Mate the Medusa picture was sweet, most of his women folks are gorgeous, but that Crystal(normally one of the sexiest women in comics for mine) looks rather creepy, those eyes are disturbing.
Yeah man, but those issues and braincells are long gone, sorry no numbers come to mind.

Damn thats nice.

Its been worth following Infinity Man and Omac previously, just to see the likes of Giffen and Grummet channel their inner Jack.

I'm a huge fan of Crystal, or the one from the Kirby/Lee days, but I've never liked that particular picture of the character - the smile, which I assume was meant to look sweet and endearing, looks like it was stamped onto her face. Also not a fan of the all-yellow costume.

Agree about the Medusa picture. I think later artists forget that Madame Medusa was originally this provocatively sexy, mature woman who drove young Johnny to distraction for awhile, IIRC. Which, come to think of it, makes it a bit off-putting that he ended up falling for her younger sister.

I like to read a lot into Kirby's "bad" art. In this case, Crystal is adorable (I still have a crush on her) but she is also Inhuman: like a cat, she is cuter and beautiful and delightful but there is a hint of psychopathy. And I adore cats. There is a theory (not by me, but I like it) that Crystal's role is to spread the genes of the Inhumans. The Inhumans are obsessed with genetics, but are extremely insular, which in a small race means inbreeding. So every few centuries an outlier appears who has an urgent need to leave the Inhumans and find an alpha male to improve the gene pool. it explains a lot of Crystal's behaviour. Occasionally you see a hint of something creepy and disturbing, and that's good.

Another example is Doom's face on Kirby's last Marvel cover(?), FF200. At first it seems like Doom isn't threatening, like he's distracted and just going through the motions. But look closer into the story and Doom's history at that point and it all makes sense: Doom is having self doubts but cannot admit it to himself. He can see a wider context that Reed at this point cannot. That vacant look becomes very poignant.


EDIT: I also see this picture as reflecting Kirby's own disillusionment with Marvel: didn't he then leave comics, the thing he loved, and do cartoon storyboards instead? Isn't this around the time when he was saying that comics break your heart?

Here's the intro for the Thundarr cartoon. The series ran 2 seasons, 1980–1981 and 1981–1982.



He also created the Turbo Teen, which lasted 13 episodes.

See the Wasp, up there in the upper left hand portion of this poster? That's what I was talking about earlier in the thread when I said that Kirby's glamorous women tend to look like butch bruisers. Love that Infinity Man pic though!

I did not know that Kirby did Thundarr the Barbarian ... Man, Kirby left his marks everywhere ... thanks for posting this and I learned something about the great Jack Kirby today!