Pledge to our Kickstarter to make our 25th Anniversary book THE WORLD OF TWOMORROWS a reality, and once we reach 60% funding, I’ll sweeten the pot by offering $5 color mags and $3 B&W mags at our website, through the end of the Kickstarter on April 25!
But the sooner we hit that 60%, the sooner the sale starts and the longer it lasts. So pledge here: bit.ly/WorldOfTwoMorrows
The campaign just went live, so we have till April 25 to reach our goal, and make it a reality. HELP US SPREAD THE WORD!
Pledge as little as $5 to have your name in the book, or as much as $150 to get an exclusive Hardcover edition, plus some limited and one-of-a-kind premiums!
Search for it on Kickstarter.com, or get all the info at: bit.ly/WorldOfTwoMorrows
Just in time for the big screen rendition, RetroFan #4 spotlights Andy Mangels’ exploration of the Saturday morning live-action Shazam! TV show, featuring interviews with John (Captain Marvel) Davey and Michael (Billy Batson) Gray. Martin Pasko’s Pesky Perspective sets its sting on the Green Hornet in Hollywood! Ernest Farino remembers the magical monster maker Ray Harryhausen! The Oddball World of Scott Shaw time-travels to the long-gone, way-out Santa Monica Pacific Ocean Amusement Park! Plus: the Star Trek Set Tour, interviews with actor Sam J. Jones and Jan and Dean’s Dean Torrence, the British sci-fi TV classic Thunderbirds, Super Collector’s virtual museum of Harvey (Casper, Richie Rich) merchandise, the wild and crazy King Tut fad, and more fun, fab features! Edited by Back Issue magazine’s Michael Eury.
Preview the issue, and pre-order your copy at 15% off here:
bit.ly/RetroFan4
Or subscribe now so you don’t miss an issue:
http://bit.ly/RetroFanSub
You can also find this issue at Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble stores in April, or at your local comic book shop using Diamond Order Code: DEC182108
Stop by TwoMorrows Publishing’s lucky booth #1313 at WonderCon this week!
Just a stone’s throw from Disneyland, come see all the exciting new items we’ll be debuting, with a limited number of copies of:
• RetroFan #4 (spotlighting the 1970s Saturday morning live-action Shazam! TV show)
• Alter Ego #158 (an FCA [Fawcett Collectors of America] Special)
• Back Issue #112 (the “Nuclear Issue”)
• Back Issue #113 (celebrating the Tim Burton Batman movie’s 30th Anniversary)
• Jack Kirby Collector #76 (the “Fathers & Sons” issue)
PLUS: All black-&-white magazines are only $3! Many books on sale for $5 and $10 (including hardcovers)! Get there early for best selection.
Publisher JOHN MORROW will be at the booth all three days, to share plans for TwoMorrows’ 25th Anniversary celebration this fall! And John will be appearing on the Jack Kirby Tribute Panel on Sunday at 3:00 PM in Room 211.
We hope to see you there, at booth #1313!
CBC #19 celebrates the greatest fantasy artist of all time, FRANK FRAZETTA! From THUN’DA and EC COMICS to CREEPY, EERIE, and VAMPIRELLA, Steve Ringgenberg and CBC’s editor Jon B. Cooke present an historical retrospective, including insights by current creators and associates, and memories of the man himself. PLUS: Frazetta-inspired artists JOE JUSKO, and TOM GRINDBERG, who contributes our Death Dealer cover painting!
You can view a free preview and order HERE!
Back Issue #111 is the “Alternate Realities” issue, cover-featuring the 20th anniversary of Alex Ross and Jim Krueger’s Marvel Earth X! Plus: What If?, Bronze Age DC Imaginary Stories, Elseworlds, Marvel 2099, and Peter David and George Perez’s senses-shattering Hulk: Future Imperfect. Featuring Tom DeFalco, Chuck Dixon, Peter B. Gillis, Pat Mills, Roy Thomas, and many more! Featuring an Earth X cover by Alex Ross. Edited by Michael Eury.
See a free preview and order HERE!
Join me (TwoMorrows publisher John Morrow) for the Mr. Media YouTube Premiere of my interview about my new book “Kirby & Lee: Stuf’ Said!”, and my 25 years producing the Jack Kirby Collector magazine.
It premieres this Thursday, Feb. 28, at 9:00pm EST, so I hope you’ll join me for the virtual watch party! During the streaming, there’ll be a live text chat you can participate in, to interact with other viewers, and ask me questions in real time. Click here to set yourself a reminder to attend:
Did you know that in the late 1940s, in the male-dominated business of comics, WONDER WOMAN has a female writer? Find out more in Interview ALTER EGO #157, which ships today with an interview with JOYE MURCHISON, assistant to Wonder Woman co-creator DR. WILLIAM MARSTON, and WW’s female scriptwriter from 1945-1948!
Preview and order here: bit.ly/AlterEgo157
The new issue of BrickJournal (our LEGO fan magazine) ships today, and includes a look at Felix Jaensch’s remarkable LEGO sculptures, from realistic animals to the human skull and amazing face masks! There’s also a detailed Kermorvan Lighthouse built from LEGO bricks, a spectacular Winter LEGO layout, and more! You can preview it it and order HERE!
To say I’m humbled by the early response to KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID would be putting it mildly. It’s a project I’ve been wanting to produce for several years, but now that lawsuits and creator credits have been put to rest, I was curious to see if people still wanted to dig deeper into the genesis of the Marvel Comics Universe, and what roles Jack Kirby and Stan Lee actually played—not just in creating the characters, but in shaping the company’s overall output and direction. It appears the answer is a resounding “yes!”
I didn’t want to just rehash the old partisan “Lee’s the genius behind Marvel” and “Kirby got robbed of credit” arguments. I wanted this to be a new approach to examining the topic. So I set out the CHRONOLOGICALLY (and that’s the key) document what both men had to say about it; plus include commentary (presented chronologically as well) of others, from Wally Wood and Steve Ditko, to wives Joan Lee and Roz Kirby. And then attempt to pinpoint what work was being produced at the time all that “stuf'” was being said.
I also wanted to present it in a visually different way, and one I think really helps the “oral history” approach of this book illuminate the subject more clearly. Once I got into the bulk of the research, I saw that this would necessitate taking the financial risk of changing the book from its planned black-&-white format, to full-color, because color was going to be so important to clarifying such a research-heavy, dense tome—and I’m talking about the importance of using color for the TEXT of the book (although it’s always nice to have images in color as well).
This is not a book you’ll want simply for its art. The visual examples I chose are there to support the commentary, not to show how beautifully Kirby could draw. This book is all about research (and believe me, that research took on a life of its own, and consumed my own life for months).
But if you care about the genesis of the Marvel Universe, you need to get this book. Feel free to ignore my brief editorial comments and opinions (all clearly marked) if you like, and just read Stan and Jack’s (and others’) quotes, in chronological order, juxtaposed against what they we working on at the time. You’ll see where both men were remarkably consistent in their accounts, and where they veered as time went on. Based on what early readers are already telling me, you’ll learn things you didn’t know, and be enlightened about Kirby and Lee’s lives and careers, both working together and separately.
Kirby died in 1994. Ditko died while I was researching this book, and Lee passed just a few days after the book was at the printer (and alas, too late for me to add a mention of his passing). But I think STUF’ SAID will stand as a lasting tribute to what they, and so many other Marvel talents, created—and an important historical document that is the culmination of what I’ve been trying to do with the Jack Kirby Collector for the last 25 years.