Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jul 12, 2025 | 3 comments

SCOTT SHAW! SATURDAYS presents the SUPERMAN WEEK finale!

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It’s SUPERMAN WEEK! Because there’s a fancy new movie out! Click here for the COMPLETE INDEX of columns and features! Look, up in the sky! — Dan

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By SCOTT SHAW!

I’ve loved Jack Kirby’s work since his Marvel “pre-hero monsters” comics. I was around 8 years old and my mother wouldn’t let me have them because they might give me nightmares. I also got a taste of Kirby from DC’s thick one-shot, Secret Origins, which included a chapter from Jack’s Challengers of the Unknown #1. But when Marvel’s Fantastic Four came along, I was not only older,  Mom no longer had a say in the comics I purchased with my allowance, earned by cleaning windows and pulling weeds.

By the time I was in junior high school, I was buying all the comics I could afford, along with Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, the latest hits by Jan and Dean, and the Universal and Big Daddy Roth’s plastic model kits. I was purchasing everything from Dell’s Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle, Archie’s Calculated to Drive You Bats, and Gold Key’s Uncle Scrooge to DC’s Julie Schwartz-edited titles and all of the Marvel output other than its Westerns and Millie the Model.

Jack was the standout, and Steve Ditko’s work was not far behind (I already dug his stuff on Charlton’s Gorgo and Konga), but not nearly as influential for me. To afford those, I sold my drawings to my classmates, mostly featuring dinosaurs, surfers, monsters, and Big Daddy’s Rat Fink.

Marvel’s Not Brand Echh and Harvey’s Fighting American reprints were wonderful surprises for me because both comics displayed Jack’s ability to create humor every bit as well as he did superheroes. Since my goal was to be a professional humorous cartoonist – and I’d already had a few local gigs – Jack’s funny stuff was even more exciting to me than his serious material.

Unfortunately, he didn’t do much more of the funny stuff until he was back at DC, asking to be assigned the publisher’s worst-selling series, which happened to be Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen, an Oddball series I loved as a kid. But frankly, Jimmy had run out of ideas long before 1970, when Jack refurbished the character and his surrounding world, far from Perry White and The Daily Planet. Even better, although there was plenty of action with Jack’s revival of the Golden Age Guardian, the attached Newsboy Legion opened the door for humor. Although Jack’s stint on  Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen is primarily known as the introduction of Darkseid, a lot of us love it for Jack’s unique sense of humor.

At the same time that Jack’s first issue of Jimmy Olsen hit the spinner racks, I was in college in San Diego, where I grew up after moving there from New York City as a toddler. I was also working with many of my high school friends – John (Garbage Pail Kids creator) Pound, Greg (award-winning science fiction author) Bear, David (comic book writer, poet, illustrator) Clark, and Roger (physics textbooks author) Freedman, and similar not-yet-adult types we met on a project by and for fandom — the first San Diego Comic-Con AKA Comic-Con International, America’s biggest non-profit annual fan event.

Jack Kirby and his family had moved from NYC to Newport Beach in California’s Orange County. Self-appointed SDCC founder Shel Dorf had Kirby’s phone number. So he and some of the kids — who were mostly comics collectors and dealers in what was originally a fan club – arranged to visited the Kirbys once before my friends and I were on the scene. By the time some of us did, the Kirbys had relocated to Thousand Oaks, slightly north of Los Angeles. We were there for a reason, to ask Jack if he would be a Special Guest at our first three-day “San Diego’s Golden State Comic-Con,” from August 1 to 3, 1970.

Jack and me

Jack and his wife Roz were the sweetest and most tolerant hosts. Our group consisted of Barry (biographical author) Alfonso, Will (actor) Lund, Mike (computer guru) Towry, John Pound, Roger Freedman, Shel, Barry’s mother, and Yours Truly. Of course, the first three issues of the three “Fourth World” titles — The Forever People, The New Gods, and Mister Miracle, as well as the ongoing Jimmy Olsen — was understandably the No. 1 buzz. I was fortunate to have a conversation with Jack, whose smile glowed when I told him he was my favorite “cartoonist,” a moniker he preferred to “comic artist.” I had the gall to ask Jack if he would draw something for me. Two weeks later, via mail, I received a hilarious cartoon by Jack, depicting me being strangled by King Kong! (How he knew that Kong was my favorite movie star is anyone’s guess.)

Taking a break from the Fourth World topic, one of us asked Jack how he came up with so many ideas. At one point in the conversation, he blurted out, “I could make ANYONE into a comic book character… even YOU guys!!!” I’ll never forget the flash in his eyes that said, “Oy vey, why did you have to say THAT, Kurtzberg?!? NOW they’re gonna say –!” And with good reason, because our immediate reaction, almost with perfect synchronicity, was “Okay, Jack, DO IT!!!”

And he sure did. It felt like decades, rather than months, but finally, on October 10, 1971, the San Diego Five String Mob, and its secret weapon Barri-Boy, were introduced into (and quickly removed from) the Fourth World in Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #144 on comic book racks across America. Yes, I know what you’re all thinking…

“THE SAN DIEGO FIVE STRING MOB AND BARRI-BOY???”

Yup, the SDFSM&B-B consisted of Barry, Will, Mike, John, Roger and me. We were assassins from Apokolips, sent to Earth and disguised as a rock band that performed at a club called Cosmic Carousel. (It still amuses me that the Five String Mob had six members… but that’s “Kirby Logic” for you.) We were also in the following issue, #145, in which we took a beating from Dubbilex and exited via a Boom Tube, never to be seen again… in comic books, at least.

Me, by Jack

The San Diego Five String Mob appeared on a total of six pages between both issues. Not memorable to anyone but us, and that’s plenty. However, at the 2019 Comic-Con International, the real-life SDFSM&B-B reunited onstage, in new San Diego Five String Mob T-shirts I made for us. And we’re all still alive, so watch out!

And thanks, Jack. You’re still a mensch.

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MORE

— The Complete SUPERMAN WEEK INDEX of Columns and Features. Click here.

— ODDBALL COMICS: Harvey’s BUNNY — the Queen of the In-Crowd! Click here.

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For over half a century, SCOTT SHAW! has been a pro cartoonist/writer/designer of comic books, animation, advertising and toys. He is also a historian of all forms of cartooning. Scott has worked on many underground comix and mainstream comic books, including: Fear and Laughter (Kitchen Sink); Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie); Simpsons Comics (Bongo); Weird Tales of the Ramones (Rhino); and his co-creation with Roy Thomas, Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew! (DC).

Scott also worked on numerous animated cartoons, including producing/directing John Candy’s Camp Candy (NBC/DIC/Saban); Martin Short’s The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley (NBC/Hanna-Barbera Productions); Garfield and Friends (CBS/Film Roman); and the Emmy-winning Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies (CBS/Marvel Productions), among many others. As senior art director for the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency, Scott worked on dozens of commercials for Post Pebbles cereals with the Flintstones. He also designed a line of Hanna-Barbera action figures for McFarlane Toys.

Scott was one of the comics fans who organized the first San Diego Comic-Con, where he has become known for performing his hilarious Oddball Comics Live! slide shows.

Need funny cartoons for any and all media? Click here! Scott does commissions!