[MarkWarner]

This week's choice is one which I accidentally bumped across and was very impressed by the comments left. I am hoping it is going to be a big hit with the group.

In a way it follows on from last week's choice, as it is virtually cover to cover Kirby. But this book is certainly aimed at an older audience!

So the choice is Alarming Tales #1 published by Harvey Comics, which can be found here: https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=16924. The story we are concentrating on is the first one "The Cadmus Seed". But I am guessing that most of us will devour this cover to cover!

Happy reading!!

[The Australian Panther]

Well, they say 'Great minds think alike' or 'Fools never differ'. I've had Kirby's run on Alarming Tales in my head as a subject to post about for quite some time. Not only this issue but some of the other issues of Alarming Tales contain ideas that Kirby would later expand on. This must have been a very creative period for him. Kirby is celebrated for his Art and creation of iconic comic characters, but this work demonstrates the strength of his creative ideas. He was clearly widely read, particularly in Science Fiction and I believe he would also have been influenced by radio and the movies. If the chair idea isn't unique to Kirby I'd be interested in hearing about a precedent. He also used the visual image of artificial people being created on a factory production line in a story-line in OMAC. ( These were pre-assembled 'artificial women' packed in suitcases.
The 'Forth Dimension' story shows that Kirby had the same understanding of and appreciation for Surrealist art as Ditko used on Doctor Strange. Makes me wish Kirby had drawn some DR. Strange.  Did Kirby influence Ditko on DR Strange? Who knows.
Just as fascinating to me is that these ideas did not surface during his time at Marvel but he did not use them again till he started work on the 'Forth World'  books for DC. Did he hold them in reserve? or did he keep files of his previous work and go back to them?
Whatever, a definite 10 for the issue.

[K1ngcat]

Yes, it's hard to find anything wrong with vintage Kirby!  I'd come across The Last Enemy somewhere before - probably in an Alan Class reprint, I expect- but the remainder of the issue was all new to me, and very enjoyable.  It's drawn my attention to the rest of the Alarming Tales series, and even though the Kirby input peters out towards the end I was pleased to see art from John Severin, Bob Powell, Al Williamson, and other familiar names. Nice one, Harvey! and thanks Mark for choosing this.

[SuperScrounge]

Everything you need to enjoy stamp collecting - A lobotomy? 

The Cadmus Seed! - Okay. The athlete angle was interesting, but the ending with the Googer seeds felt more like a distraction from the plot.

Logan's Next Life! - Okay. The perfect geometric triangle was annoying. Looked more like a tattoo than a birthmark.

The Fourth Dimension is a Many Splattered Thing! - Okay, although the romance was rushed, but that tends to happen in these older stories.

The Last Enemy! - How many times has this title been used for stories? I seem to keep coming across various stories with this title. Not a bad story, although wouldn't the formula for rat poison have been a better thing to have left them? 

Sealed Doom - A Black Cat text story. Not bad, but a little overly simple. Kind of like a much better written minute mystery.

Blind Fury - Okay.

Donnegan's Daffy Chair - Okay, but man that inventor must be ticked off, shame we didn't see anything more of him afterward.

[crashryan]

Very interesting book. As others have pointed out, Kirby plays with ideas that he developed later in his modern series. I can imagine that as Kirby plotted his Marvel and (especially) his DC stories he often brought back an idea he'd toyed with years before and developed it more thoroughly.

The artwork is strong throughout. The inks are a bit spotty--Kirby wasn't that hot an inker--but at least they aren't marred by the blobby hatching (inherited from Joe Simon?) which spoiled much of his Prize Comics work.

"The Cadmus Seed": A fun story. I especially like the matter-of-fact way the narrator uses to surviving plant men to make a quick buck. The ending is cute but doesn't make sense. If Googer had used his body cells for new seeds, they'd be naked infant Googers like the other plant men...not adult Googers complete with beard and lab coat.

"Logan's Next Life": I've read versions of this story a hundred times. One question: Rex Logan originally had the birthmark and presumably Rex the Dog has it because he's Rex reincarnated as a dog. Now the narrator's second child has the mark. Does that mean Tom's and Mary's baby is a reincarnation of Tom's college roommate? Now that's weird.

"The Fourth Dimension is a Many Splattered Thing": I love this one. It's both unique and frantic. The story moves way too fast, especially the final page. But Kirby's crazy fourth dimension makes up for everything. I especially like how Eddie experiments with changing shapes until he ends up as a pink ball with one ear and two stick legs "to make exploring easier."

"The Last Enemy": Once again Kirby doesn't waste time. The story starts suddenly and barrels along at full speed. The ending bothers me. Drake apparently gives the dogs the secret of the atom bomb. The bulldog general mouths the same platitude that led humans to wipe themselves out with their own A-bombs: "It will be them or us--then there will be peace for all time." In the next-to-last panel Drake seems to say that the animals might well wipe themselves out like humans did, but that's just how it goes.

"Donnegan's Daffy Chair:" Nice art, but the story is a disappointment. The opening is clunky...the marvelous chair's inventor abandons the device in the patent office so Timothy can screw around with it. The inventor never returns, but I'll bet his business card reads "Deus X. Machina." The story ends with a thud, as if Kirby couldn't figure out where to go with it and threw up his hands.

Speaking of fast stories, the two Black Cat text stories take the concept of "compact" to a new level. These barebones tales highlight how absurd it is that no one guesses Linda is the Black Cat.

I must have seen a thousand ads for that Automatic Firing Tripod Machine Gun. Has anyone ever owned one? Though it's labeled "automatic," the text says the gun fires 10 pellets "as fast as you pull the trigger." This suggests that it's a semi-automatic...you must pull the trigger once per pellet.

[MarkWarner]

The first thing which struck me about this book was the art. Even a comic book dunce like me can figure out whoever drew this was very good.

The Cadmus Seed: Great images and although a "standard" comic book story it has an unusual comic bent to it.

Logan's Next Life: To be honest I thought this was pretty run of the mill and weak.

The Fourth Dimension is a Many-Splattered Thing: Well this made up for the previous story in spadefuls. Surreal story and surreal images. This has to be a strong contender for the best reading group story I have read.

The Last Enemy: Some amazing art. Personally I do not think it a good idea to give the instructions of how to make an atomic bomb to anyone. Especially after you have found out that it had wiped out humanity. Maybe I am just a tad too cautious! So saying I am pretty sure that our dogs would not be able to create a bomb even if they had blueprints.

Donnegan's Daffy Chair: Another weak and altogether substandard story. BUT it matters little and I think that this criticism maybe in comparison to the two great stories

Verdict: A MASSIVE HIT! I really enjoyed this book. If you have not read it then do so ASAP.

[Morgus]

This is what summer is all about. Sun, fun, and a vintage comic done by the master, Jack Kirby. Sorry crash, I didn't get to own one of those machine guns either...wanted to, but that just FREAKED mom. But...that chair...didn't Popular Mechanics or someone like that have a rig like this on the cover? A wonderful read.

[misappear]

Pacing on those shorter stories must have been tough.

The art in the fourth dimension story was really neat.  Can't say if I've seen Kirby that abstract before

The face on the military man in the last panel of page 3, Donnegan's Chair story was so iconic Kirby, I "wowed" outloud.

I picked up a lot of this Harvey stuff when Half Price Books had a slew of the PS Artbook hardcovers for $12.95 each. Wish I woulda bought more at the time.  Nothing like holding paper 

[paw broon]

I've been holding off because I am worried about being the odd one out on this.  I have to admit that I'm not the world's biggest Kirby fan.  Yes, I know the quality of art is excellent, despite the inking in places, but I don't get the same kick out of his work as many others obviously do. I much prefer Kirby's work on Captain America and early F.F.  but then, i am a superhero nut.
The story I enjoyed the most was "The Fourth Dimension is a Many-Splattered Thing" for the surreal images.  The actual plot seems to me a bit threadbare but the art makes up for that.
As Australian Panther points out, the ideas of the, what seems to have developed into, The New Gods chair and the artificial people which resemble the later Omac idea, are very interesting. But I'm glad Kirby didn't have a go at Dr. Strange.
A decent read overall, if a bit lacking in the story/plot department.

[narfstar]

I am the guy who recommended a feature story for the reading group rather than the a whole book. So I read Cadmus Seed. After reading the comments I had to read 4th Dimension also. Kirby art is Kirby art, 'nuff said. Cadmus was a straight out humor piece to me and could have been in Mad magazine. If I were to consider it a scifi piece then it would have been a complete failure. Since I laughed at the little lab coated Dr's at the end I consider it a successful humor piece. 4th Dimension was almost as whacky. I did enjoy the art. The comment that if he knew about the shape changing he would not have gone through was not very realistic. I can think of very few people who would not pay huge sums of money to jump through. Of course this occurred before the LSD seventies. LSD would never have caught on if the 4th Dimension were available.

[John Kerry]

All the stories seemed familiar to me. A quick check and I discovered that all were reprinted in Harvey's Shocking Tales Digest which I have. Cadmus Seed reminded me of The Project in Jimmy Olsen which was devoted to cloning from individual cells. Although Kirby just called it The Project I believe later writers referred to it as The Cadmus Project. Enjoyed this book. I will definitely check out the other issues of this series that are on this site.

[EHowie60]

I like the intro with the main character of the chair story introducing the others.

The Cadmus Seed really moves fast. I was expecting there'd be something horrible about the plant creatures, like they wither and die after a few months or something similar. But nope, plant football team! ...Hey there are twenty survivors right? So not quite enough for a team. How'd you like to be one of two humans on a team of unstoppable plant men? I love the various shocked expressions our main character gets.

Logan's Next Life: rather wordy, but hey, it's gotta fit in two pages.

The Fourth Dimension: Love this surrealism! Those forms Eddie takes are really wild; Kirby must have had fun with this one. But after a page suddenly he's normal again? And yeah the last page is crazy fast. I want to read more of this guy's love life with a fourth-dimensional Martian.

The Last Enemy: I love how nonchalant the rat is. "Oh, a member of an extinct race? No big deal." Best line: "You didn't get here with a pogo stick!"

The secret of Donnegan's chair is "no one knows"? Sort of a let down.

All in all, this is a decent book. But with the possible exception of "The Last Enemy", every story here feels cramped. The ideas are good, there's just not enough room for them. The art though, that's solid throughout.

[Captain Audio]

"How'd you like to be one of two humans on a team of unstoppable plant men?"

Sounds like a premise for a series, crime fighting plantmen led by a pair of super scientist/adventurers.

I liked the entire book, especially the interdimensional story which reminded me of the first episode of Twilight Zone I ever watched "Little Girl Lost".