This is the only one of the Topps "Kirbyverse" books to actually feature more than just a cover by Jack Kirby (not counting the cards they were inevitably packaged with. I'll have to dig those out and do an entry on the cards). There's an 8 page Kirby story not-quite-seamlessly mixed in among the other pages. Single pages were inked by Steve Ditko, Joe Sinnott, Terry Austin and Frank Miller, while Mike Royer inked the remainder. There's also a centerfold by Kirby of the main characters.
Kirby created the characters in the late 1970s for the unrealized "Jack Kirby Comics" line. The few pages he did set up the premise, a group of lovable losers from throughout history looking to get out of Purgatory and being sent to Earth. It would have been interesting to see exactly where Kirby would have gone with that. The actual series that was published had some fun stuff written by Tony Isabella, but the art was distractingly un-Kirby and just not very good.
For the Kirby pages, Royer and Sinnott are of course just about beyond reproach as Kirby inkers. Austin does a decent job, while Miller's style was a bit too heavy, which is fine for a single page, I guess, just not something you'd like to see for any more than that. Ditko's page is my favourite, as I always did like the Kirby/Ditko art of the early 1960s, and that devil character's poses have some great classic Kirby elements.
The cover is Kirby inked by Todd McFarlane, although there's a nicer version inked by Royer in one of the fanzines somewhere.
Published 1993
4 comments:
Tony Isabella here. Satan's Six was one of my favorite gigs ever and talking over each issue with Jack made it even better. Sadly, I agree with you on the artwork. I never really liked John Cleary's Todd-like art, even though John himself was a good kid. One of my impossible fantasies is to someday redo those stories with more appropriate artwork.
P.S. The book got great fan mail from ministers, who correctly saw the book as being, at its core, about redemption.
Tony Isabella
Hey Tony. I was curious, how much of Kirby's original dialogue did you use on his pages? Most of it felt like his work, but a few lines (in addition to the angel's narration linking it to the rest of the story) felt more like your writing? Also, did Kirby design the "team uniform" with the "6" logo? It looks like he might have, but it's hard to tell since he never drew it on his pages, so we only see them through the Cleary/Gil interpretation.
Tony here again. I tweaked Jack's dialogue a wee bit to bring it more in line with the rest of the issue while also trying to retain as much of the King's own voice as possible. Jack's instruction to me from the get-go was to make the book mine, but, of course, I wanted it to be as much his as it was mine.
I don't have my issues at hand, but my guesses on the art would be
1) The "6" was on the Kirby model sheets.
2) It was added by Cleary.
I think the first is the most likely.
Tony Isabella
Yay! "Satan's Six"!
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