after the auction, my friend aaron sent me a link to an article by james romberger from 2008 relating kirby's fourth world books to the psychedelic movement: ken kesey and the merry pranksters, LSD, etc.; but what was more interesting was that romberger sourced the main part of the collage - a gigantic 2 page spread of jimi hendrix shot by raymundo de larrain using mirrors (i think), and featuring at least 18 images of hendrix within a kaleidoscopic landscape - published in the october 9, 1969 issue of life magazine (which i quickly purchased off ebay).

honestly, i can't begin to explain how unbelievable it is that here on this piece of paper is the coming together of two of my earliest childhood heroes: kirby got me into comics, and hendrix got me into music. so, at least for me, this piece of paper is certainly full of a hell of a lot of mojo.

as to kirby's process, every collage seems to offer a different understanding of how decisions were made in these things. from the few i've seen in person (i own 3), it would seem that kirby kept scraps or old magazines in an archive (or junk box) that he would continually mine for parts. (i believe there are fragments of a single image in this collage and the hunger dogs collage, but i am not 100% sure).

what's interesting to me is that kirby used the entire two-page spread of hendrix as the entire atmosphere - while specifically covering every one of hendrix's faces. i was very surprised, after looking at the entire issue of life magazine that the other elements in the collage (the car, the tracks, the chute, and the partial skulls or fossils or stones in the upper right and left) did not come from the same issue; leading me to cry "BUNK" to those people who think the collages came out of speed and/or laziness. what's super cool about looking at the collage, as well as the magazine a major portion of it came out of, is seeing part of the process of his decision making, allowing those of us who care about this stuff to gain a better understanding of how specific his image choices were when composing... i.e. his decisions were hardly lazy.

what's also interesting is that the dialog on the printed page (the art is missing the top text panel and one word balloon) not only emphasizes the psychedelic feel of these moments in the story, but that the "daffy light shows" and "nightmare of kaleidoscopic form and color", is totally related to the found imagery he chose to work with... adding one more layer of intention in the piece...

or maybe i should just ignore all of this stuff, and just be happy that once this puppy is framed and on my wall, i will be able to look at it everyday.

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