In 2015, I wrote a post about how I had acquired some IDW Artist Editions. At the time, I mentioned how I was never a fan of Will Eisner’s The Spirit until I saw scans of the original art in both of the IDW Artist Editions.
In like manner, I was never a big fan of Jack Kirby’s figure drawing. Frankly, I never got all the hoopla over him or why he was crowned the “King of comics.” And then I had the same experience with Kirby as I had with Eisner. I saw the IDW Fantastic Four artist editions of Kirby’s original work and it blew me away. I suddenly “got it” and understood why Kirby was king. Every page of his work seems to be filled with action and dynamism. His compositions and story-telling are powerful and they never bore you. It’s something that really manifested by seeing scans of the original inked pages without the distraction of color or poor reproduction.
This really hit home for me when I was taking a stroll with my daughter and came across a comic shop, which we entered. I picked up an issue of The Shadow and the entire comic was essentially dialogue and boring panels of people just talking (or so it seemed from the flip-through of the pages). In fact, I think I only spotted one or two panels containing The Shadow in the entire comic. And this is something that I seem to see more and more. It’s as if no one is capable of telescoping a story into essential elements so that it gets to the point in a single issue or maybe three-issue-at-the-most story arc. Or perhaps comic-buyers today just enjoy slow, drawn out soap-operas. Who knows. Frankly, I’ve gone back to reading the stuff printed on newsprint that I read as a kid. No, it’s not fancy stuff and the stories may be campy, but they’re more entertaining than almost anything I see today (of course there are exceptions and some stuff today is great, but my comment is addressing what seems to me to be the general trend).
Anyway, from now on, count me in as a fan of Kirby.
I’m too lazy to do a flip-through video of the book, but I’d like to link to this YouTube video of a gentleman reviewing the first IDW artist edition of Kirby’s Fantastic Four (the book above is the second volume of Kirby’s FF work, both books being released in 2017 by IDW to commemorate Kirby’s 100th birthday). The reviewer does a fine job commenting on the artwork. If you’re a fan of Kirby and still haven’t seen either artist edition, watch this video and you’ll want to run out and get them.
Enjoy!
Frank Grau Illustration 