Tag: Jack Kirby

Great Covers – FANTASTIC FOUR #48

A pretty brilliant Jack Kirby cover to FANTASTIC FOUR. Rather than simply showing Galactus on this first appearance cover, Kirby instead chooses to focus on the reactions of the public, the FF, and most ominously, the Watch. Galactus himself isn’t seen until the final page of this issue.

Great Covers – STRANGE TALES #79

Great sense of scale on this Jack Kirby STRANGE TALES cover. Most of these prototypic Marvel monster stories tended to tout the creature-of-the-month fully visibly on their covers. This piece takes the opposite tact, concealing most of the monster and creating intrigue.

Great Covers – FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #3

A precursor to the super-packed covers of George Perez, this Jack Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL cover promises an unending stream of colorful heroes and villains within the issue, practically every character that had been devised for the relatively-new Marvel line to date. The blurb at the center works like the target of a bullseye–you can’t … Continue reading Great Covers – FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #3 →

Great Covers – TALES OF SUSPENSE #82

More than anything, it’s really the green color hold on the illusory figures that makes this Jack Kirby TALES OF SUSPENSE cover sing. It’s a very striking color choice.

Great Covers – THOR #157

I think that, more than anything, it’s the coloring that makes this THOR cover by Jack Kirby stand out. There’s a lot of interesting modeling being done, in a way that wasn’t typical for the time, and the overall red hue gets across a real feeling of Armageddon. Also impressive is the fact that Mangog … Continue reading Great Covers – THOR #157 →

Great Covers – FANTASTIC FOUR #87

This Jack Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR cover similarly uses knock-outs and a limited palate, but it’s way more successful. By any stretch of the imagination, this is an odd image for the cover of a super hero comic book–Stan pretty much makes it work by calling it out as the most off-beat ending of the year … Continue reading Great Covers – FANTASTIC FOUR #87 →

Great Covers – FANTASTIC FOUR #81

DC weren’t the only ones who could louse up a perfectly good Jack Kirby cover in color, Marvel did it occasionally as well, as on this FANTASTIC FOUR cover. Knocking all of the other elements back to browns and reds definitely helps Crystal to pop as the center of the composition, but it’s actively unattractive. … Continue reading Great Covers – FANTASTIC FOUR #81 →

Great Covers – FOREVER PEOPLE #3

Here’s another strangely-colored Jack Kirby DC cover, this one for an issue of FOREVER PEOPLE. On this one, the strange choice was made to knock out all of the lead characters in red, and to make the focus the random Justifier in the background. Kirby’s selection of the background photograph doesn’t really help either, so … Continue reading Great Covers – FOREVER PEOPLE #3 →

Great Covers – MISTER MIRACLE #3

When Jack Kirby went over to DC in the early 1970s, he wasn’t a great fit in terms of the office’s aesthetic, and they often had no idea what to do with him or his work. Take this MISTER MIRACLE cover, for example. For some reason, they decided not to color the central figure, but … Continue reading Great Covers – MISTER MIRACLE #3 →