Scary!

When I was a kid my dad owned used bookstores. He had hundreds of thousands of old comic books. I could read any comic books I wanted and would bring them home by the armload. This was back in the mid-60s, so you can imagine the amazing stuff I would bring home. 

At some point I decided that I liked horror comics. Probably because I was heavily influenced by horror movies and TV shows. Soon after the titles hit the stands I discovered Creepy and Eerie Magazines. One day in my dad's warehouse I saw a copy of Eerie #13. The cover utterly horrified me. In fact, it scared me so much that I almost didn't bring it home. But I did. I took it into my bedroom with the other stacks of comic books that I was reading--everything from Hot Stuff the Little Devil, to Ditko's Amazing Spider-Man, and Kirby's Fantastic Four, and Wonder Woman by Ross Andru, and Magnus Robot Fighter by Russ Manning...well, there was no shortage of comic book titles in those days.

For some reason I waited until it was dark before opening the cover to Eerie #13. These days I cannot recall the contents of that issue, but I vividly remember the cover art. It wasn't by any of the artists whose styles I had learned to identify. This was something that I didn't find particularly intriguing or inspiring--it was just pure, nihilist horror. It was also the only copy of a Warren magazine that I can remember having a word balloon on the cover.

But that cover utterly gave me the creeps. I was afraid to allow the cover art to touch my fingers and I ended up folding the page carefully back to keep that from happening. I do remember reading the contents and then initially putting the magazine at the foot of my bed with the cover down. Eventually I turned out the light and fell to sleep.

Sometime in the dark hours I was awakened. I immediately knew why I had come awake. There had been a sound in the night. A 'PLOP' sound. As of something having slid insidiously off of my bed to land loudly upon the floor, perhaps in an effort to get away, or to hide, or to sneak up on me.

I turned on the bedside lamp. I looked down at the foot of my bed and there were the comics I'd been reading--Richie Rich and Stumbo the Giant and Classics Illustrated and Spider-Man, Mystery In Space, etc. etc.

But that copy of Eerie #13 was gone.

My heart froze.

Where was that damned cover art?! I'd put it face down because I didn't want to see it again. And now it was gone.

It had intentionally crept away!

Shit.

I sat up in bed and looked down at my good comics. I have an image in my head right now of Magnus, Robot Fighter breaking a robot's metal neck with his steely hand. I had to know where that goddamned copy of Eerie #13 was! So I sat up, crawled out from under the covers, and looked at the floor at the foot of the bed.

The magazine was not there.

I looked a little farther, toward the dresser, and I still couldn't see it! 

Knowing I'd have to lean over the side of the bed into the unprotected zone where monsters could reach up and grab children and drag them into whatever dimension they used to appear under our beds, I began to build up my stupid kid's courage. The magazine couldn't be anywhere but right at the foot of the bed on the side below my window. If it hadn't slipped straight off, then my foot must have knocked it to the left.

I looked down. It wasn't there.

Holy shit.

Now I was more curious than frightened, so I leaned my entire head and shoulders over the side of the mattress and leaned waaaaaaaaaay over and looked down where the copy of Eerie #13 could not possibly be.

And that red-eyed skull face was staring straight back up at me!

My nine-year-old eyes bugged out. My throat constricted so much that not only couldn't I scream, I couldn't even choke on my own fear.

Using what courage I could manage, I hopped out of bed, grabbed a big dictionary that I kept on my dresser and I turned that copy of Eerie Magazine face down and covered it with that heavy Webster's hardback dictionary and weighted that oversized offering of horror pulp to the floor with the help of matter and Mr. Gravity!

There, you damned revenant! Try to get out from  under 10,000 years of language!

Strangely mollified by the thought of the big book covering the illustrated horror tales, I climbed back into bed, turned off the light, and managed to go right back to sleep. Zombie out of sight, out of mind.

Over the next couple of weeks I actually forgot all about the copy of Eerie #13 under my bed. I didn't look to check. Even my mom forget to come in and sweep under there. Then one day I needed my dictionary to look something up (this being the 1960s and not 2019 when you can look up anything on a cell phone or a wifi computer.) I recalled that my Webster's was under the bed holding down the offending horror magazine which was, I reminded myself, face down. So I reached under with the bright, yellow sunlight streaming through the window and I pushed away the dust bunnies and brushed off the grey layer on the book and picked it up, knowing I'd only see some advertisement on the back of the magazine.

But of course that blood-chilling artwork was staring up at me, those crimson eyeballs staring right into mine.

I rolled up that magazine, put it into a bag with some other comics, and walked into the front of the house where my mom was reading.

"Here," I said. "I've read these. You can take them back to the store and sell them."

And it worked. I never saw that copy again.

Scared the crap out o' me!

The Truth

The multi-billion dollar industry that we now know as "the Marvel Universe" was mainly created by one man.

Jack Kirby created it.

Jack Kirby wrote it.

Jack Kirby illustrated it.

He had no "co-creator". Just a meddling editor who lied in his position as company shill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack Kirby's comic book alter ego, Ben Grimm.

The Creator: Jack Kirby.

Another Kirby in the Wall

I bought a copy of FANTASTIC FOUR #18 for my collection. The list is getting narrower. I'm about to get into mega-expensive territory (unless I can land some bargains).

This was one of my favorite early issues when I was a kid. The introduction of the Super Skrull. As all Fantastic Four fans know, the Skrulls were an alien race who first appeared in the second issue of Fantastic Four and would reappear now and again. This time, though, they brought along their big bruddah, the Super Skrull. Not only could he shape-shift (as all Skrulls can), but he had been given the powers of all of the Fantastic Four, but in spades. He was stronger than Ben Grimm (by several factors), could stretch farther than Mr. Fantastic, could burn hotter than the Human Torch, and could become invisible like Susan Storm.

How can they possibly defeat him?!! You'll have to read this issue to find out! But get your own. This copy is mine, and I ain't sharin'!

My copy of FANTASTIC FOUR #18.

Rough Job

As it says in the author description, I'm a laborer. Specifically, I deliver mail for the United States Postal Service. It's a tough job. Toughest I've ever had. But I'm reminded of a Marty Feldman quote whenever I think it can't get any worse.

Yeah, there aren't too many things more miserable than working in the cold rain. It sucks. It sucks chimp ass.

However, I arrived home to find that I'd filled in another bit in my Jack Kirby collection. My copy of FANTASTIC FOUR #19 arrived. And actually in a little nicer shape than the seller had indicated. I'm quite happy with it, and relieved to be home and out of the freaking rain.

My copy of FANTASTIC FOUR #19, written and illustrated by Jack Kirby.

FF 17

I just got this beauty in the mail. Gosh, I sure do like Ebay.

I have not read this comic since I was about nine or ten years old. It has been that long. Yes, I've had many copies over the years, but it was when I was a collectibles dealer and I didn't have time to read them. Back then, old comics were just a commodity to me. Yes, I liked them and felt affection for the old books, but all I was concerned with was selling them as fast as I could at a profit to enable me to buy the next collection coming down the line.

Nowadays, all I do is collect. I'm not in it to sell them. I buy them because I love the old comics and because of the nostalgia element.

Kirby realized what a cool character he'd created in Doctor Doom. I'm not sure if the fans in the early 60s were clamoring for more of his appearances, or if Kirby just wanted to write more stories with him. But by the time Fantastic Four #17 rolled 'round, this was Doom's fifth appearance! He was already on his way to becoming the Fantastic Four's arch-nemesis.

My Two Favorite Comic Stories

As a kid, I loved superhero comics. As an adult...not so much. Except, of course, in the realm of nostalgia. I still adore those comic stories that inspired and fascinated me as a kid and enjoy looking at them through the lens of decades of history.

My two favorite superhero comic book yarns were written and illustrated by (of course) my two favorite creators of that period of my life: Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby. I won't get too much into the history of the pair of stories that so influenced me, except to reiterate that Steve Ditko created, wrote, and illustrated The Amazing Spider-Man; and Jack Kirby created, wrote, and illustrated the Fantastic Four. Neither man had a "co-creator"--just an editor.

I've also covered both of these stories in past essays here in my blog. So I'll just list the stories and the issues in which they appeared and leave my earlier words to stand; and perhaps add some depth to those essays on another day.

The first of these great stories was the Master Planner story arc that ran for several issues of The Amazing Spider-Man. This is, as far as I'm concerned, the finest super-hero story ever done. Ditko outdid not only himself with this adventure, but all other super-hero comic creators before or since. A few have come close to capturing the depth and breadth of what he was achieving, but no one has surpassed the sheer power of this tale.

When he was allowed, Ditko could create some of the finest covers being done in comics.

Yeah, the fans had never seen Spider-Man done like this.

Despair was never portrayed quite like this. Someday I need to do a study of the way Ditko utilized the imagery of water in his comics.

Years later, after Ditko had left his employment at Marvel Comics and abandoned his amazing creations there, his former colleague was winding down his own tenure at that company. Jack Kirby pretty much created not only most of the characters at Marvel, but the company itself. No one else was as important to that company as Jack Kirby. I have studied his run on his most popular title there, FANTASTIC FOUR, and always noticed that he seemed to let up on the gas after the "Him" storyline in issues 66 & 67. Further research led me to the conclusion that his editor there had wrecked his story, almost completely nullifying its effectiveness and mucking up the dialog pretty much beyond belief. Thereafter, the explosion of creativity that Kirby had lavished on the book to that point ceased. The stories were still excellent and the art was still the most dynamic around, but there were almost no new characters coming out of the book. Kirby was, I am convinced, fed up with seeing the sweat of his brow being capitalized by his employers with nothing for him beyond his page rate. Further, not only was his intellectual property being robbed from him, his stories were often being mangled by the ego-mad idiot editor under whom he worked. Thus, the flow of new properties to his bosses slowed to a trickle.

Then, in issue #90 of the title, a new story arc appeared. The Skrull/Slave arc. It could be argued that the plot was partially based on the germ of an idea from the TV series Star Trek. But beyond that it was all classic Kirby. Kirby had always been fascinated by mob characters and science fiction. And so he plunged his comic book alter-ego, Ben Grimm, into a long story steeped in mob culture and a pure science-fiction, planet-spanning adventure. It was, I now know, Kirby's fond farewell to his character of Ben Grimm as he planned his move away from Marvel and to fields greener for his creative energies.

Symbolism. One of Kirby's earliest creations for Marvel was the alien race, the Skrulls, who were shape-shifters. Here, he is tricked and kidnapped by a Skrull posing as his friend, Reed Richards. Fooled again, sucker!

Ben Grimm, in chains!

One of the most effective and dramatic covers I've seen in superhero comics.

The finale. Torgo was the major character (I can't say "villain" because he truly was not such) that Kirby created for this story arc. However, for all the emotional power of Torgo, Kirby chose to give him a kind of generic android appearance similar to the kind of thing he'd been handing off to his employers since issue #68 of the title. Let them create their OWN unique images to exploit!

STRANGE TALES #120.

I picked up a copy of STRANGE TALES #120. This is another title that I've been actively pursuing for a few years. I haven't managed to build up a big collection of them, but I have been chipping away at it. I want all of the pre-hero issues that feature art by Kirby and Ditko, of course. But I also want the issues that feature Dr. Strange stories during Steve Ditko's run on the title. I don't want any of the issues featuring Dr. Strange written by anyone other than Steve Ditko.

A lot of the Human Torch stories in STRANGE TALES were written by Dick Ayers. He was not my favorite writer and some of his stories just weren't very well written. I had forgotten that this issue features a story written and illustrated by Jack Kirby. I think Kirby did this one because he wanted to do a cross-over tale with his new creation, the X-Men. In this story he does a team-up yarn with the Human Torch and Ice Man, which is a natural! The characters worked well together in the story. Another fine bit for me is that, while the rest of the team isn't in the issue very much, the rest of the Fantastic Four does make an appearance and there is some good interaction between Johnny Storm and his teammates.

My copy of STRANGE TALES #120. Great cover!

The establishing shot is right out of the pages of THE FANTASTIC FOUR!

The way Ditko opens this book you almost get the impression that he's written a story that merely has Dr. Strange as a narrating device. Very reminiscent of Ditko's weird stories for the title before the superheroes took over.

I love Ditko's comic pages! He did wonders within the otherwise pedestrian grids that he set up to tell his stories!

FANTASTIC FOUR #8.

I landed a decent copy of FANTASTIC FOUR #8 for my Kirby collection. There are several things notable about this issue. One of which is how common it is as a back issue. From my general experience in my years as a dealer of collectible comics, it is far and away the single most common issue of the first ten issues of the title. When I was a dealer I was rarely without a copy. I attend comic conventions from time to time and just about every serious dealer of back issue comics seems to have at least one copy in stock.

I can't imagine why it's so common. Sometimes I wonder about the availability of certain back issues and the reasons for their relatively great numbers in current days. The bottom line is that these issues sold more than the issues immediately before and after and thus survived in greater amounts. Was it because more copies were distributed? Was it because there was something more appealing in the cover or in the story inside the book? I have no idea.

Issue #8 features a character who went on to become a long-running villain in the history of Kirby's tenure on the book: The Puppet Master (Phillip Masters). As his name indicates, he can control others through the manipulation of puppet likenesses that he constructs. What attached him inexorably to the heroes of the book is that he is the stepfather of Alicia Masters, the woman who became the love interest of Ben Grimm (aka The Thing).

Jack Kirby chose to show the Puppet Master as resembling a puppet himself, most notably Howdy Doody of TV fame. Perhaps it is this resemblance to that TV star that caused the book to sell so well that month, even though the TV show had been long cancelled by the time this issue appeared.

Kirby was still using as a major plot device the fact that Ben Grimm was a kind of loose cannon among the Fantastic Four, one to be feared. Kirby would also use a similar storyline in the Avengers with his other super-strength-endowed anti-hero, The Incredible Hulk. It was quite an effective device and although Kirby used it time and again in various issues of the FF he was able to keep the stories fresh enough so that it never became tired and predictable.

My copy of FANTASTIC FOUR #8.

In these early issues Grimm would still make the transition from monster to human and back again on a relatively often basis.

We see just how powerful and how scary Grimm can be.

Kirby explains how the Human Torch's powers work.

Train Wreck: FANTASTIC FOUR #108

I always forget that there was one more Jack Kirby issue of FANTASTIC FOUR after #102. I need to research the situation, but it was apparently something in the inventory that had been at least partially delivered by Kirby before he made the move to DC Comics. Marvel finally published it in a mangled format some six months after he was gone.

The story "The Monstrous Mystery of The Nega Man" is awful stuff. Reading it, you have almost no idea at all what Kirby was trying to do or say, because the yarn was mangled beyond all hope of any logic by Stan Lee. The introductory pages by Kirby seem to be missing. I'm betting that they were present but that they were replaced with new pages by John Buscema and (according to the credits listing) John Romita. Changes, of course, made at Lee's demands.

What was delivered in this last Kirby issue is a total mess. Dialogue paired with images in such a way that there is no logic at all. Not even within the often inconsistent world of superhero kids' comics! The juggernaut of commercialism built by Jack Kirby was barreling ahead and could not be stopped on the sales front--not even by an evil and incompetent editor and a host of misguided comic artists working in the wake of a talent they could never hope to match.

My copy of FANTASTIC FOUR #108. Added for the simple reason that I want to have all of Kirby's work on his creation. Cover apparently by John Buscema.

An opening page by John Buscema that had to be added due to changes in the plot and direction of the title since Kirby's absence. And creating a story from Kirby's work that makes no sense whatsoever.

"Last-minute revisions, deletions, and addenda..." Right.

Then, after the title page setup, we see Kirby art with dialogue that is completely inept. The caption at the bottom of the page even warns that none of this makes any sense. That's because Kirby's script was being shredded through sheer incompetence and outright malice.

The finished Kirby pages are classic stuff. Action as only Kirby could perform it. But dialogue that makes almost no sense and situations that are incompetently rendered by the editor.

Interspersed among the Kirby pages are completely new art and layouts by Buscema.

Some of the pages look to be cobbled together from layouts by Kirby, followed by interpretations of what appear to be guesswork by Buscema and company as to what Kirby intended. Missing the mark, of course, and leaving the reader with a total and complete mess.

Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott!

When Jack Kirby was working on THE FANTASTIC FOUR he was teamed with a number of embellishers (also known as inkers). Just about all of these men were very talented and dedicated, but sometimes the inking styles contrasted with Kirby's pencils and layouts and the results were not what they should have been. In the case of some of the guys who worked with him on other titles, they cut corners to produce more work in less time and the results of those efforts were almost criminal.

But, by and large, Kirby had a lot of great collaborators when he did FANTASTIC FOUR. I always very much enjoyed seeing Steve Ditko ink Kirby's art, but this was a rare teaming. Dick Ayers generally was quite good, but worked with Kirby less and less as the years passed. Everyone has their favorite inker over Kirby's pencils, and I am no exception.

My favorite inker for Kirby was Joe Sinnott. His inks were very crisp and exacting and he tended to make the reader more aware than most of the other collaborators on just how skilled Jack Kirby really was. And nobody...NOBODY...understood the character of Ben Grimm (aka "the Thing") better than Joe Sinnott. He brought the brutish hero into perfect clarity like no other inker who had preceded him. In fact, even after Kirby abandoned his creations at Marvel, Sinnott continued to carry that understanding of how to ink those characters over the pencils of artist/writers who followed in Kirby's massive wake.

So here's to my favorite Kirby inker, Joe Sinnott!

This image is, to me, one of the best illustrations I ever saw of Ben Grimm.

 

A great battle issue by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott.

An early appearance of The Inhumans, another Kirby creation!

I've always felt that Ben Grimm was Kirby's romanticized version of himself. That's why Grimm seemed to dominate the title, and why the character was so rich and fully realized that he was the book's fan favorite.

Jack and Joe!!

Fantastic Four #20.

I landed another back issue for my FANTASTIC FOUR COLLECTION. This one is a decent copy of #20. The story features as its villain, the Molecule Man, a character who can control the molecular structure of any non-organic material. Which makes him one very dangerous fellow. The book also features another of Kirby's amazing creations, The Watcher. We had first seen him in issue #13 of the book, so this was a bit of a surprise to see him pop up again. As always, he breaks the rule that he is not supposed to interfere with the history of the human race, in this instance to explain the arrival of the Molecule Man and to give the Fantastic Four a head start in preparing to meet him.

The plot is relatively simple and does not display much of the story-telling maturity that Kirby would later use to great effect. But you can already see that he is building up a mythos, adding to it with each issue of the book. The Watcher is a great device to use to further a plot, and Kirby had already grasped the richness of being able to fall back on it from time to time.

This issue features some spectacular layouts by Kirby, and you can see that he was really enjoying utilizing Ben Grimm as a battering ram to move the action along. The inks by Dick Ayers are okay...a bit heavy for my tastes, but serviceable. There were always less capable inkers to use on Kirby's pencils, and Lee didn't hesitate to use them, unfortunately. In this case, though, Ayers did a decent job.

The cover to my copy of THE FANTASTIC FOUR #20.

I always loved this opening page. It tells so much about Kirby's ripening storytelling abilities. Reed was content to plod along, carefully, but Ben seizes the moment.

The Watcher appears to warn the team of what they are about to face. I liked this early version of the character, but the later, more human form was probably the best for the fans.

The Molecule Man makes his appearance! I love that long shot of the streets of New York City.

Absolutely wonderful action featuring Ben and the Torch at work against their adversary, who is obviously superior to them in power and abilities.