WordS
Decoding “The Road” On understanding some of Kirby’s meaning in “On the Road to Armagetto,” by Shane Foley
(throughout) Mike Royer’s original, unaltered inks for “On The Road to Armagetto,” Jack’s original 23- (later 25-) page story that was to be his wrap-up to the New Gods saga, before morphing into the Hunger Dogs graphic novel.
reckon Hunger Dogs has some wonderful and unexpected moments in it. Better still, to my mind, is “On The Road to Armagetto,” that wonderful 25-page piece that ended up being split in two, reorganized and absorbed into Hunger Dogs. How I wish the original plan had been followed—with “Road” left intact and the new Hunger Dogs story following on after it. But again, like so many, and despite my love for the material, I often find Kirby’s scripting grates. At times it is really clunky and unnatural—a ‘tin ear’ Steve Engelhart called it. Other times, it is beautifully poetic and epic in character. These two characteristics can sometimes be found together in the same panel. And there are times, whether he’s at the ‘clunky’ end of the scripting spectrum or at the poetic, or somewhere in-between, where the reader simply goes “Huh? What does that mean?”... ...especially in the ’80s. Mike Royer confessed to this in a 1997 interview, when speaking of working on Silver Star from the same period, saying, “…sometimes, while lettering, I would go, ‘I don’t really understand this!’” (Jack Kirby Quarterly #8, page 10—in an interview with Chrissie Harper) (And while mention has been made of Mike Royer, I want to say that his original lettering on “Road,” and most especially his open, emboldened words, is sheer lettering brilliance!) As I said, I love so much of “Road.” But there is that frustration in the script that sometimes makes me say, “What?” But I want to understand it! So here is a short piece written about trying to make sense of some of “On the Road to Armagetto”’s script.
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“Road,” page 6 is where I begin. (This became Hunger Dogs, page 12.) This page has four captions. The first is great—it speaks of Armagetto: “Did not the Elder Gods, on the eve of their doom, leave the warning of Armagetto behind them?”
Did they? I’m happy to take Kirby’s word for it. It all sounds very philosophical— it has a great ring to it. (In the jettisoned caption from page 4 [HD page 10] which originally preceded this one, Kirby had already introduced the concept of Armagetto and defined it in this way:
“The slum and its inhabitants are a universal concept…on Apokolips, the place called Armagetto shelters the ‘Lowlies’.”..
...but this caption stands without needing it.) 56