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95 1 82658 00143 8 $10 JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR SEVENTY-FOUR Bullseye TM & © Joe Simon Jack Kirby Estates. Contents THE The PAST! OPENING SHOT ................2 (the past is now, the future is then) KIRBY AS A GENRE ............3 (to pulp returnest, with Tom Scioli) ISSUE #74A, SPRING 2018 Collector FOUNDATIONS ................6 (not our first Kirby romance story...) BROTHER BOYD ..............16 ( Jerry’s bro shows us Wolf Waco’s two-shot appearances) STRIP CLUB .................19 (Davy Crockett, hiding in plain sight) KIRBY OBSCURA .............21 (what did Jack do best?) RE-FOUND ..................24 ( announcing the hardcover Jack Kirby Checklist: Centennial Edition) JACK KIRBY MUSEUM .........29 (visit & join www.kirbymuseum.org) INFLUENCEES ................30 (the terrific Roy Thomas remembers Jack Kirby) COLLECTOR COMMENTS .......44 INNER-VENTIONS .............46 (take a trip in Jack’s time machines) COLLAGE: “ABOUT TIME” ......48 THE FUTURE! ...... FLIP US OVER! Numerous images in this issue are courtesy of the Jack Kirby Museum and whatifkirby.com, which have our eternal(s) thanks! (right) This issue’s “Past” cover started life as a gorgeous late- 1960s Bullseye drawing. Bullseye cover inks & colors (Version A): BILL WRAY Don’t miss our alternate TIGER 21 cover (Version B)! COPYRIGHTS: Alarming Tales, Boy Explorers, Bullseye, Stuntman, “You’re Not The First!” TM & © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estates • Big Jim’s P.A.C.K. TM & © Mattel • Thundarr the Barbarian TM & © Ruby-Spears Productions • Conan the Barbarian TM & © RE Howard Estate • “About Time”, Captain Victory, Egghead, Limousine Drawing, Moses, Tiger 21 TM & © Jack Kirby Estate • Davy Crockett TM & © the respective owner • Avengers, Black Panther, Bucky, Captain America, Colossus, Dr. Doom, Dr. Strange, Falcon, Fantastic Four, Giant-Man, Gunsmoke Western, Hawkeye, Howard the Duck, Hulk, Human Torch, Invaders, Iron Man, Jack Frost, Liberty Legion, Miss America, Nick Fury, Patriot, Power Man, The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 25, No. 74, Spring 2018. Published quarterly by and © TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Rawhide Kid, Red Raven, Scarlet Witch, SHIELD, Spider- Man, Sub-Mariner, Thing, Thor, Toro, Two-Gun Kid, Union 919-449-0344. John Morrow, Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $12 postpaid US ($18 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $46 Economy US, $69 International, $20 Jack, Wasp, Watcher, Wolf Waco, X-Men TM & © Marvel Digital. Editorial package © TwoMorrows Publishing, a division of TwoMorrows Inc. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All Kirby artwork Characters, Inc. • Funky Flashman, Houseroy, Lightray, 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 My Greatest Adventure TM & © DC Comics necessarily those of TwoMorrows Publishing or the Jack Kirby Estate. First printing. PRINTED IN CHINA. ISSN 1932-6912 1 Kirby As A Genre To Pulp Returnest A conversation with graphic biographer Tom Scioli, conducted by Adam McGovern ing Kierkegaard told us that life must be lived forward TJKC: The current, declarative form is also a medium but it can only be understood backwards; in a life for telling a historical account with as much objectivity (This page) The myths K like Kirby’s, many things are seen far ahead of their and accuracy as possible. both young Jacob time, and we can gain something new each time we look SCIOLI: I wanted to take a just-the-facts approach, no Kurtzberg and the back. One of the artists best known and regarded for taking comicbook hoopla and salesmanship. prototypical Jack Kirby Kirby’s legacy forward is undertaking a voyage to its very were born from. TJKC: And yet there is a feast of period flavor in the way beginning. Titled simply Kirby, in his signature, this new you render the story—the settings feel like we’ve walked All images by and © life story by Tom Scioli (8-Opus, Godland, Transformers Tom Scioli. into old photographs, machinery looks straight out of vs. G.I. Joe) turns back every page on what we know about a vintage catalogue, etc. How did the way we see those Jack and what we’ve seen of his achievements. Taking times influence the way you show it? Kirby’s epic approach to the quieter realities of the artist’s SCIOLI: When you’re telling Kirby’s story, you’re telling own life, Scioli’s narrative collages the comics being pro- the story of the 20th century—he’s there at the outset duced at the time with the elusive essence of the decades of comics, he serves in WWII, he’s there for the ’60s cul- and locales themselves, for a major work in the making. On tural revolution. And as this story progresses, we’ll see February 12, 2018, I got on the phone with Scioli to go back it progress in those styles too. to the most important drawing board in comics. TJKC: Is this unintrusion of you as the storyteller a rea- THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: When son for the vérité use of untranslated languages at the did you start telling this story? beginning? TOM SCIOLI: A bit before Kirby’s SCIOLI: Yiddish is a super-interesting [hybrid] language; 100th birthday. Kirby says that’s the first language he learned. That TJKC: The full pages at your own site happens a lot with children of immigrants, and then are dynamically composed, but it also they go to school, and it’s almost like the parents learn had a feel of completeness when I was English from the kids. That’s how it was in the Kirby first seeing it one panel at a time on household. Language fascinates me so I have maybe Instagram… way too much fun with those early episodes, where it’s SCIOLI: I want this to be extremely almost a pantomime. accessible, so layouts are very no-non- TJKC: True, the unfamiliarity of many readers with the sense. When it goes to print, I might language(s) being spoken enables (and necessitates) throw in some splash pages, etc.—at pure visual storytelling; befitting for the comics medium. that stage, you’re solving book-design problems. Opening Shot Opening 3 Here’s a never-reprinted romance story, from Young Romance #29 (V4 #5), January 1951. Foundations Restoration and color by Chris Fama. 6 Brother BOyd The Western One-Shot With Two Six Guns! by Dwight Boyd he real Old West Watch Out For Wolf Waco! T was full of Wolf Waco (great moniker—it just screams cow- bullies, raging town villainy with two smoking pistols!) led a gang of sociopaths, outlaws, and it was young Johnny Bart’s misfortune to and territorial run afoul of them in Rawhide Kid #18 (Oct. 1960), in no-goods who rode just his second Lee/Kirby/Ayers issue. After a narrow from town to town, escape from the townsfolk who’ve just recognized the alone or in small outlaw, the Kid spots a seemingly abandoned mine bands, hell-bent on where he hopes to rest. Nope, Waco is there and the robbing banks, stage- two get into a fistfight. The Kid’s smaller, lighter, but coaches, ranches, or determined not to be bullied by the gruff, domineering trains. Waco. (Bullied… I’ll get back to that later.) Wolf’s men Some of their show up and point their guns in the Kid’s direction, stories are quite ending the pummeling their leader’s taking. Wolf’s ugly, and were cer- temper subsides and he offers the Kid a chance to join tainly too ugly or his group. Rawhide thinks, “And why shouldn’t I join warped for the Code- up with them? There’s no place for me anywhere else!” approved western Aloud, he announces, “All right, Waco, yuh got yoreself ten-and-twelve-centers a new man!” (Peer pressure, right? I’ll return to that that youngsters found later, as well.) enthralling during the Still, as gangs are wont to do, the Kid has to Eisenhower years. “prove” himself. He’s told to throw a bunch of lit dyna- So, the legends of mite sticks at the mail train a-comin’, a notion that the West got cleaned quickly eats at his conscience. If he doesn’t do it, Wolf up considerably and and his men tell him he’ll be shot down from behind... made homogeneous for at their hands. But Johnny outwits them and tosses the television and comics. explosive bundle back over his head at his bloodthirsty Billy the Kid, for exam- “friends.” The smoke and shock allows him some time ple, over at Charlton to make it to the train. There, he “proves” himself to Comics, wasn’t such a bad guy, especially since this the train people. He blasts their guns out of their hands Billy was a relative of his more famous relative. And and then quickly returns them, explaining that he’s (above) Just for the this Billy rode the trail to clear his family name by not going to rob them. He only wants another chance record, this scenario doing good deeds. at Waco and his men. As most of the Wolf Waco Gang wasn’t part of the Wolf Other legends “lost some of their shortcomings” turn tail, Wolf and the Kid return to throwing the Waco story, and this at other publishers’ offices, also. With Lee and Kirby in baddie wasn’t even fisticuffs. The enraged young Wolf! Still, the fusion of the early 1960s (before the Fantastic gunman and his foe move this back-up story scene Four), the western frontier was dom- unwittingly toward a cliff and and the main tale was inated by the Two-Gun Kid (a carry- the treacherous owlhoot goes another nice effort by over from the post-WWII era) and the over.