jools&jim

David is a first-rate buyer...fast pay, easy communication -- high marks all around!

This one is more like an "attic" find...stumbled across these while looking for some old Christmas decorations today: I was more of a "Micronauts" and "Shogun Warriors" kid -- the whole Transformers thing missed me by a decade or so. So I'm pretty sure someone who thought these were in that same ballpark gave them to me back in 2001. Now all I need to find are the instruction sheets, which are probably around here somewhere. Can anyone identify all of these (other than the two Optimus Primes)? I also found my old NES system -- a picture and description of that are posted in the "Videogame" thread in General...

Hey all...found this while searching for some lost Christmas decorations today... I bought the control deck and the joystick with money from my first teaching job back in 1990 or so, along with the Stars Wars ESB cart (the others were gifts). As far as I can remember, I didn't used the stock NES controllers...too many damn buttons. And I never quite caught the gaming bug anyway. So the end result is that this unit was probably used for a total of 5-10 hours (or less), and was boxed up and forgotten about until today. It still works perfectly...just tested it today with all 4 games. Galaga in particular was a lot of fun. The boxes for the control deck and joystick are in great shape, and include all the original styrofoam inserts, connectors, bags, twist-ties, etc., and all the original paperwork (including a poster with the control deck). I also have the original boxes and paperwork for the Star Wars and Silver Surfer games. I really don't have much use for it these days, and am planning to offer the whole package for sale in the "Misc." forum, which I don't check all that often. Are video games acceptable there?

Glad to see this book is finally getting its due. Here's my copy: Btw...if you love Luke Cage (& the blaxploitation genre in general) and have NOT seen this...all I can say is...WHY??? It's a STONE GROOVE, BABY!!!!

Here's a small haul from the book sale today at the local public library... The 2 Doc Savage paperbacks are from Will Murray's tenure on the series in the early '90s; "Superworlds" is a loopy "astronomy" book from '75 about alien civilizations (with a foreword by Mr. "Chariots of the Gods" himself, Erich von Däniken); the Burroughs is illustrated by Roy Krenkel; the Lovecraft and the Frank Belknap Long short story collection are '70s editions; and the A Clockwork Orange hardcover is a Book Club edition from 1963. Nothing fancy, but not bad for 7 bucks...

Matt is a first-rate buyer. Fast pay, no hassles. Thanks!

It's fairly well known that the New Gods grew out of Kirby's work on Marvel's Thor (Zonker alluded to this earlier), and that after a Marvel version of "Ragnarok", during which the old Asgardian gods would die, Kirby intended to populate the Marvel Universe with a completely new pantheon. Of course, this didn't fly at Marvel (nor with Kirby, who was frustrated by lack of creative and financial control over his creations), and both Evanier and Sherman, who were very close to Kirby, knew it. So the idea that Asgard (world #1) was split in two by Ragnarok, thus producing New Genesis (#2) and Apokolips (#3), with Earth (#4) as the common ground for warring gods, would have made perfectly good sense to Evanier and Sherman when they wrote that text in the Kirby portfolio. Looks like Four Worlds to me, even though Kirby would probably have been the first to agree that someone else higher up than him created the one which is common to both storylines! So...whether or not it is "obvious" that "Earth is...not intended to be included in the same creation" (and I think by now all that's obvious about any of this is that nothing is!), it's still true that Earth IS central to both Kirby's Thor stories and Kirby's New Gods saga, and is in fact MORE pivotally important in the Fourth World books due to it being the home of the Anti-Life Equation. Not saying that this is the correct interpretation or the one intended by Kirby (which is unknown and unknowable). All I'm saying is that it makes sense, and that there's at least, maybe, an echo of it in the text I scanned which was written very near the beginning of the project by two guys who knew their stuff, and who were very, very close to...well...The Source -- Kirby himself!!

Here's more evidence--contemporary with the earliest Fourth World titles--to support the idea that the four worlds could indeed be Asgard, Apokolips, New Genesis, and Earth...from the 1971 "Kirby Unleashed" portfolio, compiled and written by Steve Sherman and Mark Evanier: And the full page:

And now for something completely different...!

Here's another interpretation of the "Fourth World" that I've never heard before: Here's the source (a good article in its own right): http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/600/600-3.html

Yep, works like a champ! It's a Tomy game from 1979. Came with the instructions and 4 old batteries (still in the package). I needed to add one more battery at home (game takes 5 "D" cells) to fire it up, and was pleasantly surprised that ALL functions worked as described. Sometime you get lucky for light $$!!!

Today's haul...

Here's the complete series as originally published in the early 1970s (with a few exceptions -- see below), sorted (quickly) into a rough approximation of publication order by cover date. Any corrections to this order would be very much appreciated -- I really do believe it's best to read these in the order in which they first appeared on the newsstand, even though the individual title runs do hold up very well when read on their own. I've excluded several non-Kirby comics featuring his Fourth World characters in issues of Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane, and at least one post-Kirby issue of Jimmy Olsen. Also not pictured is Kirby's somewhat anticlimactic Hunger Dogs graphic novel, published in 1985. However, I have included issue #6 of the 1984 New Gods reprint series, which features a (then) new conclusion to the storyline (by Kirby, naturally). What's pictured below represents (to me at least) the canonical original "Fourth World" saga in its entirety: --------------------------------------------------------------- Forever People: 1 - 11 Mister Miracle: 1 - 18 New Gods: 1 - 11; reprint series (1984) 6 Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen: 133 - 139, 141-148 ---------------------------------------------------------------

Cool idea. I have a complete set, and am scanning them all this weekend. I think another, more general discussion thread here in Bronze would be a good place for them.

(thumbs u Guess I missed it when it was first posted. Very, very cool -- the voice of The Master! When I was still working in the comics biz (ca. 1992-93), my co-worker interviewed Kirby (actually, more like "The Kirbys"--Roz talked as much as Jack!) via telephone in our office, and I was able to listen in on the line. It was recorded on an old analog mini-cassette, and after it was transcribed, some fool recorded over it with another interview, probably with some Wizard-Fan-Flavorite-of-The-Month-BS...

Here's one I've never heard before: See the whole thing here: http://fastbak.tripod.com/ngchrono.htm I'm guessing this incorporates some post-Kirby additions to the mythos established by later creators. Or maybe it's just a fanciful, fan-fic sorta thing. But I sincerely doubt that much or even any of it can be adduced from Kirby's canonical material...

133 - 148 (except for 140) are the Kirby issues -- some are more tied into the Fourth World storyline than others, but even the later issues are generally considered to be part of it...

Agree 100%. It could have been...well, "epic", which was the whole idea from the very beginning! I remember reading somewhere that back in the '80s, when one of the higher ups at DC (Paul Levitz maybe?) offered Jack the opportunity to publish a conclusion to his Fourth World saga (which becames the Hunger Dogs GN), he was simply too polite to say no. From his point of view, he had barely started the thing before all the titles were cancelled! So how could he possibly wrap it all up--to his, or anyone's satisfaction--in a single book, nearly 10 years later? I'm glad we have it, but still... It also must have been very difficult for Kirby to see the same basic concepts (albeit lacking his vision and much of the philosophical depth) succeed on a grand scale in Star Wars and its original sequels. This stuff was viable, and he knew it!

Nice! I've never heard that one before. After all, it was Earthlings who possessed the Anti-Life Equation, right? I'm glad that Kirby didn't explain everything, and--whether intentional or not--left at least some of it open to interpretation. I'm guessing that's one reason among many why these stories have aged better than more concrete, topical fare from the same period (for example, the GL/GA stories by O'Neil and Adams), and probably why many post-Kirby treatments of the same characters have been (to me at least, and to varying degrees) unsatisfying. Kirby's soaring imagination routinely opened the door to new worlds, but also provided our imaginations with some tantalizing open spaces to fill.

Yeah, I get it. I guess what I meant is that whatever Kirby's personal political views were at the the time (as mentioned in an earlier post), there wasn't much overtly political or contemporary/social content in the books, other than some very broad (Glorious Godfrey) or very pointed (Funky Flashman) satire. He was working with bigger ideas, and on a much bigger canvas than that. So yeah, man, we're on the same page! (thumbs u

The play on the geopolitical "third world" does make sense given the era, but the books themselves don't read that way to me at all. The questions and problems dealt with are much older, much bigger, much deeper, and much weightier than that. More epic myth-making than socio-political commentary (although there is some social satire). I've always leaned toward something closer to these interpretations for the term when used as an umbrella for the line of books themselves:

The phrase "The Fourth World" in usage also reminds me a little bit of how "Middle Earth" is used by Tolkien fans: i.e., as a sort of umbrella term for the whole milieu & saga, but with other meanings and interpretations as well depending on the context.

And, speaking of the Eternals, what about the Fourth Host? That's a lot of Kirby fours! I bet we could come up with some pretty wild (and fun) numerological/"new agey" theories for the significance of FOUR in Kirby's work. For starters, the number 4 (along with related numbers 12 and 40) does figure somewhat prominently in Judeo-Christian scripture...