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JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #77•SUMMER 2019•$10.95
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82658 00365
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with ERIC POWELL•MICHAEL CHO•MARK EVANIER•SEAN KLEEFELD•BARRY FORSHAW•ADAM McGOVERN•NORRIS BURROUGHS•SHANE FOLEY•JERRY BOYD
STARRING
JACK KIRBY•DIRECTED BY JOHN MORROW•FEATURING RARE KIRBY ARTWORK•A TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING RELEASE
Monster, Forager TM & © DC Comics • Goom TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. • Lightning Lady TM & © Jack Kirby Estate
New Gods TM & © DC Comics.
Contents
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Monsters & Bugs! OPENING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 ( something’s bugging the editor) FOUNDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 (S&K show the monsters inside us) RETROSPECTIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 (from Vandoom to Von Doom)
C o l l e c t o r
ISSUE #77, SUMMER 2019
INCIDENTAL ICONOGRAPHY . . . . . 23 (you recall Giganto, don’t you?) KIRBY KINETICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 (the FF’s strange evolution) INFLUENCEES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 (cover inker Eric Powell speaks) GALLERY 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 (monsters, in pencil) HORRORFLIK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 (Jack’s ill-fated Empire Pictures deal) KIRBY OBSCURA . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 (vintage 1950s monster stories) JACK KIRBY MUSEUM . . . . . . . . . 48 (visit & join www.kirbymuseum.org) POW!ER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 (two monster Kirby techniques) UNEXPLAINED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 (three major myths of Kirby’s) BOYDISMS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 (monsters, all the way back to the ’40s) KIRBY AS A GENRE . . . . . . . . . . . 64 (Michael Cho on his Kirby influences) ANTI-MAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 (we go foraging for bugs) GALLERY 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 (the bugs attack!) UNDISCOVERED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 (a blue bug in Sweden) JACK F.A.Q.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 ( Mark Evanier moderates a panel on Kirby’s monster influence) COLLECTOR COMMENTS . . . . . . . 94 PARTING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Co ver inks & color: ERIC POWELL COPYRIGHTS: All-Widow, Dragorin, Darkseid, Demon, Dingbats of Danger Street, Farley Fairfax, Forever People, Jimmy Olsen, Kamandi, Kliklak, Lightray, Lupek, Man Who Collected Planets, Mantis, Mister Miracle, My Greatest Adventure, New Gods, Newsboy Legion, Orion, Prime One, The Bug/Forager, The Howler, The Negative Man TM & © DC Comics • Ant-Man, Avengers, Black Talon, Blip, Bucky, Captain America, Challengers of the Unknown, Colossus, Creature from Krogarr, Destroyer, Devil Dinosaur, Diablo, Dr. Doom, Dragoom, Fantastic Four, Fin Fang Foom, Gargantus, Giant-Man, Giganto, Goliath, Gomdulla, Goom, Gor-Kill, Grogg, Groot, Hulk, Human Torch, Invisible Girl, Iron Man, It, Klagg, Krang, Loki, Man in the Bee-Hive, Metallo, Modok, Mongu, Monster at My Window, Monster in the Iron Mask, Monsters on Mercury, Monsters on the Prowl, Monstrollo, Moonboy, Mr. Fantastic, Mr. Morgan’s Monster, Mummex, Ninth Wonder of the World, Orogo, Rick Jones, Scarecrow, Shagg, Sporr, Spragg, SubMariner, Swarm Queen, Taboo, The Weed, Thing, Thing From the Hidden Swamp, Thor, Triton, Trull, Vandoom, Where Monsters Dwell, X The Thing That Lived, Xemnu TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. • Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, Frankenstein, Mummy, Phantom of the Opera, Six Million Dollar Man, Wolf Man, TM & © Universal • Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, Island of Lost Souls TM & © Paramount • Avenger, Justice Inc. TM & © Street & Smith or successors in interest • Black Magic, Fighting American, “A Husband for Tracy!” © Joe Simon and Jack Kirby Estates • Chimichanga , Lulu the Bearded Girl, The Goon TM & © Eric Powell • The Fly TM & © Joe Simon Estate • Green Hornet TM & © Green Hornet, Inc. • Tales from the Danksyde TM & © Rick Becker & Vince Dugar • Close Encounters of the Third Kind TM &© Columbia Pictures • Damon Hunter/The Raven TM & © RubySpears • Thunderfoot, “Street Code”, Unknown Insect Man, Captain Victory, Egghead, Dr. Mortalis, Mindmaster, Lightning Lady, Insectons, Moon-Bear, Secret City Saga TM & © Jack Kirby Estate • Blue Bolt, Gorgo, Heaven’s Gate, Legend of Bigfoot TM & © the respective owners
From Demon #13 comes this incredible pencil page, showing that even as Kirby was relying on old monster films for inspiration, the series was anything but a copycat. Thanks to Eric Powell for his stunning inking and coloring on our cover! The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 26, No. 77, Summer 2019. Published quarterly by and © TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. 919-449-0344. John Morrow, Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $12 postpaid US ($18 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $48 Economy US, $70 International, $20 Digital. Editorial package © TwoMorrows Publishing, a division of TwoMorrows Inc. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All Kirby artwork is © Jack Kirby Estate unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors. Views expressed here are those of the respective authors, and not necessarily those of TwoMorrows Publishing or the Jack Kirby Estate. First printing. PRINTED IN CHINA. ISSN 1932-6912
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Retrospective
(above) The cover for Tales to Astonish #34’s “Monster At My Window”, and the [spoiler alert] twist ending to the tale, are a prime example of the best of Kirby’s Atlas monster stories. (next page, bottom) It’s Von Doom... er... Vandoom himself!
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here were giants in those days, back around 1961—real giants, and their names were Thorr, Oog, Grottu, Gorgolla, Shagg, Fin Fang Foom, Lee, Kirby, and Ditko.
corporation names: Zenith, Vista, and Atlas, and had no umbrella company logo. And Marvel wasn’t the only comic outfit cashing in on the B-movie-
inspired nuclear monster fad. Even Batman and Tomahawk were tangling with aliens and other-dimensional creatures in their own magazines. Well, maybe Dell and Gold Key ignored the trend; and over at the American Comics Group, where Richard Hughes suffered in the same writer/editor position enjoyed by Stan Lee at Marvel, the focus was on the supernatural with a sprinkling of aliens and dinosaurs. No monsters allowed. In truth, it wasn’t until 1959 that the true Marvel Monsters began materializing. Marvel at the time was on shaky ground, its super-heroes long gone, and was sustained by the likes of Kid Colt, Outlaw; Millie the Model; and a number of colorless supernatural titles written by Stan Lee and others and drawn by a train of obscure artists. A company purge in the summer of 1957 killed off most of the supernatural comics, including the company’s first title, Marvel Tales.
They roamed the four-colored forests of Tales of Suspense, Journey into Mystery, Strange Tales, and Tales to Astonish with impunity, towering over their peers, hurling their bombastic challenges to a frightened, insignificant humanity until, one by one, they died out; those atomic dinosaurs, supplanted by the new masters of the comic book jungle, the Marvel super-heroes. It was an older, more simple time before the Marvel Universe had taken over the global consciousness–– yes, even before the fabled Marvel Age of Comics. This was a formative era unto itself, long after the Golden Age of Comics, which might be called the Marvel Age of Monsters. Of its glory I will sing. Of course, Marvel Comics wasn’t called Marvel Comics back in the early Sixties. Publisher Martin Goodman copyrighted his titles under a maze of different
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Then Jack Kirby wandered over from DC, where he had produced Challengers of the Unknown (who battled countless giant monsters), and began doing some of the science-fiction stories for Strange Tales and Journey into Mystery (two survivors dating back to the early 1950s) as well as Strange Worlds, Tales to Astonish and Tales of Suspense (all three of which were launched in September 1958). Next thing you know, the four-color pages were bursting with “I Unleashed Shagg Upon the World” (in which the Sphinx comes to life), “I Created Sporr! The Thing that Could Not Die!” (about a veerry big amoeba), and the unforgettable “Creature From Krogarr!” Stan Lee never showed this kind of imagination in his pre-1959
changing and the pace kept accelerating. With an eye to increasingly alarming headlines, Kirby used all of this for story fodder. “The monster phenomenon got started primarily just because people were concerned about science,” he recalled. “People were concerned about radiation and what would happen to animals and people who were exposed to that kind of thing.” But Kirby wasn’t alone. That same year, a self-effacing young artist named Steve Ditko came over from Charlton and lent his unique talents to the revitalization of several titles by drawing solidly imaginative short features. Initially, he also inked many Kirby stories, and for decades afterward, Stan Lee would tell fans Ditko was his favorite inker on The King. When Lee set Western artist Dick Ayers to inking Kirby, he found a perfect match, as far as style and efficiency was concerned, freeing up Kirby to turn in more simplified pencils which Ayers would embellish as co-artist. This also freed up Ditko to concentrate on his own stuff. And it saved the career of Dick Ayers, who was about to leave comics for the post office. “I enjoyed the monsters,” Ayers told me. “They had terrific names––Sporr and Fin Fang Foom and all that.” “An inker like Dick Ayers would be bold and stark,” Kirby once observed, “and you’d find the style in a bold and stark attitude, and of course, that’s interesting.” Another new recruit was Don Heck, who stepped in to fill the empty shoes of the prolific and versatile Joe Maneely, who had just died, and whose covers had given Marvel its house look prior to Kirby taking over cover chores. “It was the summer of ’58 or somewhere around there,” Heck told me. “I can remember the first job I did and it was tough after having not done any comics for over a year. It was one of these Mysteries. I used to call [Stan] all the time [about] these five-page stories, you know? Some of that Mystery stuff was really poorly written. Oh, God. How do I get intrigued enough to get this thing off the ground?” By the beginning of 1960, Stan Lee had weeded out the also-rans from his stable, trained a small group of replacements to work from his plots and brother Larry Lieber’s scripts, and established a new house look to his four surviving fantasy titles, Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish, Journey into Mystery, Tales of Suspense, and a new entry begun in 1961, Amazing Adventures. Lee didn’t bother
scripts, so I would guess it was Kirby, whose mother was born near Transylvania and who told him some pretty wild legends when he was a kid, on whose doorstep we can lay the credit—or blame. For Kirby had been doing stuff like this for DC’s mystery titles, occasionally recycling concepts and plots for Marvel. “I always enjoyed doing monster books,” he told Gary Groth. “Monster books gave me the opportunity to draw things out of the ordinary. Monster books were a challenge––what kind of monster would fascinate people? I couldn’t draw anything that was too outlandish or too horrible. I never did that. What I did draw was something intriguing. There was something about this monster that you could live with. If you saw him, you wouldn’t faint dead away. There was nothing disgusting in his demeanor. There was nothing about him that repelled you. My monsters were lovable monsters. I gave them names—some were evil and some were good.” This was a time when the Universal monster movies were first showing on TV, leading to the launch of Famous Monsters of Filmland early in ’58. Baby Boomers liker myself were discovering the unbridled charm of monsters. In day-to-day reality, the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, and the Space Age were converging. The world was
I Remember... Vandoom, Master of Marvel Monsters
by Will Murray • This article originally appeared in Comics Collector #3, Spring, 1984, and is revised and expanded for this appearance. 13
The beast’s eyes, as seen on the cover, are generally left blank, tying into the notion of the Mole Man and many of his subservients being nearly blind from living underground for so long. It seems likely to me that the addition of pupils on pages 14 (above) and 16 is likewise not part of Jack’s design, given how rudimentarily they’ve been added. They’re literally just dots in the monster’s eyes; they really don’t look like Jack’s handiwork at all. These are so simply drawn in that it could even have been Stan himself who added them; although why this change was not carried through on page 24 (right) or the cover is anyone’s guess. The one interesting change that does appear to be deliberate is the loss of Giganto’s claws. Throughout the story itself, Jack draws the monster with sharp claws— this makes a great deal of sense given how the monster tunnels under the ground. We see this in every instance of the interior drawings, even though the claws’ specific length seems to vary from panel to panel—most notably, on page 14, when the claws are as long as Giganto’s actual fingers! Indeed, the drawing on page 14 seems so strikingly different in style to the other illustrations that I have to wonder if it was inked by someone else. The shading inside Giganto’s mouth also suggests another hand in the inks here, I believe. It almost feels like a different
monster entirely, which is particularly noteworthy given that it’s basically the same pose as what’s on the cover. The cover is markedly different than the rest of the issue. Not only have the claws been completely removed (perhaps because they were deemed too frightening for a cover?), but the way Jack draws Giganto’s hands, some of the fingers appear to have trimmed fingernails instead. The bottom two fingers of its right hand in particular seem to have fingernails drawn in, although this is never emphasized in the coloring. This has led to later artists alternating between the two takes— although John Byrne did seem to “explain” this by drawing some instances with longer fingernails that appeared to have broken off, suggesting that they only appear to be claws when they’re especially long, and are trimmed/ worn down by the creature’s digging through large swaths of earth. This is, however, very much a retroactive explanation for different artists alternately referring back to either the cover or the interiors. Jack’s initial design very clearly showed Giganto with long, sharp claws and these were only removed for the cover, which Jack would’ve drawn last. That said, given that Giganto is very heavily featured on the cover of Fantastic Four #1, it is not surprising that this specific image is how many identify the creature’s appearance. The cover has been homaged dozens of times, and has been reprinted seemingly ad infinitum. Had Giganto not appeared until the second issue, the claws would likely be a much more regularly seen part of his appearance, and he wouldn’t be as well known from his incidental cover shot. H
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(bottom) This panel from Fantastic Four #1 is a bit ironic, in that FF #1 signaled the start of the Marvel super-hero universe, and the end of the Atlas monster era. As these creatures run, in the next panel the Human Torch seals them underground; so perhaps that’s where Goom, Sserpo, Fin Fang Foom, and their ilk ended up once their stories were no longer being chronicled by Jack.
An ongoing examination of Kirby’s art and compositional skills
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THE FANTASTIC FOUR’S STRANGE EVOLUTION recently picked up an issue of CNET magazine (Winter 2017), which featured an interview with Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman. The interviewer, Connie Guglielmo, asked Mr. Boseman, “What do you think that it says that Black Panther was created in 1966 by two white men—Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby?” Boseman replied by first stating unequivocally, “Yes, the idea came from Stan Lee.” At this point, even after the near miraculous development that finally compelled Disney/Marvel to grant Jack Kirby co-creator status, most people, like Boseman, still believe that Kirby was merely the visual interpreter of Stan Lee’s creative concepts. Few members of the general public are even aware of what has become known as the “Marvel Method,” wherein the artist is plotter, or at very least co-plotter of a story. The average modern fan doesn’t really understand the complex and painstaking process of visual storytelling, and has no concept of the degree to which Jack Kirby has contributed to the language of sequential syntax as applied to the panels of a comic book page. By the point in time that the Black Panther was created in Fantastic Four #52, Kirby was routinely bringing concepts to Lee in the form of complete stories, including characters like the Panther. Less the creative initiator, Stan Lee was often times just glibly filling in balloons based on Kirby’s margin notes. In the end, it is most instructive to study The Fantastic Four, where the Marvel Method was essentially refined. If we do so, we will better understand the Lee/Kirby partnership and how it evolved. Fantastic Four #1 is the comic that set off the process. I was eleven, sometime in 1963 when I picked up Fantastic Four #12, only because it featured an appearance by the Hulk, whose first few issues I’d already seen. I was hooked on the self-described “World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” straightaway. My obsession has never really let up, with the exception of a few years surrounding puberty and an excursion into rock ’n’ roll performance. It’s something I still struggle to attempt to explain. I know that I am not alone here. Scores of comic 25
Influencees
Eric Powell Interview The creator of The Goon talks with Eric Nolen-Weathington
(right) Powell’s 2005 Monsters on the Prowl cover, featuring Kirby super-heroes vs. Kirby monsters. (below) One of Kirby’s own MotP covers (actually a 1974 John Romita-altered version of Kirby’s cover to Tales to Astonish #34), along with Eric himself, and his creator-owned Lulu the Bearded Girl and her pet monster Chimichanga.
(next page, left) Pencils for the cover of Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #6, featuring Eric’s favorite Kirby monster: Etrigan! (next page, right) Page one of Marvel Monsters: Devil Dinosaur #1, which Eric drew as an homage to Kirby’s cover for Devil Dinosaur #1 (bottom).
[These days, many comic book artists have an almost homogeneous style; intricately rendered, but lacking the stylistic panache of a Walter Simonson, Mike Mignola, or—yes—Jack Kirby. So when a talent like Nashville-based cartoonist Eric Powell burst onto the scene in 2002, it didn’t take long for the industry to take notice. After winning the 2004 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award for “Best Single Issue/Single Story” for The Goon #1, Eric’s gone on to numerous other awards in both the comics and horror fields. Powell wears many hats, from creator to self-publisher, and even a breathtaking inker over Kirby’s pencils on this issue’s cover. The Kirby influence is always there, as you’ll see in this e-mail interview conducted in May 2019.] THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: You’ve been into comics and scary stuff since you were a little kid, to the point you wanted to be a special f/x make-up artist when you were in your teens. What is it about monsters, and horror in general, that grabbed your attention? And why do you think there’s been such a resurgence of horror comics the past few years? ERIC POWELL: That’s a hard question to answer. What makes people like Justin Bieber? That’s truly horrifying. I dunno. I’ve always liked monsters. I’ve always been drawn to sci-fi and horror fiction. It’s just in my blood, I guess. And I feel like we horror comic fans have been lucky recently, because it seems to me that comics of all genres are kind of taking off right now. Pretty sure that, in my lifetime, this is the
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moment where more voices are being expressed and heard through comics. That’s nothing but a good thing for growing our industry. TJKC: You’re a few years younger than me. Were you old enough to see any of Kirby’s comics on the newsstand, or did you come across them later? Do you remember the first time you saw his work? POWELL: Younger?! You must be sooo old! I kid! Dude, I can’t see anything, and I forget anything I’ve heard ten minutes later. Let’s commiserate on our misspent and lost youth. Ow, my back! What was the question? Oh, yeah… My uncle was a comic reader, so I’m sure my first exposure to Kirby was through some of his old comics. But it was when I started reading his groundbreaking run on Fantastic Four that I started to appreciate and really recognize his pop-art genius.
Kirby’s Fantastic Four #1 cover. What about the others? Did you go through the old Atlas monster comics to find inspiration? Have you read much of that stuff? POWELL: I’ve read some of the stuff here and there. But when I was a kid collecting, it was hard to come by. Luckily, through reprints and digital comics it’s becoming easy to find. I do remember having to search on the Internet to find reference for a couple of those monsters. A couple on those Marvel Monsters covers were pretty obscure.
TJKC: What aspect of Kirby’s work do you connect with the most as an artist? POWELL: The bold power of it. As an artist that tends to be somewhat heavy-handed, I really appreciate the raw power of his work. Subtlety and nuance were not what he was going for. It was all about the energy of the art.
TJKC: As part of that series you also co-wrote, with Tom Sniegoski, and penciled a Devil Dinosaur story, which also featured the Hulk. How did that story come about? Were you a fan of Devil Dinosaur? POWELL: It’s funny, Tom and I had spoken beforehand about trying to pitch a Devil Dinosaur book to Marvel. When they contacted me about doing it, I had to ask Tom to come along. The Hulk got thrown in just because I wanted to draw the Hulk. I had inked a few Hulk issues, but had never gotten to draw him before.
TJKC: In 2006 you drew several covers for the Marvel Monsters event, which featured several of the Atlas-era monsters created by Kirby. What do you think about Kirby’s monster designs? Are there any specific ones you enjoyed drawing more than the others? POWELL: I love Kirby monsters. My favorite Kirby monster fest was his run on The Demon. I love the big meaty fingers, squared claws and heads. There’s no mistaking a Kirby monster.
TJKC: The opening splash page of the story is an homage of Kirby’s cover for Devil Dinosaur #1, and it seemed like you were emulating Kirby’s panel layouts to some degree as well. Is that the case?
TJKC: One of those covers is an homage of 31
HorrorFLIK
The Empire Strikes out Interview with Michael Zuccaro
(right) A letter Jack sent to Michael Zuccaro, two years prior to their first meeting at the 1975 Miami Comic-Con. (below) The Stephen Spielberg-produced Gremlins got an Empire knock-off called Ghoulies. (bottom) Head of the Family is a 1996 B-movie black comedy released by Full Moon. The similarities to the Simon & Kirby story from 1954’s Black Magic 30 (V4#6, reprinted in 1973 by DC Comics with a new Jerry Grandenetti cover) are unmistakable.
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ack in TJKC #11, we ran a short feature on Kirby’s work with film producer Charles Band at Empire Entertainment. In May 1995, I had sent a letter to Mr. Band, asking for background on two Jack Kirby concepts that had apparently evolved into renamed films at his later company, Full Moon Productions. In response, he briefly visited the TwoMorrows booth at the 1995 ComicCon International saying in passing, “Sometime I need to tell you what happened with those,” but he never responded to our repeated attempts to get details on the situation. So we asked Michael Zuccaro, who was Jack’s initial contact with Band, to offer up his own recollections of the experience. “My ill-fated two-pic deal with Jack Kirby at Empire Pictures started with my subscription copy of The Hollywood Reporter, where I read a 1986 front page story about film producer Charles Band. In it, he was quoted as having a love for comic books—and if you love comics, you can’t not love Jack Kirby. “Therefore, I took it upon myself to approach Mr. Band in hopes of him doing my script NOCTVRNVS that Jack embellished (formerly entitled Forever Amore—see TJKC #11 for my story behind that project). Band was very much intrigued and requested a meeting at his Empire Entertainment office in Hollywood. Jack and I took the meeting with him and his girlfriend/ producer/then-wife (now ex-) Debra Dion.
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“While Mr. Band liked Forever Amore, he didn’t have the budget for it, but wanted Jack and me to produce a couple of Jack’s ideas: Mindmaster and Doctor Mortalis. “Mr. Band is known for producing his low-budget B-movies in reverse, which apparently by sheer volume has served him well. He starts with the last step, the movie’s poster (i.e. 1985 Gremlins knock-off Ghoulies, with a creature head popping up from a toilet seat, and the tagline “They’ll Get You In The End!”) and seeks financing by talking up the poster. “He proceeded to do just that after getting Jack and me some ‘good faith’ money, and following another front page Hollywood Reporter article announcing the deal, he took out full-page ads there and in Variety. “The plan was for Jack and me to go to his film studio in Rome to produce the two films. After months of delays, Empire Pictures filed bankruptcy [in 1988]. Years later, Band re-emerged, his new company re-Banded as Full Moon Productions. In 1992 and 1993, it released what to our eyes were identical projects to ours, renamed Mandroid and Doctor Mordrid—with no creative input from us or money from Mr. Band. “I felt bad and responsible for Jack’s name being exploited, because if not for me, he and I wouldn’t have felt fleeced. I asked Jack if he wanted to sue, and if so, I would split legal fees. “Scrapper that Jack was, he said, ‘Let’s get the bastard!’ “I got an attorney that said it was a slam dunk because it wasn’t
one, but two films. But because these films also went direct-to-video, we were in a David vs. Goliath situation, having to sue Paramount as well, as they were the distributor to the video stores. “Then sadly, Jack passed away in early 1994, and our attorney didn’t want to put Roz through the stress, and talked her and me out of it.” While the “Egghead” character on the Dr. Mortalis presentation art was previously used in Kirby’s Captain Victory series, Jack offered up his original concept art for consideration in Topps Comics’ brief 1993 line of comics based on his ideas, and both visuals eventually made it into print as different characters at that company. H
(above) Issue #3 of Topps’ Jack Kirby’s Secret City Saga (July 1993) features a character identical to the bandaged man from the Mindmaster presentation. Color art above is by Steve Ditko. Mindmaster, Dr. Mortalis TM & © Jack Kirby Estate. Ghoulies, Mandroid, Dr. Mordrid, Head of the Family TM & © Full Moon Productions. Gremlins TM & © Amblin Entertainment.
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Boydisms by Jerry Boyd
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onsters have been a part of popular culture ever since writers, artists, painters, and sculptors found an audience for things that go bump in the night. Most nations have their demons, witches, ghosts, animal-men, and so on as part of their lore. In the US, Lee and Kirby made Comics Codeapproved creatures (with briefs on, a lot of the time) a staple of their pre-hero line-up, and the many imaginative space aliens, man-made creatures, swamp and plant things, and revived evil giants of legend kept readers glued to Journey Into Mystery, Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish, and Tales of Suspense, among others. For this young fan, Kirby’s monsters and heroes came together in one moment in the Summer of 1966. My parents went away for a short vacation, and my brother and I were left with our maternal grandparents in Durham, North Carolina. When my parents returned to get us, the hugs and kisses were added to by two comics they’d gotten me: Fantasy Masterpieces #4 and Amazing SpiderMan Special #3. The Kirby cover for the former and the
Romita splash for the latter knocked me out! I’d never seen a copy of either, and while the adults chatted, my brother and I (he got two 25¢ Harvey comics) were lost in our grandparents’ den. I knew there’d been some time on Earth long ago because I had grandparents and parents, but these old Captain America and Bucky stories—what was this?! I was glued to the pages—crudely drawn (though I wasn’t old enough to really know “crude”), but filled with passion, and wildly intriguing. Stan and Jack had an “It!” story inside—closer to his current style in the Fantastic Four, but less crude than the two Captain America tales (and look—Bucky Barnes, the youngster referred to in more than a few Tales of Suspense yarns—wowwwweee…). I had to devour this, and though I was only an almost-thirdgrader, I had to figure out the words I didn’t know. I had to get into this stuff—and the Spider-Man, as well! The first Captain America story dealt with “The Menace of Dr. Grimm” and the moody, dark splash page said a lot about the events to come—a foreboding building with strange underlings bringing a victim to it in the darkness. Cap and Bucky were standing nearby, taking it all in. I’d take it all in, also. The afternoon was set—monsters from a 1940s story and another monster from the early 1960s. It was all new to me and I’d love it and more of the same from issues of Fantasy Masterpieces to come! I’ll examine the monsters the Star-Spangled Sentinels battled first.
The Monsters That Haunted Camp Lehigh! In those less sophisticated days, enthusiastic
comics readers didn’t do a lot of questioning (because most comics houses didn’t have letters columns, for one thing) or stop reading their heroes’ adventures because they instantly (and impossibly, really) became superb sleuths right after first donning their colorful outfits. But Cap and Bucky always “had a clue” and used the mounting evidence they gathered to its best advantage. They found out who would strike next, where, and how, and by the story’s end, Cap would stand victoriously over the beaten enemies and reveal their insidious plot. Sometimes the duo went aboard ship or overseas to combat the Japanese militarists or fascists in Europe in their strongholds. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby provided plenty of “human monsters” like the Red Skull, the Chessman, the White Death, and the Killers of the Bund to 54
That Menaced The World (Of Marvel)! by Jerry Boyd
challenge the adventurous twosome. But we’re concerned with real monsters here, or those who presented themselves as actual monsters for this offering. And some of Joe and Jack’s probable inspirations for said monsters came from the bustling dream factory of Southern California’s Hollywood. Axis aggressors started Cap and Bucky off, with the youngster drop-kicking Hitler and Goering in the second issue (!), but it was the third issue that placed the powerfully built Private Rogers into a knight’s armor on a film production conveniently photographed near… Camp Lehigh. (Aside from Steve and Bucky’s “instant deductive powers”, Camp Lehigh was placed where a lot of the action was!)
The chief antagonist was the Hollywood Hunchback, a nice Kirby rendering not too far from Lon Chaney Sr.’s classic portrayal from the Universal Studios’ hit of 1923, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In Joe and Jack’s take, a filmmaker who was messaging the fight against fascism was mysteriously murdered on the set of a medieval-era adventure. Suspects were lined up. All had reason to get rid of the deceased, of course. The local police questioned them all, including one actor who looked a lot like Boris Karloff, one of Universal’s kings of horror (who shared the throne with Bela Lugosi). Jack did a nice likeness, and the name “Goris Barloff” said the rest. The Sentinels of Liberty had to keep the homicidal hunchback from doing more damage, and in the end, they unmasked the killer and saved the day. Spoiler Alert: It wasn’t Barloff… Another ‘monster’ showed up in the same issue. A plundering, murdering Butterfly (!) soared about the confines of a museum. Captain America Comics #4 saw the first all-out monster cover. Bucky was strapped to the type of table nine out of ten demented doctors prefer to use for hapless victims. A barely controlled green monster (!) is at the camp mascot’s right, and a twisted, grinning scientist (or assistant) is near our hero, holding a
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(above) The Hunchback of Hollywood (Captain America Comics #3) gave readers a monster derived from the success of Lon Chaney’s grotesquerie from 1923. (previous page, bottom) “Goris Barloff” was one of the suspects in the Hunchback story. S&K did a solid likeness of Boris Karloff (pictured). (bottom) Our heroes also had to contend with the plundering Butterfly in their third issue. (below) Undated Joe Simon commission.
Kirby As A Genre
Covering Fire
Columnist Adam McGovern talks with King of cover-art Michael Cho on what meets the eye and burns beneath the surface of Kirby (right) The mark of Kirby “becomes overt when I’m drawing Kirby characters,” Cho says. “I’ll draw Captain America with Kirby pencils and Giacoia inks in mind, because that’s the version of that character I see in my head.” (below center) “I love all eras of Kirby,” Cho says. “People draw the line at different points. Some people don’t like Captain Victory. I love Captain Victory!”—and this image inked over Kirby’s sketch makes that truer than ever.
M
ichael Cho has given the comics artform a brand new past. The dynamic drama and elegant, endearing mood he brings to the medium, like a pulp storybook, makes you feel as if the optimistic, exhilarating heyday of North American pop culture is unfolding afresh, a timeline do-over with many of the mercenary and malicious tendencies of mass entertainment filtered out and the creativity, common hope and social daring brought forth all the farther. A distinguished book-cover and magazine illustrator (The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, Random House, Penguin Classics), Cho’s first love was comics, and comics loved him back, first gaining him acclaim for his webcomic Papercut and then for his New York Times bestselling debut graphic novel, Shoplifter (Pantheon, 2014). He’s now one of the most in-demand cover artists for both Marvel and DC, where his images are welcoming in a new generation of comics fans and steering classic super-hero mythos to its next future. When we first met at New Jersey’s East Coast Comic Con this May, it didn’t take a Cosmic Cube or Source Wall to
guess that he’s a connoisseurial Kirby fan, though the breadth of thought he’s put into Kirby’s artistry, and the extent of the mark Kirby has made on Cho’s own work, were two of many pleasant surprises from this most modest of virtuosos. We soon sat down to share his story, and to see how his artistic eye casts Kirby’s own saga in a highly original light. THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: Looking at your art I could easily guess you were a Kirby fan, but I’d never call you a Kirby disciple. How does an artist as distinctive as you are incorporate and advance from a model as definitive as Kirby? MICHAEL CHO: I’m not a Kirby imitator in the sense that I try to draw exactly like Kirby; there have been a lot of those in history. Nobody can really be Kirby, but a lot of people can copy the surface mannerisms. I do consider [Kirby] the single greatest influence; if you boil down all the influences that have become distilled in me, the biggest piece of the pie-chart,
(next page, top) Before and beyond: Cho says it was common for cartoonists in his home base of Toronto to practice their inking over images scanned from (blush) The Jack Kirby Collector; this diptych shows his “translations” of Kirby, in which Cho preserves the King’s personality while making the image even more his own. (next page, bottom) One giant step for the classic Hulk (with a look back to the 1960s Marvelmania t-shirt and Aurora model?) in this art for the Marvel Style Guide by Cho.
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CHO: I’m of two worlds. That sounds like a Kirby quote, like Orion should say that. [laughs] When I was growing up, the first thing that hit me as an influence artistically was comic books, specifically super-hero comic books. I wanted nothing more than to read my copy of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, and learned all the tricks and tips from that. I loved super-heroes unequivocally, because I was a 12-year-old. [laughs] Then when I was 16 I started to drift away from super-hero comics—around that time were Watchmen and Dark Knight, which were amazing transcendent books for that era, and after that, I sort of was looking for what’s next. I discovered the work of the Hernandez Brothers, and Charles Burns, and Dan Clowes. And those guys were a huge influence on me, they’re the other side of me. So I drew a lot from the idea that comics are not just a genre, they’re a medium, so they can tell all kinds of stories. Sometimes I was conflicted because I’d see some people who would say, “The only real comics are super-hero comics, and you guys are fools for trying to make this autobiographical stuff about working in a coffee shop and living in your parents’ basement, it’s boring.” And then other people would say, “No man,
when I’m drawing super-heroes, is definitely Kirby. But I try not to copy surface mannerisms… but the actual thinking behind it. There is in me a lot of the mechanics and the underlying thinking behind Kirby—if I can say that without claiming that I’ve processed him like an algorithm or something! I did take a lot of time trying to understand how Kirby works, and his dynamics, and figuring out what the real underlying principles were in an intuitive sense. Because his work is very intuitive. I tried to internalize that in me, so that it doesn’t come out as an obvious homage, but it is coming from the same direction and the same place. Kirby’s [style] is what unlocks super-heroes for me. It’s the Rosetta Stone. And not just in a visual style; also the morals, the ethics, the character, and the personality, the scope of super-hero work. I’m hopeful that what I do goes in its own direction, but that’s the bedrock. At the same time, I also don’t think that Kirby should be the be-all and end-all. That is a mistake Kirby himself would not want you to think. I recall him saying something like, the future of comics, the next new thing in comics isn’t coming from, y’know, guys in short shirtsleeves and ties at a Bullpen; it’s coming from two kids in a garage—who are hammering out a new thing. So we should always be part of the spirit of Kirby, that restless innovation, but not beholden to some model in the past that Kirby set and only recycle that. What Kirby would have wanted is for everyone to add their own voice. TJKC: To look at your art, I’d assume that a kind of charm and humaneness is important to you—it’s obvious in a book like Shoplifter, which has such warmth and human interest. People are called “cartoonists” for a reason, but the best aspects of “cartooniness” have only recently been coming back to comics. What do you feel is the role and the value of charm and “innocence” in comics? 65
Undiscovered
A Blue Bug in Sweden by Dr. Christopher W. Boyko
T (above) Victor Fox’s 1939 ad offering the strip.
he Blue Beetle strip debuted in The Boston Evening Transcript on January 8, 1940. As far as anyone’s been able to actually prove, it only ran in a handful of papers, and just in the US—until now. Here are several installments of Blå Skalbaggen (“The Blue Bug”) by Jack Kirby, which ran in issues of Jules VerneMagasinet, published weekly in Sweden. JV-M was primarily a pulp/sci-fi mag, with much US product translated into Swedish. It ran Superman Sundays in color on the inside front covers, Jungle Jim Sundays in color on the back cover, and Smokey Stover and Blue Beetle strips inside (later, also Barney Baxter and Popeye)—all in Swedish, of course!
I’ve discovered the Blue Bug in 1940 issues #3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 (I think 1940 only had 11 issues, from what I can tell). From 1941, I’ve found them in issues #2, 3, 4, 6, and 7. The next issue after week 7 that I have is week 14, but by that point the Kirby art had ended and Mr. Beetle was being drawn by much more unskilled hands. H
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Mark Evanier
Jack F.A.Q.s
A column answering Frequently Asked Questions about Kirby
Jack Kirby’s Monster Influence Panel Held Saturday, April 21, 2018 at the San Diego Comic Fest. Featuring Mike Royer, Tom Kraft, and Mark Evanier. Transcribed by Tom Kraft. Copyedited by Mark Evanier. Photo by Phil Geiger.
“Whatever movie I was watching I would see it about seven times, and my mother would have to get me out of the theater. I believe the naturalism and the drama that were inherent in the pictures left an impression on me that I wanted to duplicate. I tried to duplicate that faithfully.” Jack Kirby interviewed by Will Eisner, February 1983
MIKE ROYER: You know Mark, at first I thought this “Jack Kirby, Monster Influence” panel would be about all the guys who tried to draw like him. MARK EVANIER: No, it’s all the guys who employed him. [laughter] Not everyone who employed Jack cheated him badly. I’m Mark Evanier, this is Mike Royer, that’s Tom Kraft. In the audience, we have another person who worked with Jack Kirby when Jack worked for the Ruby-Spears cartoon studio on Thundarr the Barbarian. Buzz Dixon is sitting back there. [applause] Buzz worked on the Destroyer Duck comic book as well and he has got a spotlight in this room in two hours? BUZZ DIXON: I believe so. EVANIER: Alright, Buzz will correct all the stuff we get wrong. The premise here is, Monster Influence. Jack Kirby was influenced by monsters. One of the fascinating things which I’m sure we’ll be talking about in the next hour, is that if you look at the early Marvel super-heroes, an awful lot of scenes in there, are very similar to scenes that were in horror and mostly science-fiction movies that came out in
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the early ’60s. Jack used to take his son Neal to every matinée that had “The Amazing Colossal Anything” in it. [laughter] As a result, if you’ll look at the first issue of The Hulk, and you watch The Amazing Colossal Man, you see certain similarities. For years, there was a guy who’d come to these conventions, and would lecture about the influences of monster movies on Jack. And his big finale, his big coup d’état, the big moment when he made like he’d liberated the entirety of comic book research, was to compare the character Ray Milland played in The Man with X-Ray Eyes, to Cyclops in the X-Men, and he did this for years and years until some of us pointed out that X-Men #1 came out two years before The Man with X-Ray Eyes. [laughter] We destroyed that theory completely, whereupon he developed the theory that the movie was inspired by the comic book. [laughter] So, Tom, this panel was your idea. Would you tell us the thesis on which you operate here? TOM KRAFT: The thesis is monster influence—it takes him from being a young person and being influenced by comics, and by the monster movies, mostly Universal films, which were Frankenstein and Phantom of the Opera and so forth. So it’s comparing the two, and how he was influenced as a young person. 1 Because he grew up on the Lower East Side in the slums fighting, his only escape from all that reality was to go to the movies.