Fantastic Features (King Kirby 047)

I've mentioned how Marvel's early efforts to build a fan base included regularly featuring pin-up pages in their comics. I don't know what the general reaction was to these, but we loved them in our little group. Jack Kirby posters for our walls? How could people not love them!  And since this was back in the days before copiers - not even black & white xeroxes were available to the average person - we cut those pages out  and hung 'em on the wall. Sometimes we'd buy extra copies, but we'd cut them up, too. Eventually, i took to tracing - and then drawing - my own posters, thus sparing a few comics from the blade.

The Annuals were a great place for them in the first few years. After that, they'd built up enough history to start running reprints instead of new feature pages and the pin-ups went away. Of course, that's probably around the time they started selling posters. Purely coincidence, surely.
We already looked at the pin-ups of Marvel's First Family that ran in issues 3, 4, 5, & 10 of the Fantastic Four - let's look at a few more so you can see why we destroyed so many comics in those days.
 While Ben got the first mini-poster, Johnny was most popular, getting three more after his debut pin-up. So popular, in fact, that he had three posters before Sue got her first:

At least by the time the 2nd Annual came out, Sue had moved up to 2nd billing with her page. As with Ben, this was her only other solo pin-up:

Reed scored second in popularity, with two more after his debut poster:

Sue's other boyfriend got a poster, too:

And while Ben only got one more, Alicia got one, too:

Of course, they all got together for a Family Portrait:

And there were Special Feature pages:

Even the Villains got their own pin-ups:

So many comics destroyed...

all art by Jack Kirby from Fantastic Four #s 8, 9, 11, 15, 16, and Annuals #s 1 & 2 (1962-1964)

Branding Kirby (King Kirby 038)

As we saw earlier today, Jack Kirby did cartoon parody art, too. One of the first places those who know that side of The King might think that ad we looked at came from Not Brand Echh!. Others might now be going Not Brand Wha-? To explain:
Back in the 1960s, Mad Magazine forged a market for a slew of comedy/parody comic magazines. (Cracked.com readers might be interested to know it used to be a cheap imitation print magazine that we didn't read back before the internet gave them new life) Marvel Comics, always eager to fill as much shelf space as possible ever since they got out of that distribution deal with National Periodicals, decided they needed a comedy parody book. For a fair bit they'd been calling the competition Brand Echh, and so a new title was born - Brand Echh! August 1967 Marvel titles like the Fantastic Four ran full page ads featuring the cover of the first issue, and it was proudly proclaimed in the top bulletion of the BBP that month:

Notice that it's called "Brand Echh!" while i referred above to "Not Brand Echh!" That's the fault of their title slogan on the cover...

Who says a comic book has to be good??
not Brand Echh
And everybody ignored the line at the top as intro and called the book Not Brand Echh. Take a look at the contents page for the first issue:

Note that it is listed as Brand Echh in the indicia at the bottom of the page. By issue #5, they gave up and changed it to Not Brand Echh (Possibly in issue #4. I don't have that issue)
For younger readers, PG is an abbreviation for 'page', not a movie rating. The ratings board wouldn't change the designation from M to PG for another 3 years at this point.
Of course, to lead off a parody of Marvel comics, you pretty much have to do a parody of Marvel's First Family, the book that embodies Marvel comics - the Fantastic Four. But who are you going to get to parody Jack Kirby? Well, Jack Kirby, of course. They brought in Frank Giacoia to ink Kirby's pencils and give them a different feel than Joe Sinnott's work over on the FF's home book, and - Presto!:

But, no - Comet Feldmeyer isn't from Not Brand Echh.

Cover & story art by Jack Kirby & Frank Giacoia for Not) Brand Echh! #1 (1967)

Best of Marvel's Best? (King Kirby 035)

I thought i'd try to pick out Jack Kirby's 10 best covers for his epic run on The Fantastic Four, Marvel's flagship title. I limited it to just the first 100 issues, no annuals, king-size specials, etc.,.

I've managed to narrow it down to about 30 so far. I don't know if narrowing it to ten is going to be possible for me. So, new idea! Here's an overview of all 100 for you to peruse and see if you can decide before i do.

 Some of the covers aren't in the best shape. I had to go with what i had on hand. As always, click for a closer view.
Meanwhile - I'll keep trying to narrow down my selection. Maybe it'll wind up being a Top 20 instead.

100 Covers by Jack Kirby for Fantastic Four #s 1-100 (1961-1970)

PinUps, not PinUps (King Kirby 032)

In the early days of Marvel Comics, they did a lot of little things to try to build an kind of club-house atmosphere, including a variety of feature pages, one of which was having Jack Kirby draw mini-posters of some of his characters.

Right from the second issue of the Fantastic Four they started a series of full-page pinups featuring each of the team so you could cut your comic up and hang it on the wall.  And we did. We tore out pages, cut out trading stamps, filled in puzzles and generally savaged so many comics while reading them to scraps. (Psst! Hey! Collectors! That's why those old comics are worth so much money. All these new #1 events you're investing in? Good luck with that.)

Anyway, let's look at those PinUps of each of our team:

Fantastic Four #2:

Fantastic Four #3:

Fantastic Four #4:

Fantastic Four #5:

...

Fantastic Four #6:

...?...

Fantastic Four #7:

???

Fantastic Four #8:

...hello?...

Fantastic Four #9:

...you still there?

Fantastic Four #10:

Damn. The Man sure was harsh to Sue and Jean back in the day...

Fantastic Four PinUps drawn by Jack Kirby for Fantastic Four #s 2, 3, 4, & 10 (1962)

King of Creations (King Kirby 027)

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)