Always love all the Kirby episodes. One thing to underscore here is that Kirby ending up back at Atlas/Marvel was a move of desperation. Simon and Kirby broke with Martin Goodman and Timely/Marvel back in late 1941/early ver royalties. So Kirby didn't really want to end up working for Goodman (and his cousin Lee) again. Only special circumstances of the industry collapsing in mid-1950s, the Simon/Kirby partnership breaking up, and Kirby being blackballed from DC (over the lawsuit with Schiff over Skymasters) gave Kirby no other choice. And by coincidence Atlas/Marvel needed Kirby when Lee's favorite artist John Maneely died. But more: the Schiff deal has to be understood as a kickback scheme. Schiff wasn't just asking for a continuous finders fee. His leverage was that Kirby would have to pay or lose his assignments at DC. In some ways, the "Marvel method" was also a kickback scheme: Kirby had to do writing that Lee got paid for in order to work: pay for play.
I got to see some originals from this strip at the Illustration house gallery in NYC on a CCAD senior trip. They were facing some Alex Raymond originals from Flash Gordon. Influenced my decision to work large instead of the standard 11x17 comics size. That gallery was a wonderful firetrap of golden age illustration and comic original art.
The Sunday book is beautiful, a labor of love by editor-letterer Ferran Delgado for Spanish publisher Amigo. He remastered the color art, and it contains great supplementary material (including Kirby painted color guides). Unfortunately the print run was small so it’s hard to find at this point (tapatalk’s Collected Editions forum has a great thread on it with Delgado detailing his experience).
Dick Ayers described his participation in a 1996 interview: "I also began [work on] Sky Masters, the newspaper strip. There is a lot of confusion on this; people think Wally Wood inked them all, because they're signed Kirby/Wood. But that was Dave Wood, the writer [who was unrelated to artist Wally Wood]. I began Sky Masters with the 36th Sunday page; Jack's pencils, my inks, in September of 1959. I ended the Sundays in January 1960. I also did the dailies for a period of [over] two years, from September of '59 to December of '61. These were complete inks; I was the only one doing it at the time. Of course, Wally Wood also worked on that strip, in the beginning, before me."
Somebody (maybe Theakston himself?) theorized that seeing Wood finishes on this influenced his approach to drawing tech. It was definitely a lot more ornate in the 60's than it had been earlier.
I watched this video and then the Absolute Batman Year One review. Now I am a couple dollars short in my wallet and looking forward to getting both of them in the mail. This channel is dangerous.
Great episode! It's interesting to see the links between the Eisner/W. Wood "Outer Space Spirit," and the Kirby/W. Wood "Challengers of the Unknown" and "Sky Masters" -- perhaps a case could even be made that working with Kirby on those two properties, and of course, seeing the success of the Fantastic Four and other Marvel titles (even though Wood soured on being exploited by Lee while working on Daredevil) really helped W. Wood in creating the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents for Tower Comics in 1965 -- and of course the James Bond franchise and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. were prime influences. The non-super powered T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad members (Egghead, Dynamite, Kitten, Weed, and Guy--before he gained super speed as Lightning) had a similar vibe to the Challengers of the Unknown --albeit with much more levity; and the super powered T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents like Dynamo and NoMan had some outer space and moon-based adventures where the tech. and space crafts look pretty similar to what's depicted in Sky Masters...but then, too, Wood had been rendering that kind of stuff sublimely since his EC Comics' "Weird Science" days... It might be fun to do an episode on Kirby's short-lived space-themed "Solar Legion" from the Golden Age, published in Crash Comics. You could get the complete stories through Gwandanaland Comics reprints. It would be interesting to see an episode where you guys cover Simon & Kirby's late '50s creation of The Fly and Private Strong (The Shield) for Archie Comics. The Fly is historically important as a precursor to both Spider-Man and Ant-Man over at Marvel...also, his main villain, Spider Spry predates Spider-Man. Lancelot Strong, a character created as an attempt to update MLJ/Archie Comics Golden Age Shield, is interesting in that he follows in the lineage of S & K's Captain America and Fighting American. Also, DC Comics threatened to sue Archie Comics, claiming Strong was too similar to Superman. Also, has Tom considered approaching the Kirby family to do a project or one-off Kirbyverse story with all of the Kirby-owned IP like Captain Victory, Galaxy Green, Silver Star, Bombast, Night Glider, etc, etc. ? That would be one helluva fun read! From Wikipedia: "Wally Wood's first wife Tatjana Wood recalled in the Wood biography Wally's World that it was Jack Kirby who sought out the famous science-fiction artist to collaborate on Sky Masters. Wallace Wood had proven to be American comics' best science-fiction artist through his landmark work on EC's Weird Science, Weird Fantasy and Wood was invited by Will Eisner to collaborate on the Outer Space Spirit newspaper series. By the time Kirby was thinking about a space strip, Wood had given up comic book work for higher-paying magazine and advertising work, including Mad and illustrating top science-fiction authors in Galaxy, Worlds of If, and other magazines and books. But Wally Wood was happy to accept Kirby's invitation. With art samples and story outline approved by Elmlark, Kirby penciled the strip, which was initially written by brothers Dick & Dave Wood and inked by the unrelated Wally Wood; at that same time, Dave Wood was also working with Kirby on the Showcase Comics issues of Kirby's "Challengers of the Unknown" feature for DC Comics, and Wally Wood would later ink issues #2-8 of Kirby's Challengers of the Unknown comic book series during the last half of 1958 and the first half of 1959. Once Kirby and Schiff got into a dispute, Wally Wood moved on to other projects. Later Sky Masters strips were written by Kirby, and inked by Dick Ayers, with the final month penciled and inked by Kirby alone."
I thought that new edition was cancelled. I briefly saw it up for Pre-Order at my bookstore. I added it to my wishlist and then it was gone. Just looking now it looks that the 2018 printing either was cancelled or went out of print real fast and they reprinted it in 2020.
You guys have the stereo audio reversed don't you? The hands seem to be on the opposite side of the person speaking in your vid. Great insights, review and subject as always tho!
Always love all the Kirby episodes. One thing to underscore here is that Kirby ending up back at Atlas/Marvel was a move of desperation. Simon and Kirby broke with Martin Goodman and Timely/Marvel back in late 1941/early ver royalties. So Kirby didn't really want to end up working for Goodman (and his cousin Lee) again. Only special circumstances of the industry collapsing in mid-1950s, the Simon/Kirby partnership breaking up, and Kirby being blackballed from DC (over the lawsuit with Schiff over Skymasters) gave Kirby no other choice. And by coincidence Atlas/Marvel needed Kirby when Lee's favorite artist John Maneely died. But more: the Schiff deal has to be understood as a kickback scheme. Schiff wasn't just asking for a continuous finders fee. His leverage was that Kirby would have to pay or lose his assignments at DC. In some ways, the "Marvel method" was also a kickback scheme: Kirby had to do writing that Lee got paid for in order to work: pay for play.
The dynamism of Kirby and the polish of Wood. You guys should also do the Sundays.
I got to see some originals from this strip at the Illustration house gallery in NYC on a CCAD senior trip. They were facing some Alex Raymond originals from Flash Gordon. Influenced my decision to work large instead of the standard 11x17 comics size. That gallery was a wonderful firetrap of golden age illustration and comic original art.
I love the kirby dives! Somebody tell Tom Im waiting on him to play around with the Kirbyverse. Or hell, atleast some of the PD Kirby characters.
Oh, that'll be incredible.
The Sunday book is beautiful, a labor of love by editor-letterer Ferran Delgado for Spanish publisher Amigo. He remastered the color art, and it contains great supplementary material (including Kirby painted color guides).
Unfortunately the print run was small so it’s hard to find at this point (tapatalk’s Collected Editions forum has a great thread on it with Delgado detailing his experience).
Dick Ayers described his participation in a 1996 interview: "I also began [work on] Sky Masters, the newspaper strip. There is a lot of confusion on this; people think Wally Wood inked them all, because they're signed Kirby/Wood. But that was Dave Wood, the writer [who was unrelated to artist Wally Wood]. I began Sky Masters with the 36th Sunday page; Jack's pencils, my inks, in September of 1959. I ended the Sundays in January 1960. I also did the dailies for a period of [over] two years, from September of '59 to December of '61. These were complete inks; I was the only one doing it at the time. Of course, Wally Wood also worked on that strip, in the beginning, before me."
Somebody (maybe Theakston himself?) theorized that seeing Wood finishes on this influenced his approach to drawing tech. It was definitely a lot more ornate in the 60's than it had been earlier.
I actually own an original comic strip page. It’s one of my pride and joy objects.
I watched this video and then the Absolute Batman Year One review. Now I am a couple dollars short in my wallet and looking forward to getting both of them in the mail. This channel is dangerous.
So beautiful. Thanks for sharing guys. You guys rock.
Great episode! It's interesting to see the links between the Eisner/W. Wood "Outer Space Spirit," and the Kirby/W. Wood "Challengers of the Unknown" and "Sky Masters" -- perhaps a case could even be made that working with Kirby on those two properties, and of course, seeing the success of the Fantastic Four and other Marvel titles (even though Wood soured on being exploited by Lee while working on Daredevil) really helped W. Wood in creating the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents for Tower Comics in 1965 -- and of course the James Bond franchise and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. were prime influences. The non-super powered T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad members (Egghead, Dynamite, Kitten, Weed, and Guy--before he gained super speed as Lightning) had a similar vibe to the Challengers of the Unknown --albeit with much more levity; and the super powered T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents like Dynamo and NoMan had some outer space and moon-based adventures where the tech. and space crafts look pretty similar to what's depicted in Sky Masters...but then, too, Wood had been rendering that kind of stuff sublimely since his EC Comics' "Weird Science" days...
It might be fun to do an episode on Kirby's short-lived space-themed "Solar Legion" from the Golden Age, published in Crash Comics. You could get the complete stories through Gwandanaland Comics reprints.
It would be interesting to see an episode where you guys cover Simon & Kirby's late '50s creation of The Fly and Private Strong (The Shield) for Archie Comics. The Fly is historically important as a precursor to both Spider-Man and Ant-Man over at Marvel...also, his main villain, Spider Spry predates Spider-Man. Lancelot Strong, a character created as an attempt to update MLJ/Archie Comics Golden Age Shield, is interesting in that he follows in the lineage of S & K's Captain America and Fighting American. Also, DC Comics threatened to sue Archie Comics, claiming Strong was too similar to Superman.
Also, has Tom considered approaching the Kirby family to do a project or one-off Kirbyverse story with all of the Kirby-owned IP like Captain Victory, Galaxy Green, Silver Star, Bombast, Night Glider, etc, etc. ? That would be one helluva fun read!
From Wikipedia:
"Wally Wood's first wife Tatjana Wood recalled in the Wood biography Wally's World that it was Jack Kirby who sought out the famous science-fiction artist to collaborate on Sky Masters. Wallace Wood had proven to be American comics' best science-fiction artist through his landmark work on EC's Weird Science, Weird Fantasy and Wood was invited by Will Eisner to collaborate on the Outer Space Spirit newspaper series. By the time Kirby was thinking about a space strip, Wood had given up comic book work for higher-paying magazine and advertising work, including Mad and illustrating top science-fiction authors in Galaxy, Worlds of If, and other magazines and books. But Wally Wood was happy to accept Kirby's invitation.
With art samples and story outline approved by Elmlark, Kirby penciled the strip, which was initially written by brothers Dick & Dave Wood and inked by the unrelated Wally Wood; at that same time, Dave Wood was also working with Kirby on the Showcase Comics issues of Kirby's "Challengers of the Unknown" feature for DC Comics, and Wally Wood would later ink issues #2-8 of Kirby's Challengers of the Unknown comic book series during the last half of 1958 and the first half of 1959. Once Kirby and Schiff got into a dispute, Wally Wood moved on to other projects. Later Sky Masters strips were written by Kirby, and inked by Dick Ayers, with the final month penciled and inked by Kirby alone."
I’ve been wanting you guys to take a look at this for a long time! It was worth the wait
Another episode of Kirby the Comics God.
O Brasil tem o melhor compilado de Skymaster já feito, foi publicado pela pipoca e nanquim
Phillip Seaman Hoffmour > Phillip Seymore Hoffman
Sky Masters ran from1958 till 1961. And to think that when Kirby left Marvel to go to D.C. Wally Wood was in consideration for inking The New Gods!
Oh, what might have been...!
I thought that new edition was cancelled. I briefly saw it up for Pre-Order at my bookstore. I added it to my wishlist and then it was gone. Just looking now it looks that the 2018 printing either was cancelled or went out of print real fast and they reprinted it in 2020.
You guys have the stereo audio reversed don't you? The hands seem to be on the opposite side of the person speaking in your vid. Great insights, review and subject as always tho!