...with all those points, Patrick. There's no doubt that Kirby's take on the Garden of Eden story, particularly, was the work of genius. But try explaining that kind of stuff to some fanboy who thinks spandex soap-operas like X-Men are comics' greatest achievement and you'll see what I'm getting at. It's like trying to talk to a rock.
I never thought the book was the least bit silly. Many criticisms of Kirby are akin to saying Aesop's stories are ridiculous because everyone knows animals can't talk.
The three issue "Alien Invasion" story was one of Kirby's great stories.
In the first issue Kirby wrote a text piece explaining his intent, and asking the reader to go along for the ride. He expressed a "let's pretend" idea in his article when he said the dinosaur had ruled the Earth for millions of years, and wondered if it wasn't possible the dinosaur had developed high intelligence over so long a time. An intelligence which was at peace with the natural environment and saw no reason to change it. Now that is a fanciful, but beautiful idea.
The other thing I liked right away was his solution for showing the earliest humans. Kirby's brilliant solution was to show a modern human face (and Moon Boy often looks like a self portrait). peering out of a perfect oval shaped cut-out on the face area of an otherwise head to toe "hair-suit." In this way Kirby showed us the characters had brains and emotions just like ours, but they were so primitive they went around completely naked. Kirby got full frontal male and female nudity past the comics code.
I loved Jack Kirby. Jack Kirby was fabulous, even though he wasn’t a great draftsman. He didn’t paint or anything. And certainly wasn’t versatile. But boy, get that “Slam, Bang, Pow” stuff and he was great.
Did you know Kirby at all?
I didn’t meet Kirby until only a few years ago, believe it or not.
Is that right?
First time. It was really funny. They were having a big to-do for me over in California, and Jack showed up. He was kind of startled when I told him I was such a big fan of his. He looked at me, “You’ve got to be kidding.” It was kind of cute.
...agreed. It's all fantasy, i.e. silly. A guy who throws his hammer and then hangs on to it in order to fly?!?! Completely absurd---and yet Thor is one of my all time favorite books (miserable inking aside)!
...'cause I do, too. But my point is that it's no sillier than Spider-Man or Batman or Superman or The Flash or Wonder Woman or the Fantastic Four or any of the other superheroes. What I'm trying to say is, I don't understand the fanboy mentality which is so extraordinarily narrow-minded that it's unable to accept anything that's not a superhero -- particularly since superheroes, by their very nature, are quite ludicrous. As John Buscema said, "Of all the things we could put into comic books, I think the dumbest things in the world are superheroes." Does that mean we all shouldn't like superheroes? No, of course not. There are lots of great superhero comics out there (especially the ones done by Jack Kirby). But believe it or not kids, there ARE other types of stories that are (>gasp<) just as valid.
DEVIL DINOSAUR is a great book. It gets a bad rap from some very stupid, narrow-minded fanboys who (usually) have never even read it. Their comments are always the same: that it's silly. My answer: Really? And superheroes aren't? I've said this before and I'll say it again: Devil Dinosaur is a prehistoric version of "a boy and his dog." Why is that any sillier than a comic about a high school student who gets "spider powers" after being bitten by a "radioactive spider" (that somehow avoided being instantly fried by the radiation it was exposed to!) and who's such a genius that he can create a working "web-shooter" that the greatest scientific minds in the world couldn't come up with? Or a comic about a guy who dresses up in a skin-tight bat-suit and, without any powers at all, routinely takes down gangs of thugs armed with automatic weapons that, realistically, could shred him to pieces in an instant? Answer: It's not any sillier. It's only PERCEIVED to be that way by some very brainwashed, silly people.
I don't agree that those books had bad color. The printing in early seventies comics was generally excellent, due to the fact that they used a better paper stock than was used in the latter seventies, and the fact that they were still being printed with metal plates, which always produced a sharper, crisper image than the plastic plates they switched to later.
As to the idea of Kirby's pages being meant to be seen in black-and-white...most certainly not. Kirby always understood the importance of color-holding containment lines for every element of his pictures, and his style -- like that of most other mainstream comic artists of that time -- was designed with that principle in mind. The fact that it worked in black-and-white AS WELL AS color was because Kirby, like all other good comic artists, also understood that the art SHOULD work in black-and-white as well as color. Why? Because if it works in black-and-white, it will also, generally, work in color; and if it doesn't work in black-and-white, it generally won't work in color, either.
I know Devil Dinosaur sometimes gets a bad rap, but I recently went over these again and it sure looks like Mr. Kirby was having fun doing those books.
… for The King of Teams!
Kirby and Giacoia doing their magic for one of their last time together.
Incidentally, this T-Rex remind me of something Kirby said about the Thing.
Before the rocky features, he stated that what he was going for was dinosaur's hide!
Compare this T-Rex with the first few Fantastic Four issues and you'll get what Jack was after.
We would of course, love to scan and archive #1 covers to Fantastic Four, X-Men, Avengers, Spider-Man and The Hulk but no one has offered those covers for us to scan or have provided their own archive quality scans...
Maybe my favorite Kirby comic book series ever. Captain Victory started off strong and got better and better with every issue (sad Royer wasn't around to ink all of it). Orion's son had one of the most nuanced and fascinating personalities ever seen in a comic book.
You wonder early on what kind of inner demons are haunting him, pushing him to burn through his allotment of lives, as if he wants to atone for past sins. Later we discover the young Captain had been manipulated into masterminding genocidal mass murder while under the control of "Big Ugly." Coming of age he learns "War isn't a game you put away in a box when Mama rings the dinner bell."
I can think of covers from the sixties that could make the top 10. Perhaps we're not going to get any covers from the sixties in this count down is because Tom can only work with what he has on file. It's the top 10 of what he's got on hand. Am I correct in assuming this, Tom? Do you have anymore covers from the sixties or are you saving some of those for the top 10 when you approach 2,000?
The glue of each zipatone yellowed with different intensity, giving the drawing a curious look. If I didn't know it, I almost could say that the duotone was done on purpose since it looks quite nice to me.
The countdown to 1000 has begun with a great historical cover. I can't wait to see the rest!
No doubt about it. By the mid '60s Jack was developing a style that should have been both inker proof and colour proof. I've never seen a Kirby page from the '70s and later which didn't look better in B&W. In fact the colour on something like Kamandi cheapened Kirby's work. People will say, "The artwork was meant to be seen in colour."
That is true to the commercial intent, but I see Kirby as being sure his pages work in B&W.
Nice decoding of those narrow margin notes. Often times those are easier to figure out than it might look at first glance. As vonrex knows the side of the page was tight and Jack just stacked words one, or two, on top of one another. As we see Jack had to hyphenate a long word like "transmission."
Obviously another very bad call by Lee in this case. Kirby has Cap thinking on his feet and coming up with a cleaver plan, like Foster's Val, and Lee sinks the idea.
...with all those points, Patrick. There's no doubt that Kirby's take on the Garden of Eden story, particularly, was the work of genius. But try explaining that kind of stuff to some fanboy who thinks spandex soap-operas like X-Men are comics' greatest achievement and you'll see what I'm getting at. It's like trying to talk to a rock.
It looks like the drawing was glued down on a board, and glue yellowed. But it's hard to say...
I never thought the book was the least bit silly. Many criticisms of Kirby are akin to saying Aesop's stories are ridiculous because everyone knows animals can't talk.
The three issue "Alien Invasion" story was one of Kirby's great stories.
In the first issue Kirby wrote a text piece explaining his intent, and asking the reader to go along for the ride. He expressed a "let's pretend" idea in his article when he said the dinosaur had ruled the Earth for millions of years, and wondered if it wasn't possible the dinosaur had developed high intelligence over so long a time. An intelligence which was at peace with the natural environment and saw no reason to change it. Now that is a fanciful, but beautiful idea.
The other thing I liked right away was his solution for showing the earliest humans. Kirby's brilliant solution was to show a modern human face (and Moon Boy often looks like a self portrait). peering out of a perfect oval shaped cut-out on the face area of an otherwise head to toe "hair-suit." In this way Kirby showed us the characters had brains and emotions just like ours, but they were so primitive they went around completely naked. Kirby got full frontal male and female nudity past the comics code.
Frazetta commented on Kirby in TCJ.
I loved Jack Kirby. Jack Kirby was fabulous, even though he wasn’t a great draftsman. He didn’t paint or anything. And certainly wasn’t versatile. But boy, get that “Slam, Bang, Pow” stuff and he was great.
Did you know Kirby at all?
I didn’t meet Kirby until only a few years ago, believe it or not.
Is that right?
First time. It was really funny. They were having a big to-do for me over in California, and Jack showed up. He was kind of startled when I told him I was such a big fan of his. He looked at me, “You’ve got to be kidding.” It was kind of cute.
Wonderful cover which brings to mind a typical Frank Frazetta composition. Something like Conan The Destroyer.
http://www.museumsyndicate.com/images/3/25029.jpg
Any idea why it's so discolored?
...agreed. It's all fantasy, i.e. silly. A guy who throws his hammer and then hangs on to it in order to fly?!?! Completely absurd---and yet Thor is one of my all time favorite books (miserable inking aside)!
If you add in Erik Larsen, that puts the total up to five. Only sixty-five more to go (lol)!
...'cause I do, too. But my point is that it's no sillier than Spider-Man or Batman or Superman or The Flash or Wonder Woman or the Fantastic Four or any of the other superheroes. What I'm trying to say is, I don't understand the fanboy mentality which is so extraordinarily narrow-minded that it's unable to accept anything that's not a superhero -- particularly since superheroes, by their very nature, are quite ludicrous. As John Buscema said, "Of all the things we could put into comic books, I think the dumbest things in the world are superheroes." Does that mean we all shouldn't like superheroes? No, of course not. There are lots of great superhero comics out there (especially the ones done by Jack Kirby). But believe it or not kids, there ARE other types of stories that are (>gasp<) just as valid.
It is silly---but I love it anyway!
Oh I love Kirby krackles but I don't understand this guy ??!! Count me ON I love COLLETTA inks ! nuff'said !!!
way to go TASBaby !!!
DEVIL DINOSAUR is a great book. It gets a bad rap from some very stupid, narrow-minded fanboys who (usually) have never even read it. Their comments are always the same: that it's silly. My answer: Really? And superheroes aren't? I've said this before and I'll say it again: Devil Dinosaur is a prehistoric version of "a boy and his dog." Why is that any sillier than a comic about a high school student who gets "spider powers" after being bitten by a "radioactive spider" (that somehow avoided being instantly fried by the radiation it was exposed to!) and who's such a genius that he can create a working "web-shooter" that the greatest scientific minds in the world couldn't come up with? Or a comic about a guy who dresses up in a skin-tight bat-suit and, without any powers at all, routinely takes down gangs of thugs armed with automatic weapons that, realistically, could shred him to pieces in an instant? Answer: It's not any sillier. It's only PERCEIVED to be that way by some very brainwashed, silly people.
I don't agree that those books had bad color. The printing in early seventies comics was generally excellent, due to the fact that they used a better paper stock than was used in the latter seventies, and the fact that they were still being printed with metal plates, which always produced a sharper, crisper image than the plastic plates they switched to later.
As to the idea of Kirby's pages being meant to be seen in black-and-white...most certainly not. Kirby always understood the importance of color-holding containment lines for every element of his pictures, and his style -- like that of most other mainstream comic artists of that time -- was designed with that principle in mind. The fact that it worked in black-and-white AS WELL AS color was because Kirby, like all other good comic artists, also understood that the art SHOULD work in black-and-white as well as color. Why? Because if it works in black-and-white, it will also, generally, work in color; and if it doesn't work in black-and-white, it generally won't work in color, either.
I know Devil Dinosaur sometimes gets a bad rap, but I recently went over these again and it sure looks like Mr. Kirby was having fun doing those books.
… for The King of Teams!
Kirby and Giacoia doing their magic for one of their last time together.
Incidentally, this T-Rex remind me of something Kirby said about the Thing.
Before the rocky features, he stated that what he was going for was dinosaur's hide!
Compare this T-Rex with the first few Fantastic Four issues and you'll get what Jack was after.
Yes you're right Frank, I can only post what we have in the archive of almost 2,000 pages of art. I have archived and posted all the 60s covers from the archive. Here is the sorted list of the 14 covers from the gallery: http://www.whatifkirby.com/gallery/galleryview?comictitle=All&art_type=C...
We would of course, love to scan and archive #1 covers to Fantastic Four, X-Men, Avengers, Spider-Man and The Hulk but no one has offered those covers for us to scan or have provided their own archive quality scans...
Maybe my favorite Kirby comic book series ever. Captain Victory started off strong and got better and better with every issue (sad Royer wasn't around to ink all of it). Orion's son had one of the most nuanced and fascinating personalities ever seen in a comic book.
You wonder early on what kind of inner demons are haunting him, pushing him to burn through his allotment of lives, as if he wants to atone for past sins. Later we discover the young Captain had been manipulated into masterminding genocidal mass murder while under the control of "Big Ugly." Coming of age he learns "War isn't a game you put away in a box when Mama rings the dinner bell."
I can think of covers from the sixties that could make the top 10. Perhaps we're not going to get any covers from the sixties in this count down is because Tom can only work with what he has on file. It's the top 10 of what he's got on hand. Am I correct in assuming this, Tom? Do you have anymore covers from the sixties or are you saving some of those for the top 10 when you approach 2,000?
Tom started the countdown to the big 1000!
This Captain Victory cover looks even better than the printed version.
The glue of each zipatone yellowed with different intensity, giving the drawing a curious look. If I didn't know it, I almost could say that the duotone was done on purpose since it looks quite nice to me.
The countdown to 1000 has begun with a great historical cover. I can't wait to see the rest!
No doubt about it. By the mid '60s Jack was developing a style that should have been both inker proof and colour proof. I've never seen a Kirby page from the '70s and later which didn't look better in B&W. In fact the colour on something like Kamandi cheapened Kirby's work. People will say, "The artwork was meant to be seen in colour."
That is true to the commercial intent, but I see Kirby as being sure his pages work in B&W.
Just fantastic. Jack & Joe ruled the world. And hell, Stan too.
...they just look so much better than the printed comic.
Ten pages to arrive to the key number. Surprises are about to show... :-)
Obviously, this is from KAMANDI #7 (published by DC), not 2001 #7 (published by Marvel). Nice page, though!
Nice decoding of those narrow margin notes. Often times those are easier to figure out than it might look at first glance. As vonrex knows the side of the page was tight and Jack just stacked words one, or two, on top of one another. As we see Jack had to hyphenate a long word like "transmission."
Obviously another very bad call by Lee in this case. Kirby has Cap thinking on his feet and coming up with a cleaver plan, like Foster's Val, and Lee sinks the idea.