Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Classics v5 The Strange World of Your Dreams by Prize Comics Jack Kirby Classics v5: The Strange World of Your Dreams by Prize Comics. They bought our dreams. and turned them into comics. Sixty years ago, Jack Kirby, and their cohorts at Prize Comics, asked readers to send them their dreams. Readers did and they were turned into comics. The Strange World of Your Dreams only lasted four issues, but that was enough to fill this book. Sporting a soft, spongy cover, it embodies a bit of visual punning in that it could be considered a surrealistic pillow, of sorts. Comics have been linked to dreams from their very beginnings, but the comics collected here might be the most explicit connection made between the trade-off between individual/personal dreaming and mass/popular entertainment ever made. "WE WILL BUY YOUR DREAMS!" Indeed. Preview: Fighting American. We are pleased to present an exclusive preview of Titan's new edition of Fighting American (out today) by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, which includes a new introduction by Joe Simon and previously unpublished art. It's great to see these stories in print again. Harry Mendryk has written quite a bit, and quite well, about this work on his blog at the Kirby Museum site. A little context on this work: Returning to New York from Europe in 1946, Jack Kirby was sobered by his experiences and determined to continue in comics. He and his longtime collaborator Joe Simon linked up again and worked first for Harvey, with Stuntman, and then Prize/Crestwood with a tremendous amount of titles, including 1947’s , which gave birth to the romance genre in comics and enjoyed great success. By this time, Simon and Kirby was a studio with a vision, employing artists like Mort Meskin, who added a rough texture to the Kirby language, and Bill Draut, who smoothed it out. From the late 1940s to 1955 the studio moved fast and hard through crime, western ( Bulls-Eye , 1954), and sci-fi ( , 1950). They even produced a dream comic led by Meskin ( The Strange World of Your Dreams , 1952) and experimented with fads ( Captain 3-D , 1953). Perhaps their three best titles in this period are a war-memoir comic called Foxhole (1954), the great western epic Boy’s Ranch (1950), and today's subject, Fighting American (1954). Fighting American , first published by Prize Publications, was Simon and Kirby’s Cold War parody of their own Captain America, in which they still had some stake—though how much, and when they realized that, is a little unclear. In any case, Captain America was coming in and out of print at the time, as heroes were on the wane, and it's a good poke of comics itself and their own hero in particular. Its mix of politics, superheroics, and absurdity is a step past the pair’s earlier hero work, but jibes with Kirby’s great love of humor/adventure pioneer Roy Crane. While the content might be satire, the action is not, and the studio kept it hopping. The gags in Fighting American might have been a bit heavy handed but it pops with energy and fun. Fighting American was reprinted once in the 1960s by Harvey, and then again in 1989 by Marvel, with art, according to Mendryk, badly obscured. It was also included in last year's Simon and Kirby Superheroes volume, also from Titan. So, here's a new edition, with carefully restored art, and another piece of the great Simon and Kirby puzzle fixed firmly in place. All images copyright Joe Simon and Estate of Jack Kirby. Used by permission. Jack Kirby. Jack Kirby is one of a trio of artists whom I consider geniuses of the comic book form. Harvey Kurtzman and Bernie Krigstein are the other two. Kirby was the oldest, born in 1917, and his career was the longest and the most productive. He was born Jacob Kurtzberg and raised in New York’s Bowery. His art was his ticket out – out of the slums and out of poverty. He got his first job drawing in 1935 at the Max Fleischer Studio where he worked as an “in-betweener” on animated cartoons. It was the depth of the Depression and any job was to be treasured. Yet, Kirby quit the animation business after two years. By 1937 he was drawing comic strips and single-panel cartoons for a small newspaper syndicate called Lincoln News. At right is the cover for what is arguably his first comic work – a 24 page booklet published by HT Elmo of Lincoln News. It was meant as a bank giveaway with generic content (all by Kirby) inside and a space on the back cover for a specific bank or savings institution to print or stamp its name and address. By age 20, he was a seasoned professional using different styles and different pen names on half a dozen different features. Some of those features found their way into the fledgling comic book market. Kirby quickly followed them. It was at Fox Comics that he met Joe Simon, a freelance writer and artist. With Simon’s business acumen and hustle and Kirby’s skill and speed, the team of Simon & Kirby soon exploded onto the comic book scene. Their work appeared at Fox, Novelty and Timely/Marvel – often as the cover artist team. They started out with Simon doing layouts and Kirby finishing, but Kirby’s understanding of the comic book medium helped to quickly reverse those roles. Remember, in 1940 the comic book as a medium was only five years old and for half that time consisted entirely of newspaper strip reprints. The graphic language and techniques in play in 1940 were primarily those of the daily comic strips. Kirby was one of the very first to view the comic book page as a unique form and the first to fully comprehend its potential and solve its challenges. In comic books, Kirby saw the differences from, not the similarities to, their comic strip antecedents. Action was not only possible, it was paramount. But, before Kirby, many early comic books had to rely on various guiding devices to lead the reader in the proper sequence through the more dynamic panels. Some simply numbered the panels to ensure that they were read in the proper order. Others used graphic arrows to point to the next one. At right is a page from a Kirby comic story drawn in late 1940. It was taken from The Art of Jack Kirby . Notice the arrow that points from the first panel to the second. This is actually the most obvious transition on the entire page and the arrow is scarcely necessary. Now witness how Kirby leads you through the story with his drawings. Just follow the green line: the character in panel two is facing back toward panel three. He used this device throughout his career. He probably did it unconsciously, just as he often used a character facing or moving to the right in the first panel on the second tier. Note also how the path of the eye is drawn through the speech balloons. And when it’s not, the eyes of the character point you in that direction (note the blue lines). The angles of the background and furniture also come into play to move you through the story in the manner he desires. I believe Kirby invented this approach. He figured it out and implemented it almost from the very start: Don’t draw something that leads the eye away from the story. The story is the driving force. Make sure the drawings move it forward. The composition of the page should keep the reader’s eyes on the page until the last panel and then that panel should facilitate the turning of the page. Backgrounds should set the scene and indicate reading direction. All this was completely intuitive to Jack. He saw the needs and built solutions into his style. The way he told a story was driven by the need to show you how to read it. And I’ll bet he never really thought about it. Getting back to what he did with his style… Simon & Kirby’s first big hit was Captain America , a character they created for Timely Comics. The image at left is from issue #2, published in April of 1941 and drawn nearly a year before America declared war on Germany. The comic books were never neutral. After nearly a year producing Captain America , S&K left Timely to work for National Comics (DC) where they created their next big hit, Boy Commandos . Then came the real war and both men were drafted in 1943. After the war, comics were in the doldrums and Kirby took what work he could get. Always a scrapper and a professional, one of his first jobs was a one-page strip, “How to make your own Puppets” in Punch & Judy comics. Kirby and Simon teamed up on two new titles for Harvey, Stuntman and Boy Explorers , but both were short-lived. Their work was still being used by National and they were producing a wide variety of work for Hillman (the Punch & Judy publisher). They did crime stories for Real Clue , an aviation strip, Link Thorne, The Flying Fool (at left) for Airboy , and a teen title, My Date , but the prolific pair wanted more. What they wanted was a share of the profits. Their comics were a major success. Artists like Mort Meskin, Bill Draut, Marvin Stein and Bruno Premiani were on staff and produced hundreds of stories each over the years. They must have treated them well – not surprising considering that the men in charge were working artists, just like them. In 1954, back at Crestwood, they released their pièce de résistance, Fighting American , a parody of the then dormant superhero genre (see right). The next step was to become publishers themselves. In 1954, as the rest of the industry was retrenching due to the public furor over comics and juvenile delinquency, Simon and Kirby launched Mainline Comics, to minimal fanfare and mediocre sales. With titles like In Love, Foxhole, Police Trap and Bulls-Eye , they had all the popular genres covered. They were the most successful and well-known creators in comics history . And they failed miserably. Most titles lasted only four issues. With the failure, the team split up to make each his own way in the new, post Comics Code, comic book landscape. Romance comics survived. Kirby did lots of strips for Harvey. (Simon and Kirby are listed as editors of some of the Prize/Crestwood romance books through 1957. Then it’s just Simon – who also returned to drawing stories about 1960. Simon also went on to create Sick Magazine , a long-running Mad imitation.) The Yellow Claw – Atlas 1957 (inks by John Severin) Kirby returned to the strong publishers for work. He did mystery stories and Challengers of the Unknown for National/DC, a few mysteries and westerns for Atlas (once Timely) comics. He continued to produce romance stories for and Young Romance at Prize, and he found work at Harvey as well. He achieved the goal of most comic artists – he landed a newspaper strip. Sky Masters of the Space Force was penciled by Kirby from September 1958 through February 1961. Wally Wood did the inking for the first eight months and their combined styles built strength upon strength. The results, one panel above, were breathtaking. Dick Ayers did a masterful job on the rest of the run, but nothing since has matched the Kirby/Wood team up. What I DO have, that others might not be able to bring to the story, is a fairly thorough knowledge of – the name that was used by Timely/Marvel during most of the 1950s. Not to brag, but I’m generally acknowledged as being a leading expert on the company. In early 1957, Atlas was the largest comic book company in existence. They published 75 titles and thousands of comic stories each year. For reasons too complex to go into here, that suddenly stopped around May or June. For one month they published nothing, and then they returned, publishing only eight comics a month. They had lost their distributor and were forced to sign up with another one. The new distributor was owned by the second biggest comic book company of the time, National/DC, and the onerous conditions were the price Atlas had to pay to get any distribution at all. Now at five stories per comic (at the time), times 75 titles, times only two week’s inventory, we’re talking about well over 150 stories in-house at the time of the “implosion.” Divide that by the eight titles per month and you’ve got yourself well over 18 months inventory. Stan Lee, the editor at Atlas, was buying few stories from anyone. The comics industry was suddenly overrun with out-of-work artists and writers, and sales of Atlas comics (now sans the Atlas logo) plummeted. From Strange Worlds #1 – Dec. 1958. Now come the conflicting stories. Toward the end of 1958, Kirby recalls visiting the Atlas offices and finding the company ready to close the doors. The inventory was running out and there didn’t seem much chance of surviving on eight titles a month. Kirby says he used a non-stop creative spiel on what they could do to talk Lee into continuing the company. Together they visited the publisher, Martin Goodman, and convinced him to give them a chance to execute some of Jack’s ideas. Lee, who was at Timely when Simon and Kirby were working on Captain America , has a different take on it. Lee’s version is that while things were slow, they weren’t dire. He says that seeing the great Jack Kirby walk into the offices spurred him on to suggesting things they could do together and they ended up confronting Goodman with their ideas. I believe Kirby. Lee, who is still alive, is notorious for genial self-aggrandizing and Kirby’s story puts him in a bad light, just as it emphasizes Kirby’s creative role in the success that Marvel Comics was to realize. I take nothing away from Lee. His contributions channeled Jack’s energies as they’d never been before and magic happened. But, historically, left to his own devices, Lee has failed to create many lasting characters in his 20 years in the biz. Jack never seemed to run out of them. From The War Between the States – Classics Illustrated – June 1961. It started out slowly, with Jack doing mystery, sf, western and romance comics – the legacy of the Atlas years. Jack did an inordinate amount of the art and stories. But even that wasn’t sufficient to use up his creative energies. He teamed with Joe Simon for a few comics over at Harvey, and even moonlighted a bit on some Classics Illustrated jobs. But even that was about to change. In 1961, in response to positive sales figures on a DC super hero team comic, Lee and Kirby created The Fantastic Four . Immodestly billing itself as “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine,” it quickly laid a very legitimate claim to the title. Within the next few years, Marvel Comics released The Hulk, Iron-Man, Thor, The X-Men , another team-up book called The Avengers that quickly revived Captain America as a leading member, and many more. In 1962, the most prolific year of his career, he produced 1,158 pages of art. If you do the math, that’s over three pages a day! Or, with 23 pages of art plus covers on a comic, Kirby was a one-man company, producing over half the art for the eight titles. Others, like Steve Ditko and Don Heck, were heavily involved and deserve every credit, but no one approached even half the output of Jack Kirby. Only Ditko can be credited with actually coming up with memorable characters in the way that Kirby could. As the company grew and prospered, Marvel again became a major comic book force. The dynamic Kirby approach to comics became the Marvel “house style” and many artists would continue using it long after Kirby left the company. Unfortunately, most would adopt the dynamism without the controls that Kirby injected into his work. The lessons they learned from Jack were superficial and their lack of understanding of the underpinnings of his work would lead to a lessening of the comic craft just as production values were increasing for the first time in the history of the medium. At Marvel, as sales escalated, Jack wanted his share of the credit and profits but they weren’t forthcoming. So, in 1970, he accepted an offer from DC to edit, draw and write his own books for the company. The epic “Fourth World” saga was the result with all new Kirby characters and three new titles, New Gods, Forever People and Mister Miracle (at right). Coupled with the existing Jimmy Olsen title, Jack was totally in charge and charging ahead. Into another brick wall. New Gods and Forever People lasted eleven issues each; Mister Miracle managed 18. As creative and dynamic as the massive work was, the rambling interwoven story lines seemed unfocused and it became obvious, to me at least, that Stan Lee’s contributions to the Marvel stories had been crucial to their success. Kirby was simply too creative and couldn’t rein in that exuberance in service to the story. Or, perhaps, the story was just too complex and extended to be told at any speed other than “full tilt.” Whatever the reason, the general comic-buying public didn’t flock to the titles. His loyal fans provided a base level of sales, but they weren’t sufficient to support the continued publication of the books. He had better luck with Kamandi , a post-apocalypse title that ran 40 issues, but other efforts like OMAC and The Demon lasted for relatively short runs. He even returned to Marvel from 1976-1978, but with a 1978 graphic novel featuring the Silver Surfer , he bade goodbye to the medium he helped create. The Silver Surfer was a character Kirby had created in the mid-Sixties for The Fantastic Four comic book. In a marketing decision I still question to this day, the new book was released in both hardcover and softcover format with a cover painting by Earl Norem. Kirby, who had probably done more comic book covers than anyone in the history of the medium, simply wasn’t considered good enough to recreate his own character for the “real” book market. The cover painting is credited as being based on “a sketch by Jack Kirby.” He returned to a much earlier career, animation, in an entirely different role. His exuberance and creativity were harnessed for character designs for Saturday morning cartoon fare. He remained in the industry through 1987. It was the kind of work that he could do in his sleep and his creativity kept popping up in comic books created for the “direct market” – a place where he could own all of the rights to his characters and be certain of getting his original artwork returned. In 1981, he released two titles, Captain Victory and Silver Star , through Pacific Comics. Lasting 13 and six issues, respectively, both sank with barely a ripple in the burgeoning comic book market. Kirby’s art style was passé (in all fairness, these last titles had very perfunctory Kirby art that was almost a pastiche of his earlier work). The tastes of the comic buying public were moving away from his “antiquated” style to more “sophisticated” renderings done by artists who learned from artists who’d learned from Kirby. The distillation process usually resulted in a lot of flash with very little concern with storytelling. We were back to requiring arrows to help us read the story. During the last years of his life, Jack was revered as comics’ elder statesman. A short, stocky, pugnacious-looking man with white hair and omni- present cigar, he never had an unkind word to say about anyone. When he died in 1994, the industry outpouring was unprecedented. Even today, magazines are still being published about him. The Jack Kirby Collector has reached its 52nd issue and the Kirby Checklist has gone through at least two editions. I can’t think of another person about whom this can be said, but I believe that without Jack Kirby we would not have comic books today. I, for one, wouldn’t like that. Strange World of Your Dreams 3. Mission and Disclaimer: The mission of Comic Book Plus is to present completely free of charge, and to the widest possible audience, popular cultural works of the past. These records are offered as a contribution to education and lifelong learning. They are historical documents reflecting the attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs of different times. We at Comic Book Plus do not endorse the views expressed in these, which may contain content offensive to modern users. We aim to house only content in the Public Domain. If you suspect that any of our material may be infringing copyright, then please use our contact page to let us know. So we can investigate further. Kirby 100. Today marks 100 years since the birth of Jack Kirby on August 28, 1917 in New York City. You can go through the archives of his weblog, or all over the web, to see a sampling of the thousands of pages of comics art he created in the 76 years of that century that he lived, and the unending source of inspiration for creativity he sparked in others. The photo above is part of my own collection of Kirby comics, mostly consisting of single issues published while he was alive. That’s the first thing in my eyeline when I wake up. Leaving my room, the first thing I pass is the bookshelf seen below, which is mostly filled with stuff published after his passing (and is only a small sampling of everything published, as I don’t have most of the colour Marvel reprints, or the original art sized IDW books). Anyway, there’s Kirby stuff all over the place today, so I’ll keep it short here. As you may have noticed my plan to post 100 post about 100 Kirby stories leading up to the day (//kirbymuseum.org/blogs/kirby/archives/category/k100) didn’t quite pan out, though I do hope to continue it and get all 100 done in the calendar year. Here’s just a sample of what’s still to come: Share this: “20,000 Lugs Under The Sea” (k048) “20,000 Lugs Under The Sea” is a 6-page movie parody comic by Jack Kirby, published by Charlton in FROM HERE TO INSANITY #11 [1955]. It’s based on the 1954 Disney film adaptation of 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, starring Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Paul Lukas and Peter Lorre. There’s quite a bit of Kirby material published by Charlton in 1955, most of it obviously done for the short-lived Mainline publishing venture Simon & Kirby did in 1954/1955. so this particular story (and the other Kirby stories in this issue) was probably meant for an unrealized Mainline humour title and used in Charlton’s name-changing MAD inspired mental health journal (also known at times as EH! DIG THIS CRAZY COMIC or CRAZY, MAN, CRAZY or THIS MAGAZINE IS CRAZY. Never just CRAZY, which was published by Marvel). This sticks pretty close to the parody formula that Harvey Kurtzman and his collaborators had been doing at MAD for a few years at this point, with names like “Captain Screamo” and “Dirk Cutlets”, and lots of the slapstick and little gags in the backgrounds. I’m not sure what the origin of the bullet-hole gag is, I think Al Capp did that a lot in Li’l Abner. Some of the visual elements are similar to earlier Kirby humour work in some comic strips in the 1930s, and a few comics in the 1940s. Overall an interesting example of Kirby in a less familiar genre, making some good use of his frantic energy. https://www.comics.org/issue/170677/#961029 THE JACK KIRBY READER #1 [2003] THE BEST OF SIMON AND KIRBY [2009] Share this: “The Partisans” (k047) “The Partisans” is the fifth of Kirby’s dozen stories of The Losers, running in DC’s OUR FIGHTING FORCES #155 [1975], an 18-page story inked and lettered by D. Bruce Berry. The Losers continuing travels through the various theaters of operations in WWII brings them to Yugoslavia this time, with a story that focuses almost purely on Sarge, with just short cameos by the other members. This has the effect of making it read like it could be a story about a cigar- chomping Nick Fury or Ben Grimm during the war just as easily as anything else (or maybe Dan Turpin, or ultimately Kirby himself). Like the other classic Kirby tough guys, Sarge faces injury and impossible obstacles to accomplish his mission, as part of a story about a strange group of Yugoslavian resistance fighters, led by the silent but powerful leader “Fur Hat”. This is classic Kirby, one of the best of this very good run of comics. https://www.comics.org/issue/28534/#186257 JACK KIRBY’S THE LOSERS [2009] Share this: “Sky Masters 1959.11.22” (k046) Kirby worked in syndicated newspapers strips a few times in his career, some published strips and several other proposals. The most successful was the science fiction strip Sky Masters of the Space Force, which lasted for two and a half years as a daily strip, from September 1958 to February 1961 (between the first orbital satellites and the first manned space flights). There was also a Sunday version, which ran for one year, from February 1959 to February 1960. This strip is from Nov 22, 1959, probably written by some combination of Kirby, Dave Wood and Dick Wood and inked by Dick Ayers. While some of the adventures of Major Sky Masters would take place in space, where we quickly go from the first space flights to a manned space station to the moon, a lot of them are set on Earth, with stories about the training for space flights, and various espionage schemes which have to be broken up. That’s the case in this storyline, as Sky have to pursue a stolen gyroscope right into a storm. These storylines make for a decent conventional action strip, but sometimes it really does feel like this is two different strips between the space stuff and the Earth stuff. Share this: “The Coming Of The Hulk” (k045) “The Coming Of The Hulk” is a 24-page Kirby story inked by Paul Reinman and first published in THE INCREDIBLE HULK #1 [1962], introducing the long-running (after a rocky start) Kirby creation. “This is the often re-told and embellished origin of the Hulk, with the introduction of Bruce Banner, Rick Jones, Betty Ross and General Thunderbolt Ross. Banner is a scientist testing a gamma bomb for the army, under General Ross, but when teenager Rick Jones trespasses on the testing site Banner is caught in an explosion of his own device, thanks to a Soviet agent in the lab. The radiation causes him to turn into the monstrous Hulk whenever the sun goes down, a creature of brute force who has contempt for his alter ego. Banner and Jones go on the run, winding up captured by a deformed communist genius named the Gargoyle and taken behind the Iron Curtain. A pretty decent introductory story, with a lot of the elements that would define the series. Some of the art is excellent, including the classic gamma bomb scene, with Banner trying to rescue Jones, Banner catching the explosion just on the edge of the protective trench and the hours long scream that follows. There are several good sequences of the tranformations to and from the Hulk, especially the one when Banner is driving a jeep and we just get a close-up of the hands for three panels. Reinman is far from my favourite Kirby inker in this period, but this is definitely one of his better jobs. https://www.comics.org/issue/16935/#132492 MARVEL TALES ANNUAL #1 [1964] ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS [1974] MARVEL MASTERWORKS #8 [H-001] [1989] MARVEL MILESTONE EDITION – THE INCREDIBLE HULK NO. 1 [1991] MARVEL LIMITED – FANTASTIC FIRSTS [1994] HULK – BEAUTY AND THE BEHEMOTH [1998] ESSENTIAL HULK #1 [1999] FANTASTIC FIRSTS [2002] TARGET MARVEL CLASSIC ORIGINS [2004] INCREDIBLE HULK OMNIBUS #1 [2008] MARVEL MASTERWORKS – THE INCREDIBLE HULK #1 [2009] MARVEL FIRSTS – THE 1960S [2011] MARVEL KNIGHTS HULK – TRANSFORME [2014] STAN LEE – MARVEL TREASURY EDITION [2016] INCREDIBLE HULK EPIC COLLECTION – MAN OR MONSTER [2016] (among others) Share this: “Brother Eye And Buddy Blank” (k044) “Brother Eye And Buddy Blank” is the 20-page debut story from OMAC #1 [1974], a debut for a new character by Jack Kirby, inked and lettered by Mike Royer. Brace yourselves for “The World That’s Coming”. OMAC #1 is some strange stuff even by 1970s Kirby standards. What can you make of a book that opens with a full page splash of a disassembled robot woman “Build-A-Friend” in a box saying “Hello — Put me together and I will be your friend”? Also, kind of an unusual story structure for Kirby, as he opens with the climax of the story, then has a flashback to the origin building up to the first scene and then the conclusion. It works pretty well, as it moves the action right up to the front and sets up the rest of the issue nicely. After seeing OMAC bring down the Build-A-Friend shop, we flashback to his origin, as the faceless Global Peace Agency tell Dr. Myron Forest that they have selected Buddy Blank to be the subject of the OMAC Project, leaving Forest to activate the sleeping satellite Brother Eye. After a view of Buddy’s life at the offices of Pseudo-People, Inc. and some bizarre scenes of their “psychology section”, we see that he was befriended by the previously revealed to be a Build-A-Friend Lila, as part of an experiment in making lifelike beings. As Buddy stumbles onto the secret section and finds out the secret of Lila and the nefarious assassination plans she’s to be part of, Brother Eye transforms him to OMAC. A wonderful issue, brilliant in its almost pure expression of imagination, Even the artwork seems like a heightened pure version of Kirby. https://www.comics.org/issue/27707/#182837 COUNTDOWN SPECIAL – OMAC #1 [2008] JACK KIRBY’S OMAC – ONE MAN ARMY CORPS [2008] JACK KIRBY’S OMAC – ONE MAN ARMY CORPS [SOFTCOVER] [2013] Share this: “Shilo Norman, Super Trouble” (k043) “Shilo Norman, Super Trouble” is a 20-page Kirby story from MISTER MIRACLE #16 [1973], inked and lettered by Mike Royer. Following his introduction the previous issue, Shilo Norman is now training full-time as the apprentice to Scott Free in the escape artist trade. He keeps seeing a giant insect, which vanishes before anyone else can see it, and which then abducts Oberon and Barda while Scott is out of the room. When the insect next appears, Shilo attacks, ending up shrunk to insect size and facing off against Professor Egg, who is creating a race of insect-human hybrids. This all ends rather abruptly in an “all a dream, or is it” ending. Overall this is one of the weaker of the Fourth World stories, as there definitely seems to be an attempt to make Shilo the star of the book in the last few issues up to the conclusion. There are some imaginative creatures and well drawn action scenes, and some nice interplay among the characters in the first few pages which make up for the plotting weakness. https://www.comics.org/issue/26846/#179145 JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD [2001] JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS #4 [2008] Share this: “And Fear Shall Follow” (k042) “And Fear Shall Follow” is 6-page Jack Kirby fantasy/horror story published in Marvel’s CHAMBER OF DARKNESS #5 [1970]. It’s inked by John Verpoorten, and is one of the few Marvel stories of this era where he was given an explicit writing credit, although he was at least the co- writer of almost everything he drew. This story is told by an unnamed military pilot who crashes in Red China and is pursued by a mysterious figure. This ends with a mystical twist, as it turns out the pilot died and the figure is just his benevolent guide to the afterlife, sort of like the Black Racer without the skis. An interesting story, a lot more like Kirby’s earlier BLACK MAGIC work or upcoming SPIRIT WORLD than most things he would do at Marvel. Some really nice visuals, especially with the “walking through walls” effect at the end of the story (and also on the cover) I thought John Verpoorten’s inks were especially nice, one of the first time he inked Kirby (also in a much-meddled with story in the previous issue and some covers). He would also do some very good work on some of Kirby’s later return to Marvel, both credited and apparently occasionally ghosting for Frank Giacoia before his untimely death in 1977. https://www.comics.org/issue/23528/#163712 TOMB OF DARKNESS #20 [1976] Share this: “Doom In The Desert” (k041) “Doom In The Desert” is a 7-page western story by Jack Kirby, inked by Dick Ayers and originally published in RAWHIDE KID #28 [1962]. The original Rawhide Kid was a short-lived series in the 1950s, cancelled after 16 issues. In 1960 the character name was re-used for this Kirby creation. Kirby stayed on interior for 16 issues, a bit longer on covers, and the series lasted for almost two decades, 135 issues of the main title (most of the later ones reprints), plus additional reprints in an annual and a 46 issue run of THE MIGHTY MARVEL WESTERN. The character has also been revived many times since for new stories and reprints. In this story, the Kid wins a shooting contest, and gives some of the money to the widow of a sheriff he once rode with. Meanwhile, some spectators belatedly recognize him as a wanted outlaw and he has to escape into the desert. Here we see the Kid’s typical gallantry bordering on stupidity, as he gives the last of his water to his faithful steed Nightwind. Following this he finds himself robbed and left to die by a thief, then rescued by said thief’s sister (who is unaware of his criminal ways) and conflicted about his desire for revenge and his reluctance to cause pain to the gal who saved his life. A pretty busy story for just 7-pages, this might be my favourite Kirby Rawhide Kid story. The scene of the Kid suffering from dehydration in the desert is extremely well rendered, and the ending is nicely unconventional for this kind of story. https://www.comics.org/issue/16990/#132808 THE MIGHTY MARVEL WESTERN #6 [1969] THE MIGHTY MARVEL WESTERN #44 [1976] MARVEL MASTERWORKS #87 [2007] ESSENTIAL RAWHIDE KID #1 [2011] Share this: “Lone Shark” (k040) “Lone Shark” is a 7-page Simon&Kirby story from Prize’s BLACK MAGIC #33 [vol. 5 no. 3] [1954], This is the story of a shark who, as a result of undersea atomic explosions, grows a tumor that serves as a second brain, giving it human level intelligence. What really makes the story special is that it’s told from the perspective of the shark. I fell in love with this story based on the splash page when it was shown in THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR. I couldn’t not buy it when I saw a copy for sale. It doesn’t disappoint (and fortunately is now more widely available). From the punny title on, it’s a masterpiece, with a nice sense of humour in the shark’s “voice”, complaining about the scavenger fish that follow him around, expressing curiosity, complaining about those damn headaches. He becomes almost sympathetic by the end. And the artwork looks great, following his undersea roamings. Definitely a highlight of the later days of the classic S&K team. https://www.comics.org/issue/11684/#681967 THE SIMON AND KIRBY LIBRARY – HORROR [2014] Share this: Join us! Become a Member of the Kirby Museum! Recent Comments. Patrick Ford on “The Coming Of The Hulk” (k045) Patrick Ford on “The Coming Of The Hulk” (k045) Nathan Corpuscollosumkellerman on “Brother Eye And Buddy Blank” (k044) Patrick Ford on “I Worked For The Fence” (k033) Patrick Ford on “The War That Never Ended” (k030) Recent Posts. Kirby 100 “20,000 Lugs Under The Sea” (k048) “The Partisans” (k047) “Sky Masters 1959.11.22” (k046) “The Coming Of The Hulk” (k045) Pages. Categories. Archives. The postings on this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent The Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center's positions, strategies or opinions. Website © 2005-2020 Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center, Inc. All rights reserved. All characters and art presented on these pages are ©, ™ or ® their respective owners. No challenge to any owner's rights is intended or should be inferred. The Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center is a tax-exempt non-profit educational corporation. Donations may be tax-deductible - please consult your tax advisor.