Simon & Kirby Superheroes anthology preview -- a Boing Boing exclusive

Titan books has published a new collection of Joe Simon & Jack Kirby golden age comic book stories called Simon & Kirby Superheroes, which features an introduction by Neil Gaiman. Titan Publishing has kindly allowed us to present a complete story from the book.

In 1950, the Korean War whipped up fears of atomic warfare and communist infiltration. Publishers geared up for the expected superhero rebirth, as did Simon and Kirby. For Harvey Publications they produced Captain 3-D, an experiment in multi-dimensional storytelling that rode the coattails of a few adventurous movie studios. In order to read these comics, readers wore special glasses with green and red lenses that gave the effect of characters virtually leaping off the pages.

For this book, Captain 3-D has been restored for the first time ever to its original art and in full-color, with the team's dynamic art figuratively jumping off the page -- no special glasses required, thank you. But it was a short-lived movie craze, and 3-D comics faded quickly. Captain 3-D is also notable for some of the very first work a young Steve Ditko produced in comics.

Simon & Kirby Superheroes

• [valis]

  Hmmmmmmmmm, Kirby dots!

• [Anonymous]

  Reminds me of the plot to Battlefield Earth…

• [teleny]

  No, Danny, the Evil Cat People are still around, thank you. We worship their scouts, the wily Housecats!

• [cinemajay]

  I whole-heartedly endorse this type of 3D!

• [Anonymous]

  All your comics are belong to us!

• [EeyoreX]

  So, the story was scripted with 3D effects in mind, and drawn specificaly to be printed in a monocrome/red/green format. And now it´s been re-touched and re-coloured in a deliberatly garish palette, in order to emuate the primitive printing process of 1950?

  Then it has not, in any way, been “restored”. I think the word is “remixed”.

  It is fun and all, but presenting the comic in this fashion is on the same level of autenticity as a pewter sword at a ren fair.

• [Stefan Jones]

  Of course. We should have known . . . cat people. Goddamned furries, I knew they were evil. And here I thought reptoids were a problem.

• [Chrs]

  Sooo… does that mean there are multiple people of “D”? And the kid may have to find Captains 2D and 1D, in hiding in a line and a point respectively?

• [Anonymous]

  Actually I own a copy of Captain 3-D. Great 3-D effect in it but this was nice to see it in 2-D also.

• [Mark Frauenfelder]

  This is similar to Kamandi, too. Just thought of that.

• [Anonymous]

  I bought this book about a week ago. It’s beautiful.

  Highly recommended for fans of Simon, Kirby, or any classic comic fan. Great stuff. It’s a great companion for Titans other Simon/Kirby book, “The Best of Simon and Kirby.” Bug, bright, colorful pages.

  Both books are great. Well done Titan for presenting this material in such a wonderful fashion.