#comicsofthe50s

#JackedKirby - For my main man Vin... Just wanted to post this cover because it was brought up when we were recording our most recent podcast with Vin from @kirbycovers !! A classic 50s Kirby cover, this features the Fighting American actually swinging into the mouth of an alligator! This is #Issue5 of The Fighting American, published in December of 1954. Stay tuned for our next Ep... it’s a great one!!! Give @kirbycovers a follow and tell them we sent ya!!! #JackKirby #KingKirby #Kirby #Vincent #KirbyCovers #TheFightingAmerican #50sComics #ComicsOfThe50s #Comic #Comics #ComicBook #ComicBooks #IGcomics https://www.instagram.com/p/CDknkpch8Ot/?igshid=m495k9lf6e74

#JackedKirby - The Sorcerer’s Box... The Dragon Seed!!! 💥💥💥 One of Jack’s most overlooked contributions to comics has to be his creation of the Challenger of the Unknown... the 4 man super squad made their first appearance in Showcase #Issue6 in February of 1957 and became the first superhero “team” of the Silver Age. That’s kind of a big deal... no? 💥💥💥 In the first issue of the book not only does Jack introduces us to Ace, Rocky, the Professor and Red but we also get a sneak preview of one of Jack’s famous “Monster of the Month” creatures that he would become famous for a few years later at Atlas (the precursor to Marvel) Comics! 💥💥💥 Check out this beauty of a stone statue giant that is created courtesy of the Sorcerer’s Box... and he is on the attack! This beauty of a “Monster of the Month” would have blended in perfectly with Korgo, Sporr, Groot and all the rest of the Merry Marvel Monsters!!! 💥💥💥 #JackKirby #KingKirby #Kirby #ChallengersOfTheUnknown #Monsters #KirbyMonsters #AtlasMonsters #MarvelMonsters #DCComics #NationalComics #50sComics #ComicsOfThe50s #IGComics #ComicsOfIG https://www.instagram.com/p/Buc5qyih3AG/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1aqrpai64nhfs

#JackedKirby - World Of Fantasy... Kirby Style!!! 💥💥💥 Before the important anthology books of Marvel like Tales to Astonish, Tales of Suspense and Amazing Fantasy could give us our beloved Marvel superheroes of the 60s there was another anthology book.... this one was published by Atlas (the precursor to Marvel in name) and was called World of Fantasy. It ran 18 issues from 1956-1959 and featured many of the greatest penciling talents of the industry... Bill Everett, Don Heck, Ross Andru, Gene Colan, Dick Ayers, Joe Sinnott, Steve Ditko... and of course King Kirby! 💥💥💥 Kirby had just returned to Atlas after leaving over a debacle over the rights to Captain America and working at National Comics & Mainline comics... and he was just in time to immediately get to work in World of Fantasy! 💥💥💥 Jack did the pencils on the covers for #Issue16 (April of 1959) #Issue17 (June of 1959) and #Issue18 (August of 1959) featured in pics 1/2/3 of this post. All three covers were inked by the great Christoper Rule... and Jack also added interior pencils on some of the issues as well. 💥💥💥 This anthology series laid the groundwork for what was to come from Marvel, the non stop barrage of hit after hit that would result in the Comic empire we all know today!!! 💥💥💥 #JackKirby #Kirby #KingKirby #WorldOfFantasy #AnthologyComics #Comic #Comics #ComicBook #ComicBooks #50sComics #ComicsOfThe50s #igcomics #comicsofig #ComicsOfInstagram #AtlasComics #ChristopherRule #SteveDitko #GeneColan #DickAyers #JoeSinnott https://www.instagram.com/p/BuHzXpKBQ9d/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=bfy3kkpi1tuh

#JackedKirby - Jimmy Woo & The Yellow Claw!!!! 💥💥💥 There are things that comic creators from the 50s and 60s COULDN’T do because of the restrictions of the Comic Code.... but there are also tons of things that were considered OK THAT ARE ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE TODAY! Case in point: Jimmy Woo, FBI Agent and his nemesis The Yellow Claw!!! 💥💥💥 The racist overtures of the Yellow Claw comic series is quite clear... to us in 2019 at least! But at the time this was a completely social acceptable endeavor... it even ended up on the right side of the COMICS CODE! But there are certain things that can be found here in this series that have some merit, specifically the main character Jimmy Woo. 💥💥💥 Woo is a hero cop in every sense of the word... he is a true inspiration, especially considering he is Asian in 1950s America while doing it. That makes Kirby’s choice to highlight him as the hero of the book that much more interesting. Kirby often portrayed minority characters in positions of power, and Jimmy Woo is that for the Asian character... Woo would appear in later Captain America and Shield books for Marvel Comics, but its was Jack Kirby as writer and artist on Yellow Claw who pushed the boundaries of an acceptable Asian character being the main hero! 💥💥💥 The villain, the ancient crime lord Yellow Claw, is much more racially typical for the 50s... a Fu Manchu stylized Asian mastermind criminal, who offers a large r aching threat that extends deep into the underworld... and Kirby does him justice as a formidable villain for Woo. (Pic 3 is Kirby’s best splash of the Yellow Claw in my opinion!) Claw would also pop back up in later Shield books for Marvel... but in a much more acceptable (aka less racist) way... 💥💥💥 #JackKirby #KingKirby #Kirby #YellowClaw #JimmyWoo #50sComics #ComicsOfThe50s #Atlas #Marvel #Comic #Comics #ComicBook #ComicBooks #KirbyPencils #IGComics #IGComicCommunity #igcomic #ComicsCode #Shield #CaptainAmerica #Chinese #AsianComics #AsianComicCharacters https://www.instagram.com/p/Btyo8cRBoPq/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ree3eijcd572

#JackedKirby - Attack of the Devil Bird!!! 🦅😈🦅 Jack and Joe Simon produces an awful lot of great genre work over at Mainline/Prize comics in the early 50s and I feel it gets overshadowed by some of their more well known works featuring more mainstream characters. I want to work on spreading love for some of these lesser known books/characters from them this year here at Jacked Kirby, so here we go... 😈🦅😈 Bullseye was a cowboy/western anthology styled book put out by Mainline comics and for the first few issues featured a heavy Simon load of contributions with Jack checking in sporadically. But with #issue3 of the series (released in December of 1954) we see Jack’s involvement ramp up... he is the primary writing and art credit on almost all the stories in the book, including this one that features an attacking DINOSAUR!!!! It’s actually a Pterosaur in the story, which is interesting cause this was right around the time when scientists shifted away from tying dinosaurs to crocodile/reptile looks and moved more toward bird like designs. Jack kills this with his ferocious flying Devil Bird, terrorizing young Bullseye and some unlucky Native Americans! 🦅😈🦅 The character of Bullseye and it’s comic only lasted only 8 issues at Mainline but it was some of Jack and Joe’s favorite work while at the company. He would also prove to be one of the duos last great collaborative creations, as the team would move on to separate career paths that would result in a few later collaborations based on existing characters. But Bullseye, the young sharpshooting cowboy was their last new character... a hell of a way to go out! 🦅😈🦅 PS- Can’t help but think of Jack’s most famous dinosaur character, Devil Dinosaur, when I look at this Devil Bird... must be the sharp red coloring!!!! 🦅😈🦅 #JackKirby #KirngKirby #Kirby #Bullseye #MainlineComics #PrizeComics #WesternComics #Western #Dinosaur #DinosaurComics #Comic #Comics #ComicBook #ComicBooks #50sComics #ComicsOfThe50s #JoeSimon #SimonAndKirby #KirbyAndSimon https://www.instagram.com/p/BsvO7lgBbjQ/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=fz127y1eiivr

#JackedKirby - I Fought The Colossus (both in the US and the UK!) 💥💥💥 Jack contributed many “monster of the month” stories to the early Atlas/Marvel anthology books, but today we found something kind of cool to share with ya’ll today! Strange Tales #Issue72 (December 1959) featured a great giant robot cover story called “I Fought the Colossus!”. The story leads of the issue and is the basis for the cover, which was pencilled by Jack and colored by Chris Rule. (Pic 1). 💥💥💥 In pic 2 we see the UK reprint of this issue, published by L Miller in their Spellbound comic series (#Issue6) a year later (sometime in 1960). Although the original art appears untouched, many times the covers were altered/recolored or altogether redrawn. This one gives the monstrous robot a more realistic color scheme, as well as adding a beautiful reddish sunset backdrop and a more colorful cityscape to contrast Jack’s giant robot!!! I have to admit I kinda like the UK one better!!! 💥💥💥 One last cool tidbit from this issue is that Jack’s pencils for the Colossus story were inked by the legendary Steve Ditko!!! Pics 3 & 4 Show off some interiors on the very short story... Ditko also had his own story appearing later in the issue in which he handled his own pencils! The issue also features a Don Heck pencilled story, making it another FANTASTIC collaborative effort from the Marvel bullpen!!! 💥💥💥 #JackKirby #KingKirby #Kirby #StrangeTales #KirbyRobots #KirbyTech #KirbyMonsters #AnthologyComics #ComicsOfThe50s #50sComics #Comicsofthe60s #60sComics #Spellbound #LMillerPublishing #Atlas #Marvel #Comic #Comics #ComicBook #ComicBooks #igcomics #igcomicfamily #igcomiccommunity #comicsofig #comicsofinstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/BmoEbvnH3wT/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=e7pdl2710kpw

#JackedKirby - I Am... MODOK! 💥💥💥 One of the weirdest character designs that Jack ever dreamt up has to be the evil MODOK. MODOK stands for Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing.... which is insane! He is basically a giant head with tiny arms and legs in a floating chair with telepathy powers... which is terrifying!!! But his unique design may have been inspired by an early Kirby/Simon horror story... 💥💥💥 Marvel’s MODOK first appeared in Tales of Suspense #issue93 briefly, but his first full on appearance is in Tales of Suspense #Issue94 from October of 1967. He is the leader of AIM because he has made the society of evil scientists his minions die to his mind control capabilities. The two full pages and close ups in this post (pics 1-4) come from this issue. He is fascinating in his floating chair, a true accomplishment of Kirby’s unique ability to tie technology into anything... but the way close up shows him out of his suit/chair and you can see his tiny arms/legs/torso. This reminded me of an older Kirby story I had seen... 💥💥💥 In Black Magic magazine for Prize comics back in 1954 Jack & Joe Simon had a story called Head of the Family (pic 5) that featured a patriarchal character with a similar anatomy to MODOK. Giant Head, little arms/legs/torso! And in 1973 when DC reprinted those old Black Magic issues Kirby drew a brand new cover, updating the original look of the character to look even MORE like MODOK!!! (Pic 6). 💥💥💥 MODOK is still very active in the Marvel Universe and a favorite villain of mine as well. Good to see Jack expand on his original anthology horror character design from the 50s to create such an awesome villain for Cap in the 60s! 💥💥💥 #JackKirby #KingKirby #Kirby #Modok #Aim #TalesOfSuspense #CaptainAmerica #60sComics #comicsofthe60s #BlackMagic #70sComics #ComicsOfthe70s #50sComics #ComicsOfThe50s #Comic #Comics #ComicBook #ComicBooks #ComicsOfInstagram #ComicsOfIG #igcomicfamily #igcomics #igcomiccommunity #KirbyMonsters #KirbyVillains

#JackedKirby - Digging deep in the vault for this one!!!! We have taken a few days off for the holidays and have also been enjoying our own Kirby gifts that we received for the holidays... so I thought this would be a great time to share a “deep cut” Kirby character/story to get us back on track as we head towards New Years. Strange Tales of the Unusual was an anthology book published by Atlas Comics (the precursor to Marvel) in 1956/7 that ran 11 issues. In #Issue7 of that book, published in December of 1956, we get to see a short story entitled “The Story Nobody Knows” that features Jack’s art (I believe Joe Simon is the writer, I can’t confirm this). This story features an alien named Poker Face who crash lands on Earth in Russia looking for a certain “elemental substance”. He is met by attacks and confrontation everywhere he goes... tanks, soldiers, etc. but he just keeps on with his mission. Turns out Poker Face finds gold, diamonds and all types of valuable elements on his journey... but that’s not what he is looking for! So he leaves without accomplishing his goal... and spares the human race because he doesn’t have to destroy our planet to steal the resources he desires!!! The character of Poker Face is a vintage Jack alien, with his long slender body topped with a perfectly round head. The squiggly hair and facial details are very Jack like additions to the creature. This was also one of the rare occasions where Jack inked his own pencils, something that he did from time to time but not often. I think he does a pretty solid job inking his own work... he is no Vince Coletta but he’ll do (wink wink)!!! #JackKirby #Kirby #KingKirby #Kirby #PokerFace #StrangeTalesOfTheUnusual #AnthologyComics #ComicsOfThe50s #50sComics #KirbyAliens #Aliens #AlienInvasion #Comic #ComicBook #Comics #ComicBooks #IGcomics