Kirby 1970's DC Work

[Jon-El]

I hated Jack Kirby's work when I was a kid. Loved guys like Adams, Swan, Perez, Rogers, etc..... Kirby didn't grab me. Then I casually purchased some Thor comics on a whim and really grew to enjoy his work!! Totally won over! I know his DC output isn't as highly regarded as his Marvel stuff but I'm really curious about the Forth World comics as well as OMAC. Anybody have an opinion on these period of Kirby? I've read some Jimmy Olsen and like it. Very imaginitive!!

I love 1970's comics and enjoy discovering stuff I missed the first time around. Recently bought a full run of Deathlok and some Marvel Captain Marvel and loved them. Just wondered if the Kirby work is worth looking into. Thanks!!

[Rob Allen]

Kirby's work for DC in the 1970s is very much worth looking into. The Fourth World, Kamandi, the Demon and OMAC, along with the larger-format works In The Days Of The Mob and Spirit World, together constitute a volcanic eruption of creativity that had been bottled up inside Kirby for too long.

In other words - try it, you'll like it!

[benday-dot]

While I would say it's still a minority opinion, it's by no means an unheard of one to believe that Kirby's work from the 70's was actually the best work of his career.

I have in my collection most of the original Kirby material from the 60's (excluding the pricey, but key issues, I sadly cannot afford. But then again I am working on getting pretty much it all these days through the "marvel" of Essentials) and all of the 70's and 80's works.

For what its worth the 70's stuff comes out on top in my humble estimation. It showcases Kirby, if not at the peak of his drawing prowess (though I am of that opinion too), certainly, as Rob Suggests, at the sharpest expression of his long fermenting vision, and at the apex of what may lexically be known as KirbyStyle (or in rock parlance the 70's is KirbyCore par excellence).

So yeah... check it all out (about 95% of the 70's and 80's material has now been printed at very good quality). Some you might not care for, but there is bound to be stuff you'll love, perhaps as much as Thor.

[Aaron King]

I am also one of those people who considers the era Kirby's best. Pick up the Fourth World The Demon, and OMAC omnibuses... and hopefully we'll get Kamandi soon, too.

[Babylon23]

I'm another that considers Kirby's 70's DC work to be his best. The 4th World comics are my personal favourites, although OMAC and Kamandi also rank highly. I'd definitely recommend checking these books out, especially if you enjoyed the latter half of his Thor run.

I'd also recommend his treasury-sized adaptation of 2001: A space Odyssey. It's an artistic tour de force.

[T GUy]

I hated Jack Kirby's work when I was a kid. Loved guys like Adams, Swan, Perez, Rogers, etc..... Kirby didn't grab me. Then I casually purchased some Thor comics on a whim and really grew to enjoy his work!! Totally won over! I know his DC output isn't as highly regarded as his Marvel stuff

In the circles in which I move, his Bronze Age DC work is more highly regarded than his Marvel work in the 1960s.


but I'm really curious about the Forth World comics as well as OMAC. Anybody have an opinion on these period of Kirby? I've read some Jimmy Olsen and like it. Very imaginitive!!

The Fourth World was widely regarded as the greatest comics ever at the time and shortly thereafter. I'd agree with this still. I 've seen nothing as good since.

I love 1970's comics and enjoy discovering stuff I missed the first time around. Recently bought a full run of Deathlok and some Marvel Captain Marvel and loved them. Just wondered if the Kirby work is worth looking into. Thanks!!

Very much so.

Be wary of 2001: A Space Odyssey - it is not a jumping on point to the work of Kirby.

[Simon Garth]

A word of caution - Kirby wrote most (maybe all) of his 70s DC stuff. Some (as the folks above) like that, and some find it (particularly the 4th World stuff) profound. Some (me, for one) find anything he wrote to be absolutely unreadable (and I hate his 70s art even more than his 60s art, FWIW).

You may well like the stuff, but his writing is.... different to the other 70s stuff you're quoting, and certainly different to the 60s Marvels.

[Blackhawkk]

KIrby's writing ain't any worst that Bendis'!

[Babylon23]

Kirby definitely has a unique style of writing that grates with some. His language is as bombastic and over the top as his art. Personally I like it, especially on books like New Gods and Kamandi, where it lends a sense of epic granduer to proceedings (much like the olde english of Thor). I can see how his writing might not appeal to people.

I don't really see it as much different to Stan Lee, Chris Claremont or Brian Bendis. All writers have a way of writing that distinguishes their work from others. Kirby's writing was appropriate to the books he was writing IMO.

[T GUy]

Kirby definitely has a unique style of writing ...

I don't really see it as much different to Stan Lee, Chris Claremont or Brian Bendis. All writers have a way of writing that distinguishes their work from others. Kirby's writing was appropriate to the books he was writing IMO.

Kirby is different from Lee and Claremont in that he doesn't see a blank space in a panel as an area that it is compulsory for him to fill up with pseudo-poetry. I have seen it opined that he never puts an unnecessary word in.

[Kirk G]

KIrby's writing ain't any worst that Bendis'!

oh yes it is...

But the reason why I started to post this (now that I'm back...)
is a recommendation on WHICH of the Thor run is best.

Marvel has been collecting Thor and Journey into Mystery in Marvel masterworks volumes for two decades now, and althought they are not likely to start and end clearly/cleanly with a perfect jumping on point, here are my recommendations:

Journey into Mystery #107 onward features the art of Jack Kirby with the inks of Chic Stone for a while. Then, Vinnie Coletta steps in and it positively becomes legendary! The continued storyline starts about #113 and runs almost uninterupted through #130, but some would say it runs to #136 when Jane Foster leaves the series, and Sif begins. Kirby leaves in #180, IIRC... but his interest and effort ends about 169...with the end of the Galactus arc. Those final issues have not been released in a Masterworks volume yet.

For my money, I'd recommend you pick up these Marvel Masterworks:
Journey Into Mystery #111-120
Journey Into Mystery #121-130
The Mighty Thor #131-140
The Mighty Thor #141-152
The Mighty Thor #153-164
and eventually, Thor 165-180, if they get that far.
The Essential Thor volumes you want will include Volume 2 (#124-150) and Volume 3 (151-180) if they get around to doing another one soon...

[benday-dot]

If Kirby's writing is as unsubtle as his artwork, it surely has the ring of sincerity and authenticity. These last two qualities are sometimes missing in the dialogue Bendis lays down; sometimes the latter just seems too artificially clever for its own good.

[Simon Garth]

KIrby's writing ain't any worst that Bendis'!

Oh, puh-lease! Dislike Bendis if you want, but let's keep a sense of perspective. Kirby may well have contributed many of the foundation concepts and plots of the Marvel and DC universes, but as an actual scripter?

[Simon Garth]

I don't really see it as much different to Stan Lee, Chris Claremont or Brian Bendis. All writers have a way of writing that distinguishes their work from others. Kirby's writing was appropriate to the books he was writing IMO.

The difference to me, is that I can imagine an actual human speaking Bendis' words. At a stretch, some of Stan Lee's. Claremont's are a stretch, unless the characters speak really, really quickly, and all have unrealistically large vocabularies and tendencies to allusions.

But Kirby's? I cannot imagine anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances, speaking as a Kirby character speaks (well, shouts / declaims, mostly).

[Rob Allen]

I read somewhere that Kirby's dialogue tended to put emphasis on the verbs, while Lee tended to put the emphasis on nouns.

[berk]

Whatever you think of the way they sound, Kirby's dialogue and narration are crucial to the ideas he was playing with in series like the New Gods and the Eternals. To have those books scripted by a Bendis or whoever else you think readers would find more palatable would pretty much be the equivalent of having Curt Swan re-draw Superman's head over Kirby's artwork.

[dan bailey]

As regulars here probably know, I'm in Simon's camp when it comes to Kirby's scripting. He was a phenomenal idea man & an exceptional artist (at least through the '60s), but when it came to putting words on paper the man was simply tone-deaf to the English language. It's all very well to convince onself otherwise, but I'm afraid the evidence doesn't lie.

[benday-dot]

The difference to me, is that I can imagine an actual human speaking Bendis' words. At a stretch, some of Stan Lee's. Claremont's are a stretch, unless the characters speak really, really quickly, and all have unrealistically large vocabularies and tendencies to allusions.

But Kirby's? I cannot imagine anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances, speaking as a Kirby character speaks (well, shouts / declaims, mostly).

And is it necessarily a virtue to have the characters of comic book universes speak like you or I?

They don't dress like you or I. They don't have vocations like you or I.

The universe of costumed heroes are not actual human beings. I am glad that Kirby was aware of this, and saw fit to script accordingly.

If he did otherwise, I should think, it would be "lying" in the face of the evidence.

I am with Berk... the words were the perfect fit for the concept.

[Babylon23]

The difference to me, is that I can imagine an actual human speaking Bendis' words. At a stretch, some of Stan Lee's. Claremont's are a stretch, unless the characters speak really, really quickly, and all have unrealistically large vocabularies and tendencies to allusions.

Personally, I don't know anybody that speaks in Bendis-speak. I find his dialogue as manufactured as Lee's, Claremont's or Kirby's. IMO, Bendis is as guilty as Kirby or Claremont in having all his characters sounding the same.

The important thing is that Bendis' dialogue suits the style of books he writes. For me, Kirby is much the same, especially his New Gods/Eternals/Kamandi work. Certainly his dialogue doesn't suit every type of book, as was apparent on his 70's run on Black Panther and Captain America

[MWGallaher]

I read somewhere that Kirby's dialogue tended to put emphasis on the verbs, while Lee tended to put the emphasis on nouns.

That's not exactly it: what Kirby did do almost always was to accent every verb that ended in the contraction n't. Like this:
"I wouldn't say that! We haven't seen the likes of the "Photon Wheel!" Darkseid won't be expecting it! He doesn't know that it's our "Secret Weapon!"
(fabricated example)
This gives his dialog an awkward lurch, but I find that, once one is aware of this odd quirk, one can mentally revise the emphases and find that the actual language is not nearly as clunky as it may initially seem. That, in my opinion, was the only major editing that his work needed.

[spoon_jenkins]

I have the New Gods TPB and I've tried to read it a couple time, but I keep stalling out around issue 4 or 5. I think Kirby's scripting is the main obstacle for me; it's difficult to get through. I guess it's subjective, because I like Claremont's scripting and find it much easier to get through even though Kirby uses many fewer words. I realize Claremont falls back on certain cliches but oftentimes either (a) they get endearing after a while or (b) their just that big of a problem for me.

[berk]

As regulars here probably know, I'm in Simon's camp when it comes to Kirby's scripting. He was a phenomenal idea man & an exceptional artist (at least through the '60s), but when it came to putting words on paper the man was simply tone-deaf to the English language. It's all very well to convince onself otherwise, but I'm afraid the evidence doesn't lie.If you feel like taking the time, I'd be curious to see some examples of what you mean. Pick an issue of the Eternals or the New Gods or whatever, your choice, and point out how the words are consistently awful.

The reason I ask is that I think what happens is that people focus on certain isolated examples of admittedly clunky dialogue - "That's funky corn, Sersi!" or what have you - and extrapolate from that to the assumption that it's ALL that bad. But I find those instances to be fairly unimportant. Maybe once or twice an issue, usually when Kirby I think was inadvisedly trying to emulate Stan Lee and add a bit of humour or "hip" dialogue, something I agree he had no ear for at all. It's too bad, because it was really unnecessary, but my guess is that Kirby probably felt that was what fans expected from him, based on the success of Lee's writing at Marvel.

The thing is, if you're serious about trying to understand what those comics were about, you're going to have to take a much closer look at the words and think about how they interact with the story being told, how they reflect the ideas embodied in that story. If you do that, I think you'll see that Kirby's writing is an indispensable part of the whole effect, and that those isolated moments are really quite irrelevant.

[Blackhawkk]

Bendis is a great plotter, but a lousy scripter. Enjoy his ideas but his dialogue is atrocious!

Of course Kirby's dialogue is way over the top. Nobody talks like a Kirby script whereas Bendis comes across that his dialogue is how real people talk but it just comes across annoying and unrealistic.

And for me, DC should just retire The New Gods. If it ain't Kirby dialogue coming out of the New Gods' mouths, it ain't the New Gods. Trying to write for a Kirby creation is like writing Will Eisner's The Spirit. It ain't gonna work. Some creations are meant to left alone.

[Simon Garth]

If you feel like taking the time, I'd be curious to see some examples of what you mean. Pick an issue of the Eternals or the New Gods or whatever, your choice, and point out how the words are consistently awful.

Eternals #1:

???: "You've found it Ike! You're positively uncanny!"

Ike Harris: "My every instinct led me to the right passages, Dr Damian! I'll record it on film for you, right now!"
Dr D: "the legendary chamber of the gods!! I-it's dimensions are overwhelming!"
Margo: "It's all here as you predicted father -- the galaxy plaque of the incas -- their space god and his craft -- carved in stone"

Dr D: "outer space technology translated in terms of mythology -- incredible!"
CG: "this is unmistakeably a 3-passenger descent vehicle! it seems the gods had a variety of equipment..."

Dr D: "Quickly Margo!! I must have the tape recorder .. what I have to say will electrify the scientific community!"
Margo: "Thanks to Ike Harris we may have made the greatest archeological find in history!"
Ike: "Perhaps the true story of all which has gone before"
Dr D: "That takes in a lot of territory Ike. your statement covers all of human history. Are you serious about the claim you just made?"
Ike: "I refer not only to human history, but also to divergent history! There were others..."
Dr D: "Do you realize what you're saying young man?!! You're intimating that the human species is sharing this world with related forms of life!" (you will note that at this point, Ike has said nothing of the sort, only that there were others!)
Ike: "That's exactly what I'm saying Dr! Homo sapiens has .. relatives!"
Margo: "That's a wild theory Ike! you can't believe in such a fantasy!"
Dr: "Ike Harris, you've been a disturning enigma to us ever since you joined our effort to seek out this chamber -- but you never struck us as being the kind of young man who is given to this kind of drivel!"
Ike: "You're wrong on both counts Doctor! This is not drivel, and I am not a young man by your standards!"

Dr: "That does it! I won't be into discussing another of his fantastic secrets!! Our colleague is bent on pulling my leg"
Margo: "Bravo Dad! You know a college prank when you hear one!"
Ike: "Blast! It should be in this corner of the chamber -- I can sense it"
Dr: "For heaven's sake Harris. What are you hunting for now?"
Ike: "The most important object in this chamber sir -- it can turn any myth into stark reality!"
Ike: "It is said that when this object calls to the gods -- they will return once more to earth!"

(ye gods, this is tedious. So far, I have to admit that this is merely horribly overwritten, and with the emphasis on many of the wrong words, it's not exhibiting much of the legendary Kirby Klunkiness. Let's skip a few pages....)

Unkown yellow faced creature in bad hat: "Sire! Listen! We've been undone! that is surely the sound of the cosmic beacon!"
Pink faced guy in bad sunglasses: "By the flaming pits! An eternal has been at work here. But there is still some time left! We can waste his efforts! We can destroy the cosmic beacon! I see the foe! It's Ikaris of the Polar Mountains!"
...
Margo: "Look out! We've got visitors and they don't look like gods!"
Pink face: "Kill the humans! Pound Ikaris with high voltage! we can't harm him, but we can keep him busy!! Then destroy the beacon!"
Ike: You deviants are late -- too late to stop the arrival of the gods!
Dr D: They're deviants -- the destructive species he talked about!

Caption: The Eternal removes his cap and glasses to reveal the features which mark his kind.. it is the eyes that release the powers stored in the dynamics of the eternal brain! it is the eyes the deviants fear!! (shame this captions a picture of a face with the most crudely drawn eyes it's possible to imagine - the left eye in particular is located somewhere between his cheekbone and his ear)

IMHO, all of this is dialogue is utterly dreadful, and it's attached to some of the worst-drawn figures I've ever seen from Kirby (which is going some) - the faces on that last page quoted being a particular example

[T GUy]

Caption: The Eternal removes his cap and glasses to reveal the features which mark his kind.. it is the eyes that release the powers stored in the dynamics of the eternal brain! it is the eyes the deviants fear!!

Mmmm... beautiful.

[JKCarrier]

IMHO, all of this is dialogue is utterly dreadful,

This all sounds like standard Mighty Marvel Purple Prose to me. Do you really think it's hugely different from what guys like Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Don McGregor, et. al. were doing at the time?

[Simon Garth]

Well, it's certainly far worse than Thomas and Wein, but not utterly different - but then, I'm not a fan of either.

Nothing remotely like McGregor, IMHO (not enough words! :wink: )

[spoon_jenkins]

This all sounds like standard Mighty Marvel Purple Prose to me. Do you really think it's hugely different from what guys like Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Don McGregor, et. al. were doing at the time?
Well, it's certainly far worse than Thomas and Wein, but not utterly different - but then, I'm not a fan of either.
Personally, I do see Kirby's scripting as far, far worse than Len Wein's. Wein is perfectly capable of of giving distinct voices to different characters. Wein can inject humor (intentional, not accidental) into his scripting as well. Thomas is closer to Kirby (stuff like "foolish female"), but to me he's significantly better.

I don't think my dislike for Kirby's scripting is merely a dislike for grandiose or unusual speech. I read an Essential Thor book a few months back and enjoyed Stan Lee's scripting despite the mythological milieu. In contrast, I didn't like Kirby's New Gods scripting. I guess it's possible that my tastes is scripting changed over time without my realizing it, but I think it's probably due to an actual difference in the quality of Lee's scripts versus Kirby's.

[MartinRedmond]

Late 60s and the 70s is Kirby at his very best for me.

[Red Oak Kid]

I think Jack's work on FF and Thor with Stan Lee was his most cohesive work.

I had no problem with Kirby's dialogue at DC, but it was the overall plotting of books like Kamandi and Demon that were constantly introducing new characters and concepts and then failing to fully develop these ideas before going off on a new tangent.

That is the difference between his work at Marvel with Lee and his own work at DC.

[Jon-El]

Thanks for all the responses. I'll check out some but won't go crazy and buy everything!!

As for the comments on Bendis, I appreciate his ability but feel it would be better suited to television. The pace of a comic can't be the same as an episode of tv. Way too slow for my tastes. I don't need to see everything in real time. :eek:

[benday-dot]

I think Jack's work on FF and Thor with Stan Lee was his most cohesive work.

I had no problem with Kirby's dialogue at DC, but it was the overall plotting of books like Kamandi and Demon that were constantly introducing new characters and concepts and then failing to fully develop these ideas before going off on a new tangent.

That is the difference between his work at Marvel with Lee and his own work at DC.

That's a good way of putting it ROK. I can buy that. My favourite stuff remains the post 70's Kirby material. But you are right about the pre-1970 stuff having had more of a chance to work out plot cohesion. DC just pulled the plug too early on most of Kirby's projects.

[zilch]

My younger brother was into the Second World War in a big way when we were little and was reading Our Fighting Forces when we could find them.

He got a subscription to it for Christmas and imagine the culture shock of going from John Severin to Jack Kirby.

I was just coming into comic book sentience in the early 70s and fell in love with Kirby's version of the Losers. Drawing on his own experiences during the war, the stories were a step above a lot of what was going on in the genre at the time. I think they rank up with Kamandi and New Gods in his brief stint on the title.

[berk]

One thing you have to keep in mind with Kirby's stuff is that he isn't trying to write the kind of stories or characters you see in most superhero books - his characters aren't meant to be detailed simulacra of real-life people, or to display the detailed psychological realism of characters you'd find in a realist novel or movie or in the comics that imitate those techniques. He was writing mythic stories and the characters function mainly as symbols whose actions and speech are meant to illuminate the mythic themes he's dealing with.

As opposed to, say, a Daredevil story in which the writer is trying to present a psycholgically nuanced portrait of a person dealing with the problems and situations Matt Murdock et al find themselves in. In that case, the writer tries to have his characters speak as closely as possible to how he thinks actual people speak in real life, in order to enhance the illusion of reality.

Personally I find the contradiction between the naturalistic dialogue/characterization and the fantastic nature of superhero plot to be much more jarring that Kirby's somewhat stiff dialogue. More importantly, in the Eternals and New Gods, Kirby wasn't writing superhero comics in the sense most fans of that genre think of them, and thus wasn't concerned with sorts of things most superhero comics deal with. For example, the relationships amongst his characters weren't of interest because of their believability as reconstructions of real-life human relationships, but functioned at a symbolic level as representations of the mythic themes that underlie those series. So it would have been utterly inappropriate to have those characters acting and talking like everyday "regular guys" a la Bendis.

This in fact is one of many basic errors committed by just about every writer who's attempted a revival of either of those creations, most recently the Knaufs, whose current Eternals series has Thena, Makarri, and the rest behaving and talking exactly like petulant teenagers from the O.C (or whatever tv show has petulant teenagers now).

But fans, especially those who don't read widely outside comics, are so used to this they think that this is "normal" - and it's what they expect when they try any new comic. I hate to say it, but the brutal truth is that this says more about the narrowness of their reading habits than it does about Kirby's writing.

[benday-dot]

One thing you have to keep in mind with Kirby's stuff is that he isn't trying to write the kind of stories or characters you see in most superhero books - his characters aren't meant to be detailed simulacra of real-life people, or to display the detailed psychological realism of characters you'd find in a realist novel or movie or in the comics that imitate those techniques. He was writing mythic stories and the characters function mainly as symbols whose actions and speech are meant to illuminate the mythic themes he's dealing with.

As opposed to, say, a Daredevil story in which the writer is trying to present a psycholgically nuanced portrait of a person dealing with the problems and situations Matt Murdock et al find themselves in. In that case, the writer tries to have his characters speak as closely as possible to how he thinks actual people speak in real life, in order to enhance the illusion of reality.

Personally I find the contradiction between the naturalistic dialogue/characterization and the fantastic nature of superhero plot to be much more jarring that Kirby's somewhat stiff dialogue. More importantly, in the Eternals and New Gods, Kirby wasn't writing superhero comics in the sense most fans of that genre think of them, and thus wasn't concerned with sorts of things most superhero comics deal with. For example, the relationships amongst his characters weren't of interest because of their believability as reconstructions of real-life human relationships, but functioned at a symbolic level as representations of the mythic themes that underlie those series. So it would have been utterly inappropriate to have those characters acting and talking like everyday "regular guys" a la Bendis.

This in fact is one of many basic errors committed by just about every writer who's attempted a revival of either of those creations, most recently the Knaufs, whose current Eternals series has Thena, Makarri, and the rest behaving and talking exactly like petulant teenagers from the O.C (or whatever tv show has petulant teenagers now).

But fans, especially those who don't read widely outside comics, are so used to this they think that this is "normal" - and it's what they expect when they try any new comic. I hate to say it, but the brutal truth is that this says more about the narrowness of their reading habits than it does about Kirby's writing.

Well put Berk. What a travesty, to Kirby, it would be if the language of gods and monsters became the mouthings of the workaday man and woman.

The language of myth is cut to the sharp edges of the symbol to which it gives voice. It is plain and it is clear. It is emphatic and it is unsubtle. It is the clarion of the epic and the unconscious, the transcendent myth. And it would sink into tedium if had to mime the speech of daily drama.

It is not by accident that Kirby was assigned to Thor and Fantastic Four (even Captain America... the most mythic of Marvel's "ordinary" heroes) rather than Spider-Man, or Daredevil, to use your fine example.

[Paradox]

zilch coins:

I was just coming into comic book sentience...

Nicely illustrative phrase. I think I'll be stealing that. :smile:

[foxley]

For all the good stuff that Kirby produced in the 1970s, let's not forget that was also the time when he produced the awful (and ludicrous) The Sandman.

[benday-dot]

For all the good stuff that Kirby produced in the 1970s, let's not forget that was also the time when he produced the awful (and ludicrous) The Sandman.

Though I'm going to come across as an unremitting Kirby apologist (and though he doesn't need it) let's put Sandman into perspective as far as Kirby goes.

Kirby was not, as you say, the producer of Sandman.

There were only 6 issues of Sandman that actually saw publication in the 1974/75 series (not including the children oriented Best of DC digest Christmas piece that only saw publication some years later)

Of those 6 issues... Kirby only had a direct of involvement in 4.

Sandman was intended as a one-shot. This was the sole issue Kirby edited. His involvement over after that one issue, he left Sandman.

But issue #1 must have done quite well, because DC thought to continue the series. However, Kirby would only be available for the covers in the ongoing series. So Joe Orlando would be the editor, Michael Fleischer would handle the writing and Ernie Chan pencils and Mike Royer the inks.

Perhaps, with sales flagging after issue 3 DC thought to revive fortunes by bringing Kirby back on board. Kirby's new involvement would be to take the unsuitable Chan's place on pencils for the last 3 issues... no editing, no writing, no producing.

My understanding is that the idea for Sandman was largely Joe Simon's, but Carmine Infantino wanted Kirby on board, perhaps hoping to recapture the team's old magic, or perhaps recalling the disaster of Simon's earlier Brother Bower, the Geek infamy.

In any event there wasn't a whole lot of Kirby involvement in 1974/75 Sandman. So, if you do judge it to be a awful disaster, to then call it an awful Kirby disaster would be rather misleading.

Furthermore, the high points of Sandman, such as they are, are all attributable to Kirby... and Wally Wood. There is nothing wrong with the art on the short lived series and that last issue with Wally Wood inks is a showcase of fantastic artwork from 70's DC.

[DeadXMan]

love his omac and new gods

but I'm mad that DC altrered his superman

[berk]

Well put Berk. What a travesty, to Kirby, it would be if the language of gods and monsters became the mouthings of the workaday man and woman.

The language of myth is cut to the sharp edges of the symbol to which it gives voice. It is plain and it is clear. It is emphatic and it is unsubtle. It is the clarion of the epic and the unconscious, the transcendent myth. And it would sink into tedium if had to mime the speech of daily drama.

It is not by accident that Kirby was assigned to Thor and Fantastic Four (even Captain America... the most mythic of Marvel's "ordinary" heroes) rather than Spider-Man, or Daredevil, to use your fine example.Actually, reading over my little spiel, that came out sounding a lot more harsh than I intended. I didn't mean to sound as if I was insulting anyone, just wanted to get across the idea that it isn't really relevant to judge Kirby's writing by the same standards you'd judge an X-Men comic or Bendis's Avengers or whatever, because he was trying to do something very different from what those stories are all about.

Beyond the style, though, even if I found Kirby's dialogue as consistently bad as it sounds to his detractors, I wouldn't want it to have been re-written by a scriptor, because you'd lose too much meaning. When Ikaris, in Eternals #1, for example says "It can turn myth into stark reality!" he's stating in a nutshell one of the very basic themes that underlie the series: that it is all about the relationship between myth and reality, what each means to the other, how they intertwine, support an illustrate each other.

Now, sceptics might say that a better writer could have taken the same idea and expressed it more effectively, or at least put it into more 'realistic' speech pattern, but I think this is missing at least a couple points:

1)the previously stated one that Ikaris ain't a regular guy, (he's 'uncanny', remember? and later Margo tells her father that she's actually scared of him), and perhaps even more importantly,

2) I'm not sure Kirby always had all this stuff thought out on a conscious level (no slight to Kirby, I don't think any writer worth his salt does, from Homer to Dante to Shakespeare on down); I think that much of the time he really was channelling his muse, or his unconscious, or whatever metaphor suits you, through his creative expertise and mastery of technique, straight onto the page in story form. IOW, I'm not sure he'd have been able to articulate his underlying thematic material in nominal, declarative terms to another writer and have that writer produce a script for him that illustrated those themes as does Kirby's script. Again, not surprisingly, since it's the very fact that these things are difficult to think about directly that we deal with them in stories.

And BTW, I just picked that line almost at random. The series as a whole, at least before it was forced off the rails by a management and readership that failed to appreciate it, is full of lines like that, lines that encapsulate basic themes, concepts and characters in ways that no hired scripter, no matter how superior you think his style, could have done. And I'd never want to lose that, even if I did find it desirable to have the Eternals talk like characters from a tv-drama. Again, if that's what's important to you, I give you the current Knaufs-written Eternals series; should be right up your alley.

[Babylon23]

For everybody that's interested, DC has just solicited The Losers by Jack Kirby, reprinting Kirby's Our Fighting Forces issues in HC. It will be out on March 11, 2009. I know I'll be adding it to my bookshelf

[T GUy]

For everybody that's interested, DC has just solicited The Losers by Jack Kirby, reprinting Kirby's Our Fighting Forces issues in HC. It will be out on March 11, 2009. I know I'll be adding it to my bookshelf

You are a man of taste and discernment. This work is up there with the best of Kirby. I highly recommend it to comics fans (each of you will have to determine whether you are a comics fan or a superhero comics fan who calls himself a comics fan).

[Roquefort Raider]

For all the good stuff that Kirby produced in the 1970s, let's not forget that was also the time when he produced the awful (and ludicrous) The Sandman.

I'd like to defend that admittedly minor effort. Kirby's Sandman had all the elements that made Harry Potter the humongous success that it was :

a) an orphan boy abused by ugly, cruel and stupid relatives, deprived of food and proper lodgings;
b) a connection to some magical world;
c) the knowledge that even if he is treated like dirt, the young hero is someone special.

The book lacked in subtletly, of course : it dealt with fantasy in a raw and straightforward manner, with an in-your-face quality typical of Kirby's kinetic storytelling. However, Neil Gaiman's later interpretation of the story shows that it was amenable to very mature and moving themes (abused children, the seductive nature of dreams and self-delusion, and so on).

I agree that the main character's red and yellow colors were an eyesore, but since I read those stories in black and white it wasn't a problem at the time.

I'd honestly rate Sandman as high as Omac or the Demon.

[foxley]

Was The Dingbats of Danger Street also a masterpiece?

[benday-dot]

Was The Dingbats of Danger Street also a masterpiece?

I'd hardly call it a masterpiece, but it was a fun book, with the usual nice splash panels you'd expect in a Kirby work from this period.

I don't think anyone here is calling Sandman a masterpiece either. But there is a significant space of appreciation remaining twixt a "masterpiece" and the downright "awful"

[Babylon23]

You are a man of taste and discernment. This work is up there with the best of Kirby. I highly recommend it to comics fans (each of you will have to determine whether you are a comics fan or a superhero comics fan who calls himself a comics fan).

This is the only 70's work of Kirby's that I've never been able to find, so I'm definitely excited by the prospect of owning this book. I've heard a lot of great things about The Losers.

It's really a good time to be a Kirby fan. Both Marvel and DC are going out of their way to publish the King's work.

[Leocomix]

I just want to recommend that book as well. A lot of Kirby's DC work is very personal: Morgan Edge represents the corporate mentality that bought Marvel in 1970 (Cadence Industries), Scott Free is the expression of Kirby wanting to get free from Marvel, etc, but they're all fantasy while The Losers rests on Kirby's memories of WWII. It has that survivor wavelength that Kamandi has but without the fantasy elements. It's raw power, undiluted by Stan Lee.
When I was 18, I loved New Gods but my tastes shifted with age and now I really appreciate Kamandi and The Losers. It's no coincidence if Neil Gaiman is writing the introduction to that one.

[Aaron King]

I freaked out a little when that Losers hardcover was announced. I only have one issue from Kirby's run, but it's fantastic.

I only have one issue of "his" Sandman as well:
http://www.comics.org/graphics/covers/2153/200/2153_2_03.jpg
I bought it for one dollar for the cover and was, initially, disappointed that he didn't do the internal art. However, after reading it, I was so delightfully disturbed that I swore to get the rest of the run.

[MartinRedmond]

It's no coincidence if Neil Gaiman is writing the introduction to that one.

Yah, Neil created so many original characters out of nothing. And you can tell he keeps digging ideas from his own personal life experience too. :rolleyes:

[Simon Garth]

... Beyond the style, though, even if I found Kirby's dialogue as consistently bad as it sounds to his detractors, I wouldn't want it to have been re-written by a scriptor, because you'd lose too much meaning. When Ikaris, in Eternals #1, for example says "It can turn myth into stark reality!" he's stating in a nutshell one of the very basic themes that underlie the series: that it is all about the relationship between myth and reality, what each means to the other, how they intertwine, support an illustrate each other.

Now, sceptics might say that a better writer could have taken the same idea and expressed it more effectively, or at least put it into more 'realistic' speech pattern, but I think this is missing at least a couple points:

1)the previously stated one that Ikaris ain't a regular guy, (he's 'uncanny', remember? and later Margo tells her father that she's actually scared of him), and perhaps even more importantly,

2) I'm not sure Kirby always had all this stuff thought out on a conscious level (no slight to Kirby, I don't think any writer worth his salt does, from Homer to Dante to Shakespeare on down); I think that much of the time he really was channelling his muse, or his unconscious, or whatever metaphor suits you, through his creative expertise and mastery of technique, straight onto the page in story form. IOW, I'm not sure he'd have been able to articulate his underlying thematic material in nominal, declarative terms to another writer and have that writer produce a script for him that illustrated those themes as does Kirby's script. Again, not surprisingly, since it's the very fact that these things are difficult to think about directly that we deal with them in stories.

And BTW, I just picked that line almost at random. The series as a whole, at least before it was forced off the rails by a management and readership that failed to appreciate it, is full of lines like that, lines that encapsulate basic themes, concepts and characters in ways that no hired scripter, no matter how superior you think his style, could have done. And I'd never want to lose that, even if I did find it desirable to have the Eternals talk like characters from a tv-drama. Again, if that's what's important to you, I give you the current Knaufs-written Eternals series; should be right up your alley.

Once again, I think we'll have to agree to disagree. You read Kirby's dialogue and hear mythic declamations spoken as by gods, and see layers of metaphor; I read it and hear leaden, overblown, ham-laden purple prose, written by a limited writer with a tin ear for dialogue, and see a half-arsed retelling of Van Daniken crossed with the Greek gods. To me, his scripting is straight out of the golden age (and that is not a complement!) - outdated even by the standards of the heavily overwritten 70s - I found it utterly unreadable at the time, and even more so now. There's just no point of contact between our views at all.