HELP! Need to identify Kirby swipe in an old manga!

[JayWicky]

Folks, I'm working on a conference I'll be giving at a French comic/manga convention in June. I need to identify which Kirby pic this image was swiped from :

http://i43.servimg.com/u/f43/11/83/60/60/juel10.jpg

I could swear this is a classic pose of the Thing, used many times in merchandise and stuff like that, but I just can't nail which one. I checked an online gallery of FF covers, but found nothing. That must have been inside art.

Maybe the original was by Buscema instead of Kirby, I can't remember for sure...

If you can give me a reference or even better, a link to a jpeg of the picture, that would help me a great deal! Thanks!

JW

[agrich]

I don't think it's a Kirby.

It looks a lot like a classic image of the Thing from the cover of #116 (probably Buscema), which Marvel used on a lot of its merchandising later.

http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/fantastic-four/116-1.jpg

[JayWicky]

Yeah, I had found this one on my own, but wondered if there wasn't something even closer out there.

JW

[InfoBroker]

I don't think it qualifies as a pose swipe per say, it seems to be more a concoction of imagery done by an artist familar with the icons that associate with how we think the Thing looks, but it lacks the structure that makes the Thing work anatomically.

I'm also fairly confident that this does not source from a Kirby pose, or set of poses. First the Thing does not have four fingers and a thumb. Not Jack's anyway, he was always one digit short. Now the toes are a different story. The bulk (if not all) of Jack's 1961 to 1964 or so Thing drawing are all three toes per foot. Somewhere in 1964 he went to one big toe and three little ones (depending on the pose). There may be some exceptions but in general this pattern prevails. I don't know why there was the toe shift in the final years of the 60s, but now that I point it out, I'm sure some writer at Marvel will pitch a Universe-threatening limited series plot centered on it. Secondly this drawing lacks hips and the rest of the lower torso. Kirby and both Buscemas have better anatomical sensibilities.

The use of light and shadow on the rocky incrustations is also inconsistent. Jack was the best at determining where to place the full and partially shadowy bits to establish a strong primary light source, but this drawing wanders all over the place.

Its also a fairly stereotypical, generic pose. I'm sure lots of similar ones can be found, but my artistic sensibilities remain certain that this is self-originated from the source artist.

-jb the "decimal digited" ib -