As for the Kirby debate, his style certainly takes some getting used to, especially anything 70′s or later. Kirby’s style isn’t great for subtle effects or delicate emotions, but for raw power and action. Who could have pulled off the New Gods, The Demon, or OMAC like Kirby? Likewise, Ditko’s increasingly cartoony art doesn’t seem to fit in well with the more realistic superhero work of the late 70′s and 80s, but again, I always liked Ditko and appreciated the change of pace when he did the occasionally Hulk story, or his Machine Man work (ironically, Ditko came after Kirby on Machine Man). My favorite Ditko series is still Shade, the Changing Man.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate more realistic artists. I also love Neal Adams, Mike Grell, John Buscema, Michael Golden, etc. Ultimately, a lot of it seems to have to do with matching the appropriate artist and style with the story being told. And if the artist is also the writer, then you’ve got an idiosyncratic story that goes with idiosyncratic art. Both Kirbv and Ditko came up with some pretty great ideas, but I think they both benefited from having someone else script their plots.

Fortunately a few unaltered Kirby Superman faces survived here and there, like in a DC Presents where Superman met the Challengers (the art duties in that ish were shared between Kirby and Toth, funnily enough!), or in Super Powers (based on the Super Friends cartoon).

I think Kirby’s style is pretty. It’s rugged and square, but also graceful and skilled. I didn’t see that right away, when I started reading comics; it became more beautiful to me the more I understood about comics art (and art in general). Not only could Kirby make anything real more beautiful than in reality, but he could also draw anything imaginary, no matter how wild or strange.

I liked Steve Ditko’s art on Rom, but I think that was partly due to the inker cleaning up some of Ditko’s more exaggerated and cartoonish aspects. When I try to read other things by Ditko I don’t see the same level of smoothness and control that I saw on Rom.

The Superman above is actually pretty good… I mean, yeah, I’d have an easier time believing it was Bruce Banner wearing Superman’s cape than Superman himself, but at least he could pass for human. Unlike, say, Turpin, whom Kirby generally drew looking like he had been in some kind of horrible industrial accident. For some characters like Desaad, it worked. For others… well, you wondered how they went to the grocery store without people screaming and running away in panic. (To be fair, they probably did for Desaad also. But he would have liked that.)

I’d like to add one other redrawn face instance here: when a three–issue run of the DR. 13 feature in GHOSTS was a direct sequel to the Spectre stories by Fleisher and Aparo in ADVENTURE, the character of Earl Crawford was obviously redrawn, and a look at one of Aparo’s renderings will show you he looked too much like 13 for both to appear in the same story, so somebody—I suspect Vince Colletta, but am just guessing—redrew Earl, it being Terry’s strip. Why it wasn’t caught earlier, I don’t know.

Also–Brian, I’d always heard that many of the Jimmy Olsen faces were redrawn as well. Is that true?

Absurd! Yes Superman’s face was redrawn but nothing else, or at least that’s the implication here. And being that the series was JIMMY OLSEN, I’d bet that Supes didn’t appear all THAT often. Keep things in accurate perspective, for Pete’s sake!

Today, it’s very unlikely that such retouching would occur.

Except to John Byrne in his recent run on Superman

I’m sure that’s what DC thought.

If I were a comics fan of the time, I’d consider this an insult to my intelligence.

“The comics world was a lot different 35 years ago than it is today. We are much more aware of and driven by fans and the desires of fans, and much more in tune with holding to the creator’s vision. Today, it’s very unlikely that such retouching would occur. At the time (and with Jack on the other coast and no FedEx or computers to hasten changes and corrections), adjusting the art to match the model sheets was the right thing to do, based on the business models and such in place then.”

Well, yeah. Not disagreeing. I’m just sayin’ that those particular practices were helluva dumb.

After the “Kirby is Coming” house ads, and given the general sales of Jimmy Olsen at the time, (I think. There’s an Urban Legend that this was DC’S lowest selling title.) it’s fairly safe to say that the major draw on the book at this time was Kirby’s art.

From THAT POV, it doesn’t make much sense to change it.

(Also: By and large I think that Kirby’s Forth World books were much stronger than his average work for Marvel. I’m not arguing that Fantastic Four was as good as superhero comics have been ever for nigh-on two years, but the rest of the Lee/Kirby creations fall well below that standard. And many are downright bad. (See: Early issues of X-men.)

* Fantastic, dynamic, forward-looking, and full of ideas Kirby’s art may have been, but “pretty” isn’t a word that gets attached very often to his art, especially his faces. Kirby purists would always prefer to see the art as-drawn, but the general populace would usually prefer to have the art “prettied” up, brought in line with what the expect from similar product (ie, the rest of DC’s line).

* The comics world was a lot different 35 years ago than it is today. We are much more aware of and driven by fans and the desires of fans, and much more in tune with holding to the creator’s vision. Today, it’s very unlikely that such retouching would occur. At the time (and with Jack on the other coast and no FedEx or computers to hasten changes and corrections), adjusting the art to match the model sheets was the right thing to do, based on the business models and such in place then.

Decrying the actions of decades ago based on how the industry works today is ignorant. (Being saddened by those action, that’s a different matter.)

Superman definitely wasn’t created “well before Kirby picked up [his] pencil.”

“…to draw Superman” is the implied second half of that.

In the Kirby original, Superman has an ominous look (furrowed brown, frown, darkened eyes), mainly because the information he’s imparting relates to prophesies of destruction. Yet in the altered image, Supes is smiling. It’s only one panel, but it completely alters the character’s reaction to the story surrounding the panel as well as going against the character’s established nature and personality.