2001:
THE COMIC BOOK
by Frederick C. Szebin
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Where ARE WE GOING?
Somewhere in the
dawn of Time, we begansomehow, in these perilous times
we keep moving onand some time in the future, something will
happen to change us! The process of change began eons ago with a
creature calledBEAST KILLER! The monolith may be the
cause! It does not belong to this worldyet it does belong to
us all! Read onand behold its awesome secrets! |
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With
this typically purplish prose, comic book legend Jack Kirby put his own spin to
the 2001 saga in the premiere issue of
Marvel Comics 2001: A Space Odyssey,
released in 1976.
In that Bicentennial summer, Marvel had released a comic book version of
the film under their over-sized Marvel Treasury banner, and followed it quickly
with this series written, drawn and edited by Kirby, co-creator of the immortal
Captain America, and driving force behind such DC Comics heroes as The New Gods,
Kamandi, The Last Boy On Earth, and The Demon, as well as early artist behind
such historic four-color creations as The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, and The
Incredible Hulk. Marvel wasnt the first to set The Ultimate Trip to
four colors, with Howard Johnson offering an eight page giveaway in 1968 that
adapted the epic scale of the movie and downsized it to six comic book pages,
then offered two more pages of games and puzzles. Kirbys brazen,
eye-catching, but sometimes clunky style worked well on the whole with the
larger-than-life intentions of the 2001 mythos. Although not every issue
is a keeper, the stories that stay within the poetic adventure of Arthur C.
Clarkes and Stanley Kubricks alien-manipulated universe are far different
from any other comic book in the medium.
Click on an issue for more......
