Decades in Days... (King Kirby 025)

One fourth of the way through the King Kirby 100, and a question has begun to plague the back of my mind. Jack Kirby's work was spread over 6 decades, perhaps for very good reason. Reading through so much in such a short time... The Question rises up...

How

Much

Kirby

Can

The

Human

Mind

Withstand

Before...

Mindstorm triggered by Jack Kirby, mostly from 2001: A Space Odyssey with a touch of Forever, People

Crossing Boundaries (King Kirby 024)

Jack Kirby was, of course, a master of classic comic form horror stories, having spent many years creating them. By their very nature, they gave a certain freedom to let his imagination go galloping where other genres might keep things more tightly leashed. That very freedom must have held great appeal for him as an artist at times.
Let take a look at this little tale...

Now, what's this? The (disrespectfully named) Losers? Yup. Jack's decided to go classic horror story in the middle of the horrors of war.

It's a classic tale of an officer who lost all his men in an ancient temple seeking to redeem himself. The team makes their way to the temple, barely skirting Japanese troops along the way. The Major's tensions build until, as they're hiding from enemy troops above the temple, he freaks out and breaks away as the fighting erupts, and finds himself cut off and alone after the explosions...

I enjoyed being caught by surprise when opening up what was expected to be rather more generic war comics. The cover only kinda-sorta tangentially refers to them being underground in the temple. That's about as close as it comes to giving any clue to what happens in the book.

Though we've focused only on the horror story aspects of the tale here, The King mixes the genres effortlessly and probably had fun running free outside the typical war story constraints. It certainly had to be more fun than revisiting his old war experiences for a different tale.

Unless, y'know, his war experiences were a little weirder than we suspect...

Bonus!
Since i avoided all the action in this issue, here's a two-page spread of our heroes avoiding the action in Our Fighting Forces #151 (the first issue that Jack Kirby took over the title):

The Major's Dream by Jack Kirby with D. Bruce Berry in Our Fighting Forces #161, bottom panel from #151 (1975)

Kracklin' Kirby (King Kirby 023)

I made note in the second post of the King Kirby 100 to an early proto-krackle effect Jack Kirby was using in what i believe to be Simon & Kirby's first co-credited work. That led me to wondering  about the development of his stylistic Kirby Krackle, but far too immersed in preparing the KK100 to follow through on the pondering.
Happily, the Universe loves me in its weird way, and dropped Jack Kirby Collector #33 out of sequence in my path. Lo and behold - Shane Foley has contemplated this issue, and actually had the gumption to go digging. He found that, though we saw him playing with the notion back in 1940, The King didn't really define and embrace the Kirby Krackle we know today until a quarter century later.

Let's go to the stark comparison he provided bracketing that period - these two Silver Surfer covers for the Fantastic Four, just two years apart:

From nary a trace on FF #50 to fully embracing the Krackle on FF #72. And what a dynamic difference it brings to the background. Shane further traced the evolution of Kirby's experiments as he worked out the fine details of his famous patterned dots over the course of 1966. He provides us with this nice visual chart of the progress:

Once Kirby decided to develop the effect, it took him remarkably little time to refine it and incorporate in seemingly endless ways, adding yet another layer of dynamics to his work.

Shane Foley leads us to the Krackle in Jack Kirby Collector #33 (2001)

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)

Peerless Pencil Pushing (King Kirby 021)

Let us pause and just take in the pure joy of Jack Kirby's pencils, characters and compositions when he's drawing a simple picture (or six):

Captain America, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Sandman, Stuntman, and Thor by Jack Kirby (1978)

FOOM Tube (King Kirby 020)

Let's look back once again at FOOM #11. It's 1975 and The King has returned to Marvel. For Marvel fans, there could be no better reason to rejoice.
And so issue #11 of Marvel's members-only fan magazine was dedicated to celebrating the fact that-

"Jack" Byrne, of course, is John Byrne aping Jack Kirby for this special cover, with long time Kirby embellisher Joe Sinnott on inks. We previously looked at Charley Parker's Origin Of King Kirby from this issue. This time, let's hear from Jack Kirby himself. Here's the lead interview from FOOM #11 in full page layout format to show the way they played with word balloons for the article quotes:

cover & article from FOOM #11 (1975)

Fun With Stunts (King Kirby 019)

Stuntman may not be the most recognizable Simon & Kirby creation, but damn - sure had some nice work in it at times:

That sweet center-spread comes from Thrills Of Tomorrow #19, from 1955.
Ostensibly it was a Harvey Comics release, but their presence is only felt in one advertisement and a single Harvey Comics News text page. Harvey published and distributed, but the book was an independent Simon & Kirby production in most respects. The indicia lists it as published by Witches Tales, Inc. I'm guessing that publishing name was chosen because of Black Magic's success, but that's pure conjecture with no knowledge of any sort in the matter. Just the first thing that jumped into my head when looking to see who the publisher was since that information was strangely absent from the cover. Perhaps they were trying to build different 'brands', such as A THRILL Adventure to see what stuck?

Anyway, Jack & Joe were jamming tons of fun into their work here, happily dancing that tightrope line between light-hearted and silly with the skill of their cover character. See what i mean with the rollicking conclusion to the tale above, including a right proper skull conking:

On the silly front, the character is in his 10th year here (assuming it's not a reprint) and this poor girl still hasn't figure it out. Seriously - here's the last panel from the first story in the book:

Note the mustache. That means he's doubling as the actor for whom he stunt doubles, and she doesn't realize it's him... twice.


Bonus feature! Here's the splash page for the first story in the book:

Stuntman fun by Simon & Kirby from Thrills of Tomorrow #19 (1955)

Jack Kirby on Netflix? (King Kirby 018)

You may not remember that Jack Kirby & Joe Simon pretty much invented the romance comic book, but romance comic fans certainly do. Simon & Kirby not only invented it, they ruled the genre.

As much as we remember The King for his grand larger-than-life heroes and epics, he made more money on romance comics - they bought him his house. And, if Kirby is King to action comics fans, what was he to the readers of romance comics?


A studly catch and a ticket to ride!

Patsy Walker, late of Netflix's Marvel's Jessica Jones (hair currently blonde, but back then it was red), is dreaming of being drawn by our favorite artist:

Hedy is her 'friend' and co-star in this comic. Patsy had more than one book back in those days of variety. After leaving the shop, they hear their would-be boyfriends talking...

Yes, folks - the legendary Jack Kirby is guest starring in this issue!

You're not listening, girls! He wants "typical American girls", not glamor dolls. But both rush home to primp and prep, and are soon dolled up and headed to the rail station...

Target Aquired!(?) Now the competition is ON!
 

Jack Kirby, King of Nice Guys, too.
Everybody Loves The King!

Kirby guest appearance by Stan Lee & Al Hartley in Patsy and Hedy #88 (1963)