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Post by mrbrklyn on Jun 30, 2019 3:52:35 GMT -5
Over the years, many titles have come and gone, and based on exotic and wonderful ideas that seem to die when they hit the public. And on the face of it, when Marvel published the Fantastic Four, it would have seemed to have all the odds against it. Much of the eye candy part of the book was rehashed motifs of the era. The art, I'm sorry Kirby fans, was not that great. It improved greatly as the series moved on. Even the printing and end product was not that great. Early Marvel books suffer from poor production, with inking problems and marvel chipping from bad paper. And then Marvel faced the terrible problem of losing there distribution chanel and had to hitch itself to Nation. And yet the FF lit a fire in the popular culture that is hard for folks today to comprehend because there is nothing else really like the early Marvel explosion. Over and over again, though, as I have talked to FF fans over the last 50 years, what made the FF stick was the humaness of the characters. They argued, and fought and bonded and connected to the reader. The FF dared to go where no other comic magazine dared to go, to the deep recesses of the human heart.
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Post by tarkintino on Jun 30, 2019 13:35:05 GMT -5
Keep in mind that aside from what you refer to as re-hashed motifs (influences, such as a flaming character, or one who can stretch), the FF was the logical progression of the type of characters seen at DC years earlier with Challengers of the Unknown (coincidentally co-created by Kirby), and similar "adventurer" groups that were not as flashy as the traditional superheroes. Even giving the Fantastic Four a single uniform style further placed them in that off the beaten path category, a sci-fi category which opened the door for the characters to also behave in a more human fashion (in exploring speculative themes/ideas), that were far darker than the average superhero comic.
Ironically, the FF was partially responsible for laying down the groundwork for darker, somewhat dysfunctional mature superhero interpretations in the years to come, including many of today's comic book movies, though some would not be willing to admit that.
Add the backdrop of the Cold War's intense focus on scientific innovation, and its little wonder why the FF--for a time--was Marvel's jewel in the crown. Even after that distinction was forcefully (and deservedly) taken from it by The Amazing Spider-Man (roughly 1966-forward), the title still had its own voice among an increasingly overpopulated field of superheroes. In several ways, mid-late 60s FF was more Star Trek than anything else published at Marvel, and that was certainly a great thing for the title, and explains why it was so appealing, instead of being "just another superhero book."
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 30, 2019 13:53:01 GMT -5
Cosmic rays. Those terrible cosmic rays.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,624
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Post by Confessor on Jun 30, 2019 16:29:59 GMT -5
In a nutshell, great characters, exciting adventures, and super-dynamic artwork.
At least, that's what I like about it 50+ years later.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2019 16:52:07 GMT -5
You should check out the thread by member Tolworthy located here for some really in depth discussion of what made FF #1 special and other interesting tidbits. FF was a passion for Tolworthy, and his threads stand out even though he doesn;t come 'round often anymore. -M
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2019 19:25:37 GMT -5
Best Concept of a Team should be ... Lee and Kirby's Masterpiece
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Post by rberman on Jun 30, 2019 19:35:04 GMT -5
Conflict made them unique.
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Post by brutalis on Jul 1, 2019 7:43:47 GMT -5
The perfect dysfunctional family that still loved one another and fought for good and stepped into the future and explored ALL the concepts of life, the universe and everything. Kirby and Lee combined to create a true powerhouse masterpiece series that even with all its flaws is dynamic, exciting and fun and worth reading again and again!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2019 8:28:45 GMT -5
The perfect dysfunctional family that still loved one another and fought for good and stepped into the future and explored ALL the concepts of life, the universe and everything. Kirby and Lee combined to create a true powerhouse masterpiece series that even with all its flaws is dynamic, exciting and fun and wroth reading again and again! Well written.
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Post by mrbrklyn on Jan 16, 2021 10:56:06 GMT -5
From the start, Kirby and Lee had an unusual advantage, in that that were coming from a comic genre of carnival like monster comics and strange stories. They were used to exploring storylines that ventured far outside of normal range for super hero books of the time, even as the medium was expanding its creative horizons. Baked into the FF was the ability to expand both its emotional space, and its visual vocabulary, twining romance, horror, soap operas, all into the title much like a fruit pie. This room for expansion is what grew the audience, IMO.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
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Post by shaxper on Jan 16, 2021 12:52:04 GMT -5
As someone born in the Copper Age and infatuated with the Bronze Age, I imagine I approach the early Fantastic Four a bit differently than most others. While I certainly respect the attempts at more realistic characterization and ahead-of-its-time continuity, what speaks to me most about the early FF is the sheer brazen imagination of it all. You can have Reed Richard worrying about paying property taxes on the building and have Galactus approach a few issues later. It just seemed like there were no limits to Kirby's imagination in that run. While he and Stan could tell a fun "on the ground" story, they could also take you through the cosmos with Kree Sentries and Skrull scouts, or into lost civilizations of meta humans residing right here on Earth. You never knew where that title would go next and, good issue or bad, it seldom felt repetitive.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 16, 2021 22:40:29 GMT -5
It was totally different than any team or solo title at that time. It really was a family unit of adventurers that had super powers.
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Post by berkley on Jan 17, 2021 3:36:27 GMT -5
The family interaction definitely had something to do with it, and especially the way it was handled by Stan Lee - and I do think this part was largely down to Stan - the humour, the irreverance, the mutual needling, the sometimes quite serious arguments, with harsh words (for a superhero comic directed at kids) thrown about ... all this felt interesting to me as a very young reader. In comparison, whatever family scenes I saw in DC comics - "Ma and Pa Kent", for example - felt like a dreary Sunday School lecture.
But as important as that aspect was, I think it's overstated sometimes, because the real attraction was the inventive SF scenarios and strange yet compelling characters and ideas that kept popping up - and I do think most of that was down to Kirby. We all know the list - Doctor Doom, the Negative Zone, the Beehive and 'Him", the Inhumans, the Black Panther, the Silver Surfer, Galactus, Ronan, the Supreme Intelligence, ... nd even in later years when Kirby decided to keep his original ideas for himself and started recycling old movies for his FF stories, somehow they were still fun and entertaining. By that time, the model had been perfected, the machine could almost run on its own.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jan 17, 2021 9:05:57 GMT -5
Growing up The book always had " The greatest comic magazine" on the cover and to me, it was. I don't ever remember the book having a truly terrible period like some other books. Maybe from issue 30-60 it was the greatest run of any comic ever.
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Post by profh0011 on Jan 17, 2021 11:29:12 GMT -5
Regarding the art... aside from Jack Kirby being over-worked immensely (probably doing the work of 4 people to make up for Marvel's lower rates), twice in a few issues they lost 2 of the BEST inkers in the biz due to better-paying opportunieies.
For decades, somehow, nobody seemed to know who inked the 1st issues. It finally came out some years ago... it was GEORGE KLEIN. As soon as I read his name, I KNEW it was true, and wondered how I never noticed it before? (Really bad, FUZZY reprints, no doubt.) It seems he got about halfway thru FF #2 when the guy who'd been inking CURT SWAN on SUPERMAN decided to retire, and he got invited to take over for far more money than he was making at Marvel. Klein became my FAVORITE inker on Swan, especially later on LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES. He didn't return to Marvel until Carmine Infantino FIRED him as part of an overall move to "weed out the old guys", who were trying to get HEALTH insurance. Klein came back to Marvel, inked Kirby, Smith, Colan, and, best of all, John Buscema (on AVENGERS)... before suddenly dropping dead of a heart attack about a year later.
JOE SINNOTT inked FF #5... and the first 2 pages of #6. If memory serves, he got an opportunity to do art for a Christian comic-book, again, paying MUCH-higher rates. It wasn't until right after FF ANNUAL #3 that he was able to come back, when publisher Martin Goodman finally started increasing the page rates.
I believe Sol Brodsky did most of FF #2, and #3, & 4. And then Dick Ayers did most of #6 and beyond. Brodsky's inks NEVER impressed me, while Ayers had a sort of "rough", "gritty", "real world" look and feel about his inks. Ayers always maintained he never liked inking other people's pencils, and preferred doing full art, but Kirby was the ONE penciller who I thought he made a good match with. Even so, books like HULK, ANT-MAN, SGT. FURY, all seemed a better match for him than FANTASTIC FOUR.
Steve Ditko inked #13-14. That was some bizarre-looking stuff!
When Ayers got too busy (translation: yanked away to do other books), George Roussos, longtime DC inker, offered to help out by doing inks for HALF his usual rates, OVER THE WEEKEND. I fondly recall an interview with him in ALTER EGO magazine, shortly before he passed away, where he impressed me as being a genuinely nice guy, with NO ego whatsoever. But that statement he made, made my jaw drop. It really explained WHY his inks at Marvel LOOKED SO AWFUL. He was doing an entire book over the weekend-- that's inking 10 PAGES A DAY. Geez!!!!!
Now Chic Stone... WOW. Other inkers were "embellishing". Stone went on record saying he believed an inker's job was to be faithful to the penciller's work. HE WAS. It's no wonder Kirby's art on FF suddenly looked SO DAMNED MUCH BETTER when he took over.
Unfortunately, Stone also wanted to pencil. And there weren't any books available. So after about a year, he left... and FF suffered under about 3 or 4 months of Vince Colletta. AUGH!!! The ANNUAL really didn't look so bad, but the issues that preceded it were at least as bad or worse than "George Bell".
So, the entire "early" period (pre-wedding) of FF was like a roller-coaster ride of quality... up... DOWN... UP... WAY down! Oh well.
By all means, check out Chris Tolworthy's thread about the FF. His in-depth studies and speculations on HOW MUCH Kirby's editor was completely ignoring KIRBY'S WRITING and drastically changing things and DUMBING it all down, blew even my mind, about the full scope of just how much was lost, and how fans were ROBBED of what could have, SHOULD have, been far, FAR-better comics than we actually got.
What you had was one writer-artist who came up with EVERYTHING on his own with no up-front input whatsoever... and one editor, RE-WRITING things... in that order... that was not, really, in any way, what anyone should ever describe as a "collaboration".
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