I recently got an e-mail from Glen David Gold, the fine writer and Kirby enthusiast, who had a few additional thoughts about FANTASTIC FOUR #1 and how it may have been put together. We ended up corresponding a bit dissecting these questions, and so with Glen's permission, I'm going to post some of that correspondence … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: More Thoughts on FANTASTIC FOUR #1
This is the back half of the fourth and concluding installment of the Final Fantastic Four story that Italian creator Leonardo Ortolani produced for the tenth issue of the Italian fanzine MADE IN USA in 1994. It was set immediately after the last FF issues produced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and was intended … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: The Last Fantastic Four Story, Part Five
This is the fourth and final installment of the final Fantastic Four story that Italian creator Leonardo Ortolani produced for the tenth issue of the Italian fanzine MADE IN USA in 1994. It was set immediately after the final FF story produced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and was intended as a climactic finale … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: The Last Fantastic Four Story, Part Four
Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby famously introduced the mighty Thor in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #83 in 1962. But before that, there were a number of antecedents for that story and that character, based as he was on actual Norse mythology. For example, here's an obscure story from OUT OF THIS WORLD #11 in … Continue reading The Hammer of Thor
This is the third installment of Italian creator Leonardo Ortolani's fan-created wrap-up of the FANTASTIC FOUR mythos created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. This chapter was published in the fanzine MADE IN USA #9 in 1993. We're getting to the meat of Leo's Alan Moore-style reinterpretation of the events of the series here. As … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: The Last Fantastic Four Story, Part Three
This is the second installment of Italian creator Leonardo Ortolani's four-part fan-drawn final adventure of the Lee and Kirby Fantastic Four. It was originally published in the fanzine MADE IN USA #8 in Italy in 1993, and hasn't ever been made available in English as it was an unlicensed production. While the first episode was … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: The Last Fantastic Four Story, Part Two
This is a bit of a forgotten masterpiece, both because it saw limited distribution, and because it was published in a non-English speaking country. Between 1992 and 1994, in the pages of the Italian fanzine MADE IN USA, devoted to American comics, cartoonist Leonardo Ortolani (often better known by his simple signature, Leo) was such … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: The Last Fantastic Four Story, Part One
Reader Steven Thompson asked me a question about this recently, so this piece exists entirely due to his interest--you can thank him if you find anything here of value. There was a time-honored tradition of writers and artists inserting themselves into their stories, and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were no different. In general, the … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Goldberg & Hartley: The Unlikely Cameos of Jack Kirby
When she first arrived at DC as the new publisher, Jenette Kahn instituted a pet format that she hoped would help reverse DC's fortunes in the mainstream newsstand market: the Dollar Comic. As it said right in the name, a Dollar Comic cost a buck, but you got an awful lot of material for that … Continue reading BHOC: BATMAN FAMILY #17
Just as with DC, Marvel also had a history of introducing new super heroic characters in the pages of their stories. Some of these went on to long and storied careers. Others faded after only a few, or even one, appearances. Here are the five best forgotten Marvel heroes. RAZORBACK: The creation of writer Bill … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Forgotten Marvel Heroes
The Tom Brevoort Experience 