Frankenstein's Treasure (King Kirby 064)

It may or may not be readily apparent, but the King Kirby 100 is not a project that was prepared ahead of time. I gathered together tons of Jack Kirby material, set up access with some comic libraries, and lined up all the resources at my disposal. That kept me fairly busy until the last few days of July. Then the reading began... 
I'm don't know how many pages of Jack Kirby's comics are piled for reading, but i've come to realize it's likely measured in the tens of thousands. Plus books, magazines & archives (TwoMorrows is a Kirby post of its own), fanzines...  decades worth of fanboy gathering.
It's only when going back and reading after a gap of decades that you begin to realize just how much you've forgotten. I keep swearing that some comics are completely new to me, that i must have somehow tucked it away unread until now. But there's no way that happened with so many books, and even big titles like the Fantastic Four have complete memory gaps. While in some ways annoying that the once encyclopedic memory systems have lost so much data, it's also a huge joy finding so much Kirby that's brand new to me again. Not to mention things that are actually new from the library accesses and such. I'm constantly being surprised and delighted.
Sometimes, though, i wish things would pop up to surprise just a couple days earlier. You may recall that in Son Of Mobster Monday, i found Jack Kirby showing up to transcribe "Red Hot" Blaze's tale into comic format in Treasure Comics #10. It was basically a six page advertisement for Headline Comics where Simon & Kirby regularly created Blaze's stories. This morning as while reading through the piles, this turned up:

WTF? Why is this in my Kirby pile? Did he do some deranged comedy now completely forgotten? Some dark parody?
Nope - it's another 6 page ad for Headline Comics, with Jack Kirby drawing Jack Kirby again while "Red Hot" relates the details for him to draw the story. Meta wasn't a word back then. For reference on him, and just because we haven't seen her yet, here's a photo of Jack & Roz a few years before this tale:

Now here's "Red Hot"'s TRUE Crime Never Pays story:

I'm left to wonder... Are there more?
You can be sure i'll be hunting as i dig, and i'll be sure to let you know.

Another wonder... Has anyone compiled a compendium of appearances of Jack Kirby in comics? With a sub-listing of appearances of Jack Kirby drawn by Jack Kirby, preferably.
Hmm...

Justice Finds A Cop Killer drawn by Jack Kirby for Frankenstein Comics #7 (1947)

Reality Comics (King Kirby 057)

I talked a bit last month about some of the reality hopping/bending adventures at DC comics where-in the creators of the comics in Earth Prime would

cross over to interact with their characters on Earth One (or Two or ... well, it used to be infinite). It was all strange world-bending fun.

Over at Marvel comics, they didn't have the same constraints. Superman lived in Metropolis. Batman in Gotham City. Flash in Central City. And so it goes with their roster of heroes.

But the Fantastic Four - Spider-Man - Doctor Strange - DareDevil - The Avengers ...  they all operated out of New York City, right here in the 'real' world. Marvel comics, of course, are published in New York City. Which can lead to that weird little blurb on the cover of Fantastic Four #10. And, inside the comic, after a few pages of character interaction with the First Family of Marvel Comics...

The FF need that licensing fee, so Reed changes to some civvies and heads over to the Marvel offices...

Last we had seen the bad Doctor, he was flying off uncontrollably into deep space. He explains that he encountered technologically advanced beings, learning much from them, even body transference that they use to forestall death. Now he has returned to Earth, augmented by greater-than-ever technology...

Reed tries to explain to the others, but Victor is ready for that...

The team each share their fantasies of how to deal with "Doom," but Victor's got his own plans, of course.

Now that he's secured the real Mr. Fantastic - how to deal with the rest of the team?  As always, he's got a plan. A whacky plan, but a plan. Let's let him explain it:

The team flips for this news, and they head off to chill while "Reed" gets things ready.
However, the real Reed manages to escape and tries to reach Alicia Masters hoping she can perceive the truth about his situation. Alicia isn't alone, however...

They take "Doom" back to the Baxter Building to get "Reed's" advice...

...which leads to a solution heavily steeped in that crazy Silver Age comic book science:

 Yup. Right through walls and everything.

And so, once again, Doctor Doom is lost to his seeming... Doom?
Until the next time he walks into the Marvel offices, likely to demand a cut of the money generated by his appearances in their books.

our comics is real comics from Fantastic Four #10 (1963)

Sunday Morning Funnies (King Kirby 048)

The worst thing* about no newspaper these days is no Sunday morning funnies! It's Sunday morning (here), so let's have some Jack Kirby related funnies! Wow! I really seem to be excited about that.
Way back in the first issue of FOOM, Marvel's members only fanzine, they ran a star studded parody of the Fantastic Four:

The following month, the quartet returned to play with another familiar Kirby character:

That was the last we saw from the Frantic Four on the parody front. But soon, another would step up. You may remember Charley Parker from The Origin Of King Kirby which we pulled from FOOM #11. In FOOM #4, this ominously appeared:

It wasn't until issue #8 that the Doctor made his true debut:

Dr. FOOM returned in #9...

...and in #10, we got not only Dr. FOOM And Captain Applepie, but the Eggsmen, too:

The following issue was the big Kirby Returns celebration with the Origin story we already looked at. After that, i never saw Charley Parker again that i recall. I wonder where he went? A mystery for another day...

Meanwhile, here's the grooviest parody of a Kirby character that i remember coming out of FOOM:

My favorite Kirby comedy comics, however, are of a decidedly different vein. And both come from the same person, Roger Langridge -

I wonder if he's done more?

To wrap up our Sunday Morning Funnies, let's go back to Marvel.  After Not Brand Echh went under, Marvel eventually realized that they were competing against black & white newstand magazines, so maybe they should try that instead - and so Crazy was born. (Crazy was the next synonym on the list after Mad and Cracked, you see) In #82 in '82, Jack Kirby parodied by Jack Kirby, with poor Mark Bilgrey begging the man not to take revenge upon him:

various comics by Roy Thomas, Len Brown, Gil Kane, Wally Wood, Charley Parker, Roger Langridge, Marc Bilgrey, and Jack Kirby with Steve Ditko(sweet!) from FOOM #s 1,2,4,8,9, & 10, Internet, and Crazy #82 (1973-5,????,1982)

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*(Y'know - aside from that whole collapse of local news and absorption into conglomerate structures undermining basic functions needed for the survival of a healthy republic, leading to the diminishment and eventual destruction of a free society thing.)

Young Kurtzberg - easy read version (King Kirby 041)

If you didn't read the previous post (King Kirby 040), you might wish to do so before reading this one. The interviews with Jack Kirby give background and perspective to this strip which was drawn back in 1983, and eventually published in Argosy #2 in 1990. The Kirby Museum lists this as being an 8 page story. I guess they skipped the two-page spread that brings the page count up to 10, as you can see here:

Street Code by Jack Kirby for Argosy magazine (1990)