Even the Losers Get Lucky Sometimes

Even though Jack Kirby was best known for his superhero comic work (the genre that he revolutionized in the forties and the sixties), my first exposure to his comic book work was not a superhero comic. That's because before I began reading and collecting superhero comics, I was a big fan of DC's line of war comics. (I liked Marvel's SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS too, but even as an eight year old the DC war comics seemed to have more gravitas, with their brooding Joe Kubert covers and their "Make War No More" slogan in the last panel of every story.) So the first Kirby comic I ever bought, back in 1974, was what turned out to be his first work on the OUR FIGHTING FORCES comic feature, The Losers.

Last week, memories of that first encounter were brought back as I bought and read the hardcover collection of Kirby's LOSERS stories that was published two years ago.



In the introduction to the volume, Neil Gaiman notes that THE LOSERS was arguably the last great Kirby comics feature; and reading the stories nearly thirty years after their publication, I must agree. These weren't Kirby's characters (they were all former stars of their own strips who had lost their slots -- hence, perhaps, the feature's title)but Kirby had written and drawn many, many war comics before he worked on THE LOSERS -- including the aforementioned SGT. FURY. Artistically, Kirby was still at the top of his game, his panels loaded with the violent poetry that brought to life his Marvel work on THOR, FANTASTIC FOUR, and CAPTAIN AMERICA, along with the Fourth World books he did in the early seventies for DC. When Kirby draws a Nazi rail mounted Supergun, it looks gigantic, like it goes on for miles; when he depicts a town shelled by the allies, it looks as if hell itself is erupting out of the ground. In terms of writing, Kirby shed the quirks of weird dialogue and jarring punctuation that marked his other written work of the seventies and eighties. Instead, his dialogue is straightforward and rings true, even if stylized in comic book form.

And then there are the stories. As Gaiman points out, Kirby devoted little time to developing the main characters of the strip. Instead, his focus is on the side characters they meet -- the classical pianist who bangs out "Ride of the Valkyries" as the Nazi officer who was searching for her lies dying; the Jesse Owens-like Army supply officer who meets his rival from the 1936 Olympics, now a German paratrooper, and races him through a minefield; the science-fiction-fan private whose ideas are used for a decoy operation. Kirby is unstinting in depicting the Nazis as evil (after all, he and they fought each other during the real World War II); but he also approaches all of his characters as human beings, rather than caricatures.

I recommend THE LOSERS to anyone who knows Kirby only from his superhero work; or who thinks Kirby's strengths were only his art. It's excellent comics work.

The Lee-Kirby Connection

Jack Kirby, the abandoned hero of Marvel's grand Hollywood adventure, and his family's quest [updated] | Hero Complex | Los Angeles Times

The L.A. Times's Hero Complex blog takes an interesting look at the working relationship of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby at Marvel, and the present-day results.

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Kirby Heirs File Notices of Termination on Marvel Characters

Disney Faces Copyright Claims Over Marvel Superheroes - NYTimes.com


Newspapers are carrying the story that heirs of Jack Kirby -- who created, co-created, or had a hand in creating most of the Marvel characters of the 1960's -- filing notices of termination, represented by the same law firm that represents the heirs of Jerry Siegel in their successful quest to terminate a portion of DC's copyrights in the earliest Superman stories.  (Incidentally, the federal judge who ruled on the Superman case recently announced that he is leaving the bench for a private law career, unable to support his seven children on a federal district judge's salary.)

The terminations won't have an immediate effect (the earliest would take place in 2014); and most likely would not result in the characters being ripped away from Marvel, since Marvel would still own rights in them.  More likely the heirs would then negotiate licenses for their portion of the copyrights with future Marvel owner Disney.

The real effect of this story is bringing to the public's attention Kirby's role in creating these characters -- a role that has always been overshadowed by then-writer-editor Stan Lee, who always gave good interview.Jack

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It Would Have Made the King Proud

[Mild spoiler warning for the INCREDIBLE HULK movie]

Those who are familiar with Hulk co-creator Jack Kirby's work know that one of Kirby's specialties was designing fantastic futuristic weapons and other devices in his comics -- stuff that looked like nothing that existed on earth, but which was so well-designed that you could devine its purpose with a single glance.

Unfortunately, the movie versions of Kirby's creations, such as the FANTASTIC FOUR flicks, have not yet duplicated that look in their set design (although the second FF movie was noticeably Kirby-esque in its depiction of the Silver Surfer, and its reproduction of the comic-book sequence in which Doctor Doom acquires the Surfer's powers). Nevertheless, there's at least one scene in the current INCREDIBLE HULK movie that I think Kirby would have appreciated.

Kirby kept up with modern technology, particularly military technology -- likely part of his roots as a science-fiction fan. At one convention, I overheard him relate the story of a sonic weapon that the U.S. Army once tested. He said that the operator of the prototype weapon had been killed in the test.

In one scene in the Hulk movie, the army rolls out a bunch of -- yes -- sonic weapons, which they triangulate upon the Hulk; and which do some damage to the Jade Giant. As one fan pointed out, the sonic cannons look big, clunky, and at heart very much like something Jack Kirby would draw.

Evanier Explains it All

news from me - ARCHIVES

I spent yesterday attending the Wizard World LA comics convention at the LA Convention Center (next to Staples Center downtown).  The event is run by Wizard Magazine, and a lot of the programming and events are aimed at Wizard's target audience -- teen and twenties-aged young men.  Which meant that the attractions for an older fan like me were relatively slim.

One standout event was a Jack Kirby tribute panel by Mark Evanier.  Evanier, Kirby's assistant, friend, and hand-picked biographer, has put together a tribute panel to Kirby at every San Diego con since Kirby died in 1994.  Usually, he packs the panel with comics professionals who worked with Kirby or were inspired by his work.  This time, the panel was all Evanier, all the time.  That isn't a bad thing.  Evanier is both a gifted storyteller and a spellbinding speaker, and has a seemingly limitless database of anecdotes at his command.  The panel consisted of Evanier taking about 20 minutes to recount how he first met Kirby in the late sixties, and came to work with him as an assistant; and then Evanier taking a few questions from the audience.  Each question triggered about 20 more minutes of explanations and digressions.  Thus passed the hour.

Evanier's book JACK KIRBY:  KING OF COMICS was recently released, after a few delays.  It was one of those books that I could not resist reading half of as soon as I received it last week.  Evanier described it as the prelude to an exhaustive bio of Kirby he will release in a few years.  His publisher wanted a book now; and so Evanier released this chronological account of Kirby's life wrapped around tons of Kirby comics and art.

The link above is to a current entry on Evanier's always-entertaining blog.  Those who have seen REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, in which Jim Backus plays James Dean's father, may recall the scene with Dean, Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood in which Dean mocks his father by imitating the cartoon character Backus voiced, Mr. Magoo --"Drown 'em like puppies, ah ah ah."  Evanier links to a news story on Backus's death, which recounts Backus's anecdote about the imitation and the studio reaction it triggered.

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Parallax Parallels

At the suggestion of my friend S.R., I continued my exploration of the paranoid cinema of the '70's by renting Alan Pakula's THE PARALLAX VIEW, starring Warren Beatty and a passel of other talented folks, including a post-GRADUATE, pre-KNIGHT RIDER Williams Daniels.

THE PARALLAX VIEW likely had a big influence on comic book writers in the '70's. Comics in those days were mainly written by young men in their '20's who went to college in the '60's and who were likely receptive to stories of conspiracies and assassins.

Further, the movie itself had several comic book connections. Among them:

-- The bizarre "Parallax Test" montage in the middle of the film prominently featured panels from the Marvel comic THE MIGHTY THOR drawn by Jack Kirby.

-- One of the people credited for the montage was the late cartoonist, author, and nude photographer William Rotsler. Among his accomplishments were writing novels based on comic book characters, including one of Marvel Comics' DOCTOR STRANGE.

-- Lorenzo Semple Jr., who co-wrote the screenplay, was the main writer on the '60's BATMAN series; and also wrote the screenplays (such as they were) for the '80's FLASH GORDON and '90's SHEENA movies.