Hulk © Marvel Entertainment, Inc., Four-Armed Terror © DC Comics, Inc.
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A MONSTROUS MELANGE OF MINUTIA ABOUT OUR MAIN MAN! ITEM! The Internet is abuzz with more and more Kirby Kommentary, and the newest outlet for it is alt.comics.jack-kirby (the new Kirby Newsgroup). It’s just been set up by Bodacious BOB HEER, and it serves as a public forum for fans around the world to post questions and comments about Jack and his career (you can pick and choose the subjects that interest you to read). Then there’s the JACK KIRBY MAILING LIST. Send an e-mail message to Magnanimous MATT GORE at mhg@matthew.cumberland.org and ask him to put you on this FREE mailing list, and prepare yourself for a daily deluge of e-mail about Jack from Kirby fans around the world. Next is the TJKC Web Site (maintained by Rascally RANDY HOPPE) located on the World Wide Web at http://www.interactive.net/~thehop/kirby (it’s got bio info on Jack, and samples of art and articles from each issue of TJKC). Or try Charismatic CHRIS HARPER’s Jack Kirby Home Page, located on the Web at http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~ampcon/. And if you just want to send us some e-mail about TJKC, you can send it to twomorrow@aol.com when the mood hits you. Who says this isn’t the Kirby age of digital technology?
Pure Imagination’s The Complete Kirby Vol. 1 (a series reprinting all of Jack’s work from the beginning of his career) is ready to go to press, but 400 people must commit to buying a copy before it can be published. So far, 275 people have committed to it, so we’re getting there! Volume 1 includes Jack’s early work from Blue Bolt, Red Raven, Crash Comics, Jumbo Comics, plus other early comic book and comic strip work (some never published in the US), and a text feature to put it all in perspective. Vol. 1 will be a 164-page softcover in black-&-white with color cover for $25. If you are willing to commit to purchasing a copy when it’s published, write to Greg Theakston, Box 669902, Marietta, GA 30066 or e-mail TJKC at twomorrow@aol.com and we’ll forward requests to him. DO NOT SEND ANY MONEY NOW! You’ll be notified by mail when it’s published. ITEM! We want to thank COMIC BOOK MARKETPLACE magazine for their help in spreading the word about TJKC! CBM is known as “The Magazine for Golden Age & Silver Age Collectors,” and Gracious GARY CARTER keeps each monthly issue full of articles and columns to interest serious comics fans (including recent theme issues devoted to the careers of Jaunty JIM STERANKO and Nefarious NEAL ADAMS). CBM is available in comics shops everywhere, and a US subscription is $60. Call 619-437-1996 for more information! ITEM! COMICS REVUE is continuing its reprinting of Jack’s SKY MASTERS daily strips from the 1950s, picking up where PURE IMAGINATION’s original volume left off. There’s an entire month’s worth in each issue starting with #124, and they’re currently up to #127. Look for it in stores, or order directly from Rootin’-Tootin’ RICK NORWOOD at Manuscript Press, PO Box 336, Mountain Home, TN 37684. Subscriptions can include both back issues and future issues, and are $45 for 12 issues or $90 for 25 issues. Don’t miss it! ITEM! TJKC subscriber RICHARD KOLKMAN hopes to have a preliminary version of the updated Kirby Checklist ready soon! When it’s done, we’ll post it on the Internet for free downloading, and send printed copies out at-cost to
JOHN’S JUKEBOX “I’VE CREATED A MONSTER!” That’s how I feel as I look back at our humble, 16-page beginnings, and then gaze at the size of this new issue of TJKC—52 Pages! Our increased circulation—due largely to YOU telling other fans about TJKC—has allowed us to increase our page count without raising our price. And what better issue to inaugurate this monster-size format than our Supernatural Theme Issue, spotlighting Jack’s work over the years on monster, magic, and mystery themes. Since I started TJKC over two years ago, there have been a number of kinda eerie coincidences that occurred while putting each issue together. With this one being #13, I should’ve known it would happen again! Serendipity shined upon Kirbydom when Mirthful MARIE SEVERIN inexplicably happened across photocopies in her files of Jack’s original version of “The Monster” from CHAMBER OF DARKNESS #4. And the same day I completed editing Jon B. Cooke’s article on SPIRIT WORLD (wherein he talks about how Jack would haunt Richard Kyle’s bookstore in the 1970s, looking for work by European comic artists), I get a letter from Richard talking about the same thing! I dunno if Jack’s spirit is hanging around making this stuff happen, but I do know that, as long as you keep contributing to TJKC, we’ll continue publishing it and keeping Jack’s ‘spirit’ alive! Long Live The King!
John Morrow, Editor • 502 Saint Mary’s St. • Raleigh, NC 27605 • (919) 833-8092 • FAX (919) 833-8023 e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com
anyone who’d like to check it for final errors. Then we’ll compile all the final changes, make decisions on any “iffy” entries, and release the completed version on the ’Net and as an at-cost publication. Stay tuned! ITEM! Keep sending letters to: Mr. Terry Stewart, Marvel Comics, 387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016 asking that Marvel put “Created by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby” on books they co-created. (This is in conjunction with MARK MILLER’s ongoing letter-writing campaign. So write already!) ITEM! Gregarious GREG THEAKSTON reports that for Vol. 2 of his COMPLETE KIRBY reprint series, he still needs Famous Funnies #75 & #80. If you know where he can get these in any condition, call him at (770) 433-1468. ITEM! Comics shops around the country are doing their part to keep the Kirby spirit alive!! A group of Northern California comic book retailers purchased one of Jack’s pencils at auction at WonderCon ’95, and it’s now housed in a handsome display case and is on-tour (along with displays of Jack’s original art) at the stores that purchased it. Dubbed the “SWORD OF THE KING” tour, it rotates between A1 COMICS in Sacramento, ATLANTIS FANTASYWORLD in Santa Cruz, DR. COMICS & MR. GAMES in Oakland, FANTASY BOOKS & GAMES in Livermore and Santa Rosa, and LEE’S COMICS in San Mateo and Palo Alto, CA. Stop by and check it out when it’s in your area. And if you’re in the greater Pittsburgh, PA area, be sure to check out one of the PHANTOM OF THE ATTIC comics shops. As a bonus for certain purchase levels, they give out KING BUCKS—paper money redeemable for future purchases. Each one features a classy shot of Jack (in suit and tie) where old George Washington’s mug usually is! ITEM! See our feature on The Jack Kirby Educational Fund on page 48 of this issue!
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KIRBY COLLECTOR CHECKLIST These Issues Of TJKC Are Available – See Page 51 TJKC #1: This 16-page INTRODUCTORY ISSUE! Rare Kirby posters, articles on a 1978 Kirby traveling display and the MARVELMANIA PORTFOLIO, Jack’s original OMAC concept sketch, an unused THOR page, and more! $2.50 ($2.70 Canada/Mexico, $3.70 elsewhere) TJKC #2: A 16-page GENERAL INTEREST issue! Rare 1970s SANDMAN pages, a fan’s phone conversations with Jack, MARVELMANIA PORTFOLIO plates, unpublished FANTASTIC FOUR panels, a page of the Jack Ruby ESQUIRE story, other rare art, and more! $2.50 ($2.70 Canada/Mexico, $3.70 elsewhere) TJKC #3: A 16-page CAPTAIN AMERICA theme issue! JOE SIMON interview, more MARVELMANIA plates, convention sketches, 1960s & 70s CAPTAIN AMERICA pages before they were inked, and more! $2.50 ($2.70 Canada/Mexico, $3.70 elsewhere) TJKC #4: A 16-page GENERAL INTEREST issue! MIKE ROYER interview, more MARVELMANIA plates, THOR pencil pages before being inked, unused ATLAS #1 cover pencils, Euro-Kirby fandom, and more! $2.50 ($2.70 Canada/Mexico, $3.70 elsewhere) TJKC #5: A 16-page GENERAL INTEREST issue! Transcripts of Jack’s 1972 speech at VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, unpublished FANTASTIC FOUR pencils, how Kirby used real people in his comics, essential Kirby collectibles, unpublished KOBRA pencils, and more! $2.50 ($2.70 Canada/Mexico, $3.70 elsewhere) TJKC #6: A 36-page FOURTH WORLD theme issue! Interviews with MARK EVANIER, STEVE SHERMAN and MIKE ROYER, story behind HUNGER DOGS and Jack’s original ending to NEW GODS, NEW GODS portfolio, unpublished art, and FOURTH WORLD pencils before inking! $4.95 ($5.40 Canada/Mexico, $7.40 elsewhere) TJKC #7: A 36-page KID GANG theme issue! Unpublished interview with Kirby, overview of S&K KID GANGS, unpublished art from BOYS’ RANCH, BOY EXPLORERS, JIMMY OLSEN, DINGBATS, X-MEN, & more! $4.95 ($5.40 Canada/Mexico, $7.40 elsewhere) TJKC #8: (Our first full-color cover!) A 36-page all-star CONVENTION theme issue! SAN DIEGO CON ’95 Kirby Panel (with JOE SINNOTT, MIKE ROYER, MARK EVANIER, and TONY ISABELLA), convention memories, essay by JIM STERANKO, CAPTAIN AMERICA pages before they were inked, convention sketches, and more! $4.95 ($5.40 Canada/Mexico, $7.40 elsewhere) TJKC #9: A 44-page FANTASTIC FOUR theme issue with everything you wanted to know about the FF! JOE SINNOTT interview, FF pencil pages before inking, the original version of FF #108, unpublished art, and more! $4.95 ($5.40 Canada/Mexico, $7.40 elsewhere) TJKC #10: A 44-page HUMOR theme issue! ROZ KIRBY interview, STEVE GERBER on DESTROYER DUCK, GOODY RICKELS, FIGHTING AMERICAN, plus JIMMY OLSEN and THOR pages before inking, unpublished art, and more! $4.95 ($5.40 Canada/Mexico, $7.40 elsewhere) TJKC #11: A 44-page HOLLYWOOD theme issue! STUNTMAN, unused movie ideas, BLACK HOLE, LORD OF LIGHT, THE PRISONER adaptation, Jack’s career in ANIMATION, NEW GODS vs. STAR WARS, unpublished art, and more! New Kirby/Steranko and Kirby/Ordway covers. $4.95 ($5.40 Canada/Mexico, $7.40 elsewhere) TJKC #12: A 44-page INTERNATIONAL theme issue! Two KIRBY interviews, JOHN BYRNE interview, Kirby around the world, SAN DIEGO CON ’96 Kirby Panel (with EVANIER, WOLFMAN & STERN), CAPT. AMERICA pencils before inking, and more! New Kirby/Windsor-Smith cover. $4.95 ($5.40 Canada/Mexico, $7.40 elsewhere) TJKC Poster: See page 51. $7 ($8 Canada/Mexico, $10 elsewhere)
(left) A Kirby self-portrait (with modified dialogue!) from Tales of Suspense #25. (below) The Genie - use and date unknown.
Issue #13 Contents: The Kirby Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 (an overview of Jack’s occult themes) The Golden Age Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 (a look at S&K’s supernatural hero) Monsters from Tales of Suspense . . . 11 (relive Jack’s greatest Monster yarns) Were They Prototypes? . . . . . . . . . . . 15 (one collector’s concerns about dealers) Dick Ayers Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 (the veteran Kirby inker speaks) The Demon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 (Jack’s DC horror book explored) The Monster of Moraggia . . . . . . . . 24 (an unpublished 1969 Kirby horror story from Chamber of Darkness #4) Speak of the Devil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 (the oft-maligned Devil Dinosaur) Young Werewolves In Love! . . . . . . . 30 (delve into that old Black Magic) Kirby & Gibson Interview . . . . . . . . 34 (Jack meets the creator of The Shadow) The Secret Origin of the Hulk? . . . . 39 (Scott Shaw! gives us his theory) Spirit World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 (secrets of Jack’s b&w DC magazine) Kirby’s Monster Mash . . . . . . . . . . . 43 (a review of Jimmy Olsen #142-143) Spotlight on: Kirby Costumes . . . . . 44 (here’s a few we bet you’ve never seen) An Audience With The King . . . . . . 46 (a fan’s dual encounters with Jack) Jack’s Back? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 (do you believe in reincarnation?) Contest Winners! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Collector Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 3, No. 13, Dec. 1996. Published bi-monthly by and © TwoMorrows Advertising, 502 Saint Mary’s St., Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. 919-833-8092. John Morrow, Editor. Pamela Morrow, Assistant Editor. Single issues: $4.95 US, $5.40 Canada/Mexico, $7.40 outside North America. Sixissue subscriptions: $24.00 US, $32.00 Canada/Mexico, $44.00 outside North America. First printing. All characters are © their respective companies. All artwork is © Jack Kirby unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors. PRINTED IN CANADA.
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ing these elusive artifacts, they engage in scientific black magic. Kirby depicted this modern alchemy in Fantastic Four with the “Him” storyline and in Thor with the “High Evolutionary.” As mentioned before, the nefarious Royalist society developed the Madbomb to advance their ambitions, and the unrepentant Nazi Arnim Zola appeared in all his ghastly splendor in Captain America. The secret society known as New Genesis also seemed to be more scientific than magical with their Boom Tubes and Mother Boxes. And if Arthur C. Clarke is to be credited with inventing a communications satellite simply for writing about one, Kirby should be credited with inventing Virtual Reality, since he first depicted a form of V.R. in Jimmy Olsen, which he named the “Solar Phone.” The Eternals was the book where Kirby said he was trying to get “mystical.” In a 1984 interview in Comics Feature, Kirby recounted that he was trying to explore “where we came from.” The Eternals was a synthesis of past themes, most notably the Thor/New Gods pantheon theme, but it also incorporated then current pseudo-science, and parapsychology. The Bermuda Triangle theme was visited, as well as apocalyptic and genetic engineering themes, but Kirby’s main focus was to explore the themes of ancient alien visitation laid out in Erick Von Daniken’s Chariot of the Gods. In this book, Von Daniken proposed that the ancient gods mentioned in pre-Columbian South American mythology were actually extraterrestrial visitors. Kirby went to town with this idea on the first three issues of The Eternals, depicting vast and complex analogues of Mayan and Aztec art and presenting theories of alien genetic engineering. For reasons unknown, these themes were dropped and The Eternals quickly became standard boilerplate, with a Judgment Day backdrop that was never fully developed. The fact that the Judgement Day angle was never developed was telling. Kirby usually shied away from Judeo-Christian themes in his work. His Bible illustrations were seemingly done for Jack’s own amusement and were only released posthumously. And those images tended to be Eternals type depictions of Biblical stories. One of Jack’s most famous depictions of God showed him turning his back on a pleading yet defiant humanity, almost like a scene from the Book of Job. The Silver Surfer was clearly developed by Jack also used the “eye” symbol in conjunction with the Reincarnators, as shown here from Demon #3. Stan Lee to be a messiah figure, but Jack’s own view of the character was far more ambiguous. the Secret City Saga. The theme of a select group of individuals working Jack seemed to take a dim view of religious extremism, correctly seeing in secret to change the world, whether for good or ill, was obviously a it as another form of fascism personified by Glorious Godfrey and Kirby obsession. Darius Drumm. The former was a servant of Darkseid—Jack’s SatanOccultist and Conspiracy theorists claim the pursuit of holy or magfigure—and the latter became the literal Angel of Death. ical talismans is of supreme importance to these cultish secret societies. Jack was understandably hesitant to discuss his own beliefs. He was Hitler’s obsession with finding the Spear of Destiny, the Holy Grail and interested in sharing ideas, but never proselytized. Whereas all the the Ark of the Covenant was exploited to great effect by George Lucas various phantasmagoria of the occult and supernatural made for in the brilliant Indiana Jones films. Perhaps Lucas was again inspired exciting comics, Jack’s spiritual inclination was probably very intimate by his study of Jungian scholar Joseph Campbell when he made these and personal. He may have come across his personal demarcation films, but based on his successful appropriation of Kirby’s themes for with The Eternals, and backed off a bit. Jack’s main goal was to enterthe Star Wars movies, perhaps he returned to the well for inspiration tain and to sell comics, which is probably why the Bible imagery was and took cues from Kirby’s Black Panther series, since that book dealt not released during his lifetime—but as popular culture continues to almost exclusively with the adventurous search for magical talismans. explore “extreme possibilities,” we can celebrate the work of a man who was out on the edge first. ➌ According to modern folklore, when these secret cults aren’t pursu6
Simon & Kirby’s VISION Of The Golden Age! by R.J. Vitone or years Jack Kirby said that Joe Simon was the major moving business force of their team. Early in 1940, Simon established that rep by finding freelance work for both at multiple comics publishers. Their art and stories appeared in Blue Bolt at Novelty, Champion Comics at Harvey, and Red Raven #1 at Timely. In quick order, S&K began producing more material for Timely, moving over to that publisher’s flagship title. Marvel Mystery #12 (10/’40) features a classic Angel cover by Kirby. (The interior Angel story was by Paul Gustavson, the artist who created the character. Oddly enough, this was the last time The Angel would be cover featured.) Everything was set. Simon & Kirby had arrived. But what would they do? The Human Torch and Sub-Mariner were the stars of the book, and The Angel was also highly rated. Past that, the rest of Marvel Mystery’s 64 pages was filler. Timely had more second- and third-rate heroes than just about any Golden Age publisher, a fact proven by how few were ever given their own titles. With virtually no restrictions, S&K set out to fill the void for a strong new character. The cover of Marvel Mystery #13 (11/’40) featured the Torch, but something new had been added. A strip along the spine showed other featured stars of the book. On top was the legend “Sensational New Feature...The Vision.” With no other fanfare, The Vision’s first story was a slick combo of super-science and the supernatural. The elements are appealing: A famous scientist’s life work to break the dimensional barrier between our world and “the so-called beyond” is interrupted by vengeful gangsters. (Basically, a similar theme would be used in the near future in the first Captain America story, with a Nazi agent doing the damage.) The experiment is a success, as the bridge to other dimensions turns
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out to be simple smoke. Out of the thick swirling mists rises a cloaked, green-skinned figure who calls himself Aarkus, Destroyer of Evil. Pretty heady stuff! Remember, this is 1940. For the most part, there were not many ghostly figures rising out of smoke as avenging angels of death on comics pages! Over at DC in early 1940, More Fun Comics #52 & #53 had begun the long-running Spectre series. In style and appearance, The Vision is quite similar. The Spectre was a grim, humorless hero, who assumed the human identity of police detective Jim Corrigan. As the Spectre, he used a variety of supernatural powers to destroy crime. The body count of early Spectre stories was high, but the house style at DC soon changed, and the grim character softened much over the next few years. If Simon & Kirby had seen and talked about the Spectre strip before creating The Vision, then they distilled the best the DC feature had to offer, and added their own power and style to the mix. For the first time anywhere, here’s a full run-down of the Simon & Kirby classic Vision series: • Marvel Mystery #13 (11/’40, 8 pages, unsigned): The fast-paced origin story opens with a 2⁄3 splash page and weaves a neat path between the scientific aspects and the earth-bound plans of some stock Kirby hoods. The Vision quickly dispatches a few thugs and assumes a “secret identity” as a suit-wearing gent. In no time at all, he throws off the disguise and saves the young daughter of the head scientist, then captures the remaining hoods. (He ties them up in their own pants!) The story ends with the grateful pair wondering if The Vision will return. The art on this first strip is strictly Simon & Kirby, very similar in style to their Blue Bolt work. The layouts are rushed (8 pages, remember?), and their trademark action is in full force. Not the team’s best work of this period, but above average. By the way, The Vision was never called “Aarkus” again.
(top) The Vision’s first appearance, from Marvel Mystery #13. (above) MM #13 2/3 splash. 7
• Marvel Mystery #14 (12/’40, 7 pages, unsigned): Another fast-paced story opens with a 2⁄3 splash, with a tormented man accosting an expert on “occult research” at his home. As midnight tolls the man turns into a drooling werewolf. As the two struggle, The Vision rises out of the smoke of the doctor’s pipe. The doctor is dead, the wolf escapes. But The Vision is on his trail. The story becomes a talky showdown between an evil female werewolf and the first werewolf. The Vision arrives in time to kill the worst one and wrap it up. The rushed pace shows in the art, with more Kirby pencils showing through than in the first story. The inks, heavy over the first few pages, lighten
the way out of Timely’s bullpen by the time this strip was finished. For the first time, nearly a full-page splash opens the tale. A giant armored invader from a “dust dimension” rises from a wrecked defense plant to battle a flying Vision. Grosso, from the World of War Dust comes to cripple earth’s arsenals so his race can conquer ours. He begins by crushing the helpless plant workers, but the Vision shows up. One twist here is that the two know each other. They battle, but the plant blows up. Disguising himself as a factory worker, the Vision waits to confront the invader again. Needless to say, the Vision fades away victorious in a cloud of smoke. Fast and loose, this story falls flat. A good villain opening up new areas to exploit is “dusted” off in short order. Maybe that’s the way S&K wanted it at this point. Jack’s pencils are evident through the entire story, but an army of inkers covers up the best. Below average. • Marvel Mystery #25 (11/’41, 7 pages, unsigned): A wonderfully symbolic 2⁄3 splash of the Vision confronting a mad school teacher (yes, school teacher) set against a raging thunderstorm. Professor Zagnar, angered by his peers’ rejection of his work, runs off to study black magic to get even. It works. In no time at all he’s tossing thunderbolts into town. The Vision arrives, and a mighty battle rages over 31⁄2 pages. Just as victory seems to be his, Zagnar is blasted by lighting. The Vision wraps it up and fades away. Much tighter, this story features a great battle sequence filled with Kirby-isms: Dynamic layouts, action, stretched limbs, and fiery blasts. It’s too bad Zagnar is so dull. Had this been Grosso, this would have been a great story. As it is, even the tighter Kirby art and outstanding battle still add up to produce an average issue. Note that this is the only Vision story ever reprinted by Marvel in the mid-’60s. • Marvel Mystery #26 (12/’41, 7 pages, unsigned): This should have been called “The Return of the Weed.” A full-page splash shows a frantic Vision ensnared by a giant tree/weed from outer space. A meteor lands in the field of a biology researcher, who promptly plants MM #23 splash: One of the top entries in the Kirby run. The shark’s got a Hitler hairstyle! seeds from it in fertile soil. Results? Killer plants walk to spread death and grow to giant size. The Vision is soon on the Devil himself (“L.S.” to the boys) is a schedule-bound tyrant. An case, and a talk with the researcher puts him on the right track. The agent is sent to the great city, and in no time, riots and crime break plants are destroying a nearby town, and it’s the scientist who saves out! The Vision meets the evil menace head on. Unmasked, the the day. He tells the Vision how to kill the weeds, and the Vision Devil flees, the city patches itself up, and the Vision, for the last time floats away again. Quick and breezy, with lots of sci-fi scares thrown by Kirby, fades away. Plenty of Avison inks do justice to this fine story, in, S&K walked a now-familiar path with which has everything: Plot, art, action, and this tale. The art is steady, and Al Avison a war-time message—Americans must did most of the inks. The result is solid, work together to defeat a common enemy. but overall the story falls flat. Just average. Many nice touches are thrown in, and the final chapter of S&K’s Vision closes on a • Marvel Mystery #27 (1/’42, 7 pages, grand scale. unsigned): The boys were gone from Timely by the time this issue came out, With the next issue, The Vision was but their sense of professional pride handed over to Al Avison. He and fellow shines through here. A great full-page Timely staffers Al Gabriele and Syd Shores splash of the Vision face-to-face with the would handle the strip for nearly two more Devil with the world’s fate in the balance years. The series ended in Marvel Mystery opens the story. A quick tour of Hell #48, and The Vision stayed in limbo until finds the Devil’s angels unhappy; a town Stan Lee and Roy Thomas revamped and in the USA is completely free of evil, and returned him in Avengers #57. He’s still the boss doesn’t like it! S&K’s view of around today; check him out for old times’ Hell is a riot. It’s a well-run office, with sake, but be careful. A giant weed may demons in suits as flunkies, and the show up! ➌ Marvel Mystery #23: That’s one angry Shark-God! 10
Classic Monsters From Tales Of Suspense! by Tony Seybert n late 1958, Jack Kirby moved from DC to Marvel and began collab• The monster must be an alien (although I some times use a broad orating with Stan Lee on, well, everything. Kirby penciled dozens, sense of the term). maybe hundreds, of westerns, war comics, and horror/fantasy tales • The story in which the monster appears must be a ripping good yarn for Marvel in the three years before the first issue of The Fantastic Four (which is why I don’t include the dreary Gor-kill story from TOS #12). appeared in the last half of 1961. • It must be drawn by Jack Kirby. The debut issues of three new horror/fantasy/science-fiction titles coincided rather neatly with Kirby’s return. Strange Worlds #1 was If 4 or 5 of these criteria can be applied to a particular creature, cover-dated December 1958 and the first issues of Tales of Suspense and the lucky beastie can be considered a classic monster! Tales To Astonish appeared soon after with a January 1959 date. All three of the new periodicals were similar in format to the long-running Strange Tales and Journey Into Mystery. Strange Worlds only lasted five How well I remember coming across Tales of Suspense #9 (May ’60) issues and was cancelled the same month as yet another fantasy at a convention in Indianapolis in the series, World of Fantasy. It seems likely that the late ’70s. I was 14 or 15, a big number of weird comics was reduced to four Iron Man fan, looking for so that the prolific but not superearly TOS appearances of human Kirby (who was the Golden Avenger. Iron working on several nonMan was completely forfantasy titles as well) gotten when I discovered... could contribute to every “DIABLO! The Demon issue of the remaining From The Fifth titles. From late 1959 to Dimension!!” (That cover late 1961, Kirby provided has 14 exclamation points, the art for at least one including 6 in a single balstory, sometimes two, to loon of only 7 words!!!) almost every issue of I’m reluctant to say Tales of Suspense, Tales To the cover is one of Kirby’s best Astonish, Strange Tales, and Journey because all of Kirby’s covers are A collection of classic Kirby Into Mystery. He drew all but a handgreat, but it certainly made an impression on monsters. ful of the covers as well. me. Diablo is a horrible creature of dark Characters The ‘classic monsters’ for which © Marvel Entertainment, Inc. smoke, colored black, purthis period is remembered developed ple, and dark blue as he gradually. There were monsters of rises from behind an outone sort or another in many of the cropping of stone and menearliest of the Kirby stories, such aces a search party of four as “The Creature from Planet Kirby stock characters. The X” in Strange Worlds #4, or the city, presumably Diablo’s benevolent luna lizards in eventual target, lies unproTales of Suspense #6. In TOS tected in the distance. The #7, The Molten Man-Thing background is an irresistible appears and scares everybody bright red. I had to have it!! before wandering amiably (Actually, I had seen Diablo back to his volcano. Monstro, before. In Hulk Annual #5, from TOS #8, is the first Kirby Xemnu, The Living Titan—himmonster to be given a proper self a refugee of pre-hero Marvel monname (instead of merely described, ster comics and known originally as The Hulk— like “The Molten Man-Thing”) in the had made replicas of other aliens of pages of Tales of Suspense. However, the period, including Diablo. I Monstro seems to be lacking a certain had long been curious about something as a candidate for classic monthese ancient beings.) ster status; he turns out to be a confused, mutant The narrator is an unnamed octopus who shrinks back to his normal size after a few days and adventurer whose curiosity is aroused by a story overheard in a swims away. It was with Tales of Suspense #9 that the classic monsters Trinidad cafe. The Aztecs of the Sierra Madre mountains have reported began their bi-monthly (soon to be monthly) invasions of Earth. a giant smoke demon lurking near their village. Within days, the In judging monsters, I have a list of characteristics that each must impetuous protagonist has found the village at the same moment as possess before it can be considered a ‘classic monster’: its inhabitants are hurriedly evacuating. The Smoke Demon is coming! • The monster must be the cover feature. The villagers call it Diablo and tell the hero to flee. • The creature must have a proper name (example: Colossus) and not Diablo appears, and through mental telepathy explains that he merely be described in the title (like “The Creature From Nowhere”). has travelled the furthest reaches of space for untold ages, searching for a new planet for his over-populated people. Diablo plans to wipe • It must be a menace to Earth. 11
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DIABLO
Dick Ayers Interview Interviewed by James Cassara
Dick Ayers, at the 1996 Heroes Convention in Charlotte, NC
To those comic fans first exposed to the work of Jack Kirby during the late 1950s and early 1960s, no name is more synonymous to his than that of Dick Ayers. For a half dozen years, Ayers inked virtually every story Kirby drew for Marvel, from westerns to the so-called monster books—with their bizarre-looking and even more bizarrely-named creatures of fright—to the earliest superhero titles. With his delicate and deft brush work, Ayers, who first broke into the comics field in the late 1940s with the Magazine Enterprise (M.E.) group, gave to Kirby’s work a sense of realism and volume few inkers could. While Kirby’s figures seemed to literally leap off the page with an energy of their own, Ayers inks seemed to maintain that authority while anchoring them firmly to the ground. The two styles complemented one another perfectly, each drawing out the strengths of the other. For all his contributions to the field, Ayers is most proud of his dependability and work ethic. “Jack and I never missed a deadline,” he proudly proclaims. “We had to bust our humps, but the work was turned in on time, and it was done right.” Today Ayers continues to find work as both a pencil and ink artist. While his work is not seen as frequently as it once was (or as some might wish), he nevertheless continues to add to the legacy that is his, rightfully taking his place as a vital and distinctive figure in the history of comics.
THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: Let’s talk about your early days in comics. Although this magazine is for fans of Jack Kirby, your career has certainly been distinguished. Who influenced you early on? DICK AYERS: Well, I’ve been friends with Burne Hogarth, the famed Tarzan artist, for a long time. (Editor’s note: Sadly, Hogarth passed away shortly after this interview was completed.) He’s my wife’s favorite house guest, he’s been up to our place many times. He can talk on just about any subject; a very knowledgeable man. He loves to talk about the arts, he really knows his stuff. Some people get bored with that, but not me. I really thrive on it!
done one for them while waiting for the Jimmy Durante book to start. That got me going, and from there I did The Calico Kid, who of course became The Ghost Rider. TJKC: In many ways that’s still the strip you’re most closely associated with. AYERS: It was really a break for me. Sullivan was very good to me, an excellent publisher to work for. He put Ghost Rider into the Tim Holt comic, Best Of The West, and Bobby Benson. He gave it very good exposure. I got to do that strip for close to eight years. It started in 1949 as The Calico Kid and became The Ghost Rider in 1950.
TJKC: So he helped you get started? AYERS: He was my teacher in the late 1940s. I was in the first class of the school he started (The School Of Visual Arts). It was stupendous, you really learned. He talked, and you listened, and if you didn’t learn you weren’t paying attention!
TJKC: So it overlapped some of your work for Timely? AYERS: Oh yeah, by 1951 I had started doing horror stories for Stan Lee, about one a week. The next year I started doing Human Torch for the Young Men title. I was still working for M.E., as well as some stuff for Charlton comics at the same time. I did a lot of their horror books, including The Thing, which had Steve Ditko’s first work... I did quite a few of those, mostly shorter stories.
TJKC: You first broke into comics with Magazine Enterprises? AYERS: It didn’t get published, but actually my first introduction into comics was with Western Publishing, Dell. They did the Disneys of course, as well as a lot of westerns and things. I approached them, I had a story written and drawn. They wanted to wrap a book around it... I got into it but Dell decided to scrap the project. So that got me started.
TJKC: What else for them? Any of the Hot Rod books? AYERS: No, but I liked what I did for them, a book called Eh! Dig This Crazy Comic! Humor stuff, that was a good one. I still have the cover for the first issue hanging on my wall; not the original art, which I didn’t get back, but the comic itself. I’m so proud of it.
TJKC: This was an adventure strip? AYERS: It was an adventure thing, boy and girl, the boy wanted to be a trumpet player. The girl kept feeding the jukebox and he’d play along to Harry James or whoever, that sort of thing. It would go over well today, with all the teenagers into music and everything! It didn’t make it but it got me started where I wanted to be in the business.
TJKC: Do you have many of the originals from back then? AYERS: No, they didn’t return them. The only things I got back from the 1950s were Wyatt Earp, from Marvel. TJKC: I know the returning of original art is a real delicate subject for a lot of the Marvel artists. AYERS: Well, when they started returning the pages, a lot of it ended up missing, lost, or accidentally destroyed. We never saw much of it.
TJKC: Your foot in the door, so to speak. AYERS: Right. It was after that I went to Burne Hogarth’s school. While I was there at night Joe Shuster visited the class. I started to go down to Shuster’s studio, which wasn’t far away. Next thing I knew I was penciling a bit here and there. He recommended me to Vince Sullivan, the publisher at M.E., who let me try the Jimmy Durante strip. I submitted my work and got the job.
TJKC: I think you’re being charitable. Sorry to say, I believe many pages were stolen. AYERS: The strange thing is that Marvel never returned entire stories; they were split fifty-fifty between the inker and the penciler. But then I see whole stories being advertised for sale; it just doesn’t add up.
TJKC: So early on you’re doing westerns! AYERS: The humor genre was dying out, so to speak. Westerns were really popular; I had already
TJKC: This brings us up to when you started with Jack. By the time you began inking the monster books for Marvel, you had been in comics for a least a 16
decade. Had you inked Kirby’s pencils prior to that? AYERS: I’ve got it in front of me here; I’m giving you a scoop! The first work I did with Jack was the cover of Wyatt Earp (#25) for Atlas. This was in October of 1959. Stan Lee liked it and sent me another job, “The Martian Who Stole My Body,” for Journey In Mystery (#57), December of that same year. I also began Sky Masters, the newspaper strip Jack did. There is a lot of confusion on this; people think Wally Wood inked them all, because they’re signed Kirby/Wood. But that was Dave Wood, the writer. I began Sky Masters with the thirty-sixth Sunday page: Jack’s pencils, my inks, in September of 1959. I ended the Sundays in January of 1960. I also did the dailies, for a period of almost two years, from September of ’59 to December of ’61. These were complete inks; I was the only one doing it at that time. Of course Wally Wood also worked on that strip, in the beginning, before me.
TJKC: What was your approach to working with Jack? Did you try to leave the pencils as they were, or did you make any changes you thought necessary? AYERS: Stan told me he was hiring me not to trace. I was to add, to embellish. I did do one story just as it was in front of me, a Rawhide Kid. He said, “I didn’t ask for a damn love story. This is a western!” He gave me a long lecture; he told me if there were only two figures in a panel, to add a background. TJKC: He obviously had faith in you. AYERS: This was new to me. For fifteen years I’d inked my own work. This was the first time I’d inked someone else’s pencils. Jack was the first other penciler I’d inked. The first time I left Stan’s office I was a bit perturbed. He hadn’t offered me any more money! I thought,
TJKC: Did you letter these as well? AYERS: No, inks only. Coloring was done by the syndicate. We had nothing to do with that end of it. TJKC: Were you living near Jack at the time? AYERS: No, I was living in White Plains, Jack was out on Long Island. We did everything by mail. Thank heavens [for] the post office, you could depend on them. Every morning at 7:30, the doorbell would ring. It would be a special delivery package with the latest strip. Jack, fortunately, was just like me; a very systematic, punctual person. I could rely on him completely to have the strip to me on time. Never late, never! TJKC: That’s a quality not seen enough today. AYERS: We’d stay on schedule, wouldn’t allow ourselves to get bottled up where we’d have to break our humps to get back on track. We just stayed with it. I even had occasions—this was for Marvel—where the writer would give me half of a synopsis, and sort of disappear. Stan would then tell me, “You finish it!” TJKC: So you did some uncredited scripting? AYERS: No, plotting. I never wrote dialogue; even Stan, he’d get on the phone, and just briefly give me the gist of the story. I would immediately go and plot out my twenty-three pages, then go back and start to draw. Stan would write the words to fit the drawings. TJKC: At this time comics were in a real downspin. Marvel was barely holding on. Eventually things started picking up again, and you were part of it. Did you feel it was a matter of your being in the right place at the right time? AYERS: Well, at the time I was doing Wyatt Earp, that was the only work I had. When that went to bi-monthly it was really tough. That was a real low point. Stan said, “This is it, we’d better just abandon ship.” I went home and got a job in the post office; this was late ’58. I called Stan back and told him I’d done as he said, found another job. He told me to wait, he’d find me more work. And he did; even during the toughest times Stan always found something for me. I did the job, mailed it off. He sent me back a little note, which I’ve kept. It said, “Dick, I love ya!” He really liked my work.
The Hulk battles Jimmy Olsen’s FourArmed Terror in this pencil drawing from the early 1980s. Thanks to Dick Ayers for inking it for this issue’s cover! (previous page) Rawhide Kid by Ayers. 17
An examination of The Demon, by Richard Kolkman There came a day when the New Gods died... prodded into a prelaying a lot of subtext mature burial by DC, The Fourth World fell silent: into it about things that were on his mind. “Change! Change, o’ form of man! Release the might from fleshy mire! With Kamandi and Boil the blood in heart of fire! Gone! Gone! — The form of man! The Demon, he was Rise, The Demon Etrigan!!” having fun.” ith these words, Jack Kirby spawned the mythology of The Demon. Demonologist Initially asked by DC to take over Deadman, Jack declined, opting Jason Blood awaits to create a supernatural character of his own (he did end up doing Merlin’s call through a take on Deadman in Forever People #9-10). the centuries by dabAccording to Steve Sherman’s “Demonology” (Demon #6), Jack’s bling in everything initial rendition of his demon-type character was covered with scales, from “poetry to pirahad claws on his hands and feet, and had a human-type face covered cy,” and is aided by with fur (resembling Simyan, from Jack’s Jimmy Olsen). Jack drew the his Gotham City inspiration for his final demon concept from Hal Foster’s Prince friends. First, there is Randu Singh, an ESP practitioner, who is more Valiant. While researching architecture and costuming for King in touch with Jason’s creepy vocation than are Jason’s other friends. Arthur’s era, Jack came across the sequence from December 25, 1937. Next is Glenda Mark, who, upon being introduced, is fascinated by Val drives an ogre and his henchmen from a castle by donning a grueJason. (Of course, his having an apartment filled with priceless historsome mask fashioned from a dead goose, the webbed feet becoming ical artifacts probably helps.) And finally, there’s Harry Matthews. the classic Demon ears. Jack thought it would be funny to tie his mythos Harry has some strange habits; he constantly repeats his full name for of King Arthur, Mordred, and Merlin into Prince Valiant. According his friends’ benefit, and goes jogging in his dress shoes (#3). Jack’s to Steve Sherman, “after the New Gods cancellation, Jack didn’t take irrepressible humor is often reflected through Harry, such as when he these things as seriously as before. New Gods was an epic, and Jack was says that at his advertising firm, “he needs a vacation every five minutes!” Jack’s Demon stories repeatedly drew upon his love of old horror movies. Plots from The Wolfman, Phantom of the Opera, and Frankenstein dominated the title. In “The Howler,” (#6) Jason encounters another poor soul tormented by an age-old possession. In this case, wolf-like ferocity is no match for The Demon. The Howler’s end draws from the phenomenon of exorcism. When a man on the street encounters the crumpled form of the Howler, a spiritual exchange takes place. In the saga of Farley Fairfax (#8-10), Greek mythology meets Phantom of the Opera. Galatea was a woman brought to life by Aphrodite from a statue carved by Pygmalion. Mix this with Phantom of the Opera, add a dash of Dorian Grey, and you have the “Phantom of the Sewers!” The extended story of Dr. Evilstein (#1113) morphs Beauty & the Beast and Frankenstein into a supernatural thriller including ESP, with underpinnings of Dr. Moreau. The monster with the inner beauty and heart of a child cannot be restrained simply and quietly. He must endure Kirby’s veritable fireworks display of blazing electricity and shock waves. Jack always gave readers more than their money’s worth! Being a DC book, Jack’s treatment of horror was surprisingly over-the-top. A perfect example is the murderous Kamara (#4, pg. 10). Initially, The Demon was a wordless fury, striking at Merlin’s magical enemies with a relentless animal ferocity. As the series progressed, he became more sociable, moving one reader to reflect, “The Demon sounds like a taunting linebacker.” Many readers also Perhaps these pencils from Demon #1, page 24 best show Jack’s homage to Hal Foster’s expressed their dismay at Merlin both narrating Prince Valiant. Jack based the look of his Demon on the December 25, 1937 sequence (shown above) and taking part in the stories. Another reader where Prince Valiant donned a mask made from a dead goose to scare evildoers. complained about the classic, action-less 20
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© King Features Syndicate. Reprinted with special permission.
“Some Weirdo With A Thing For Halloween”
dialogue page 14 in issue #6. In a recent interview in Hogan’s Alley #1, Neil Gaiman claimed it’s one of his favorite Kirby pages. According to Gaiman, “usually, when Jack Kirby characters are having a conversation, there’s something going on, even if the characters are merely walking from room to room. You never see characters just sitting around talking. It was quiet moments like that, that made the other stuff work.” Often, Jack’s graphic storytelling abilities are accepted at face value, but at times his abilities truly excel. It’s this difference that separates Jack from most comic artists. Only Jack could condense so much story into a crack in a wall. In issue #9 (pg.13, panel 2), the desperate suspense of the hiding figure is offset by the threat of powerful, militaristic authorities in pursuit. Some other Demon miscellanea of note: • The character Witchboy (#7) was the most popular villain (according to the letters page), hence his comeback in #14-15. Witchboy was based on a Kirby fan named Barry Alfonso. • During the original run of The Demon (Sept. 1972 to Jan. 1974), Jim Aparo drew The Demon’s only outside appearance in The Brave And The Bold #109 (Nov. 1973). Notice how antagonistic Glenda Mark had become under the authorship of Bob Haney.
Demon #9, pg.13, panel 2. • Sometimes flashes of Golden-Age Kirby manifest themselves in The Demon. In #4, pg. 12, Old Meg’s face would easily fit into a Black Magic story. • The Demon notes that “even the Kamara” knows fear. This is ironic, because The Kamara kills its victims with fear. The Demon is not exempt from being frightened himself, as he admits to being scared of the Somnabula in #5. When Alan Moore and Steve Bissette brought The Demon into Saga of Swamp Thing (#25-27) in the ’80s, the Kamara was re-introduced in the guise of The Monkey King. (Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Steve Bissette for inking this issue’s Demon back cover!) • You don’t have to be an expert to use it... because in Glenda Mark’s hand (#16) The Philosopher’s Stone has become the ultimate wish-fulfillment mineral. Shades of the Cosmic Cube! • Caught in a deadline crunch, Mike Royer (also inking Kamandi and Mister Miracle) called upon his friend William Stout to help out on either Kamandi or The Demon. Stout chose The Demon and faithfully matched Royer’s style on virtually all of the backgrounds of #14. Royer inked the main figures. Stout’s ability to mimic Royer’s controlled lines was so accurate, the substitution was not noticed by “the boss” — Jack! • On the cover of #15, there is a very large gap in Witchboy’s speech balloon. Was there something offensive that was removed because of The Comics Code? Or was it a production error? Considering Jack’s experience, he knew what was and wasn’t acceptable, so the omission was most likely a forgotten color overlay. Perhaps we’ll never know what Witchboy said. • As a postscript, Jack’s Demon makes his final appearance on the cover of Action Comics Weekly #638 (Feb. 7, 1989), marking Jack’s final work for DC Comics.
Richard took the title of this article from this page in Demon #7, shown here in pencil form. 21
Jack designed his characters with truth in mind. If a character has this quality, then it becomes a natural for succeeding writers and artists to adapt and evolve. The Demon is still a vital force to be reckoned with in the current DC Comics continuum, and stands as a testament to his ability to create characters that last long beyond his initial involvement with them. ➌
Jack Kirby & Walter Gibson Interviewed Excerpts from the 1975 Comic Art Convention Awards Luncheon in New York • Original transcription by John Benson • ©1976 Phil Seuling (Editor’s Note: This is an edited—and shortened—version of the transcript that ran in the 1976 Comic Art Convention Program. However, all of Jack’s comments are presented here in their entirety.)
then wasn’t lasers, the big thing then was radio. Remember how many times villains were striking other people with radio rays, and radio patrols would catch them, and radio directional signals would be the means to the solution? I don’t think television ever entered into pulps or comics the way radio did. And now it’s lasers.
PHIL SEULING: I don’t think anybody can doubt that in the fields of the comic book and the pulp, Jack Kirby and Maxwell Grant—I say Maxwell Grant: Walter Gibson—these are the two grand masters. What relationship does the adventure novel or the adventure comic book have to our lives? What relationship is there in, let’s say, the Shadow novel to our lives?
KIRBY: Radio communication rings, the FBI rings, I think they were all part of the radio epic. Because we hadn’t known anything else; we just conjectured about jets and things to come of that sort, but we couldn’t visualize. And radio, I think, was the newest thing in our lives at the time.
WALTER GIBSON: ...I tried to keep the things in tempo with the times, and really make them informative, and I think that gripped the readers and carried them along with it. I know that the comics are a great field for that because there you can actually... the thing is realized in a visual way. I think that now the curious thing is that people are reading the stories for nostalgia. You pick up any of these Shadows that are coming out now, and you read about something happening on the Limited between New York and Savannah, why you’ll find it’s running exactly according to the timetable of 1936 or whenever the story was written. So maybe we’re giving them information of a nostalgic type now. SEULING: Jack, how about it? What meaning does the adventure comic book have for us? JACK KIRBY: Well, we live in a functional world, we see functional things, and reality is a practical part of our lives that of course is necessary, but I believe that we’re kind of a non-static animal; we just can’t remain static on any level. So we have to have something to offset this practical world and I believe that’s why we live this vicarious life in various media; the movies, the dance, concerts, and, of course, comics, which I feel is a very valid part of our cultural media. But what Walter Gibson says is true; I feel that we have to be contemporary at all times. If you look at an old comic book or at a pulp, you’ll find it’s like a time machine. Whatever year it was published, you’ll get a real glimpse of what people were like, how they dressed, the general atmosphere of the time, and the reason it causes nostalgia is that you can get a very accurate picture of what the time looked like through this medium. You’ll see it in the cars, the buildings, and the people themselves. You’ll see the sack dresses, I imagine, and you’ll see the macho machines, the cars of the times, and you’ll get a very good view of that period. But aside from nostalgia, we have this craving for living more flamboyant lives, and comics supplies a lot of that. So if I’ve done an effective job in it, I feel that I’ve maybe contributed to an extra dimension that we all want and we all need. SEULING: Like all literature, the pulps and the comic books broaden our experiences vicariously. ...As I look at the pulps and the comic books—and Pencils from Demon #10, page 12. Interestingly, it’s numbered page 11 here, so Jack must’ve gone back now we’re talking about the 1930s—the big thing and added a page to the story later. (next two pages) Hulk drawings done for fans in the 1970s. 34
SEULING: Jack, have you had any ingredients in your stories come out truer than you expected them to?
...I wouldn’t have wanted to give up those years—they were great. Later after I got through with them I said, “Gee, would I want to go through that pace again?” At my present age I wouldn’t, but I think if I were back then I’d want to get right into it.
KIRBY: Well if they did, I think that all of us would have a pretty hairy time. (laughter) I think my stories may be a little wilder and a little bit more far out. I enjoy that kind of thing, but I inject a lot of elements in those stories from things that are being worked on today—not things that have materialized. I feel that everything we have or see has already been done, and I’m not going to concentrate on what another man worked on. What I do is try to project our own environment a little beyond itself. I take the situations we have, and see what we can get out of them by projection. and I come up with some wild ideas and I think they’re entertaining in their own way. I’ll come up with androids, or machines and B.E.M. [Bug-Eyed Monster] aliens, and I’ll do some bizarre thing like winding them in with Romeo and Juliet, with a classic. I have one story in mind; it might have been Romeo and Juliet, except that it had some bizarre trappings. I had this male android being designed and produced in one factory and a female android being designed and produced in another. And what the professors didn’t realize was that these two androids were communicating together and falling in love by ESP, and when they wanted to meet each other, why they broke out of the factories and they practically wrecked the city trying to get to each other. And everybody was trying to stop them in the process. And of course they had good reason to, but the ways of love are kind of obscure and tragic, and, you know, Romeo and Juliet told that type of story perfectly. When the androids met and touched each other they blew up, because one was made of negative particles and the other was made of positive particles. So I had the Romeo and Juliet classic imbued in this bizarre story. That’s my kind of thing and I know it’s wild, but I have a good time at it. I only trust that people have a good time reading it. From the response I’ve got, it’s always been so, so I stick with that particular kind of formula. There may be other formulas and if they’re done well, you enjoy these too. And basically in comics you can use science-fiction, you can use the classics, you can use sports; so the device isn’t the thing, I think the entertainment is the thing.
SEULING: Jack... all the great producers of material we’ve ever had at the convention, among them Gardner Fox and Otto Binder, never... I guess they didn’t have time to do any record-keeping. Knowing it’s an unanswerable question, I’ll ask if you’ve ever estimated how many comics pages you’ve done in your lifetime. KIRBY: It’s not that it’s unanswerable, but I’d rather not answer it because I feel that if I did find out the truth I’d suddenly feel very tired. (laughter) But frankly I’ve never given it any thought, because being in the comic field has been a natural thing for me. I was practically raised in it, and I just couldn’t consider not being productive. There’d be something that I’d have to do in the comic field, and I’ve really done it on a lot of different levels. I’ve been a writer, and I’ve drawn, I’ve edited, and I’ve even published at one time, so it’s been a field that I’ve thoroughly explored, and I’ve given my life to it. I feel that in a very natural way it’s been a kind of a natural environment. I’ve stayed in it, I’ve studied it, and I respect it and I try to find ways of plumbing its potential, trying to find out where it’s going. As far as fulfillment goes, why I’ve made my peace in the practical world in a way by fulfilling myself in comics, just like any other man would in his job. So, speaking for myself, I feel that I’m fulfilled. But I don’t think that really counts. Of course, it counts for yourself. I feel that there are byproducts, spin-offs, where you find people like Jim Steranko, who came into comics a little later than I did, but is no less enthusiastic. He wants to tell a good story, to draw and write well—and he has. There may be a few of the older fellows left who’ve had the experience, and convey it to the people who need it. I think that’s a very important spin-off of the business, and I know that Jim is thoroughly immersed in the business and contributes to it greatly because he’s a productive guy, but thankfully he doesn’t have to take it in an agonizing way without guidelines like the fellows in the beginning did. And I feel that in that respect I’ve done something good, and a lot of the older fellows among my peer group have too, because they passed on something, perhaps their own form of storytelling.
JIM STERANKO: ...I was wondering if the two of you... have you been fulfilled in the creations that you’ve worked on, that you’ve spent your life on? Are you pleased to be remembered, to see these people talk about your creations?
SEULING: Let me just involve Jim and Jack in the same story. Roy Thomas once said... when Jim was doing Captain America, he turned back a story one Friday. “I can’t finish it by deadline,” when the book had to go out the following week. And they didn’t know what to do, so they called up Jack and said, “Jack, can you do it?” And as Roy tells it, the story was so tough it even stumped Jack. He didn’t get the whole story done until Monday. (laughter) Walter, just for the value of the anecdote, what’s the fastest story you ever produced?
GIBSON: Oh, yes, I got plenty of fulfillment out of the Shadow period. The curious thing is I still don’t know how I managed to turn out that stuff so fast. I just got ahead of it and each story seemed to overlap the other, so I actually got six months ahead of schedule, and I never had to worry about any pressure at all, except that I had to keep driving myself to do it even on days when I didn’t feel too good. 35
Spotlight On: Kirby Costumes Dress For Success by Gene Popa eaders who picked up Fantastic Four #1 in 1961 could be forgiven for not immediately recognizing it as a superhero book. After all, the cover featured a colossal monstrosity in battle against a quartet with freakish powers (one of whom looked like a lumpy monster himself, and another was little more than a shaft of flame!). The other two wore plain clothing, with only their bizarre powers to signify that they were any different from ordinary folk. The reason why this new super-team had eschewed the traditional cape-and-cowl look was twofold: First, Marvel Comics’ mainstream readership were monster comic fans, so it made good sense to appeal to these fans by downplaying the “childish” superhero stuff and accenting the monster slant. Secondly, and more importantly, Marvel was fearful of risking the wrath of DC. At the time, Marvel was distributed by DC. At the start of their business relationship in the mid-’50s, DC laid down The Law. Marvel was not to compete with DC’s bread-and-butter: Superheroes. Marvel Publisher Martin Goodman, seeing a better profit in monster, western and romance comics, accepted the edict without reservations, and cancelled Marvel’s remaining superhero books, including Captain America. By ’61, however, monster sales were down, and Goodman was eager to tap into the again-booming superhero genre. He turned to Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, and instructed them to create a super-team that had the twin tasks of attracting readers as well as avoiding the ever-watchful eye of DC. To accomplish this, Jack avoided putting the team in distinctive costumes for the book’s first two issues. When DC remained silent on the matter, Kirby decided it was time to put the team in “union suits.” Stealing a march on DC (and ironically, himself ), Jack clad the four in blue jumpsuits based on those worn by his own Challengers of the Unknown. The costumes solidified the team’s identity, and reinforced their tight-knit family image. For the remainder of Jack’s tenure on the book (and for 15 years thereafter), the costumes remained mostly unchanged. However, Jack himself occasionally tinkered with the basic design. For a brief while, the Invisible Girl wore a mini-skirt. And discerning fans of the early stories spotted a unique 3-D trick Jack worked into the art; the shadow behind the chest emblem ‘4’ shifted to suit the viewer’s perspective! Jack ultimately abandoned this arty quirk, either because it proved too time-consuming, or because he simply forgot about it. By the way, Marvel and DC parted distribution company shortly after the debut of Fantastic Four, freeing Jack to design a slew of colorful cos-
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Subscriber Bret Mixon sent the above photo (along with several others), and writes: “As best I can remember, they were taken around May 1990. The Special Effects company I work for had done some effects work on the Captain America movie. I was able to borrow the stuntman’s shield and go over to Jack’s and have him pose with it. As you can tell from the pictures, he really got into it. Unfortunately, he didn’t enjoy the movie quite as much. I remember him being particularly unhappy with the Red Skull being made an Italian rather than a German. Regardless, it was still nice to see his name up on the screen (along with Joe Simon’s) and I am glad to have worked on a movie based on Jack’s work. Still, it would have been nice if they hadn’t screwed it up so badly.” (above right) Jack’s original concept sketch for “The Plunderer” from Daredevil #12. Even though Jack wasn’t penciling every Marvel title, he contributed ideas and designs across the entire line. (right) Around 1972, TJKC subscriber and sculptor Tom Watkins created these Darkseid and Desaad costumes for a New York comic con.
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tumes for dozens of original characters. Still, there’s something powerfully elegant in the plain, utilitarian jumpers he made for the FF. ➌
King Of Design by Ed Grekoski ne of the more subtle reasons I like Jack’s books is the way he designed characters. He linked performance (what it should do) with design (how it should look) in a very well-thought-out manner that resulted in a visual design that made sense. Look at Iron Man’s old yellow armor. Jack seemed to put himself in his characters’ shoes when deciding what capabilities a character should have and how a character should look. There is an antenna on his shoulder for communication, and if you look at the top left panel of Avengers #2, pg. 18, there is a vent on Iron Man’s back. Jack knew the batteries and transistors needed cooling, and thus a vent was necessary. Iron Man’s Repulsor Rays are drawn today as rays of light coming out of his palms, but what are they? If you look at Jack’s drawings, it looks like a grating on the palm to allow high velocity air made by miniature palm fans, that result in a mini-tornado coming out of Iron Man’s palms... I think. The design of the Chem-Man from Tales of Suspense #78 is another example. Different deadly mixtures of chemicals are propelled from Chem-Man’s fingertips. Look at the canisters on Chem Man’s chest. It is necessary for different chemicals to be mixed to form different deadly mixtures, so Jack drew many canisters. The bottom line is Jack took his character design seriously, and his ability to link performance with design resulted in more interesting, believable, and exciting characters that will be appreciated by fans around the world forever. ➌
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(above) Kirby design for the villain Boomerang, from Tales To Astonish #81. (left) An unidentified sketch found on the back of a page of original art from Fantastic Four #100. Was this Jack’s idea for a new costume for Crystal?
(right) A drawing Roy Thomas published in his fanzine Alter Ego #10 in 1969. Roy comments, “...some months before, Jack had responded in his usual generous fashion to a request from a school to design costumes for a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. I have a memory that the student who had been in contact with him for the drawings is the one who gave me the photocopy reproduced in AE #10 while I was in New York; I know I saw a number of other Kirby drawings for the production, and some photographs of the costumes as actually realized by the students. However, I don’t believe I ever had the original of even this one drawing—which, unhappily, perhaps got cropped a bit at the drawing. Everything that shows, however, is Jack’s, including the “SPQR,” and (so far as I know) the inking.” TJKC subscriber Jim Korkis believes this piece was poster art for a stage production at the University of California at Santa Cruz. 45