Thursday, December 31, 2015
48 YEARS AGO TODAY the transporter/teleporter device providing the dramatic entrance of THOR #135's villain was NOT a Star Trek influence. The first episode was broadcast less than a month before so this issue would already be on the way to the printers when Kirby first watched the show in his home studio.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Friday, December 25, 2015
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Monday, December 7, 2015
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Saturday, December 5, 2015
ANOTHER KIRBY MYSTERY
THOR #165 was released when the U.S.A. was divided by the Vietnam War. Was it plotter Lee, penciler Kirby or inker Colletta that put the footprints of the American chicken on the uniforms of the soldiers?
Monday, November 30, 2015
NEW/OLD KIRBY IN THE SHOPS THIS WEDNESDAY
BOY COMMANDOS BY SIMON AND KIRBY HC VOL 02
Jack Kirby & Joe
SimonStories from THE BOY COMMANDOS #3-5, WORLD'S FINEST COMICS #10-13 and DETECTIVE COMICS #74-83 and 85, the Boy Commandos must escape enemy kidnappers, encounter a mystical monk looking for items that exemplify modern civilization, set up a pirate radio station behind enemy lines, and stand accused of treason.
Friday, November 20, 2015
KIRBY FULL PAGE PANEL TRIVIA
FANTASTIC FOUR #89 had the same amount of full page panels as the first 11 issues of that title combined. (5)
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Monday, November 9, 2015
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Friday, September 18, 2015
47 YEARS AGO TODAY
If you had been a FANTASTIC FOUR reader for less than five years the never-before-reprinted story in MARVEL COLLECTORS' ITEM CLASSICS #18 would be new to you.
Part of the fun of rereading Silver Age Marvels is knowing now that Lee
would provide the beginning and ending and task the artist/co-plotter with supplying the middle. Superhero stories being formulaic that was frequently as simple as
choreographing fight sequences. Having the alien interact with gangsters was
probably a Kirby contribution.
Thursday, September 10, 2015
51 YEARS AGO TODAY
All nine of the Kirby covers that shipped September 1964 were inked by Chic
Stone.
Saturday, September 5, 2015
37 YEARS AGO TODAY
The reprinting of Captain America's origin from CAPTAIN AMERICA #109 in
MARVEL SUPER ACTION #11 didn't include the action-packed second page.
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
74 YEARS AGO TODAY
Monday, August 24, 2015
LESS THAN 48 HOURS UNTIL NEW KIRBY/STERANKO HITS YOUR LCS...!!!
from SHIELD #9
A commemorative 50th Anniversary story that spans the past and the present, and unites Phil Coulson and Nick Fury, Sr. in a unique cross-time adventure to answer a riddle that lies at the heart of the origins of SHIELD: who is The Man Called D.E.A.T.H.? Includes a sequence penciled by Jack Kirby and inked by Jim Steranko that has never seen print as part of a story before!
Plus: The return of Dum Dum Dugan and the birth of the new Howling Commandos! The very first SHIELD story from 1965! And the pilot presentation sequence that inspired the series!!!
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Friday, August 21, 2015
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
45 YEARS AGO TODAY
Pity poor Sal Buscema. Tasked with creating a cover for a comic that not only reprinted two classic Kirby-rendered AVENGERS comics from six years earlier (for a total of 46 pages)...
It also had a gallery of Kirby's first six AVENGERS covers!
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Thursday, August 13, 2015
49 YEARS AGO TODAY: The End of an Era!
The final two Lee/Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR pamphlets to begin with a symbolic
splash were distributed: FANTASTIC FOUR #56
and
FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #4
FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #4
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Thursday, July 30, 2015
ONE YEAR AGO TODAY
If Daniel Acuña's homage to the King introduces just one more child to Kirby's Legacy it will be worth the effort
Cover to UNCANNY AVENGERS #22
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Thursday, July 23, 2015
43 YEARS AGO TODAY your retailer would have four Kirby comics for you to choose from. Two of them, DEMON #1 and MISTER MIRACLE #10, would be DC comics with new Kirby covers and new Kirby interior art.
The other two would be Marvels. MONSTERS ON THE PROWL #19 (reprinting two Kirby stories from the early Sixties) and
reprinting the Kirby story from
The new cover for the old Kirby story is by the younger of the talented Buscema brothers, Sal. As if it was not already unfair to task Sal with creating a composition that would inevitably be compared with Jack's it was further hampered by unnecessary word balloons. Saturday, July 18, 2015
47 YEARS AGO TODAY for the second month in a row Steve Rogers spends part of CAPTAIN AMERICA watching a movie about himself and Bucky.
The movie date is in the comfort of his apartment with a male S.H.I.E.L.D.
agent. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Friday, July 17, 2015
NEW KIRBY IN YOUR FUTURE!!!
SHIELD #9
(W) Mark Waid, Various (A) Lee Ferguson, Jack Kirby (CA) Julian Totino Tedesco
A commemorative 50th Anniversary story that spans the past and the present, and unites Phil Coulson and Nick Fury, Sr. in a unique cross-time adventure to answer a riddle that lies at the heart of the origins of SHIELD: who is The Man Called D.E.A.T.H.? Includes a sequence penciled by Jack Kirby and inked by Jim Steranko that has never seen print as part of a story before!
Plus: The return of Dum Dum Dugan and the birth of the new Howling Commandos! The very first SHIELD story from 1965! And the pilot presentation sequence that inspired the creation of SHIELD!
In the shops August 26 - $5.99
1 in 50 KIRBY AND STERANKO VARIANT COVER
Thursday, July 16, 2015
53 YEARS AGO
The Marvel Universe consisted of four titles. FANTASTIC FOUR would prosper. TALES TO ASTONISH and JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY (the half superhero and half fantasy anthologies) succeeded. INCREDIBLE HULK did not generate enough sales to survive. After the cancellation of his series it would be six months before the Hulk would make another appearance.
I thought that it would illuminating to compare the sales of a successful Lee/Kirby concept to an unsuccessful one from the same year. Unfortunately the only Marvel titles I was able to find the average monthly 1962 sales for were MODELING WITH MILLIE (143,476), PATSY & HEDY (139,855), TALES TO ASTONISH (139,167), STRANGE TALES (136,637), JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY (132,113), GUNSMOKE WESTERN (126,475) and TALES OF SUSPENSE (126,140).
I thought that it would illuminating to compare the sales of a successful Lee/Kirby concept to an unsuccessful one from the same year. Unfortunately the only Marvel titles I was able to find the average monthly 1962 sales for were MODELING WITH MILLIE (143,476), PATSY & HEDY (139,855), TALES TO ASTONISH (139,167), STRANGE TALES (136,637), JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY (132,113), GUNSMOKE WESTERN (126,475) and TALES OF SUSPENSE (126,140).
At least 43 comics were outselling Marvel's titles in 1962 including CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN (195,000), BETTY AND VERONICA (302,820), BATMAN (410,000), CASPER (436,153) and SUPERMAN'S PAL JIMMY OLSEN (470,000).
Sunday, July 12, 2015
Friday, July 10, 2015
Thursday, July 9, 2015
46 YEARS AGO TODAY once you got past the John Buscema/Giacoia cover...
You were rewarded with 53 pages of Kirby-drawn classic (more than 4 years old) Captain America stories. 20 of the pages were embellished by Giacoia providing a veneer of artistic continuity with the cover.
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