The inker makes all the difference! The Eternals is the most Kirby looking Kirby art. Magical. Intricate details. There was another inker on this series who was also great.
This was my first intro to Kirby. It was love at first sight...a love that endures to this day. Truly the King. Yes, it runs out of gas by about issue 15--but the ride to that point is spectacular. I may sell every other comic in the collection, but my grandkids get this run. Hell, I might even ask for this to go in the box with me.
I LOVE the Eternals ! I don’t think it will ever get the shine it deserves. Can’t express my love of these colorful characters and Kro was one of my favorites.
I like the issue where Sersi has her big reveal the most. You get a nice dose of romance-comics Kirby, and it's got a lot of disco/queer/diva energy that would have been on-point with respect to where the mono-culture was at. I sometimes wonder if there's a little Cher in her.
I notice jim suggests that the eternals/deviants should tie into the rise of superheroes. You should give the first earth x series a read it ties the celestials genetic tampering to the marvel heroes of earth in a very cool way. It even ties in galactus role in the universe to the celestials. I remember buying all my eternals issues for $2 a piece back in the day.
I first got into comics in 79 and at that time Kirby's style was seen as corny and old fashioned among the kids I knew. It had nothing to do with the quality of Kirby's work. It's just that the aesthetical zeitgeist of the late 70s/early 80s really rejected what it saw as old fashioned 60s art. It took me another 20 years to finally appreciate Kirby.. which I really regret because in 79 there was a 5cent used comic bin in my old comic store that was packed full of vintage Kirby stuff that would be worth a small fortune now.
It was kinda thrilling to watch this and re-live my own enthusiasm as a 12 year old when I bought this terrific comic! :) To me, Kirby was the guy who had drawn all those tremendous Fantastic Four stories in "Marvel's Greatest Comics" - I remember thinking, why aren't current FF comics this good?! :) He was the King! The best artist and writer Marvel had. Thank you, I really enjoyed watching this!
I heard that those negative letters were actually written by the editorial staff. I think that they didn't like that Kirby didn't want to have his comics a part of the Marvel universe. On Captain America, they called it the Kirby Kontroversy. Some readers didn't like that Cap was having adventures that didn't seem to be a part of the rest of the world fans were used to.
Now that I know your Jack Kirby The Epic Life of the King of Comics is ANIMATED or in comic book form, I know I want to get a copy. I thought it was just a book. And now that I see some of what is in it, I definitely want to read it. It looks very interesting.
The evil letters page! Many believe the letters were forgeries. But it is a time when Stan actually did something nice for Kirby, cause it was Stan Lee that got the Eternals letters page into Jack's hands.... But by then, much of the damage had been done.
This is pretty interesting on the Eternals/Aliens parallels. Prometheus being the Aliens movie that most closely echoes Kirby: alienexplorations.blogspot.com/2012/08/prometheus-references-jack-kirbys.html
Great episode. If you guys did a show about nothing but Kirby (okay, nothing but Kirby and the Hernandez Bros) I wouldn't complain. It's true that this stuff was really slagged by fans at the time and after -- ridiculously so since these are among the very best comics of the 1970s. One thing is that Marvel editorial was filled with wannabe Stan Lees like House Roy, who wanted Kirby to plot out stories that they could dialogue. Well, Kirby wasn't haven't any of that. Nor should he. He was just far superior to anyone else working in mainstream comics. His only rivals were the underground guys like Crumb or some of the European and Japanese artists.
I was buying The Eternals as it came out. I think at one point I had the entire run and then sold them for pennies to a book store. They knew what the good stuff was and bought my Jack Kirby run. I thought this book was very interesting and looked at it with amazement as I went along. I had not and still have not read the New Gods. I've only read Kamandi, Omac, Devil Dinosaur, Silver Star, and I forget what else that Jack drew and wrote. I have all the other stuff now in paperback or Omnibus form. Not having read the New God or The Forever People, Mister Miracle and so on, I couldn't see a decline in Jacks Work. And of course, I haven't even touched on Jack's other work with Marvel. I came along with a teeny budget for comics and at that point I was buying older DC Jack books and his newer work as he came back to Marvel. By the early 80's as comics went up to THIRTY FIVE cents, I was outta comics. I began to feel ripped off and Jack's runs always ended in cancellation. Unfinished Jack Kirby books littered the comic landscape. I did enjoy Kamandi though as other writers wrote the book but I thought the art was rather poor at times and the stories got more adult, complicated and convoluted.
One of the ones that gets better with age. I agree that Kirby was the best at setting up a series and so did DC. First Issue Special, created to exploit the marketability of number ones, had a pretty short run, but three of those issues were created by Kirby, on his way out the door.
It's odd considering this is the only Jack Kirby's creations i'm not really familiar with and/or cared about Eternals, they weren't as recognizable as the Fantastic Four, Captain America, New Gods and Etrigan the Demon. The only Eternals member i mostly familiar with is Sersi when she was part of the jacket Avengers.
@@dextergarner1286 I forgot about the Celestials, i remember i sew them made their cameos in Nextwave when one of the Celestials called Aaron Stack (the Machine Man) he's an ☠☠☠☠.
You guys. Don't give Devil Dinosaur much love if any. It's its own universe. Brilliant. Kind of like TV's Land of The Lost. Kirby tried so many concepts out, like throwing lots of spaghetti on the wall and saw what stuck. Verpoorten also inked Kirby's reconstituted "The Monster" in Chamber of Darkness #4 - - highly recommended.
I think everything great about the Eternals is lost when it loses the focus on being derived from Erik Von Daniken’s *Chariots of the Gods* Apparently Jack had sipped the Von Daniken tea real hard to get inspired for The Eternals. It really is best independent from the rest of Marvel’s continuity.
The inker makes all the difference!
The Eternals is the most Kirby looking Kirby art.
Magical.
Intricate details.
There was another inker on this series who was also great.
Love having Scioli on his enthusiasm for this stuff is infectious
when you see Kirby you know Tom isnt far behind
Bro I want a little one-shot about little Eddie P at the Flea Market with his dad!
This was my first intro to Kirby. It was love at first sight...a love that endures to this day. Truly the King. Yes, it runs out of gas by about issue 15--but the ride to that point is spectacular. I may sell every other comic in the collection, but my grandkids get this run. Hell, I might even ask for this to go in the box with me.
I LOVE the Eternals ! I don’t think it will ever get the shine it deserves. Can’t express my love of these colorful characters and Kro was one of my favorites.
Thanks for shining a light on all the great 70's Kirby works.'
those first 4 pages.... (and the rest)... thats good stuff.
I got the MASSIVE version of Eternals for Father's Day... it rocks seeing it at such huge scale, too.
I like the issue where Sersi has her big reveal the most. You get a nice dose of romance-comics Kirby, and it's got a lot of disco/queer/diva energy that would have been on-point with respect to where the mono-culture was at. I sometimes wonder if there's a little Cher in her.
I notice jim suggests that the eternals/deviants should tie into the rise of superheroes. You should give the first earth x series a read it ties the celestials genetic tampering to the marvel heroes of earth in a very cool way. It even ties in galactus role in the universe to the celestials. I remember buying all my eternals issues for $2 a piece back in the day.
I first got into comics in 79 and at that time Kirby's style was seen as corny and old fashioned among the kids I knew. It had nothing to do with the quality of Kirby's work. It's just that the aesthetical zeitgeist of the late 70s/early 80s really rejected what it saw as old fashioned 60s art. It took me another 20 years to finally appreciate Kirby.. which I really regret because in 79 there was a 5cent used comic bin in my old comic store that was packed full of vintage Kirby stuff that would be worth a small fortune now.
I could put this comment on any of Cartoonist Kayfabe's videos, but it happens to be this one: Damn, I love this channel so much!
It was kinda thrilling to watch this and re-live my own enthusiasm as a 12 year old when I bought this terrific comic! :) To me, Kirby was the guy who had drawn all those tremendous Fantastic Four stories in "Marvel's Greatest Comics" - I remember thinking, why aren't current FF comics this good?! :) He was the King! The best artist and writer Marvel had. Thank you, I really enjoyed watching this!
Ed, your dad was a master negotiator and definitely enriched your life that kept you on the path you've traveled in life.
I heard that those negative letters were actually written by the editorial staff. I think that they didn't like that Kirby didn't want to have his comics a part of the Marvel universe. On Captain America, they called it the Kirby Kontroversy. Some readers didn't like that Cap was having adventures that didn't seem to be a part of the rest of the world fans were used to.
Homework, just in time for the film. Thank you for posting Ed Jim Tom...
Now that I know your Jack Kirby The Epic Life of the King of Comics is ANIMATED or in comic book form, I know I want to get a copy. I thought it was just a book. And now that I see some of what is in it, I definitely want to read it. It looks very interesting.
My first Eternals comics was #8and9, introduced Reject and Karkas, beautiful violence highly recommended and #10 to conclude this awesome trilogy
Did creators have control of which pages the ads were on? If not, were they informed ahead of time where ads would be? What about nowadays?
The evil letters page! Many believe the letters were forgeries. But it is a time when Stan actually did something nice for Kirby, cause it was Stan Lee that got the Eternals letters page into Jack's hands....
But by then, much of the damage had been done.
This is pretty interesting on the Eternals/Aliens parallels. Prometheus being the Aliens movie that most closely echoes Kirby: alienexplorations.blogspot.com/2012/08/prometheus-references-jack-kirbys.html
Can Ed define "spotting blacks"? (Another killer video guys! THANKS!!!)
Great episode. If you guys did a show about nothing but Kirby (okay, nothing but Kirby and the Hernandez Bros) I wouldn't complain. It's true that this stuff was really slagged by fans at the time and after -- ridiculously so since these are among the very best comics of the 1970s. One thing is that Marvel editorial was filled with wannabe Stan Lees like House Roy, who wanted Kirby to plot out stories that they could dialogue. Well, Kirby wasn't haven't any of that. Nor should he. He was just far superior to anyone else working in mainstream comics. His only rivals were the underground guys like Crumb or some of the European and Japanese artists.
I recently got the trade for the full run of this, very happy to have it
I got a digital version and the colours are just terrible (although I'm enjoying the reading experience overall...)
I was buying The Eternals as it came out. I think at one point I had the entire run and then sold them for pennies to a book store. They knew what the good stuff was and bought my Jack Kirby run. I thought this book was very interesting and looked at it with amazement as I went along. I had not and still have not read the New Gods. I've only read Kamandi, Omac, Devil Dinosaur, Silver Star, and I forget what else that Jack drew and wrote. I have all the other stuff now in paperback or Omnibus form. Not having read the New God or The Forever People, Mister Miracle and so on, I couldn't see a decline in Jacks Work. And of course, I haven't even touched on Jack's other work with Marvel. I came along with a teeny budget for comics and at that point I was buying older DC Jack books and his newer work as he came back to Marvel. By the early 80's as comics went up to THIRTY FIVE cents, I was outta comics. I began to feel ripped off and Jack's runs always ended in cancellation. Unfinished Jack Kirby books littered the comic landscape. I did enjoy Kamandi though as other writers wrote the book but I thought the art was rather poor at times and the stories got more adult, complicated and convoluted.
One of the ones that gets better with age. I agree that Kirby was the best at setting up a series and so did DC. First Issue Special, created to exploit the marketability of number ones, had a pretty short run, but three of those issues were created by Kirby, on his way out the door.
Great post. Love Kirby's 70's work.
Thank you for using the actual comic and not one of the crap reprints
It's odd considering this is the only Jack Kirby's creations i'm not really familiar with and/or cared about Eternals, they weren't as recognizable as the Fantastic Four, Captain America, New Gods and Etrigan the Demon. The only Eternals member i mostly familiar with is Sersi when she was part of the jacket Avengers.
@@dextergarner1286 I forgot about the Celestials, i remember i sew them made their cameos in Nextwave when one of the Celestials called Aaron Stack (the Machine Man) he's an ☠☠☠☠.
You guys. Don't give Devil Dinosaur much love if any. It's its own universe. Brilliant. Kind of like TV's Land of The Lost. Kirby tried so many concepts out, like throwing lots of spaghetti on the wall and saw what stuck. Verpoorten also inked Kirby's reconstituted "The Monster" in Chamber of Darkness #4 - - highly recommended.
It would be fun if you guys reviewed Tom's Godland. His Kirby Fu was strong in that one.
I think everything great about the Eternals is lost when it loses the focus on being derived from Erik Von Daniken’s *Chariots of the Gods*
Apparently Jack had sipped the Von Daniken tea real hard to get inspired for The Eternals. It really is best independent from the rest of Marvel’s continuity.
I fookin hate the cost of eternals issue one at the moment.
Good videos.
Ed O'Pyss = Ed Piskor?
I have zero interest in most comic based movies, the source material is where it's at.