Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Where Kirby meets Woodring...

We're still in sort of a holding pattern while we wait for our last five constraints, but here's a quick note:

I recently bought the Marvel Devil DinosaurOmnibus, which collects a strange, abortive mid-1970s Jack Kirby series that seems to be born from some of the same impulses that created Kamandi and Kirby's 2001. It's kind of completely crazy.


What's that, Moon Boy? You sure do look alarmed! And those colors in the sky sure are bright!

What are you looking at, little simian pal?





Now that is a splash page. You can click to see it biggerly.

Mike and I saw this image in black and white at the Masters of American Comics show in New York, and it impressed me then; in color it's even more ... what's the word? Dynamic? Astounding? Insane?

That gigantic cosmic dinosaur-beast spirit thing (and the orange-yellow wheel of eyes below it) remind me, more than anything, of some of Jim Woodring's fancies and phantasmagoria. In particular, I'm put in mind of the "Crazy Newts" toys. I have a couple of those that hang around on my desk:



Sometimes it's a crazy, bright-colored, square-headed, super-mutated cosmic lizard that gets you through the day.

3 comments:

Mike said...

"Sometimes it's a crazy, bright-colored, super-mutated cosmic lizard that gets you through the day."

So, so true...

Ben Towle said...

You know, something exactly like that first Moon Boy panel happened to me one time at a Grateful Dead show in Raleigh about ten years ago.

I also had the good luck to see the original art for that splash page at the exhibit--truly a thing of beauty.

Mike said...

Dang, Ben! Good job you survived, eh?