Rating:  -
I'm a huge Kirby fan, and I was really looking forward to this. Got it today, and I'm gigantically disappointed. I think my daily newspaper is printed on better quality paper. This is also not an omnibus by any stretch of the word, more like a quarter-bus. I feel cheated. I've already committed to buying the second volume, but I won't buy any more. And I definitely won't buy anything this expensive from DC again sight unseen. I'm going to have to my hands on it before I buy.
Rating:  -
Above and beyond the genius of the King and the amazing way he takes existing characters and weaves them in with brand new ones, I have to defend the publisher's choice of paper, in fact, I wish to heartily applaud it. I was really happy when I noticed it.
Maybe this is something only a true fan would know and not just a collector of things "archival" and everlasting, but one of the essential elements of buying and reading comics was the smell and texture of the paper. The deep memories that are stirred by the smell and feel of freshly-printed comics on newsprint does something that no perfectly presented high gloss paper ever could. Okay, you've grown up and you want to ennoble a pop art form from your childhood into a new kind of high folk art, but even Rauschenberg made his combines with the notion that they would be falling apart in a few decades. Let the museums and owners fret about the condition of the pieces. The art pieces are living entities that will disintegrate over time like everything. Sure, you're angry that the publisher could charge so much for newsprint, but unless you read it while you're eating greasy snack food or popping those pesky neck zits, it shouldn't be a problem. And if you paid full price, you're not trying hard enough. Do you "love" any of the new titles the way they're being presented now? The computer perfection, the oversaturated colors? Where's the room for my imagination? Why do I feel like I'm just being sold another videogame or movie or bankrolling someone's screenplay-in-progress at $3 an issue? I don't think the publisher had my sensory triggers in mind when the paper was chosen, but it's an accidental boon and I'm glad.
Love the comics as they really were and be satisfied the colors are so sharp and that printers dots weren't also part of it. That might have just been too much for your delicate sensibilities or the resale value of your Roy Liechtenstein prints.
Rating: -
I LOVE Kirby's work and wanted to share these stories with my sons but the quality is so poor that this book would never stand up to repeat readings. The pulpy newsprint paper is so thin I'm afraid it will rip, and I'm sure the glue binding will eventually fall apart. DC solicited this as an "Omnibus", which is a complete misrepresentation and not what the comics market has established as the Omnibus format (see Marvel for examples). People who buy this will probably not want to buy continuing volumes. Wait until DC reprints this on better paper. I wanted to put no stars but the system makes you list at least one.
Rating: -
It seems Kirby's Fourth World saga is never destined to receive the kind of quality printing the King -- and his legion of fans -- had hoped for.
I thought this project would be the one -- hard-backed, color, chronological reprintings of Kirby's Fourth World saga as it unfolded in the pages of Jimmy Olsen, The Forever People, The New Gods, and Mister Miracle. But the paper quality here leaves much to be desired, definitely inferior in quality to the reprinting of Kirby's other DC work, "Kamandi," which is largely regarded as inferior to the Fourth World material but which received better treatment as part of DC's Archives Editions series.
But enough about the paper. After all, it is what is printed on it that counts, and that's why I'm still giving this volume four stars. These are the earliest chapters of King Kirby's great work, the grand saga of demi-gods and demons from other planets and dimensions battling across the earth and stars. As many other readers have pointed out, this is primal comics, man, as fresh and vital today as when it spilled out of Kirby's feverish brain and pencil 30-plus years ago.
Some readers see parallels between this and George Lucas's Star Wars franchise, accusing Lucas of cribbing material (the masked Vader, the father/son connection between Orion and Darkseid, the Source/Force similarities) from Kirby. I don't see it myself, but I do believe both men were drawing inspiration from the same well -- namely, myth and classical literature as expounded by Joseph Campbell.
I encountered Kirby's later Marvel work first, including "The Eternals," where he reworked some of the New Gods motifs yet again, so I tend to prefer it to what is seen here. But that is a slight preference, indeed, and readers new to the saga should not hesitate to shell out the cash needed to buy this, especially with the Amazon discount that brings it down to around $30.
Rating:  -
Everyone knows how essential these stories are, and it's wonderful to have them in a nice hardcover volume, in COLOR for the first time since they've been collected. It's a definite improvement over those budget B&W "New Gods" trades that DC's offered for years.
But the PAPER - at $50, in hardcover, "archival" editions, why are these printed on Newsprint-quality paper!? Just from turning the pages, the ink was already starting to come off on my hands, guaranteeing that in just a few years' time, the images will be blurry and smeared, the paper turning yellow. Why aren't these printed on glossy paper!? I could understand if these were cheaper softcover editions for $19.99 or something, but we're talking $50 hardcover "library-quality" editions. It's a major, major misstep that has me re-thinking purchasing the forthcoming editions.
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