Kirby’s Fourth World = Star Wars? I know all the arguments, but I’ve only heard them from die-hards. Here in Pittsburgh I’ve learned that the theory is alive and well. So, really, who thinks this? Does this mean something to you people out there? Frank says: “Darkseid? The Dark Side? The Source? The Force? Just sayin…” Tom Scioli and Bill Boichel agree. Thoughts?
Signed,
Confused in Pittsburgh
Guess!
You should stay inside this weekend and enjoy some nice, fun comics!
1) Brian Chippendale’s new weekly web comic, Puke Force, has launched over at PictureBox. Check it out, and remember, “read it like a snake”. Brian’s 800-page If ‘n Oof will hit stores and subscribers in early October!
2) Tom Kraft has just unleashed the new version of his web site, What if Kirby. It’s a massive collection of original Jack Kirby art, beautifully scanned and silhouetted, and viewable at various magnifications. Forthcoming features includes notes from scholars and inkers, as well as some text from yours truly. Congrats to Tom — a super generous dude and good company when we were at Fumetto. There are other sites with hi-res art (like Heritage), but this is the first dedicated to a single artist, complete with annotations, etc. To me, this is the beginning of an invaluable resource. A particular favorite of mine is this collage from 2001.
3) I’m pleased to pass along some Johnny Dynamite news: Movie interest in Johnny Dynamite has been stirred by a Max Allan Collins screenplay based on his and Terry Beatty’s graphic novel. Collins and Beatty are the kind copyright holders of the Johnny Dynamite characters and stories, including those featured in Art in Time. My thanks for their support.
Reid Fleming: Working Class Hero
1. In the R. Crumb Handbook, the creator of Mr. Natural writes: “Some of the other comics that Charles and I liked, Heckle and Jeckle, Super Duck, things of that ilk, featured very primitive stories on the crudest proletarian level….The super-hero comics of the 1940s also had this rough, working class quality. A cartoonist like Jack Kirby is a perfect example. His characters – Captain America, for instance – were an extension of himself. Kirby was a tough little guy from the streets of New York’s lower east side, and he and he saw the world in terms of harsh, elemental, forces. How do you deal with these forces? You fight back! This was the message of all the comic strips created during the Great Depression of the 1930s, from Popeye to Dick Tracy to Superman.” Crumb as usual is right: I’d add that the anti-comics movement of the 1940s and 1950s had a class dimension as well. Genteel, middle-class Americans were shocked by the plebian violence, crude sexuality and general spirit of irreverence of the early comic books.
Well here we are in 2010 and there is a new book called The Thin Black Line: Perspectives on Vince Colletta, Comics’ Most Controversial Inker, by Robert L. Bryant, Jr. One hundred and twenty-eight pages full of decent black-and-white reproductions of Colletta-inked artwork, a good bit of Kirby pencils, and some very astute before-and-after comparisons.
For the uninitiated: In the wondrous world of superhero, etc., comic books there were and are pencillers and inkers. The pencillers drew the story in pencil, rendering to greater or lesser degrees. The inkers would then draw on top of those pencils in ink, thus preparing the page for photography. Inkers overlaid their own drawing style on whomever they were working over. Some inkers faithfully executed, in ink, the intentions of the penciller; others rendered those intentions in their own style. And still others just drew what they viewed as most essential and moved on as quickly as possible. Inking is no mean feat. (more…)
Odin Smiling After a Particularly Noxious Release
Geoff Boucher reports about the Thor movie over at the LA Times. I know, I know, it’s just a movie. It has nothing to do with the many things I like about 1960s Thor. And I don’t even care about this stuff, except… C’mon guys, you couldn’t have designed even slightly better costumes? Honestly? It’s just lazy looking. There are many cool things about circa 1960s Thor, most of them beginning and ending with Jack Kirby’s literary and visual ideas. But among the coolest were the costumes! Mind-bendingly intricate mythological armor and sets with a nearly psychedelic color palette. Where is all that? These pictures look kinda like Iron Man. Or X-Men. Or whatever. Point, is, where’s the color? The scale? The imagination? It’s a movie, natch, and things have to somewhat simplified, and it’s Hollywood and blah blah. I know it all already. But… No one thought to call Walt Simonson? Hell, if I were them I’d call CF! Or William Stout! Or Moebius! Call somebody! Anyhow, thus endeth my pointless afternoon rant. Sigh.
Gil Kane, an artist whose interviews are always worth reading.
Autodidacts. I often think William Blake is the prototype for many modern cartoonists. Blake was a working class visionary who taught himself Greek and Hebrew, an autodidact who created his own cosmology which went against the grain of the dominant Newtonian/Lockean worldview of his epoch. The world of comics has had many such ad hoc theorists and degree-less philosophers: Burne Hogarth, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Gil Kane, Neal Adams, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gary Panter, Lynda Barry, Howard Chaykin, Chester Brown, Dave Sim, Alan Moore. These are all freelance scholars who are willing to challenge expert opinion with elaborately developed alternative ideas. The results of their theorizing are mixed. On the plus side: you can learn more about art history by listening to Gary Panter and Art Spiegelman talk than from reading a shelf-full of academic books; Robert Crumb’s Genesis deserves to be seen not just as an important work of art but also a significant commentary on the Bible; Lynda Barry’s ideas about creativity strike me as not just true but also profound and life-enhancing. On the negative side: Dave Sim’s forays into gender analysis have not, um, ah, been, um, very fruitful; and while Neal Adams drew a wicked cool Batman, I’m not willing to give credence to his theories of an expanding earth if it means rejecting the mainstream physics of the last few centuries. Sorry Neal!
Silkscreen, edition of 100. Available online soon from The Kirby Museum. All proceeds benefit the Museum.
Since I’m procrastinating a bit here on another rainy day in Lucerne, getting ready to pack up and head out to Toronto tomorrow, I thought I’d add a few more thoughts on Fumetto and the festival.
Ben Jones opened a very fine exhibition last week, consisting of large cardboard sculptures, some paintings, and a couple of wall drawings. It’s a good way to see what Jones is up to these days. We did a talk together on Saturday afternoon, walking through the show and tossing around arguments about form and hierarchies. I’ll post it when I’m back. Ben took off for Athens yesterday for yet another art show. Busy boy.
Anyhow, Kirby:
What has struck me about the current show is how much can be told even without displaying some of his “iconic” pieces, as has been noted elsewhere. For this, and for any audience really, it’s almost more important to see the work as work, rather than as propping up iconic properties. It’s easier to take in as comics qua comics, or in the case of his collage and pencil drawings: as highly personal mark-making.
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