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Mike Norris
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
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| Posted: 28 April 2016 at 6:33pm | IP Logged | 1
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Speaking Adams, I was surprised at how many Jimmy Olsen covers he did. Booth as an inker over Kirby and doing full art.
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Eric Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 2292
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| Posted: 29 April 2016 at 4:02am | IP Logged | 2
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So, are we of a consensus that X-MEN would have been cancelled when it was whether Adams left or not? That the most we could have gotten was that one last issue that Sal Buscema drew?
If so, that makes me feel better. It was always one of the great tragedies of the industry to me that Adams' time on X-MEN was cut short when it didn't need to be.
(Two other great comic book tragedies were that JB's time on both INCREDIBLE HULK and CAPTAIN AMERICA were also needlessly cut short, but that's a topic for another thread.)
Getting back to the original topic--I was surprised to find out (just looked it up) that JIMMY OLSEN lasted almost a full two years (15 issues) after Kirby left. They gave it to him because the sales were flagging, correct? Did Kirby's stint increase the sales enough to make the book healthy enough to survive (a while) without him?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 29 April 2016 at 4:07am | IP Logged | 3
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So, are we of a consensus that X-MEN would have been cancelled when it was whether Adams left or not? That the most we could have gotten was that one last issue that Sal Buscema drew?•• Given the lag between sales and reporting of those figures, I don't see how it could have been otherwise. Something distantly similar happened when POWER MAN and IRON FIST became POWER MAN AND IRON FIST. Both books had weak sales, and it was thought that combining them might create a single title that did better (the assumption being that there was some percentage of the audience that read one of the books, and some that read the other, with minimal overlap). Months after the fusion happened, sales came in and showed that IRON FIST had actually been creeping up slowly, and was selling better than POWER MAN. This gave rise to the in-house joke that the new book should have been called IRON FIST AND POWER MAN.
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Dave Phelps
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
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| Posted: 29 April 2016 at 5:55am | IP Logged | 4
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Eric Jansen wrote:
| Getting back to the original topic--I was surprised to find out (just looked it up) that JIMMY OLSEN lasted almost a full two years (15 issues) after Kirby left. They gave it to him because the sales were flagging, correct? |
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From what I've heard, DC wanted Kirby to do a Superman title and he asked for the lowest selling one. Hence Jimmy Olsen. "Lowest selling Superman title" could still have fairly healthy sales. (And for what it's worth, when DC merged Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane and Supergirl into Superman Family, Jimmy was the first featured player and the series continued his numbering.)
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 29 April 2016 at 8:13am | IP Logged | 5
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I was surprised, a few years back, when someone gifted me with a copy of the SUPERMAN ANNUAL that had started me down this road when I was a wee lad in England. My own copy had long since disappeared.* Except for the first, the stories were all JIMMY OLSEN, with Superman as a "guest star."––––––––––– * Well, not disappeared. I knew exactly where it went. Do not get me started!!
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Jason Czeskleba
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 April 2004
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| Posted: 29 April 2016 at 12:04pm | IP Logged | 6
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Eric Jansen wrote:
| They gave it to him because the sales were flagging, correct? |
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Dave Phelps wrote:
| From what I've heard, DC wanted Kirby to do a Superman title and he asked for the lowest selling one. Hence Jimmy Olsen. |
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Both these stories are not entirely accurate, according to Mark Evanier. He says (in the introduction to the Kirby Jimmy Olsen TPB) that there were a few factors that brought Kirby the assignment. When Kirby came to DC, Carmine Infantino was interested in having him do Superman, and there were also budgetary considerations that necessitated one of Kirby's assignments be an established title rather than a new book. Kirby disliked working on characters created by others, but agreed to do it because it was in his nature to be accommodating to his bosses. Kirby stipulated that he didn't want to take over a book that already had a creative team, because he didn't want to cause someone else to lose his job. So Jimmy Olsen was chosen because Pete Costanza had just retired and the artist position on the book was vacant. Jimmy Olsen was not a top seller at the time but was not in immediate danger of cancellation. Sales of Kirby's first few issues of Jimmy Olsen were very good, but they quickly leveled off and started to decline back to pre-Kirby levels.
Edited by Jason Czeskleba on 29 April 2016 at 12:06pm
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Eric Sofer
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Joined: 31 January 2014
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| Posted: 30 April 2016 at 9:29am | IP Logged | 7
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I didn't read every Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane story, but from those I did peruse, I felt that Lois Lane was always a "Superman and Lois" story, and that she was not only incapable of sustaining her very own book, but she was barely capable of maintaining her own life. I often speculated - if Superman hadn't been the one we know, would Lois have had all those royal and rich suitors? Would she have lived two weeks?
But Jimmy was capable and - when the writers didn't need him to be stupid - competent. Yes, there were Jimmy stories where he did silly stuff, but for a lot of those, he got himself out of his own predicaments. And he seemed a truly good soul, and a resourceful, helpful young man, who deserved to be Superman's pal. (Would I have loved to see Kirby do an Elastic Lad story!!!)
I cannot image a Jack Kirby Lois Lane book. There would have been no "there" there. (Besides, TPTB probably would have had Kurt Schaffenberger redraw her face every time it appeared...)
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Eric Smearman
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 30 April 2016 at 11:00am | IP Logged | 8
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Ugh, the whole bit with Al Plastino or Murphy Anderson "correcting"
Kirby's faces for Superman and Jimmy...why not just have the inker -
Colletta or whomever - do it? Isn't that what they wound up doing when
Mike Royer started inking the book? I don't have any of my issues
handy to check.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 30 April 2016 at 11:04am | IP Logged | 9
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Ugh, the whole bit with Al Plastino or Murphy Anderson "correcting" Kirby's faces for Superman and Jimmy...why not just have the inker - Colletta or whomever - do it?•• Again, the story is that TPTW wanted to tick off Kirkby. Not that this is anything new. Redrawing faces goes back a long time. Mike Higgins used to tell of wandering into John Romita's office, at Marvel, to find him redrawing faces in an issue of Captain America. According to Romita, the faces didn't look like Cap. When I finally saw the issue, the redrawn faces fairly leapt off the pages. But, even more, on those pages it was someon IMPERSONATING Cap. It wasn't actually him at all!
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Eric Smearman
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| Posted: 30 April 2016 at 11:17am | IP Logged | 10
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"Again, the story is that TPTW wanted to tick off Kirby."
(Rolls eyes) Jeezus...!!
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Jason Czeskleba
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| Posted: 30 April 2016 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | 11
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Eric Smearman wrote:
| Ugh, the whole bit with Al Plastino or Murphy Anderson "correcting" Kirby's faces for Superman and Jimmy...why not just have the inker - Colletta or whomever - do it? Isn't that what they wound up doing when Mike Royer started inking the book? |
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They tried a variety of approaches. The first couple issues they had the faces redrawn by Al Plastino. The third issue they had Colletta "fix" them while inking, but they apparently weren't satisfied with the results, so for the bulk of the run they had Murphy Anderson redraw and ink the faces. Towards the end of the run, there were a couple issues where they had Royer do the fixes while inking, and those probably turned out the best of the lot.
As I noted above, they also had Murphy Anderson redraw Superman faces done by Werner Roth and John Rosenberger over in the Lois Lane title during the same time period, so Kirby was not being singled out for special treatment here.
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Eric Jansen
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| Posted: 30 April 2016 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | 12
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Part of me actually appreciates the attempt to keep characters on model back then.
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Topic Closed)
