Saturday, August 28, 2010

Making a Splash: Jack Kirby's Black Panther

Greetings, Groove-ophiles! To celebrate the memory of Jack "King" Kirby on what would have been his 93rd birthday, how 'bout we take a look at the super-kool splash pages The King produced during his tenure as writer/artist/editor of another king, the king of the Wakanda, T'Challa, The Black Panther. While Kirby's handling of his ko-kreation (with Stan the Man Lee, of course) was kwite kontroversial at the time (due to his replacing--and ignoring--the sophisticated stylings of long-time, fan-fave Black Panther scribe--in the pages of Jungle Action, natch--Don McGregor), y'gotta admit, his art, especially the splashes, were so in-your-face and far-out that you couldn't stay too disappointed for long. For 12 issues (October 1977-August 1978), we were bombarded with Kosmic Kirby Kreations like King Solomon's Frog, Mr. Little, Princess Zanda, the Six-Million Year Man, the Black Musketeers, and Kiber the Kruel. Krazy stuff, filled with action and topped with exquisitely-rendered (artful inks by Mike Royer) single and double splash pages. Here are all of 'em, in one place, at one time, and all for you, Groove-ophiles!

5 comments:

  1. Groove:

    When I had my "coming to Kirby" moment in college, Black Panther was one of the books I really enjoyed. In general, I was a huge fan of Kirby's return-to-Marvel period, as his work — both writing and art — had reached this level of abstraction that gave it even more power (if that's possible!) And no other artist has made as good of use as the two-page splash as Kirby did. Great stuff!

    Cheers,
    Andrew
    ComicsBronzeAge.ocm

    ReplyDelete
  2. Truly EPIC Kirby material....I love Kirby's work...always did always have and always will.

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  3. Damn I love the KING!!! And your blog!!!!

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  4. And Ol' Groove loves ya right back, Marcelo!

    There's a reason why they called Kirby "King"--he earned it, no matter what the Age!

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  5. Whatever Kirby touches he makes unique...and he proves it again! Great work pal!

    ReplyDelete

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Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


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