Black and White and Read All Over

For my birthday, two weeks ago, I bought the hardcover of Jack Kirby's Spirit World. I first read about it in a DC house ad in  Superboy 181, in Stonehouse Hospital. Spirit World was being promoted alongside In the Days of the Mob. ( If there's a similar reprint for that title, I'd like to blog about in in the context of the FF/Gangster Planet serial or Kamandi's visit to Chicago-Land.)

These magazines were Kirby's response to the changing tastes of the "college" audience who'd written letters about Tolkien to Stan and Roy. They'd moved on from Silver Surfer and Dr. Strange to National Lampoon, Creepy and Vampirella. DC, however, had little faith in Kirby's product and killed the project.


As a kid in hospital. my eye was drawn to the prediction of the end of the world in 1983. I'd only be twenty! How unfair! That year seemed unthinkably distant. Now, some forty years (and seven weeks) later, I finally got to read it. Bizarrely, the introduction is in the middle. The first-and-only issue is a mix of rather tame supernatural stories, fumetti and Kirby-collages. It's reproduced with an appealing blue wash; I like the contrast with the cerise endpapers.
The inking is by Colletta whom I normally don't like but Jack and Vinnie's tragic heroine Miranda is gorgeous. The spook-stories aren't any more outré than anything in The Demon. The fumetti about the Forbidden Rituals of Secret California Cults- or "astro-seekers"- is rather sweet actually. The page of Aragones "funnies" is something I'm more accustomed to in House of Mystery.

The second half of the book is devoted to the four strips prepared for issue 2. The blue wash vanishes. The sea-goddess in the first story was recycled by Dini & Timm in the 1995 Batman Annual above. My favourite is "Toxl The World Killer" which reminds me of themes in The Inhumans and The Eternals. Ironically, I don't think there's anything here that would have grabbed the intended demographic so maybe DC was right not to gamble on the "Speak-Out Series". One for Kirby Kompletists only.

While JK was still at Marvel, the House of Ideas had experimented with b/w magazines in the summer of 1968.I bought the 2002 facsimile edition of  Spectacular Spider-Man a couple of years ago, on a day trip to Ayr. A book-length story by Romita Sr. and Jim Mooney "Lo,  this Monster" is a modern Frankenstein story in which a crooked politician schemes to boost his popularity with staged attacks by his pet creature. Unusually, Peter Parker is at his most happy-go lucky with gorgeous Gwendy. There's certainly no "mature" content; perhaps there's meant to be a satirical edge. It reminds me of Stan's post-Kirby hackneyed melodramas, like the Colan Falcon/Ape-Man story in Captain America. We're not even manipulated into sympathy for the monster (unlike Kirby's creature in the Demon/Von Evilstein saga, for example). The black and white artwork does look moody and atmospheric however.

Savage Tales in 1970 was Marvel's next foray into the b/w magazine format but initial sales figures and a general uncertainty led to instant cancellation. Two years later, Marvel launched a slew of horror mags:  Dracula Lives, Monsters Unleashed, Tales of the Zombie and Vampire Tales. Later entries would include a revival of ST, Planet of the Apes, Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Doc Savage and Savage Sword of Conan, which was published for a staggering twenty-one years. Just think of that. I bought a handful of b/w mags as a schoolboy in the mid-Seventies and I've written before about how illicit that felt.


What if.... DC took the plunge to launch 75- cent bi-monthlies in 1973/74?  With the choicest illustrators, articles and features, what might this (purely imaginary) rival magazine line look like?

The Dread Batman: While the Dynamic Duo was inevitably being reunited in the colour comics, the college crowd might dig a globe-trotting series for playboy Bruce Wayne and his ghoulish arch-enemies. Confrontations with Man-Bat seem likely and perhaps sequels to the Neal Adams Joker and Two-Face stories. Back-ups might feature DC's world-weary private eyes, like Tim Trench or Jonny Double. Seventies cheesecake could be supplied by Alex Toth's smouldering Black Canary or that hellion in hot pants, the Thorn.

Track of the Swamp Thing: Wein and Wrightson's award-winning monster popping up in different historical periods and locales, thank to Rip Hunter's time machine. Back-ups would include that deceased but driven cult favourite, Deadman. Boston Brand could alternate with Fleisher's vengeful Spectre.

  
Secrets of Sinister House:  As a result of the success of the tv series Dark Shadows, this book was originally a Gothic Romance title, like Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love. This title could feature the Phantom Stranger and groovy Cassandra Craft with back-ups starring the Mistress of Magic, Zatanna in stories of possession and Satanic cults.

Weird Worlds: A b/w revival of the former Burroughs book, featuring heroic fantasy like Chaykin's space opera Iron-Wolf and Simonson on Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

 
The Shadow: Mike Kaluta's series of pulpish tales of crime and intrigue against the backdrop of the Depression. Marvel's Doc Savage series had a second life as a magazine, so why not the Master of Men's Minds? Back-ups might include Rima, the Jungle Girl or the enigmatic Black Orchid.


Perhaps by 1977 and Star Wars, if such a line had been successful, the King would have embarked on another of my long-held pipe-dreams: a Fourth World revamp for the Astral Avenger, Starman.

By the way, as per Kirby's advice, I didn't visit Paris in 1983. That would have to wait another 19 years. I made do with Prestwick, Troon and Fort William.


Coming soon: Widow of Wundagore


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