Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! Been digging through the Files of the Far Out and here's what Ol' Groove's got for you today: from DC's fab fan-mag Amazing World of DC Comics #1 (April 1974), here's what would have been the lead feature in the never-to-have-been second issue of Jack Kirby's legendary black and white mag, In the Days of the Mob! Story and art by the King, inks (and letters?) by Mike Royer! Duck and cover! It's "Murder, Inc."!
Kirby truly is KING! Thanks for posting this unpublished & forgotten gem. This was my first time getting to see it. It's to bad DC never published this second mag. Still wish they would today maybe as a volume with book issues & Kirby's Spirit World combined.
ReplyDeleteI never get tured of looking at Jack's beautiful griity pencils here. Long Live The King!
Unbelievably beautiful! But I don't dig those gray tones, which I think were done by someone in DC's production department, not Royer. Also, the balloons and captions were lettered (actually, RE-lettered, I believe) by John Costanza, because DC didn't like Royer's lettering on these pages.
ReplyDeleteWas looking all over for some of the stories that never came out as "In The Mob #2." Turns out they're right here on good ol' DotGK!
ReplyDeleteNobody on the internet seems to like the gray washes, so we'd like to go on record as saying that they RULE and are way better than color for these stories. The shaded tones make the stories way more grim & gritty, more retro, and more like they really came from the period they describe.
True, the gray in this particular story seems a bit dark, but the work on In the Mob #1 is perfect. We wouldn't have it any other way.
I like the inking on In The Mob #2 much better than #1.
ReplyDeleteRoyer was the absolute perfect inker for Jack Kirby!
Anyone who missed these books when they came out, DAYS OF THE MOB (both issues, released 2013) and SPIRIT WORLD (both issues, released 2012) were each released in 8 X 11 hardcovers.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of DAYS IN THE MOB, Groove here posted the only story that was released from issue 2 till the hardcover came out.
In the case of SPIRIT WORLD 2, while it was not released, all the Kirby stories and articles were released in WEIRD MYSTERY 1-3, and FORBIDDEN TALES OF DARK MANSION 6. And best of all, in color!
These two hardcover collections are all B & W, so you're better off seeing the scans here on Groove's site. Or at the very least, to be able to see those stories both in color and in black and white, in the two versions.
An interesting contrast to Kirby's other 70's DC work.