Tales to Astonish 78 page 3 – Kirby and Everett Incredible Hulk story 1966

Jade Giant gem! 

Ha ha! Green Goliath Gets Going.

Classic Kirby square fingers and toes

So true. Those spatula fingers might make it easier for the army to spot the Hulk coming.

So classic! Everett over Kirby has a beautiful finishing touch. And that Hulk panel is a showstopper. Amazing page!

Thanks, Kavi. That was the panel I bought it for, but I really came to appreciate Everett's crisp inks on the rest of it.

So very clean.... It's cool to see these two artist's working together.

And they worked together far too few times, sadly.

Grail pièce by the master - congrats paul !!!

Thanks my friend!

I visited that shop in the early 80s as well but I wasn't collecting art yet - damn it! Love the Everett face in panel 2!

The 'better' pages were in a big poster spinner display at the back of the shop, if you recall that. A few Kirby and Ditko '60s pages (Tales to Astonish, Tales of Suspense). I couldn't ever stretch to the Ditko ones - they were about £10-15 more expensive than the Kirby ones, so beyond my budget. Yes, I am still kicking myself now over everything I left.

Agreed.  As awesome as the flying bulldozer in the last panel is, that face in the 2nd panel is too cool by half!

A smashing good page! What a cobo - Kirby and Everett! Congrats!

Thanks! I wish there were more pages out there by Kirby and Everett.

2 Legends!  Fantastic!  Congrats! 

Thanks!

What a great artist combo!  the bombasity of Kirby is given a refined touch to give Hulk's angry facial features a distinct look!

True. And it was the look of the Hulk the first time I saw an image of him. So perhaps I'll always think of the Hulk with those features.

Now you have to track down your brother's bike.

Ha ha. Yes, I'm afraid those cut-outs - and the bike - are long gone. I may still have a frisbee onto which I stuck a cut-out of the Human Torch, though.

Great early Hulk vs the military page. Love these classic confrontations! And that bottompanel with the Hulk bounding through the air with a couple THOOM! THOOM! leaps! These early page with the editorial comments in the margins are a wonderful peak into the early days of the Marvel method process. Congrats and thanks for sharing!

Thanks Dave! Yes, the margin notes are always intriguing.

Kirby - Everett combo did an extraordinary comobo. A very classic page full of Kirby's imaginary. I find it so beautiful. That last panels is an emerald, a green gem ;)

Ha ha! Thanks, Toni. The army might not have seem him as a gem, but I guess the readers did.

What a magical artistical combination. Beautiful piece!

Thanks Stephan!

wow Kirby Hulk page!!!! Huge congrats!!!

Many thanks! That's special coming from someone with such an amazing Hulk collection.

I love it! Full disclosure, as my name suggests I am indeed Paul's brother and the owner if the now legendary bike, and was there in Comic Showcase when Paulnbought the page. As I recall the price was somewhere between £60 and £70 whch seemed like a fortune back then, and much as I loved it I did wonder if he was making a rash mistake. It shows what I know!

Yes, that price sounds about right. And thanks to your detective work on the UK reprint comic, the panels you cut out were indeed from Mighty World of Marvel 31. By a bizarre coincidence, the three panels cut out were from story page 8 of this very comic! So I unknowingly bought a page from the same story that was in one of the very first comics we read as children. If only we could find that bike.

Absolutely beautiful...that last panel is amazing! Major congratulations on a real treasure!

Many thanks! Glad to be sharing it after it hiding it from the light of day for several decades.

Remember Comic Showcase where i bought so many comicbooks while i was in London as a teen...these school exchange programs were such wonderful opportunities for this young crazy collector back in the days ...you just brought back so many cool memories...though i never saw art for sale by then... Great page btw and huge congrats for an excellent early purchase !!

Thanks, Romain! I'm not sure when art started to appear, but they put the better pages into large spinner displays with the posters. The other pages were just in a box under a table - so you had to know where to look. Unfortunately, you may just have been there too early in the shop's history.

Wow you got this in the mid 80s?  Art prices were a whoooooole lot different back then weren't they.  Love this page though.  Organic energy, Plan H, is Banner a traitor?, Talbot's and the army's obsession with the Hulk, and that fantastic last panel!  All great stuff

Thanks! Things really were different back then. Much less of a sense of needing to get things while you could, or that prices would rise much. If only we knew back then... the time machine thing... etc. etc. But I do feel lucky to have had the opportunity to buy what I did.

All batteries... OPEN FIRE!! on an awesome Kirby/Everett Hulk classic, but c'mon Talbot your Banner replacement's last name is ZAXON!  Congrats!

Thanks, Joe! Yes, Talbot can't spot a villain standing right in front of him, holding up a sign saying "I'm the villain".

This is wonderful, wow! 

Thanks! That's much appreciated from a big Hulk collector.

When 2 giants meet ! That last panel ! Iconic and gorgeous ! And you managed to keep it after all these years.

Thanks Jerry! Well, I'm a bit of a hoarder, really. I kept everything. I will have to sell come pages at some point... but not this one!

They now have tablets to calm down those self described Hulk symptoms in panel 5. 

Ha ha. Yes, it's like Hulk's version of the Trainspotting "Choose Life" monologue. "You choose television. You choose big house. Hulk choose jump! Hulk choose tablets make Hulk feel better, not Banner!".

Thanks! Yes, Hulk steals the show. Maybe it's jealousy that drives the army.

The Kirby + Everett dream team in action.  Hats off to both for laying the strongest foundations for those to follow.

Good point! Others ran with very different ideas of the Hulk, but the terror of the beast was a (mostly) enduring thread.

Sensational page, Paul!  Soooo cool and special to have an example of these two artistic titans teaming up, and that bottom panel image could be (should be?) a widescreen poster (it looks like even the saguaro cactus is recoiling in fear as the Hulk springs on by :) ).  Yup - right with you in being transfixed by the truly Frankensteinian brow Everett gave to old Green Genes (such a unique look), and as much as panel 5 is the obvious money shot, I'm really drawn to panel 3 and its excellent balance and draftsmanship; a beautifully-rendered army panel, with the personnel, vehicle, building, and backgrounds just looking -great-.  A fantastic comic panel on a fantastic comic page!  Congrats on this one, Paul - a real beauty!

Thanks Jason! I hadn't ever focused on the frightened cactus!

Hulk by Kirby! Epic!!

Wonderful page from Bill Everett's 1965 return-to-comics story! I have page 7 that precedes David's bicycle adornment page 8. This was a quirky and unique run of issues, the likes of which we will never see again. Glad to see you still have it!

Yes - the "Bicycle adornment page" - I love it. It should be known as that in Marvel history! Thanks, Sean.

The great Bill Everett working with the all time King of Comics Jack Kirby. Someone pick me up off the floor I'm woosy. Everett's distinct touch is seen particularly in panel 2. and he adds a nice touch to the brooding, massive body of the Hulk as only could be drawn by the legendary Jack Kirby.

Very cool bottom panel of the Hulk, huge congrats on this great Kirby/Everett page.