THE KIRBY ALPHABET

ITEM! This Merry Marvel Meme has already been all over the Internets and the Google, but you know what they say — better late than clever. Just in case you missed it, we here in Soapboxland proudly present the following for your cultural edification and comical education: Brit cartoonist Roger Langridge’s The Kirby Alphabet (just click on the image below for a Galactus-sized view). Rollickin’ Roger is primarily known for his winsome webcomic, The Hotel Fred, which you can check out right here. Enjoy it, Marvel Mavens!

Excelsior!

Smiley

WELL HERE'S YOUR BASIC TROUBLE RIGHT HERE...

CRY COMICS — CRY HAVOC!

ITEM! It seems that the comics industry is in peril, and every Wednesday is turning into “Black Wednesday” as the sales figures continue to slowly decline. For a comprehensive compendium of this week’s frantic fallout, go see this story over at Heidi MacDonald’s The Beat blog. Things look dire indeed. One might be inclined to ask at this point, whither comic books?

Don’t you believe it, Fearless Ones! Take it from my octogenarian outlook. The comics industry has struggled before and folks have been predicting its imminent demise starting all the way back in the early 50s (thank you, Dr. Fredric “Rabble Rouser” Wertham). The only difference between then and now are the miles on the odometer, baby.

Are there fundamental problems in creative content and distribution channels that need addressing? Absolutely! Has the game changed almost entirely with the introduction of new technologies and new digital media? You bet’cha! But is it really the end of serialized graphic storytelling as we know it? Not on your life, pilgrim! The comics industry isn’t any different from the auto industry, the banking system or the housing market. The comics have just got to get with the times and figure out how to best take advantage of the new media opportunities and stop trying to fight an Information Age battle with last century’s editorial tanks and planes. 

You know, it’s times like these that I really miss Jolly Jack Kirby. He had a prescient practice of prophesying these portents and omens way before the rest of us caught up to the future. For example, Jack foretold the coming of graphic novels and their sale in chain bookstores decades before the practice became commonplace. If he was here with us now, he’d probably just rattle off the entire solution to the industry’s current problems over a turkey and gravy sandwich at lunch! Still, there’s a solution out there. All we have to do as an industry is find it. So keep the home fires burning, True Believers. And until Joe Quesada reveals that Aunt May is secretly a Skrull agent, keep Making Yours Marvel! 

Excelsior!

Smiley

OWN THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT

ITEM! Hey there, Marvelites! If you’ve got an extra $1.2 million laying around burning a hole in your hot little pockets, then you can buy the house that Jack Kirby built! No, no... not Marvel Comics — the other house that Jack built. It seems that Jolly Jack’s former residence in Thousand Oaks, CA is now up for sale. You can check out the listing here, or see a satellite picture of it here. According to the listing it’s got four bedrooms, three baths and an in-ground pool. No word in the listing if there’s a lower-level entrance to Subterranea or if the house is Negative Zone accessible. Either way, let’s face it, pilgrims. This place should be on the National Register of Historic Sites. Maybe the new owners will arrange for that, and if you’re in the market for a daringly dramatic domicile located in Southern California, that person could be you! 

Excelsior!

Smiley

SO WHY DID JACK QUIT MARVEL?

ITEM! Here’s another question your Uncle Stanley gets asked just about every time I show my fabulous fawning face in public: Why did Jack Kirby quit Marvel in 1970 and jump ship to the Doubtful Competition? In fact, I was recently asked this very question while visiting Google for one of their Authors@Google Series. And just how did Yours Truly answer that insightful inquiry? Well, it’s Honest Irving Forbush III to the rescue with one of those embedded YooTube dealies so that you, the discriminating Marvel Reader, can see exactly how I responded to this quintessential question! 

Excelsior!

Smiley

ELECTION DAZE NOW AVAILABLE ON IPHONE AND IN E-BOOK VERSION!

ITEM! Hoohah! Seems like just the other day Yours Truly was comparing Kirby’s Motherbox to the iPhone, and look what I started. Now you can get my best-selling political humor book Election Daze on your iPhone or as an eBook readable on any computer! Plus you get cool new bonus content that I wrote especially for these electronic editions. Get the iPhone version here, or the eBook version here.

Your Uncle Stan is still working on a sizzling sequel to Election Daze, but I’m having a little trouble convincing Filsinger Publishing that an approach that combines both of my prior captioning loves, political figures and Universal movie monsters, is the right way to go. Below is a sample comp that I worked up to wow ‘em with! I'm thinking of calling the new book Monsters to Decry With...

Excelsior!

Smiley

THE WORLD’S GREATEST COMIC SYNOPSIS

ITEM! Didja know that Yours Truly still has a copy of his original outline for Fantastic Four #1 (Nov. 1961)? And thank Odin for that! Without it, my mnemonically-impaired misfiring memory cells would never be certain who came up with what between Jolly Jack and myself. As it is, you can read this and easily see what parts of our cosmic quartet came from your Uncle Stanley and which came from King Kirby!

I do recall that originally Uncle Martin wanted me to do a knock-off of the Debilitated Competition’s Justice League mag, and went so far as to suggest that we reunite all of our Golden Age heroes for just such a team. But I’d already tried that once with Cap, Subby and the Torch in the mid-50s and it didn’t sell. Plus, the only combustible character that I really liked from back then was the Human Torch. So I hit on the idea of forming a new team just using the one Golden Oldie, revised to suit modern day readers, natch. Jack and I brain-stormed the rest of the team up, and then I set down to my trusty ol’ Olympia manual typewriter (the preferred writing instrument of Harlan Ellison and Luddites everywhere) and banged out the outline shown below (click on the images to enlarge to comfortable reading size, pilgrims).

What’s particularly interesting is what’s in this that we didn’t use, and what’s not in it that we ended up with. Obviously, the idea of Sue’s clothes not disappearing when she used he power and her having to run around naked every time she needed to be invisible didn’t make it past Jack (though Tim Story had some fun with it 40 years later). Neither did the ideas of Sue being an actress, Johnny not being able to toss fireballs, and (except for a few passing mentions in early ishes) Ben’s crush on Sue.

As to FF #1 itself, you’ll also note that there’s no mention of the Mole Man or Monster Isle. Don’t hold me to this, but I’m pretty sure that I just handed Jack this outline and told him to rip out another 12-13 pages of the FF fighting their first battle against some standard monster-mag monsters, just like the ones we were publishing like crazy at the time. So all of that stuff, plus the reordering of the story into a framed flashback, were all Kirby creations.

So there you have it, Frantic Ones... a little gem of a piece of Merry Marvel Mythology all documented for your analytical appetites. Enjoy!

Excelsior!

Smiley

COMIC BOOK CONFIDENTIAL

ITEM! If you’ve never seen Ron Mann’s classic 1988 documentary, Comic Book Confidential, then shame on you, pilgrim. You’ve unknowingly deprived yourself of one of the most exciting examinations of graphic storytelling as an art form this side of Scott McCloud. Shot on a non-existent budget using cameras and crew “borrowed” from another project, Mister Mann and associates talked to the creators who made it all happen from the 1930s up through the 80s, including the likes of Will Eisner, William M. Gaines, Harvey Kurtzman, Robert Crumb, Lynda Barry and Frank Miller, just to name a few. And of course they interviewed Yours Truly and Jack Kirby, including having each of us read a short segment from some of our very best work. Just to whet your appetite, I’ve had Irving Forbush III imbed those segments below. After you’ve enjoyed them, you can order the entire movie on dynamic DVD by going right here. Enjoy!

Excelsior!

Smiley

DITKO ON KIRBY'S SPIDER-MAN

ITEM! Look’s like Sturdy Steve Ditko, the man many consider the co-creator of Spder-Man, has finally updated his blog with a 2002 article relating his verifiable version of Spidey’s creation — with a focus on what contributions Jack Kirby made and didn’t make. It’s interesting reading, though in a rare burst of relatively reliable recall Yours Truly gave comprehensive coverage to the self same issue both here and here. To read about it from Steverino's point-of-view, clicketh thou here, and enjoy it for thyself!

Excelsior!

Smiley

ART DIRECTOR PAR EXCELLANCE

ITEM! While most folks mainly remember my 1945-1972 stint as Editor-in-Chief at Marvel Comics for my witty writing, dramatic dialogue, elegant editing, and peerless promotional propaganda, the fact is that I was also one helluva Art Director as well. Sure I had some great guys like Kirby, Ditko, Romita, Colan and others who were actually producing all of that art, but at the end of the day who was responsible for the overall look-and-feel of the whole furshlinger comic book line? If you said Sol Brodsky, go sit in the back of the class, pilgrim. Yours Truly was the final say on everything. Well... the final say except for Uncle Martin. And that’s my Uncle — Martin Goodman — not Bill Bixby’s. But I digress...

Much like late-great PBS art show host Bob Ross, who wanted everyone to paint “happy trees,” I was forever extolling the Bullpen to draw things “more like Kirby.” Say what you will, but it was art direction like that which got our sales up over Brand Ecch’s in the early 70s, and we've never looked back since. Still, not everyone was comfortable with my art directorial style. For example, see the over-the-top, over-done, over-alliterative cartoon below, submitted to the ol’ Sock It To Stan emailbox by MMMS member Rob Steibel. Your specially primed and armed Nuclear No-Prize is on it’s way to you, Rob. Who says your Uncle Stanley can’t take a little joke?

Excelsior!

Smiley

"JACK, I AM WHAT YOU MADE ME"

ITEM! Didja know that you don’t have to wait another four months to get the latest issue of the Jack Kirby Quarterly? That’s how long it’ll take for the slow boat from Great Britain to get ‘em over here in U.S. comic book shops. But you can get yours the same way your Uncle Stanley got his copy. No, no, you don’t have to become the idol of millions or sign your name on everything in sight. Relax. All you have to do is to get on the ebays and order a copy shipped directly to your hot little hands! No need to thank me, pilgrims. Spreading the faith, keeping the flame alive, and shamelessly promoting anything that mentions Yours Truly in it by name is just what I do.

This latest effort from editor Credible Chrissie Harper and contributors like Marv Wolfman, Greg Theakston, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird (to name only a few) is packed with more and better info on Jolly Jack than you can shake a Boom Tube at! There are things in this mag that even Yours Truly was surprised to learn (or re-learn as the case may be). When you have the long-term memory capacity of a shot-gunned sieve, you do the best you can! Marvelous Marv talks about originally plotting the first Fantastic Four/Terrax storyline for the King to draw, only to have that plan fall through at the last minute. Greg Theakston recalls — with far greater clarity than I do — the reconciliation hug between the King and I. And the Kirby family allowed the publication of some Kirby art that I’ve never even seen before... and believe me brother, I’ve seen more than my fair share! Check out the semi-autobiographical pencil drawing hand-colored in ink dyes by the King himself (see below).

If sales of this issue warrant it, editor Chrissie Harper promises a much-more-aptly named next issue of the Jack Kirby Annual some time in 2009 — so go support the cause, pilgrims! You will be rewarded in ways you’ll never know. To quote the King, “Don’t ask! Just Buy!”

Excelsior!

Smiley

TOP 10 BEST JACK KIRBY COMICS

The Shooter here with my own contribution to the Jack Kirby 91st birthday celebration and thanks to the Smilin’ One for letting me play in his Soapbox. Rather than belabor the obvious, gentle readers, I’ve chosen to share with you my personal favorites: The Top 10 Best Jack Kirby Comics. I know, it’s like choosing your favorite Beatles song or your favorite Van Gogh. Or deciding which of my runs on The Legion of Superheroes is best. While you may disagree with some of my choices, we can all agree that the King gave us some of the very best graphic storytelling the world has ever seen. Even in collaboration (to one degree or another) with the likes of Joe Simon, Stan Lee and even Arthur C. Clarke, Jack’s storytelling sensibilities were always what made a Kirby comic great. Inventive as he was, creative as he was, artistically gifted as he was, Jack was always first and foremost a fantastic storyteller. And so, without further ado...

Top 10 Best Jack Kirby Comics

10. Kamandi #16 “The Gift”

9. Marvel Treasury Edition: 2001 A Space Odyssey

8. Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #6 “The Fangs of the Fox”

7. Captain America #1

6. Thor #159 “The Answer At Last!”

5. Mister Miracle #9 “Himon!”

4. Fantastic Four #51 “This Man... This Monster”

3. Streetwise “Street Code”

2. Boys Ranch #3 “Mother Delilah”

1. New Gods #7 “The Pact”

Take Care,

Shooter

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE KING!

ITEM! Today of course, is the day that should be recognized as a national holiday for comic book fans around the world — it's Jack Kirby's birthday! On August 28, 1917, Jacob Benjamin Kurtzberg, later known as Jack Kirby, was born in New York’s Lower East Side. Little did anyone know that 91 years ago today the single greatest creative force ever seen in the sequential art medium had just arrived on the planet. There have been many masters of the comic arts, but there’s only been one King.

We talk a lot about Jack Kirby here in Soapboxland. Heck, one of the reasons your Uncle Stanley started this off-the-record and under-the-radar blog was so that I could set a few records straight and give some credit where credit was long overdue. So to celebrate the King’s birthday, we proudly present a sense-shattering selection of the best of our Jolly Jack Kirby blog posts. Learn what brand of cigar the King smoked! Hear Jolly Jack tell it like it is in his own words! Learn the secret true origins of characters like Galactus and the Inhumans! Read along as we celebrate the King’s birthday the only way we know how — with lots and lots of agonizingly alliterative adjectives, adverbs, and anagrams!

You Don’t Know Jack

... And I Named Him That!

Behold! The Coming of Galactus!

Sgt. Stanley’s Lonely Hearts Club Bullpen

Raiders of the Lost Art

This Is a Plot?

Thus Spake Zarathustra

Among Us Dwell... The Munsters?

Kirby’s Unfinished Fourth Symphony

Fantastic Fonts, Faces and Fours

Jack’s One Man Super-Soldier Corps

Marvelous Iconography

The Incredible Hulk — The Lost Cameos

Jack and Bob

Jack's Back — And We Got Him!

Who Credits the Creators?

Co-Creators — The Other Side of the Story

Still not willing to take our word for it? Then by all means go see what some other boisterous bloggers have to say about the King on his 91st birthday (updated even, so go knock yourself silly)!

The Jack Kirby Museum: Jack's 91st Birthday

Beaucoup Kevin: Jack Kirby Would Be 91 Today

Chris' Invincible Super-Blog: The World That's Coming Revisited!

Mid-Ohio Con Blog: Why Kirby Is King

Mark Evanier's News From Me: Jack

PW The Beat: Happy 91st Birthday Jack Kirby

The Comics Reporter: Jack Kirby Would Have Been 91 Today

The Jack Kirby Weblog: Happy 91st Birthday, Jack

Excelsior!

Smiley

JACK KIRBY: THE MOTHER OF ALL INVENTIONS

ITEM! One of the toughest things about working with Jack "King" Kirby was just trying to keep up with and sort through all of his idiosyncratic ideas. Jack was the kind of creator who threw away more ideas before breakfast than most of us had all year. And I’ll be the first to admit that when parsing through the 10 gazillion ideas he’d pack into those pencilled pages’ margin notes, a few times I went. “well, gee, that’s great... but it’s just too crazy. THAT’S never gonna happen.”

But I’ve noticed that the present has a habit of catching up to Jack’s future-perfect ideas. To wit, Apple’s ubiquitous iPhone. Just recently, at least two comapnies have announced or deployed comic book reading applications for Steve’ Job’s wunderdevice. A company named Clickwheel developed something called the Clickwheel Comic Reader that lets you read specially-formatted comics right on your iPhone. For example, you can subscribe to Great Britain’s titanic 2000 A.D. and Judge Dredd for a nominal fee, or catch tons of other comic creations for absolutely free!

Then there’s iVerse’s recently announced iVerse Media Player, which will do basically the same thing when released. And iVerse is actively seeking content partners even as we blog. What a great way for independent comic book creators to distribute their wares, as well as the big boys. I can tell you that your Uncle Stanley will be right on top of this with my own daringly Disney digital comic series, Time Jumper! As the late-great Walt Kelly said, “We have met the future, and it is us.” And as always, Jolly Jack was waiting for us there all along. While your iPhone can’t yet summon a Boom Tube up for yah (Hear that, Jobs? Get to work!), but you can read comics on it for Odin’s sake! How cool is that? To keep up on the latest and greatest comic reading applications for your iPhone or iPod Touch, go to the iPhone Comic Book website. Tell ‘em Stan the Man sent yah!

Excelsior!

Smiley

MARVEL REMASTERWORKS III, THE SEARCH FOR SCHLOCK

ITEM! Wowsir! Can you believe it’s already Friday? And that means it’s time for another installment of the Marvel Remasterworks version of Fantastic Four #3 (March, 1962). The premise is this: if Marvel can pay new artists to redraw select panels, pages, and complete issues of classic Lee-Kirby and Lee-Ditko comics for their Marvel Masterworks reprint series, then why shouldn’t Yours Truly be able to re-dialogue ‘em as well? So, until some lawyer letters show up from somebody I haven’t already beaten the pants off of in court twice now, here’s the latest chapter! See Part One or Part Two to catch up on our story so far, or just navigate back to the beginning after you click on the page below! Where else besides Stan's Soapbox are you gonna get all this comic goodness for free on the Intrawebs, pilgrims? Not from Dan Didio or Brand Echh, that’s for sure! And the madness that is Marvel marches on...

Excelsior!

Smiley

FORGOTTEN HERO CORNER: THE DESTROYER

ITEM! Quick trivia quiz, True Believers: who was your Uncle Stanley’s very first comic character creation? Go on — you probably peeked already anyway. That’s right — it’s The Mighty Destroyer! Check out the amazing Jack Kirby cover from Mystic Comics #7 (December 1941) that featured the character’s second appearance. Who was The Destroyer? Ah, how quickly they forget. Well Sherman, set your Wayback Machine for those momentous months just before the U.S. joined World War II and just after Timely Comics editor Joe Simon and art director Jack Kirby had given the world everyone’s favorite shield-slinger, Captain America. A young office assistant and nephew-in-law to the publisher named Stanley Lieber was working his way up the Timely office ranks from lunchtime gopher and sometime flutist to actual comic book writer. Shortly after I had my very first peerless prose piece published in Captain America #3 (May 1941, natch), Yours Truly got the chance to create a new superhero for the Mystic Comics anthology series.

Who was The Mighty Destroyer? Well for starters, he was completely different from Captain America. American journalist Ken Marlowe got his dose of the super-soldier serum behind enemy lines while in a German concentration camp. See the difference? The Army didn't need to send The Destroyer into WWII, ‘cause he was already there fighting the Germans right in the heart of the Fatherland. See? Completely different. And instead of the good old “red, white and blue” of Cap’s costume, the Destroyer’s costume used a head-spinning skull and red-and-black stripes motif. How does a young, shy, and innocent 19-year-old design a completely original costumed crusader from whole cloth, you ask? See my original character sketch from 1941 (shown above) to get some idea. I was, after all, learning at the feet of the Simon-Kirby team. And getting them bagels. 

Old Desty didn’t last too long after WW II ended, though later Marvel writers have brought the character back with varying levels of success. Though mostly forgotten today, a superhero in a full face mask who fights a fascist government commando style right on their own doorstep looks and sounds a little familiar doesn’t it? Maybe Alan Moore saw a few old British reprints of Mystic Comics as a child? “D for Destroyer” anyone? So, until next week’s “Forgotten Hero Corner,” this is the Mighty Smilin' One saying, keep ‘em flying, Forbushman! 

Excelsior!

Smiley

MARVEL REMASTERWORKS, PART DEUX

ITEM! That’s right, heroes! It’s Marvel Remasterworks Friday, and you know what that means! It means it’s time for Chapter Two of the re-dialogued Lee-Kirby classic, Fantastic Four #3 (March, 1962). If you’re new too these, then here’s the skinny: since Marvel got caught having new artists redraw some panels, pages and whole issues of Silver Age classics for their Marvel Masterworks reprint books, your Uncle Stanley thought if you’re gonna redraw ‘em, why not let me take a crack at re-dialoguing them? If yah missed out on Chapter One, just go here, or navigate back from the linked page below. And so, without further ardent ado — click on the image below to get on with the show!

Excelsior!

Smiley

MARVEL REMASTERWORKS REVEALED AT LAST!

ITEM! You’ve waited and you’ve wondered, you’ve giggled and you’ve guessed. Now the truth can be revealed at last! What in the name of Odin’s Depend Undergarments is or are the Marvel ReMasterworks? As some of you may recall, Marvel has been taken to task recently for paying artists to redraw or recreate the artwork from some of the most-beloved Lee-Kirby and Lee-Ditko classics for their Marvel Masterworks series of deluxe reprints. Well, your Uncle Stanley had a brilliant idea — if yer gonna go to all the trouble to redraw some of those golden oldies, why not give Yours Truly a crack at re-dialoguing a few of ‘em? As classic as some of my Silver Age soliloquies were, I’m sure I could make them even bigger, better and even more verbose than ever today! And so, we here at Soapbox-land proudly present the first (and if we get a cease-and-desist letter, maybe the last) installment of the re-dialogued, remastered, and revisited version of Fantastic Four #3 (March 1962)... with all art diligently and digitally scanned from an original print copy! Depending on reader response, critical acclaim and juris prudence, we’ll try and put up a new chapter every Friday. Until then, Keep Making Yours Marvel! (Marvel Comics, The Fantastic Four, and Stan Lee’s immortal soul all © Copyright 2008 Marvel Entertainment, Inc.) Click on the cover below to get started!

Excelsior!

Smiley

IT IS ALIVE! THE JACK KIRBY QUARTERLY IS BACK!

ITEM! As much as Yours Truly has read and relished John “There’s Always To” Morrow’s Jack Kirby Collector, there was always a special, warm place in my heart for Great Britain’s late-lamented Jack Kirby Quarterly... which, let’s be honest, was anything BUT quarterly back when it was still being published. Still, the JKQ was always a nice companion mag to Jack Kirby Collector, which has often emphasized large-scale reproduction of classic Kirby pencils and art over scholarly analysis. Not so with the JKQ. As is often the case, the Europeans tend to look deeper into our own art forms than do the Americans who invented them. That’s what your Uncle Stanley always loved about sitting down and cozying up with a fresh copy of the JKQ.

Well guess what, pilgrims? After a lapse in publication of nearly three years, the Jack Kirby Quarterly is coming back, bigger and bolder than ever! Thanks in large part to the efforts of Credible Chrissie Harper and a host of other Khd’s (Professors of Kirbyology) from both sides of the ocean, issue #15 of the JKQ will be released for mail order later this month, and should show up in Continental Comic Shops shortly thereafter! See this sizzling summation of the 68-pages of content, along with ordering info, over at the Jack Kirby Weblog. Go get this one, sunshine! The King would want yah to! 

Excelsior!

Smiley

COME WATSON, THE FRAME IS AFOOT!

ITEM! Hi there, Heroes! Time for another clandestine clue concerning the mysterious Marvel ReMasterworks logo featured in yesterday’s blog! Get out your magnifying glasses, deerstalker caps and seven-percent solutions to solve this mystery, pilgrim. Your next clue? Submitted for your approval: a frame from a classic Lee-Kirby issue of the Fantastic Four, scanned with loving care from an original printing. Notice anything odd about it? It’s elementary, dear reader! What in the name of Galactus' lobster bib does it all mean, you ask? Keep those guesses coming, noble No-Prize seekers!

Excelsior!

Smiley