Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 43,951
Likes: 6
Officially "too old for this shit"
15000+ posts
OP Offline
Officially "too old for this shit"
15000+ posts
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 43,951
Likes: 6
Wondy, this thread is for you:
  • Kirby’s Dingbat Love: Unpublished ’70s Stories by the King of Comics! is just about here and its been a years-in-the-making labor of love for writer/editor/publisher John Morrow.

    In cooperation with DC Comics, TwoMorrows compiles a tempestuous trio of never-seen 1970s Kirby projects! These are the final complete, unpublished Jack Kirby stories in existence, presented here for the first time! Included are: Two unused Dingbats of Danger Street tales (Kirby’s final Kid Gang group, inked by Mike Royer and D. Bruce Berry, and newly colored for this book)! True-Life Divorce, the abandoned newsstand magazine that was too hot for its time (reproduced from Jack’s pencil art—and as a bonus, we’ve commissioned Mike Royer to ink one of the stories)! And Soul Love, the unseen ’70s romance book so funky, even a jive turkey will dig the unretouched inks by Vince Colletta and Tony DeZuniga. PLUS: There’s Kirby historian John Morrow’s in-depth examination of why these projects got left back, concept art and uninked pencils from Dingbats, and a Foreword and Afterword by ’70s Kirby assistants Mark Evanier and Steve Sherman!

Last edited by the G-man; 2020-06-19 4:40 PM. Reason: Once again, the board erased the thread title so I had to add it back in. WTF, Rob?
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 24,963
Likes: 29
brutally Kamphausened
15000+ posts
Offline
brutally Kamphausened
15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 24,963
Likes: 29



Yeah, thanks., G-Man. I mentioned this as coming soon in the Jack Kirby topic. I was looking forward to this and then forgot about it.

There was a DINGBATS issue in FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL 6, in 1975. Years ago I became aware there were two other complete issues inventoried by DC and never published.
And like Kirby's 1971 SPIRIT WORLD 1 and 2 (now available in hardcover) and IN THE DAYS OF THE MOB 1 and 2 (now available in hardcover), there were two other completed but unpublished magazines by Kirby, SOUL LOVE (a romance story anthology focused on black characters), and TRUE DIVORCE CASES.
And all that remaining Kirby inventory material is finally published in this collected edition. Thanks for the reminder, G-man.

It only took 'em 50 years to publish it!


Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 24,963
Likes: 29
brutally Kamphausened
15000+ posts
Offline
brutally Kamphausened
15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 24,963
Likes: 29
.

DINGBATS 6, Sept 1975, for your reading pleasure:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/1st-Issue-Special/Issue-6?id=85364


Kind of a cross-pollenation of Bill Cosby's Fat Albert, and a 1970's version of Kirby's own Newsboy Legion.

Many pages of both the Dingbats stories and the SOUL LOVE and TRUE DIVORCE CASES have been published in the JACK KIRBY COLLECOR fanzine. But so much better as complete stories, and not just a few scattered pin-up pencil pages, or as single completed pages, as they were before in TJKC.

Kirby also did the ATLAS story in FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL issue 1. I always wondered if Kirby completed a part 2 to that un-finished story. I've never heard any word of that, so I doubt it.
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/1st-Issue-Special/Issue-1?id=85355

Likewise an incomplete new "Manhunter" story, begun in FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL 5.
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/1st-Issue-Special/Issue-5?id=85363

Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 24,963
Likes: 29
brutally Kamphausened
15000+ posts
Offline
brutally Kamphausened
15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 24,963
Likes: 29



I picked up this book and read it over the last few weeks. It is much nicer than I expected. I was expecting a trade paperback, and it turned out to be a hardcover, that closely matches the DAYS OF THE MOB and SPIRIT WORLD hardcovers. But where those previous 2 volumes were all black and white, DINGBAT LOVE has a lot of color material. Of the 175 pages of the book, about 95 of them are in color.

Also, 24 of those 175 pages are editorial text pages in color, and nicely designed, and closely resemble the THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, making this book almost look like a hardcover annual or special of that magazine.

I'm struck how, from just a 6-year stint at DC from 1970-1975, that there were well over 200 pages of unpublished material by Kirby he produced for DC. That's a lot of unpublished material !
I count SPIRIT WORLD 2, DAYS OF THE MOB 2, TRUE DIVORCE CASES 1, SOUL LOVE 1, DINGBATS 2, DINGBATS 3, and SANDMAN 7.
Only SPIRIT WORLD 2 was published while Kirby was still at DC (in WEIRD MYSTERY 1, 2 and 3, and DARK MANSION 6). That had to piss Kirby off, that he created that enormous amount of material and then DC never published it. And many of them were very thick issues, 48 or 52 pages. Plus dozens of rejected covers. As I cited before, in the 15-issue JIMMY OLSEN run alone, there were at least 6 rejected Kirby covers.
Of 150 published comics by Kirby at DC from 1970-1976, that's 7 aborted complete issues, and when you consider how big some of these magazines were, it represents page-count for at least 10 normal comics. So it's gratifying to see this stuff finally in print.

Several of these stories existed only in pencil form, and a few of them were commisssioned to be inked by Mike Royer specially for this book, and nicely colored by Tom Zuiko. Most of these pages were in the collections of private collectors, and many of them were tracked down as far away as Europe for use in this book. There are three missing pages that could not be found, and John Morrow hopes they will be found later and included in a later edition.

Another cool aspect is that many of the pages are shown in pencil form, side-by-side with the completed pages. And double-page spreads are seamlessly printed as multiple 2-page fold-outs. A lot of nice surprises. My one complaint is all these side-by-side pencils with completed pages interrupt the story flow while reading. But it's hard to complain about all these extras, and all the thought that clearly went into making this book such a nice package. It's not how I would have compiled the same material, but I'm so glad Morrow did it this way. Not a disappointment.




Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5