FanTastic Two - No Foolin'!July 1st 2005

Well here we are in July and I've got the Calendar ready - practically on time... (I realize its a Fluke)... The thing is, this started with an Idea of Walt's, to do something concerning the new PhanTasic Phore Movie and suggesting the Invisible Costume gag -- so I'd sketched up his idea, trying for sort of a Kirby-like poses and composition, - then set it aside for other matters... A day or two back I picked it up again - realizing that July was almost upon us - cleaned up the pencils an scanned em in - then cobbled together the layout to see how things might fit... Problem was, there were too many characters and too much to do to get it all together for even a few days late... Then this "Fantastic Two" idea occurred to me, which is a real cheat - but hey, it was fairly easy, (neatly conveyed the central theme of these calendars), and with it, I've got the thing together more or less on time for you..!

By the way, for those of you who'd like to see the sketches for Walt's original idea - I'm posting those also:

Right Here!

They will probably remain unfinished though - unless perhaps there's a 2nd FF movie sometime in the future...

For whatever it's worth, I recall reading Lee & Kirby's original FF Comic and wondering to myself, How did they ever find the Chutzpah to label this "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine"?!? Not even the 2nd Greatest, not the Third, not the Forth... Maybe the 57th Greatest... But the "Greatest"?? C'Mon..!! I mean, it was okay, but not even in the same league as, say, Ditko's Spiderman - or myself, I loved to peruse Joe Kubert's Sergeant Rock... both Ditko and Kubert could really put the impression of motion into stationary graphix! And though the time period I'm speaking of was back in the 60s, -- I wouldn't discover the comic that probably above all others really would deserve the label as "World's Greatest Comic Magazine" till a couple of decades later when it was reprinted from its original run in the early 50s -- and that would be: Harvey Kurtzman's "Two Fisted Tales" (or: "Frontline Combat", also Published by EC Comics) If you haven't read 'em, then you've missed an experience..!

But I suppose that's neither here nor there... So might as well sign off for now... JQ