0051: This Artist, This Man

This is the second half of the post "This Man, This Artist" (#0050). The title is a play on the title of one of Jack Kirby's most beloved art jobs from FANTASTIC FOUR #51 (06/66), "This Man, This Monster". (If you haven't read it and plan to, be advised that the rest of this paragraph is a Spoiler. The post continues in the next paragraph.) It takes place after the first Galactus story (#48-50) with the team trying to get their lives back to normal. The Thing is bemoaning his condition when a stranger invites him in from the rain. The stranger (who is never named during the story) turns out to be a scientist jealous of Reed Richards' success and drugs Ben then uses his own technology to turn his own body into the Thing and the Thing's body back into Ben's original form. Hoping to infiltrate the Baxter Building as the Thing to get close enough to Reed to kill him, the stranger instead learns that Reed's public persona is his own and not the hypocritical façade he had always assumed it to be. He realizes that his chances to find success on his own terms were squandered when he focused all his energy on revenge. During a crisis, the stranger sacrifices himself to save Reed. His death causes the real Ben to revert to the Thing. Each of the three men, Ben, Reed and the stranger, are either men or monsters depending on perspective. Ben fears that he is a monster, Reed is characterized as one and the stranger discovers that he is one. The stranger isn't named in the story because it gives thing a kind of universality. He didn't do wrong because of his name or who he is, but because of the limited way in which he saw things. That could have been any of us.

The thing that makes Kirby so universally name dropped is not simply because he touched a large number of people, many of whom went on to be comics creators. Fans, critics and publishers keep revisiting his work because of the wide variety of future creators who imprinted on him like ducklings. Eventually the ducklings grow up and swim away from momma, but if you could see under the water then you'd know that their legs are still kicking the same way. 31 years ago when Fantagraphics published the one hundredth issue of AMAZING HEROES they noticed that it would coincide with Jack Kirby's birthday on August 28th. They then cast a wide net asking anyone working in the industry to contribute a brief message to Jack. Dozens replied with anecdotes, observations, sketches or some combination of those. I included scans of half of them in the previous post and now here's the rest, along with my own short descriptions of the contributors.

• William Messner-Loebs is now known primarily as a writer but he also drew his own scripts on JOURNEY, published by Aardvark-Vanaheim and then Fantagraphics. He had just concluded the series months before this article and had begun scripts on JONNY QUEST for Comico with various artists. He began several years at DC with art on WASTELAND and scripts for DR. FATE, FLASH and WONDER WOMAN. These tend to be overshadowed by scripts for THE MAXX and EPICURUS THE SAGE, both with Sam Keith.
• Gilbert Hernandez (who often signs 'Beto') is one of several Hernandez Brothers, two of whom (Gilbert and Jaime) are markedly more prolific. Along with Mario they created all of the features in the magazine-sized anthology LOVE & ROCKETS (which was recently revived as a new series). The serialized features (like "Palomar" and "Poison River") were gradually compiled in a series of trade paperbacks under the umbrella title LOVE & ROCKETS, even though some had only tenuous or no connections to the others.

Gilberto also contributed to the all-ages anthology MEASLES and girl-band-from-space series YEAH! as well as the adult oriented BIRDLAND, LUBA and GRIP.

• T.M. Maple was a prolific fan letter writer in the 70's and 80's, when nearly every title carried a letters' page. He died shortly after Jack.
• Don Heck was working at Marvel when Jack returned there in 1958. On more than one occassion Don would have an extended run pencilling a feature that Jack started and left, notably THE AVENGERS and IRON MAN. He passed away about a year after Jack did.
• Al Gordon is more likely to be the inker who started at Marvel in the late 70's rather than the Golden Age penciller, if only because he signed off here with the phrase "'Nuff Said!" He also worked on DNAGENTS for Eclipse while Jack was drawing DESTROYER DUCK.
• This statement by Wally Wood was provided to the editors by Jim Valentino from materials prepared for a convention booklet, since Wood had died in 1981. A few years after this article when the Harvey Awards added a Jack Kirby Hall of Fame category, Wood was the first in.

• Steven Grant started writing for Marvel in the late 70's after being published in STAR*REACH and other independents. He went from the HULK! magazine and SPIDEY SUPER STORIES to the PUNISHER mini-series (collected as CIRCLE OF BLOOD) and First Comics' WHISPER when this article came out. Two years ago he brought back Warren's "The Rook" for Dark Horse.
• Milton Canniff was the creator of the newspaper strips TERRY AND THE PIRATES and STEVE CANYON. He was ten years older than Jack and died a couple years after this article ran.
• Don Rico was a Golden Age contemporary of Jack's who did art for Victor Fox, Lev Gleason and others. He went to work for Marvel in 1942 to draw Captain Marvel after Simon and Kirby left. He stayed there right through the change to Atlas until the restructuring in 1957.
• Michael T. Gilbert is most famous for refurbishing a forgotten Golden character (Mr. Monster) and has a regular column in the magazine ALTER EGO.

• Joshua Quagmire was the creator of Cutey Bunny and now works primarily through his website.
• Chas. Gillen, according to several online sources, was the real name of the Charlton artist who signed his work "J. Gill". I recognize Gillen's name (and stylized signature) from fanzines like this one, but I can't recall seeing his (or Gill's) name after the 1980's.
• Stan Lee-- if I have to explain to you who Stan Lee is then you might be reading this blog by mistake. Perhaps I can interest you in a cat video?
• [Jim] Steranko had a pair of short-lived action series for Harvey comics in 1966 when he got a chance to ink Jack Kirby on the S.H.I.E.L.D. feature in STRANGE TALES. He soon began finishing Jack's layouts and eventually was pencilling and writing the feature, taking it to a full-length monthly NICK FURY series in 1968. By the end of that year he began short stints on X-MEN and CAPTAIN AMERICA. His work on all three titles was reprinted as Baxter paper mini-series a few years before this article appeared.

• Burne Hogarth is another artist whose comments were provided by Jim Valentino. He was both a commercial illustrator and comic book artist. He drew the Tarzan Sunday newspaper strip for over a decade, but today is probably best known for a series of instructional books about drawing anatomy, especially anatomy in motion.
• Roy Thomas became a comics fan in the 1940's, contributing to the pioneering fanzine ALTER EGO, and currently edits the modern version of it published by TwoMorrows. In the mid-1960's he began a long association with Marvel, usually succeeding Stan Lee's writing duties on various titles as the company's line expanded and Lee's editing duties became more demanding. Eventually, he succeeded Lee as Editor-In-Chief as well. Most notably, he took over X-MEN and AVENGERS. He also talked the company into abandoning it's policy of avoiding licensing characters in order to adapt the first CONAN comics, which he wrote for over a decade. He also wrote the adaptation of STAR WARS in 1977. In the 1980's he became DC's go to guy regarding Golden 

Age characters, scripting ALL-STAR SQUADRON, YOUNG ALL-STARS and INFINITY, INC. When CRISIS eliminated that history, he was given a new monthly title, SECRET ORIGINS, to write or edit a new one. He may be the only person working in comics to have created as many durable, recurring characters as Stan and Jack.

• Jaime Hernandez, who often signs as "Xaime", is one of the Hernandez Brothers (see Gilberto, above). Jaime did a number of mini-series that spun off supporting characters from LOVE & ROCKETS, such as PENNY CENTURY and WHOA, NELLIE! and numerous album covers.
• Don Simpson is the creator of the long-lived super-hero parody "Megaton Man", but Dover Publications has just recently collected his science fiction opus BORDER WORLDS into a single volume for the first time ever.
• Jonathan Peterson became an editor at DC around the time that this article ran. By the time he left in 2000 he had also done some scripts.

• Rick Veitch is a writer and artist who has worked for Marvel and DC but might be best remembered for his creator owned work published with smaller companies, such as BRAT PACK, MAXIMMORTAL and RARE BIT FIEND. In the 1970's he left undergrounds to work in the majors, doing art for SGT. ROCK (DC), colors for FLASH GORDON (Western), letters for STAR WARS (Marvel) and all three for his own scripts in HEAVY METAL. After providing art on SWAMP THING for a year and a half he took over scripting when Alan Moore departed, staying for another year and a half. His website is both beautiful and easy to navigate.
• Gil Kane was working at DC in the 1950's when Jack left to join Marvel. At about that time, Kane was playing a huge part in launching DC's Silver Age, leaving behind "Rex the Wonder Dog" and "Trigger Twins" for the new "Green Lantern" and "The Atom". Beginning in the mid-60's Kane became one of the select few to work at both Marvel and DC simultaneously. He was still working for both when this article was published and continued to do

so right through the 90's. He passed away in 2000.

• Mark Alexander was an inker discovered by DC's title NEW TALENT SHOWCASE, but at the time of this article was working on one of Marvel's "Official Handbook" series, which must have forced him to think about numerous Kirby caharcter designs.
• Scott Shaw! is (like Fred Hembeck and Sergio Aragones) one of those rare humor cartoonists who becomes tied into super-hero comics for reasons that become obscured with time. His anthropomorphic comics appeared in QUACK! (published by Star*Reach) along with Dave Sim, Frank Brunner, Steve Leialoha and others. He worked on Marvel's Hanna-Barbera titles in the late 70's while Jack was there (see the Howard the Duck post, #0045) He was drawing CAPTAIN CARROT for DC while Jack Kirby was doing CAPTAIN VICTORY for Pacific Comics. Shaw brought unpublished stories of features from QUACK! to Pacific, which became WILD ANIMALS, but Pacific went under before the second issue was ready. At the time of this article he was probably working in animation, but clearly made time to write a substantial entry. In fact some of the submissions for this issue were so long that they were published as full articles in this same issue. They include "Kirby!" by Doug Moench, "Jack Kirby's Gods & Heroes" by Greg Potter, "The King And I" (an interview) by Mark Evanier, "10 Great Jack Kirby Stories" by Richard Howell, "That Old Jack Magic" by Greg Theakston and reviews of key issues by R.A. Jones in the same style normally used to review current comics.

Well, I hope that these two posts provide you with several days of amused reading. I also hope that Gary Groth doesn't have a conniption fit over me reproducing so many pages that he never had any intention of reprinting in a million years anyway. It'll also give you something to point to the next time someone says, "You can't get that many people with that many different tastes to agree on anything..."

0050: This Man, This Artist

Jack Kirby lived to be just over 76 years old. That's how long ago Captain America started punching Nazis. On Monday, August 28th, 2017, it will be Jack Kirby's 100th birthday.

The cover on the left is for AMAZING HEROES #100 (Aug.1st, 1986), a fanzine published by Fantagraphics. AH began as a B&W magazine, the same size as Fantagraphics longer lived fanzine THE COMICS JOURNAL, although I remember it being thinner. As TCJ began to devote more space to the legal and ethical issues facing comics publishing and retail, AH took over the materials more commonly sought by fans, such as release dates, previews of upcoming series and events, histories of Marvel and DC heroes and news about licensing for film and merchandise. Whereas TCJ would publish 50 page career spanning interviews with writers and artists, AH would interview them about recent projects and career highlights. Beginning with issue #14, AH shrunk down to standard comic book dimensions. It was still printed in B&W on newsprint, but of the two fanzines it was the one whose readership more likely included comic fans who didn't buy anything else of magazine dimensions that wasn't designed for a bookshelf. For their convenience, AH would then fit in a comic storage box.

Seeing as how this Kirby tribute issue is 31 years old, the people paying tribute may not all be familiar to modern audiences, although most should be. I'm not going to make any assumptions about who you'll recognize, so...

• Steve Rude is an artist probably best known for drawing Mike Baron's Nexus (as his first and definitive penciller). Look for Rude's own character The Moth. He also drew a MISTER MIRACLE Special for DC that was on sale in January following this article.
• Richard Corben emerged from undergrounds to be one of the defining contributors to the American HEAVY METAL. His SHADOWS ON THE GRAVE mini-series for Dark Horse is ending soon.
• Robert Loren Fleming is a writer who collaborates with Keith Giffen on AMBUSH BUG.
• If you read comics, you already know who Frank Miller is.
• Michael Kraiger had just started contributing the feature "Zone" to Fantagraphics' anthology THREAT months before this article. It moved to Dark Horse a few years later. He then became an editor at Marvel.

• Jim Baikie worked on 2000A.D. and other Fleetway titles in the U.K. before pencilling DC's ELECTRIC WARRIOR.
• Jim Rohn contributed his "Holo Brothers" feature to Fantagraphics' THREAT anthology shortly before this article and their Monster Comics imprint published the 10 issue miniseries that continued the story.
• Gary Fields regularly contributed "Enigma Funnies" to THREAT but lettered comics for several other creators.
• John Romita briefly drew Captain America stories in the fifties.When Kirby left Marvel in 1970, Romita was assigned to follow him on FANTASTIC FOUR. He's probably best known for his work on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.
• Jack Katz created the genuine epic FIRST KINGDOM, currently complete in hardcover from Titan.
• Bob Laughlin self-published KITZ 'N' KATZ, which was distributed by Eclipse in the 80's.
• Arthur Byron Cover is best known as a science fiction author who has occasionally worked in comics, notably with Harlan Ellison on DAREDEVIL #'S 208-209.

• Flo Steinberg was, I think, technically the receptionist at Marvel in the 60's, but according to Stan Lee and others she effectively handled just about every task around the office not directly involving comics production, such as sorting fan mail and keeping the fan club memberships organized. At the end of the 60's she left for a non-comics editing job but was involved in undergrounds and early independents, eventually becoming a publisher herself.
• Rick Norwood was an editor for COMICS REVUE, a fanzine from the publishers of COMICS INTERVIEW.
• Dennis O'Neil is a writer who worked for Marvel briefly in the mid-60's and more prominently in the 80's but made comics history with Neal Adams for their work on Batman and Green Lantern in the early 70's.
• Julius Schwartz was an early fan of science fiction pulps in the late 1920's and went on to become an editor at DC, where he revived the company's Golden Age heroes in the late 50's as s-f based characters, creating the Justice League to replace the Justice Society.

• Barry Windsor Smith became famous for drawing the first CONAN THE BARBARIAN comics in 1970. Before that, he drew in a cruder style that looked like a Kirby imitation. In just a few years his art became both original and beautiful but he kept an affection for Kirby's characters. Two years before this article he finished and inked Herb Trimpe's pencils on the MACHINE MAN mini-series. In the 90's he created ARCHER AND ARMSTRONG, RUNE and STORYTELLER.
• Dave Garcia was the creator of Panda Khan, which was a back-up feature in A DISTANT SOIL before this article and afterwards became its own title from Abacus Press.
• Monica Sharp scripted and edited the Panda Khan stories, often with Garcia.
• Bob Wiacek is an inker who did some work at DC in the mid-70's just Kirby was leaving, but in 1977 began a long tenure at Marvel working on just about everything, including STAR WARS and IRON MAN.

• Dave Gibbons is a British artist who drew for both 2000 A.D. and DOCTOR WHO WEEKLY from the beginning of each. In America, he became famous for WATCHMEN with Alan Moore and GIVE ME LIBERTY with Frank Miller.
• Kevin O'Neill is another British artist, probably best known for MARSHALL LAW and LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN. That's his illustration of a 'Marshall Law' type gun on the left.
• Mike Royer is a longtime inker of Kirby who has followed him through several publishers for about 20+ years.
• Stephen DeStefano was doing the DC title 'MAZING MAN when this article came out. He went on to do brilliant humor comics (including INSTANT PIANO and JINGLE BELLE) whose audience was dwarfed by that for his animation work (including "Ren And Stimpy" and "The Venture Brothers").
• Charles Meyerson wrote text pieces for First Comics in the 80's.

• Steve Parkhouse is a British artist who sold some scripts to Marvel in the late 60's. When Marvel created a U.K. branch in 1972 it was initially all reprints, but Parkhouse was one of the early writers they called on when easing into publishing original stories. He wrote three different features for HULK COMIC (later HULK WEEKLY) but also drew his own scripts on the SPIRAL PATH feature and Alan Moore's BOJEFFRIES SAGA for Fleetway/Quality's WARRIOR. Eclipse reprinted SPIRAL PATH as a mini-series while this article was out. Today you can see his art in Dark Horse's RESIDENT ALIEN (highly recommended.
• Bill Mantlo was a prolific writer at Marvel in the mid-70's to mid-80's, probably most famous for MICRONAUTS and ROM, but also wrote INCREDIBLE HULK for years and all of the B&W magazine version of HOWARD THE DUCK. He also created Rocket Raccoon for an uncompleted science fiction serial. He has been unable to write for 25 due to traumatic injury by a car.

• Vince Argondezzi drew NEXT MAN for Comico before this article came out and drew INFINITY, INC. for DC afterwards.
• Rick Bryant iinked Keith Giffen's pencils on a one shot comic from Lodestone called THE MARCH HARE, which Giffen co-wrote with Robert Loren Fleming.
• Scott Hampton had completed SILVERHEELS for Pacific comics two years before this and adapted Robert E. Howard's 'Pigeons From Hell" for Eclipse two years later. Not to be confused with brother Bo Hampton, Scott is currently finishing P. Craig Russell's layouts in AMERICAN GODS: SHADOWS from Dark Horse.
• George Pratt works as much (if not more) as an illustrator than as a comic book artist. Like Hampton, he often paints comics and is probably best remembered for the graphic novel ENEMY ACE: WAR IDYLL.
• Larry Marder is the creator of TALES OF THE BEANWORLD, originally with Eclipse and now with Dark Horse. He was made Executive Director of Image to overcome their early chaos.

• Steve Ringgenberg is a freelance comics writer who also writes nonfiction about comics industry.
• Dark Horse Comics had only just started publishing when this article was released. The lineup shown here is, left to right, Concrete (by Paul Chadwick), Boris The Bear (by James Dean Smith), Garrett from "Mindwalk" (by Randy Stradley and Randy Emberlin), Mercy St. Clair from "Trekker" (by Ron Randall), Conrad from "Black Cross" (by Chris Warner), Roma (by John Workman) and Charlie from "Hellwalk, Inc." (by J.M. DeMatteis and Mark Badger). Boris had his own series and the others appeared in DARK HORSE PRESENTS. Two of them, however, hadn't even debuted when this illustration ran. "Trekker" would debut in #4 (01/87) and "Roma" would debut in #5 (02/87). The "Hellwalk, Inc." feature didn't start until issue #2 (undated; probably September), but the image of Charlie used here can be found in #1 as part of a small ad teasing the next issue. Also in #2, the art seen here is also used in a two page ad in the centerfold.

• J.M. DeMatteis is a comics writer who was writing war and horror stories for DC's anthologies in the late 1970's and eventually doing some super-hero back-up stories. In the early 80's he worked at Marvel, including writing DEFENDERS and CAPTAIN AMERICA. When this article came out he was writing the last stories of the original JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA series and would go on co-write, with Keith Giffen, the new JUSTICE LEAGUE series that would follow the LEGENDS mini-series. Those would be some of his best remembered scripts, along with the GARGOYLE mini-series for Marvel and MOONSHADOW and BLOOD: A TALE, both minis for Marvel's Epic line and both later reprinted by DC's Vertigo.
• Scott McCloud is now best known for the nonfiction comics-format book UNDERSTANDING COMICS, but at the time of this article he was known primarily as the creator of ZOT! from Eclipse.
• Jerry Ordway is both a writer and a penciller on numerous titles but his close association with Superman was beginning to develop after this article ran and ALL-STAR SQUADRON was cancelled.

Whew! And that's just half the article! Give yourself some time to read some Jack Kirby stories today and I'll complete this article during the week. Enjoy!

0046: Turn On Your Magic Beams

When Jack Kirby left DC in 1958, they were publishing PETER PORKCHOPS, FLIPPITY AND FLOP, FOX AND THE CROW, THE THREE MOUSEKETEERS and SUGAR AND SPIKE. He hadn't been working on them but there had always been a sense that there was a selection of anthropomorphics (called "funny animal comics" back then) that would appeal to small children just learning to read but able to follow simple stories from the actions of the characters. Once they learned to enjoy reading, they were potentially part of the audience for the comics Kirby did work on: westerns, war, romance, super-heroes, science fiction and more besides. He took that versatility to Marvel while it was in the process of rebuilding after massive cancellations. In its scaled down and informal state, he made an enormous impression on its eventual, more fully formed identity. That new identity slowly, gradually started eating DC's lunch, so to speak. By the late 1960's Marvel was in a better circumstance to expand than when Kirby joined them and an infusion of new talent at both companies allowed for new titles and characters to emerge rapidly. During 1967 and 1968, Marvel began ten new ongoing titles and DC began 16. By the end of 1969, Marvel was still publishing five of theirs. DC was publishing only the final three (all of which began with 1969 cover dates) and DC SPECIAL, which had no regular feature. The price increase (from 12¢ to 15¢) that year had something to do with it, but it was still clear to observers that, even if Kirby was still a big fish, that Marvel was no longer a small pond. If he wanted to his new ideas to be noticed he'd have a better chance creating them in his own space rather than trying to shoehorn them into Marvel's mushrooming continuity. Despite Julius Schwartz' efforts to place DC's super-heroes into the same setting, the deeply Balkanized mindset of the company regarding editorial duties made that an uphill battle. Stan Lee, as Marvel's sole editor-in-chief for years, was able to shoot past him towards that goal. But this situation provided an opportunity for Kirby to write his own stories and to plot them in ways that didn't require him to keep track of events in the other books. In 1970, he returned to DC.

The sales of SUPERMAN"S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN weren't great, so Kirby could use it to introduce his new characters. A few months later his new titles, FOREVER PEOPLE, THE NEW GODS and MISTER MIRACLE (along with some stories in SUPERMAN'S GIRLFRIEND, LOIS LANE) formed the first leg of his Fourth World epic. There were also some random horror short stories and two aborted B&W magazine titles during this time, but for two years the Fourth World became the way Kirby was defined to fans. They're still easily the most frequently reprinted stories of his from the 70's. At the time, though, DC considered them beautifully drawn failures. Jimmy and Lois went back to their dreary pre-Darkseid lives until 1974 when poor sales forced them (and SUPERGIRL) to combine into the triple-length (later double-length) SUPERMAN FAMILY. The first two Fourth World titles were cancelled and MISTER MIRACLE became more of a super-hero series as it entered the second third of its existence.

Overlapping the end of the Fourth World was the start of DEMON and KAMANDI, followed in 1973 by reprint titles CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN (resuming the old numbering), BOY COMMANDOS and BLACK MAGIC. Because DEMON and KAMANDI were (mostly) monthly, Kirby's output had actually increased while he juggled three settings instead of three books with a shared setting. Although lovingly remembered by artists, DEMON started to falter. MISTER MIRACLE followed. To replace them, DC issued a collaboration between Kirby and his estranged long-time partner Joe Simon. It was big enough deal that a new job code sequence was created for it, SK-1 for the story and SK-2 for the cover. The project was THE SANDMAN and it was... different. It certainly wasn't the Golden Age hero that the pair had taken over in 1942.

About a year after Kirby's return to DC, the last of the anthropomorphics and even the 'teen humor' titles were cancelled. Aside from a single issue of LAUREL AND HARDY and a single delayed issue each of SWING WITH SCOOTER and DATE WITH DEBBI, there wasn't much being offered for young children after 1971. In fact, by the end of 1973 the only humor comic they had for any demographic was PLOP!. Simon's own satirical PREZ was being cancelled and DC didn't seem to be happy with many of Kirby's ideas, but the Golden Age reprints of their work used to expand comics for the "Bigger and Better" and "Super Spectacular" formats seemed popular enough. They could milk nostalgia, but the whole reason Kirby left Marvel was to do something new.

That 'something new' was a colorful, kid-friendly hero whose modus operandi was inspired by an old name. Unlike Wesley Dodds, the new Sandman was exactly that-- no secret identity and he travels through people's dreams. The specifics of the hows and whys (and the whats and the wheres) were as fuzzy as the who. Wise cracking monster sidekicks Brute and Glob (controlled with a Hypnosonic Whistle) help him come to the rescue of orphan Jed-- and that's all readers need to know. Drawn and edited by Kirby with a script by Simon, the indicia gave "Quaterly" as the official frequency and the cover date read "Winter", but the story ended without an on sale date for the next issue (a standard practice at DC at the time). Months went by during which the monthly KAMANDI soldiered on alone, joined in the summer by the bi-monthly OMAC, THE ONE MAN ARMY CORPS and Kirby's often overlooked stint on OUR FIGHTING FORCES #151(10/74)-#162(12/75).

When SANDMAN did return at the beginning of 1975, Joe Orlando was the new editor, Michael Fleischer was the new writer and Ernie Chua was the new artist. The only holdover from the first issue was inker Mike Royer. Simon and Kirby had split again, although both contributed series proposals to FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL (a monthly 1970's version of SHOWCASE). Kirby offered ATLAS (#1), MANHUNTER (#5) and THE DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET (#6) and Simon offered THE GREEN TEAM (#2) and THE OUTSIDERS (#10).
A clue to what happened with the SANDMAN series might lie in Joe Orlando's job codes, clearly visible throughout the series.

• J-3780 story "The Night Of The Spider", drawn by Chua for #2 (04-05/75)
• (Note: HOUSE OF MYSTERY #228 (12/74-01/75) uses codes 3784-3787 and 3794-3795 on reprints newly edited by Orlando)
• J-3813 story "The Brain That Blacked-out The Bronx!", drawn by Chua for #3 (06-07/75)
• J-3848 story "Panic In The Dream Stream", drawn by Kirby for #4 (08-09/75)
• J-3879 cover by Kirby for #2
• J-3886 letters' page by Orlando for #2 [last element needed to print]
• J-3888 story "The Invasion Of The Frogmen!" by Kirby for #5 (10-11/75)
• J-3947 cover by Kirby for #3 [no LP; last element needed to print]
• J-3994 letters' page by Orlando for #4
• J-4003 cover by Kirby for #4 [last element needed to print]
• J-4015 story "The Plot To Destroy Washington, D.C.!" by Kirby for #6 (12/75-01/76)
• J-4060 letters' page by Orlando for #5
• J-4074 cover by Kirby for #5 [last element needed to print]
• J-4080 story "The Seal Men's War On Santa Claus" by Kirby intended for #7
• J-4115 cover by (?unsigned, credited to Bill Draut in Amazing World of DC Comics #7 and more recently the second volume of the Jack Kirby Omnibus) for #6
• J-4116 letters' page by Orlando for #6 [last element needed to print]

The job codes are generated when an assignment is passed out. Obviously, stories take longer to complete than covers or editing reprints. Yet, Kirby was assigned the fourth issue before the cover or letters' page for #2 had even begun. I tried to find a little information about this series from Ronin Ro's often hyperbolic Kirby bio "Tales To Astonish" (Bloomsbury, 2004), but it gives the false impression that after Kirby created OMAC that he and Simon did one issue of SANDMAN and that after that Jack refused to work on the book again. That's obviously not true, because he completed four stories from Fleischer's scripts. What could be true is Ro's assertion that the series was Simon's idea but that after the first issue Kirby no longer wanted to continue collaborating with him. That would explain why it took a year before the next issue came out. Had it been any other title, publisher Carmine Infantino would have simply handed the book to a new editor and told him to find a new creative team. There would be nothing to gain from that since the only reason for the book's existence was to sell the marquee names of the creators. It took nearly a year, but maybe fan demand eventually convinced them that the character might sell anyway. If so, why wait until Kirby returned for the fourth issue before printing the second? It's times like this I wish I hadn't stopped getting JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR just because each issue was larger than my house.

Anyway, the scans you've been reading around are taken from THE BEST OF DC (BLUE RIBBON DIGEST) #22 (03/82). The front cover above was drawn by Richard Buckler and Dick Giordano (who doubled as managing editor). This back cover was drawn by George Pérez. The inside covers have the contents, credits and indicia in front and an ad for CAPTAIN CARROT #1 in back. Everything else is a reprint except for the 18 page Sandman story intended for the unpublished SANDMAN #7. Four excerpted pages are seen in the other scans here.

While the series was being published, Kirby also did the last three issues of JUSTICE, INC. and one of RICHARD DRAGON. Also during that time, Marvel comics with October 1975 cover dates included the monthly Bullpen Bulletins Page as usual, but that particular month it had the title, in all caps, "THE KING IS BACK! 'NUFF SAID!" (The titles, before and after this, were normally silly alliteration gags that tried to use as many obscure words beginning with the same letter as possible, going as far as assigning the titles alphabetically. The August page started with 'E', September with 'F' and November with 'G'.) After SANDMAN #6, the only Kirby comics DC published were KOBRA #1 (02-03/76), which continued without him as a short-lived series, and the remaining issues of KAMANDI up to and including #40 (04/76). Robert Kanigher went back to writing "The Losers" in OUR FIGHTING FORCES. Editor Gerry Conway (since issue #33) took over writing KAMANDI with issue #38. Writing duties and editorial duties both turned over on that title several times in the first year after Kirby left and it lost its monthly status. When Jack C. Harris came on as editor the cancelled OMAC title was tied in by establishing that Kamandi was his grandson. In 1978, with Harris writing, it crossed over with Karate Kid to explain why the future of OMAC and Kamandi diverge from the future that led to the Legion Of Super-Heroes. Then came the Implosion. DC's plans to circumvent the loss of sales due to the frequent price increases of the 1970's by offering more pages (which worked well enough in 1971) went horribly wrong for reasons too complex to discuss adequately here. Over two dozen titles were cancelled in the year leading up to it (including revived versions of NEW GODS and MISTER MIRACLE) and another dozen during the three months that the page increase lasted. The last issue of KAMANDI #59 (09-10/78) was expanded by 8 pages with the first chapter of a new OMAC origin by Jim Starlin. The lead story was the first chapter of a story that would further incorporate Kirby concepts into a single continuity parallel to the other DC worlds (Earth-K?). Many of the cancelled titles, including KAMANDI, had further issues in various stages of completion when the surprise cancellations happened. Two massive volumes of photocopied pages were created (but not sold) for legal purposes. Leaked copies revealed that the next two issues (#60- 61) would have Kamandi discover a vortex that would enable him to travel to other timelines (i.e., the rest of the DCU). While there, he is grabbed by Brute and Glob, who have mistaken him for Jed, the boy who features in the Sandman adventures. In a framing story, the Sandman tells Kamandi that the story of meeting Santa Claus (meant to be published in its entirety) demonstrates that the myths in one timeline might be the reality of another.

Eventually, the OMAC back-up feature was substantially altered and ran briefly as a back-up feature in WARLORD in 1980. A year later or so, the digest above came out. The story was published again this past January as part of those final two issues of KAMANDI in the KAMANDI CHALLENGE SPECIAL (03/17). It was included in the 2013 THE JACK KIRBY OMNIBUS VOL. 2 as part of the original series, but unfortunately the nature of that collection required omitting the two issues drawn by Ernie Chua. That's why in two weeks I hope to have a post that proposes a Sandman trade collecting whatever is available for this character. I had hoped to get this post out earlier to coincide with the release of the SANDMAN SPECIAL on Wednesday, August 16th,2017, but I had lost track of the digest above. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to read the special before I get to the trade post.