i.
Seventy years on, Starman & Monolith are a powered duo unlike any other. They’re earthy: fond of food and drink and cigarettes and a bit of a scrap. Properly working class- a private detective and his construction worker best friend. Patriotic and loyal to their friends, but absolutely anarchic in a way that makes most of the Avengers look stuffy.
And funny. Very, very funny. Not in the ‘this comic has dated hilariously’ way of many early strips, not in the crude ‘we’re writing for children, so we’ll make this obvious’ way of too many authors. But properly intelligently funny- satirising politics and economic and American culture and foreign countries. Plus, of course, the puns…
Seventy years after their creation in 1949, it’s a good time to look at the extraordinary creative partnership and the first decade of work that gave rise to these icons of the comic strip.
ii.
Jack Kirby was and remains the great titan of American comic artists. If he had stopped working in 1948, he would still go down in the history of superhero comics alone as the co-creator of Captain America and Manhunter and the reinvigorated Sandman. But he had a wider interest than that. In 1948 he was working with his long time collaborator Joe Simon on the bestselling Young Romance line that was helping to transform comics from a medium tied to the pulp genres of spec-fic, horror and superheroes into the wide-ranging stories of today.
He had some superheroes left in him, however.
While Kirby seemed to be riding high, he was becoming discontent with his work. Simon and Kirby were becoming involved in a contract dispute with their publishers at Crestwood comics. Though Simon would continue to work there, Kirby was disenchanted and looking for other projects.
That same year, a corporal freshly demobbed from the French army was back in New York. Very broke, very unemployed and very talented, René Goscinny was sending his sketch portfolio to every studio in the city. A decent artist with a wicked sense of humour, Goscinny’s career highlight had been illustrating a children’s book, The Girl with the Golden Eyes. He hadn’t repeated that success in America, however, and it is quite possible that he would have soon returned to his native France if he had not accepted his friend Harvey Kurtzman’s invitation to a party one night in August 1949. That night, at a nameless bar in Brooklyn, a dozen of the best young comics writers in the city drank and boasted and argued- and the young Goscinny was introduced to Jack Kirby.
Later legend would have it that they clicked from the start, with Goscinny impressing Kirby with both his honest admiration for his work and his willingness to poke wicked fun at it. But in truth, while they liked each other there was no great connection. Goscinny was not even a journeyman, while Kirby was a star artist.
The next year however, Kirby left Crestwood comics. He remained close to Simon, but Kirby had a young family to support and Young Romance was not paying the bills.
He made the bold decision to launch his own studio, Pilot Comics. This artist-driven publishing house would be something new- a serious attempt to put out quality publications where the senior management would also be involved in the creative process.
It was probably Goscinny’s continued lack of success that made him an attractive partner to Kirby. Goscinny had found some work as a jobbing artist, but it was clear to those that knew him that he had a talent and drive that were not being met. He jumped at the chance for regular work at a new publisher, collaborating with the great Kirby. Both also knew that he would very much be the junior partner.
Now they just needed something to collaborate on.
iii.
Kirby was reluctant to get back to superheroes. In the late forties, the genre was on the slump after becoming oversaturated in the war years. Besides, Kirby had just proven that he could do good work outside the genre- why get back in the box? It was Goscinny who had the idea that there was space to work with and poke fun at the already familiar conventions of the genre. They could create superheroes whose adventures were both thrilling and genuinely funny, and whose journeys could allow them to spoof all the burgeoning genres of the comic stands.
The subversion began with the physicality of the characters. Starman looked nothing like the other two fisted stars. Barely five feet tall, with a ridiculous blonde moustache and a dogeared cigarette, even the character’s famous winged helm served to accentuate just how unprepossessing he was. A flask of superserum hung at his belt to give him a temporary burst of strength, but the character had to solve most of his problems with his wits.
It was the sidekick who looked like the classic lead- Monolith had the massive height and bulging muscles of Captain America, though the Captain had certainly never had a paunch to rival the stonecutter. Even Monolith’s origin story was an affectionate sendup of Kirby and Simon’s most famous creation. Stan Lee later said that he was sitting across the table from Simon when Kirby’s old collaborator read the famous pages showing the young boy wandering into a ‘Professor Irsking’ laboratory and falling into a vat of supersoldier serum. Lee claimed that Simon couldn’t decide whether to laugh or swear and compromised on choking instead.
Neither would the characters have secret identities. They lived in the East Village, advertising their presence to the neighbours and taking what work they could to get by. Sometimes their adventures took them globetrotting, but often they stayed close to home fighting the criminals and capitalists who encroached on the neighbourhood from all sides.
Goscinny later said that if there was one aspect of their creation he would have changed, it was their famous taste for hot dogs. Not because it didn’t work: the famous panel of Monolith eating an entire stall of New York’s most infamous streetfood would be copied by advertisers into the twenty first century. No, Goscinny explained- if he and Kirby had known just how many hot dogs they’d be served at official functions over the next few decades, then the two Jewish creators might have opted for something different!
The final ingredient of the character’s success was their support cast. Kirby firmly vetoed Goscinny’s idea to give every character a pun-based name, though a few slipped through. Julian Kaiser, the mobbed up businessman is one of the great rogues of comics- clever, ruthless and with a genuine sense of honour that allowed him to be a gripping antagonist and occasionally a reluctant ally of the heroes. Doctor Sigmund Chaud, the eccentric medical man who created the super serum is a fine take on the classic Merlin figure. The brawling news vendor and the car mechanic, the local councillor who never quite manages to balance on his podium, the beautiful Anna Curé- they all create the sense of the neighbourhood as a real, if exaggerated community that was in its own way a more concrete setting than the gothic vastness of Gotham city ever was. They would also be allowed to change over the years, giving the satire room to grow. Sinatra style crooner Charlie Charles Fournix would become Chuck Sonic, rock and roller, then later CC Fournix, lead singer of the Bards. Of all these characters, however, none was more beloved with fans than Monolith’s terrier, the aptly named Dog.
It is striking how many of these elements were already in place when Pilot Comics launched with Issue 1, Starman of Manhattan. Kirby and Goscinny hoped for a good reception. They were not remotely expecting what they got.
iv.
Jack Kennedy once remarked that ‘The President has only two rivals: Mr Khruschev, and Starman.’ In just over a decade, Kirby’s gamble on a new character had first risen to the level of the established superheros then decisively overtaken them. Starman and Monolith were perfectly positioned to take advantage of the still existing fanbase of superheros while picking up a much wider cross section of readers- younger children, adults who enjoyed the wordplay, and comics readers who enjoyed a nominal tale of heroism that in practice could be any type of adventure the story required.
It also helped that the early fifties were a time of cultural anxiety about the moral content of comics strips. Authors and publishers alike feared the consequences of censorship. The legal threat was fairly low, but the spectre of a Comics Code shutting down entire publishing houses was very real; people worried that just as the Hayes Code had shut out entire types of story from Hollywood, the same might happen in the funny pages.
The fact that the most popular new comic in America was a gentle defence of a community helping each other, where the violence never really exceeded that of a Popeye strip certainly helped take the sting out of the moral panic. Starman’s success both brought superhero comics back into the forefront of the medium, but also gave cover for the other genres to continue more quietly at the back of the newsstand.
Kirby was delighted with the success of Pilot Comics, and somewhat amazed at the creative talent he felt he’d unearthed in Goscinny. It became clear within a few years however that Kirby could not retain control of the studio and devote himself to one comic. By 1954, Kirby had stepped away from management and editing to become a kind of roving ‘artist in chief,’ drawing the occasional issue of Starman with Goscinny, but largely devoting himself to new projects with Joe Simon who joined Pilot in 1953.
Goscinny’s second creative partner was a young Belgian immigrant, Morris Beverly. It was Beverly who created ‘Lightning Luke,’ the gunslinger who could outshoot his shadow and the second great creation of Pilot Comics. The two of them alternated issues of Starman and Luke, largely as inspiration struck. By the mid fifties, when Carl Banks joined the studio Pilot was firmly established as the great hot house of funny family comics in America.
In 1959, Pilot put out a ten year anniversary issue. Kirby and Goscinny reunited on Starman in Cuba, a gently subversive tale of Starman and Monolith returning an exiled Cuban dissident home to face a dictator backed by Kaiser’s mob. The story begins with the village holding a street party for all the friends and allies Starman had made over the first decade of the run. Even today, it is remarkable to read those pages and see just how many beloved stories and characters Goscinny, Kirby and their colleagues had created in a decade- and to think how many more would emerge in the decades to come.
It is easy, seventy years on, to take for granted the cultural impact that Starman and Monolith have had. I’m not just talking about the merchandising, or the theme park. When we say that someone has had an interest since childhood, we say ‘they fell into it as a baby.’ Ronald Reagan complained of Helmut Kohl’s intransigence in a negotiation by turning to the White House press corps, tapping his head and remarking ‘These Germans are crazy!’ The fact that the characters are still going stronger today- with a village that is more diverse, and certainly more female than Goscinny and Kirby’s and frankly all the better for it- shows how strong the initial ideas were.
Above all though, we return to that choice- are you Starman or Monolith? Growing up, the athletic kids could be any character they wanted on Halloween. You needed bulk to be the Mighty Hercules, or Superman, or Captain America, or, or, or. Starman and Monolith were for everyone else. Starman was for every scrawny kid who knew that with a winged helmet and a black and red costume they could take on the world. Monolith was for every boy or girl who could put on a blue and white striped suit even if they’re fat BIG BONED and kick the ass of the Brute or Captain Redbeard.
When we believe that a superhero isn’t a brooding billionaire or an alien god but a skinny kid and his fat friend squaring up to bullies- that’s when we know why Starman and Monolith live on.
Seventy years on, Starman & Monolith are a powered duo unlike any other. They’re earthy: fond of food and drink and cigarettes and a bit of a scrap. Properly working class- a private detective and his construction worker best friend. Patriotic and loyal to their friends, but absolutely anarchic in a way that makes most of the Avengers look stuffy.
And funny. Very, very funny. Not in the ‘this comic has dated hilariously’ way of many early strips, not in the crude ‘we’re writing for children, so we’ll make this obvious’ way of too many authors. But properly intelligently funny- satirising politics and economic and American culture and foreign countries. Plus, of course, the puns…
Seventy years after their creation in 1949, it’s a good time to look at the extraordinary creative partnership and the first decade of work that gave rise to these icons of the comic strip.
ii.
Jack Kirby was and remains the great titan of American comic artists. If he had stopped working in 1948, he would still go down in the history of superhero comics alone as the co-creator of Captain America and Manhunter and the reinvigorated Sandman. But he had a wider interest than that. In 1948 he was working with his long time collaborator Joe Simon on the bestselling Young Romance line that was helping to transform comics from a medium tied to the pulp genres of spec-fic, horror and superheroes into the wide-ranging stories of today.
He had some superheroes left in him, however.
While Kirby seemed to be riding high, he was becoming discontent with his work. Simon and Kirby were becoming involved in a contract dispute with their publishers at Crestwood comics. Though Simon would continue to work there, Kirby was disenchanted and looking for other projects.
That same year, a corporal freshly demobbed from the French army was back in New York. Very broke, very unemployed and very talented, René Goscinny was sending his sketch portfolio to every studio in the city. A decent artist with a wicked sense of humour, Goscinny’s career highlight had been illustrating a children’s book, The Girl with the Golden Eyes. He hadn’t repeated that success in America, however, and it is quite possible that he would have soon returned to his native France if he had not accepted his friend Harvey Kurtzman’s invitation to a party one night in August 1949. That night, at a nameless bar in Brooklyn, a dozen of the best young comics writers in the city drank and boasted and argued- and the young Goscinny was introduced to Jack Kirby.
Later legend would have it that they clicked from the start, with Goscinny impressing Kirby with both his honest admiration for his work and his willingness to poke wicked fun at it. But in truth, while they liked each other there was no great connection. Goscinny was not even a journeyman, while Kirby was a star artist.
The next year however, Kirby left Crestwood comics. He remained close to Simon, but Kirby had a young family to support and Young Romance was not paying the bills.
He made the bold decision to launch his own studio, Pilot Comics. This artist-driven publishing house would be something new- a serious attempt to put out quality publications where the senior management would also be involved in the creative process.
It was probably Goscinny’s continued lack of success that made him an attractive partner to Kirby. Goscinny had found some work as a jobbing artist, but it was clear to those that knew him that he had a talent and drive that were not being met. He jumped at the chance for regular work at a new publisher, collaborating with the great Kirby. Both also knew that he would very much be the junior partner.
Now they just needed something to collaborate on.
iii.
Kirby was reluctant to get back to superheroes. In the late forties, the genre was on the slump after becoming oversaturated in the war years. Besides, Kirby had just proven that he could do good work outside the genre- why get back in the box? It was Goscinny who had the idea that there was space to work with and poke fun at the already familiar conventions of the genre. They could create superheroes whose adventures were both thrilling and genuinely funny, and whose journeys could allow them to spoof all the burgeoning genres of the comic stands.
The subversion began with the physicality of the characters. Starman looked nothing like the other two fisted stars. Barely five feet tall, with a ridiculous blonde moustache and a dogeared cigarette, even the character’s famous winged helm served to accentuate just how unprepossessing he was. A flask of superserum hung at his belt to give him a temporary burst of strength, but the character had to solve most of his problems with his wits.
It was the sidekick who looked like the classic lead- Monolith had the massive height and bulging muscles of Captain America, though the Captain had certainly never had a paunch to rival the stonecutter. Even Monolith’s origin story was an affectionate sendup of Kirby and Simon’s most famous creation. Stan Lee later said that he was sitting across the table from Simon when Kirby’s old collaborator read the famous pages showing the young boy wandering into a ‘Professor Irsking’ laboratory and falling into a vat of supersoldier serum. Lee claimed that Simon couldn’t decide whether to laugh or swear and compromised on choking instead.
Neither would the characters have secret identities. They lived in the East Village, advertising their presence to the neighbours and taking what work they could to get by. Sometimes their adventures took them globetrotting, but often they stayed close to home fighting the criminals and capitalists who encroached on the neighbourhood from all sides.
Goscinny later said that if there was one aspect of their creation he would have changed, it was their famous taste for hot dogs. Not because it didn’t work: the famous panel of Monolith eating an entire stall of New York’s most infamous streetfood would be copied by advertisers into the twenty first century. No, Goscinny explained- if he and Kirby had known just how many hot dogs they’d be served at official functions over the next few decades, then the two Jewish creators might have opted for something different!
The final ingredient of the character’s success was their support cast. Kirby firmly vetoed Goscinny’s idea to give every character a pun-based name, though a few slipped through. Julian Kaiser, the mobbed up businessman is one of the great rogues of comics- clever, ruthless and with a genuine sense of honour that allowed him to be a gripping antagonist and occasionally a reluctant ally of the heroes. Doctor Sigmund Chaud, the eccentric medical man who created the super serum is a fine take on the classic Merlin figure. The brawling news vendor and the car mechanic, the local councillor who never quite manages to balance on his podium, the beautiful Anna Curé- they all create the sense of the neighbourhood as a real, if exaggerated community that was in its own way a more concrete setting than the gothic vastness of Gotham city ever was. They would also be allowed to change over the years, giving the satire room to grow. Sinatra style crooner Charlie Charles Fournix would become Chuck Sonic, rock and roller, then later CC Fournix, lead singer of the Bards. Of all these characters, however, none was more beloved with fans than Monolith’s terrier, the aptly named Dog.
It is striking how many of these elements were already in place when Pilot Comics launched with Issue 1, Starman of Manhattan. Kirby and Goscinny hoped for a good reception. They were not remotely expecting what they got.
iv.
Jack Kennedy once remarked that ‘The President has only two rivals: Mr Khruschev, and Starman.’ In just over a decade, Kirby’s gamble on a new character had first risen to the level of the established superheros then decisively overtaken them. Starman and Monolith were perfectly positioned to take advantage of the still existing fanbase of superheros while picking up a much wider cross section of readers- younger children, adults who enjoyed the wordplay, and comics readers who enjoyed a nominal tale of heroism that in practice could be any type of adventure the story required.
It also helped that the early fifties were a time of cultural anxiety about the moral content of comics strips. Authors and publishers alike feared the consequences of censorship. The legal threat was fairly low, but the spectre of a Comics Code shutting down entire publishing houses was very real; people worried that just as the Hayes Code had shut out entire types of story from Hollywood, the same might happen in the funny pages.
The fact that the most popular new comic in America was a gentle defence of a community helping each other, where the violence never really exceeded that of a Popeye strip certainly helped take the sting out of the moral panic. Starman’s success both brought superhero comics back into the forefront of the medium, but also gave cover for the other genres to continue more quietly at the back of the newsstand.
Kirby was delighted with the success of Pilot Comics, and somewhat amazed at the creative talent he felt he’d unearthed in Goscinny. It became clear within a few years however that Kirby could not retain control of the studio and devote himself to one comic. By 1954, Kirby had stepped away from management and editing to become a kind of roving ‘artist in chief,’ drawing the occasional issue of Starman with Goscinny, but largely devoting himself to new projects with Joe Simon who joined Pilot in 1953.
Goscinny’s second creative partner was a young Belgian immigrant, Morris Beverly. It was Beverly who created ‘Lightning Luke,’ the gunslinger who could outshoot his shadow and the second great creation of Pilot Comics. The two of them alternated issues of Starman and Luke, largely as inspiration struck. By the mid fifties, when Carl Banks joined the studio Pilot was firmly established as the great hot house of funny family comics in America.
In 1959, Pilot put out a ten year anniversary issue. Kirby and Goscinny reunited on Starman in Cuba, a gently subversive tale of Starman and Monolith returning an exiled Cuban dissident home to face a dictator backed by Kaiser’s mob. The story begins with the village holding a street party for all the friends and allies Starman had made over the first decade of the run. Even today, it is remarkable to read those pages and see just how many beloved stories and characters Goscinny, Kirby and their colleagues had created in a decade- and to think how many more would emerge in the decades to come.
It is easy, seventy years on, to take for granted the cultural impact that Starman and Monolith have had. I’m not just talking about the merchandising, or the theme park. When we say that someone has had an interest since childhood, we say ‘they fell into it as a baby.’ Ronald Reagan complained of Helmut Kohl’s intransigence in a negotiation by turning to the White House press corps, tapping his head and remarking ‘These Germans are crazy!’ The fact that the characters are still going stronger today- with a village that is more diverse, and certainly more female than Goscinny and Kirby’s and frankly all the better for it- shows how strong the initial ideas were.
Above all though, we return to that choice- are you Starman or Monolith? Growing up, the athletic kids could be any character they wanted on Halloween. You needed bulk to be the Mighty Hercules, or Superman, or Captain America, or, or, or. Starman and Monolith were for everyone else. Starman was for every scrawny kid who knew that with a winged helmet and a black and red costume they could take on the world. Monolith was for every boy or girl who could put on a blue and white striped suit even if they’re fat BIG BONED and kick the ass of the Brute or Captain Redbeard.
When we believe that a superhero isn’t a brooding billionaire or an alien god but a skinny kid and his fat friend squaring up to bullies- that’s when we know why Starman and Monolith live on.