Always seeking new ways to express those colossal worlds within his head, Jack Kirby tried many innovations over the years. One of the most distinctive was his work with photo collages in the comic narrative. Severe printing limitations inhibited a great deal of the potential here (remember - a grey Hulk was too muddy to use and had to be turned green due to printing limits), but The King persevered, pushing the envelope to see what would work. Naturally enough, his first testing ground was The World's Greatest Comic Magazine, the title that defined the Marvel universe.
We'll take a wider look at his collages later in the month. Right now, let's look closer at the beginnings in the Fantastic Four. I'm presenting the original printed version next to the modern reprint version for the sake of comparison. He started very small for his first test, just monitor insets in two panels in Fantastic Four #24:
Five issues later he tried a full panel, using an outer space location to offset the jarringly different type of graphics used. The difference made by print technology becomes very apparent here with the much greater details present in the newer version:
Just three issues later, Kirby expanded to a full page composed of two collage panels. Interestingly, the beam weapon actually worked better with the old printing tech. But this is looks more like a result of the separations & toning prep rather than the print limits. Sometimes things that look great on the monitor don't translate properly to paper. Even with the advances in technology, there's always new problems to deal with.
Soon The King was experimenting with the possibilities in many other books, and outside comics as well. But for all the work with collages he has done over the years, none has had more impact on me than his two-page spread in Fantastic Four #62. Nor, for me, has any worked better no matter what level of print technology. The reason for that was how well it integrated into the story. The huge wall sized monitor with the black & white display worked perfectly, with the strangely different images coming from a strangely different reality. (Remember, this was back in the NASA/Apollo days when we expected those distant signals to be in black & white) Having the black & white figure of Reed on the monitor while the rest stand in front in normal colour just helps cement it. No print tech comparison this time. I only prepped one version:
And, once again, Jack Kirby came in and stomped my young brain.
I always treasure those boot prints...
Kirby collages from Fantastic Four #s 24, 29, 32 & 62 (1964, 1967)
No comments:
Post a Comment