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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 11, 2021 16:59:27 GMT -5
It's not black and white but they did just announce that the Eternals is getting a " Monster Sized" hardcover reproducing the pages at their original size(foot wide and almost two feet tall) which sounds pretty amazing. The price tag is a little high for me but I'd love to atleast look at it when it does come out. For the more budget conscious( like me) there will also be a standard size collection as well. That'll be very tempting but certainly I'd want to look at one first. The colouring might be a deal-killer for me, as I often dislike the way they colour these modern reprints of 70s and earlier comics. I definitely know what you mean, I really hate some of the reprints of Neal Adams Batman stories from the 70's. He might feel that's how his work was supposed to look but it's definitely not for me.
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Post by berkley on Apr 11, 2021 17:11:12 GMT -5
I downloaded The Eternals a couple days ago and have read the first six issues pretty quickly. Really enjoying it. A few observations that may not be original with me: The dialogue not bad--it's just as stylized as the art. Kirby seemed to be working on the "team" for the first part of his career, and the "parallel superior civilization" for the second: Boy Commandos --> Newsboy Legion --> Boy's Ranch --> Challs --> FF Inhumans --> New Gods --> Eternals I used to think Kamandi was Kirby's last great character; now I think it may be Sersi. Shoehorning this into the Marvel universe makes no sense and is just wrong. Behind the sometimes awkward words, there's a deep understanding of humanity. Am I wrong to be reminded of Fletcher Banks when I read this? Mark Evanier, in the big Kirby book he did, spoke of how Jack would say things to you, that you really didn't understand, but his meaning would come through later, when you least expect it and it would always be very profound. I don't think Jack got as much credit for his intellect as his creative talent and certainly not for his writing, because everyone was used to conventional comic stories. Jack wrote unconventional ones that were something unique. No he didn't have the snappy dialogue; but, when you read it later, in the right mindset, you get it and it really works. He was very much a jazz artist of comics, an impressionist and a myth maker. Sersi is fantastic and the dynamic between Thena and Kro is really ahead of its time, as was the duo of Karkas and Reject.
Yeah, I think he was obviously an intelligent and well-read guy, and the concepts in his best comics aren't as naive as a lot of people might expect. The implications of those concepts, how they're related to each other, and how they are presented through the narrative are quite deep. And because of this, I thnk some caution is required when interpreting Kirby's own coments about his work: such insights are always interesting and valuable, but they aren't a complete summing up of all that's going on in big, complex works like The Eternals or the Fourth World stuff. It's only through the works themselves that one can try to develop a fuller understanding of the underlying concepts.
And in The Eternals especially, I think one has to be very careful not to draw hard conclusions too soon: in this series, Kirby repeatedly sets up what looks like a conventional comics scenario and then pulls the rug out from underneath us - most obviously with the Deviants at first looking like clear-cut bad guys, unambiguously the villains of the piece, which later of course tyrns out to be not so clear-cut and unambiguous after all. But that isn't the only example.
Re Thena and Kro, I think I might be a minority of one even amongst readers who like the Eternals in the way I see this relationship - which in my view is not at all the straightforward Romeo and Juliet romance most people, including Kieron Gillen, seem to think it is. But I'll wait until I get into the relevant issues to explain what I mean.
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Post by berkley on Apr 11, 2021 17:17:38 GMT -5
That'll be very tempting but certainly I'd want to look at one first. The colouring might be a deal-killer for me, as I often dislike the way they colour these modern reprints of 70s and earlier comics. I definitely know what you mean, I really hate some of the reprints of Neal Adams Batman stories from the 70's. He might feel that's how his work was supposed to look but it's definitely not for me. I see from the link that there's already an over-sized collection of Ditko's Doctor Strange, I'd love to get a look at that one too.
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Post by tarkintino on Apr 12, 2021 8:45:04 GMT -5
Not that I know of, but it isn't something I'd look for myself so perhaps there's a black and white collection out there that I'm not aware of.
Actuall, I would be very interested in a collection of the original pencils in black and white, but not the inked art without colour.
It's not black and white but they did just announce that the Eternals is getting a " Monster Sized" hardcover reproducing the pages at their original size(foot wide and almost two feet tall) which sounds pretty amazing. The price tag is a little high for me but I'd love to atleast look at it when it does come out. For the more budget conscious( like me) there will also be a standard size collection as well. That sounds really interesting. As you point out, the price is high, but if one can afford it, it looks like the kind of book you will revisit over and over again, so it would be worth the investment.
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Post by kirby101 on Apr 12, 2021 10:13:01 GMT -5
Not that I know of, but it isn't something I'd look for myself so perhaps there's a black and white collection out there that I'm not aware of.
Actuall, I would be very interested in a collection of the original pencils in black and white, but not the inked art without colour.
It's not black and white but they did just announce that the Eternals is getting a " Monster Sized" hardcover reproducing the pages at their original size(foot wide and almost two feet tall) which sounds pretty amazing. The price tag is a little high for me but I'd love to atleast look at it when it does come out. For the more budget conscious( like me) there will also be a standard size collection as well. I think it has already been published;
$75 at Amazon. But, if you want a bargain and are okay with digital comics, the kindle/comixology version is only $10.
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Post by kirby101 on Apr 12, 2021 10:16:34 GMT -5
Hmm. Are any of Kirby's Eternals work collected with black and white art? I asked Scott Dunbier, who edits the Artist Editions at IDW if an Eternals book was possible, he said there is a good possibility of one in the future. These are full size books of scanned original art. Though there are usually 6 issues included, not the entire run.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Apr 12, 2021 11:28:12 GMT -5
Do you mean Fletcher Hanks? 'Cause, weird a comparison as it seems on the surface, I can actually see that if you do.
Yeah, typo 'cause my tablet autocorrected. The Hanks comparison comes from the way anything seems possible--if you can conceive it, you can draw it
Now I want to see Kirby writing and drawing Stardust, Fantomah, etc … it'd have been amazing.
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Post by brutalis on May 18, 2021 9:01:07 GMT -5
Anyone other than me prefer the depiction of Ikaris in his earliest appearances in the 1st 4 issues of Eternals? I much prefer his Greco-Roman close crop hair and the quiet stoicism he presented with. A kind of reserved intellectual quality acquired over centuries of learning. His joy in pure delight of flying free amongst the clouds.
When he returns to the forefront of stories in issue 14 moving forward his hair is longer, more Thor like. He responds to things in typical superhero response or relative terms turning to brute strength or force. He seems a bit more arrogant and a superior attitude towards Sersi. I think Kirby at this point just place placed Ikaris into atypical Thor mode as it was quick, easily identifiable to the superhero format and structure. He went from having deeper meaning and became a cookie cutter characterization. To me at least. Others thoughts?
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Post by berkley on May 18, 2021 17:02:24 GMT -5
Anyone other than me prefer the depiction of Ikaris in his earliest appearances in the 1st 4 issues of Eternals? I much prefer his Greco-Roman close crop hair and the quiet stoicism he presented with. A kind of reserved intellectual quality acquired over centuries of learning. His joy in pure delight of flying free amongst the clouds. When he returns to the forefront of stories in issue 14 moving forward his hair is longer, more Thor like. He responds to things in typical superhero response or relative terms turning to brute strength or force. He seems a bit more arrogant and a superior attitude towards Sersi. I think Kirby at this point just place placed Ikaris into atypical Thor mode as it was quick, easily identifiable to the superhero format and structure. He went from having deeper meaning and became a cookie cutter characterization. To me at least. Others thoughts?
I like the Roman soldier haircut too: I think it gives the character a sort of timeless look appropriate to an Eternal. Kirby had used it to good effect years earlier with "Him" and I always wonder that no one since, in all the many incarnations of the Warlock character, no artist has thought of returning to it.
Kirby seemed to like the long, wild hair though, since he returned to it with several characters - Thor, Kamandi, Ikaris, ... I think even Orion was drawn that way in some of his later Kirby appearances.
I thnk Ikaris was always, even in the earlier Eternals issues, a bit of a comment on the typical alpha male hero - at least in contrast to the other Eternals. And I thnk Kirby used him in part to show the limitations of that approach: for example, when Ikaris tries to take on the Deviant invasion all by himself and promptly gets himself in trouble.
Then, in contrast, we get Thena taking over and successfully routing the Deviants and putting a stop to the invasion. I'll get into the details of that a little later but for now I'll just note how disappointing it is that all this was totally lost on later Eternals writers, who preferred to show Ikaris as the successful hero and leader and Thena as a hysterical incompetent - a complete 180 from the Kirby characterisation.
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Post by mikelmidnight on May 21, 2021 12:36:11 GMT -5
I thnk Ikaris was always, even in the earlier Eternals issues, a bit of a comment on the typical alpha male hero - at least in contrast to the other Eternals. And I thnk Kirby used him in part to show the limitations of that approach: for example, when Ikaris tries to take on the Deviant invasion all by himself and promptly gets himself in trouble.
Then, in contrast, we get Thena taking over and successfully routing the Deviants and putting a stop to the invasion. I'll get into the details of that a little later but for now I'll just note how disappointing it is that all this was totally lost on later Eternals writers, who preferred to show Ikaris as the successful hero and leader and Thena as a hysterical incompetent - a complete 180 from the Kirby characterisation.
I loved the fact that Ikarus seems compelling but as you get to know him the other Eternals consider him a nice guy and all but sort of a dumb jock. And rather than looking down on his human girlfriend, some of them seem to think she can do better.
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Post by commond on May 21, 2021 17:51:43 GMT -5
I was prompted to read The Eternals thanks to this thread. I have a few issues to go, but basically I really enjoyed the first half of the series where Kirby was doing all of the world building and laying the foundations for the story. Then it falls off the rails. I could live with Kirby not finishing the book if he had continued to tell the same story, but for whatever reason, the final issues feel as though the story was abandoned. That said, I'm not sure how Kirby could have realistically ended the series. The Celestials were supposed to be carrying out a 50 year judgement of humanity, the Eternals and the Deviants. How do you fit that 50 year period into the comic book's continuity? To me that was a major flaw with the story. If the Celestials are these all-power cosmic beings, why does it require them 50 years to determine the Earth's fate? If judgement day had been sooner, Kirby may have been able to wrap up the original story within a dozen issues.
As for modern writers putting their own spin on the characters, I see no problem with that. That's what they should do. I can't speak to how successful they've been, but they can't keep rehashing Kirby's stories and ideas forever. We all admire work that is new and original, but I think about that wave of British writers in the 80s who loved to take obscure DC characters and reinvent them, or the Marvel writers of the 80s who tried to present a modern take on Jack and Stan's characters, and I totally support the need for that evolution. I understand if there is a disconnect between people who loved the original series and don't like the reinterpretations, but to be honest, I don't think you could write a modern take on The Eternals with the characters talking and acting like they do in Kirby's series. I know there have been a lot of positive things said about the characterizations in Kirby's Eternals, but I'm not sure modern fans would agree.
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Post by berkley on May 22, 2021 18:50:34 GMT -5
Actually, most fans at the time didn't agree either, so it isn't a question of modern vs older fans: it's a question of fans in general being unable or unwilling to look beneath the surface. And no, it would be ridiculous if a modern writer tried to reproduce Kirby's dialogue: it would come off as a parody or a patronising, wink-wink reference to the supposed naivety of the original. See Didio's OMAC or Priest's Panther for examples of how shallow and mean-spirited this attitude can become. Evolution of charaters to fit in with the modern world? That isn't really the problem - and in fact isn't what actually happens, most of the time. An example of what you're talkng about here might be the Cumberbatch Sherlock Holmes: set in the modern world with all the changes that implies, but crucially the show-runners tried to conserve the essence of the Holmes character: the pride of intellect, the fascination with problem-solving, the obsessive attention to detail within the narrow range of his interests, the emotional aloofness, ... and this is exactly the kind of thing that is not done or even attempted in most of so-called re-inventions, the Eternals included. 80s British writers: not sure who else you might be referring to, but Moore's Swamp Thing would be the most obvious example. Now that might seem a pretty whole-sale re-invention that fundamentally changed the original concept - but if you look at it closely, Moore didn't so much change or take away, as add to, complexify, deepen and widen the original concept. Also, I think the Swamp Thing was a very different concept to the Eternals - which is in fact more like Moore's Swamp Thing or Watchmen in its intricacy and in the way various elements work together. So Eternals re-inventions have gone in the opposite direction: simpler, less profound, less original, less innovative, more conventional than the source material. But what it really comes down to is that they haven't been very good: none of them, including Gaiman's and Gillen's, shocking as that might feel given their level of talent, two of the very best writers in comics today. I know it probably seems to most people who read this that my mind is made up beforehand and that I wouldn't like a new Eternals series no matter what the content, because I always react the same way no matter who the writer is. But this is a coclusion based on a false premise - that there has been a wide variety of different kinds of Eternals reinventions since Kirby: in truth, in spite of superficial differences in style, they have all been very similar - and for the simple reason that they have all tried to do the same thing: make the Eternals palatable to fans, which means make them more conventional, more like everything else. So one of the biggest problems with Gillen's new series is that not only does he not take much inspiration from the Kirby series, he does lots of ideas from other Eternals writers: Gaiman, Aaron, and the guy who wrote that awful 80s miniseries, forget his name now.
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Post by commond on May 23, 2021 5:08:34 GMT -5
I haven't read any of the other Eternals series, and it's highly unlikely that I will get to them any time soon. For all I know, they could be terrible. However, I still believe that if you're going to reboot a series like The Eternals, then you need to reimagine the concept. Otherwise, it's not worth doing. Now I realize this leads to problems. You have problems with writers building off the history of previous retcons or reinventions and not staying true to the spirit of the original series. It also seems that Kirby fans, as a whole, don't appreciate creators mining his work and would prefer it to be left alone. Be that as it may, even if the reboots fail, I don't think it's a good reason to stop trying. Someone, at some point, may come up with a brilliant take on The Eternals.
My question would be, why is it so hard? Aside from the difficulties creators have had trying to shoehorn The Eternals into the Marvel Universe, I think there are problems with the source material. When the book was cancelled, it left us with an unfinished story with unresolved plotlines. Did Kirby ever tell anyone how he planned to end the book? Did he think that far ahead? One of the criticisms I've read of the series is that it doesn't flow that well from one issue to the next. You get the impression that Kirby is making up the story as he goes along. Now, I could be way off base about that, but I don't think the plotting of the story is as strong as the world building and the mythos. I also keep thinking to myself whether the book was viable as an ongoing series. Clearly it wasn't sales-wise, but the concept Kirby created seemed better suited to a mini-series, a graphic novel, or even those magazine formats Marvel flirted with in the 70s. If he'd created it in the 80s, perhaps it would have suited the Epic imprint. If Kirby had quit the series with issue 19 and a new creative team had come on, what could they have done with the series? Even Kirby had to start digging into The Eternals' past to create villains for them to fight. It's not as though the entire 19 issue run is a tightly plotted race against time to unite humanity, the Deviants and the Eternals before their judgement day.
If you're going to create an original Eternals series, you either need to go back into their past and add new layers to the mythos, or you press forward and create some new reality that they're now faced with. It would be great if they were in their own universe and someone finished the story Kirby started, but that's clearly not what Marvel wants to do. I don't know the trends in modern comics very well, but it seems to me that if you want to have an ongoing Eternals series then you can't keep going back to the Kirby well over and over again. The writer of the current series says he always thinks of what Kirby would do and that's create something new. I suppose that's what he's trying to do, for better or for worse.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on May 23, 2021 8:48:59 GMT -5
If you're going to create an original Eternals series, you either need to go back into their past and add new layers to the mythos, or you press forward and create some new reality that that they're faced with. I agree. One non-Kirby Eternals storyline that I really enjoyed was how their origin was tied to that of the Titanians (the Jim Starlin ones) and the Uranians (of Marvel Boy fame). I think it was published in a few issues of What if..?Independently of whether it was a good idea to bring the Eternals to the Marvel universe proper, it added to their mythology, even indirectly, and helped explain how super-powered humanoids could live on two decidedly uninhabitable celestial bodies. It's the mythology aspect that I think is the most important, hence my thorough enjoyment of Thor #300. The Eternals as just another super-team (or even as just another super powered people) holds little interest.
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Post by profh0011 on May 23, 2021 10:03:26 GMT -5
"snappy dialogue"
Kirby wrote UNIQUE dialogue. He WAS NEVER trying to be S*** L**, the way so many of those 3rd-rate writers of the 70s were. (Aside from anything else, Kirby actually WAS writing HIS OWN STORIES, not just slapping dialogue on top of the work of someone else. But this fact has been deliberately obscured for decades.
Working on a blog project involving "classic" authors and adaptations the last 6-1/2 years, I've come to realize that there are certain writers whose dialogue you just DO NOT F*** with. Doyle. Wells. Poe. And Kirby.
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