Let's talk about Jack Kirby

That rings true.

Interesting post, thanks

Yeah, thanks for the link. That's the most lucid summation of the situation I've read.

anyone know what's up with vol 2 of the fourth world omnibus? been on a bit of a kirby kick recently so i picked up the other three for reasonable prices but vol 2 is going for crazy money everywhere. did dc only print six copies or something?

I was obsessively monitoring the used prices on Amazon until I found a copy that was less insanely-priced than has become the norm. But still insanely-priced.

I don't know why this happens and it drives me nuts (currently fighting the fight with one of the Peanuts slipcase collections that's going for like $400 even though both of the individual books are still in print). Like, no one is going to pay $200 for this collection of old and rare comics that you can purchase individually for <$200, so just stop it.

Might be because vol 2 is the best/has the most famous stories in it (eg the Pact etc.)?

Been super entertained by the Kirby Thors lately - it goes without saying, but they are *crazed*.

Also - I have to admit, outside of Fantastic Four, I tend to skip the dialogue and just look at the pretty pictures for Kirby stuff. Am I missing anything?

Also - this is a nice collection of stuff - especially this

mark evanier's kirby book has a bunch of lovely reproductions of little-seen-but-amazing work like that 'galactic head' painting.

I'm always weirded out by things like this too. Like, if the entire series is OOP why just that one... but it happens surprisingly often, like perhaps there was a lower print run of a certain volume or something.

At least it's a fairly safe bet the omnibuses (or at least the material within) will be reprinted at some point...

Spirit Archive #14 is the same way. I hate that shit.

dying at this:
http://40.media.tumblr.com/f239068e19bc3498e0cf50ddfd9398ac/tumblr_mtc7tcaAnw1qzoglfo3_500.jpg

There were single Dungeon collections (almost pocket size, <100 pages) going for two to three hundred quid last year.

Just grabbed Evanier's Kirby book online for cheap, on a whim after reading Bizzaro G's post. Thanks!

I stupidly sold all of my Abnett & Lanning cosmic Marvel trades a couple years back when I was broke, and they naturally all skyrocketed in price around the time that Guardians of the Galaxy came out because Marvel is ridiculously awful at taking full advantage of their successes. Thankfully, they've slowly been catching up with new reprints, and an omnibus of Annihilation: Conquest (the storyline that introduced the new Guardians) will be coming out next summer (one year after the film was released...).

what's up with these new Marvel reprints (Epics? I think they're called?) I saw one for Kirby-era Silver Surfer stuff and one for Kirby-era Thor and they looked pretty nice, full color, etc.

this spread
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_small/2/27500/952073-new_gods__v1__3___page_5.jpg

got me thinking about artists reproducing/referencing other panels - is this one of the most reproduced panels ever or what? Close homages to it appear in Swamp Thing:
http://files1.comics.org//img/gcd/covers_by_id/16/w200/16032.jpg?5767558948402809120

in this issue of the New Gods revival:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lu9YYYF_A2s/VLRg9pdfQDI/AAAAAAABG3k/dXEOxn0WLJI/s1600/newgods18-08.jpg

and iirc it also shows up in one of Morrison's JLA issues(?)

what other iconic panels have received this treatment, where it seems like the artists just get a kick out of replicating the original?

well swamp thing link is broken and I can't find a scan of it but that's supposed to be the double-page spread from no. 62

Veitch has knowingly (and subconsciously, via Rare Bit Fiends) copped Kirby a number of times, but he does it really well imo.

Veitch named his son Kirby.

A comics historian of my acquaintance once told me that this the most-swiped comics image of all time:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/35/3a/d9/353ad94bbfc5d0a0974bc89ebf946f9c.jpg

Certain Marvel artists were definitely told to copy Kirby's work as closely as possible

yeah I'm more interested in the wholesale swiping of images/panels, esp if it was done as an obvious homage (less interested in things like Giffen getting caught out for swiping Munoz and Sampayo for ex.). Obviously artists ape styles all the time, but that's not what I was getting at.

I've never seen that Triton thing, would love to see some examples of where that got reproduced - it certainly doesn't look that spectacular to me

similar to how Spider-Man's first cover appearance and Action Comics #1 or Fantastic Four #1 have been endlessly referenced, but in the context of panels

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/uncanny-x-men-132-pic1-wolverine.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/60/172675035_1eeb365615_o.jpg

i'm sure there are lots of others but i'm blanking right now

other homages to the byrne panel I mean

ooh good call

yeah def

I think Superman holding somebody dead has got to be the most homaged image ever. DC did that so many times as well as other publishers.

https://nicfoley.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/homage-overkill-crisis-on-infinite-earths-7/
http://comiccoverage.typepad.com/comic_coverage/2007/04/comic_book_cove.html
Some of them aren't homages but there has been overkill for sure. I've seen more ones they haven't included.

cover images are a different thing

famous interior homaged as a cover:

http://geek-news.mtv.com//wp-content/uploads/geek/2013/02/spiderman-no-more-romita-a.jpg
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_small/0/77/121024-129520-homage-covers.jpg

feel like covers lend themselves more to homage as they're subject more to a grab-reader's-attention-w-a-gimmick dynamic, whereas interior art single panel homages are more like fan service, or more the artists just enjoying themselves

xp

xps interesting that there are so many Pieta refs long before that Crisis cover came out anyway....

Also quite a few monsters carrying women. In the John Landis monster book there is a list of movie monsters that carried women like that.

I guess there's something attractive/arresting about that setup

In the case of the crying Superman I think it looks increasingly ridiculous somehow when you have that sort of emotional outburst repeated in that way.

Kinda reminds me of the manly tears trope in stuff like Fist Of The Northstar and Crying Freeman that Paranoia Agent parodied.

heh

still think the x-men/dark phoenix cover is the best version of that trope

Doesn't the Dark Phoenix cover predate the Crisis on Infinite Earths by several years? Which would make it the original one that later covers are homaging, even if they are doing by proxy via referencing the CoIE cover... I'm pretty sure Perez was intentionally homaging Byrne there, if you look at the two covers, the positioning of Cyclops/Phoenix and Superman/Supergirl in the two is almost identical, and both of them also feature mourning heroes in the background:

http://www.uncannyxmen.net/sites/default/files/images/covers/uncanny/uncanny136.jpg

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070226142252/marvel_dc/images/7/71/Crisis_on_Infinite_Earths_7.jpg

Of course there are earlier examples of the Pieta pose in comic book covers, but they don't look quite the same:

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_small/0/4/5963-796-6523-1-batman.jpg

IIRC the cover for X-Men #136 was quite iconic back in the day, so a lot of readers would've recognized the CoIE #7 cover as homage to it, and I don't think Perez was trying to hide it. But at some point CoIE #7 has replaced X-Men #136 as the original Pieta cover in people's minds, maybe because CoIE was more "important" as a story (though not necessarily more popular?), and because Supergirl actually stayed dead while Jean Grey didn't.

Doesn't the Dark Phoenix cover predate the Crisis on Infinite Earths by several years? Which would make it the original one that later covers are homaging

it does, but aren't they all referencing the Michaelangelo sculpture? As that link above says:

One of the most prevalent homage cover themes is sometimes referred to as the Pieta Cover, a reference to Michelangelo’s famed Pieta sculpture. Depicting the body of Jesus Christ in the arms of his mother Mary, the Pieta conveys a sense of quiet grief and profound helplessness in the face of death.

The Pieta differs from the X-Men and Crisis covers tho, in that in the sculpture, the dead Christ is resting in Mary's lap - neither figure is standing. I'm sure that both images are routinely described as Pieta Covers, but it doesn't seem entirely accurate - are we certain that Byrne was referencing Michaelangelo?

xp Are you straight-facedly suggesting that Perez thought "I'll reference the Pieta, lots of people like that", then accidentally drew the figures in a different pose, but the same pose as the Byrne X-Men?

well no - i mean, i didn't know pieta was the reference until reading the link above, tbh. and of course the x-men cover ran first, i didn't say it didn't.

Yeah, these covers are usually called Pieta homages, but the actual statue looks quite different from most of them, so it's a bit of misnomer. The only cover I can think of that that clearly homages the statue itself (instead of Byrne or Perez) is Jim Starlin's cover for The Death of Captain Marvel:

http://files1.comics.org//img/gcd/covers_by_id/26/w400/26145.jpg

Tuomas otm

If you want basically the same pose (instead of the Batman mirror image) Neal Adams did it on a Lois Lane cover in 1968.

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/supermankills4.jpg

Was Perez citing the X-Men cover? I assume so. Was he also citing this Superman image, and several related ones from the 60s, as well as the pieta? I assume so.

lois lane comics always so dark and fucked up

That Lois Lane cover isn't by Adams (smart money seems to be on the great Bob Oksner, tho to my eyes it looks like Dick Giordano inked it, which maybe accounts for the Adams confusion)