Jack Kirby + Stephen Hawking in "Martians Go Home!"

Jack Kirby, quoted circa 1972:
"I see no wisdom in the eagerness to be found and approached by any intelligence with the ability to accomplish it from any sector of space. In the meetings between 'discoverers' and 'discoverees,' history has always given the advantage to the finders."

Kirby was referring to the Jupiter Plaque, an early-70s project to send humanity's contact information into space for alien lifeforms to discover...

Kirby's belief, much like that of noted super-physicist Stephen Hawking, was that any lifeform capable of finding us would most likely see us as some pitiful indigenous creatures standing in the way of some healthy colonial resource-stripping...

The accompanying Kirby art piece is his interpretation of what he'd've offered to the project if asked; West magazine did a piece asking various creative types for their spins on the concept + this was The King's contribution, showing Man as a race of powerful superbeings as a sort of 'Back the fuck up' to the rest of the Universe...


A 2010 quote from Stephen Hawking (seen here in his rarely public animation form):

"If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans." (You kinda gotta hear it said in yer head in his voice to get the real impact...)
 
 
Clearly an excellent case of great minds thinking alike...
 
And a tv series - Ghost King + the Hawk - featuring Jack "The King" Kirby's Ghost and Stephen Hawking (+ his intelligent BattleChair9000, which'd sound as much like Kit from the original Knight Rider as is possible) battling aliens would be better than any number of shitty Fringe + V + the like shows that dribble like babyshit across my tv screen...

Ghost King can, of course, draw anything into existence with his magic pen, like monsters or armies or walls or doors or holes, all the while chompin' down on an ectoplasmic cigar... And The Hawk can use his physics-powers to create wormholes, harness quarks, confuse + hypnotize others with his super-intelligent make-me-sleepy-talk, and woo another lovely guest-star every week... Heroes, powers, aliens, BattleChair9000...all's we need now is a gorgeous lab assistant who also happens to be a trained assassin or something... played by Bai Ling?

Stuff that is currently on my radar...

Pickt up Chuck Palahniuk's newest, Pygmy, last week + could not put it down. Sure, some nay-sayers claim that his schtick has worn a bit thin, but this book is better than his last coupla novels, + his ability to turn over the rocks of the psyche to expose alla them creepy lil' critters underneath is uncanny. This book is a first-person internal monolog as perspectivized by a sleeper terror-agent from an unnamed totalitarian state. The narrative lookt as if it would quickly become tedious, but instead I found myself trying not to think in the same fuckt-up pidgin as the narrator, "operative me."

The soundtrack to The Venture Brothers, featuring the music of J.G. Thirlwell (aka Foetus, Wiseblood, etc...) is easily lightyears ahead of any recent soundtracks. Thirlwell's wacky production careens from Morricone tribute to Space-Age Lounge, happily bouncing across the highlights of the wildly-broad filmscore genre. And a classy, classic-looking cover, to boot! (A slight aside, the promotional trailer for the upcoming + highly-anticipated Season 4 of VB, can be found here).

Final item: Today Disney announced that it has made an offer for Marvel Comics... As if the Bullpen's editorial staff's decisions weren't already hampered by an overabundance of shareholder-influenced suit-+-tie schmucks who don't read comics but love shitty comics-adaptations' box-office sales, now everyone's gonna be slaving away under the bloated white-gloved thumb (izzit really a thumb?) of the damn Mouse after he already shat on em over Howard the fuckin' Duck... (though honestly, whatever these evil companies are guilty of, they did provide us the opportunities to experience the wonderful works of Jack Kirby + Carl Barks. Almost makes up for alla the sins. Almost...)

Marvel Comics Acquires MARVELMAN!

BIG NEWS for us COMICS GEEKS!!!
... Marvel Comics has acquired the publishing rights to Marvelman from original creator Mick Anglo. (Hey Marvel, please please please please please don't fuck this up!!!)

A previous legal battle between acclaimed author Neil Gaiman and fecal sample Todd McFarlane determined that Gaiman's legal right to the revamped version of the character superceded T. McDouchebag's, though that didn't stop ol' Turd McFeces from issuing a statue + who knows what other dreck thru his line of "toys" based mostly on his "comics" like Spawn (yep... rhymes with yawn for good reason...).

Marvelman was originally created back in the 1940s as basically a British ripoff of Captain Marvel (y'know... Shazam!) + went away (except for reprints) for a loooong time... Micky Moran was a reporter who could utter a magic word, "Kimota!" and transform into the superhuman Marvelman. He even ended up with a stable of 'family' characters, just like ol' Cap'n Marvel.

Back in the 1980s, Eclipse Comics obtained the rights to the Alan Moore-penned Marvelman stories from Warrior magazine, as well as more stories to wrap up the then-current storyline + move forward from there... Moore's story was one of the first real revisionist superhero stories, treating the problems of the characters + their world as realistically as possible. Should've been an instant hit, right? Wrong... The first problem that arose was that Marvel Comics decided that there would be a copyright issue with a comic called Marvelman published by an independent comics company... the character was quickly rebranded as Miracleman, and Alan Moore publicly gave Marvel the finger for this asininity (real word? who cares?), announcing that he would never work for them due to the incident.

Eclipse published Moore's original storyline + then continued publishing more Moore-written stories, til Moore decided he was done with the character. After depicting the ground-breaking superhero battle that culminates in a devastated, corpse-filled London, Moore handed the series, character, and rights to the property to Neil Gaiman, who took over the writing just as Eclipse Comics began to have some serious cashflow issues... the books quickly became known for being incredible. And incredibly late. And then Eclipse went under, leaving the character mired in mountains of legal poopy... All of the issues + collected editions are looooong out-of-print and some of the most sought-after of modern comics.

So, what's gonna happen with the character? Gaiman had at one time commented that he still had stories to tell in the Miracleverse + there's even been some artwork seen from an unpublished Eclipse-era issue... Neil doesn't have a real problem with Marvel; he's written some stuff for them (not his best work, but still better than anything McFarlane has ever produced). So, will Neil write new Marvelman (gotta use the name again, right?) for Marvel? Hope so!

Will Marvel fuck everything up + try to assimilate the character into their one great + interesting, now completely fuckt Marvel Universe? Hope not (but prob'ly...)!

Will Alan Moore have any say in the disposition of his work on the character? Will the Alan Moore-era issues be reprinted by Marvel? Will Alan sue 'em? Cast a spell on 'em (he IS a practicing magicker, y'know)? Can Alan Moore prevent their use? Can he use this situation to become richer than a five-balled cat?

Should be a very interesting resolution to one of modern comics' most bullshit-ridden backstories, and hopefully the best work of Moore's pre-Swamp Thing period will be back in print before too much longer! (Artwork included is from the cover + interior of Miracleman #15, and is by John Totleben, who also worked with Moore on the groundbreaking Swamp Thing series. (...oh. I almost forgot... FUCK MARVEL + DISNEY!!!)