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JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR FIFTY-NINE $10 FIFTY-NINE COLLECTOR KIRBY JACK IT CAN’T BE! BUT IT IS! I’VE DISCOVERED... ...THE AND NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN!! 95 A TREASURE TROVE OF RARITIES BY THE “KING” OF COMICS! Contents THE OLD(?) The Kirby Vault! OPENING SHOT . .2 (is a boycott right for you?) KIRBY OBSCURA . .4 (Barry Forshaw’s alarmed) ISSUE #59, SUMMER 2012 C o l l e c t o r JACK F.A.Q.s . .7 (Mark Evanier on inkers and THE WONDER YEARS) AUTEUR THEORY OF COMICS . .11 (Arlen Schumer on who and what makes a comic book) KIRBY KINETICS . .27 (Norris Burroughs’ new column is anything but marginal) INCIDENTAL ICONOGRAPHY . .30 (the shape of shields to come) FOUNDATIONS . .32 (ever seen these Kirby covers?) INFLUENCEES . .38 (Don Glut shows us a possible devil in the details) INNERVIEW . .40 (Scott Fresina tells us what really went on in the Kirby household) KIRBY AS A GENRE . .42 (Adam McGovern & an occult fave) CUT-UPS . .45 (Steven Brower on Jack’s collages) GALLERY 1 . .49 (Kirby collages in FULL-COLOR) UNEARTHED . .54 (bootleg Kirby album covers) JACK KIRBY MUSEUM PAGE . .55 (visit & join www.kirbymuseum.org) GALLERY 2 . .56 (unused DC artwork) TRIBUTE . .64 (the 2011 Kirby Tribute Panel) GALLERY 3 . .78 (a go-go girl from SOUL LOVE) UNEARTHED . .88 (Kirby’s Someday Funnies) COLLECTOR COMMENTS . .90 PARTING SHOT . .100 Front cover inks: JOE SINNOTT Back cover inks: DON HECK Back cover colors: JACK KIRBY (an unused 1966 promotional piece, courtesy of Heritage Auctions) This issue would not have been If you’re viewing a Digital possible without the help of the JACK Edition of this publication, KIRBY MUSEUM & RESEARCH CENTER (www.kirbymuseum.org) and PLEASE READ THIS: www.whatifkirby.com—thanks! This is copyrighted material, NOT intended for downloading anywhere except our The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 19, No. 59, website. If you downloaded it from another Summer 2012. Published quarterly (didn’t say website or torrent, go ahead and read it, which quarters) by and ©2012 TwoMorrows and if you decide to keep it, DO THE (above) Unfinished Thundarr The Barbarian illo, circa 1980. Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, RIGHT THING and buy a legal download, NC 27614, USA. 919-449-0344. John Morrow, or a printed copy (which entitles you to the TM & ©2012 Ruby-Spears Productions • Scan courtesy Rand Hoppe at the Jack Kirby Museum (www.kirbymuseum.org) free Digital Edition) at our website or your Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $14 postpaid COPYRIGHTS: Alicia, Avengers, Batroc, Black Knight, Captain America, Crystal, Daredevil, Devil Dinosaur, Dr. Doom, Dr. Strange, Dracula, ($18 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $50 local comic book shop. 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ISSN 1932-6912 Hot Wheels TM & ©2012 Mattel Barry Forshaw Obscura quantities of vintage material by the King make a welcome reappearance (for A regular column focusing instance in such handsome volumes as on Kirby’s least the Titan reprint series), the soubriquet known work, “Obscura” becomes harder to justify. by Barry Forshaw Having said that, however, there is still a way to go yet, as I will prove in this latest missive. Read on, and you will WILL THE WELL hear about some remarkable Jack Kirby work which may be RUN DRY? new to you, but absolutely demands a place in your collection— There is a built-in hazard if, that is, you are a bona fide, card-carrying hardcore Kirby collector. And if you aren’t, why you reading this magazine? Alarming Tales #2 has in writing a column called Kirby only been reprinted in Obscura. Editor John Morrow and I Shocking Tales digest were younger men when he suggested A LIVING, BREATHING THING... #1 in October 1981. that I might be the man to tackle such a If we’re talking obscure, Alarming Tales #2, published in But hopefully it’ll be tricky job, as I was clearly more interested November 1957 by Harvey, should qualify by any definition of included in an in the lesser-visited byways of Jack Kirby’s the word. The short-lived series of titles that Simon and Kirby upcoming Titan Books Olympian career than in his massive successes, created for the company in the mid-to-late ’50s are largely S&K “Mystery” collec- such as his celebrated run on the Marvel super- forgotten by all but comics historians, and are rarely men- tion, similar to the tioned in any consideration of Jack Kirby’s career—which is new “Crime” volume heroes line with Stan Lee before relations soured a great shame, as among the pages of these neglected that’s out now. (not that I don’t enjoy such later work—how could you call yourself a Kirby aficionado and not love that books are some of the great glories of this non-pareil illus- period?). But as John shrewdly noticed, what really trator. If the cover for this issue of Alarming Tales (while charged my cylinders were the much less familiar science- striking) does not suggest the guiding hand of Jack Kirby, fiction, fantasy and horror tales Kirby produced for a variety that’s because it is, largely speaking, a Joe Simon creation. of publishers which might be said to fall in both the early But regarding this cover, I realize that I have to tread carefully, and late Captain America periods—that’s to say, after The as the provenance of this creation has been a subject of King’s original work on the character with Joe Simon and his some debate. later revival with Stan Lee in The Marvel Age. A man stands in swampy water, clutching a lantern. In For me, it is the short, beautifully turned tales which do the black sky above him, a series of green glowing fireballs not feature returning characters, that seemed to give Kirby a rain down from the sky. One of them has fierily burst open, chance to really expand his and out of it, arms stretched towards the observer, is a grin- imagination both in terms of ning green gargoyle (‘.... from outer space,’ shouts the blurb, his visual imagery and ‘a living breathing thing burst out of the fire balls!’). While (when he was involved in the inking hand is clearly that of Joe Simon, one might be the writing process) his forgiven for thinking that the initial pencils were the work of other, more diverse creative the King—but scholarship by Harry Mendryk at the Jack impulses. Today, these con- Kirby Museum has revealed that Joe Simon appears to have cise pieces are something lifted the threatening alien figure from an earlier panel by an like that first kiss we always alumnus of the Simon and Kirby studio, Mort Meskin (from remember—you may enjoy Black Magic #5, in fact). equally pleasant experi- ences as the years roll on, DON’T FRIGHTEN THE CHILDREN but it’s that first rush of To the English eye, what strikes one about this cover is pleasure that really stays the distinctly non-sinister face of the alien gargoyle. Don’t with you. So I was more forget that the Comics Code logo is clearly to be seen (albeit than happy to say yes to hidden behind the ‘g’ of the word ‘Alarming’), so we are now John when he suggested firmly past the period when threatening creatures from outer inaugurating this column— space could have appropriately frightening features: hence but I have to say that even the rather ridiculous, idiotic grin of the creature, notably in that long-ago, prehistoric unthreatening. The reason I say that such a thing will be period, something occurred intriguing to the English reader is the fact that during this to me: this was a job with a period, we in the UK became familiar with the artistic cen- built-in obsolescence. sorship visited upon reprinted American horror comics, Sooner or later, I would whereby monstrous pre-code faces were crassly redrawn to have covered everything by make them as inoffensive as possible—and no DC redraw- Kirby which might be ing of a Kirby Superman face was ever as crudely done as described as ‘obscure’.