But what's that? That plaintive growl from the depths of the forest? My copy of the Devil Dinosaur Omnibus arrived today, demanding my attentions.
(Cover art by Jack Kirby)
Devil Dinosaur! The story of a roaring Tyrannosaurus Rex and his pet human-like-ape-thing, Moon-Boy. Or was that backwards? And sometimes Moon-Boy referred to Devil as his brother. The bone-crunching adventures of a big thunder lizard dragging around a hairy little creature who never did quite grasp the first person pronoun! Jack Kirby presenting us with cosmic god spacemen from above! Dinosaur-on-dinosaur violence! Kirby's version of the Garden of Eden?!
Devil Dinosaur wasn't always red like a fire engine -- when he was a little baby T-Rex, a rival tribe of hairy ape-men killed his mother and siblings, then burnt Devil! Bastards! Well, they'd just discovered fire, see, and they were probably all fired up from this weird black monolith that showed up the other week and taught them how to smash things. Luckily, Moon-Boy happened to climbing around at the fringes and tended to the dinosaur's wounds. But, don't you see? Devil Dinosaur is tragic, and follows the Batman mold of tormented heroes with dead parents.
But, it isn't all DOOM-SMASH-RAGE with Devil and Moon-Boy. Occasionally, Devil Dinosaur finds himself lost in the grips of existential angst:
(Jack Kirby again)
Comments (2)
Hm ... The art kind of reminds me of Bill Waterson's stuff. Neat.
Posted by joy | January 10, 2008 12:19 AM
Posted on January 10, 2008 00:19
I would fully expect Watterson to list Kirby as one of his inspirations. Kirby is a fairly pervasive comic keystone artist.
Posted by ben | January 15, 2008 12:14 AM
Posted on January 15, 2008 00:14