Ridin' Lightnin' (King Kirby 049)

Let's continue looking at some old Jack Kirby comics. So old, in fact, that he wasn't Jack Kirby yet. At this point, he was signing Lance Kirby for the Lightnin' And The Lone Rider newspaper strip. In 1939 & 1940, Kirby's sunday comics were reprinted in Famous Funnies, starting with issue #62. They seemed pretty excited to get the strip, because in issue #61 not only did they run this full page ad on the inside front cover...

...they also ran four more ads scattered through the book:

The strip with Kirby's art ran from #s 62-65 and 72-76 with 2 pages in each, excepting 72 which had only one. Here's the complete run of Lightnin' And The Lone Rider from Famous Funnies. I'm missing issue 75, so those strips have been replaced by black & white inks that were reprinted in the Compete Jack Kirby #2.

Lance Kirby by Jack Kirby from Famous Funnies (1939,1940)

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)