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JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR FIFTY-TWO $9 95 IN THE US

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This issue spotlights Kirby Obscura, uncovering some of Jack’s most obscure work! Learn about such little-known projects as an unused Thor story, his unseen Bruce Lee comic, his animation work, his stage play, and see original unaltered versions of pages from Kamandi, Demon, Destroyer Duck, and more! It also includes a feature examining the last page of his final issue of various series before editorial tampering (complete with lots of surprises)! There’s also Mark Evanier’s regular column about his former boss, two huge Kirby pencil art galleries, a complete Golden Age Kirby story, a color Kirby front cover inked by DON HECK, and a color back cover inked by PAUL SMITH! Edited by John Morrow.

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Jack Kirby Collector #52

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Contents

KIRBY OBSCURA!

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

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

JACK F.A.Q.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4(Mark Evanier examines whetherLennon and McCartney everworked Marvel Method)

GALLERY 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8(unedited last pages from some ofthe final issues of Jack’s comics)

KIRBY OBSCURA . . . . . . . . . . . . .16(Barry Forshaw goes Negative)

UNEARTHED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18(we’ve got Fish In A Barrel)

INNERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19(a 1972 interview with Jack)

JACK KIRBY MUSEUM PAGE . . . .27(visit & join www.kirbymuseum.org)

ADAM McGOVERN . . . . . . . . . . . .28(Joe Casey, Glen Brunswick, andothers on the Kirby influence)

INCIDENTAL ICONOGRAPHY . . . . .31(ve vant to drink your blood)

INFLUENCEES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32(Steve Englehart speaks)

GALLERY 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36(savor these unused Thor pages;you’ll need them in a moment)

ORIGINAL ART-IFACTS . . . . . . . . .45(let’s go find Galactus!)

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERIES . . . . .46(trying to make sense of THOR#168-170)

KIRBYSCURA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56(how Jack casts a shadow)

HIYA, HAI-YAH! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57(a hard-hitting look at Kirby’sunused Bruce Lee comic)

NUTS & BOLTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58(a glimpse at Kirby’s work incommercial illustration)

UNEARTHED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60(Kirby Masterworks questions)

FOUNDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62(a Kirby Western Tale)

CROSSUNDERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66(Kirby was big in 2008)

TORCH BEARERS . . . . . . . . . . . . .68(DC’s Dan DiDio interviewed)

KIRBYIONAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70(Kirby, the CIA, & the Lord of Light)

COLLECTOR COMMENTS . . . . . . .78

PARTING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80

Front cover inks: DON HECKFront cover colors: JACK KIRBYBack cover inks/color: JACK KIRBY

The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 16, No. 52,Spring 2009. Published quarterly by &©2009 TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614,USA. 919-449-0344. John Morrow,Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $13 post-paid ($15 elsewhere). Four-issue subscrip-tions: $50 US, $60 Canada, $84 elsewhere.All characters are trademarks of theirrespective companies. All artwork is©2009 Jack Kirby Estate unless otherwisenoted. All editorial matter is ©2009 therespective authors. First printing.PRINTED IN CANADA. ISSN 1932-6912

THE NEW

C o l l e c t o rISSUE #52, SPRING 2009

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

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

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ou may (or may not) have noticed a slight difference in the size of this issue. No, that page count’s the usual 84,but I’m talking about the physical size of the mag. I trimmed an extra half-inch off the height this time out(and will on all future issues). This small change allows subscription copies of TJKC to fit in some nifty, rigid

mailers, which should protect them better in the mail system, and get them in subscribers’ hands in much better shape. Back in May2007, the USPostal Servicepassed somenew regulationsthat required allStandard Mail(which is howwe usually ship

subscriber copies, to save themmoney) to be flexible, so we had to eliminate the backing boards we’d been sending them with. Now,we’re standardizing on the rigid mailers for TJKC, and using Media Mail instead of Standard Mail. Since it’ll cost us more to mail eachcopy, we’ve had to slightly increase the US subscription rate. I think readers will agree that it’s worth a small price increase to ensure theirsubscription copies arrive in good condition.

Since this issue’s theme is “obscure Kirby work”, it’sonly fitting that I get to announce the pending release ofLondon-based Titan Publishing’s new tomes featuringthe work of the best-selling team in comics history, JoeSimon & Jack Kirby! While most Kirby fans are inti-mately familiar with Jack’s work fromMarvel in the1960s and later, they’re not nearly as well acquaintedwith the first 20 years of his comics career, most ofwhich was spent in partnership with Joe Simon.Titan’s plans start with a deluxe full-color hardcoverBest of Simon and Kirby book (shown at left), to bereleased in May 2009, and as I write this, I justreturned from the New York Comic-Con, where Joewas on hand to sign limited edition lithographspromoting the new book. Each litho is limited to ahundred copies, and are individually hand-num-bered—one is of Fighting American, the other isof “The Girl Who Tempted Me!” from YoungRomance #17 (Vol. 3, No. 5, January 1950).

The Best of Simon and Kirby book features ahealthy sampling of S&K’s most famous charac-

ters, including Fighting American, Stuntman, and The Fly, plusother stories from titles like Black Magic, Justice Traps the Guilty, and Young Romance, the first

romance comic. And through the cooperation of Marvel Comics and DC Comics, The Best of Simon and Kirby will includestories featuring Captain America, The Vision, Sandman, and The Boy Commandos. The art has been painstakingly restored by HarryMendryk, and Joe Simon is overseeing the process, and will provide behind-the-scenes commentary on the original stories.

That volume will be followed by The Simon and Kirby Superheroes, which will feature more extensive collections of stories of cos-tumed heroes such as Blue Bolt, Fighting American, Stuntman, and the Fly. Then, Titan will launch The Official Simon and Kirby Librarybeginning in late 2009. The library will include volumes collecting the greatest horror, detective, and romance stories ever produced byJoe and Jack. Titan plans to release two books a year, and all these books are authorized byboth Joe Simon and the Kirby Estate. Finally, Titan will publish a new illustrated autobiographyof Joe Simon, tentatively titled Joe Simon, The Man Behind the Comics, in 2010.

(And one other Simon & Kirby item to note: DC will soon be releasing an Archive editionof Joe and Jack’s Golden Age Sandman stories, whichI’m penning the Introduction for, and Mark Evanier iswriting the Afterword.)

Lastly, let me mention a couple of our own Kirbypublications I hope you’ll consider. We still have a fewcopies of the Limited Hardcover Edition of Kirby Five-Oh!, our huge 50th issue of TJKC, done as a book. Itincludes a Kirby pencil plate not in the softcover ver-sion, and is limited to 500 numbered copies, so orderquickly before they’re gone. And just on sale isCollected Jack Kirby Collector Volume 7, which compilesthe last of our first 30 “regular-size” issues (before wewent tabloid-size with #31). It also includes 30 piecesof Kirby art never published before, so if you’ve missed any of our old issues, they’re all finallyback in print through those seven books, with some nice extras. Don’t miss ’em! �

Opening Shot by John Morrow,editor of TJKC

(above) I saw color proofs ofTitan Publishing’s newSimon & Kirby book at theNew York Comic-Con, andtrust me; you’re going tolove this!

Blue Bolt, Fighting American TM & ©2009Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estate. • CaptainAmerica TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters,Inc. • Superman TM & ©2009 DC Comics.Football images ©Jack Kirby Estate.

Y

9 7 8 1 8 4 5 7 6 9 3 1 4

ISBN: 97818457693145 3 9 9 5

W W W. T I T A N B O O K S . C O M

“[Simon and Kirby] started with an infant form and by sheer might-and-main created a

whole new genre.” — WILL EISNER, creator of The Spirit

“Lucky for me, when I entered comics Joe Simon was my mentor. In script, art, and

editing, he was the master!” — STAN LEE

“[Kirby] had this bursting, dynamic drawing style; it looked like his characters were

barely contained by the panels.”

— MICHAEL CHABON, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

“Kirby, above all the others, was the Nostradamus. He painted that Sistine Chapel

ceiling of funnybook environment with a brush and a palette of colors everyone else—

to this day—emulates. No praise is too much.”

— HARLAN ELLISON, science fiction grand master

“Joe was one of the true pioneers of comics. He

could write, he could draw, he could letter, he

could design, he could edit. Kirby used to say,

‘Joe knows comics,’ and that was the highest

compliment Jack could bestow on a colleague.”

— MARK EVANIER, author of Kirby: King of Comics

A N AU T H O R I Z E D

P R O D U C T I O N

$ 3 9 . 9 5 U S / $ 4 5 CA N / £ 2 4 . 9 9 U K

Joe & Jack Are Back!

LimitedHardcover:

$3495

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A column answering Frequently Asked Questions about Kirbyby Mark Evanier

reader named George Parker asked me to weigh in on a dis-cussion that seems to pop up every twenty minutes on onemessage board or other. Someone likens the team of Stan

Lee & Jack Kirby to the team of John Lennon & Paul McCartney,and suddenly folks are arguing over whether Stan is John and Jackis Paul or Paul is Jack and John is Stan and does that mean DonHeck is Ringo and Flo Steinberg is the Walrus?

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

The first place it breaks down, of course, is that John and Pauldidn’t have a clear division of work. Both wrote lyrics. Both wrotemusic. There was nothing one did that the other did not, whereasLee and Kirby had somewhat different job descriptions and skills.Also, though theymight not have felt so at times, both Beatles receivedsufficient accolades and cash for their work while Lee and Kirbywere both grossly underpaid and their fame was confined to a smallniche audience. It has only been in the last few years that Stan Lee

has becomethe house-hold namethat hecertainlydeserves to be.

But you candraw some compar-isons, largely in the wayeach duo reinvented the area in which it worked, kickstarted anindustry and set the model and bar for countless others. Andcertainly in both alliances, you have some fuzziness over whocontributed what. We know that Paul largely did “Yesterday” allby himself and that it was Jack’s idea that Galactus have a silverherald on a gleaming surfboard, but there are many instanceswhere the men involved couldn’t say... or agree.

Of most Beatles songs, you can only declare, “That’s byLennon and McCartney,” and you can’t go much farther than that.True, you can say that with “It’s Getting Better” on the Sgt. Pepperalbum, Paul wrote the lines, “I’ve got to admit it’s getting better /A little better all the time,” and then John interjected the part thatgoes “It couldn’t get much worse.”

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

The story of John and Paul is one of two guys workingincreasingly apart. Early on, they wrote in the same room, practi-cally in each other’s faces, about as “together” as two songwriterscould be, and the recording sessions went in much the samemanner.Then by ’64 or ’65, they were moving more into individual effortsbut contributing snippets and amendments to each other’s draftsas per the above example. Eventually, perhaps inevitably, theywent their separate ways.

Which is where I see the strongest Lee-Kirby parallel.Throughout the sixties, Stan and Jack moved slowly apart. In

fact, they split on very close to the same timetable as John andPaul. Kirby told Lee he was leaving Marvel in March of 1970.McCartney announced the following month that the Beatles wouldbe splitting up.

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

(One other quibble with sequences like that is that they con-veyed the erroneous impression that the comics were written anddrawn by Lee and Kirby working together in an office each day.Actually, Jack did his work at home and only came in for a fewhours once a week, if that often. Stan did much, often most of hisscripting at his home and primarily handled editorial and admin-istrative work at the office, sometimes only coming in two or threedays a week.)

Whatever the level of closeness was, it lasted only so long. AsMarvel expanded, Stan got busier and Jack cut back on his visits tothe office. With so many pages to produce, Kirby could ill afford thetime to take the train intoManhattan, nor did it fit with his personalschedule. The busier he got, the more nocturnal he became. Hispeak creative hours were late at night, after Roz and the kids wereasleep and he could forget about family responsibilities and live

Jack F.A.Q.sMark evanier

A(below) Though Sgt.Fury #18 (May 1965)credits Dick Ayers asthe artist, Kirby drewthis splash page, andthe final, pivotal pageof the issue, demon-strating his input intoother artists’ books.

(next page) Did Simon& Kirby work “MarvelMethod” on bookssuch as Black Magic?Here’s the cover tothe Sept. 1952 (Vol.2, #10) issue.

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

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Gallery 1byJohnMorrowHit the road, Jack

(this page) Final panels from:(top row) Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen#148, Captain America #214, Forever People#11, Silver Surfer Graphic Novel

(middle row) Black Panther #12, MachineMan #9, 2001: A Space Odyssey TreasuryEdition, Manhunter #1

(bottom row) Demon #16, Dingbats ofDanger Street #3, OMAC #8, Atlas #1

TM & ©2009 the respective owners.

Jack Kirby, with his city boy upbringing, was about as far from being a cowboy as possi-ble. But considering his early love of movies, he undoubtedly saw more than his fairshare of Western films, where the heroic cowboy always rode off into the sunset at the

film’s end. That image must’ve stuck with him, as you’ll see on the pages that follow.Presented here is the last page of several of Kirby’s final issues of his various runs on

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

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

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TM&©2009

DCComics.

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A regularcolumn focusingon Kirby’s leastknown work,by Barry Forshaw

People are once supposed tohave thought that the streets

of London were paved with gold, butas a boy growing up in the North of

England in the 1960s, I knew—withabsolute conviction—where the streets

were paved with something far more interest-ing: Any street in Anytown, USA. Every burg in

America (I knew for sure) boasted streets cloggedwith drug stores selling a host of US comics books,

with their wonderful four-color interiors—surely themost desirable items on Earth, particularly for those of us

who consumed such material only via the chunky 68-pageblack-&-white UK reprints. What’s more, these same American

kids (who clearly didn’t know how lucky they were) had endlessdisposable income; Brit kids had to make a judicious financialdecision every week (as half-a-crown pocket money only went sofar): The shilling Race for the Moon or Forbidden Worlds? Or themore affordable sixpenny Superman, Batman or Superadventure(as World’s Finest was retitled in the UK)?

CRISP BLACK AND WHITEBut if the truth be told, I didn’t lament

the absence of the original books—theydid turn up from time to time (like mannafrom heaven) and the British shilling reprints were very handsomeand desirable items: glossy color covers, good value (at least aquarter of an inch thick)—with spines, yet, like a paperback book!(Something the US books didn’t have.) So you could look at yourset of Blackhawk or The Flash side-on and have an extra aestheticfrisson (not that I would have known what to call such an experi-ence back then). And the contents of those books! Before the UKpackager Alan Class took over and began using much cheaperpaper, the original reprint books (courtesy of such reprint mer-chants as L Miller and the various titles published by Thorpe andPorter) used good quality white paper, so the crisp black-&-whiteartwork positively leaped off the page.Twelve-year-old aficionados like me quickly recognized that

there was an artist whose eye-jolting work seemed to blossom inthis setting, with his bold dynamic lines and brilliantly canny use ofsolid blocks of blacks. But who was he? Those few school friendsin the loose freemasonry of 1960s comics fans (before there wasany such thing as comics fandom in the UK) would talk about this‘good’ artist—and what made it an edgy discussion was the factthat he was somewhat controversial; not everyone liked his highlystylised approach—the very thing, in fact (though we didn’t ofcourse know it at the time) that gave his artwork problems at DCwhen he worked on their mystery and SF books, as it didn’t quiteconform to the house style.

ENTER THE NEGATIVE MANTake for instance, a back-up tale in one of the shilling books

called “The Negative Man.” It showed a bizarre human-shapedfigure of pure energy, lifting a ship out of a dock with snaking armsof crackling force, while two scientist gape in shock. Who knew, ina time when comics had no credits beyond the name of Bob Kaneon Batman, who drew this? (Or, for that matter, who knew then thatstories with Bob Kane’s name on them were not drawn by him, butby one of his ‘ghosts’?)It was years later that I tracked down House of Mystery #84 (DC,

March 1959) and saw for the first time where The Negative Manhad originated. It was the cover, still striking, but with a coverclearly drawn by another artist—and by now (as an adult) onecould track down these anonymous artisans—the cover was, infact, drawn by Bob Brown, who was subsequently to take overanother strip by the artist of the Negative Man, Challengers of theUnknown. But the dynamism of the story, seen for the first time infull color! Every panel bristled with a maximum dramatic impact—such as the shot of a scientist being hit by a devastating blast ofradio energy which would, of course, produce the eponymousNegative Man, soon to dispense mayhem on massive scale (start-ing with melting a torch in his hand and ending with the docksideship-juggling mentioned earlier).

WHO’S THE MYSTERY ARTIST?In this era, many a journeyman artist would concentrate all the

artistic impact they seemed to have under their belts into thesplash panel, with everything else in the succeeding pages beingsomewhat low-voltage. But not this artist! Many panels in the talecould have passed muster as splash panels: Such as the image ofThe Negative Man using his power to direct a host of bank notesover the heads of a stunned crowd after a robbery, or the strangecreature at bay, surrounded by tractors armed with lead shields.Looked at in the 21st Century, the story is still the best thing in Hof M #84. The first tale, by the usually reliable Nick Cardy (“The100-Century Doom”) looks rushed, and the pieces by GeorgeRoussos and Sheldon Moldoff are frankly ordinary. But, boy, thatNegative Man—worth the price of admission, whether youencountered him in a ten-cent US book or a shilling UK reprint!And did you notice that I didn’t once mention the name of the

Barry Forshaw Obscura

Challengers, Negative ManTM & ©2009 DC Comics.Bullseye TM & ©2009 JoeSimon & Jack Kirby Estate.

Looking for inexpensivereprints of the storiesfeatured this issue? Houseof Mystery #84 (March1959) was reprinted inHouse of Mystery #194(Sept. 1971) and ShowcasePresents Vol. 1: House ofMystery (2006). All theChallengers stories wererecently reprinted ina DC Archiveedition, andBullseye wascollected byMarvel inthe 1990s.

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

[Editor’s Note: This year, Comic-Con International: San Diego cele-brates its 40th anniversary, and the con is inviting back all thefounding members who volunteered their time and effort to launchwhat’s become the country’s biggest comics convention. Shel Dorf wasthe convention’s founder, and got to know Jack Kirby well after hemoved from New York to California. Shel in turn befriended numer-ous young comics fans in the Southern California area, and tookthem to meet Jack at home on several occasions. The following inter-view came out of one of those visits, and the questions here wereasked by Shel Dorf and/or several of the various fans who were visit-ing Jack’s home that day. Lacking proper credits when it was pub-lished circa 1972 in Mike Towry’s fanzine Train of Thought #6, wecan only thank Shel Dorf and some or all of the guys who wouldbecome the San Diego Five-String Mob in Jimmy Olsen: Scott Shaw!,

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

TRAIN OF THOUGHT: Do you like what Peter Max does?JACK KIRBY: Yes. Oh, I’m crazy about it. I think Peter Max hastaken a greater step than Picasso. I think Peter Max has reallytaken a realistic stance as far as art is concerned. He’s made artless harsh, and art more rich, and given it more form and moregrace. I just can’t explain the kind of admiration I have for PeterMax.

TOT: Do you think that it’s legitimate, though, that he merchan-dises his art?KIRBY: Sure it’s legitimate. That’s where Peter Max lives. That’swhere you live. I mean if exploitation is available to you and youdon’t want to use it, that’s fine. If exploitation is available to youand you want to use it, why not? If you feel that it’s going tohelp you in some way, you exploit. If you feel that you’re goingto get nothing from it, or if you want something else from it,you just don’t exploit it.

TOT:Would you ever want any of your characters to be exploited?KIRBY: Yeah, they’ve been using Captain America to promote achain of pants stores. They’ve been putting him on shirts andsuch to sell pants.

TOT: Captain America to sell pants? He should sell leotards.KIRBY: Listen, you can keep talking, but you’ve destroyed myego. But, of course, I think it’s right. They exploited somethingthat they felt would help their business. They picked him upand used him just like you would a pencil.

TOT: Would you care to expound upon your work at theFleischer studios?KIRBY: Yes, Fleischer animation studio, like any animation studio,is a factory. It’s a factory with long rows of tables. It looked justlikemy father’s place.My father worked in a factory with long rowsof tables with sewing machines on them. My father used to sitby them and turn out his quota of merchandise. That’s what I wasdoing at Fleischer’s. I was sitting at one of these long rows of tableswith lights underneath. They’d give me this in-between action. Iwould finish the action on seven sheets of paper, and I wouldgive them the seven sheets of paper. That was my importance.

TOT: What would have happened if you’d have gotten into thestory writing for the animation and the design aspect?KIRBY: Probably I might’ve done well, but I just couldn’t waitfor that. I just didn’t want to be a nothing, like anybody else.

TOT: How did you get the job at Fleischer’s?KIRBY: I applied for it. I showed them some sample drawings,and they needed an in-betweener. I got the job. It was a goodopportunity—I’m not knocking it.

TOT: Did they pay well?KIRBY: No, at least not according to today’s standards, butwhatever you made in those days counted for a lot. I mean Icould get into a movie for 50¢. You couldn’t get into the wash-room today for that. So whatever I made then counted. I neverknocked the money, I just knock the life. I felt that I was welltreated at Fleischer’s. It was a good organization, but it was abig organization and I was just a 17-year-old kid. So who the hellwas I, and that was the question I always asked myself. I’d say,“Who the hell are you?” and when I didn’t get the right answer I

Train of Thought Part 2(below) The originalannouncement thatlocal San Diego fanswould be appearingas characters inJack’s Jimmy Olsenstrip. This appearedin an early 1970s SanDiego Con programbook. Courtesy ofShel Dorf.

Innerview

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tried for something else.

TOT: Wasn’t it a kick, though, to go to the movietheater and see the action and know that it’s yourwork?KIRBY: I admit that there was some fascination to it,but it wasn’t the uppermost thing in my mind.What was in my mind was to do what was requiredbetter than eight other guys could do it. I had toduplicate what was being done—something that Iwasn’t trained for. So I had to figure out how to doit the best way possible so that it would look betterthan the other guys. I used to define the human fig-ure for myself. When I used to have to draw creaseson an arm, I could feel the muscle flex or I coulddraw out that arm to its extreme. It’s nice to playaround with the human figure like that. I did someextreme drawings, and maybe that’s where all themotion format comes from. And I like that sort of

thing. I always felt that Captain America was moreof a ballet than a fight. I used to choreograph it. I’dhave Captain America fighting 25 guys, and whilehe was hitting one guy, another guy was comingover the library shelf and another guy was comingin through the window. As this guy was falling,Captain America would turn around and get thisguy from the shelf. Meanwhile the guy from thewindow would grab Captain America’s leg. It wouldbe a dance, each man having his own part. It wasnever a fight. I never liked fighting. I never liked theresults of it.

TOT: Did you have a chance to see the first releasesof Superman when the kids were taking it around toeverybody and they couldn’t sell it?KIRBY: In that stage? No. I wasn’t there. I don’trecall who was editor at that time. It might havebeen Whitney Ellsworth.

TOT: When you first went into comics, didyou look upon it as your chance to finallymake an individual effort?KIRBY: Sure. I like comic books. There wereno standards in comic books at the time. Iknew I wouldn’t be faced with stuffy people.In other words, I talk to a syndicate andthey greet you with an established manner,an established attitude. You knew what wasgoing to happen to you right away. Thatyou were just a street urchin coming in withsamples of drawings, and you had no repu-tation. And although the people wouldtreat you kindly, you might as well be partof the wallpaper.

TOT: Comics were in their infancy then.How did it feel to have your name on thetitle page of a comic?KIRBY: I was never concerned with that. Inever signed my name. Sometimes theymake me sign my name.

TOT: I’m talking about, say, when CaptainAmerica hit, and you’d go over to somebodyand they’d say, “What do you do for aliving?” and you’d say, “Well I write a comicbook.” How did that strike you then?Because it seems public attitudes were a lotdifferent then.KIRBY: For some reason I can’t explain, itwas never my idea to be actually somebodyof importance. I did the best I could to stayon the same level as anybody I talked to. Iwas a little guy, to boot. I wasn’t more thanmaybe 4' 11" to 5' 1", so I was in fights allthe time, and I’d get kicked around a lot. Itwas just a matter of if I could stand still for5 minutes and hold a conversation with aguy and have him believe me, and have metry to believe him. It wasn’t the fact of seeingmy name on a magazine. I like to tell agood story. I like to do that. It’s never beenan ego trip with me. I’ve never had any hos-tility toward anybody.

TOT: How about your motivation for thecraft?KIRBY:My interest in the craft stems strictlyfrom survival. I’ve never had any idea ofbeing a Michelangelo, or a Leonardo DaVinci, or a Milton Caniff. I never gave twothoughts to Caniff as a human being. I

never gave two thoughts to any other cartoonist as ahuman being.

TOT: I was making a comparison from early films tocomic books when they were in their infancy.KIRBY: Comic books are still in their infancy.

TOT: Right. But when film actors would haveassumed names and wouldn’t go out and admitthey were film actors—because for a stage actor tobe a film actor was demeaning. Was that attitudepresent in comic books?KIRBY: It’s not an attitude. It’s a world. My nameisn’t Kirby. Nobody ever used their real name.There was one guy named Ricardo Cortez, and hisname was no more Ricardo Cortez than my name isJack Kirby. That was the kind of world it was. WhenI tell you my generation lied or died I’m not kidding.My generation lied to survive. I changed my name

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KIRBY INCOGNITAack Kirby was known for taking his readersand his artform to unprecedented heights,sailing the currents of cosmic spectacle

and piercing the horizon of near-divine insights.As befits the fearless explorer, he also crashedthe spaceship and detoured into some logicalblack holes from time to time (did somebodysay Fighting Fetus and Goozlebobber?)—but asanyone who’s ever opened the wrong Egyptiantomb or picked a bad necronomicon to recitewill tell you, these are worthy adventures too.At least they are to two intrepid creativeteams turning some of Kirby’s wackier tradi-tions into whole new genres and essentialreading at Image Comics—Joe Casey (yes,Gødland’s Joe Casey) and Andy Suriano onthe ongoing Charlatan Ball, and GlenBrunswick and Dan McDaid on the just-starting Jersey Gods.

That Rabbit’sDynamite

Tom Scioli, Casey’s collaborator on the over-the-top-and-through-the-ceiling cosmic odyssey Gødland, once told me he felt they wereholding back. On Charlatan Ball (a surrealist farce signaled by evena title that looks like a typo), Casey, at least, is holding back not somuch. It’s the story of, well, that’s a good question, but there’s thisD-list strip-club stage magician who gets yanked out of our realityas a pawn in the quantum chessgame between a bunch of actually-magic space warlords, in a nightmare dimension-shuffle of worldswhere anything can happen, including the infatuation of a 50-foot-tall warrior goddess and the mutation of the fake magician’s hat-rabbit into a murderous man-bunny (a kind of Red Queen and MarchHare as if Martin Goodman had told Kirby to jazz up Lewis Carrolland paid him in dope). Casey’s free-associative narration, Suriano’sWagnerian hotrod art, and Marc Letzmann’s hallucination color-palette make it unlike anything in comics. TJKC asked Casey andSuriano what the hell is going on…

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

in a hurry to claim—the grotesquetechno-ogres from Atlas Monsters to MODOK; the speaking-in-tongues story structure or writing style of a Sandman or DevilDinosaur. These may access some primal fairytale narrative juiceand unlock some visionary ways of thinking… or not, though itseems to be working that way in Charlatan Ball. Is there no road intoKirby that doesn’t lead to genius, and are some routes more bumpythan others?

JOE CASEY: There can definitely be bumps in the road, at least inthis case. Certainly Charlatan Ball has been a bit more of a head-scratcher for a lot of readers, even those who embrace Gødland fair-ly unconditionally. Let me put it this way... if Gødland is my NewGods, then Charlatan Ball is definitely my Captain Victory and theGalactic Rangers. I love both of those Kirby books, so obviouslythese things are all subjective. But in all honestly, on a purely con-ceptual level, the Kirby aspects of the series come mainly from mycollaborator/co-creator, Andy Suriano. I just come up with wackyconcepts like the Gang of Four Gods and Donnarama and Andy goesto town on the designs. And he’s definitely got a Kirby thing to hisart. For me, I was trying to bring a bit of my Peter Milligan/BrendanMcCarthy influence. Freakwave, Rogan Gosh, Mirkin the Mystic... allgreat, underrated classics of the medium that really affected me asa reader. But then again, I think McCarthy has more than a bit ofKirby in him, too... so it’s all part of the Great Chain.

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

CASEY: Characters have to be relatable to the reader, no matter howbig or small they’re meant to be within the reality you’re creating.Yeah, they may be extremely exaggerated, but in Charlatan Ballespecially, I don’t have any real inclination to write them as unknow-able. That’s part of the fun of it. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to

Know of some Kirby-inspired workthat should be covered here? Send to:

Adam McGovernPO Box 257

Mt. Tabor, NJ 07878

J

Adam McGovern

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

These interviews wereconducted by e-mail on11/11/08-11/12/08 with JoeCasey; 11/13/08 with AndySuriano; 11/11/08 with GlenBrunswick; and 11/11/08with Dan McDaid (all vowelstranslated from the British).

(right) We don’t have to beatyou over the head with theKalibak references—butwhere’s the fun in not?Chuck Amok (corner) meetshis match, from CharlatanBall #1.TM and ©2009 Joe Casey and Andy Suriano

(below) Un-“Pact”: A group ofFourth Host impersonatorsmix their Kirby metaphors,from Charlatan Ball #4.TM and ©2009 Joe Casey and Andy Suriano

(next page, bottom) Toughcrowd: Magician Chuck Amokprepares to disappear.TM and ©2009 Joe Casey and Andy Suriano

(next page, top) Star-crossinglovers Barock and Zoe ridethe, um, silver diving-board?TM and ©2009 Glen Brunswick and DanMcDaid

(following page, top) Anotherpowerful pinup of the bruiserwith the Kenyan-soundingname, Barock!TM and ©2009 Glen Brunswick and DanMcDaid

(following page, bottom)Deities in drag: The JerseyGods do their part to cure ouroil addiction in this MichaelAllred alternate cover.Jersey Gods TM and ©2009 Glen Brunswickand Dan McDaid

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Influencees

Interviewed by Shane Foley

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

Steve Englehart is well respected for his work as a writer in comicbooks since the early ’70s. Previous TwoMorrows’ interviews can befound in Comic Book Artist #2, 7, 18 and Back Issue! #8 (mainlyregarding his ’70s Marvel work), Comic Book Artist Collection,Volume 2 and Back Issue! #3 and 10 (regarding his Batman work),TJKC #33 and Back Issue! #11 (comments on the Fantastic Four).And he keeps turning up in other Back Issue! editions as books he wasinvolved in keep being covered. Together with great info on his writingmethods, the most recent career-spanning interview is on show inWrite Now! #12. And no doubt there are a few more I’ve overlooked.

This interview came about after I was looking over Steve’s web-site, found at www.steveenglehart.com (where else?). There is lots ofbackground info there on all his series and it is highly recommended.What really grabbed my eye, and became the springboard for this arti-cle, was when I saw that Steve had his unpublished Topps’ CaptainVictory scripts for sale. Now these I just had to see. Together with his

aborted West Coast Avengers plots, I bought #1. So often, I’vefound that writers don’t seem to ‘get’ Kirby characters in a

way that I find satisfying, so I was hedging my betswhen I only bought the first script. But to my

immense pleasure, I thought his take on CV feltpitch perfect! So in short order, I also boughtscripts 2 and 3. Now I want 4, 5 and 6. Pitythey don’t exist. This exchange was conductedby e-mails beginning early 2007.)

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: You’vestated a number of times that your firstexposure to Kirby was the Galactus trilogyfrom Fantastic Four #48-50. Do you think,

“This is a Kirby story, dialogued by Stan Lee”or do you think the Lee/Kirby productions are

not that easily divisible?STEVE ENGLEHART: I think it’s Lee/Kirby, and the

reason is, comics are a hybrid medium. That same art witha different writer would have been a different experience, andvice versa. But Lee and Kirby fed off each other at that time. Jack

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

TJKC: A hot topic amongst Kirby fans is the debate about hisscripting ability. Some love it. Others hate it. And there are those,like me, caught in the middle. Your letter published in ComicBook Artist #7 mentioned Kirby’s “tin ear”, showing where youstand. Any comments on that?STEVE: I’ve never liked Jack’s scripting. It does not sound likehuman speech, and IT puts the emPHAsis in the WRONG places.When I was asked to do Captain Victory, I had to go back andplow through all the books, and I discovered that there was a lotof Kirby magic in them, but it was hard to make out behind thattin wall. At one point, I suggested to Topps regarding CaptainVictory—and later to DC regarding the Fourth World—that theyrepublish Kirby in English. Meaning, hire a real writer (i.e., me,since it was my idea) to redo the dialogue so as to make clearwhat Kirby was intending to say, and add personality as Stanused to do. I think particularly with the Fourth World, everyonesays “Oh, great classic series,” but very few people actually wantto read it. But if you were to do the “remastered” version, of thator Captain Victory or any of his other self-scripted stuff—stayingabsolutely true to what he was trying to say, but making thewords flow like the art—they could all be reborn.

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

TJKC: We know opinion is divided about Kirby’s scripting. Onthe other hand, no one can argue that he didn’t have great con-ceptual ideas. But what about his actual plotting? What do youthink of his actual method of story construction?STEVE: His plotting was great. Everything was great excepthuman speech.

TJKC: Do you think there are many elements of your approach towriting that are heavily influenced by Kirby’s approach?STEVE: I’m sure there are, but at this point it’s hard to say.Which means, when I was learning my craft, I was influenced byall the great stuff around me, and Kirby was a major figure inthat realm—but it’s all evolved into my own style now so I can’tpick out anything unique to Jack, or anyone else. Maybe otherscan see things I can’t.

TJKC: What are your thoughts on Kirby’s Fourth World? Do youthink it was a case of “too much, too quick”? Do you think thescripting, more than the torrent of ideas, was a problem?STEVE: Yes, the scripting was a problem; that will always be truefor me. But beyond that, imagine a universe where the FF, Thor,and, oh, Spider-Man and Ant-Man had to function as a separate,four-headed entity. You immediately run into problems with onehead demanding more attention than another, some seriesspeeding up and others slowing down so they stay in sync—

Steve Englehart Speaks

(above) Blurb from thebox at the top of SteveEnglehart’s Captain Victory#1 script, page 1, and (nextpage) Paul Gulacy’s coverfor that never-publishedfirst Topps issue.

(below) Kirby Marvelmaniabutton art, circa 1969.

Captain Victory TM & ©2009 Jack Kirby

Estate. Silver Surfer TM & ©2009 Marvel

Characters, Inc.

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CharactersTM

&©2009

MarvelCharacters,Inc.

Gallery Thor Unused

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t wasn’t all that unusual for JackKirby to occasionally end up withsome unused pencil pages from his

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

What was unusual was for Jack to end up with the better partof a full issue of unused pages, as with Thor #169 (October 1969).Let’s recap: Thor began a quest to seek out the origin of Galactusback in Thor #160 (January 1969), launching Jack’s final multi-issue Thor epic, with Ego, the Recorder, theWanderers, theWatcher,and Galactus all woven together into what began as a prettyamazing tale. We got a brief look at Galactus’ origin in #162, thentook a two-issue detour in #163-164. “Him” returned in #165-166,in a story full of sub-plots about Loki, Karnilla, Balder, and theWatcher, with Odin still searching for Galactus. As Thor battled“Him”, he succumbed to the dreaded “Warrior Madness”, and atthe end of #166, Odin punished Thor by sending him on a mis-sion to find Galactus. Thor finally found Galactus in #168, and...

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

I touched on this back in TJKC #14, as I’d tracked down ahandful of unused pencil pages that seem to have been intendedfor #169. Since then, this mystery has plagued me, and I’ve beentrying to make sense of why there were so many leftover pages,and why the published versions of issues #168-170 were such aconvoluted mess. I’ve been struggling to put together someconclusive evidence to support my hunches about it, and thedeeper I’ve gotten into it, the more questions have been raised.I’ve finally reached the point where I’m ready to air my theories,and throw this open to our readers, in hopes they can shed fur-ther light on the mystery. But to get to this point, I enlisted thehelp of Shane Foley and Sean Kleefeld to give me their opinions,and their input was invaluable to this article.

Putting #168’s Pieces TogetherThe first step is to try to rearrange Thor #168 into Jack’s

original order, so that the unused page 15 (with Balder, Karnilla,and Haag) from theMarvelmania Portfolio falls in the right place,and here’s our best shot at making it fit:

Can you help us trackdown any unused pagesfrom this Thor sequence,or published pages withmargin notes? If so, get intouch, so we can conclu-sively solve this mystery!

Characters TM & ©2009 MarvelCharacters, Inc.

I

Journey Into Mysteries Avenger R

Unknownmissing

sub-plot page,likely featuringLoki/Karnilla

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The mystery surrounding Thor#168-170 , examined by JohnMorrow, with help from Shane Foleyand Sean KleefeldRe-Assembled

1 432

9 121110

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Nuts & Bolts

by Steven Brower

equential art is its own entity, distinctly different from otherforms of the visual arts. It is arguable the most difficult of all.Rather than a single creator, often it requires the talents of

many: writer, penciler, inker, colorist, and letterer working inconsort towards a common end. The fact that it ever succeeds onany level, let alone so many, is nothing short of astounding.

Illustration, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter.As an art director for over twenty years I have commissionedhundreds of illustrations from myriad illustrators. The differencebetween illustrators and comic book artists is profound. Whilethe repartee between illustrator and art director is collaborative—

a give and takebetween editorialneeds and self-expression—ultimately it is thework of a singleartist creating asingle panel,akin to a fine artpainting.

In additionthe mission of anillustrator is verydifferent from thatof the sequentialartist. It is theirdirective to convey a message allegorically or metaphorically. Theessence of the article or book has to be boiled down to magazinespreads or a book jacket to grab the reader’s attention andencourage their entering or purchasing the written work. In vari-ous ways this is a more difficult task than that posed for thesequential artist, for it requires the ability to convey a message insingle frames, whereas the comic artist has several panels andpages to tell his or her story. It is the role of the illustrator tointrigue, to titillate, to create curiosity that gets the readerinvolved. Unlike a comic book artist, the illustrator should nevertell the complete story. There is no resolution needed; ratherinference is what is required, to draw the reader in. It is the textof the story or book that tells the entire tale; it is the illustratorthat entices the reader to get involved.

Still it pales in many ways in the face of sequential art, whichencompasses art, storytelling, pacing, design, point of view andcinematic sequencing. Imagine my surprise to discover Jack Kirby,in my opinion the greatest comic book artist of them all, pullingduty not as a sequential artist, but rather as an illustrator. I wasaware that he had done so in conjunction with Joe Simon inpulps in the early 1940s, but here he was twenty odd years later,applying his talents to a very different discipline, albeit withinthe comic book environ. Kirby’s skills in storytelling are beyond

reproach. As one ofthe seminal found-ing fathers he estab-lished early on theart of storytellingthrough the use ofaction, emotion anddynamism, influenc-ing generations tocome. Indeed he setthe standard fordecades, a benchmarkfor others the follow.Unlike others in hisfield, when thingsgot tough followingthe crackdown oncomics championedby Dr. FredricWertham and con-gress in the early ’50s,Kirby did not changecareers and enterinto the advertising

S

Jack Kirby: Illustrator(this spread) Kirbyillos from The WorldAround Us #30 (Feb.1961), published byGilberton World-Wide.

©2009 Gilberton World-Wide.

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Unearthed

by Wade AuCoin

I need your help solving a mys-tery. On December 14, 2007, Ibought a very special copy of Jack

Kirby Masterworks. This copy hashand-written notes in red pen sprin-kled throughout the book with veryrevealing information about JackKirby. But for the life of me, I cannotidentify the writer of the notes. ButI’m pretty sure that someone outthere among the readers of the JackKirby Collector will be able to. I’vereprinted a few of the most relevantpages to help you along.

I found the copy of the book in agreat little comic shop in Montreal, Canada owned by MarcParenteau. I was there with my comic-book collecting buddy, RonKoomas. Both of us live in different parts of Canada, but we were

in Montreal to celebrate an important chapter in Ron’s life, andwhat better way for us to celebrate than to seek out new comicsstores! Marc specializes in comic-book oddities, and has many.Sifting through his over-sized treasury books on the bottom shelfof one of his cases, I noticed something different, something thatlooked hidden and had not been seen in a number of years.

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

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

The book was worn and not in the best of shape. As much asI wanted it, I wasn’t sure if I could justify the $20 price tag on itwith everything else I was getting that day (you know how it is).But I thought it would be fun to try to decipher the notes and dis-cover who the mystery writer is. And it would be a nice additionto my Silver Surfer collection to boot! Besides, Marc told me thatif I didn’t buy it, he would simply put it on eBay, which was aprospect that I did not relish. I plunk down my last few remain-ing dollars and plead with Ron to pay for my supper. I was prettyhungry since we had skipped lunch. Time flies when you’re goingthrough comic boxes.

When I got home the next day, I started examining the notesin more detail, but I soon realized that I would need more help.As much as I have grown to love Kirby’s artwork, I am by nomeans a Kirby expert. A couple of days later, I sent an e-mail toJohn Morrow, ye old editor of this very magazine, and he agreedto help me out. I sent him paper copies of the book, and a fewdays later he e-mailed me the following message:

“Fascinating! There’s a mystery here, which I hope we caneventually solve. Here’s what I’ve been able to piece together:

The writer:• Likely knew Roz Kirby• Likely knew (and maybe worked with/inked) Steranko• Probably inked Kirby’s pencils• Was alive after 1979, when the Portfolio was published• Probably worked at Marvel in the 1960s• Is likely fairly old, based on the scratchy handwriting

Are there clues aboutJack’s career here, orjust some fan withbad handwriting? Letus know!

Characters TM & ©2009 MarvelCharacters, Inc.

S

A Masterworks Mystery

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Foundations A Western Tale

956 was a lean year forthe King. Jack’s outputwas extremely low,

having returned to Prizeand the once lucrativeromance genre for thebulk of his work. Jackalso found some work atHarvey with longtimecollaborator Joe Simon.This story from WesternTales #33 (July 1956)enjoys what appears tobe Joe Simon’s talentedhand at the inks.

As an aside, issue#33 is one of the hardestKirby books to find.Earlier issues featuringBoys’ Ranch reprints and“Davy Crockett” storiesare relatively abundantand affordable. But forsome reason unknownto me, this issue is down-right scarce. A few yearsback, I stumbled onto acoverless copy,Simonized for thisissue’s Foundationsinstallment. It would beanother two years beforeI found one with a cover.Since then not a singlecopy has appeared oneBay, so enjoy this trulyscarce material. �

Western Tales ©2009 Joe Simon.

Art reconstructionand commentary byChris Fama

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Torch Bearers

Interviewed by Douglas Toole

an DiDio is a prominent figure in today’s comic-book business.After working for years as a scriptwriter, story editor and vice-president with the computer animation company Mainframe

Entertainment and as a public relations manager and an executivedirector with Capital Cities/ABC, he joined DC Comics in January2002 as Vice President–Editorial. Last year, he was promoted to theposition of Vice-President–Executive Editor of the DC Universeimprint. In that position, he helps to develop new titles and to chart

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

TJKC: Thanks for making time for this interview.DiDIO: This is actually a fun one for me, because so much ofwhat we have been working on has been building off of thematerial Jack Kirby did in his time with DC. And so many peo-ple have gotten excited by the fact that we have been reintroduc-ing it and bringing it back and playing with it in this fashion.

TJKC: I’ve read that you have been a fan ofcomics for more than 30 years. What weresome of the early comics that stood out foryou?DiDIO: In my early days of collecting, Iwas a big fan of the monster comics fromboth Marvel and DC. I remember readingeverything from Where Monsters Dwell andWhere Creatures Roam to House of Mysteryand House of Secrets. I was also a big Spider-Man fan.

TJKC: What were some of the early Kirbybooks you remember reading?DiDIO: The Kirby books are easy ones toremember, because when I was growingup, they looked so much bolder than theother books on the stands. I pretty muchcollected everything Kirby did for DC inthe 1970s, although I started a little laterthan others did. The first one I rememberpicking up was an issue of Mister Miraclewith Shilo Norman on the cover. It wasprobably issue #15, or around that time.By that point, New Gods and Forever Peoplehad already ended. I was just getting ataste of the Fourth World from what washappening in Mister Miracle, but I enjoyedthat issue so much that I started to lookfor the back issues of Mister Miracle, NewGods, Forever People and even Superman’sPal Jimmy Olsen. I also picked up Kamandi,The Demon and—a personal favorite ofmine—the three issues of Weird MysteryTales with Kirby stories in them. Those inparticular were a lot of fun for me to readbecause it combined his storytelling stylewith the anthology format that I enjoyedin comics.

TJKC: Going from Mister Miracle #15 or 16to the rest of the Fourth World books musthave been an adjustment for you. By thatpoint in the Mister Miracle series, most ofthe issues had stand-alone stories, and theearlier Fourth World books were muchmore interconnected.DiDIO: They were more stand-alone. Butyou have to remember that in MisterMiracle #18—the final issue of the series,when Scott married Barda—Darkseidappears, a reference is made to the Pact[between Apokolips and New Genesis]

Dan DiDio Interview(next page) DC’s Death ofthe New Gods cover art byJim Starlin.

(below) Final page fromMister Miracle #18 (Feb.1974), showing yet anotherfinal panel of characterswalking (or in this case,running) off into the sunset.

Characters TM & ©2009 DC Comics.

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Kirby, The CIA and theKirbionage

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

n 1978, Jack Kirby realized that he was not going to be able to followhis dreams any further working for the two major comics companiesand began to consider other uses for his talents. He made anarrangement to fulfill the remainder of his Marvel contract by doing

storyboards and production drawings for the Fantastic Four cartoonproduced by Saturday morning cartoon moguls Hanna-Barbera. Thisgave him inroads into the animation industry, where he would findemployment for the next decade. Kirby had moved to California withthe hope of expanding his horizons into film and as his comics careerdissolved, he almost immediately got involved in a particularlyambitious movie project. In 1978 writer/producer Barry Ira Gellercontacted Jack to collaborate on a film adaptation of Roger Zelazny’sHugo Award-winning novel Lord of Light. The thirteen extraordinarydrawings Jack completed were then inked by Mike Royer and madeinto a limited number of “Media Kits” by Geller for promotionalpurposes. The complex structures Jack designed were to have beenrealized as film sets and eventually function permanently as a themepark, but unfortunately after an initial burst of publicity, the projectfell into a legal morass.

In 1979 during the Iranian hostage crisis, six American diplomatswere successfully smuggled out of Tehran. At that time much of thecredit went to the Canadian Government for their role in the mission tosave the lives of the six Americans, who had survived by hiding in theCanadian Embassy. But 20 years later in an unusual event honoringtheir fiftieth anniversary, the Central Intelligence Agency decided tohonor some of its unsung heroes and revealed that the escape had beenpart of a covert action executed by their operatives. As the startlingdetails of this story emerged, it turned out that the whole plot hung onJack’s artwork. The following is an interview with Barry Ira Geller, theman responsible for putting Jack’s work into the hands of CIA spies inthis strange saga of real life intrigue, glamour, adventure andHollywood mayhem.

Interview with Barry Ira Gellerby James Romberger

JAMES ROMBERGER: The Lord of Light drawings were a great useof Jack’s talents; it’s a shame the project wasn’t consummated. Ihave to admit being intrigued by a letter in the Kirby Collectorabout a Bravo show that referred to your project in a strange

(throughout this arti-cle) Some of Kirby’sconcept art for theLord of Light film andtheme park. Inks byMike Royer.

All art ©2009 Barry Geller.

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context, that of a front for an anti-terrorist task force bent on freeing hostages ina foreign land. The conspiratorial scenarios multiply as one freely conjectures,not the least concept that the CIA are Kirby fans. BARRY IRA GELLER: I agree with your perception regarding the different kind ofwork I employed Jack for—it was the perfect evolution of his total mastery.Buildings were going to be based upon them—that would have put the Earth onits ears had we been able to do it. Actually, the half hour program was made byWGBH Boston where the CIA’s master spy admitted publicly to ripping off theLord of Light script and Jack’s drawings to set up a phony production companyfront in Iran to (successfully) get out six almost-prisoners. This was kept secret allthese years. I have the video and will be editing it, and will put it up on my site. Itis quite astounding. It turns out my makeup man, John Chambers (Oscar winnerfor Planet of the Apes) was also the CIA’s chief makeup consultant and gave the scriptto the spy for whom he worked, Mendez, who was the real Mission: Impossibledude... hahahaha. I was terrified when first seeing the show, but then found“enlightenment”—as I began to acknowledge the wonders of a million coincidencesto bring everything up to that point, from me conceiving the project and then getting Jack to do the work, getting Chambers involved, etc... that’s six peoplealive instead of maybe dead. I am certain Jack would have loved the “Touch ofGod” relationships here. I miss him terribly to not be able to share the joke.

JAMES: Jack never knew of the CIA plan? BARRY: No, Jack never knew since the situation was only “declassified” (crimeadmitted to) this past year. Had Jack still smoked cigars, we would have sharedsome big expensive sticks on the humor of it all either way.

JAMES:On History Channel last night they had another show about the CIA operativeMendez, on This Week in History. They didn’t show Jack’s drawings but it wasobvious they were referring to that same operation to free people holed up in anembassy. They said the film was to be called Argo and that in 1980 they had takenthe ads out in Hollywood trade papers about the movie, causing Hollywood to goall abuzz. BARRY: Fascinating. I remember reading about the Argo project. The reason theydidn’t show Jack’s drawings (most likely) was that they didn’t want to pay me anyrelease money, or give credit to Jack or myself.

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

JAMES: Could you elaborate for me what Jack meant when he said, “I think thisfilm and the way we are conceiving it could contribute to saving the world”? BARRY: The concept of the god’s “psychic abilities” which were turned into, over1000 years, full blown aspects and attributes, were of awesome nature and I thinkwhat Jack appreciated most aside from the obviousness of these being charactersperfect for him to develop, was the fact that they were still “real people” (i.e. samekind of emotional problems, etc.). The “save the world” thing I believe was attrib-uted to showing the world that we all have the same psychic capabilities—andthrough the toy line I was developing (with magnetic levitation) and the buildingsof Science Fiction Land, the purpose was to showcase the future in a whole newway— by employing many scientists to develop new technologies in variousareas, then showcasing the results. Same thing which got Ray Bradbury and PaoloSoleri working with me, too.

JAMES: The prints resemble architectural drawings; were they meant to be literallyand faithfully translated into reality? BARRY: Absolutely. You can’t imagine the heart attacks I was giving to a few

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

JAMES: If the backing had all gone through, what aspects of the realization wouldJack have been involved in? In terms of a film, would he have been creating addi-tional production design and/or continuity? BARRY:My offer/deal with Jack was he was “Design General.” Also gave himpoints in the Gross Profits. This means everyone worked under him. All ScienceFiction Land. All film. We designed each drawing to be used both as a set descrip-tion and theme park description. As I said previously, I was always amazed howhe managed to capture the correct POV each time—well, all except one, which Igave him back and it is in The Art of Jack Kirby [by Ray Wyman Jr. and CatherineHohlfield, 1992, Blue Rose Press–Ed.] as the Angel.

JAMES: Do the scale of the little people in the drawings accurately reflect theintended scale? It would’ve been like seeing Babylon and the Colossus of Rhodes,for real, amped to the Nth degree! BARRY: As far as I can determine, absolutely correct. The scale was close to how Ienvisioned it on most drawings and talked with architects about. The best exampleof scale was “The Chambers of Brahma Exterior.” Wow! Yes. I have to admit walk-ing around the city and imagining the giant buildings right there. And there wasmore: I had gotten Buckminster Fuller along for the ride, and 3M interested infunding a floating dome over the whole thing. 1/2 mile high and 3/4 mile long.

Lord of Light

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #52Spotlights Kirby’s most obscure work, like an UNUSED THORSTORY, his BRUCE LEE comic, animation work, stage play, andsee original unaltered versions of pages from KAMANDI,DEMON, DESTROYER DUCK, and more, including a featureexamining the last page of his final issue of various seriesBEFORE EDITORIAL TAMPERING (with lots of surprises)! ColorKirby covers inked by DON HECK and PAUL SMITH!

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