Saturday, 11 June 2016

PART TWO OF KIRBY 'KOCK-UPS' - TWO LEFT FEET? NAH, TWO LEFT HANDS...

Image copyright MARVEL COMICS

JACK KIRBY, at the top of his game, was a superb artist and storyteller, but sometimes even he made a boo-boo.  No doubt such slip-ups transpired because of the relentless production schedule he (and others) worked under, but some of the mistakes were so obvious that they should've been caught and corrected well-before publication.  As you can see in the above cover, The HUMAN TORCH has two left hands, which can hardly be regarded as any kind of a super-power.

Jack wasn't the only artist who did this sort of thing however.  I recall once being given a lettering job for IPC's DICEMAN mag, and a character hanging from a washing line (or cable of some sort) had his left and right hands transposed.  I pointed it out to the 2000 A.D. crew (I was in the office at the time), and they all said "No, it's fine - nothing wrong with it!"  I imitated the position of the guy in the panel so they could see how the hands should look, and they reluctantly conceded I was right.  See?  Not just a letterer, nor only someone blessed with devastating good looks.

More Kirby 'Kock-Ups' soon!

No comments:

Post a Comment

ALL ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL BE DELETED UNREAD unless accompanied by a regularly-used and recognized
name. For those without a Google account, use the 'Name/URL' option. All comments are subject to moderation and will
appear only if approved. Remember - no guts, no glory.

I reserve the right to edit comments to remove swearing or blasphemy, and in instances where I consider certain words or
phraseology may cause offence or upset to other commenters.