THE COMPLETE KIRBY BLACK HOLE STRIP

[rrichards]

OK , Here’s something that you probably have never seen !

 

Jack Kirby did a strip in the late seventies based an an adaptation of Disney’s Black Hole movie of about the same period.As far as I know it has never been reproduced in it’s entirety although there is supposed to be a book in France some where but nobody has ever seen it . Several years ago I picked up a bunch of old sunday newspaper comic strips and the complete Black Hole was among them .So while I’m sitting around bemoaning the fact that I won’t be making San Diego again this year.,I remembered the copies that I had of this strip and decided to share it with you all.

Let me apologize upfront that the production values are not what they should be . I photographed them with my iPad and cleaned them up with my Mac as best as I could but what you will see is a fair reproduction of what was printed . The images will enlarge to about 6 inches and more if you have a larger computer screen .Please also remember that the newspaper printing process was not that great either with a couple of these pages “double-struck”meaning that the color registration did not quite line up causing a blurred affect.

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So to see all 26 installments go to my website www.charlesdavidviera.com scroll down to the last window Disney’s Black Hole by Kirby or try to click here:

 

http://www.charlesdavidviera.com/thumbnail_list.php?mgd_id=210204#.Vbs6TFpH3x4

 

Hope you enjoy it and please feel free to comment.

[Terry Doyle]

Great idea, thanks for sharing! (thumbs u

[Peter G]

Beautiful stuff !

[Ferran Delgado]

Thanks for sharing! This strip deserves a high quality edition, maybe IDW might release one using this complete set.

[Eric Seffinga]

What I love is how much the characters reflect the actors in the film, but it still looks undeniably like Kirby at the same time. He did likenesses without subjugating his own style in the process. You can glance at it and know it is Kirby, yet also know the actors without any dialogue or exposition. Without reading a word (and having seen the film at least a dozen or more times) I followed along effortlessly. And he managed to encapsulate the core of the film in a single comic. Master storyteller indeed.

 

[koollectablz]

Hey this was great!

 

Thanks very much, I'd never seen this.

[rrichards]

I recently received an email from a French collector confirming that there exists a French edition in color of the story, there is both a hardcover book which was sold in bookstores and a softbound which was sold in newsstands. The title is "Le trou noir", published by Hachette ,the cover can be viewed here:

http://www.bedetheque.com/serie-7655-BD-Trou-noir.html

but with my limited French it is hard to tell if it is available for purchase.

[NicoV]

http://www.bedetheque.com/serie-7655-BD-Trou-noir.html

but with my limited French it is hard to tell if it is available for purchase.

probably not in a store, but you could buy it second-hand, for instance here: http://www.leboncoin.fr/livres/692906740.htm (approx. $10 without shipping)

http://www.priceminister.com/mfp/24510/le-trou-noir-walt-disney#pid=1154371

 

but with such prices, i'm not sure they'll consider taking time to ship overseas

 

I also found a few links related to this book:

http://super-mystery.over-blog.com/2014/07/the-black-hole-de-jack-kirby.html

http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=498301

http://comicbookinvest.com/2015/04/12/only-in-france/

[rrichards]

Now that Disney owns Marvel and Marvel has settled their differences with the Kirby family it would seem like the production of this Black Hole Strip in some format would be a great idea.

I could see it in a trade format or a large hardcover,even a standard comic book format would be great (with a painted cover by Steve Rude). Judging by the number of visitors to this thread ,there seems to be a genuine interest in this rarely seen project. Does any body know who did the inks on this strip?

[Dave Aikins]

Thank! I've been wanting to see all of these for years. One thing everyone has to realize is that there is a a lot of Mike Royer work going on here. Mike was at Disney at the time, and was the one that got Jack involved in the project. Mike had to do a good deal of redrawing over Kirby's pencils on some of the characters (especially the robots) to keep them on model. So, unlike Mike's work with Kirby for Marvel & DC (when Mike worked directly for Jack and didn't make changes to Jack's pencils), the Black Hole strip has some more Royer work in there...

[rrichards]

Yes ,those Royer inks are pretty nice. I've been searching the web and found a couple of images (better) to supplement my presentation. Some of the images available are in french but the quality of the image is better so I will probably include them also in the near future. This is a work in progress . Thanks for looking!