06 August 2017

Well, I'M Astonished (King Kirby 022)


Jack Kirby's days cranking out creature tales for pre-Marvel comics may not have been the best of times for him, but he turned out a lot of terrific work during that period.
As we saw in later years in his depictions of Galactus, the Celestials, etc., nobody can do HUGE better than The King. So he was naturally suited to the giant monsters tales prevalent at the time. Of course, that was only one type of creation for those books. Kirby's imagination took him everywhere, and we were lucky enough to get dragged along on occasion.

Here's three of my favorite Tales To Astonish covers, one of which is arguably one of the most important Marvel covers of the day:


Tales To Astonish #08 - This was back in the days long after the last good, serious Universal Mummy flic, before the good reboot, way before the dren-eating reboot. Mummies were pretty much a joke - literally. Comedians routinely did bits about this guy stumbling along trailing toilet paper, and Abbott & Costello were doing movies with him.
Mummies weren't exactly scare factories (until D&D added a fear aura, actually making them scare factories ('Scare factory' because Kirby already did the Fear Factory)) But this guy would make me call the QM for new skivvies. Terrific cover design impressing the sense of scale.


Tales To Astonish #27 - Aside from its unique significance from a historic perspective, this one was fun for going the other way, making the small huge by scaling down the man. Richard Matheson's book turned movie, The Incredible Shrinking Man, was one of the coolest SciFi movies of the time, but Scott never got outnumbered the way Henry did here.

Tales To Astonish #29 - If pressed to pick one favorite of the bunch, this would be it. It's Raining Aliens! I love virtually everything about this cover. The visual depth of the image, the people fleeing the city invasion only to find the invasion is everywhere, the endless saucers filling the sky, the Rain Of Aliens! so starkly overwhelming every other aspect of the image, the muted color background to make them even more prominent... I can't even complain about how much space the logo takes up at the top of the page because it gives the image the nearest equivalent of a widescreen view for a vertical cover.

Tales To Astonish #s 8, 27, & 29 covers by Jack Kirby (1960, 1962)

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