Jack Kirby's Spirit World #2

A while back, I posted the first issue of Spirit World, one of two b/w magazines Jack Kirby did for DC that were released disinterestedly in 1970, to barely any notice at all.
Spirit World and In The Days Of The Mob lasted one issue each, DC weren't interested in promoting them, so no one bought them, and they vanished without trace.
Of course, this is Kirby we're talking about, so nothing vanishes without trace, and Jack ( being Jack ) had already produced most of a second issue of Spirit World before the axe fell.
Not one to waste anything, DC coloured and published those strips in the first 3 issues of Weird Mystery Tales and the 6th issue of Forbidden Tales Of Dark Mansion.
This stuff is as mad and as brilliant as those in Spirit World # 1, maybe more so, and deserve to be seen, so here we go with what would've formed the bulk of the second issue.

Jack Kirby's Spirit World

One of the many ways Jack Kirby tried to drag comics kicking and screaming into the future while at his time at DC, was the idea for a new magazine line. Not just with larger scale Black & White versions of their characters like Marvel's, or just horror like Warren, but a whole line of all kinds of genres, and with higher production values, more comparable to National Lampoon than Creepy or Monsters Unleashed.

The creative people at DC loved the idea, the people with the purse strings weren't so keen.

Eventually, the concept morphed down to just one issue each of gangster book in The Days Of The Mob and this, probably one of Kirby's strangest projects. Both magazines were released disinterestedly in 1971, and promptly vanished without trace.

With assistants Mark Evanier & Steve Sherman, Kirby produced the entire book solo ( the DC bean counters stating there was no money for other writers or artists for the venture ), and though at the time, especially compared to the variety you got in a Warren book, it realistically wouldn't've stood a chance, now it's a welcome mess of Kirby at his bat-shit craziest.

Behind a Kirby / Neal Adams cover, you get a bunch of comic strips, not all of them completely successful. The ostensible host of the book, Dr. Maas, isn't in the same league as DC's horror hosts Cain or Abel, nor is he meant to be, though the best stories ( The Screaming Woman, House Of Horror ) do have some wonderfully creepy imagery in Jack's blocky Fourth World style, and are actual stories rather than brief incidents.

Of course, Kirby had done mystery comics before, Black Magic for instance, but this is a step beyond those kinds of books, and anyone who has trouble with Kirby's writing style is going to have a tough time here, as this is pure, undiluted Jack, and an unwary reader not skilled in comics styles would struggle even more, I think.

The fumetti and collages are even more insane, my favourites being the telepathic journey to another planet Children Of The Flaming Wheel and the beautiful, eerie poster Souls. Imagine what Jack would've done with our technology now.

Oh that's right, you can't imagine that. You're not Jack Kirby.