There are two Kirby items I’ve been searching for since 1994, when I first started the Jack Kirby Collector magazine (and, unknown to me at the time, the future TwoMorrows Publishing). One is Jack Kirby’s original pencil pages for the first Spider-Man story, before the job was handed off to Steve Ditko to finish for Amazing Fantasy #15.

The other is this one, elusive color concept piece that Kirby did in the 1960s, along with the original drawings of Orion, Darkseid, Mister Miracle, and others (a couple of which still haven’t made it into comics). The only image I’ve seen of it was in the background of a photograph of Jack, taken at his booth at an early San Diego Comicon. The character is African-American, standing with his hands on his hips, wearing a half-length cape. I’ve run the above fuzzy reproduction from that photo in TJKC a few times, accompanying a plea to anyone who knows where it is, to send us an image. (And everyone seemed to think it was Jack’s original “Coal Tiger” drawing that became the Black Panther, but this is a different piece altogether.)

After 14 years, I’m thrilled to announce it showed up in my e-mail box this morning, and I put an immediate “STOP THE PRESSES!” appeal to our printer for my Kirby Five-Oh! book, so I could at least replace the fuzzy image in the book with a clean one. It was too late to add it to the color section, but there is now at least a nice (if smallish) black-and-white repro of it in K-5-0… and wait’ll you see it in full-color! (Which you will on the cover of TJKC #52, and also in a surprise Kirby goody I’m going to announce next week at the New York Comicon.)

After this many years of searching for something, it’s an exhilarating feeling to finally track it down. I’m on Cloud Ten today.

Now, whoever has those Spidey pages, you know where to find me…

On April 15, a live event called “Live From Kirby Plaza” will take place in England, celebrating Jack Kirby’s life and career. Hosted by Paul Gravett, director of the Comica Festival held every year at the UK’s Institute of Contemporary Arts, the event kicks off with an audio-visual presentation including sound extracts from a 1993 interview with Kirby, followed by a panel discussion with TV/radio presenter and collector Paul Gambaccini, Kim Newman (writer, broadcaster, journalist and critic specialising in horror and fantasy), and Chrissie Harper, editor of Jack Kirby Quarterly. Mark Evanier and yours truly will take part via a live Internet link-up, discussing Mark’s KIRBY: KING OF COMICS book, and our own KIRBY FIVE-OH!. A selection of original artwork will also be on display courtesy of Chrissie and Jonathan (“In Search of Steve Ditko”) Ross, which will include pages from the Fourth World, Kamandi, Street Code and much more.

The event takes place at 7pm UK time, and is completely sold out. Chrissie Harper be recording it and transcribing for a special upcoming edition of JKQ, and some film clips of it will hopefully make their way to YouTube shortly after the event.

Kirby Artwork that will be on display includes:

From Chrissie Harper:
Street Code page 2
Battle For a 3-D World poster (Royer inks)
Devil Dinosaur #1 page 26
Black Panther #10 page 23

From Jonathan Ross:
Full comics page of Cap battling Fourth Sleeper
New Gods #2 cover
Stuntman #2 cover
Insect Man – Marvel monster splash page inked by Ayers
Questions & Answers – 2 pages from FF Annual
Devil Dinosaur #1 DPS
Black Bolt, two pages framed together, first time he ‘speaks’ from FF #59
Illustration spread from Ariel Magazine
Kamandi #12 cover
Mr Miracle #9 cover
The Gods colour presentation piece
Silver Star #6 DPS

KIRBY FIVE-OH! (the 50th issue of The Jack Kirby Collector, which will be a double-size softcover BOOK instead of the regular magazine) is on press now, and scheduled to ship on April 25. To celebrate 50 issues, we’re making a special LIMITED HARDCOVER EDITION available. The hardcover version features all the original contents of the softcover version, but with a full-color wrapped hardcover, and an individually-numbered extra Kirby art plate not included in the softcover edition! This hardcover edition is ONLY AVAILABLE FROM TWOMORROWS, is not sold in stores, and we’ll set the number of copies printed based on pre-orders placed in the next 24 hours. So if you’re interested, go to this link right away to order your HARDCOVER copy for $34.95:

http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=674

(If clicking on the above link doesn’t work, please just copy and paste the URL into your web browser.)

NOTE: Due to the extra printing and binding time involved, the hardcover version will ship approximately two weeks after the softcover, but we guarantee it’ll be worth the wait!

The TwoMorrows Tune-In podcast has been on haitus for a while, as we looked for someone to take it on after the departure of Chris Irving from the company. I’m proud to announce that we’ve got another “Chris” who’s filling the spot admirably; Chris Marshall, who also hosts and produces his own weekly podcast, The Collected Comics Library (www.collectedcomicslibrary.com), one of the most listened to comic book podcasts. Chris brings three years of experience to TwoMorrows, and has been working overtime to make our podcasts something you won’t want to miss.

We’ve got two new episodes available now at:

http://twomorrows.com/blog/category/tune-in/

One features a new interview with Back Issue magazine editor Michael Eury, and the April edition features Write Now! editor Danny Fingeroth, plus other surprises. So tune in today! And look for a new episode the first week of each month.

Just found out we’ve got THREE nominations in this year’s Eagle Awards for Favorite Magazine About Comics. The nods went to BACK ISSUE, DRAW, and WRITE NOW. You can vote by clicking on this link:

http://www.eagleawards.co.uk/vote.asp

Looks like I pulled one (or two, or three…) too many late-nighters wrapping up KIRBY FIVE-OH!, and let myself get a bit too run down—to the point that I managed to contract a lovely case of pneumonia last week. Mix that with the thick layer of yellow pollen that’s blanketing North Carolina right now, and… well, let’s just say that Kirby’s art wasn’t the only thing leaving me breathless the last few days. If you’ve been e-mailing me and not getting a response, what can I say? It’s hard to type with phlegm all over your keyboard. 🙂

Antibiotics are finally starting to kick in a little, so I should be back up and running in plenty of time for the New York Comicon in a couple of weeks, where we’ll be featured on a TwoMorrows Panel on Sunday, April 20 at 1pm. There also likely will be a Kirby Tribute Panel in NYC that I’ll be on (thanks to moderator Mark Evanier), where I’ll be plugging the stink outta K-5-0. I’ll also be taking part (via phone, along with the aforementioned Mr. E) in a big trans-atlantic Kirbyfest in England on April 15, thanks to Jack Kirby Quarterly’s Chrissie Harper (more details shortly). So don’t count me out yet!

It’s finally done. KIRBY FIVE-OH! (the double-size book that’s the 50th issue of the Jack Kirby Collector) is finally to press. Me… am… tired.

It should be shipping around April 18th, hopefully just in time to debut at the New York Comicon, where we’ll have a primo booth, right up front of the Javits Center. I think I’ll be awake and recovered by then. If not, please don’t kick me while I’m napping under the tables at our booth.

Oh yeah; the book is really, really, really, really, really, really good. Really.

And if you haven’t yet gotten Mark Evanier’s book KIRBY: KING OF COMICS (which was released a few weeks ago), pick it up. It’s gorgeous, full-color, and gives biographical details about Jack that I’d not known previously, plus presents lots of luscious Kirby art. Although we didn’t exactly plan it this way, our two books really compliment each other nicely. Mark’s is a great bio of Jack, focusing on him personally. KIRBY FIVE-OH! is about Jack’s 50-year career, and focuses on his best stories, covers, character designs, etc. Both are chockful of art, and go together like peas and carrots. (Sorry, just saw part of Forrest Gump for the eleventeenth million time on TNT last night.)

Back in the early 1970s, Jack Kirby was invited backstage to meet Paul and Linda McCartney at a Wings concert in LA. For the occasion, Jack drew a really nice illo (below) of Paul and Linda with Magneto, and we did a write-up of the event (courtesy of Gary Sherman) in The Jack Kirby Collector #43.

Now, through some amazing detective work, Rand Hoppe (curator of the online Jack Kirby Museum) has managed to track down an audio clip of McCartney introducing Jack to the LA crowd during the show. You can hear it, and see Jack’s drawing much larger, at the Kirby Museum site (and if you haven’t joined the Museum, get to it!):

http://kirbymuseum.org/gallery/v/Real+Folks/Paul+McCartney+and+Wings/

George Khoury just called me with sad, sad news. Dave Stevens passed away yesterday, at a much too young age. Fans of course know him as the creator of the “Rocketeer”. I knew him as a guy who was always a lot of fun to talk to; a lifelong Jack Kirby fan, so we always had that in common the times we spoke. I don’t have to tell anyone familiar with his work what an incredible talent he was, or anyone who knew him personally what a nice guy he was.

My favorite memory of Dave isn’t exactly related to comics. We were talking by phone late one evening a few years ago, waxing about Kirby’s art, and I happened to mention how much chocolate I consumed working on each issue of the Kirby Collector. Dave mentioned that he grew up in Oregon, and as a kid, he used to wolf down massive quantities of a little-known regional confection called an “Idaho Spud Bar.” He said it looked sorta like a chocolate-covered potato; not the most appetizing image, mind you, but he assured me it was awesome, at least to a kid’s palette. Always looking for a new chocolate experience, I asked where I could find them, but he was pretty certain they’d stopped making them years ago, and it was only available in the Northwest then anyway.

I couldn’t resist helping out a kindred cocoa-spirit, so later that week, after several Internet searches, I tracked down a mail-order site that had Idaho Spud Bars for sale, and had a box sent to him. This was about a week before the San Diego Comicon that year, and when I got to the hall, I stopped by his booth, and we had a great laugh about the package he’d gotten in the mail. They must’ve still tasted pretty good to him, cause he’d already eaten the whole box before the Con (he didn’t even save one for me!).

Dave inked a number of Jack Kirby pieces that I’ve used in TJKC over the years—many done as a teenager. My favorite was the centerfold of issue #19, of Captain America and Bucky in a WWII scene (you may remember the Kirby pencils from Steranko’s History of Comics Vol. 1). Nobody cared that he drew as slowly as he did, because the end result was just so astonishingly good.

He let us use a number of his illos and paintings in our mags over the years, and was a big supporter of what we’re trying to do for fandom. Most recently, he offered up an amazing Phantom Lady commission he’d done, as cover art for a book that’s in the planning stages.

I don’t really know what else to say about Dave. I hate that we’re losing so many comics greats, especially ones so young and so talented. Just look at this amazing job he did inking Kirby, while still just a teenager. Simply amazing.

Check out what BrickJournal magazine editor Joe Meno just found at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Cary, North Carolina:

So issue #1 of the magazine for LEGO afficiandos is now out in B&N stores around the globe! If yours doesn’t carry it, be sure to ask them to start with issue #2.