The Thrills and Chills of Jack Kirby’s Next Issue Teasers in ‘Captain America’

Jack Kirby was unquestionably the greatest comic book artist who ever lived, and is largely responsible for shaping comic books as we know them today. But there's one aspect of the King's work that I absolutely love, even though it's often overlooked: The incredible "Next Issue" blurbs that he created for his comics. One of Kirby's greatest gifts was his ability to translate pure excitement to the comic book page, and in this teasers he wrote to bring readers back for the next issue, he made everything he did sound like the single most exciting thing that had ever happened. And, to be fair, in a lot of cases he was right. So today, I'm taking a look back at some of my favorites, from Kirby's 1976 return to Captain America!

I am not even kidding when I say that these get me more excited than any solicitation text for a new comic that I've read in years. They make me want to run out and buy these comics today, and I already own them all.

I'm particularly excited about #209's promise of "Yesterday's fantasy! Today's truth! Tomorrow's terror?!", which of course turned out to be a dude with a video camera for a head and a giant TV with his face on it where his stomach should've been. And the fact that Kirby considered that to be "yesterday's fantasy" and "tomorrow's truth" is a pretty good summary of everything great about his work. Either way, marketing might be everyone's least favorite part of comics, but when the sales pitch is that exciting, it's pretty tough not to love it.

Just another reason why Kirby is King.