As Usual, Jack Was There Before Us

I'm awake! First time i've gotten more than 2-3 hours of sleep in a single block in weeks. Kinda forgot what that was like.
 Others are busy not forgetting.

A lot of folks in this country (the USA) got their first introduction to Guy Fawkes, or "Guy Fox" as many seem to believe, in the movie V For Vendetta. And most of those folks don't seem to realize that he was an actual person from history, and one of your more bizarre holidays.

Fortunately, Jack Kirby is here to educate as well as entertain. Let's jump back almost 75 years to Headline Comics #23 and Jack & Joe Simon will learn ya some -

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The gunpowder treason and plot...

page art by Simon & Kirby from Headline Comics #23 (1947)

Can Termites Be Romantic?

I like to say that Jack Kirby is the reason that this blog's lifespan is measured in years instead of weeks, but that seems kind of like laying blame. He might have been the reason, but it's not his fault.

You see, i started this blog in late July, and then a few days later i realized that The King's 100th birthday was just a month later in late August. That realization begat the King Kirby 100 - 100 (+2) post on Jack Kirby in his centennial month. That period of intense posting kind of ingrained this blog in the patterns of my life. 

Another, unintentional, result was that we don't do Jack very often. In no small part because it's sometimes very hard to sort out what i've already done.

Tomorrow, August 28th, is Jack's birthday - so let's work on rectifying that a bit and have a King Kirby Weekend, eh? And since Jack is about the only one who saw and predicted comics dominating the movies the way they do these days (when we actually have movies, that is), let's do it Hollywood style and start the weekend early for the extra numbers. (Of course, i'm just talking Number Of Posts, not them yummy box office dollars) And let's try to lean into some of what might be termed Odder works - or, at least less familiar and expected.

Now, you might not know it, but Swifty Chase is known for his unique automobiles. But i think i prefer the one he built for that "romantic termite" House-Date Harry. Here's Jack & Joe Simon to tell you all about it -

Here's the cover for the tale -
 

Swifty starred in the four issues of My Date Comics that were published, and Harry got one short tale of his own. Odds are good we'll catch a bit more with them this weekend.

page art by Simon & Kirby from My Date Comics #3 (1947)

Thunder Fun With Jack & Dick

Man, i hope whoever decided to "upgrade" Blogger to justify their job loses that job in a very loud way that discourages others from continuing this vile practice.

I say that because it's been about 45 minutes of struggle to get all of today's pics to upload. And that's becoming quite frequent and likely to start leading to skip days or time off from blogging.

...

Okay, let's try to get the mind back around to where it was an hour ago. I had a good intro in my head, but it seems to have gotten tired of the wait and gone walkies.

Didja know that Dick Briefer inked Jack Kirby? They did four stories together, including the first time that Kirby had a Thunder God up against the aliens from Saturn, decades before Journey Into Mystery's debut of Thor.

Of course, it was different Saturnians...

...and a different Thunder-God...
 

...not to mention a different art style since they were working in C.C. Beck's playground.

As you may have noted over time, i generally prefer not to work with reprints. For today's tale, we have little choice in the matter. I've never seen an intact copy of the original comic. On the plus side, i didn't have to do any de-aging today.

From 64 Pages Of New Captain Marvel Adventures (seriously, that's the title of the book from 1941) here's The Monsters Of Saturn...
 

One of the reasons i tend to disfavour the reprints is the colours often come across as garishly not right. In part, that comes from working with much whiter/brighter paper and from changing aesthetics. 

If you perceive things the same way, you can fix it for yourself. Here's the story with just the line work so you can colour to your own preferences -
 

And, bonus - something to keep busy if you need it.

page art by Jack Kirby and Dick Briefer from 64 Pages Of New Captain Marvel Adventures #1 (nn) (1941)