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Post by berkley2 on Dec 25, 2021 21:03:27 GMT -5
I like Hunger Dogs and find it fascinating asa glimpse of how the 1980s Kirby viewed the New Gods concept, though as Codystarbuck and Prof mentioned it seems unclear how close the published version was to what Kirby intended at the time.
And even putting that question aside, I still see it as a kind of alternative ending, not necessarily where it was headed when the original series were cancelled in the mid-70s.
Still, it is Kirby writing the New Gods and thus indispensible reading for anyone interested in that story concept,IMO. I find it full of thought-provoking ideas and new perspectives on the original. As an aside, I almost included Bekka and Orion in my 12 Days this year.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 25, 2021 21:48:18 GMT -5
I bought all 4 volumes of the Fourth World Omnibus editions DC put out around 2012 (collecting all the original 70's issues of Jimmy Olsen, The Forever People, The New Gods and Mister Miracle), and read them all from start to finish. While I was aware of the characters from later appearances, I had never read the original titles.
I think it was an enjoyable way to read them (I remember it kind of just "hitting the right spot", some issues more than others), and I've been meaning to go back at some point and revisit. The characters are not overall my favorites, but I've always liked and appreciated Kirby's imagination and what he was striving for here.
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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 25, 2021 21:57:02 GMT -5
Unfinished because they didn't let him. Anyway, what does finish mean to an ongoing title. Did the FF or Superman finish? They left all the runs except Mr. Miracle on a cliffhanger, If I Remember correctly.
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Post by commond on Dec 25, 2021 22:18:29 GMT -5
Unfinished because they didn't let him. Anyway, what does finish mean to an ongoing title. Did the FF or Superman finish? Did any of the titles that Kirby created in the 70s continue as an ongoing series? They all seemed to get cancelled. It wasn't as though Kirby finished up his run on a book and moved onto something else. Everything starts with a hiss and roar and then abruptly ends. As a modern reader, I find it frustrating. I can appreciate the art and the concepts, but it's hard at times to consider them as great stories given how prematurely they end. I guess, in my mind, I look on Kirby's 70s work as creator work that should have a definitive end, and not an attempt at starting a new series for the newstands. They should have been mini-series or graphic novels, but Kirby was about 10 years ahead of the curve. At the same time, Kirby was out of favor at the time with younger readers, and I suppose that is the harsh reality of his 70s output. To put a positive spin on this, I have always loved his character designs for the Fourth World. Everyone looks great. I discovered the characters through Justice League International, and was a big fan of them straight away.
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Post by kirby101 on Dec 25, 2021 23:22:07 GMT -5
I read the Hunger Dogs, and while it was an ending for Kirby of sorts. I see commond is just talking about his reaction to the books, not a criticism of Kirby per se. I just finished The Eternals, and you could see that Kirby was going for a long term story, he was not going to resolve the Celestial saga in the short term. It was going to be how they affect the races on Earth. It would have been great if he could have seen his vision through.
And commond, Mr. Miracle lasted 7 more issues.
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Post by Duragizer on Dec 25, 2021 23:36:18 GMT -5
Unfinished because they didn't let him. Anyway, what does finish mean to an ongoing title. Did the FF or Superman finish? Arguably, they should've. A lot my dissatisfaction with Big Two comics stems from their open-ended nature, and I imagine I'm not the only one who feels the same.
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Post by Cei-U! on Dec 26, 2021 8:53:05 GMT -5
Unfinished because they didn't let him. Anyway, what does finish mean to an ongoing title. Did the FF or Superman finish? Did any of the titles that Kirby created in the 70s continue as an ongoing series? They all seemed to get cancelled. It wasn't as though Kirby finished up his run on a book and moved onto something else. Everything starts with a hiss and roar and then abruptly ends. As a modern reader, I find it frustrating. I can appreciate the art and the concepts, but it's hard at times to consider them as great stories given how prematurely they end. I guess, in my mind, I look on Kirby's 70s work as creator work that should have a definitive end, and not an attempt at starting a new series for the newstands. They should have been mini-series or graphic novels, but Kirby was about 10 years ahead of the curve. At the same time, Kirby was out of favor at the time with younger readers, and I suppose that is the harsh reality of his 70s output. To put a positive spin on this, I have always loved his character designs for the Fourth World. Everyone looks great. I discovered the characters through Justice League International, and was a big fan of them straight away. I'm not convinced that "Kirby was out of favor with younger readers." I think it was more a case of his being out of favor with the new generation of fans-turned-pros, especially those in editorial positions. They saw Kirby as a dinosaur out of touch with the hardcore fans they wanted to court rather than the casual buyers, especially kids, who didn't religiously follow every issue of every title. There were efforts to deliberately sabotage Jack's titles at Marvel (by, among other things, printing negative mail in the letters pages even though the mail was actually overwhelmingly positive). It was shameful.
Cei-U! I summon the bum rap!
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Post by kirby101 on Dec 26, 2021 10:07:04 GMT -5
When you look up "Shameful" in the dictionary, it says "See: Treatment of Jack Kirby."
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 26, 2021 12:57:55 GMT -5
His 70s titles that he originated were all ended; but he did work on regular series that continued. Jimmy Olsen was folded in with Lois Lane, to become Superman Family. The Losers continued in Our Fighting Forces, for a while. Captain America picked up and moved on.
Mister Miracle lasted the longest of the 4th World, since it was the most superhero and Kirby sort of resolved the 4th World aspect and then had Scott dealing with supernatural or pseudo-supernatural mysteries, since that subject was selling well. However, Kirby's heart wasn't in it anymore. His remaining DC work was mostly filling his page quota, as stipulated in his contract. That's why you get the issues of First Issue Special and stuff like Justice, Inc. Once the contract was up, Kirby was gone, only to return to Marvel and be treated even worse. He put up for that as long as necessary and then went to work in animation, where he was treated with respect.
Regardless of the duration of the series he originated, it didn't take long for either DC or Marvel to reuse the concepts and return to them frequently. The result was usually less than Jack's run. Gerry Conway, despite very nice art from Don Newton, couldn't touch the splendor or epic feel of Jack's New Gods. Englehart and Rogers did a nice job on Mister Miracle, but then they left and the title floundered, as Steve Gerber went a different direction.
Mister Miracle at least got to end, the first time, with the wedding of Scott and Barda, which was a sort of finish, though Kirby kind of gave them an ending, when they were on Apokolips and lead a rebellion of the Female Furies and escaped from the Id monster. That was followed by the complete story of how Scott escaped from Apokolips, originally. From there, the book went into the new focus.
The problem with Hunger Dogs and the 4th World, in general, was that Kirby was improvising the story as he went. He had concepts and ideas and an ending in mind (the battle between Orion and Darkseid is a part of it); but, he often went in different directions as he drew the books. Mark Evanier has mentioned how Jack would tell him the story for the next issue and then the completed pages would have a completely different story. Jack was a jazz artist, improvising riffs and flourishes as he went, rather than a strict composer, laying it all out and following the structure to the end.
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Post by kirby101 on Dec 26, 2021 13:41:37 GMT -5
Maybe Kirby wasn't as enthused after they cancelled the Fourth World. But his work on Kamandi and The Demon was just as good, and his writing had gotten better.
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 26, 2021 15:24:55 GMT -5
Maybe Kirby wasn't as enthused after they cancelled the Fourth World. But his work on Kamandi and The Demon was just as good, and his writing had gotten better. No, those books he was putting a lot into, as well as OMAC. Jack was a pro and put everything into all of his projects; but, you could kind of tell where his head lay, by how imaginative the plots were. For instance, the Manhunter story, in First Issue Special, could have been an average Simon & Kirby story from the 50s. Jack pretty well stuck to basics on it. Dingbats of Danger Street was the same basic kid gang stuff, though played solely for laughs (and I think there is some funny stuff in there). Losers was Jack telling readers what war was really like, sometimes directly, sometimes in the abstract. Justice, Inc was old fashioned pulp adventure. Kamandi, Demon and OMAC are filled with the wild ideas, concepts and philosophy that was present in the 4th World, in different forms and percentages. You could tell those stories and characters inspired him more than Atlas.
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Post by kirby101 on Dec 26, 2021 15:50:15 GMT -5
I agree cody, those non series stories were very run of the mill. Though I did think Toxl was a nice little tale. Though that one was done for Spirit World #2, which never happened.
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Post by tarkintino on Dec 26, 2021 16:30:25 GMT -5
They should have been mini-series or graphic novels, but Kirby was about 10 years ahead of the curve. Actually, one-and-done comic stories printed in other formats were already in existence, such as Kane's Blackmark novel (1971), and works in other formats. Perhaps Kirby going the monthly route was due to that being where the heart of the comic readership was--that, plus the backing of a major publisher he already had an established reputation with could have sealed the deal.
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Post by kirby101 on Dec 26, 2021 17:26:58 GMT -5
Kane's Blackmark and Man Called Savage were commercial failures, mainly do to the big publishers squashing their distribution. No way Kirby would go out on his own. He learned not to mess with that from his Mainline company. It probably wasn't until Contract with God that independent Graphic Novels became viable. And that coincided with the Direct Market. In 1970, no way.
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Post by commond on Dec 26, 2021 17:50:53 GMT -5
Did any of the titles that Kirby created in the 70s continue as an ongoing series? They all seemed to get cancelled. It wasn't as though Kirby finished up his run on a book and moved onto something else. Everything starts with a hiss and roar and then abruptly ends. As a modern reader, I find it frustrating. I can appreciate the art and the concepts, but it's hard at times to consider them as great stories given how prematurely they end. I guess, in my mind, I look on Kirby's 70s work as creator work that should have a definitive end, and not an attempt at starting a new series for the newstands. They should have been mini-series or graphic novels, but Kirby was about 10 years ahead of the curve. At the same time, Kirby was out of favor at the time with younger readers, and I suppose that is the harsh reality of his 70s output. To put a positive spin on this, I have always loved his character designs for the Fourth World. Everyone looks great. I discovered the characters through Justice League International, and was a big fan of them straight away. I'm not convinced that "Kirby was out of favor with younger readers." I think it was more a case of his being out of favor with the new generation of fans-turned-pros, especially those in editorial positions. They saw Kirby as a dinosaur out of touch with the hardcore fans they wanted to court rather than the casual buyers, especially kids, who didn't religiously follow every issue of every title. There were efforts to deliberately sabotage Jack's titles at Marvel (by, among other things, printing negative mail in the letters pages even though the mail was actually overwhelmingly positive). It was shameful.
Cei-U! I summon the bum rap!
I've heard that the knock on Kirby was that he used such thick lines and block shapes. People used to make fun of him for drawing square fingers, etc. His style was totally different to the popular artists of the time, and a lot of newer readers didn't come to appreciate it until years later. I see that Kamandi continued for quite a while after Kirby left, but that was a project Infantino wanted him do do, so I guess that book had more editorial support. I can understand projects like OMAC fizzling out since Kirby did it to fulfill his contractual obligations. I'm speaking more out of frustration than anything else. I guess I'm used to an era where a creator driven title gets a 60 issue run.
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