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Title: Jack Kirby's New Gods by Jack Kirby ISBN: 1-56389-385-1 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 December, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.17 (18 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Good Comic, Bad Printing
Comment: I wrote previously (down below somewhere) that this book was reproduced in black & white because of the limitations of reprinting color comics, and I still believe that's true. However, I wrote what I did before I bought the actual book. Now that I have one in hand, I can see that not only did DC print this in black & white (which would be fine), they printed it on poor, old-fashioned comic book, newsprint-style paper. And they added monochrome benday-dot washes to approximate the original colors. And it looks pretty lousy.
The poor paper is bad enough. By the time this was printed in 1998 we as a species knew enough to treat comics with some measure of respect. I've got a first edition trade paperback of Frank Miller's "Ronin" on beautiful bright white paper printed in 1987, over ten years earlier. Once again, the industry is giving Jack Kirby short shrift.
The coloring job is pretty poor, too. If only this had been reprinted in line art from the original inks, on real paper, it would have been really great. As it is, only the art and story -- all Kirby, flaws and brilliance intact -- make this a worthwhile buy.
Rating: 5
Summary: Why This Is In Black & White
Comment: picardfan007 complains that this book is in black & white; I thought I'd explain what I know about this, which I learned reading an interview with John Totleben which I can't find right now.
Before the mid-1980s or so, comics were colored for a certain kind of printing press. After comics switched to new printing processes, the old presses were mostly destroyed. The only color for older comics like Jack Kirby's exists in the form of plates for these old presses; since they don't exist any more, the original color art cannot be reproduced.
And you probably wouldn't want them to be printed that way anyway, because, let's face it, old comics were printed pretty poorly.
The only solution is to re-color the entire comic, which Marvel has done with some of its Masterworks series. It's probably expensive and difficult to get someone to re-create the color schemes for these old comics, so it's only done with high-profile titles (the Incredible Hulk comes to mind).
Titles like Kirby's New Gods and Moore, Bissette, and Totleben's Swamp Thing get released in black & white. I personally think they're better for it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Enter The Fourth World
Comment: The New Gods series was the centerpiece of Jack Kirby's Fourth World Tetralogy. Incredibly powerful storytelling introducing Darkseid, one of the most enduring villains of the last thrity years. Despite what George Lucas has said about borrowing from Kurosawa, the similarities between Darkseid and Darth Vader are too strong to be coincidental.
This series was one of Jack's first projects after leaving Marvel for DC. He was like an unleashed tiger producing some of the finest work of his career. The strongest stories here are "The Pact" and "The Death Wish Of Terrible Turpin". The focus is on the anti-hero Orion, who went against the super-hero grain of the time.
Unfortunately, the higher ups at DC cancelled the series after 12 issues and the plot was lost. The series was left hanging for years until a thirteenth story (not included here) was added on and the saga was wrapped up in a graphic novel. Hopefully, DC will re-publish these stories as well as the first twelve and publish them in full color.
Still, we have the first twelve New Gods stories, and a good economical introduction to the mythos.
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Title: Jack Kirby Mr. Miracle: Super Escape Artist by Jack Kirby ISBN: 1563894572 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Jack Kirby's Fourth World by Jack Kirby ISBN: 1563897237 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Jimmy Olsen Adventures By Jack Kirby, Volume #1 by Jack Kirby ISBN: 1563899841 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Orion: The Gates of Apokolips by Walter Simonson ISBN: 1563897784 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Essential Silver Surfer by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, John Buscema ISBN: 078510271X Publisher: Marvel Books Pub. Date: April, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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