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| Image copyright DC COMICS |
Of all the titles that JACK KIRBY worked on for DC COMICS, SUPERMAN'S PAL JIMMY OLSEN was the best of them, in my opinion. Maybe that was due to there being two recognizable characters with long established histories in the DC Universe, as opposed to Kirby's other mags, but whatever the reason, it worked for me.
Having said that however, there's something not quite right about the cover. The point of impact where the bike hits Supes makes him look far too big in relation to not only the bike, but also the rider and Jimmy. Perhaps it's as a result of someone else tinkering with (or redrawing) Jack's Superman figure, but the proportions seem wrong. It's still a dynamic image though, and has plenty of punch! (There had been an earlier, rejected version, which was later used as a cover on one of a pair of reprint volumes.)
If Kirby had stayed at Marvel then maybe things like the New Gods and Kamandi would have been part of my childhood memories which they're not :(
ReplyDeleteIf Kirby had stayed at Marvel, I think you'd be (mostly) right, CJ. Maybe not Kamandi 'though, as that only came about because Marvel beat DC to the rights of Planet of the Apes.
ReplyDeleteSuperman isn't too big. He's in the foreground!
ReplyDeleteOkay, I'll give you enough rope. He's still too big, foreground or not. The front wheel is making contact with Supe's body (or it's supposed to be) - the wheel - and everything else on the bike, come to that, is simply too small for where it's meant to be.
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday Kirby
ReplyDeleteHe'd have been 98, Phil. Hard to believe he died in 1994.
ReplyDeleteThe wheel isn't touching him.Its knocked him toward the foreground. The flashbang effect they added on confuses it.
ReplyDeleteYou don't seriously imagine I'm unaware you're at the wind-up, do you? However, Superman's leg is under the wheel. It's quite obvious that, even allowing for foreshortening, Superman is too big in comparison to the circumference of the wheel and the rest of the bike and it's passengers. I'm right and you're wrong and you've shot your last bolt. Now...hiss off!
ReplyDeleteI just noticed the ex - pal on the cover.
ReplyDeleteAlso one thing which really annoyed me was how they redrew Superman's face with a Kirby body. It was more distracting than using Kirby's own face.
Having seen reproductions of the pencils, Phil, I didn't mind it at all. They did the same thing (if I recall correctly) with Werner Roth's Superman faces in Lois Lane.
ReplyDeleteThey were perfectly fine with Werner Roth’s Superman faces on the Lois Lane series for months after Kirby started. Then I guess somebody noticed that the policy they suddenly made to denigrate Kirby wasn’t consistent so they started mucking with Roth’s faces too.
ReplyDeleteYou don’t believe me? Try looking at the actual comics instead of just repeating the talking points.
Kirby’s Superman pencils look great! There was no reason to mess with them except for somebody in editorial bring on a power trip.
ReplyDeleteI've got the actual comics and have read them several times. And no policy was ever made to denigrate Kirby - that's just nonsense. Marvel sometimes had John Romita redraw Peter Parker and Mary Jane in Kirby mags, and Kirby sometimes redrew panels by Don Heck or parts of Ditko's Spidey - it was industry practice at the time. Try looking at the actual comics instead of deifying Kirby.
ReplyDeleteDC wouldn't have had to redraw some of Kirby's faces had he drawn them the way he was asked to. Or are you saying it was beyond him? If you look at some of Kirby's pencilled Superman faces, he made Supes look like he had a combover or was wearing a bad wig. He switched the side of Superman's parting from panel to panel sometimes, so he obviously couldn't be bothered to be consistent.
And most editors are on a power trip, but they don't have to have faces redrawn in order to cater to it. They would've insisted that Jack drew Supes to look like Supes if they wanted to exercise some power. They obviously tippy-toed around him.