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.

Way back in 1996, in Jack Kirby Collector #9, I pieced together the original version of what was meant to be Fantastic Four #102. Some of the original story ended up as a framing sequence in FF #108 (mixed with John Buscema pencil art), after Kirby had left Marvel for DC Comics in 1970. I had a bunch of chopped up Kirby pencil pages and panels that were never used, and combined them with the Kirby panels that were used in #108, and put the story back into (more or less) the original version Jack had drawn. Since 1996, the unused #102 splash page, and copies of most of the pencils from the #108 stuff, have turned up, so we had the story almost totally complete in pencil.

Enter Marvel’s Tom Brevoort, who got the great idea of having Stan Lee dialogue the unused story, and Joe Sinnott ink it. So, after making sure the Kirby family would be getting paid for the use of Jack’s art, I sent it all to Marvel. The end result is Fantastic Four: The Lost Adventure, which is in stores now. It presents the unused pencil version, the inked/dialogued version, and the story that ran in FF #108.

However, there were still a few panels missing from this unused pencil story, so Marvel got Ron Frenz to draw new art for the missing pieces. And wouldn’t you know it; a couple of weeks after Marvel publishes the whole thing, look what just showed up in my email box:

Yes, it’s a missing page from that unused story. A Kirby fan copped this low-res scan off of eBay back in 2004, when someone was selling it. We don’t have record of who actually bought it, and it may have changed hands since then.

If we can find a good scan of this pencil page, Joe Sinnott has agreed to ink it for us to run in the Jack Kirby Collector. So if you know who has it, or have a scan or xerox of this page, please get in touch with me at twomorrow@aol.com. I really want to see Jack’s final FF story completed, once and for all!

Starting immediately, all new and old items at www.twomorrows.com are
always 15% OFF COVER PRICE! So whether you missed an old issue, or
want to preorder one of our upcoming items, you’ll save big all year
long on the items you love the most.

And our new FREE 2008 Catalog is available now, in both print form,
and as a FULLY INTERACTIVE PDF FILE (when you click on any item, it’ll
automatically open your web browser and take you to the page where you
can see the full description and order it).

Plus, our updated web store now calculates exact weight-based postage on your order, so no more “per item” shipping charges!

So stop by and see all the new items we’ve added, and thanks for your
continued support of TwoMorrows!

A retailer has just returned a bunch of our old, sold-out items to us, and we’ve just listed them at www.twomorrows.com in the “Last Chance Items!” category. There’s only one or two of each item, so get there fast, or they’ll be gone! They are:

Against The Grain: MAD Artist Wallace Wood Softcover
All-Star Companion Volume
Comic Book Artist #11, 13, and 17
Draw! #2, 3, 7, and 12
Jack Kirby Collector #1-14, 18, 22, 28, and 29
Sense of Wonder
The Life & Art of Murphy Anderson
Write Now! #12

They’re all priced at their ORIGINAL COVER PRICE, so they’re great bargains (with many of them going much higher these days on eBay), but since they’re already so cheap, they’re not part of our new standard 15% off cover price discount.

And if you click on them and the button says “SOLD OUT”, sorry, someone got to them before you, so hurry! These are our ONLY REMAINING COPIES of all of these items!

Our own George Khoury (author of, most recently, our book on the history of Image Comics, which spurred the original founders’ reunion at last year’s Comicon International), now has a regular column at the Comic Book Resources website. Check it out at:

http://comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=28

It’ll feature George and some interesting guest contributors. Already, his first column has generated quite a bit of buzz (and a little controversy), so head on over when you get a minute.

Spent last evening with my lovely wife Pam at our local Ruth’s Chris Steak House (still don’t understand that name; is it Ruth’s, or Chris’?), celebrating our 21st wedding anniversary. We’re actually a week late celebrating, since we got married on January 16, 1987, but our babysitter wasn’t available last Wednesday, and anyway, Pam was tied up working on the planning for our daughter’s school’s Spring Art Festival (for which Pam volunteered her design services).

I’d never been to a Ruth’s Chris before; this time, we went compliments of a gift card from a friend, and the food and service were superb. It was certainly pricey, so not somewhere we’d go on a regular basis, but really nice for a special occasion. I recall they have one in San Diego, so we might just check it out when we’re there for Comicon this summer. Highly recommended!

January 16 is also Pam’s parent’s wedding anniversary, her Godmother’s birthday, and… (wait for it; you know I had a point in here somewhere)… the day we started our company TwoMorrows Advertising, back in 1990 (four years before we actually started publishing comics stuff as TwoMorrows Publishing). So it’s a really special day here at Casa de TwoMorrows.

Boy, 21 years is a long time to do anything with anyone, and why Pam’s not sick of me yet is beyond me. It’s also nice to know that you readers aren’t sick of us after 14 years of publishing. We’ve got lots of really fun, exciting plans for 2008, and our updated catalog goes to the printer today. I’ll be posting a fully-interactive version of it for downloading in a couple of weeks, once we get all the new stuff added to our site.

And if you shop at our site, I guarantee you’ll find something there in a couple of weeks that’s going to make you really, really happy. Stay tuned!

The Comic Geek Speak podcast has released their Best Of 2007 nominations, and several TwoMorrows Publishing projects are in the running in the Best Publication About Comics category:

BEST PUBLICATION ABOUT COMICS (print only):
Back Issue! the Ultimate Comics Experience (TwoMorrows)
Image Comics: the Road to Independence (TwoMorrows)
Comics Gone Ape! the Missing Link to Primates in Comics (TwoMorrows)

Over the next few days anyone can vote for their choices in each category, and they’ll announce the winners in an upcoming episode. For the complete Best Of list, visit: http://www.comicgeekspeak.com/news.html