Continuing our celebration of the 60th anniversary of the debut of Fantastic Four #1. (August 8, 1961)
How many brick walls has the Thing crashed through? That’s not some sort of rhetorical question — I have no idea what the answer is.
I do know, when I saw this cool commission, it reminded me in high concept (minus the silly tank top) of John Byrne’s great cover of the ever-lovin’ Thing’s return in Fantastic Four #274.
The Thing. Breaking through a wall. And smoking a cigar.
Jack Kirby Homage, 2002 Cover Re-imagination, Fantastic Four Annual #6, November 1968
Continuing our celebration of the 60th anniversary of the debut of Fantastic Four #1. (August 8, 1961)
The great Italian artist Giorgio Comolo, a Jack Kirby fanatic, creates a terrific alternate cover for Fantastic Four Annual #6, one of the best solo FF stories to appear during the Lee and Kirby run.
Ironically, despite the acknowledged greatness of the issue, the published cover feels a bit lifeless. Comolo’s take is certainly a much more dramatic representation of the issue’s key moment.
As for that vial? Well, for a spoiler, you can read Marvel’s marketing copy below. Let’s just say its importance is yet another reason why we refer to Fantastic Four as the world’s greatest superhero soap opera.
For a look at some other Comolo Kirby homages, click here.
Issue synopsis: The baby is coming! With Sue going into labor, Reed must make a perilous journey to obtain Element X, the only thing that can keep the baby safe from the cosmic rays in Sue’s body. The bad news – it can only be found in the Negative Zone! The WORSE news? It’s in the hands of one of the deadliest beings in any universe – ANNIHILUS!
One comic book. One grasp (and possibly a final one) at straws for a struggling comic book publishing company.
Sixty years ago today, Fantastic Four #1 hit the newsstands.
DC had slowly started its own superhero revival five years prior with the appearance of the Silver Age Flash. By the time the FF appeared, DC had establishes enough heroes to create a Justice League team comic book.
Heck, even Archie Comics launched some superhero titles (The Fly, The Shield, etc.) ahead of Marvel.
But Fantastic Four made an impression. Flawed heroes, who barely got along with each other? Fearsome Foes and supporting characters? Continuity, for goodness sakes?
Talk about late to the party — but making an entrance.
Within a few issues, Fantastic Four was the first, and ultimately greatest, soap opera saga in comics. And it didn’t take much longer for Jack Kirby to fully establish himself as the greatest visual storyteller the medium had ever seen, and for Stan Lee to become the greatest showrunner (and, for better or worse, showman) in comics’ history.
The original stories, of course, were much less complex and sophisticated than they are today. (As were the readers.)
Example: This great Steve Epting splash page from issue #586 is from a story that features time travel conundrums and a multiverse gone somewhat amok.
Heady stuff. But you should expect nothing less from Marvel’s First family.
The World’s Greatest Comics Magazine, indeed.
Stan the modest Man: The slogan “Greatest Comic Magazine in the World” became “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” in the following issue, and stuck around for more than 30 years.
On Tuesday, August 8, 1961, Fantastic Four #1 hit the newsstands.
The rest, as they say, is history.
As promised back in January, we’re adding a few more Fantastic Four posts to continue the 60th celebration of “The Marvel Age Of Comics.”
And yes, we’re cheating a bit by re-running this great page by Jack from the beginning of the FF’s peak period.
But… no Stan Lee AND Jack Kirby… no Fantastic Four… likely no Marvel Age, period. So, in our mind, worth a repeat.
See you on Sunday.
1980: Jack had left Marvel, again, this time for the world of animation and independent creator-owned comic book projects. Stan was busy in Hollywood woking tirelessly (and mostly unsuccessfully) to make Marvel a brand in entertainment. I never take sides in the endless Lee-Kirby debate, so I say to the photographer who captured this pic (quoting from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance): “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
It all starts here: Cover and opening page for FF#1.
We close our month-long celebration of independent creators with a cool noir-ish page from fan-favorite artist Mike Grell and his mercenary (mostly good guy) Jon Sable. Appropriately, it’s the final page from a two-parter set against the Olympic games.
(1984 was 37 years ago? I need a drink.)
We also close with a great urban legend involving Sable, Pierce Brosnan, and the short-lived (and not great) Sable Televison series.
A number of fans called Jim a “sell-out” at the time, much in the same way they hollered when Jim and Rob Liefeld agreed to reboot some of Marvel’s classic superheroes a short while earlier. (Thank goodness contemporary social media hadn’t appeared yet, but let’s face it, trolls are still trolls.)
The Irony of that criticism? Being independent means making your own choices, on your own terms, whatever those might be.
And ultimately, the winnow swallowed the whale. DC became much more like WildStorm, rather than the other way around. And Jim of course became DC publisher.
As for Max Faraday? It was planned to be a mini-series, and has remained a “one and done” project with a complete collection finally appearing in 2014.
We continue with our month long celebration of the “Independents” — Independent creators and projects that continue to impact the comic book medium.See you back here on Thursday.
Start with a full-size portion of Russ Manning, then add a very generous helping of Jack Kirby.
Mix in in a cup of Alex Toth, a shot of Doug Wildey, and a pinch of Joe Schuster, and… voila, you have yourself a full Steve Rude gourmet meal.
Unfortunately, it’s a one-of-a-kind meal, near impossible to replicate.
Clean and distinctive, Rude is among my favorites of the “modern” artists working in graphic storytelling. (In other words: Old guys who, like me, are not that old.)
Nexus, created by Rude and writer Mike Baron, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Pages from early issues featuring the titular character rarely become available, and this great one isn’t going anywhere soon.
We continue with our month long celebration of the “Independents” — Independent creators and projects that continue to impact the comic book medium.We’re back on Tuesday (7/27) with… Jim Lee. Have a great weekend.
We continue with our month long celebration of the “Independents” — independent creators and projects that continue to impact the comic book medium.
Drowning in tar pits seems like a pretty rough way to go.
Then again, this is Frank Miller, and in the hardboiled world of Sin City, that form of murder might be preferable to some alternatives.
(In fairness, our “hero” Dwight ultimately makes it out alive. Sorry if that’s a spoiler, but the Big Fat Kill is from 1995. 25 years seems like a fair amount of time to catch up on these things.)
Big Fat Kill (BFK) is the fourth of Miller’s Sin City sagas, and one of the three stories featured in the first Sin City film. I can’t recall if the tar pit scene made it into the movie or not. Guess it’s a good excuse to watch it again.
As for actually drowning in tar pits? According to my anecdotal research and sources, It’s harder than you might think.
But it makes for one very cool original art page, and, in this case, that’s what counts.
Clive Owen as Dwight McCarthy in the first Sin City film.
We continue with our month long celebration of the “Independents” — Independent creators and projects that continue to impact the comic book medium.
Two independent creations collide in the second issue of Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon ongoing series in 1993, as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles drop in. Literally.
The large top panel of this fun action page inspired the cover for the issue.
Larsen and TMNT creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird share much more than just a passion for all things Jack Kirby. (I would bet that at one time, no one owned more DC Kirby art than the three of them.) They tell their stories with endless energy and panache, something that is often missing from more “mainstream” titles.
Larsen made headlines recently with the announcement that he was relaunching Ant, another Image creator-owned project originally created by Mario Gully. (Larsen purchased the character in 2012, and included her in the Spawn series he wrote shortly thereafter.)
Issue #1 of the new Larsen Ant series launches next month.
Meanwhile, Savage Dragon is now one of the longest running independent creator-owned series of all time. Issue #260 hits the stands in August as well.
Back here next Tuesday (7/20) with Frank Miller. Have a good weekend.
Larsen’s August 2021 releases: Savage Dragon #260 and Ant #1.
We continue with our month long celebration of the “Independents” — independent creators and projects that continue to impact the comic book medium.
Matt Wagner seamlessly fits his independent creation Grendel into the pulpy world of The Shadow in this wonderfully realized mini-series. Grendel — Hunter Rose — is a natural adversary for the famed vigilante in a story set during the Shadow’s classic era, the 1930s.
Not much more to add here, except — I hope they do a sequel one of these days.
