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.)

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)

Saturday Solutions 003 - Whozit Inkers (King Kirby 046)

Here's the long awaited (24 whole hours!) answers to yesterdays Friday Fun & Games Whozit Inkers puzzle:

This week's quiz was assembled from a look at the evolution of Ben Grimm's look in Jack Kirby Collector #60:

images from Jack Kirby Collector #60 (2013)

Saturday Morning Toons (King Kirby 045)

Jack Kirby ruled action comics with his dynamics and mastery of capturing energy on the static page.
Much as he was known for superhero adventures, he also spent time doing light comedy & cartoon books. For our Saturday Morning Toons, let's take a look at some of his work on Punch & Judy Comics in the late 40s.
His first published work in P&J was a simple one-pager:

I did a double-take when first seeing Lockjaw the Alligator. I thought Clonezone the Hilariator had gone time traveling...

Another of the funny animal strips in the old Punch & Judy comics was Earl, The Rich Rabbit (not Eat The Rich Rabbit...  man, my mind was sliding when looking through these old books)

Besides the funny animals, there was also an early Archie type teen comedy strip, Toby:

To wrap up, here are the covers for this mornings toons:

all page art by Jack Kirby for Punch & Judy (1945,1947)