Saturday, February 23, 2013

Realizations...

As I've been buying my Kirby issues of FANTASTIC FOUR, I've been reading them, catching up on the old memories of my youth. The older I get, the more impressed I become with the vast talent of Jack Kirby. I think he was one of the greatest comic book artists in the history of this most American art form. And he was--no competition--the greatest superhero creator to work in the field. Nobody created a pantheon to measure up to his visions.

As he progressed, spreading his wings and trying new ideas and allowing his visions to blossom on the page, I remain impressed at how he evolved as an a storyteller as he got closer and closer to the 60th issue of the book.

And something else I have noticed...how Stan Lee all but utterly fucked his stories with his often confusing dialog and captions. Now I understand why Kirby was growing angrier and more frustrated with each passing month. To see his stories butchered by this glad-handing bastard of an editor must have been utterly maddening!

More, later, as I continue to read the issues and assemble my thoughts on Kirby's stories and what the company shill was doing to those stories.



My newly acquired copies of FANTASTIC FOUR #58 and #59.



3 comments:

Kirk G - The Thrifty Rocketeer said...

Wow, you're at the point where I started buying FF faithfully off the spinner rack. How well I remember the excitment of each new issue...stopping on the way home to sit on a park bench outside a church yard and read it cover to cover. I couldn't imagine where the story was going next (except for the "Next Issue" box.) I was under the impression that the writer didn't know what was going to happen until the next issue came out. (but of course now I understand that they were typically working two to three months ahead, and that the way proper stories are written, they have the entire arc in mind before ever beginning... that the creator knows how the story will resolve before he even put in the cliff-hanger breaks or the issue-breaks.

Kirk G - The Thrifty Rocketeer said...

I remember seeing the Inhumans escape their confinement. I was following each attempt, each frustration, each subplot installment. It just seemed to stretch on forever... in kid's years. In real time, it was only about 12 issues, or one year long sub-plot since #48 to #59. But what a tantlizing year!

Kirk G - The Thrifty Rocketeer said...

I must admit I grow tired of the number of times that Marvel used to term or title "Doomsday" to promote or billboard an appearance of Doctor Doom.