King Kirby 101

Got knocked down with dental infection and abscessed tooth for the holiday weekend, so wasn't able to prepare this planned final post on Saturday as planned. But, we're here now thanks to the miracle of Clyndamycin Hydrochloride and Hydrocodone.

If you're a Jack Kirby collector, there's a magazine named for you. The most useful reference for the King Kirby 100 comes from the same people. If you're not already familiar with TwoMorrows publishing, you'll definitely want to visit their site. For comics collecting in general, they're great. For Jack Kirby fans, they're uniquely unparalleled. For almost a quarter century, since the year we lost The King, they've published  the Jack Kirby Collector magazine. It's packed with Kirby features, art, interviews, essays, strips, and surprises on a constant basis. Assuming the site layout hasn't changed by the time you're reading this, here's a direct jump to the magazine.
And then there's this beauty:

If you're looking to collect Kirby, this Jack Kirby Checklist not only lists what comics he worked on, but also indicates which covers, stories, features, etc.,. It denotes when Jack is writing, it lists & cross-references reprints and other related appearances. Here - take a look at the basic entry Key:

There are appendixes with listings of other works by and about Kirby in other media. There are historical annotations to individual issues/stories. They even attempt to index all of Jack's unpublished work.
If you're hunting Jack Kirby, this is your treasure map.

If you're a Kirby Fan and not already familiar with it, there's a Jack Kirby Museum. It's a small organization, but quite dedicated to archiving the history of King Kirby, and are a good way to track ongoing events, such as the recent New York show for Jack's birthday. The site also hosts a few Jack Kirby blogs focusing on different aspects of his career and influence. Being a small organization means they are generally in constant need of funding. That means that you can find new and unique Kirby merchandise offered up for your support. So even if you don't want to study Kirby's effect on modern comics, you still might want to direct a little attention their way.

If you're looking to go hunting through old golden age comics to find your own Kirby treasures, there are a couple of digital archives on the web that may be of interest to you. Comic Book Plus and The Digital Comic Museum. Both archive and index public domain comics with free access to any who register. There are also the un-curated wilds of the Internet Archive, which is a general knowledge pool in which the comics are a small splash. On the other hand, they also archive things like old half-dime pre-pulps from the 19th century, so the digging can pay off nicely if you're interests are eclectic enough.

To close things out, and - for those not really aware - give an idea of the impact that The King had upon the comics industry as a whole, let's go back 21 years to 1986. Amazing Heroes magazine was having their 100th issue and decided to dedicate the entire issue to Jack, creating the first King Kirby 100. They asked industry pros for their thoughts on Kirby, and these next 17 pages are only a part of the response:

(For anyone seeking to track information in that last credits box, 22 was the number of the first page in this sequence.)

We may have lost Jack, but he's still with us, shaping influencing and shaping our dreams through his influence on others. And as we move into the future, he'll be waiting for us there, too.

Jack Kirby Tribute pages from Amazing Heroes #100 (1986), Captain America pin-up by Jack Kirby for Marvel Treasury Special #1 (1976)

Tooth Be Told...

Finally have some real pain killers and, perhaps more importantly, antibiotics in system and should be much more functional before too long. Perhaps we'll even have a more substantial post later in the day.
But, for now, still in pain and exhausted from the trek into town, and across, and back again so this is being prepped before the crash.
I need a superhero. But who could a poor dental victim call upon?

Okay - forget the superhero idea. My tooth hurts even more just thinking about chewing.
Here's a couple representative visuals - Toothless and Toothache Nights:

Captain Tootsie by Bill Schreiber from Mystery In Space #1 (1951), Toothless and Toothache Nights by -3-

Revenge Of The Tooth

Still only marginally functional with half face swollen. So here's some quickies from the sort bin.

Toothache feels like it was drawn by Sienkiewicz (this only works if you know what Asterix typically looks like):

From Buster Crabbe #1's back cover, Frazetta helps stave off juvenile delinquency in 1951:

FOOM #19 had a wrap cover featuring the Defenders. Could you have picked which two would wind up (in hero identity) in the TV version?

This is actually a little old now.

Okay, into the cue and off to severely self medicate.

Blue Monday - Bonus Wood

There was no Blue Monday last week, in honor of Jack Kirby's birthday. So here's an extra installment today in partial recompense. Continuing with out Wally Wood theme today, let's go back to the first two issues of National Screw Magazine. We saw previously that the first four issues debuted an exclusive new strip from Wood - Malice In Wonderland. While this has been reprinted quite a few times, it's usually in black and white. So here's the first half from their original run in National Screw:

NOTE: The images from this post contain nudity, and thus have been moved to our back room for adult content. The text remains that you may make a fair guess as to whether or not you wish to look at the first two chapters (4 pages each) of Wally Wood's Odd classic.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive of the original post to view the artwork.

As the caption said - Continued...

Malice In Wonderland by Wally Wood for National Screw #s 1 & 2 (1976)

Blue Tooth

Bad toothache erupted. Minimal post for

Today, Wally Wood mimics Al Capp to show us a secret bit of L'il Abner & Daisy's story...


NOTE: The images from this post contain nudity, and thus have been moved to our back room for adult content. The text remains that you may make a fair guess as to whether or not you wish to look at the pics.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive of the original post to view the artwork.



That bit of hidden history comes courtesy of Wally Wood's Gang Bang #1:


Okay - I'm going to go play with some string and a doorknob. I'll leave you with another quick bit of Wood:

Lil An' Abner by Wally Wood for Gang Bang #1 (1980), Man Of Steel, Woman Of Stone from Gang Bang #3 (1981)

The Woman Is A Wonder, But...

Now that Wonder Woman's coming out for home video, it seems like a good time to talk about the movie, and my problems with it.

With that introduction, let me first say that i very much enjoyed the movie. It's far and away the best DCEU offering to date. I'm not saying it's a bad movie - it's quite enjoyable. And you probably already know all the reasons it's a good movie. I'm assuming you've seen it by the time you read this, because i'm not concerned with spoilers here. (Though they're actually pretty minimal.)

My first problems with the movie turn out to not be Hollywood problems, but actually recent changes from the comic book itself. And this one's just a minor annoyance.
Making Diana a "god"? She wasn't uniquely special enough before? You have to give her new labels that don't really mean much of anything other than how small is the writer's perceptions of what constitutes a god. That's a common trend in modern comics. Go back to guys like Steve Englehart, and you'll see him trying to lift the readers up to see big concepts. These days, they try to make big concepts small and drag them down to us.

The second is a bigger issue, but no surprise when i learned it was instituted by the current DC comics crew - they changed things so now Diana's powers are derived from a Man. Originally, she was empowered by Hera, Aphrodite, and the other goddesses. Nope. That's no good. We need Zeus so a man gives her power.
This is tragically typical of the sort of thinking i see from them the duds at DC these days.

So, on to the problems that can be pinned on the movie itself...
The first is simply the colour pallette. This was likely imposed by the WB/DC powers as part of the dark Elseworlds they're basing their movie universe upon. It's funny that with all the worship of the first Christopher Reeves Superman movie, they totally miss the genius use of colours. Throughout the film, we never see primary red, blue or yellow until Superman's costume appears on screen. The subtle impact of that is a profound unconcious reaction making him even more larger than life and iconic.
But, that only works for Heroes seeking to inspire, to be symbols of hope or justice. The people currently in charge are not fond of the hero concept. And so we wind up with a Diana who wears brighter red in her civilian outfits than her battle armor. The modern DC superhero costumes have colours only grudgingly, out of obligation. They'd rather have black military garb, it seems.

The next one is a bigger problem, and one that is way too common is superhero adaptations.
Wonder Woman is one of the most powerful individuals in the DC universe. She can slug it out with Superman, throw tanks, fly, etc., She's backed by the power of the gods, and can call upon an array of magickal artifacts for greater power when needed. She's Awesome!
But Hollywood writers typically either think that our heroes are weak, or the writers themselves are too weak in imagination/talent to find a victory for the hero in the story they've written. So they create a new power specifically to resolve the confrontation. This is a big, and common, problem with movie adaptations. Even that revered Superman movie gave him the power to alter time for their climax. Readers know that's beyond him - he's not a god. He's tried repeatedly to alter the past, but Time & Reality are not his to play with. (Unless, y'know, he got his mitts on the Infinity Gauntlet or something)
Seriously - these are characters who generate complaints because they're too powerful to write good stories about, and yet they keep having to make up new powers for them? And not just "Oops, we ran out of money - give him repair-the-Great-Wall-of-China-vision".
At best, it's lazy writing. At worst, it's contempt for the character.
Just Stop It!

The last one is the biggest, and is highly indicative of how far our society has fallen in this century.
The transformation of Wonder Woman's lasso into a torture device. It no longer magically compels one to speak the truth, it now painfully forces the truth from the victim, torturing them until they speak.

Just like Nazi & Soviet "heroes" would have done.

Saturday Solutions (No Really)

I realize that there was no puzzle in yesterday's Friday Fun & Games, but extra time was given for last week's puzzle.
So here's the answer matrix for the

Random Thought on DCEUpid Design Theory

I'm trying to imagine the design meeting for this costume...

"Oh! I know! We can cover his costume in all kinds of little crap that will cause lots of drag when he moves at speed. That way his outfit will constantly be flying apart when he runs. 

That'll look so cool!"

Coming soon - Flasher Flash.

pity poor Ezra Miller in this 3rd rate Flash Costume from Justice League

Friday Fun & Games - Coloring Kirby

We're going real simple this time - no puzzles, just fun. In the wake of the King Kirby 100, seeing as adult coloring books are enjoying some popularity, here's a collection of a half dozen Jack Kirby drawings to enjoy colouring yourself::

Bonus! this great BullsEye image has some grey tones, so it didn't make the cut for the six used. But, if you're colouring on computer, just colour beneath the layer and use the tone. (If that makes no sense, ask.)

all art by Jack Kirby (& friends)