Week 3- Comic Strip

  

Sky Masters of the Space Force is an interesting comic strip, both in the wide landscape of comic strips and in the history of comic books, particularly the Silver Age. It's a daily continuity strip that flows smoothly through its story. There are no obvious cliffhangers, so reading it as a collection feels more like reading a graphic novel than reading a collection. It's a fairly complex story that's heavily influenced by the “space race” of Cold War era America, and I can imagine jumping into the middle of the story would be very alienating.

The art is very detailed, especially for a daily strip, and really gives it a grounded feel. However, of course this is Jack Kirby, so there are plenty of big poses and insane looking machines, so it’s still very much escapist. It’s fascinating seeing jack Kirby’s art with so few words. Yes, this is a wordy strip, but compared to his work with writers like Stan Lee this is a picture book. Kirby’s art is great at establishing emotion and tone, and Wallace Wood’s inking early on is fantastic. Wood does an excellent job capturing the detail and sense of motion Kirby brings to all his art. Later on, however, the inking becomes much more simplified, and the screen tones from earlier strips are gone entirely. Kirby’s pencils and compositions do a lot of the heavy lifting at this point, as the inking looks more rushed overall. It’s understandable of course, considering it’s a daily strip that’s already packed with detail, but it is a shame.

As the strip goes on, we see Kirby’s style evolve more towards how his art for Marvel looked. There are familiar faces and compositions that we see him use a lot during his time with Marvel and DC. These are the Kirby faces that made DC force inkers to redraw his Superman faces. Kirby was a big believer in, “if it ‘aint broke, don’t fix it,” and we see that in play here.

Sky Masters of the Space Force is a strip that feels like no other. It feels more like a comic book released in chunks rather than strips made to be released daily. Of course, all continuity strips have an aspect of that, but this one especially feels that way. It’s clearly a precursor to the work Kirby would do at Marvel, and an off-shoot of Challengers of the Unknown.