The Incredible Hulk!

By 10 commentsSketchbook

KirbyHulk2

 

The early Hulk of the 1960’s as drawn by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko was always my favorite Hulk.

The square head, the heavy brow, the beady eyes and nose. The big mouth full of jagged, crooked teeth, the thick fingers and toes are all necessary elements of the Green Goliath!

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10 comments on “The Incredible Hulk!”

  1. Dennis

    Oh wow. I was going to say how that was pure classic Hulk, somehow perfectly synthesizing Kirby’s, Ditko’s and Trimpe’s versions all at the same time.
    But then I looked again, and saw that you went with the crazy 3-toed Hulk that Kirby only drew in a few of the earliest stories. I always wondered if he did that on purpose, or was just working so fast on so many different comics at the same time, that he just got confused (this being pretty early in the game for the Hulk) and forgot how many toes he was supposed to have. Or maybe that’s what came of having a secret cave to hide out in, with a machine that Banner purposely used to expose himself to gamma-rays and turn into the Hulk.

    • fernando

      You’d be correct to say I was fusing different elements of that classic early 60’s Hulk which is my favorite style of Hulk… especially with a purely Kirby Hulk face. The Ditko Hulk face is right up there too. I deliberately went for the three toed Hulk that Kirby would use arbitrarily in random panels. I’d guess that just happened as a consequence of the King’s legendary speed. The Hulk I was specifically looking at while drawing this was the Hulk in The Avengers #1.

  2. Dennis

    I guess it would be no worse than the time Stan Lee wrote a story referring to Dr. Banner as “Bob Banner” instead of “Bruce Banner”. I think so many people read that and wrote in to the letters page that Stan weaseled out of it by explaining that his full name was Robert Bruce Banner, and that he normally doesn’t use his first name.

    • fernando

      I remember in Amazing Spider-Man #3, Spidey’s secret identity for that issue was Peter PALMER. Did Stan ever try to explain that one?

  3. Dennis

    There was a fairly recent Jim Starlin-written story drawn by Alan Davis where the 3-toed Hulk showed up in a sequence where a time-traveling Adam Warlock interrupts an early meeting of the Avengers, too.

    • fernando

      Alan Davis can draw anything! He’s one of my all-time favorites. He hasn’t lost a thing either! His early Avengers must be incredible!

  4. Dennis

    You know, I’m not sure which issue that was, or what the context of that particular mistake was, like if it was used only once or twice in a caption box, or throughout the story in dialogue and everything. I never saw the original printing, and of course it’s easy to correct those lettering mistakes in subsequent reprintings, so I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that one. I do recall hearing about it, but I’m afraid I don’t know anything else.

  5. Dennis

    Wait a minute. #3? That was the original Doc Ock issue, and I used to have the original beat-up copy, but I barely remember it from the story itself. So I’m going to say that it was probably only a single instance in a caption. I think if anyone wrote in, Stan probably tried to sweep that one under the rug by pretending it never happened. If you consider the double-entendre meaning of this little boo-boo, I guess that would explain it.

    • fernando

      Yes. It was in the first appearance of Doc Ock. Of course it was corrected in all subsequent reprintings. Doc Ock also famously commits a faux pax when he calls Spidey “Super-Man.” That too was changed in reprints.

  6. Dennis

    Stan did once state that the reason he used to have so many characters with the same first and last initials was as a mnemonic device to help him remember the names (plus the alliteration was euphonious), but I guess that theory backfired on him in those two instances.

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