Kamandi The Last Boy On Earth Omnibus

What do you do if you can't get the comic book license to Planet Of The Apes?

If you're DC publisher Carmine Infantino and the time is the early 1970s, you simply encourage someone to follow an old comic book tradition: create the homage.

Except that Infantino made that request of Jack Kirby and he took – to his credit – only the very basics of that idea (which was a staple of post-apocalyptic sci-fi for decades) and ran wild with it. According to Wikipedia, Kirby took the germ of Infantino's request, mixed it with a couple of pre-POTA projects of his from earlier and the result was Kamandi, The Last Boy On Earth.

It debuted in 1972 as part of Kirby's "2nd phase" at DC, after they cancelled all his debut books from the Fourth World series – New Gods, Forever People and Mister Miracle – and turned Jimmy Olsen back into a red-headed d-bag.

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Happy Birthday, Jack Kirby!

Happy Birthday to Jack Kirby, who was born 93 years ago and who I think is the greatest creator of comic books ever. I just love his stuff. If you want to know more about Jack the man, Mark Evanier has a bunch of great stuff about him that’s well worth your time.

If you want some visual proof of Kirby’s greatness, Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter has assembled a fantastic array.

If you want to read some of the classic monster stories that Kirby illustrated, the Monster Blog has a selection of 39 of them that have yet to be reprinted.

I met Kirby only once, at the San Diego Comic Con years ago, so I don’t have any personal anecdotes to share since all I did was shake his hand and burble something inconsequential. My pal Dave Olbrich, back when he was the publisher of Malibu Comics, was an occasional guest in the Kirby house - Malibu’s offices were in the same town as the Kirbys. I was too nervous to try to tag along. I love re-reading Kirby’s long run on Marvel Comics’ The Fantastic Four - it starts slow and builds to greatness. But I really like his stuff for DC Comics in the 1970s - his Fourth World books, especially Mister Miracle and, yes, Jimmy Olsen. Kirby’s the only creator who’s made that cub reporter interesting. I also love Kamandi and The Demon.

In the discussion and debate over Kirby’s many inkers, I go Joe Sinnott #1 and Mike Royer #2.

Happy Birthday, Jack!

[Artwork: The cover to Kamandi #1, by Jack Kirby, © DC Entertainment.]

SNEAK PEAK: Jack Kirby’s THE LOSERS with Neil Gaiman

“It seems to me that the Losers is a ‘people’ thing. A small squad of ‘everymen’ caught up in the crushing tide of events, pushing their ‘know-how’ to the limit in a wild effort to survive.”
Jack Kirby (1975)

After his run on the Fourth World titles (New Gods, The Forever People, Mister Miracle, Jimmy Olsen), Jack Kirby did a number of oddball projects for DC, many tucked away in forgotten corners of the DC Universe. One of them was to take on and reinvent the classic DC war title Our Fighting Forces, which featured the World War II heroes known as the Losers. It was a team-up of some of DC’s secondary WWII characters who at one time either had their own book or their own back-up feature: Captain Storm, Navajo Ace Johnny Cloud, Gunner and Sarge.

The Losers was created by Robert Kanigher and Russ Heath in 1969. Kirby took over in 1974 with Our Fighting Forces #151 and stayed on the book until issue #162. His loopy action tales were a drastic change from the previous stories by Kanigher and legend has it that fans of the old were less than pleased. However, taken on their own without the backstory and pre-Kirby logistics, these are really dynamic adventure stories that are based on Kirby’s own experiences during WWII.

Now DC Comics has added Jack Kirby’s The Losers to their fine shelf of hardcovers. The Losers collects the entire run, written and penciled by Kirby, and inked by D. Bruce Berry and Mike Royer. The collection includes a cover by Kirby and Royer. The 240-page book features a foreword by Neil Gaiman (Sandman; Coraline). On sale date is March 17, 2009. As Kirby himself blurbed at one time: “Don’t ask, just buy it!”

Mike Kidson has a great piece online on Kirby’s Losers – he dissects a complete issue with the skill of a comic book surgeon. Longtime Kirby authority Mark Evanier answers a million Kirby-related questions here along with a small bit of information about The Losers.
(Artwork © DC Comics, Inc.)