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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2021 18:51:46 GMT -5
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'm now embarrassed to say this, but that is exactly why I wasn't into Kirby in my younger years (having started reading comics in the 70's and definitely more into the Neal Adams style of art). Eventually as I got much older, I finally "got it" and came to fully adore much of his classic material as being some of the finest ever, exactly to the point of your comment.
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 26, 2021 18:59:38 GMT -5
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. But that is more of a result of the Direct Market providing an environment where you could tailor your print run to demand and cater to a niche audience. The 4th World was done in the era of newsstand distribution, as it was going into decline, as the wheels on the economy started to come off. Comics, in general, weren't selling and other magazines were starting to disappear. Mom and Pop newsstands became scarcer as you move to the mid-70s, and space on newsstands was reserved for more profitable periodicals, which meant adult and slicker product, vs newsprint comics. The Direct Market allowed for independent publishers to reach an audience, without the Big Two using their power with distributors to keep them off stands, though they still tried to block them by flooding the market with product to take up space in comic shops. Comic shops prized comic books, so they gave comics a way to reach an audience when newsstands wouldn't carry them, or would only carry the big names. They also allowed different voices, depending in both the clientele of a shop and the ordering patterns of the owner. Many were run by DC & Marvel fanboys, who ordered anything from them and maybe a hot indie title. They might order an issue or two of a book by a name creator or something vaguely superhero. It was rarer to find one that was more open to the really alternative material, like Love & Rockets, or companies like Kitchen Sink, Fantagraphics or, later, Slave Labor Graphics. The Black & White Boom brought in a ton of new wannabe publishers and the Bust left most of them bankrupt. The Direct Market also allowed dissatisfied creators to move to new publishers, depending on their contract. Different publishers had different deals. Epic had first reprint right and first right of refusal. First Comics had long reprint rights. Eclipse had more even terms. Dark Horse had even more favorable. That environment lent itself to longer runs by creator/owners and DC and Marvel respected it more, to keep top talent happy and exclusive. However, if you look at the bulk of creator-driven comic properties, few lasted more than a couple of years, or had long interruptions, for various reasons. Self Publishing was even harder. Cerebus remained independent; but, WaRP ended up working with other companies, at different points. Bone, despite its success, spent time with Image. Some, like Hepcats, were unable to survive even after moving to a publisher, as martin Wagner had too many personal and financial issues to continue it, even at Antarctic Press. So, we were denied an ending to even the last storyline, let alone the series. Kirby was involved with the early days of the Direct Market, with Captain Victory and Silver Star; but, Pacific went belly up, due to their cash flow from the distribution side of things. The first two people signed for Pacific were Kirby and Mike Grell, soon followed by Neal Adams. Captain Victory wasn't the 4th World, though it was an extension of the concepts (just as they were an extension of what he had been doing on Thor). Kirby's age and general health affected his linework and even the DC stuff he did left people disappointed that Jack's art had lost something. Street Code would prove that wrong, but no one would see it until 1990, when it was finally published, in Argosy Vol 3, #2. Meanwhile, Jack worked in animation for Hanna-Barbera and Ruby Spears, doing presentation art and character designs. His fingerprints are all over Thundarr, especially some of the villains and monsters, particularly Gemini. Ironically, he did storyboard art on the Depatie-Freleng Fantastic Four, in 1978 (the one with HERBIE the Robot), rehashing his old stories. It paid better than comics and gave him health benefits and other perks that comics didn't, until DC gave him a retroactive deal for merchandise and comics derived from his work on the 4th World and others.
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 26, 2021 19:09:10 GMT -5
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'm now embarrassed to say this, but that is exactly why I wasn't into Kirby in my younger years (having started reading comics in the 70's and definitely more into the Neal Adams style of art). Eventually as I got much older, I finally "got it" and came to fully adore much of his classic material as being some of the finest ever, exactly to the point of your comment. I didn't care for Kirby's style on many of his books, in the 70s, but liked his stuff from the Golden Age and the 50s & 60s. Certain books I thought it looked better than others, like Eternals. I didn't get to see the 4th World material until later. At that point, it was mostly the stuff from his return to Marvel, especially Black Panther and Captain America. When I got older, I came to appreciate the power in his work and understand more his concepts, especially when I was in college and picked up the Baxter New Gods reprints. Later, when I read everything in context, I got what he was doing in Black Panther and Cap, especially Panther, which I thought was weird, after the Panther's Rage material, in Jungle Action. Jack was doing old school pulp adventure. Mark Evanier said, in his Kirby book, that Jack would say or write things that didn't make sense to you until later, when you'd see or hear it in the right context, or had acquired enough life experience to see Jack's perspective. I loved Sgt Fury for the wild action and characters; but, I could see why Jack didn't, after serving in the military and experiencing at least being in the military, during a war, if not actual combat. I remained stateside, during the Gulf War; but, it had a profound effect on my worldview and I started to see more things in Jack's 70s and 80s work. When I did my review thread and read the 4th World, in publication order, I could really see what he was doing, what was on his mind. I just needed the context. The Losers stories reflected more of Jack's experiences in the war and what real combat was like, than Sgt Fury ever did or could. Jack's art got bigger and more impressionistic as his mind went to bigger, more philosophical subjects. Jack was contemplating myth and allegories, while everyone else was still churning out the same adventure stories. Jack evolved faster than the industry.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2021 19:31:42 GMT -5
I'm now embarrassed to say this, but that is exactly why I wasn't into Kirby in my younger years (having started reading comics in the 70's and definitely more into the Neal Adams style of art). Eventually as I got much older, I finally "got it" and came to fully adore much of his classic material as being some of the finest ever, exactly to the point of your comment. I didn't care for Kirby's style on many of his books, in the 70s, but liked his stuff from the Golden Age and the 50s & 60s. Certain books I thought it looked better than others, like Eternals. I didn't get to see the 4th World material until later. At that point, it was mostly the stuff from his return to Marvel, especially Black Panther and Captain America. When I got older, I came to appreciate the power in his work and understand more his concepts, especially when I was in college and picked up the Baxter New Gods reprints. Later, when I read everything in context, I got what he was doing in Black Panther and Cap, especially Panther, which I thought was weird, after the Panther's Rage material, in Jungle Action. Jack was doing old school pulp adventure. Mark Evanier said, in his Kirby book, that Jack would say or write things that didn't make sense to you until later, when you'd see or hear it in the right context, or had acquired enough life experience to see Jack's perspective. I loved Sgt Fury for the wild action and characters; but, I could see why Jack didn't, after serving in the military and experiencing at least being in the military, during a war, if not actual combat. I remained stateside, during the Gulf War; but, it had a profound effect on my worldview and I started to see more things in Jack's 70s and 80s work. When I did my review thread and read the 4th World, in publication order, I could really see what he was doing, what was on his mind. I just needed the context. The Losers stories reflected more of Jack's experiences in the war and what real combat was like, than Sgt Fury ever did or could. Jack's art got bigger and more impressionistic as his mind went to bigger, more philosophical subjects. Jack was contemplating myth and allegories, while everyone else was still churning out the same adventure stories. Jack evolved faster than the industry.This is exactly what I came to love about Jack the most actually, and your comment from Evanier on having some life experience rings true for me as well. "Finally getting" Kirby for me wasn't just finally appreciating his draftsmanship (though that certainly happened as well), it was really like making a connection into Jack's mind a bit. I increasingly looked back at a number of comics where Jack was expanding creatively and found a number of them rather sublime.
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Post by MDG on Dec 27, 2021 9:10:37 GMT -5
....... Jack's art got bigger and more impressionistic as his mind went to bigger, more philosophical subjects. Jack was contemplating myth and allegories, while everyone else was still churning out the same adventure stories. Jack evolved faster than the industry.This is exactly what I came to love about Jack the most actually, and your comment from Evanier on having some life experience rings true for me as well. "Finally getting" Kirby for me wasn't just finally appreciating his draftsmanship (though that certainly happened as well), it was really like making a connection into Jack's mind a bit. I increasingly looked back at a number of comics where Jack was expanding creatively and found a number of them rather sublime. When I started going to comic shops in the mid-70s, there wasn't a lot of love for Kirby in the air, especially his current work. A lot of folks seemed to prefer the consciously illustrative art of Adam or the Studio group and even watered down versions of that to Kirby. Reading (or re-reading) Kirby's post-Silver work the past couple of years, it's clear that codystarbuck is right that he was continuing to advance beyond what the industry--and fans--could accommodate.
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Post by tarkintino on Dec 27, 2021 10:34:34 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. I meant one-shot comics as novels existed before in response to commond's post; some were comprised of new material like the aforementioned Blackmark, or some of the endless MAD novels (which were not all reprints), while some reprinted collections and reportedly, sold quite well (e.g. the two Green Lantern / Green Arrow novels from 1972, 1971's The Best of Creepy. etc.).
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Post by MDG on Dec 27, 2021 11:35:14 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. I meant one-shot comics as novels existed before in response to commond's post; some were comprised of new material like the aforementioned Blackmark, or some of the endless MAD novels (which were not all reprints), while some reprinted collections and reportedly, sold quite well (e.g. the two Green Lantern / Green Arrow novels from 1972, 1971's The Best of Creepy. etc.). Most paperback comics were reprints of known titles/characters, though, and MAD was a successful enough brand to have an audience who would buy stuff other than the magazine. But in the US, until the late 70s, original comics in formats other than "funny books" or B&W mags like Warren never found an audience, and certainly not the mass audiences comics had in Europe and Japan. This goes from Biro's Tops (finally being reprinted) to Byron Preiss's digests.
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 28, 2021 20:04:29 GMT -5
I’m still working on The Fourth World.
I requested the fourth volume of the Omnibus from the library but it hasn’t shown up yet. It’s checked out and that person doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to return it.
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Post by berkley2 on Dec 28, 2021 22:25:02 GMT -5
I think with complete creative freedom the Fourth World would have eventually been a story with a beginning, middle, and end but at the same time Kirby wouldn't necessarily have beenable to tell you at any given moment how many issues or total pages it would take, until perhaps he found the story approaching its denouement. To borrow a metaphor from another recent thread here, the project was developing organically - though always solidly based on a well defined premise and thematic foundation.
Maybe the closest analogy would be a prose fantasy series that ends up comprising however many books the writer finds necessary, or a tv series that takes as many seasons as the show-runners thinks are required to tell their story - assumingof course that the creators in question have the clout to get their way.
Kirbystarted outthinking he'd do the first few issues and then hand off the various series to other creators. I think it's clear that his mind changed prettysoon and the project became importanttohim personally. And it's entirely possble that with complete freedpm, he mighthave grown tired of the whole thing and changedhis mindback again. I dont think it likely but its possible. Or maybe he would have keptit going so longt that he lost the physical or mental cspacity to finish it. There areall kinds of possible scenarios, but i'd be willing to risk all of them for tge sake of creative freedom.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jan 1, 2022 23:45:16 GMT -5
I am still waiting for The Fourth World Omnibus, Volume Four, to show up from the library.
But this small pile of Lois Lane comics I’m reading has quite a few Fourth World characters. I’m reading #119 and Darkseid, Simyan and Makarri are all here. Also, the fake Morgan Edge is trying to find the real Morgan Edge before people notice that there’s two of them.
Good idea! This isn’t Gotham City! People in Metropolis will get suspicious of something like that!
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Post by profh0011 on Jan 2, 2022 12:17:21 GMT -5
I'm certain Jack Kirby never had it in mind that Morgan Edge was an evil clone. The real Morgan Edge was supposed to be evil, and GBS buying out The Daily Planet was a thinly-veiled allegory for Kinney (a New York City crime mob) actually buying out Warner Bros. movie studio, which owned DC Comics. No doubt, as soon as Kirby was off JIMMY OLSEN, someone in editorial realized what he'd been doing, and hurried to "fix" it.
I find it amusing that Edge was modeled on actor Kevin McCarthy, who later would up playing a VERY Morgan Edge-like character in the Weird Al Yankovic comedy, "UHF".
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Post by Hoosier X on Jan 11, 2022 11:03:18 GMT -5
The person who checked out the Fourth World Omnibus, Volume Four, has returned it and it’s now in transit to my branch of the LA County library system!
Yay!
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Post by profh0011 on Jan 11, 2022 11:56:50 GMT -5
The person who checked out the Fourth World Omnibus, Volume Four, has returned it and it’s now in transit to my branch of the LA County library system! Yay! Whoa.
I never would have had patience for that. Decades ago, I can only recall one instance where the library I went to put in a request for a book that was at a different branch in the same city. Usually I just put up with what a particular branch had. (Thinking way way back on that, I did find it odd that a branch had a book the main library didn't. That was just weird.)
In the 90s, I used to rent videotapes from Movies Unlimited, a small chain that tended to have about 40 TIMES more variety than Blockbuster's. But wouldn't you know? When I was going thru one particular shelf, every time I'd go there, a film I was looking for was missing THAT week. I quickly realized, as crazy as it sounds, there was some other person who was renting the SAME films I was-- at the same time!!
Then of course there was Philly's 3rd Street Jazz & Rock, a small independant music store that in the 90s was like the ONLY place in this entire area that sold imports. And because they had a monopoly, they could charge whatever they wanted. There was one particular artist who was knocking out an unheard-of large amount of new music, and sometimes, 3 of his CDs would come in the same week. If I bought one... the other 2 would be both be gone by the next week. I might have to wait a month or several months to see those other 2 again. They were also pressed for space, and would only have ONE copy of anything out on display. So, it's very possible they had more copies in the back... but how would you know to ask for them if you didn't know what they had?
I was so RELIEVED when I finally got ONLINE and started doing mail-orders that way. It gave me freedom to buy from countless stores-- ALL OVER THE WORLD. (Just 2 years ago I got a 30-year-old CD from a band in Germany... from a store, in Germany!)
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Post by Hoosier X on Jan 11, 2022 16:31:05 GMT -5
I live in Southern California and I’ve moved around a bit, so in the last 30 years, I’ve had access to three huge library systems (though not all at the same time).
Los Angeles City
Los Angeles County
San Bernardino County
Right now it’s LA County. I don’t even know where the main branch library is for LA County. I live in San Dimas but I live closer to the Charter Oak branch than to the San Dimas branch. The Charter Oak branch has about as many books as two and a half book-mobiles. Using the library system, I have access to so much great stuff! I love Japanese movies, and I love getting very old or obscure Japanese movies from the branch near Little Tokyo or a couple of other branches near areas with large Japanese American populations.
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Post by berkley on Jan 11, 2022 17:41:59 GMT -5
I live in Southern California and I’ve moved around a bit, so in the last 30 years, I’ve had access to three huge library systems (though not all at the same time). Los Angeles City Los Angeles County San Bernardino County Right now it’s LA County. I don’t even know where the main branch library is for LA County. I live in San Dimas but I live closer to the Charter Oak branch than to the San Dimas branch. The Charter Oak branch has about as many books as two and a half book-mobiles. Using the library system, I have access to so much great stuff! I love Japanese movies, and I love getting very old or obscure Japanese movies from the branch near Little Tokyo or a couple of other branches near areas with large Japanese American populations.
I should have put this in the movie thread, but have you seen Witches of the Orient? Not a Japanese film as such, but a documentary about the Olympic and world champion Japanese women's volleyball team of the 1960s. I had never heard anything about it before but apparently their popularity in Japan was so great that it inspired an entire sub-genre of girls' volleyball anime cartoons. Really fascinating piece of pop-culture and sports history.
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