10 YEARS AGO TODAY

The MIGHTY AVENGERS #12 had an editor-ordered Kirby homage cover. Artist Marko Djurdjevic's only allowed creativity was the altering of the characters into Skrulls.

3 YEARS AGO TODAY

Disney/Marvel indoctrinates a new generation of fans to the King

KIRBY CLASSIC Variant cover

AVENGERS OPERATION HYDRA #1 $3.99 

(W) Will Pilgrim (A) Andrea DiVito (CA) Jack Kirby
   Join the Avengers - Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and the Hulk-- as they set off on an all-new adventure against a secret Hydra splinter cell! 
   PLUS: Reprinting AVENGERS #16, presenting the story that brought Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch onto the team for the first time!

48 YEARS AGO TODAY

Kirby's 11th new cover for 1970 hit the stands.

Inside was 30 pages of reprinted Kirby art.

77 YEARS AGO TODAY

Kirby's 12th published cover went on sale.

It was his 4th Swastika cover (see CAPTAIN AMERICA #1 & 2 and PRIZE #7)

76 YEARS AGO TODAY

A complete National (DC) collection would consist of 428 books. 

Three months earlier the work of Jack Kirby and his partner Joe Simon began appearing in National Comics (and disappearing from Timely/Atlas Comics)

ADVENTURE COMICS #74 not only had a Kirby/Simon cover and a 10 page Sandman story with an early Kirbybot (back when computers were called "calculating machines)...

 

..it also had a Manhunter story that begins at a masquerade party, has a scavenger hunt as a plot device and shows plenty of mobsters getting punched by the hero!

At this point 24 year old Kirby already had nearly 1000 pages of art published.

46 YEARS AGO TODAY

1972 was a good year to be a Kirby fan. With the arrival of NEW GODS #9 at the shops he had 7 covers and 204 new pages of words and pictures published for the first 107 days of the year.

42 YEARS AGO TODAY

Kirby's penultimate Odin cover (Joe Sinnott inks)
Interior art by John Buscema not Kirby.

60 YEARS AGO TODAY

SO FAR KIRBY WAS AVERAGING ONE PUBLISHED COVER A MONTH FOR 1958

Half of them were for CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN.

COTU also accounted for nearly half of the 102 pages of Kirby interior art published at this point in 1958.

3 YEARS AGO TODAY

Name the Kirby characters!

Cover to UNCANNY X-MEN #33 by Paul Anka

48 YEARS AGO TODAY

TALK ABOUT JOB SECURITY!!! 

Lee/Kirby's 100th issue

Cover and interior embellishment by Joe Sinnott

57 YEARS AGO TODAY

STRANGE TALES #86 - Kirby/Ayers cover 

    "I Created Mechano" (13 Kirby/Ayers pages)

   

Once again atomic power causes a big problem in a Kirby drawn tale.

"Georgie's Globe" (5 Ditko pages)

Ditko's strange tale, like Kirby's leadoff, features a character the average comic reader of 1961 can easily identify with.  

 "Beware of Meeks Bringing Gifts" (5 Kirby/Brodsy pages)

A Kirby First Contact 5 pager is the closer. According to Nick Caputo a word balloon coming from a planet indicates a Larry Lieber script.

IN THE SHOPS 1 YEAR AGO TODAY

The 4th new Kirby cover for 2017

X-MEN BLUE #1

(10 copy incentive Kirby Variant cover)

IN THE SHOPS TODAY

ALL-NEW CLASSIC 10 PAGE TALE BY MARK WAID AND JACK KIRBY !!!

from

CAPTAIN AMERICA #700

56 YEARS AGO TODAY

More than 48 million U.S. households had a television
More than 15 million households watched Wagon Train.

More than 14 million watched Bonanza.

More than 13 million watched Gunsmoke.

They were the three most popular shows 

No wonder Lee commissioned this Kirby/Ayers cover!
(Alternate post title: is that a Rorschach chicken on the Kid's vest?)

44 YEARS AGO TODAY

The Kirby/DC campaign to defeat Marvel continued into its 3rd year...

from KAMANDI #19

50 YEARS AGO TODAY

This was one of those rare Lee/Kirby THOR issues that didn't introduce any new characters.

53 YEARS AGO TODAY

STAN LEE, JACK KIRBY and VINCE COLLETTA SEND THOR TO VIET NAM!!!

Plus the Enchantress and the Executioner make their 9th Marvel Universe appearances. Wait there's more - Loki's 22nd MU appearance!!!

47 YEARS AGO TODAY

The first year of the Kirby/DC campaign to defeat Marvel continued...

from FOREVER PEOPLE #3

words by Kirby

art by Kirby/Colletta

52 YEARS AGO TODAY

You had the opportunity to purchase something historic.

For the first time Marvel reprinted a Golden Age Captain America story. Actually they reprinted two Cap stories from 1941, both penciled by Kirby but finished by a different inker. The 17 page "Hunchback of Hollywood and the Movie Murder" was finished by Frank Giacoia. Reed Crandall applied his considerable embellishing skills to the 11 page "The Plundering Butterfly and the Ancient Mummies" 

FANTASY MASTERPIECES #3 also had another treat for  connoisseurs of comparative Kirby collaborations - a 13 page Kirby/Ayers giant monster story.

 

59 YEARS AGO TODAY

Not only did this comic have a Kirby/Rule cover, it also had two stories drawn by them.

Plus there was also two stories drawn by future Kirby embellisher Joe Sinnott.

56 YEARS AGO TODAY

Low tech subliminal advertising from STRANGE TALES #97's "When A Planet Dies!"

55 YEARS AGO TODAY

Slightly more 50 million U.S. households had a television.

15 million households watched Bonanza.
13 million watched Gunsmoke.
11 million households discovered Clint Eastwood on Rawhide.
11 million watched Wagon Train and The Virginian

No wonder Lee commissioned this Kirby/Ayers cover!

54 YEARS AGO TODAY

Captain America's fourth Silver Age appearance was available at your local spinner rack.

Like Cap's three previous appearances since the beginning of the 1964, Kirby provided the art. Cap had been on hiatus since 1954. Kirby hadn't drawn the character that he co-created since 1942. 

40 YEARS AGO TODAY

If you are in your forties this might have been your introduction to Kirby's work.

Along with WHAT IF #9, which had also hit the shops earlier in the month, 10 new Kirby-covered comics had shipped for 1978. Seven of them, including this one had 17 pages of Kirby story and art.

32 YEARS AGO TODAY

Marvel reminds comic fans that Kirby exists.

Not only did MARVEL SAGA: THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE #7 present Kirby story art from INCREDIBLE HULK #4, FANTASTIC FOUR #9, STRANGE TALES #103, TALES TO ASTONISH #38  and JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #87 and 88, it also spotlighted two of his covers...

1 YEAR AGO TODAY

ATTENTION KIRBY COMPLETISTS

THE THIRD NEW KIRBY COVER FOR 2017
INHUMANS PRIME #1

(10 copy incentive Kirby Variant cover)

49 YEARS AGO TODAY

If you missed FANTASTIC FOUR #87 the good news is that it would be reprinted a mere 8 years later.

The bad news is that the 20 pages of Kirby/Sinnott art would be edited down to 18 pages. Only the first 2 panels and last 2 panels of this sequence were reprinted in MARVEL'S GREATEST COMICS #69

76 YEARS AGO TODAY

"It's an amazing piece of comic art, and one of the most memorable images from the entire history of the medium." - Heritage Auctions

52 YEARS AGO TODAY

1966 was a good year for Kirby fans. These 4 Kirby-covered comics increased his 3 month total to 19.

Kirby also had 207 pages of story art published the first 84 days of 1966.

53 YEARS AGO TODAY

Did you finish a 5 day march to the Capitol from Montgomery, Alabama or did you spend your time reading this 20 page Kirby comic with the oft-homaged cover?

(art by Marko Djurdjevic)

48 YEARS AGO TODAY

These 2 new Kirby covers brought his 1970 total up to 8
This one also had 6 pages of new Kirby art increasing his total to 133 pages.

This one had 29 pages of reprinted Kirby/Chic Stone art.

It was generous of Marvel to comission a new cover instead of reprinting this one.