Kirby Kreations
October 11th, 2008
Browsing through a box of old comic books recently, I realized they were all from the mid-70’s, when I was in college. I had next to no spending cash, so even at 25¢ each, I was very selective in my purchases.
Yet the undeniable reality is that most of them are awful. Even if the art was worth the price of the comic, as was the case with Gene Colan’s Tomb of Dracula, the writing and ideas were mostly junk, compared to what I had read in the 60’s, into the first couple of years in the 70’s. These were the comics that Stephen Colbert grew up reading??
Even the creative legend Jack Kirby began turning out work that could be called eccentric to the point of being incomprehensible. One such example was “The Dingbats of Danger Street,” from 1975.
I’m second to nobody in my admiration of Jack Kirby, but he needed an editor and a dialogue writer, although I suspect nothing could have saved this clunker. Kirby drew three issues, but DC published only one of them.
No wonder the Marvel Comics adaptation of Star Wars, which started months before the movie’s release, seemed so good, despite mediocre art. I hadn’t read a good story in years.
Filed under: Comic Books
2 Comments Add your own
1. jeaniebeanie | October 13th, 2008 at 7:10 am
Actually, it’s still kinda funny, like a really bad Mad Magazine entry. Say, Tom came across some crumbling old Mad mags while he was cleaning out his old cellar office last month, but they are beyond repair. Of course, he also came across some OTHER magazines of dubious reputation, and Molly was there looking! He was trying to shove them under something else, but she wasn’t stupid! “Dad, you were just as bad as Johnny!” (her youngest half-brother)
2. Joan Stringer | October 14th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
That’s too funny Jean! You hear of sons finding their Dad’s Playboy pile and my male cousins at 9 and 11 knew where their father kept his stash. I laughed when they told later of having to remember exactly how the pile was so they put them back the same way! We girls used to look at our Aunt’s Playgirl mags, but they seem tame now in comparison.
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