Bluewater Announces Biography of Jack Kirby, Continues to Herald the Death of All Joy

As if there wasn't enough suffering in the world already, Bluewater Productions announced today that the latest addition to their line of biographical comics would be about the legendary King of Comics, Jack Kirby. Featuring a script by John Judy that promises to only feature dialogue in the form of direct quotes from the people involved and art by Paul Cox, the illustrated biography is due out in January, 2012.

Check out ComicsAlliance's reaction to this exciting news after the cut!

Perhaps that needs a bit of elaboration.

To be fair, the reaction above is definitely an example of judging a book based purely on one image and a description, two months before it comes out. There is a chance, however infinitesimal it may be, that Bluewater will be able to do justice to a man who has had a profound influence on the art form and what he means to people. If nothing else, it's nice to see that Bluewater at least ranks Kirby up there with their other biographical subjects, like Lindsay Lohan or the cast of Glee.

But at the same time, it's not like we don't have a pile of evidence to judge this thing by in the first place. We're acutely, painfully familiar with the rest of Bluewater's line of unapologetically shameless and undeniably stupid bio-comics, from the ridiculous Justin Bieber comic to their biography of Lady Gaga, right down to the monumentally awful life story of Stephenie Meyer, as narrated by Dracula. It says a lot that the only one they've ever published that even came close to being interesting, the Lady Gaga comic, was immediately followed by a second version that dumbed things down in order to better grift their audience.

They have a history of producing unabashed cash grabs that are very clearly knocked out as fast as possible, and that are hard to look at without seeing anything but contempt for their audience. So since that seems to have been their publishing model for the past, oh, four years, you'll forgive me if I assume that it's probably going to be the case here. Hell, with this one, they can't even go with their usual defense that they're "bringing people into comic book stores" -- it's finally gotten to the point where they're desperate enough to go after the existing audience.

In retrospect, I guess this was inevitable. In fact, the only thing that's really surprising about it is that they waited this long to trot this one out. After all, Kirby died way back in 1994. 17 years is a long time to wait for Bluewater, especially when they were ready to cash in on Steve Jobs' death in less than a month.

But again, all we have right now is a cover. Maybe this is the one where Bluewater turns it all around. Maybe Judy and Cox can turn this into something that does justice to the single greatest comic book creator who ever lived, a man who helped invent modern comics as we know them and whose work has often been overshadowed to the general public by his collaborators. Maybe this will actually be a tribute and not just another example of Bluewater attaching themselves to something more successful and meaningful than themselves like money-grubbing barnacles.

There's a first time for everything, right?