Kirby couldn’t draw faces to save his life. . . but fevered-dreamlike-alien-hellscapes? Nobody did it better!
In high school one weekend while tripping on acid with friends. We walked by a comic shop. I couple of us stopped to look at a poster that was a group shot of all the hero’s and villain’s in that particular comic universe. I don’t recall which it was. Easily 100+ supers. The rest of the group continue on to the store we were headed to. My focus zoomed in as I looked at each face. I studied their poses and what that conveyed about their character. I looked at how some were posed to signify a relationship between characters (good or bad). I zoomed in even more to study their accessories: Weapons, utility belts, gadgets… Certain characters caught my eye and I spent more time wondering what powers they had and what their backstory was… Suddenly I heard laughter. There were my friends walking up the sidewalk with bags of food. They were laughing because apparently they had been gone for about an hour and I was in the same position (with the same smile) as when they had left. I wish these two page spreads would have been in the window. I might never of come back out.
I’ve still got the TMNT special issue with…Donatello (IIRC) that Kirby did with Eastman. Might have to dig out that issue.
OR - are they the same thing?
That’s not LSD, that’s just an ordinary teenage fan.
Which one is that? I have several of the older, original series, which were great comics.
I first read this as “Jack Chick” and man was I confused.
I believe it’s the Donatello series #1, with, IIRC, a mostly white cover, Don…
…dat right dere:
Back in the day, I had maybe #1–#10 of the original TMNT comics, but this Donatello and maybe a few others are all that’s left now.
Nobody could do visual overload/clutter like Jack Kirby.
I always loved the angular squiggles he used to denote “SUPERSCIENCE!!!” or “ALIEN TECHNOLOGY!!!”. They turned up in sources he either worked on or inspired.
My faves being the DC Animated Universe and Thundarr the Barbarian.
I loved The Demon (and New Gods, OMAC, and some of his others). I must still have some of these in a box somewhere. Thanks for the memories. These are visually almost as good as some of the odors that trigger a childhood memory!
Then I was a supercharged teen. Actually, that’s true. I have the hundreds of poems in a box to prove it.
This comic by Gavin Aung Than - using Kirby’s own words, may help newcomers understand and/or appreciate Jack Kirby’s art a little better.
http://zenpencils.com/comic/kirby/
via Mark Evanier’s newsfromme.com
A big influence on Philippe Druillet. But then Druillet influenced Kirby in return.
Quick double-check–these are the only TMNT comics I’ve got left. No telling where the others went (thanks USPS).
Finding those led me to re-find my all-time favorite covers:
(That was a fairly original thing at the time, disrupting not only the title but the other standard cover elements. No cluttery speech balloons or Stan Lee carnival barker text. And how on earth is Sarah Jessica Parker able to swing Mjolnir?!)
That’s a little arbitrary because it’s tough to pick any one Sienkiewicz. This is from when he was just starting to stretch his legs with allegory & symbolism. Bear in mind that Moon Knight is supposed to be the good guy.
“Zoot alors, I am trapped in, how you say, ze screensaver!”
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