DC Graphic Novel #4 – The Hunger Dogs, June 1985
Jack Kirby’s tenure at DC was ultimately a mixed bag — for both Jack and DC.
The Fourth World saga was one of the most ambitious projects ever attempted in comics at that time; yet, the books were cancelled well before they had a chance to fully realize Jack’s vision.
And yet… there was something about those characters and premises that continued to resonate.
Jack’s Post DC career included a three-year return at Marvel (Think Eternals, et al), his own creator-owned comics (Captain Victory, Silver Star) and a home at animation house DePatie-Freleng studios and then later Ruby-Spears.
And then, another opportunity arose at DC to finish his New Gods saga. DC would reprint the original series in “deluxe” format and give Jack a chance to end the saga with new material.
But, unfortunately Jack wanted to end the saga in a way that would kill off the main characters, and by then DC had grown accustomed to having them in the line-up.
So, Jack was again denied the chance again to finish it in his vision. And somehow the end of the saga morphed into a standalone graphic novel, Hunger Dogs, which also didn’t bring the story to a satisfactory conclusion.
And the graphic novel itself was a mess on the production end. Pages intended for the standard comic books were reworked for the graphic novel using photocopies, corrections, new “border” art and a host of other techniques to turn standard size pages into graphic novel pages.
Fortunately, Jack did create brand new large art pages for the GN, and they are pretty terrific in terms of page layout and composition, as evidenced here. They are his final work for either of the “big two” publishers.
As for the New Gods? They lived on, and more importantly, Darkseid arguably became the most important villain in the DCU. Jack shared in some of that commercial success, and his family continues to share in that success today.
A fitting ending after all.
