Back at WonderCon in April, DC announced “The Kamandi Challenge,” a 12-issue series celebrating Jack Kirby’s classic character. Today, they gave out some additional details, in addition to some pretty amazing artwork from contributing artists Bruce Timm, Ivan Reis, Neal Adams, and Dale Eaglesham.
The most illuminating part from the announcement is that the book is being set up as a travelogue across Earth A.D., with some creators using pre-established Kirby locales, while others are creating new areas of the world for Kamandi to explore. Because the creative teams are not sharing their information with one another, each issue will be totally self-contained, and tell whatever story the creators decide to tell.
Some of the creative pairings are bizarre – Marguerite Bennett and Dan Jurgens, anyone? – but then you also get Tom King and Kevin Eastman and Rob Williams with Walter Simonson, and you realize that we live in the best of all possible worlds.
Also announced are that two creative teams – Dan DiDio/Keith Giffen and Len Wein/Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez – will be providing a prologue and an epilogue, respectively, in the oversized first and last issues.
I’m not gonna lie, this sounds pretty incredible. This blends a company owned character that is beloved with great creators being given a ton of leeway in their storytelling. Is it January yet?
See the full press release, and full artwork below.
DC CELEBRATES 100TH BIRTHDAY OF JACK KIRBY WITH KAMANDI CHALLENGE
12-Issue Miniseries to Kick Off Run of Celebratory Activities Leading Up to August 28, 2017 Birthday of Comics Icon Jack “The King” Kirby
BURBANK, CA (October 3, 2016) – Many comics fans would argue that without Jack Kirby’s input, creativity and influence, comic books simply wouldn’t be what they are today, and those fans would be right. Kirby was undoubtedly a giant of comic book storytelling, responsible for creating many of the characters and lore that fans enjoy to this day.
Heading into the “Meet the Publishers” panel at New York Comic Con (Saturday, October 8 at 4pmET), DC Entertainment Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee plan to speak in detail about the impact that Kirby has had on both the industry and each of their careers. The duo will also reveal the first steps in an ongoing plan to recognize Kirby’s contributions to DC by announcing a 12-issue miniseries event scheduled for January, the KAMANDI Challenge.
”Over two dozen of the comic industry’s best and brightest talent have been selected to participate in one of the greatest comic book adventures of this, or any other decade, the Kamandi Challenge. Over two years in the making, we expect this series to reach heights of excitement and adventure worthy of ‘The King’ himself,” said DC Publisher Dan DiDio.
The KAMANDI Challenge consists of 12 teams, where one writer and artist are paired randomly and assigned one of 12 sections of Earth A.D., the post apocalyptic world inhabited by Kirby’s young hero, Kamandi. The first team begins the story in one section, while the last team ends the story in the same location. Each issue will take readers to a different portion of Earth A.D., and all teams are working completely independently of each other, so they have no idea what stories are being written. Some parts of Earth A.D. were fully developed by Kirby, while others weren’t, and it’s up to the talent teams to create fantastic stories worthy of Kirby’s character and the world he created.
It’s only fitting, given that Kirby was nicknamed “King,” that the KAMANDI Challenge participants resemble a who’s who of comic book royalty:
· Issue #1 by Dan Abnett/Dale Eaglesham
· Issue #2 by Peter J. Tomasi/Neal Adams
· Issue #3 by Jimmy Palmiotti/Amanda Conner
· Issue #4 by James Tynion/Carlos D’Anda
· Issue #5 by Bill Willingham/Ivan Reis
Continued below
· Issue #6 by Steve Orlando/Philip Tan
· Issue #7 by Marguerite Bennett/Dan Jurgens
· Issue #8 by Keith Giffen/Steve Rude
· Issue #9 by Tom King/Kevin Eastman
· Issue #10 by Greg Pak/Joe Prado
· Issue #11 by Rob Williams/Walter Simonson
· Issue #12 by Gail Simone/Ryan Sook
The first and final issues will be oversized, with the first issue including a prologue written by Dan DiDio with art by Keith Giffen, while the final issue will include an epilogue written by Len Wein with art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez.
Cover art for issue #1 will be provided by Bruce Timm (BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES), and a host of fan-favorite artists will provide the standard covers for future issues, with each issue’s interior artist provding the variant cover.
”Through the power of his imagination and seemingly endless energy and creativity, Jack Kirby made not just an indelible Kirby-Crackled mark on the world of comic books, but he ended up shaping the entirety of pop culture as it exists today,” said DC Publisher Jim Lee. “The vastness of Jack’s imagination and his powers as an artist and storyteller remain unmatched to this day. I sincerely doubt we will ever see the likes of Jack ‘the King’ Kirby ever again.”
About DC Entertainment:
DC Entertainment, home to the iconic brands DC (Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, the Flash, etc.), Vertigo (Sandman, Fables, etc.) and MAD, is the creative division charged with strategically integrating across Warner Bros. and Time Warner. DC Entertainment works in concert with many key Warner Bros. divisions to unleash its stories and characters across all media, including but not limited to film, television, consumer products, home entertainment and interactive games. Publishing thousands of comic books, graphic novels and magazines each year, DC Entertainment is one of the largest English-language publishers of comics in the world.
