hero’s Journey, Abrams Comicarts. [Charlie Kochman brings up the book from the audience, to laughter] Oh, here we go. That’s why it’s good to have an editor in the house. [laughter] That’s the cover, and it’s a very strange book. I was surprised Marvel said yes to it. But it’s my drawings with Jack’s and Steve Ditko’s—I actually tell a new story using the old stories. And it’s a combination of my work and their work, and it’s about love. There’s two Jack Kirby quotes that touched me. I think Jack’s work was very spiritual, and there’s a quote where he was being interviewed, and they asked him “What superpower would you want?”, and Jack’s answer was one word. He said, “Love.” I don’t think there’s any other comics artist that would come up with that answer. So that’s how my book starts; it’s about Mr. Fantastic, with the help of the Watcher, trying to find love to combat the Negative Zone that has taken over our planet. The [quote] that ends the book—and again, it’s something really powerful that I read in the Kirby Collector—Jack

talks about in World War II, he came across a guy who was dying on the battlefield. Jack tried to help the guy, and the guy just looked at him and said, “What happened? What the hell happened?” And Jack said, “You happened.” I just thought that’s such a powerful thing to say. So those were the two inspirations. Somehow I had that for the beginning, and that for the end, and I just had to write a story that made sense for all that to come together. [laughter] MARK: By the way, the gentleman who brought that up was my editor on the Jack Kirby book I did for Abrams. That’s Charlie Kochman over there. [applause] We have a couple of projects looming here, which you’ll hear about at some point. I’m going to start with Henry here now. I was mentioning you had an awful lot of amazing, famous clients. Would you mind telling us a list of some of your more famous clients? You’re retired now mostly, right? Do you still do a little... HENRY [at right]: Yeah, consult. MARK: Okay, tell us the names of some of your clients they may have heard of. HENRY: Alfonso Cuarón, who did Rafferty; Diego Luna, Guillermo del Toro... MARK: Can you speak up a little more? Crank up his volume a little if you could please. HENRY: A lawyer that can’t talk. That’s perfect! [laughter] Jack Kirby... I always saw him as a creator, not just an artist. And we all collaborated on Destroyer Duck. He had such great ideas. This is a guy who should re-draft our Copyright Act. He not only created the character Destroyer Lawyer and made me look strong and all that... MARK: Henry is a character in Destroyer Duck #1. HENRY: ...but we showed Marvel and DC, with that Eclipse comic, that creator-owned comic magazines can sell, and you can play off the inadequacies in the Copyright Act, like Marvel and the compilation, the parody stuff. But I’ve been saying, he’s one of the most inspirational clients I’ve had. We learned so much about copyright when we were trying to void copyright with Marvel. And Mark Evanier; I walked out of there, I [discuss] this stuff, and these guys really get it, they really understand it. Let’s see: George Foreman, Billie Jean King... MARK: Hold it. If you’ve got a George Foreman Grill, you have this man to thank for it. [laughter] HENRY: My son is out there in the audience, and he’s got a big trust fund to thank for it. [laughter] MARK: You represented Robert Evans, you represented Billie Jean King, Pamela Anderson. I’ll tell you a good story about Henry. I had a problem with an animation studio called DIC. I wrote a pilot for them and it sold, and the contract said I was supposed to get a big sales bonus if the show sold, and they were trying to use a technicality to get out of it. And I said, “Are you going to pay me this money?” and they said, “Sue us.” So I went to Henry, who was already my attorney for some other things, and he called them up. And the mere fact that Henry Holmes was representing me, made them go, “Okay, we’ll pay him the money.” [laughter] Well, what happened was, Henry negotiated a settlement, and they had to pay the money within 48 hours. And 48 hours later, the money had not arrived in his office. So he called me up and said, “Mark, they haven’t sent the money over yet. We’ve got two choices here. I can sue them again, or one of my other clients has volunteered to go over to DIC and get the money for you.” I said, “Who’s that?” He said, “Hulk Hogan.” [laughter] I had this momentary thought of someone in Business Affairs at DIC getting a call: “There’s 31

[above] 1963 mimeographed fanzine page, traced from Kirby art. [below] Destroyer Lawyer debuts in Jack’s pencils from 1982’s Destroyer Duck #1 (shown here from TwoMorrows’ Destroyer Duck: Graphite Edition). [next page, top] 1980s Darkseid sketch—he ran a true “God Corp.” [next page, bottom] Kirby illo done for the Veterans Bedside Network yearbook.

That Evening... I know the outfit’s a little unorthodox for an attorney...

a 7' 4" wrestler here to see you.” So anyway, I said, “Why don’t we give them another day for the money to arrive?” And it did. Two years later, I was at an event where Hulk Hogan was signing autographs and appearing. He had been on a TV show I produced for CBS, a Special. And I went over, thinking he’d remember me from the Special. He didn’t remember me from the Special; he looked at me and said, “Are you the dude I was going to go to DIC and get the money for?” [laughter] That was the power of Henry. Another person he represented was Harlan Ellison. [applause] Harlan Ellison; you may have known his history. He sued a lot of people. [laughter] And won a lot of major victories. The man who won them was this person. When Harlan was involved in that famous lawsuit, when Michael Fleisher sued Fantagraphics, Henry was the lawyer back there in New York—you were not nice to some of the people Mr. Fleisher’s side had who were witnesses.

“Jack Kirby.” I asked a couple more questions in that area. MARK: Do you remember what they were? Do you remember what else you asked him? HENRY: Something to do with the X-Men. MARK: Yeah, you asked him who created the X-Men.

HENRY: Right. And it all came out “Jack Kirby.” Well, I called Jack and I said, “Hey, you got the picture here!” So it was that kind of world. But I can’t say enough about Jack... A lot of the tongue-in-cheek stuff in Destroyer Duck and Destroyer Lawyer, he patterned kind of after my life. For example, I would go to lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Now, when Destroyer Lawyer was in New York, he hung out at the Bowery Hills Hotel. [laughter] Also, the trappings of—I used to like wine—he would show me with wine in a real, real clever way. I’ve gotta tell you; I told him about sections of the Copyright Act that he was familiar with. Some of the real sections we used to free up creators’ rights in this area. He was one of the leaders of the charge. From Destroyer Duck, I have original Jack Kirby artwork with Destroyer Lawyer on it, they made a t-shirt [audio is unintelligible here]. [laughter] I’ll just go out and sell t-shirts! [laughter] But that’s my really strongest memory of him. You could always call him for advice on HENRY: His New York lawyer has always irritated me. creative issues. To this day, I have four original [pages] [laughter] I didn’t like Michael Fleisher. So it was like a signed by Jack Kirby and Steve Gerber. real war... Steve Gerber was a fighter. Howard the Duck, we The whole Stan Lee/Jack Kirby thing—I took freed all of that stuff up, and made one mistake: the Stan Lee’s deposition in another case; it was involving movie. [laughter] [unintelligible comment] You do a lot creators’ rights. Out of the blue, I asked him—I had a of, like, putting papers on so Stan Lee thought I had stack of papers in front of me, I kind of looked at them testimonials or whatever, and getting them to admit and said, “Who created Captain America?” He thought things. Visiting Marvel during those days, it was like I had something, I had blank sheets. [laughter] He said, GODCorp. The characters are so like the they got the little guy back into they fight alL their battles their cLutches before I could characters who were at with money, duke. get a court order to open the Marvel. “It’s not who the entire staff files of legal concepts--and of their legal seE his contract. creates, it’s who prints ...but an concepts subsidiary entertainment they never gave him the magazine.” And was turned loose and copyright a copy of it--! on us. they besiEged lawyEr has that’s false. “It’s not the us with motions, to be prepared depositions, Mona Lisa, it’s the canfor anything. an’ the rest interrogations...! happened alL vas—is that what you’re over my rug, saying?” And it was huh...? Imagine--alL the resources those kinds of attitudes of a mammoth, I had to deal with. arrogant corporation marshalLed against a single individual!

MARK: Let’s go back a minute to Stan’s deposition. I remember you telling me, reading me passages of it, you went through all these Marvel characters, he kept saying, “That was Jack’s idea. That was Jack’s idea.” And then in a later session, he tried to back off some of that.

the Little guy trusted ya, holmes-so do I. FilL me in on Godcorp.

yeah. exactly.

they’re Dangerous peopLe, duke--very

Then, Without warning, through the window comes...

HENRY: Oh, in the deposition, it was a case of all-Jack. [Later], “It wasn’t quite clear. It wasn’t quite clear.”

I said, “Well, this is your testimony.” He had some excuse that he used: “I wasn’t feeling good,” or something like that. He tried to back off of it. My wife was here, and we went to an event, and Stan was there. He came up and talked to me, and my wife says, “Oh, are you the guy that created Superman?” [laughter] But Jack Kirby created all those characters. And Jack Kirby made them work. If you look through the Destroyer Duck comic book, you’ll see a lot of Jack’s influence. A picture on the wall at GODCorp, which is Marvel, was “We see it, we drain it, and we exploit it” on the wall. [laughter] So, Jack and Steve had me in a flying Ferrari. Did I have a Ferrari? Not then. The Ferrari in the last two pages is shot out of the sky by GODCorp and blows up. I got a call from Eclipse, and they said, “You won’t believe this. We got a letter from a little girl who said, ‘I am so sad they killed Destroyer Lawyer. I wish they would’ve missed.’” In the next issue, I come back in a flying Rolls Royce. [laughter] Actually, I’d get letters from the Bar [Association], because the first issue got a lot of play in the press, and there’s a section in there where Duke, who was Destroyer Duck, said, “They want us to deliver all these documents and answer all these interrogatories. What do we do?” And [Destroyer Lawyer] said, “Ignore it. Destroy the documents.” I get a letter from the Bar. It’s a comic book character! But I feel like that sometimes. [laughter] So I hope you enjoyed these stories. It’s funny; we would talk about copyright. And Jack would say, “Well, they’re going to say this, if we use ‘Howard the Duck.’” And I’d say, “Why would we use that?” Well, “the little guy, benefit issue, lawsuit, Howard the Duck.” And that’s really what kind of brought Marvel to its knees. They could see creator-owned works, with brilliant talents like Jack, Steve Gerber, and Mark—that’s how I met Mark. He was like working with an editor at my law paper. I can’t say enough about that era, and the strength of these guys, and the ruthlessness of the companies. MARK: You saw Steve Gerber in a lot of distress and a lot of trouble. And you tore up an awful lot of his bills.

Steve Gerber, I loved the guy. He’s “Well, how much is that going to cost?” And I said, “Well, book the airfare, I don’t know. I don’t own the airlines.” But he was always concerned about doing the right thing for the creative people in the industry. Can I explain the movie?

HENRY: The legal expenses he’s talking about are travel, discovery expenses. I knocked off—we didn’t work on a percentage, and he also lost his job. It was hard for him to find work, so that’s when we had the benefit comic book. It was really personal, and once you fly to New York a few times, you could pay for the airplane.

MARK: If you can do it into the microphone, you can. [laughter]

MARK: I remember bringing Steve into your office the first time and introducing you to him. At that point, you were in that building that was on Wilshire and Beverly, and on the way in, he was scared about how expensive the building looked. [laughter] And you put him at ease, a lot.

HENRY: I think that it was part of the settlement; it wasn’t a Marvel production, I think it was Columbia? And we had them hire William and Gloria Huyck, who [wrote the screenplay for] Raiders of the Lost Ark. We consulted on the script, and the movie turned out—how do you put it? Did anybody see Howard the Duck, the movie? [audience acknowledges they did, moans]

HENRY: Well, I was [concerned] how expensive the building was. [laughter] You have a lot of—this creator community goes way beyond what’s fun to work on. I had done big films with producers. I would yawn during the case. But

MARK: This crowd would go see it. [laughter] HENRY: I guess I can tell you my feelings about the movie. So it’s Halloween, I’m in Westwood. I have a Howard the Duck jacket on. We get pulled over by the police, and they say, “Have you been drinking?” “No, no, no.” So I turn to walk back to the car, and he says, “Boy, that was really a sh*tty movie.” [laughter] And I said, “That’s why I’m drinking tonight!” [laughter] The right people were on it; I don’t know. I thought Columbia would’ve done a better job. Did anybody see it and like it? PANELISTS: No! [one person in audience disagrees] HENRY: One fan, right? Is that tongue-in-cheek? Did anybody else like it? But I’ll tell you what Jack Kirby said about it: “Why did they do it that way?” [laughter] TRACY: I only wish we could go back in time, bring him back now, and let him watch the way his stories now are on the big screen. I 33

can imagine Howard the Duck as an animated series. You could do so many cool things today, and do it really good. I wish all these creators could actually see what they’re doing today—just the storylines, the characters, the technology, it just really brings the stories and a lot of their visions to life. Some of them not as good as others, but it is a shame.

MARK: Is Patrick Reed here yet? Patrick, c’mon up for a second. I want to change the subject for a second. We’re nearly at the end of this. Patrick has an interesting announcement here, one that excites me.

MARK: It’s a shame Jack didn’t live to see—when Jack was dealing with Marvel, working for them in the late Sixties, he told them, “These characters are going to be huge properties, there’ll be giant movies, bigger than James Bond,” and they treated him like he was crazy. One of the reasons Jack did not get his due from Marvel, was that no executives had any imagination, and could understand that he had a vision of the future that was going to turn out to be pretty accurate. I don’t think he would’ve been the least bit surprised at the magnitude that some of these characters have had on the movie screen. And I also think if Jack had lived longer, he would’ve gotten a lot of the rewards Stan Lee got, just for being Stan Lee. People were throwing money at Stan because he was Stan Lee, and he was the guy who gave them their childhood favorite stories, and Jack would’ve benefited that same way. Now Henry, you had a lot of interchanges with Jack which we talked about here, and also with Steve Gerber. You also made deals for me a number of times with comic book companies and dealt with them. Did you find the lawyers at Marvel to be as impossible as everyone else did? Cause there’s a couple of those guys I think graduated from the Rudy Giuliani School of Law. [laughter]

PATRICK REED: Thank you, it’s an honor to be up here with everyone. I’m a little out of breath, because I just ran from the opposite end of the convention center [laughter], where I was moderating the Comic Culture On Display museum exhibitions panel. I just made an announcement there; I’m going to make it here. The Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles—a very fine, prestigious cultural institution—has commissioned a series of comic and comic-themed exhibitions that will launch in 2025. The first of these will be the first major institution retrospective of an American comic book creator. And because I’m here at this panel, I think you can probably guess who they chose. [laughter, applause] Professor Ben Saunders is my co-curator. He founded the first Comics Studies minor and teaches at the University of Oregon. We have collaborated on a number of projects before, so in May 2025, Jack Kirby: Heroes & Humanity will be opening at the Skirball Center. [applause] I am not exaggerating when I say it is the honor of a lifetime to be working on this. And that it is something that I can only dream of doing, and I do not know how I magically lucked into it—not to imply that it also wasn’t a lot of hard work. Jack Kirby will be the first American comic book creator to receive a retrospective at a major cultural institution in the US. [applause] And we will do our best to make every single person on this panel, and every single person Thus evolved the godcorp philosophy: in this room, and every single person who’s ever read or enjoyed a Acquire All Kirby story or a Kirby character, proud. Creation...

HENRY: Look, they were corporate lawyers, andyour they had direction toward Bite Whatever this What you’ve described tongue,that chummo is a brute--a common employees was not creature in favor ofmay the --off. be--he is not roughneck--hard on creative community. And a“Tough.” lot of the the outside, but weak, irresolute, and statements of Ned Packer of GODCorp Al Haig squeamish within. isstatements tough. in Destroyer Duck were actual Toughness is i am tough. something else, from some of the lawyers. a duck is chummo--something If my son’s here, I can not give tough. a story. rare. it’s the quality of a manager, a So I go over to Marvel, and I get there, decision-maker. and... [the editorial staff] gave my son all Muscle is cheap. these Marvel characters and books and ideas are cheap. everything is all this stuff. And then I went to meet the cheap--except Marvel executive staff, and the coldest, the man to manage it. most ruthless beings were there, and my son is going, “Daddy, I love these toys!” [laughter] I don’t know why it came out— there was a certain resentment towards the creative community. I don’t know Marvel these days, but then it was—they said those things. Jack put in an employee thing at GODCorp that said, “Employees: Where would you be without GODCorp?” and then you see a jerk ed packer, president being squished. They said those things; it was so draconian. f godcorp, has never

t do you ean, he minds you a cop”?

ad an idea in his life-MARK: nd he’s proud of Do it. you folks all understand why I wanted Henry here today? ke the unliving entity [applause] Also, I miss you in my life. You were so good to me, you e captains, he exists didprofit-so many things for me, and helped me out over and over again. o generate nd ideas invariably The most honest lawyer you could possibly find. Advised me on all terfere with the fficient pursuit sorts ofofbusiness deals and such. And also, when I said to certain hat objective.

AUDIENCE: How do we get in? Can we throw your name around? [laughter] ...and the

REED:godcorp Well, it’s not about me. It’s about Kirby. [laughter] motto:

Business Affairs people, “My attorney is Henry Holmes,” it scared the hell out of them. [laughter]

we make MARK: The Skirball Center is a very prestigious organization. The product. last time I was there, they had the whole place full of Jim Henson [artifacts] as a tribute.

call have her meet me woblina HENRY: It was funstrangelegs. working with all these and Jack, at guys the east end and the of myaoffice-meetings were fun. I didn’t know they named vacuum cleaner after immediately.

him. [laughter]

REED: Yes, they had a Jim Henson exhibition, they have a Maurice 34

And the godcorp employee policy: where

Sendak exhibition that is currently on display. They had a Star Trek exhibition two years ago. It is a cultural center and museum dedicated to celebrating the Jewish cultural experience, and the American immigrant experience. So thematically, it’s a perfect home for something like this.

by: the Getty Center, which you’ve probably heard of, which is about twelve yards or something from the Skirball Center.

MARK: I spoke there twice; once to interview Jerry Robinson. They did a thing about the effect of Jewish comic book artists as a whole on the industry. This is the first time they’ve ever zeroed in on one person for this kind of honor. It’s what Joe Biden used to call “a big f*ckin’ deal.” [laughter, applause] JOHN MORROW [from audience]: Do you know how long it will run?

REED: Yes, the Getty Center is just up the hill from the Skirball. MARK: And people think of them as the two big cultural spots in Los Angeles, and often people will visit one, and then the other in one trip. If you come out to see this Kirby exhibit, you might want to drop by the Getty and see what the lesser artists do. [laughter]

REED: It will run almost a full year. We wanted to make sure people have a chance to see it fully. So it will be opening in May of 2025 and running through March of 2026. That means it will get the Summer traffic, that means we can coordinate with schools and school groups and educational organizations to bring people in over the school year. It’ll be open through the holiday season. We wanted to make sure as many people as possible have a chance to come in and celebrate Jack Kirby, and learn hopefully a little bit about the work and the craft and the detail and the imagination.

REED: If you have to be taking the 405, you might as well tag-team, and go to the Getty as well while you’re out.

AUDIENCE: Traveling? REED: It might travel; we’d like it to. One never knows, but exhibitions like this—if other institutions are interested—tend to travel. That’s always the dream. So without knowing anything, I’m not a business person or a booking person. I am somebody who is lucky enough to celebrate the stuff that I love, and do it with the partnership of major organizations and wonderful collaborators.

MARK: We are almost out of time here, folks. This is my favorite panel of the convention, and I love talking about Jack. My second favorite panel follows here over in 6A; the Cartoon Voices panel. [to Henry] Will you come over and watch our Cartoon Voices panel? HENRY: I will come over.

AUDIENCE: When can we get tickets?

MARK: Okay, I’m going to take Henry over and show him what we do over there, and you can all follow us over. It’s a lot of fun. I want to emphasize that I am not able to communicate adequately, how important Henry’s work was to creators’ rights in the 1980s. Working with this man was one of the great thrills of my life, and thank you for coming over here to talk to these people. I’m so proud of my surprise guest star! [laughter, applause] We’re going to do a brief photo op here right now. I’d like to thank Jeremy Kirby, and Tracy Kirby, and Patrick McDonnell. [applause] Thank you all, and we’ll see you next year, same time, same place, for even more Kirby announcements. [applause] H

REED: We confirmed the name of the exhibition only two days ago. [laughter] We are still in the process of defining the full narrative, but tickets will be available well in advance of opening. I would expect the opening celebration dates will be announced over the Winter, so you have plenty of time to plan for the opening event. MARK: If you want to keep an eye on my blog, I have agreed to help them out with this exhibition, and I will be plugging everything I can about it. REED: Thank you, Mark, and thank you for allowing me to come up here and hijack the presentation. [laughter]

[previous page, top left] Jack’s only Howard the Duck drawing we know of, from the 1977 Marvel Comics Calendar. [previous page, top right] A personal drawing Jack did for Henry Holmes. [previous page, center] Jack came up with GODCorp’s slogan, using the first letters of G.O.D.—detail from TwoMorrows’ Destroyer Duck: Graphite Edition [above], which is sold out in print form, but still available as a digital edition. [below] There’s no ducks, but while working at Ruby-Spears in the 1980s, Jack prepared samples for an Animal Hospital newspaper strip, to accompany a proposed animated show.

MARK: Your announcement is exactly what this panel is about. This panel is about remembering this man, and spreading the word about who he was, what he did, and his influence. And that is what the Skirball Center is famous for. The first time I went there, George Carlin was speaking. It’s a place that has wonderful shows, wonderful exhibitions. It skews Jewish, but not always. Jim Henson I don’t think was Jewish. But they celebrate this. There’s two museums near-

Artviews

Kirbyvision was quite a show, from the authentic 1940s newsstand that greeted you at the entrance, to the 3-D artwork and giant Galactus mural. Kirby fans, family and friends turned out in force for the exhibit’s opening night.

Kirbyvision!

nal semi by a f o e Hopp ecap hibit, The r rby art ex nd Rand ] a Ki below Kraft Tom [pictured

[Summer 2024 saw one of the largest exhibitions of Jack Kirby original art ever put on in the United States. Kirbyvision took over Los Angeles’ Corey Helford Gallery from June 29–August 3, showcasing 50 pages of rare Kirby art alongside new work by over 70 artists from the New Contemporary scene, each providing their own unique interpretation of Kirby’s characters, concepts, and sensibilities. We present here a conversation with curators Randolph Hoppe and Tom Kraft of the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center, as they reflect on what it took to be a part of such an ambitious event.] THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: How did you end up working with the Corey Helford Gallery to bring Kirbyvision to life? TOM KRAFT: I met [Corey Helford Gallery owner] Bruce Helford at an LA Comic Art Show around 2019. He collects Jack Kirby’s original art from Captain 3-D, a 1953 Harvey Publishing comic book that only ran for one issue. He told me his dream was to create the best Kirby exhibition ever. I mentioned that the Museum would love to bring something like the pop-up exhibitions we’ve done in New York City to Los Angeles. In July 2022, he suggested we contact [CHG director] Sherri Trahan. Sherri mentioned that the gallery was booked til 2025. So we waited. Then, in February 2024, we received word that the gallery had a cancellation, and the Kirby show was scheduled for July, leaving us less than five months to put it all together. TJKC: Where did “Kirbyvision” come from? TOM: I started brainstorming ideas for a thematic approach to the show. Sherri explained that the show wasn’t to be just an exhibition of original art, but also to showcase some of the 200 artists they represent, who would show new art that could be sold. So the combination of new artwork combined with Kirby original art, made “Kirbyvision” a perfect choice. RANDOLPH HOPPE: We hosted a blog for a number of years called Kirby-Vision by Jason Garrattley. So when Tom mentioned that he thought “Kirbyvision” was a good idea, I thought so too, because we’d already been hosting it! I did reach out to Jason and let him know that we were using that name. It’s pretty important that we’re not only getting Kirby’s work out there, but also showing the world that he did have a vision for comics and storytelling. It’s also just a great name. TJKC: How did the “Kirbyvision” concept shape the exhibition going forward? Where did the 3-D elements come from? TOM: The idea of having 3-D elements was 100% Bruce Helford’s. So we centered the exhibit around his suggestion to enlarge three pages from Captain 3-D into four-foot wide panels to hang on the wall. He also wanted to display some of the original Captain 3-D art that he owns. TJKC: Those huge 3-D panels, as well as the complete reprint of Captain 3-D you did at Treasury size, looked really spectacular. How did those come together, and how did you get the 3-D just right? TOM: That took scanning in the comic at high resolution. The original comic had faded and browned, so color correction and restoration were needed. Eric Kurland from 3-D Space, a museum in Los Angeles dedicated 36

the show, you would see the pages from Captain 3-D, but when you walked around the back of that wall, there was a giant Galactus mural, which was really cool.

to preserving the history of 3-D, provided guidance on how to enhance the files so that we could really showcase the effect.

TJKC: Is this the first time the Museum has been involved in something of this scale? TOM: Part of the mission of the Museum is to promote Jack Kirby and his legacy for educational purposes, so we’re always happy to help other institutions and museums with their Jack Kirby exhibits. RAND: We’ve been approached over the years by a number of curators who are interested in mounting exhibits or displays. One of our favorites was for Fumetto in Lucerne, Switzerland, where they had a building in their old downtown that had been hosting a Picasso Museum. They took all the Picassos down and put up Jack Kirby art, which was a real treat! We were very helpful in getting original art on the walls there and elsewhere. It was just great to have something this large and expansive at the Corey Helford Gallery, there in the arts district of LA. It really was a step up from our usual US based exhibits, which are often pop-ups at smaller art galleries in Manhattan.

TJKC: How did the “Kirbyvision” concept influence the presentation? TOM: We organized the exhibition into thematic sections, which had text information panels that positioned the original art and display items. We even added 3-D images to the panels to carry the 3-D concept throughout the show. We designed 3-D glasses with Eric which were handed out to attendees, and there were 3-D glasses icons that indicated when they should put their glasses on. We also made a decision in the design process to feature Jack’s “blitz” at Marvel, so we had a whole Marvel superhero wall that we felt was important to explain or express that the Fantastic Four through the Avengers and the X-Men came about from pitches of concepts and characters that Jack made to Marvel. TJKC: How did you feel about the work from the contemporary artists? RAND: Including the contemporary artists’ interpretations of Kirby is actually very similar to what Jason had been doing with the KirbyVision blog. It wasn’t all that much of a surprise to see people from all over the spectrum of artistic interpretation tipping their hat to Jack Kirby’s work. We were actually asked to suggest some artists, which we didn’t expect at the beginning of the process, and was a nice surprise. We created a list and did the best we could to come up with contact information for the gallery to reach out. But, you know, it still felt kind of like pulling together a wedding reception in four weeks. We realized that we missed some people, but it all worked out. It was really fun to see who contributed out of the people that we suggested. I think the real highlight was Skinner, whose work is filled with monsters and horrors, but is also colorful. He was so enthusiastic about the show that he contributed a huge Galactus mural on the back of the gallery’s feature wall. So when you walked into

TJKC: How did you source the original art for the exhibition?

[this page] Just a little of the Kirby-influenced art that was on display at the Corey Helford Gallery during Kirbyvision’s run.

TOM: Of the 50 pages of original Kirby art on display, two came from the Museum’s permanent collection. RAND: All the rest were from wonderful collectors such as Andrew Kevin Walker. He’s a big Kirby fan, and best known as the screenwriter of Seven. Tom met him through Sherri at the gallery, and he was so enthusiastic about participating and lending his art to the show that he said, “Make sure you put my full name on that placard. I want people to know that I support the Jack Kirby Museum.” He was such a big help. TOM: There were a few other private collectors who loaned us their art, as well. TJKC: Is there a chance to bring Kirbyvision to other locations? TOM: Well, that’s our goal. We put a lot of effort and a lot of time into building this exhibition. Since New York City is close to our museum’s holdings, that would be an ideal location. There are local Kirby comic art collectors that would be excited to contribute to an exhibition. So right now, there are no concrete plans, but we’re definitely looking for that opportunity. RAND: The big challenge is that this isn’t like our pop-ups, it’s much bigger, more ambitious. To carry that Kirbyvision idea through, we would really want to have participation from contemporary artists, just as we did in LA. It feels to me like it wouldn’t truly be Kirbyvision if we didn’t have some fun art from contemporary people who see through Jack Kirby’s eyes and then make their own art. TOM: So there could be a gallery with relationships with artists, or it could be a gallery that has a collection of newer Kirby-influenced comic art to display… RAND: ...or we could work with the artists ourselves. The problem, especially when displaying original

Kirby art, is the cost of insurance and security. We can’t do that on our own. In fact, we were so excited about the Kirby art that was available to include in the show, Naomi Pitcairn, a dear friend of mine, helped us pay for more valuable art than CHG’s insurance would cover. TOM: Insuring, shipping, and protecting extremely valuable original art can be costly. As we develop our plans for more Kirbyvision shows, we’ll be looking at how donations or possibly corporate sponsors could help support us. RAND: The magic lightning for Kirbyvision in LA was Bruce Helford, someone of significant means, who is a Jack Kirby fan, who happens to own an art gallery. I don’t know whether we’re ever going to find anybody like him again. Thank you, Bruce! TJKC: What was the response like on opening night? RAND: The opening was incredible. We had a lot of members of the Kirby family there, and seeing just how excited they were was a real treat. I mean, even some of our artists didn’t know how wonderful the gallery is, how large it is, how prestigious it felt. TOM: Some said that it was an emotional experience, just to see the original art up close and feel Jack’s influence on today’s artists. Many didn’t know the connection between Kirby’s work in creating great superheroes and the billion-dollar movies they’d eventually produce. RAND: It was really great. I mean, that’s what Kirbyvision is all about. H We can’t do justice to an exhibit of this magnitude here! See a full Kirbyvision walk-through with Rand Hoppe and the Corey Helford Gallery’s Sherri Trahan touring the exhibit: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=fdAN94ps9sQ 38

The 50 framed originals displayed at Kirbyvision: • 2001: A Space Odyssey #2, pages 2–3 • 2001: A Space Odyssey #9, page 30 • Alarming Tales #1, page 3 • Amazing Adventures #5, page 1 • Avengers #1, page 13 • Avengers #1, page 14 • Battle for a Three-Dimensional World poster • Bicentennial Battles Western Captain America pin-up • Black Panther #10, page 14 • Captain 3-D, page 12, Dolls page 1 • Captain 3-D, page 9 • Captain Victory #3, page 2 • Captain Victory Special #1, pages 24–25 collage • Darkseid pencil portrait • Demon #11 cover • Desaad of the New Gods pencil portrait • Devil Dinosaur #4, pages 2–3 • Devil Dinosaur #4, pages 2–3 pencil photostat • Fantastic Four #34, page 31/1 pin-up • Fantastic Four #51, page 6 • Fantastic Four #61, page 14 pencil photostat • Fantastic Four #62, page 19 • Fantasy Masterpieces #4, cover • Forever People #7, pages 1–2 • Forever People #8, cover • Forever People #8, page 6 • Foxhole #2, page 3 • In The Days of the Mob #2, pages 2–3 • Incredible Hulk #3, page 23 • Journey Into Mystery #86, page 1 • Kamandi #7, page 14 • Love Romances #101, page 7 • Machine Man #9, page 22 • New Gods #9, page 18 • OMAC #3, page 12 • Our Fighting Forces #153, pages 2–3 • Spirit World #1, pages 2–3 collage • Spirit World #2, page 5 • Strange Tales #75, page 1 • Tales of Suspense #75, page 20 • Tales to Astonish #78, page 1 • Teenage Romance #84, page 1 • Thor #152, cover • 2001 Marvel Treasury Edition, page 11 collage • 2001 Marvel Treasury Edition, pages 8, 27, 28 • X-Men #5, page 1 • X-Men #11, page 7 • Young Romance #18, page 4

Foundations

Johnny Reb & Billy Yank

Commentary by John Morrow

Johnny Reb and Billy Yank was a Sunday comic strip by Frank Giacoia which ran from November 18, 1956 to May 24, 1959. It told alternating stories of a Confederate and a Union solider during the American Civil War, and the title originated with the 1905 novel of the same name by Alexander Hunter, a Confederate soldier who kept diaries of his war service. Giacoia regularly turned to friends to ghost the strip for him, including Mike Sekowsky, Joe Kubert, and good old Jack Kirby. Jack ghosted 28 Sundays, from his first on July 28, 1957, to his last on Feb. 2, 1958. To give you an idea of the size these strips ran, take four pages of this issue (stacked two-and-two), and that’s about the size of the newsprint one Sunday filled when it first started publication in the New York Herald Tribune. (The background image on this page is actual size!) Standard newspaper broadsheets were typically 15" x 22¾" in those days, but the last full page strip (the final one reprinted here) appeared on Sept. 22, 1957. After that, it went to a half-size horizontal format, and by December 8, 1957, it had eschewed typeset lettering for comic book-style handlettering. For ease of reading, we’ve recreated the Times Roman and Futura typeset lettering in these examples to exactly match the original strips, staying true to the original line breaks and positioning.

There are three unfinished Kirby pencil Sundays in the Kirby Masterworks portfolio, one partially inked by Giacoia. It’s unclear why work was stopped on that episode, and the rotund painter in those strips never appears in the published run. But they were drawn in a horizontal format, so were likely done at the end of Jack’s tenure in Feb. 1958. Around that time, he began to develop Sky Masters of the Space Force, which saw print from Sept. 8, 1958—Feb. 25, 1961, so he may have left Johnny Reb to spend time developing Sky Masters. I have reviewed every strip from its full three-year run (some from black-&-white online archives, others from actual newspaper clippings from the Herald Tribune). And while Giacoia’s dominant inking style can make Mike Sekowsky’s blocky pencil drawings look something like Kirby’s on the strip, it’s the dynamism, figure posing, and storytelling that distinguishes Jack’s work, even though he was doing fairly rough pencils for Frank. Find more samples at: https://allthingsger.blogspot. com/search/ label/Jack%20 Kirby https://kirbymuseum.org/ blogs/effect/civilwar/1957-1958johnny-reb/

Jack Gave DC...

...A sharp edge!

Incidental Iconography

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

f I asked you about Jack’s time at DC in the 1970s, there are any number of things that might spring to mind: New characters like The Demon, Kamandi, and OMAC. Huge new concepts like The Fourth World. Perhaps just the massive industry shift of Marvel’s primary architect leaving for their chief rival. It speaks to the breadth and imagination of Jack’s work that I could follow up that initial question with “What else?” a hundred times and you likely wouldn’t get to the topic of today’s Incidental Iconography: Morgan Edge. Which is interesting, given that Jack introduced the character almost immediately: on page 5 of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133 to be precise [above]. (Of course, Jack being Jack, despite that being the first book of his contract, he managed to introduce the title character and five other brand new characters in the four preceding pages!) Not only was Edge introduced early, but he was picked up and used by other creators quickly as well, hopping over to Superman #233 by Denny O’Neil and Curt Swan before Jack’s third issue of Jimmy Olsen came out! I’ll point out the real significance of that in a bit. But let’s look at how Jack created the character in the first place. In 1967, Kinney National Company purchased DC (then still called National Periodical Publications) and the next few years saw other purchases that included Panavision, Elektra Records, and Warner Brothers. And while nothing was proven illegal in 1970, rumors of Kinney’s questionable business practices had been circulating for a while. Jack began toying with the idea of a large corporation run by someone who was effectively a mob boss, and the idea of Morgan Edge was born. A key story element around Edge that Jack introduced was the character’s two-faced nature. He is shown to be charming and pleasant around Clark Kent, but as soon as Kent leaves, Edge places a call to have him killed. It’s this sort of duplicitousness that likely steered Jack to using Kevin McCarthy for the basic likeness of the character. While McCarthy at that time was appearing on the TV series The Survivors, he was probably more well-known as the main protagonist from the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers [left], in which aliens appear as humans, but are slowly and soullessly trying to take over. It is, in fact, this younger version of McCarthy that Jack seems to have been looking towards over McCarthy’s then-current appearance, inspired by the movie’s core concept. Jack did not just lift McCarthy’s appearance from the film directly, though. McCarthy’s suits in the movie are simple single-

breasted, one-color suits that a suburban doctor might wear; Edge’s suits by contrast are double-breasted, pin-striped pieces with a pocket handkerchief and, frequently, a lapel carnation more befitting a Metropolis executive. Clearly, Jack wanted to signify Edge was from a different class than McCarthy’s Miles Bennell. Also, whether intentional or not, Jack opted to part Edge’s hair on the opposite side as McCarthy. Interestingly, Julie Schwartz was appointed to edit Superman just as Jack was starting on Jimmy Olsen and came in wanting to make some changes. While he primarily wanted to rein in Superman’s power set, he also was vocal about moving Kent from newspaper to television and saw Edge’s station as a media mogul as a serendipitous set-up for that. So we have Edge making appearances in other issues Jack had no input on right away. Edge’s first appearance not drawn by Jack was in Superman #233 [top right], which hit newsstands less than a month after Jimmy Olsen #134, Edge’s second issue. Which means that Swan was contributing more to readers’ understanding of Edge’s appearance than Jack was, since Superman was selling about 30% better than Jimmy Olsen on top of being monthly, versus Jimmy Olsen’s eight-issues-per-year schedule. Additionally, Jack left Jimmy Olsen in 1972 while Swan continued on both Superman and Action Comics for over a decade. While Edge’s basic design remained in place, Swan [right] was more attentive to men’s fashion and always drew the character in stylish contemporary suits, not necessarily the more timeless designs Jack used. I suspect Jack was unconcerned about Swan’s relatively minor aesthetic changes though, particularly compared with the retcon over in Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane (about six months before Jack left Jimmy Olsen) that the evil Edge that readers had been seeing was simply a clone made by Darkseid. Jack no longer used the character after that; I suspect he no longer saw it as his and moved on to the bigger Fourth World stories he was developing anyway. This was hardly the first instance of Jack’s design work being superseded in its iconography by a subsequent artist. But it’s probably the fastest that’s ever occurred, likely because a new Superman editor saw possibilities to bring a powerful character more down to earth, and not how an equally powerful villain might exploit the human condition. H 48

Gallery

EXTRA! EXTRA!

Read all about Jack’s Jimmy Olsen pencil work, through commentary by Shane Foley

[left] Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #144, page 6 (Dec. 1971) Speaking of Morgan Edge (you have read the previous piece, have you not?), what better way to open a Kirby pencil gallery than with a page of his final depiction of Edge. And what a sinister, evocative image it is in panel 4—one of Kirby’s best of him, surely—and, as we can see if we compare this to the published version, far better in pencil than in ink. (I’m not one who hates all Vince Colletta’s inking—there were some very good jobs—but this book isn’t one of the best. The inking on panel 4 here loses much of what Kirby achieved in pencil form, while there are details omitted in panels 2 and 6, Edge’s hair is often simply blacked in over the detail, and the background in panel 2 has lost all life.) [next page] Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #145, page 12 (Jan. 1972) EXTRA! The Evil Factory has been found (as seen in pencil form in TJKC #48) and this following page has the fallout. Two action panels showcase Kirby’s explosive action, then in panel 4 we get a stunningly powerful portrait of Mokkari. Here, he has finally been drawn more closely to his original appearance after some inconsistent previous appearances. The only downside is, in the inks (again), the detail in that gun in panel 4 is very sloppily changed. And of course, Olsen himself is inked by Murphy Anderson, making him far less Kirby-ish.

[previous page] Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #145, page 13: The Big News here is Kirby’s story. What on Earth is going on? Are the six members of the San Diego Five String Mob now in the tunnel? But they and Dubbilex were still upstairs, weren’t they? Then the Mob disappears into a Boom Tube, and still later, the Guardian finds out the tunnels go for miles and... but why? Ugh—I dunno. Feels to me like Kirby was plotting on the fly even more than usual. What is far more comprehensible than the plot is the rock solid penciling. How many artists could make that jumble of floating figures in panel 3 look so good? [left] Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #145, page 22: News Flash! Jack copied these pages before dialoguing them—why?

What happened between the previous pages, which were scripted and lettered, and these, which aren’t? Aaah, the mysteries of how a genius does his creating! Notice the wall of the huge animal enclosure where the vehicle is now flying in panel 1 has disappeared in the inking. Still, the Kirby action is maintained, even though a lot of the life has been drained from the work. [right] Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #145, page 23: Stop the Presses! What strikes me about this page is how Kirby has never shown the reptile completely—how the action and turbulence of what’s happening is pushed forward by cropping him the way he has. And as ever, I stand amazed at how Kirby invokes such a solid build to the creature, yet still creating fluid movement in its reptilian body. All those slashes and squiggles denote form and substance, rather than anatomy, and Kirby nails it nearly every time!

[left] Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #146, cover (Feb. 1972) A Kirby Headline! Dynamically extreme Kirby action! Who but Kirby can make such short-waisted figures—such as the Olsen brute here— work?! Who but Kirby could draw such big hands on Superman and get away with it? Mike Royer’s inks on this cover preserve the vitality in the pencils (which I feel was absent on some of our previous examples), though I’m not sure his work on Superman’s face (or is that Murphy Anderson’s?) is an improvement. And why was Kirby copying pencils before finishing again? The background and lower shadows of the published cover are absent in this copy of the pencils. And circling back to where we started: who created the character Morgan Edge? Carmine Infantino’s letter from the Los Angeles Times, Feb. 9, 1975 [above] leaves no doubt. H

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STRIPPER

[above] Mike Manley in 2016. Photograph by and ©Luigi Novi, Wikipedia Commons. [right] Mike’s inks over Jack’s Doctor Doom entry from Roz Kirby’s 1970s sketchbook. [below] Examples of Mike’s current work on the syndicated comic strips Judge Parker and The Phantom. [next page, bottom] Mike pays tribute to Kirby’s cover for Fantastic Four #97 (April 1970).

Mike Manley

The syndicated cartoonist, Draw! magazine editor, comic book artist, and co-creator of Darkhawk, interviewed by John Morrow via e-mail on August 28, 2024

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: Tell our readers how you got your start in comics and newspaper cartooning. MIKE MANLEY: I’m 62, and probably 63 years old by the time this sees print. I guess I was always aware of newspaper comics, mostly because of the Sunday papers as a kid, and I remember them being pretty big, and liking Peanuts. I don’t remember a lot of the other strips, although I’m sure I looked at them. I was much more into comic books than newspapers as a kid, although my dad was a comic book and newspaper strip fan, and he used to tell me about certain comic books and characters that he liked as a kid, like Popeye and Dick Tracy and the Phantom. I remember him telling me about Eugene the Jeep, the little character from Popeye, which I found fascinating, because he was never in any of the Popeye cartoons that I saw as a kid. I became a much bigger fan of comic strips in my teens because I really got into studying comic books, which led me back to comic strips and all the great classic comic strips, especially the adventure strips. So as a teenager, I was very aware of the history of the comic strip, and I had some reprints of Prince Valiant and Flash Gordon, especially. I also was aware that all of the comic book greats like Neal Adams and Wally Wood and Joe Kubert, and all the artists I’d admired, also had a hand in doing comic strips, and greatly admired the classic comic strip artists who were giants. Then in the ’80s I got to know Al Williamson and befriended him, and shared his studio along with Bret Blevins. And of course, Al was one of the all-time greats, and had an amazing collection—not of his own work, but so many great Hal Fosters and Alex Raymonds, and so many classic comic strip pieces that he basically saved from being destroyed. And of course, because he had all of that stuff, it was a great opportunity to study the originals of so many of the classic strip artists who were very influential on all of the comic book artists of that first Golden Age generation, especially people like Jack Kirby. You can see a lot of Milton Caniff, as well as Hal Foster and Alex Raymond, in Jack Kirby’s work if you know where to look. Their way of spotting blacks, especially, was very heavily influenced by Caniff. I really got my start in comic strips through a chance job, again connected to Al Williamson. Around 2008–2009, King Features was doing some new work or new stories with Secret Agent Corrigan or Secret Agent X9, which was the strip that Al used to do, and there was a publisher named Egmont Scandinavia that was reprinting Al’s strips along with Modesty Blaze, and they wanted to do a new story or two. So Brendan Burford, who was the editor at King Features at the time, got my name, 56

got my first Adams issue—it was Batman #234 [August 1971] that had the giant Two-Face on the cover with Batman tied to the ship, sinking into a swamp—and those two comics just sent me to the moon!

I believe, from Bob Wiacek, who recommended me for the job. I did those two jobs, which was a lot of fun. They even just recently reprinted them. Anyway, shortly afterwards, Brendan Burford contacted me to see if I would be interested in doing Judge Parker, the long-running soap opera strip, because he knew me and my work working on Corrigan. Eduardo Barreto had been doing the strip but had taken ill. So initially I was going to come in and do, I suppose, a few weeks or a month or two while he recovered, but unfortunately he became worse and passed away, and I took over the strip. I was a fan of certain soap opera strips like On Stage by Leonard Starr and The Heart of Juliet Jones by Stan Drake, but I never imagined that I would do a comic strip myself, because I was a comic book guy. The same thing happened, unfortunately, eight years ago when Paul Ryan, who was doing The Phantom, passed away suddenly, and because I had that relationship with King, they asked me if I would be interested in doing The Phantom. So I ended up doing two classic comic strips, which is quite a bit of work, as you can imagine, because both strips require a large amount of reference and realism.

TJKC: What’s your favorite Kirby work? MANLEY: I suppose my favorite overall is probably the Fantastic Four, because I think he was really happy and firing on all cylinders, at least until probably the last year or two of the run on the book—although I do love everything except for his work at the very end of his career. I love those Captain America stories he did, and I remember very specifically being excited as a teenager when he came back to Marvel, because my dad had a part-time job and I would go and help him. Across the street there was a supermarket or a drugstore that sold Marvel comics, so I was able to start buying the Kirby stuff when he returned to Marvel. Then we moved from Detroit to Ann Arbor and there was a comic book store there, and I was able to [above] The published version of Jimmy Olsen buy all of the stuff that Kirby did when he came #138’s cover (June 1971), which so captivated Mike back to Marvel, and even if it wasn’t quite as Manley. Compare it to our front cover this issue. good as his stuff before, I was just tickled pink to be buying fresh new Kirby books. A lot of the Kirby books I had before that as a kid from Marvel were books that were sold with TJKC: What was the first Kirby work you saw? And how did you the cover ripped off. So for years I had Marvels that were sold as respond to it initially? returns, but I never saw what the actual original comic books looked MANLEY: I clearly remember my first experience seeing his work, like until we moved to Ann Arbor, and I could track down the actual which was a Jimmy Olsen comic—I believe the first issue was the one issues. It turns out what I was reading as a kid was the Spider-Man where Superman is carrying that giant machine, and it’s one that reprints and the Fantastic Four reprints, which I believe had pages was inked by Neal Adams [above]. I remember suddenly Superman, omitted. who I did like as a kid, seemed really super! All that stuff with the As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve learned to appreciate the ’40s Guardian and the Newsboy Legion and the DNAliens, all of that Kirby and the ’50s Kirby and the ’60s Kirby and the ’70s Kirby. He stuff with the FourArmed Terror and everything—I remember very specifically there was a shot of [Mokkari] with a yellow face and his assistant, and he had weird black squiggles on his face, and that stuff just riveted my attention. I think I was probably right around ten years old, and that summer I became conscious of artists’ names in comics—the first being Jack Kirby, because they kept advertising “Kirby is coming. Kirby is coming. Kirby is here!” So he was probably the first artist in comic books, whose name and artwork really stood out for me, and then the second was Neal Adams on Batman. I’ve still 57

was constantly growing and reinventing himself as the tectonic plates of the comic book industry shook and rattled and fell apart. I remember discovering that Wally Wood had worked with him, and that again was another mind-blowing experience, to find out that two of your favorite artists worked together—just like it was fun to talk to Al Williamson about him meeting Jack Kirby. I guess Al dealt more with Joe Simon than Jack Kirby, and he inked some of that “Three Rocketeers” material. So for Al, his favorite Kirby was actually the ’40s Kirby—he was not really into his stuff in the ’60s—but that was probably because that’s the stuff that Al saw a kid.

you think strips were held in such higher esteem? MANLEY: For all of the comic book guys from the Golden Age until probably the ’70s, the goal was to be able to do a newspaper strip—because if you did a newspaper strip, you made a lot of money, and you were viewed very respectfully because of that. Comic books really were not thought of as being a great thing to be part of, but comic strips were in newspapers, being bought by adults—that was different. I don’t think it’s the same now for adventure strips, because there’s very few of them left. I mean, I’m doing two of only a handful of them being done. Mary Worth is still being done. Rex Morgan, Prince Valiant—they brought back Flash Gordon, but it’s done in a more modern style, so there’s not a lot of opportunity, nor are the syndicates really looking to do continuity. The syndicates want to do humor, “joke-a-day” kind of strips, which have been on the rise starting in the ’50s.

TJKC: Do you own any Kirby originals? MANLEY: Luckily, I do own a few Kirby pieces—a few Forever People pages and a character sketch. Unfortunately, I was never able to buy any FF pages before they went into the stratosphere with the prices, so I don’t know— unless I win the lottery, I probably will never be able to own a Fantastic Four page at this point.

TJKC: Are you producing your current syndicated strips “old TJKC: Did you get to meet Jack? school” (with a physical pen and MANLEY: I did meet Jack in the brush), or digitally? [above and below] Manley pencils and Bruce Timm inks, from Fantastic Four: World’s summer of 1983 at a Chicago MANLEY: I started out doing Greatest Comics Magazine #7—a 2001 tribute to the Kirby/Lee FF run. convention, and I have a picture both strips (Judge Parker and of me meeting him at poolside [below]. He was such a nice, gracious The Phantom) traditionally, but I have switched over the years, person. I did get him to sign books for me and I did meet him again especially because of the pandemic and working with my assistant in San Diego a few years later, but like most people—when you meet remotely. I’ve gone over to all-digital. I work in Clip Studio and I use a person whose work means so much to you, you’re kind of tonguethe Wacom Cintiq tied. I wish I could meet him now and talk to him, just like I wish I pen. Up to about a could go back and talk to many of my heroes, because at this age, year ago I was still I have the experience and the confidence to probably have a much actually penciling The more rewarding conversation. That was the great thing about sharPhantom on paper ing friendship and time working in Al Williamson’s studio, because and then inking it I did get to really know him and get to hear a lot of great stories digitally, but because about the old days of having my heart and how the comic operation and things book business was. like that, I just had TJKC: Jack’s gento go all-digital. I eration of artists was actually working seemed to always while I was in the hosbe striving to land pital. I would evena newspaper strip, tually like to go back and guys like Ham to working on paper, Fisher (Joe Palooka) and I do enjoy that. and Al Capp (Li’l But the fact is, anyAbner) hit it big, thing that increases achieving celebrity your ability to work status that comic faster on something book artists never like a newspaper strip reached. Why do is always a plus. H 58

Foundations

Here’s a never-reprinted Simon & Kirby story “The Man Who Stole A Train” from Justice Traps The Guilty #10 (July 1949). Art restoration and color by Christopher Fama.

STRIPPER

David Reddick

This issue’s cover inker, interviewed by John Morrow via e-mail on September 16, 2024

worked my way into a full-time cartoonist/newsroom artist position at a daily newspaper for several years, and from there, Jim Davis hired me to write and draw for his Garfield comic strip. During my nearly 15 years at the Garfield studio, I also created a comic strip called “The Trek Life” for CBS/Paramount’s official Star Trek website around 2005, StarTrek.com, which blossomed into quite a variety of published work (featuring my own characters that I created for my comic strip there) in places such as IDW’s official Star Trek comic books, manga for TokyoPop, and comics and illustrations for the official Star Trek Magazine, to name a few. I also created two different comic strips for Roddenberry Entertainment, the company created by Gene Roddenberry (creator of Star Trek) and worked on several wonderfully fun side projects over the years, including Popeye and Flash Gordon, to name a few. The topper and dream-come-true to it all is that in 2017, Dean Young and King Features Syndicate asked me to join the Blondie comics team, which is my primary work, and I love it. We recently introduced a new regular character, a pastry chef named “Maya,” into the Blondie comics universe and it’s just so fun. That’s the name of the game… fun! And if you’re wondering if I ever make a Dagwood sandwich while working on Blondie comics, the answer would be yes.

[above] The closest Jack ever came to doing Flash Gordon was probably his work with Joe Simon on Blue Bolt in the 1940s. Here is that character from Roz Kirby’s 1970s sketchbook. Below is David’s more humorous take on Flash Gordon.

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: What’s your age, and your background in cartooning and newspapers? How’d you get your start, for instance? DAVID REDDICK: I’m 53, but I keep telling myself I’m a Time Lord, so it’s really just a number, right? I got my start in cartooning by sending single panel cartoons to my local small town newspaper for free back in my twenties, after I came out of the Navy. That grew into more small town newspapers at a small rate per cartoon, and grew from there. Eventually, I

[next page] Examples of David’s work on Blondie and Popeye, and [center] one of Jack’s early in-betweening drawings from when he worked at the Max Fleischer studios in the mid1930s.

TJKC: What was your earliest exposure to Kirby’s work? And did you immediately take to it, or was it initially off-putting in any way? REDDICK: My earliest exposure to Jack Kirby‘s work was actually in the 1970s when I was a little kid walking downtown in my city to a little bookstore that sold comic books on the spinner rack. I actually specifically remember the first Jack Kirby work that caught my attention and that was his Kamandi comic book. I was taken by the broad brush strokes, the powerful placement of black ink, and the really straightforward, dynamic way he set up his panels and pages. His drawing hit like a sledgehammer. You could practically hear it. Jack Kirby, to me, drew in such a solid, straightforward way, in the same way Johnny Cash sang songs in such a straightforward, solid way, down to the lyrics. That same kind of feeling. Raw. Honest. Solid. There was and is an accessibility to Jack Kirby‘s work that

place to be. This is where I genuinely believe in the way Jack Kirby approached his work… he was the quintessential cartoonist. He got up, got his day going and got to work and he treated it like work, because it is work—very, very fun and satisfying work. But sometimes you might find yourself up until a late hour, finishing up the work to always make that deadline, and that’s what it takes. Be it comic strips, comic books or animation (and much more), it takes Jack Kirby-level devotion. He is easily a template to base one’s work ethic on.

hit me when I was a kid (and still does), making me feel like, “Hey, maybe I could do that!” It led me to seek out more of his work. Ever since, I have a particular love for a certain “cartooning“ quality that some comic book artists wield, and they are always seemingly inspired and influenced by the work of Jack Kirby. TJKC: Assuming it’s not Kamandi as you mentioned above, what’s your favorite Kirby work, and why? REDDICK: That’s a tough one. There’s so much goodness. I would have to say it’s a toss-up between New Gods, the Fourth World and Mister Miracle. I’m a sucker for Jack Kirby’s vast, mechanical science-fiction scenes and shadows!

TJKC: Did you ever produce any comic book stories? REDDICK: Yes, I’ve done varied comic book work, however, all longer form versions of my own creations and comic strips that have appeared in comic books, such as my Legend of Bill comic, Star Trek comics, etc. (Although I have many a sketchbook filled with dynamic “comic book style” stories I’ve always wanted to do.)

TJKC: Do you own any Kirby original art? REDDICK: Sadly, I’m afraid I don’t. But never say never!

TJKC: Did you ink this issue’s cover “old school” (with a physical pen and brush), or digitally? Can you describe the process, and whether that differs from your own commercial work? REDDICK: I inked the cover on my iPad Pro, using the Procreate app, which is how I produce all of my published comics and illustration work, with a little bit of Photoshop thrown in. I cut my teeth in cartooning when I was younger using traditional tools: Bristol board, dip pens, and brushes dipped in bottles of ink, which I fell in love with in terms of the use of line weight, etc. With the iPad, I can replicate what I learned through traditional materials, which I still use on my own personal projects, at a more rapid, efficient and forgiving pace.

TJKC: Jack and his contemporaries seemed to view a syndicated newspaper strip as a goal, and a big step up from drawing comic books. Was that always a goal for you as well, and would you still consider it something comic book artists should strive for, in these days of shrinking newspaper circulation? REDDICK: I know that about Jack and his contemporaries and I’ve always loved that. Of course, the landscape for syndicated comic strips since then has changed, as it has for comic books as well. Drawing comic strips was always a very specific goal of mine since I was a young kid. I loved the bite-size chunks you got in comic strips. In a mere three or four panels, you can have comics that run the gamut anywhere from Blondie to Flash Gordon to Beetle Bailey to Popeye. Whole worlds and character’s lives you care about can be made in so few panels. And it’s how I feel about comic books in their longer form, too. When I was a kid, I would dream of drawing comic books as I spent most of the money I got on them, but I was always specifically drawn to comic strips, and still am to this day, of course. And yes, I think comic book artists could absolutely strive to do comic strips, and it is still a dream for many comic book and animation artists to this day! A syndicated comic strip is still the pinnacle of cartooning. There’s something special about comic strips in their own right, and the art form allows for any manner of storytelling, vast or simple, all in delicious, bite-size chunks! In these times with changes to newspapers, comic book stores, bookstores and online, there are interestingly more opportunities for a writer and artist to really spread their wings across varied genres or simply zone in on one specific area of interest, and with genuine drive and tenacity, find genuine fulfillment, and purpose… making the world a much more colorful and fun

TJKC: What syndicated strips are you producing today? REDDICK: Today I work on Blondie and two of my own comic strips: Legend of Bill, (an adventure fantasy comic strip about a bumbling barbarian named Bill and his little blue dragon sidekick Frank, who leave their boring nine-to-five castle accounting jobs in search of adventure, and find it!) and Intelligent Life, (my first comic strip, featuring Skip, Mike, Gwen and Barry, processing ever-emerging pop and geek culture and day-to-day life at work and home), all distributed by King Features Syndicate. H You can read Blondie every day at Blondie.com. A hub to David’s work can be found at DavidReddickStudio.com.

JOHNNY STORM, SUPER HOT, SUPER COOL ’60s TEENAGER t can be argued that from a socio-economic perspective, the modern teenager was invented in the post-war era of the mid-1950s. James Dean was certainly the celluloid teenage role model, as Elvis was a musical Dean wannabe who made rock ’n’ roll the official teenage music. Comics followed suit with the teenage Legion of Super-Heroes in 1958 and the Justice League’s pseudo hipster teen mascot Snapper Carr in 1960. But it wasn’t until 1961 that Kirby and Lee’s Fantastic Four presented us with the most well rounded and actually cool teen comic book character in the form of Johnny Storm, a.k.a. the Human Torch. Johnny was temperamentally perfect to represent his generation. Dean would have been a perfect casting choice for the Torch, or perhaps 2 Steve McQueen if we had caught him at 17 instead of seeing him pretend to be that age in The Blob. As mentioned, Johnny Storm was cool, but like the truly cool, he smoldered inside. In fact, he burned, figuratively and literally with the passionate flame of youth. Several Kirby scholars, including Charles Hatfield, have spoken about the King’s use in his work of the semi-wild young blonde boy, comparing Kamandi to Angel from Boys’ Ranch and Serafin of the Forever People. In my opinion, Johnny Storm would also fall into this category. In Johnny’s case, his blonde hair was also a clear visual representation of his flame powers. A re-imagining of the previous Golden Age Torch, Johnny Storm would represent the youth-oriented American future as the youngest member of the Fantastic Four. In the team’s first issue, Johnny is seen hanging out with his peers, tinkering with a hot rod (one of the quintessential ’50-’60s teen obsessions). When he sees the signal for the team to assemble, he bursts into flame, melting the car to slag as he flies off. 1 1 Johnny was hot-headed, impulsive, rebellious, and sometimes at odds with the other, older members of the group. Johnny often ran afoul of Ben Grimm, a.k.a. the Thing, who resented the boy’s youthful arrogance and literal flamboyance. From the outset, The Fantastic Four had been about relationships. They were clearly a surrogate family, with Reed and Sue as parental authority figures and Ben and Johnny as squabbling sibling rivals. Initially, with the Thing’s attraction for Sue, there was the potential for a pseudoOedipal conflict, but this thread was quickly abandoned and the focus was primarily on Ben’s resentment towards his deformity and his jealousy of Johnny. This would drive the Torch away from the group. Like his volatile flame, Johnny’s rebellious spirit would not be contained, and so he was the first to stray from the family. On page five of the fourth issue, Johnny is again seen in a garage with his buddies, this time welding his hot rod with his finger. 2 As the page unfolds, Ben’s seething rage has compelled him to track down the Torch, but Johnny escapes his brutal clutches and goes further underground. His need to escape his dysfunctional family drives him into the underbelly of the city, where he encounters his destiny. When he throws the amnesiac Prince Namor into

scholars believe this to be compelling evidence that Kirby scripted the story.) Of further interest, this story has the job number V-823, meaning that it was likely produced prior to issue #101, which carries the job number V-846. This indicates the possibility that the 5th Dimension story was initially planned as the Torch’s solo debut, but then set aside for a tale that puts more of a focus on Johnny’s place in the context of the Fantastic Four. When Johnny defeats the tyrannical Zemu’s minions with the aid of Valeria, she begs him to remain behind with her, and although tempted by her charms, Johnny knows he must return to his home world. 5 Later on that same page, 13, we see him in class, daydreaming about what could have been had he stayed with Valeria, and we realize that this is not a boy cut out to remain long in school. In the pages of Strange Tales 5 #113 , we are first introduced to Doris Evans, who will become Johnny’s steady girlfriend for several years. 6 In this sequence from Nov. 1963’s issue #114, Doris is admiring what will turn out to be a Captain America imposter, inciting Johnny’s jealousy. This causes him to flame-on, and in a somewhat comical interlude, he ends up leaving flaming footprints on Doris’s floor. As the two are already fighting like an old married couple, there is a sense that this is not a match made to endure. What is notable in this story is that it is used as a teaser to introduce fans to the return of the Golden Age superstar, Captain America. If one keeps in mind that Johnny was the vehicle for reviving the Sub-

3 the East River, the aquanaut discovers that a portion of his undersea kingdom has been abandoned due to nuclear radiation contamination. Full of the thirst for revenge, he threatens the destruction of humanity. Johnny has run from one conflict directly into another. He must accept the responsibility of his actions and return to his teammates in order to warn them of the impending danger. In his resignation to confront his error, he has taken a giant step into adulthood. 3 Particularly striking is the center panel of page 15, which emphasizes the Thing’s grotesque forearm, coupled with Johnny’s wry comment that the Sub-Mariner is decidedly not human. In the following panel we see the enormity of the threat, as Kirby cuts away to Namor awakening a gigantic whale-like creature. As the series progressed, the team began to get along better and Johnny grew more well adjusted to the situation. He and Ben Grimm’s contentious relationship would become more harmonious as a result of their shared exploits as members of a bonded team. The Torch would get his own series in Strange Tales #101, cover-dated October 1962. This story presents us with a retelling of the FF’s origin, and places Johnny in the fictitious small town of Glenville, Long Island. What is most peculiar here is that Johnny has a secret identity, so he can theoretically live like an ordinary teenager, but he is living with his sister Sue Storm whom everyone knows is the Invisible Girl. None of this makes much sense or is in continuity with the storyline presented in the Fantastic Four comic book. One has to wonder why this was done. Because of his youthful charisma, Johnny would be presented as a teenage heartthrob several times. A notable example of this is in Strange Tales #103 when he is kidnapped into the 5th Dimension and realizes that the lovely young Valeria has fallen for him. 4 (Interestingly, page 7’s original art clearly shows us that Kirby’s penciled lettering can be seen under Art Simek’s ink work. Many Kirby

4 72

Mariner, it is interesting to observe that this storyline is set up to reintroduce Cap to the Marvel Age, although in the end, the Sub-Mariner is the one that actually does the job in Avengers #4. As the ’60s unfolded, things stabilized more or less for the team. Ben had Alicia to keep him somewhat grounded, and Reed and Sue got married. Johnny seemed to still be an adolescent, but something would soon change. The quartet was about to enter what is now generally referred to as the Cosmic Era of the magazine, wherein themes would take on a grander significance. Upon meeting a woman of substance, young Johnny would take another major step towards manhood. 7 In Fantastic Four #45, while wandering in an rundown section of Manhattan (mirroring his earlier discovery of the Sub-Mariner and bringing another hidden civilization into focus), Johnny comes upon the bewitching Crystal and suddenly discovers the true meaning of love. The divine complexity of the dance of romance is perfectly illustrated in the breakdown of this page, as Johnny conceals himself in the first panel in order to surprise Crystal. In panel three, he comes out of hiding, but she springs away from him like an affrighted doe in panel four. Finally, there is her exquisitely rendered elemental face as she gives in, beaming at him in the last panel. This sequence will, of course, result in the Fantastic Four’s introduction to The Inhumans and their society of the Great Refuge. Kirby and Lee will present us with their version of Romeo and Juliet, with the FF and the Inhumans standing in for Capulets and Montagues. 8 We see this dynamic on page 19 of issue #47 as the two factions face off, with Black Bolt blocking Johnny in the panel’s center, while Medusa restrains Crystal on the left and Reed admonishes both Johnny and Black Bolt on the right. In the following issue, a great energy barrier will trap the Inhumans within its enclosure, and Crystal and Johnny will be separated for over a year, bringing heartbreak to the young couple. No sooner has their adventure with the Inhumans been completed, the FF find themselves confronted with the incomprehensible peril of Galactus, and Johnny takes a step further into maturity and beyond when the Watcher

sends him on a mind-staggering journey to retrieve a device with which to defeat Galactus. Johnny’s young mind is literally blown as he passes through celestial barriers in order to access a gargantuan space station wherein the apparatus is stored. 9

8 Beginning in issue #54, Johnny will spend several months searching for Crystal, traveling with his buddy Wyatt Wingfoot and the Inhumans’ huge but accommodating dimensional traveling dog, 73

Lockjaw. After many adventures, the three eventually return to New York. When Black Bolt is able to destroy the barrier that imprisons the Inhumans, Lockjaw returns to Crystal and she uses the animal’s amazing dimensional powers to finally reunite with Johnny in issue #62. 10 When Sue Storm takes a break from adventuring in order to have a child, Crystal will don a suit in issue #81 and become a member of the FF proper. 11 She would continue as a part of the group even after baby Franklin Richards was born. At this point, one has to wonder, had he remained with Marvel, where the King would have taken the fantastic quartet over the next decade. Having seemingly abandoned college, Johnny was now close to full manhood, and he appeared to have a solid relationship to build a future upon. For better or worse, Kirby’s dissatisfaction with his status at Marvel was gradually pushing him 10 out the door and this showed in his lack of enthusiasm for generating new concepts. With few exceptions, the last dozen or so issues grew gradually more lackluster. Once the King had left the company, the series stagnated, seemingly repeating Kirby’s literary and visual tropes again and again. It was instantly obvious from the paucity of creativity where most of the voltage of the series had been coming from.

In lesser creative hands, Johnny and Crystal’s union would dissolve, as new composers would attempt to impose their notions. As the Seventies progressed, the Fantastic Four seemed less and less relevant. It seemed that their best and most creative moments were rooted in the atmosphere of the mid-’60s Cold War period. At that point, the world was still sufficiently grounded in the stability of traditional notions of propriety and family values, but also coupled with an optimistic belief in the progress of the American dream of prosperity. Due to that level of prosperity, the mid-1950s was the first time that teenagers had a distinct identity, with their own music, culture and style, but by the ’70s, many of those who had once been the rebellious “Youthquakers” of the ’50s and ’60s were morphing into a state of arrested development. In 1969, the counterculture youth movement proclaimed “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” As a result, the 1970s “Me generation” zeitgeist would see scores of Boomers refusing to grow up, hanging on to perpetual adolescence by becoming swinging singles well into their thirties. By the mid-Seventies, the cinematic vision of the rebellious teen was represented by John Travolta, first as Welcome Back Kotter’s “Sweat Hog” Vinnie Barbarino, then graduating to the self-obsessed Disco-King Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever, and finally appearing as Danny Zucco in the ’50s nostalgia film Grease. At this point, the message was obvious: The best time to be young was between 1956 and 1968. There are many Kirby fans who, for good reason, believe that the King’s best work was DC’s The Fourth World, with its decidedly apocalyptic setting sometime around the period of disillusionment at the height of the Vietnam War. This was possibly Kirby’s most personal and passionate work, bristling with searing intensity. Many of those who hold this work in the highest reverence might have a tendency to scoff at perspectives like that of Mark Alexander and his 2011 book “The Wonder Years” [Jack Kirby Collector #58], an extended take on Kirby and Lee’s run on The Fantastic Four. One not having lived through the era that Alexander was describing might be unable to comprehend the sort of reverence and sentimental yearning expressed in this sentence: “Lying in that shade, you were inviolate. Nothing could touch you. Those old Marvel Comics offered both privacy and escape. They were like a refuge, an atmosphere so calm and coveted that reading them was like stepping back into the womb. As long as you stayed inside, you felt safe from catastrophe. It was an insulated childhood fantasy and it went beyond anything that can be described in words.” Alexander’s experience was very similar to my own, coming of age before the world became decidedly more bitter and cynical, a process that essentially began with JFK’s assassination and probably peaked in 1968 with a second Kennedy killing and that of Martin Luther King, as well as an escalation of the Vietnam War. I was thirteen in 1965, the year when Johnny met Crystal, and I fell in love with her as well, while I was fantasizing about girls in my neighborhood and classroom. As I absorbed Johnny Storm’s extraordinary encounter, I was also romantically coming of age with him. It is a sweet memory that I treasure and can always return to in more uncertain times. H

11 74

clubbing

Let’s Hear It For The Boys

hen referencing his teenage years in his 1969 interview for the fanzine Auction Block, Kirby made this claim: “[I] dabbled in artwork at settlement clubs and ran a newspaper in New York’s first Boys Brotherhood Republic—a self-government club for underprivileged boys.” The New York Times, on Feb. 21, 1943, further defined the organization: “The Boys Brotherhood Republic, the five-story building at 290 East Third Street on the lower East Side, founded ten years ago to teach youngsters self-government, came forward yesterday with an eleven-point program aimed at decreasing juvenile offenses and promoting better pupil-teacher relations.” The BBR was organized by Harry E. Slonaker, with a group of boys he met on East Third Street. It was a crucial early part of Jack’s development. Founded in 1930, its purpose was to get the lower East Side’s youth off its crime-ridden streets, out of gangs, and into a social organization that would offer them opportunities to be better citizens. Jack honed his early art skills as their staff cartoonist, and edited the BBR Reporter (the group’s newspaper) in the early 1930s.

[left] Teenage Jack Kirby is second-from-right in this early 1930s photo. [above] Ben Scholnek, Stanley “Chubby” Klee (Kirby’s childhood friend), and Ben Cowall pose at the first BBR “City Hall” location. [below] Examples of Jack’s early work for the BBR Reporter.

The camaraderie and sense of belonging Jack experienced at the BBR undoubtedly played a role in inspiring such kid gang strips as the “Newsboy Legion,” Boy Commandos, and Boys’ Ranch. The non-profit Henry Street Settlement assumed responsibility for the Boys Brotherhood Republic (now called the Boys & Girls Republic youth community center) in 1997. You can learn the full history of the BBR in the book East Side Story: The Boys Brotherhood Republic’s First Fifty Years on New York’s Lower East Side by William Welling (it even includes some of Jack’s cartoons, and name-drops him several times). While the book is out-of-print, you can read a free digital copy here: https:// archive.org/details/eastsidestoryboy0000well/ For more on the history of BBR and Henry Street, visit: https://www. henrystreet.org/about/our-buildings/24-avenue-d-and-888-eastsixth-street/ H

The organization was truly self-governing, right down to having their own internal legal system run by boys. A judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney would be called to hear cases where members weren’t following the group’s bylaws, and Jack was the court reporter and sketch artist for many such hearings, like the one below.

[Thanks to Katie Vogel, Public Historian at the Henry Street Settlement, for her assistance with our research.]

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 KIRBY’S UNINKED PENCILS NS from the 1960s–1980s EDITIOABLE IL (from photocopies AVA NLY preserved in the KIRBY ARCHIVES). Now in FULLFOR O 5.99 COLOR, it showcases Kirby’s art even better! $1.99-$

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SILVER ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! How Jack Kirby kickstarted the Silver Age and revamped Golden Age characters for the 1960s, the Silver Surfer’s influence in comics, pivotal decisions (good and bad) Jack made throughout his comics career, an extensive Kirby pencil art gallery, MARK EVANIER and our regular columnists, a classic 1950s story, KIRBY/STEVE RUDE cover, and more!

See “THE BIG PICTURE” of how Kirby fits into the grand scheme of things! His creations’ lasting legacy, how his work fights illiteracy, a RARE KIRBY INTERVIEW, inconsistencies in his 1960s MARVEL WORK, editorial changes in his comics, big concepts in OMAC, best DOUBLE-PAGE SPREADS, MARK EVANIER’s 2019 Kirby Tribute Panel, PENCIL ART GALLERY, and a new cover based on OMAC #1!

“KIRBY: BETA!” Jack’s experimental ideas, characters, and series (Fighting American, Jimmy Olsen, Kamandi, and others), Kirby interview, inspirations for his many “secret societies” (The Project, Habitat, Wakanda), non-super-hero genres he explored, 2019 Heroes Con panel (with MARK EVANIER, MIKE ROYER, JIM AMASH, and RAND HOPPE), a pencil art gallery, UNUSED JIMMY OLSEN #141 COVER, and more!

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“THE MANY WORLDS OF JACK KIRBY!” From Sub-Atomica to outer space, visit Kirby’s work from World War II, the Fourth World, and hidden worlds of Subterranea, Wakanda, Olympia, Lemuria, Atlantis, the Microverse, and others! Plus, a 2021 Kirby panel, featuring JONATHAN ROSS, NEIL GAIMAN, & MARK EVANIER, a Kirby pencil art gallery from MACHINE MAN, 2001, DEVIL DINOSAUR, & more!

FAMOUS FIRSTS! How JACK KIRBY was a pioneer in all areas of comics: Romance Comics genre, Kid Gangs, double-page spreads, Black heroes, new formats, super-hero satire, and others! With MARK EVANIER and our regular columnists, plus a gallery of Jack’s pencil art from CAPTAIN AMERICA, JIMMY OLSEN, CAPTAIN VICTORY, DESTROYER DUCK, BLACK PANTHER, and more!

STEVE SHERMAN TRIBUTE! Kirby family members, friends, comics creators, and the entertainment industry salute Jack’s assistant (and puppeteer on Men in Black, Pee Wee’s Playhouse, and others). MARK EVANIER and Steve recall assisting Kirby, Steve discusses Jack’s Speak-Out Series, Kirby memorabilia from his collection, an interview with wife DIANA MERCER, and Steve’s unseen 1974 KIRBY/ROYER cover!

KIRBY: ANIMATED! How JACK KIRBY and his concepts leaped from celluloid, to paper, and back again! From his 1930s start on Popeye and Betty Boop and his work being used on the 1960s Marvel Super-Heroes show, to Fantastic Four (1967 and 1978), Super Friends/Super Powers, Scooby-Doo, Thundarr the Barbarian, and Ruby-Spears. Plus EVAN DORKIN on his abandoned Kamandi cartoon series, and more!

KIRBY COMPARISONS! Analysis of unused vs. known Kirby covers and art, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH on his stylizations in Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, Kirby’s incorporation of real-life images in his work, WILL MURRAY’s conversations with top pros just after Jack’s passing, unused Mister Miracle cover inked by WALTER SIMONSON, and more! Edited by JOHN MORROW.

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LAW & ORDER! Kirby’s lawmen from the Newsboy Legion’s Jim Harper and “Terrible” Turpin, to Western gunfighters, and even future policemen like OMAC and Captain Victory! Also: how a Marvel cop led to the creation of Funky Flashman! Justice Traps The Guilty and Headline Comics! Plus MARK EVANIER moderating 2022’s Kirby Tribute Panel (with Sin City’s FRANK MILLER). MACHLAN cover inks.

THE COLLECTORS! Fans’ quest for and purchase of Jack’s original art and comics, MARV WOLFMAN shares his (and LEN WEIN’s) interactions with Jack as fans and pros, unseen Kirby memorabilia, an extensive Kirby pencil art gallery, MARK EVANIER moderating the 2023 Kirby Tribute Panel from Comic-Con International, plus a deluxe wrap-around Kirby cover with foldout back cover flap, inked by MIKE ROYER!

KIRBY CONSPIRACIES! Darkseid’s Fourth World palace intrigue, the too-many attempted overthrows of Odin, why Stan Lee hated Diablo, Kang contradictions, Simon & Kirby swipes, a never-reprinted S&K story, MARK EVANIER’s WonderCon 2023 Kirby Tribute Panel (with MARV WOLFMAN, PAUL S. LEVINE, and JOHN MORROW), an extensive Kirby pencil art gallery, and more!

WHAT IF KIRBY... hadn’t been stopped by his rejected Spider-Man presentation? DC’s abandonment of the Fourth World? The ill-fated Speak-Out Series? FREDRIC WERTHAM’s anti-comics crusade? The CIA’s involvement with the Lord of Light? Plus a rare Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER and our other columnists, a classic Simon & Kirby story, pencil art gallery, & more! Cover inks by DAMIAN PICKADOR ZAJKO!

30th Anniversary issue, with KIRBY’S GREATEST VICTORIES! Jack gets the girl (wife ROZ), early hits Captain America and Boy Commandos, surviving WWII, romance comics, Captain Victory and the direct market, his original art battle with Marvel, and finally winning credit! Plus MARK EVANIER, a colossal gallery of Kirby’s winningest pencil art, a never-reprinted SIMON & KIRBY story, and more!

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Jack Kirby Books THE BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY’S

MAINLINE COMICS In 1954, JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY founded MAINLINE PUBLICATIONS to publish their own comics during that turbulent era in comics history. The four titles—BULLSEYE, FOXHOLE, POLICE TRAP, and IN LOVE—looked to build off their reputation as hit makers in the Western, War, Crime, and Romance genres, but the 1950s backlash against comics killed any chance at success, and Mainline closed its doors just two years later. For the first time, TwoMorrows Publishing is compiling the best of Simon & Kirby’s Mainline comics work, including the COMPLETE RUN OF BULLSEYE, plus all of the Mainline stories with S&K art, as well as key tales with contributions by MORT MESKIN and others. This collection bridges the gap between Simon & Kirby’s peak with their 1950s romance comics, and the lows that led to Kirby’s resurgence with CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN and the early MARVEL UNIVERSE. With loving art restoration by CHRIS FAMA, and an historical overview by JOHN MORROW to put it all into perspective. NOW SHIPPING! (256-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $49.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-118-9

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[What would an issue about newspapers be without...

RETRACTIONS!

• While preparing this issue, I realized we ran S&K’s story “Different” in both TJKC #76, and then again last issue (#91). So repeating it was not such a good move. Ughhh. But it got me to compile a checklist of all the “Foundations” stories we’ve run in TJKC so far, so I won’t be making that mistake again! • Our pal Mark Evanier pointed out some leaps in logic in the caption about Arnold Drake on page 15 of TJKC #83. At the time, Russia was known as the “Brotherhood of Evil,” so it’s not surprising the name was used at both DC and Marvel. Also, the dates we listed aren’t provable, as Bruno Premiani was living in Argentina, and thus had a longer lead time to draw Doom Patrol. Now on to your letters:] Usually, the end of the Fourth World project and more generally Jack Kirby’s sad experience at DC in the early ’70s are attributed to more or less technical reasons, such as poor sales or distribution problems. David Spurlock’s interesting article (TJKC #90) informs us of the supposed impossibility to merchandise the characters. In my opinion, these technical, formal motivations do not reflect the actual motivations. I have never believed that there was a sales problem, and this has in any case been authoritatively and definitely demonstrated by the likes of Jenette Kahn and Paul Levitz. Distribution and merchandising problems could have been easily addressed with DC’s support—but that support was not forthcoming. It is possible that Carmine Infantino was sincere, but it is a fact that Kirby found a ferociously hostile environment at the company (with a few exceptions such as Nelson Bridwell). He was considered “guilty” of Marvel’s success; he represented that hated Marvel-style; he had his own working methods, he worked out of his California home; and there had been the SKY MASTERS dispute. At DC there were still the friends and colleagues of Jack Schiff and Mort Weisinger; the influential Sol Harrison was openly hostile, and we can assume that even the coloring department was against him, because of the criticism they had received. Kirby’s experience in those years was, after an initial period of enthusiasm, a sequence of rejections and humiliation, from the SpeakOut series to KOBRA. In the interest of brevity I will not list them, but it is clear that he was ostracized. The late Steve Sherman recalled that “the most frustrating part was seeing how frustrated

he was with people that he dealt with, that hurt.[...] any time he did something, they’d either change it or wreck it.” (Conversation with

Mark Evanier, TJKC #84). Further, Sherman asked Evanier: “Do you think they wanted Jack just to get him out of Marvel, or do you think they really wanted him to come up with something?” I believe that Sherman thought the correct answer was the first. It was not a question of sales, distribution, licensing or business. These motivations do not explain the volume of anomalies in the behavior of the company. I believe that DC simply wanted to take him away from Marvel, with the intention to progressively cut him down to size and marginalize him. Finally, I would like to find more articles on the Golden Age period, but also more material on the ’70s, from KAMANDI to THE ETERNALS... masterpieces! Federico Pagliuchi, ITALY I just stumbled across this on YouTube, where Alex Ross is talking about a new art book he’s doing called ALEX ROSS: UNSEEN. Maybe someone’s already brought this to your attention, because Alex does this crazy thing where he envisions a Kirby Batman! https:// www.youtube.com/ watch?v=42q2cdv542w Not gonna lie; kind of losing my mind over this. Just thought you might like to be aware of it, if you’re not already. Mark Lewis, Burbank, CA Thought the editor of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR might be interested in a piece by reporter Aylin Woodward in the Sat./Sun. June 29–30 edition of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, on page 3, under the right-above-the-fold miniheadline “Horned Herbivore Roamed Montana.” Beside an illustration of what the beast looked like, the reporter describes a newly discovered and named dinosaur that has been christened the “Lokiceratops.” The reason, he says, is that the creature’s “blade-like horns... bear an uncanny resemblance to the helmet worn by the Norse trickster god Loki.” I got to thinking. Now, it’s been some years 78

since I looked over sculpture and illustrations based on the Norse god Loki—nothing comes to mind and I’m too busy with other things at the moment to go looking through my books or Internet files on that kind of art—but the main place I think of where Loki is pictured with horns that resemble those of the Lokiceratops is in the pages of Marvel’s THOR comics stories drawn by Jack Kirby, beginning with (I think it was) the third “Thor” tale, in which Stan and Jack’s version of Loki, as designed by Jack, first appeared. Thought you or one of your TJKC contributors might find it worth looking into for a future issue. I’d love it if it turns out that there aren’t a lot (or even any) depictions of Loki with those big sweeping horns... or maybe someone could get hold of the scientist who named the Lokiceratops and ask him/her which Loki image he/she was thinking of. Roy Thomas, St. Matthews, SC Lots of interesting tangents in issue #90, particularly regarding Jack’s time at DC. Ironically, in the ’71 interview, Carmine Infantino was musing ahead to Jack still working for him in the ’80s. Wishful thinking. It would only be a year later that Jack, intensely frustrated, would think about a return to Marvel. Infantino supposedly wouldn’t put anyone else on the books because Jack knew them so well. Yet, Carmine had Kirby’s faces changed on Superman and Jimmy Olsen. He suggested crossing over with Deadman. He asked Jack to drop the Fourth World connection in MISTER MIRACLE. If sales weren’t up to his elevated expectations, could the project be revised, with the characters still appearing and moving forward perhaps in a different format? Who knows? It wasn’t attempted. They were unceremoniously dropped. They had no interest in NEW GODS, but were willing to burden Jack with nowhere projects like SANDMAN, RICHARD DRAGON, JUSTICE, INC. Jack could have read the writing on the Source Wall when, for all the experimental projects he envisioned, only a few of his magazines were published and, even there, in a lesser format, cancelled before the sales figures were in. Some support. In the reprinted “Magic of Kirby” DC ad,

which I vividly remember, the new characters seemed so promising—and they were. They started better than they finished. And they finished too soon. If Jack had a five-year contract, and had been allowed to continue, as intended, would that have meant thirty bi-monthly issues of each? Perhaps, if encouraged, he could have signed up for another three years, as he did with Marvel, and had another eighteen issues each? My question is how long did he plan to define his cast and add to the ongoing storylines? How much of its potential did we see in the issues he produced? A third? How could Jack wrap up the books if he was still in the introductory phase? Were all heading in the same or differing directions? Could one have been wrapped up sooner than the others? Certainly, there were many wonderful characters, situations, and stories. Yet, with heightened sales expectations, false affidavits, a one-year price increase and office-mandated changes, it was cut short. That’s “business as usual?” Perhaps surprisingly, I enjoyed your Spider-Man coverage. As you pointed out, there had been numerous other spider-based characters previously. Some overlapped with the same name or a stray element. But none were the success that this one was. It was the distinctive look, the way it was staged, the supporting characters, intriguing villains, and the emphasis on the relatable teenager in the costume. Sadly, with the few stories Jack drew, it was mostly action sequences, fighting the Torch or the FF. The Parker identity and his cast took a definite backseat. Also, the Fox (STRANGE TALES ANNUAL #2) was an odd choice of opponent—an art thief requiring two superheroes, in tandem, to subdue him. Reminds me of the story, six months earlier, where the Hulk and Fantastic Four were required to take down a shrimpy Communist villain: the Wrecker (in FF #12). I’m glad you printed Steve Ditko’s essay snippets on the matter. It clarified that, though Jack had an earlier shot at it, the hit rendition was between Steve and Stan. Found Will Murray’s musings on the matter quite intriguing. Would a Kirby “Spiderman,” closely echoing the Fly, prompt a lawsuit? Would a magic ring and adult hero catch on? With Jack involved with that, what would have changed on the schedule? What other heroes might we have missed? In the end, it seems to have worked out well. I appreciated the beloved rendition of Spider-Man and Jack didn’t have to leave either of his big two books— FF and THOR—to do a different version. Liked the little checklist of possible additions to the Kirby Black Book. Do you know the date when Jack drew the volume? If it was mid-to-late ‘70s, no wonder some were omitted. They hadn’t yet been created. Here’s a tentative list of upcoming themes, so start thinking, and get to writing! SEND US YOUR THEME IDEAS! • #94: SPACE RACES!—Cosmic gods and life on other planets, how Ego, Tana Nile, and the Recorder took Thor to strange new worlds, OMAC’s space age future, time travelers, favorite Kirby sci-fi tropes, a robotic pencil art gallery, and more! SUMMER 2025!

Enjoyed the talk with Tom Kraft. His recreations, with different inkers, more to his taste, were interesting. Plus, they’re clearly marked as such. I also enjoyed that he, Rand, and you are friends all working together towards the same end: to publicize Jack’s career and accomplishments. Though for two distinct entities, there’s still good will and cooperation. Nice to see, especially these days. Joe Frank, Scottsdale, AZ Check out this PAWN STARS episode. Right at the 11:20 mark, Chumlee teaches us about Jack, when someone brings in a 1976 book of autographs, containing a Kirby Cap sketch [above]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtIDA9VoG7g Richard Kolkman, Fort Wayne, IN Regarding TJKC #90, in a phone conversation I had with Jack in the ’80s, somehow the conversation drifted over to Spider-Man. While I think Kirby generally thought Ditko did a fantastic job with the character, he expressed to me that if he had been doing the book, Spider-Man would’ve been using his web more. When I thought back on the early issues Jack was involved with, I remember Kirby did have Spider-Man using his web to make parachutes and all kinds of gadgets. I think Ditko’s version was better not to continue doing that. But I bring this up just to illustrate one of the ways Kirby’s version might have been different if he had ended up working longer on the title. Carl Taylor, Los Angeles, CA Just when I thought the TJKC probably could not find anything new to say about Jack Kirby, you produce an issue like this and I have to say I was delighted. #90 was both informative and entertaining and I was amazed by the work others have been inspired to do in the wake of Kirby’s genius. The articles illuminated a lot of background information and gave new insights into the ways in which the comic-book industry exploited Kirby and his work. I loved the “NEW GODS ’77” feature and was thrilled to see what could have been had DC not pulled the plug on NEW GODS all too prematurely. “The Unseen Spiderman” was fascinating, and perhaps finally puts to rest the long-running dispute as to who really created Spider-Man. It appears that whilst no ship can have two masters, a great comic creation can have two creators. Your cover, well demonstrating Jack’s inability to draw Spider-Man’s head anatomically, makes me pleased Ditko handled the art chores. The highlight of this issue was undoubtedly the “What If Kirby Art Gallery.” I was amazed at the work that had gone into reproducing these works of art. If there are any more I would love to see them, hopefully in a larger image. Nariman Dubash, Devon, ENGLAND • #95: MADNESS!—Kirby’s most deranged work: Dingbats, Goody Rickels, Destroyer Duck, the Goozlebobber, Not Brand Echh, wild animation concepts, an off-the-wall 1980s Kirby interview, a look at Jack’s psychedelic coloring, Kirby’s depictions of Dr. Strange, Forever People art gallery, a crazy 1950s Simon & Kirby story, and an unused Machine Man cover inked by STEVE LEIALOHA! FALL 2025!

#92 Credits:

John Morrow, Editor/Designer/ Proofreader THANKS TO OUR CONTRIBUTORS: Neal Adams • Gus Arriola Norris Burroughs • Jon B. Cooke Shel Dorf • Paul Duncan Mark Evanier • Chris Fama Danny Fingeroth • Shane Foley Barry Forshaw • Mike Friedrich David Gerard • Glen Gold Derek Harris • Henry W. Holmes Rand Hoppe • Carmine Infantino Alex Jay • Tracy Kirby • Jeremy Kirby Sean Kleefeld • Richard Kolkman Tom Kraft • Buddy Lortie Mike Manley • Patrick McDonnell David Reddick • Patrick Reed Steve Rude • Aaron Sultan Katie Vogel • Glenn Whitmore and The Jack Kirby Museum (www.kirbymuseum.org) If we forgot anyone, 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: SUPPORTING PLAYERS! We shine the spotlight on lesser lights of Jack’s oeuvre: Kanto the Assassin, Diablo, wannabe “Loser” Rodney Rumpkin, Mr. Little, the Falcon, Randu Singh, and others! Plus: an unpublished 1970 interview with Jack by SHEL DORF, our regular columnists, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, a never-reprinted Simon & Kirby story, a pencil art gallery devoted to second-stringers and little guys bringing up the rear, and more ways of digging out the deeper meanings to be found in even Jack’s minor concepts! With an unused Mister Miracle cover inked by MIKE ROYER! It ships SPRING 2025!

Summer 2025 (TJKC #94):

SPACE RACES!

New books now shipping! ZOWIE!

THE TV SUPERHERO CRAZE IN ’60s POP CULTURE by MARK VOGER

HOLY PHENOMENON! In the way-out year of 1966, the action comedy “Batman” starring ADAM WEST premiered and triggered a tsunami of super swag, including toys, games, Halloween costumes, puppets, action figures, and lunch boxes. Meanwhile, still more costumed avengers sprang forth on TV (“The Green Hornet,” “Ultraman”), in MOVIES (“The Wild World of Batwoman,” “Rat Pfink and Boo Boo”), and in ANIMATION (“Space Ghost,” “The Marvel Super Heroes”). ZOWIE! traces the history of the superhero genre from early films, through the 1960s TV superhero craze, and its pop culture influence ever since. This 192-page hardcover, in pop art colors that conjure the period, spotlights the coolest collectibles and kookiest knockoffs every ’60s kid begged their parents for, and features interviews with the TV stars (WEST, BURT WARD, YVONNE CRAIG, FRANK GORSHIN, BURGESS MEREDITH, CESAR ROMERO, JULIE NEWMAR, VAN WILLIAMS), the artists behind the comics (JERRY ROBINSON, DICK SPRANG, CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA), and others. Written and designed by MARK VOGER (MONSTER MASH, HOLLY JOLLY), ZOWIE! is one super read! (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-125-7 NOW SHIPPING!

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: 1945-49

This long awaited volume documents the comic book industry during the aftermath of World War II, when scores of writers and artists returned from foreign battlefields to resume their careers. It was a period when readers began turning away from the escapist entertainment offered by super-heroes in favor of other genres, like the grittier, more brutal Crime comics. It was a time when JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY inaugurated a golden age of Romance comics, Timely and National Comics capitalized on the popularity of Westerns, BILL GAINES plotted a new course for EC Comics, and JERRY SIEGEL and JOE SHUSTER first sued for the rights to Superman. These are just a few of the events chronicled in this exhaustive, full-color hardcover. Taken together, AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES forms a cohesive, linear overview of comics history, sure to be an invaluable resource for ANY comic book enthusiast! NOW SHIPPING! (288-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $49.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-099-1

COMIC BOOK IMPLOSION (EXPANDED EDITION) by KEITH DALLAS & JOHN WELLS

NOW IN FULL-COLOR WITH BONUS PAGES! In 1978, DC Comics launched a line-wide expansion known as “The DC Explosion,” but pulled the plug weeks later, cancelling titles and leaving dozens of completed comic book stories unpublished. Now, that notorious “DC Implosion” is examined with an exhaustive oral history from JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, AL MILGROM, and other DC creators of the time, plus commentary by other top pros, examining how it changed the landscape of comics forever! This new EXPANDED EDITION of the Eisner Award-nominated book explodes in full cover for the first time, with extra coverage of LOST 1970S DC PROJECTS like Ninja the Invisible and an adaptation of “The Wiz,” Jim Starlin’s unaltered cover art for BATMAN FAMILY #21, content meant for cancelled Marvel titles such as Godzilla and Ms. Marvel, and more! NOW SHIPPING! (144-page FULL-COLOR SOFTCOVER) $26.95 • (Digital Edition) $10.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-124-0

MARVEL COMICS In The EARLY 1960s

by PIERRE COMTOIS

This new volume in the ongoing “MARVEL COMICS IN THE...” series takes you all the way back to that company’s legendary beginnings, when gunfighters traveled the West and monsters roamed the Earth! Featured here are the best of those stories not covered previously, completing issue-by-issue reviews of EVERY MARVEL COMIC OF NOTE FROM 1961-1965! Presented are scores of handy, easy to reference entries on AMAZING FANTASY, TALES OF SUSPENSE (and ASTONISH), STRANGE TALES, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, RAWHIDE KID, plus issues of FANTASTIC FOUR, AVENGERS, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and others that weren’t in the previous 1960s edition. It’s author PIERRE COMTOIS’ last word on Marvel’s early years, when JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, and DON HECK, together with writer/editor STAN LEE (and brother LARRY LIEBER), built an unprecedented new universe of excitement! NOW SHIPPING! (224-page TRADE PAPERBACK) $29.95 • (Digital Edition) $12.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-126-4

TwoMorrows. The Future of Pop History.

Phone: 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com Web: www.twomorrows.com

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #36 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #37 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #38 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #39 AMERICAN COMIC BOOK STEVE ENGLEHART is spotlighted in RICK VEITCH discusses his career from THOMAS YEATES career-spanning interCHRONICLES: 1945-49 view about the Kubert School, Swamp

TOM PALMER retrospective, career-spanning interview, and tributes compiled by GREG BIGA. LEE MARRS chats about assisting on Little Orphan Annie, work for DC’s Plop! and underground Pudge, Girl Blimp! The start of a multi-part look at the life and career of DAN DIDIO, part two of our ARNOLD DRAKE interview, public service comics produced by students at the CENTER FOR CARTOON STUDIES, & more!

a career-spanning interview, former DC Comics’ romance editor BARBARA FRIEDLANDER redeems the late DC editor JACK MILLER, DAN DIDIO discusses going from DC exec to co-publisher, we conclude our 100th birthday celebration for ARNOLD DRAKE, take a look at the 1970s underground comix oddity THE FUNNY PAGES, and more, including HEMBECK!

undergrounds and the Kubert School; the ’80s with 1941, Epic Illustrated and Heavy Metal; to Swamp Thing, The One, Brat Pack, and Maximortal! Plus TOM VEITCH’s history of ’70s underground horror comix, part one of a look at cartoonist ERROL McCARTHY, the story behind Studio Zero— the ’70s collective of artists STARLIN, BRUNNER, WEISS, and others, and more!

Thing, Eclipse Comics, and adventure strips Zorro, Tarzan, and Prince Valiant! GREG POTTER discusses his ’70s Warren horror comics and ’80s reboot of Wonder Woman with GEORGE PÉREZ, WARREN KREMER is celebrated by MARK ARNOLD, plus part one of a look at the work of STEVE WILLIS, part two of ERROL McCARTHY, and more!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #93

KIRBY COLLECTOR #94

KIRBY COLLECTOR #95

BRICKJOURNAL #89

Covers the aftermath of WWII, when comics shifted from super-heroes to crime, romance, and western comics, BILL GAINES plotted a new course for EC Comics, and SIEGEL & SHUSTER sued for rights to Superman! By RICHARD ARNDT, KURT MITCHELL, and KEITH DALLAS.

(288-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $49.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-099-1

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CRYPTOLOGY #1

SUPPORTING PLAYERS! Almost-major villains like Kanto the Assassin and Diablo, Rodney Rumpkin, Mr. Little, the Falcon, Randu Singh, and others take center stage! Plus: 1970 interview with Jack by SHEL DORF, MARK EVANIER’s 2024 Kirby Tribute Panel from Comic-Con, neverreprinted Simon & Kirby story, pencil art gallery, and more! Unused Mister Miracle cover inked by MIKE ROYER!

SPACE RACES! Jack’s depictions of cosmic gods and life on other planets, including: how Ego, Tana Nile, and the Recorder took Thor to strange new worlds, OMAC’s space age future, time travelers in Kirby’s work, favorite Kirby sci-fi tropes in his stories, plus: a 1967 LEE/KIRBY interview, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, never-reprinted Simon & Kirby story, robotic pencil art gallery, cover inked by TERRY AUSTIN!

MADNESS! Kirby’s most deranged work: Dingbats, Goody Rickels, Destroyer Duck, the Goozlebobber, Not Brand Echh, and wild animation concepts! Plus, a 1980s Kirby interview by JAMES VAN HISE, a look at Jack’s psychedelic coloring, Kirby’s depictions of Dr. Strange, Forever People art gallery, MARK EVANIER, a crazy 1950s Simon & Kirby story, behind an unused Machine Man cover inked by STEVE LEIALOHA!

This issue, we combine LEGO and fine art, with brick-inspired paintings by STEFANO BOCANO, ADNAN LOTIA’s growing collection of LEGO mosaic album covers, and we visit a LEGO art gallery by BRICKGALLERIA!! Plus BRICKNERD, BANTHA BRICKS: Fans of LEGO Star Wars, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

The best in retro-horror! ’50s Horror Comics excesses, Killer “B” movies, creepy/ kooky horror toys, House of Usher, Addams Family vs. The Munsters, BERNIE WRIGHTSON’s Warren art, Hammer films, Atlas pre-code covers, and more from PETER NORMANTON, WILL MURRAY, MARK VOGER, BARRY FORSHAW, TIM LEESE, PETE VON SHOLLY, and STEVE and MICHAEL KRONENBERG!

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RETROFAN #36

RETROFAN #37

RETROFAN #38

RETROFAN #39

RETROFAN #40

Feel the G-Force of Eighties sci-fi toon BATTLE OF THE PLANETS! Plus: The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.’s STEFANIE POWERS, CHUCK CONNORS, The Oddball World of SCTV, Rankin/Bass’ stop-motion Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, TV’s Greatest Catchphrases, one-season TV shows, and more! With ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER & MICHAEL EURY.

The Jetsons, Freaky Frankensteins, Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling’s HOLLYWOOD, the Archies and other Saturday morning rockers, Star Wars copycats, Build Your Own Adventure books, crazy kitchen gadgets, toymaker MARVIN GLASS, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Tune in to Saturday morning super-heroes Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, The Mod Squad, Hanna-Barbera cartoonists, Jesus Christ Superstar, Mr. Potato Head, ‘Old Yeller” actress BEVERLY WASHBURN, Flying Nun collectibles, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Can your mind stand the shocking truth of… ED WOOD CAST CONFESSIONS? Plus: Ideal Toys’ Zeroids, television Tarzan RON ELY, Planters® Peanuts’ Mr. Peanut, CHARLES ADDAMS, TV’s The Fugitive, the forgotten 1981 Spider-Man cartoon, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, ED CATTO, and MARK VOGER.

Here comes TV’s Dennis the Menace, with stars JAY NORTH, GLORIA HENRY, and JEANNIE RUSSELL! Plus: Hogan’s Heroes turns 60, TV Western Have Gun–Will Travel, Big Little Books, The Incredible Hulk in animation, MICKY DOLENZ as Circus Boy, and more! Featuring columns by ED CATTO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER.

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New from TwoMorrows!

ALTER EGO #191

ALTER EGO #192

ALTER EGO #193

ALTER EGO #194

ALTER EGO #195

MARK CARLSON-GHOST documents the mid-1950s super-hero revival featuring The Human Torch, Captain America, SubMariner, Fighting American, The Avenger, Phantom Lady, The Flame, Captain Flash, and others—with art by JOHN ROMITA, JOHN BUSCEMA, BILL EVERETT, SIMON & KIRBY, MIKE SEKOWSKY, MORT MESKIN, BOB POWELL, and other greats! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

An abridgment of EDDY ZENO’s “Drawn to Greatness” book, showcasing Superman artists who followed JOE SHUSTER: WAYNE BORING, PAUL CASSIDY, FRED RAY, JACK BURNLEY, WIN MORTIMER, and others. With appreciations by ORDWAY, KUPPERBERG, ISABELLA, JURGENS, WAID, MACCHIO, NEARY, NOWLAN, EURY, THOMAS, and more! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

ROY THOMAS celebrates 60 years in comics! Career-spanning interview by ALEX GRAND, e-mails to Roy from STAN LEE, the history of Wolverine’s creation, RT’s 1960s fan-letters to JULIUS SCHWARTZ, and his top dozen stories compiled by JOHN CIMINO! With art by BUSCEMA, KANE, ADAMS, WINDSOR-SMITH, COLAN, ORDWAY, BUCKLER, FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and cover by TONY GRAY!

NEAL ADAMS REVISITED! Interviews by ALEX GRAND and BILL FIELD, as well as EMILIO SOLTERA—and an overview of Neal’s merchandising art for Marvel and DC Comics and in other fields, conducted by JAMES ROSEN! Plus Adams art, as inked by PALMER, GIORDANO, VERPOORTEN, ROUSSOS, SINNOTT, DEZUNIGA, and others! With FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

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#191 is an FCA (FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA) issue! Documenting the influence of MAC RABOY’s Captain Marvel Jr. on the life, career, and look of ELVIS PRESLEY during his stellar career, from the 1950s through the 1970s! Plus: Captain Marvel co-creator BILL PARKER’s complete testimony from the DC vs. Fawcett lawsuit, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and other surprises!

BACK ISSUE #158

BACK ISSUE #159

BACK ISSUE #160

BACK ISSUE #161

HEY, MISTER ISSUE! The FF’s Mr. Fantastic, STEVE DITKO’s Mr. A, the 40th anniversary of MICHAEL T. GILBERT’s Mr. Monster, Mr. X, the Teen Titans’ Mr. Jupiter, R. CRUMB’s Mr. Natural, Archie’s Mr. Weatherbee, and a Mr. Freeze villain history! Featuring BYRNE, CARDY, CONWAY, DeCARLO, DINI, ENGLEHART, the HERNANDEZ BROS., MIGNOLA, MOTTER, and more! Cover by ED McGUINNESS.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS 40th ANNIVERSARY! Pre-Crisis tour of DC’s multiple Earths, analysis of Crisis and its crossovers, Crisis Death List, post-Crisis DC retro projects, guest editorial by MARV WOLFMAN, and more! Featuring BARR, ENGLEHART, GREENBERGER, LEVITZ, MAGGIN, MOENCH, ORDWAY, THOMAS, WAID, and more! With GEORGE PÉREZ’S Crisis on Infinite Earths Index #1 cover.

SUMMER FUN ISSUE! Marvel’s Superhero Swimsuit Editions, Betty and Veronica swimsuit gallery, DC’s Strange Sports Stories, the DC/Marvel softball rivalry, San Diego Comic-Con history, Impossible Man Summer Vacation Specials, DC Slurpee cups, DC/Whitman variants, and more! Featuring BATES, DeCARLO, HUGHES, JIM LEE, LOPRESTI, MAGGIN, ROZAKIS, STELFREEZE, and more! GUICE cover.

MUTANT MAYHEM ISSUE! BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH’s Weapon X Wolverine, the romance of Havok and Polaris, Rogue and Nightcrawler limited series, Brood and Arcade villain histories, “Mutant Massacre” crossover, and more! With JON BOGDANOVE, JOHN BYRNE, CHRIS CLAREMONT, DAVE COCKRUM, LOUISE SIMONSON, MIKE WIERINGO, and more! WINDSOR-SMITH cover.

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BACK ISSUE #157

KEITH GIFFEN TRIBUTE ISSUE! Starstudded celebration of the prolific writer/ artist of Legion of Super-Heroes, Rocket Raccoon, Guardians of the Galaxy, Justice League, Lobo, Blue Beetle, and others! With CARY BATES, TOM BIERBAUM, J.M. DeMATTEIS, DAN DIDIO, ROBERT LOREN FLEMING, CULLY HAMNER, SCOTT KOBLISH, PAUL LEVITZ, KEVIN MAGUIRE, BART SEARS, MARK WAID, and more!