Kamandi The Last Boy On Earth Omnibus

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Collecting, Editorials, Reviews, DC Comics,

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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Weekend Reading: Plastic Man, iPads, Clowns, Jack Kirby & Top Cat

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

Is everyone ready to read Bluewater’s J.D. Salinger comic book on the iPad? Now that’s a game-changer I can believe in! Let’s see what I’ve got on my desktop this week:

Apple’s iPad: Apparently Apple changed the game with some kind of game changer that’s supposed to be the Jesus of print that’ll save newspapers from their own stupidity and ineptitude and also change the way we read comics and make a BLT just the way I like it and find me a room at Comic Con International. Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter coalesces his thoughts on the matter. Me? I’m waiting for the iPad with wings.

Plastic Man: There are other places that are dropping it, but my favorite is over at John Kricfalusi’s blog. He’s imbedded the 10-minute Plastic Man pilot that was created by Tom Kenny (the voice of Spongebob) and Stephen DeStefano (simply one of the great modern cartoonists, and co-creator/artist of the much-beloved ‘Mazing Man). Says John: “It’s a real cartoon and you can tell the creators like the audience. It sure stands out from most of what’s out there.” Go check it out.

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Patrick McGoohan: The Prisoner of Comic Books

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Television,

Patrick McGoohan’s classic TV series, The Prisoner, is the definition of the word enigmatic. It was also an outrageous, surprising, and completely original show about identity, spies, surveillance, and more all built around a simple premise: what happens to a spy when he retires. In the case of The Prisoner, that spy, played by McGoohan, is drugged and taken to an island resort called The Village from which there’s no escape - though oh how he tries. He’s given a number (Number 6) instead of a name and he’s never quite sure who’s doing this to him: his former bosses or something more sinister. Cameras around the Orwellian Village monitor his every move as he tries to turn the tables on his captors in a giant game of spy chess. Each episode has more plot twists than a season of Lost, and while Number 6 doesn’t win, he never really loses either. McGoohan co-created the series, starred in it, wrote and directed some of the episodes. His fingerprints are all over it.

Produced in England from 1967-1968, The Prisoner ran for 17 episodes with a final episode that didn’t answer all the questions posed by the series, and good luck getting any from the temperamental McGoohan (he passed away earlier this year and took many of his secrets with him). There was no second season. No spin-off. No subsequent movie. But a lot of solid geek cred, including a couple of catchphrases for those in the know, like “I’m not a number! I’m a free man!” A very good overview of the series - with clips and more - can be found over at Palafo.

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

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

“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.)