Sunday Morning Super Funnies

This morning we'll be continuing to poke around in the source of last night's feature. It was 30 years ago - 1988 - and Marvel was trying to fly an old style parody book. Since pretty much every term for mental illness had already been taken by other magazines, they called it What The--?!

They tested the waters with a four issue series, and they put a fair bit of effort into those issues. The series was picked up a half year later and continued numbering from 5, but those first four stand apart from the rest - despite some very fine efforts over the following one score and two issues.

Let's take a little look -

You might have already noted one thing that set those first four issues apart from later efforts - parody by big name series creators who weren't generally known for doing comedic parody. The above piece by Peter David, Todd MacFarlane and Jim Salicrup is a good example.

A better example still - getting the big name guys to parody their own works - like this team up of John Byrne and Jerry Ordway with their parody of Superman and the Fantastic Four (& friends) -

What The--?! featured silly little bits of fun...

...and quietly brilliant slams that none dare sign...

And every now and then, they slipped in some tasty oddity that i didn't know i needed to see until they showed it to me - like one of my favorite characters, Doctor Strange, as filtered through the wonderfully warped lens of another old fave - Phil Foglio* -

pages from What The--?! #s 2 & 4 (1988)

===
*(Really? We haven't done anything on Phil Foglio yet? Not even on Blue Monday? 
Damn. So much yet...
Dear Odd, so much...)

Un-Teaser

I've come to the conclusion that we haven't run enough Un-Comics lately. (Un-Comics is what we call comics that come from sources other than comic books) Fortunately, we can do that and continue the teaser from the previous post.

Oh - before i forget, let's get this out of the way...

That'll answer questions that may arise further down the page.

So, anyway - this cool old paper i used to enjoy not only provided excellent posters, they also covered comics. In fact, occasionally the two overlapped, like with this centerfold poster -

Not only did they cover comics on a regular basis, they routinely ran their own short strips - usually two pagers. And they drew in some top talent along the way - note some of the names in the credits below - Brunner, Byrne, Starlin, and Wolfman, to name just a few...

So, the Kong pic at the top of page only kinda partially answers questions that might have arisen from the intro to The Sacrifice. Allow us to further elucidate...

Okay. I know Rip knows this old paper - how about the rest of you?
I promise - we'll actually name names next time.

comics by Dave Gibbons, John Byrne, Frank Brunner, Jim Starlin, Martin Pasko, Bruce Jones, Berni Wrightson, Greg Theakston, Marv Wolfman, David Izzo, Rich Buckler, John Simons, Steve Hickman, Gil Kane, Steve Ditko, Roacho Rizzo, Tom Armstrong, and Dez Skinn (1971ish)

Kirby Love (King Kirby 094)

Jack Kirby touched and influenced many younger artists, helping to shape and define us in some ways. So it's no surprise that you'll find artists creating works honoring The King. I showed you mine last time - let's look at some others as we celebrate Jack's 100th today.

Though it could be argued that he should be saved for the big finish, let's open with someone whose Kirby love we've seen before, Alex Ross-

We usually know him for his inks, but Joe Rubenstein captures his old friend wonderfully in pastels -

From the man who truly earned the name Big John when he stepped into Kirby's shoes to take of the Fantastic Four, John Buscema-

We've previously seen John Byrne & Joe Sinnott's collaborative tribute to The King from FOOM, so here's Joe's solo tribute-

 ...and John Byrne's centerfold from that same issue of FOOM, inked by Duffy Vohland-

Tom Palmer's portrait & tribute to Kirby's influence at 75-

Terry Beatty's tribute to both King and creations-

Richard A Fuscia Jr and young Kirby's creative destiny-

JF Woodward's portrait of power-

...and another look at the Power of Kirby from Luis Chichón-

Thomas Boatright tries to capture Kirby's creative energy...

Moti Friedman makes me want to see the insane animated adventures of the King -

The final page of Orbit's Jack Kirby  bio comic sums things up nicely, drawn by Paul Cox with words by John Judy-

Surprise! We did save Alex Ross for the big finish, with his new portrait of Celestial Kirby for his Jack Kirby 100th Birthday Tribute.

I hope you snagged your copy of the print at San Diego, because now the best you can do is get put on the waitlist to hope for another limited release.

This is, of course, only a small sampling of the Kirby Love offered up to the world, and today being the 100th anniversary of Jack Kirby's birth, there's bound to be many new offerings today.

 Jacky Kirby by Alex Ross, Joe Rubenstein, John Buscema, Joe Sinnott, John Byrne, Duffy Vohland, Tom Palmer, Terry Beatty, Richard A Fuscia Jr., J.F. Woodward, Luis Chichón, Thomas Boatright, Moti Friedman, Paul Cox & John Judy