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Shelf Bound Auction: Day 24 – KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD BY SIMONSON & BYRNE!

By | May 28th, 2020
Posted in Columns | % Comments

This auction is closed.

The bookcase purge for charity continues! You can see a complete list of all auctions here, in chronological order starting with the latest, here. Full auction details are included at the end of the article, but to bring the new folks up to speed real quick:

Every weekday until Friday, June 5th, we publish a new Shelf Bound article announcing a bind or bound set up for auction.

Each bind auction’s bidding starts when its article is published and ends 72 hours later, so today’s auction will close at 3 PM EST on May 31, 2020.

Bids must be posted in an item’s comment section to be considered for that item; highest bid posted before close of auction wins.

Bids from outside the U.S. are welcome, although shipping outside the U.S. may incur additional fee. Bids posted in currencies other than US dollars will be valued at their USD equivalent.

The winning bidder emails me (greg at multiversity comics dot com) to verify donation particulars, then makes the donation and send me verification.

I send out the bind.

Everyone wins.

30 weekdays. 34 binds. All proceeds going to charity. Sound good? Let’s get to it!

KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD BY BYRNE & SIMONSON

Written by: Walt Simonson, John Byrne, Jeph Loeb, Eric Stephenson
Drawn by: Walt Simonson, John Byrne, Ron Wagner, Frank Miller, Howard Chaykin, Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, Art Adams, Klaus Janson, Dave Gibbons, Eddie Campbell, John Paul Leon, Al Milgrom, Keron Grant
Inked by: John Byrne, Walt Simonson, Joe Rubinstein, Terry Austin, Klaus Janson, Bob Wiacek, Ray Kryssing
Colored by: Lee Loughridge, Sherilyn van Valkenburgh, Trish Mulvihill, Noelle Giddings, Electric Pickle
Lettered by: John Workman, John Byrne, Clem Robins

Published by: DC Comics

Collecting:

  • New Gods #13-16 (Nov 1996 – Feb 1997)
  • Jack Kirby’s Fourth World #1-20 (Mar 1997 – Oct 98)
  • Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Gallery OS (Nov 1996)
  • Genesis #1-4 (Nov 1997)
  • Darkseid OS (Feb 1998)
  • Darkseid/Galactus: The Hunger OS (Jan 1995)
  • Orion #1-25 (Jun 2000 – Jun 2002)

Additional Material: None

Bind Details:

  • Oversewn binding
  • Blue/Grey Arrestox and Red Flare/Yellow Arrestox cover material
  • Blue/white and red/white headbands
  • DC stamp used
  • White endpapers
  • Page edges trimmed

Signatures: Simonson, Liefeld

Sketches: None, tho Simonson’s sketch does have a dinosaur in it . . .

When it comes to the kingdom of comics, there really is only one king: Jack Kirby. He got that crown by doing his own thing (and Thing!) page after page, project after project, decade after decade. As much as he would have loved to see those in his wake do THEIR own things, it’s just not that easy. The vast majority of his followers were so taken by his work, they just wanted to play in HIS worlds than make their own. Given what those worlds contained, can we blame them? I don’t think so. But reality is while not all of those who came in afterwards dropped the ball, getting the royal treatment for Kirby’s creations after his passing was never a sure thing.

Two creators I think DID do justice to his work were Walt Simonson and John Byrne, and their work on Kirby’s Fourth World is the subject of today’s bind auction.

Even though they didn’t officially co-create these comics, Byrne & Simonson were very much working in tandem during this almost six-year run. When Byrne took over a New Gods series already in progress with issue #12, Simonson drew all the covers and contributed “Tales of the New Gods” backup strips in most of the issues. When Simonson needed someone to take over the main story in Orion for two issues while he continued the backup strips and worked ahead on an upcoming double-sized issue? Byrne stepped in.

The first book covers the Byrne-led era: his runs on New Gods and Jack Kirby’s Fourth World with the accompanying backup stories, spinoffs, Genesis microevent, and . . .

. . . one of the best intercompany crossovers ever, if only because of its plot simplicity: Darkseid/Galactus, where the Silver Surfer brings Galactus to Apokalips as a means of satisfying his master’s hunger. Byrne said in interviews the project was delayed for years because he had to track down the fan whose off-the-cuff remark at a convention inspired the idea. Thankfully, Byrne did locate the man and we were able to get this slice of loveliness:

Continued below

On to Walt Simonson’s Orion, a run of comics I would definitely rank right up there with his Thor work.

And as much as I obviously enjoy them both, if I had to pick between Byrne and Simonson as my favorite Kirby interpreter cartoonist? I think Simonson gets the slight nod. Both are truly master storytellers, but Simonson seems to have a little more of Kirby’s inherent krackle & roughness in his line than Byrne. Also, his stories feel less like they’re 100% remixing Kirby bits than giving you something that contains those bits along with other material and influences.

Did I mention the Orion volume was signed? First by Rob Liefeld:

And then Simonson himself:

Would you count that as a sketch? I think that counts as a sketch.

WHY YOU SHOULD BID

Aside from the sheet amount of comics you’d get, AND the signatures, AND the fact these huge books are surprisingly light and comfortable to read given their almost exclusive use of non-coated paper stock:

  • The Orion bind has all the backup stories IN THEIR ORIGINAL ORDER. These stories were originally placed to expand on story beats & threads introduced in the main features they immediately followed. The oversized omnibus DC put out a few years ago collected the material but shoved them all in the back of the book, which kinda defeated the purpose. The subsequent Orion trades do have them placed correctly, but now you aren’t getting them in one book.
  • The Byrne material has yet to be collected outside his Orion contributions. That will probably change if the New Gods movie ever hits the screen, but right now this is your best option to have these comics on your shelves.
  • On top of that, I guarantee you the chance of that eventual collection also having the Darkseid/Galactus oneshot is VERY VERY slim. DC would have to come to an agreement with Marvel and that doesn’t look likely.

So you COULD take the time & effort to track down all the original issues and turn them into your own book via a binder using the techniques & approaches we cover every month in Shelf Bound . . .

OR!

You could bid on the bind we’re auctioning today, get the benefit of someone else doing all that work for you, AND do some good for the comics community we all love in the process!

Starting Bid: $50
Auction Ends: May 31, 2020 at 3 pm
Proceeds Benefit: The Hero Initiative

AUCTION FINE PRINT

  • This auction ends 72 hours after the date & time of this article’s posting.
  • Bids MUST be placed as comments below to be valid.
  • Bids order is set by the timestamp given by Disqus. I subscribe to every comment section and receive an email notification simultaneous to the posting of every new comment. That email’s timestamp is what I use to determine bid order & the final bid cutoff time.
  • Bids placed anywhere other than the auction article’s comment section (i.e. replying to the announcement tweet) will be ignored.
  • Bids posted in currencies other than US dollars will be valued at their USD equivalent.
  • Highest bid posted before the end of the auction wins. The winning bidder has 24 hours to contact me via twitter or email (see below) to set up payment. If contact is not made in this timeframe, the winning bid is invalidated and the next highest bid will be the winner.
  • Winning bidder will make the donation in the amount of the winning bid to the agreed-upon charity. Upon successful donation and receipt of receipt (hehe) by me, the bind will be mailed out via Media Mail on the following Saturday unless an alternate schedule is agreed upon by all parties.
  • Feel free to post any additional questions you may have prior to the end of the auction below; I will do my best to answer them ASAP. Additional and/or specific pictures of the bind are available on request.
  • Thanks in advance to anyone bidding on these binds. Good luck!

//TAGS | Shelf Bound

Greg Matiasevich

Greg Matiasevich has read enough author bios that he should be better at coming up with one for himself, yet surprisingly isn't. However, the years of comic reading his parents said would never pay off obviously have, so we'll cut him some slack on that. He lives in Baltimore, co-hosts (with Mike Romeo) the Robots From Tomorrow podcast, writes Multiversity's monthly Shelf Bound column dedicated to comics binding, and can be followed on Twitter at @GregMatiasevich.

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