Raison d'être

There's always been a strange disconnect between people flocking to see movies based on characters and stories that originated in comics, and their disregard for the comics medium itself. It's sad, because many very talented men and women have worked in the comics field during the last several decades, often with little recognition for their effort and the trails they blazed for people working in their footsteps today.

The landscape is changing gradually in terms bringing great material back into print. Classic newspaper strips are seeing a remarkable comeback, with the current Terry & The Pirates and Scorchy Smith collections being prime examples. Walt Kelly's Pogo Possum is due to make a reappearance (hopefully) soon, although given Pogo's past presidential aspirations, it would have been nice had Fantagraphics' original publication plans held together so that we would have had Pogo hitting the stump alongside Obama and McCain.

What I'm going to try to do here is present some classic material and point you in the direction of finding more. It will be subjective - art always is - but I hope you see something you like.

To start, here's a quick police procedural from Jack Kirby & Joe Simon, published in Police Trap #5 (Charlton, 1955).











btw, Abrams published a terrific biography/retropective of Kirby's work earlier this year, written by Mark Evanier, called 'Kirby: King of Comics' (Amazon U.S./Canada/U.K.)