The JLK Publishing empire has its origins in 1976, in first grade, in Miss Daniel's class. Jimmy Kwak, inspired by the comic books brought to school by buddies Denny Upton and William Hill, decides to create his own. Stapling together pieces of writing paper, the homemade book is born. Other classmates would follow suit with the creation of their own literary works of genius, but the comic books of Jimmy Kwak are legendary in that the super heroes were his fellow classmates.
The initial offering was "The 3 Superheros" [sic], featuring Greenman (Jimmy), Blueman (Denny) and Redman (William). The roster would eventually expand with the addition of Goldman, Invisible Man and 2-in-1 Man (whose first grade identities have been lost to the gaes).
Reprinted here for the first time ever is the complete issue of "The 4 Superheros" and their epic battle against Thunder Man, along with some new commentary!
Cover: In the upper righthand corner is 2-in-1 Man, whose powers I do not recall at all. The gigantic lightning bolt with the smiley face is Thunder Man, the bad guy in this issue. The star with the frowny face is Star Man who is also Gold Man. The guy below him composed of dashed lines is Invisible Man (the dashed lines are to indicate that he is invisible). The guy in the bottom right corner is Green Man, whose appearance changes drastically from the cover to the first page. Oftentimes, the covers would be the first thing drawn, and then the stories within would come next. And even more often, the covers would be drawn and then something more interesting would come along, and the stories within would never be drawn.
Page 1: This entire sequence came to me in a dream, and I remember it because I drew it out the very next day. It was very cinematic, with Green Man (me) flying slowly through the sun, and then the rain, very melancholy, gliding on the air currents, until he arrives at a castle, which is the secret headquarters of The Four Superheroes. He lets himself in through a trapdoor in the top tower, and descends some stairs. The word balloon in the very last panel is intended to show that the others are there, in the conference room, having a meeting of some sort. It's the sort of dream that you might have when you are six years old, just casually flying through the air, completely carefree. However, the sequence with the castle was also in the dream. I guess I was just a little weird.
Page 2: This entire page was also in the same dream. Green Man enters his room, which is one of many rooms that run alongside the stairwell coming from the top of the tower. He changes out of his costume and exits his room (indicated by the "Later..." caption) and goes down to the meeting room. Denny, sitting at the head of the table, informs him, over the span of two panels, that they are having a meeting. I guess that they couldn't have the meeting in their superhero costumes. A flashing alert on Denny's wrist (supposed to be a watch, but I didn't draw it in) informs Denny that their enemy is near.
I spent a lot of time drawing the first page and a little less time drawing the second page. The most energy expended was for these first two pages. By now, I was already becoming a little distracted with this particular issue, and so the next few pages of the story were definitely rushed.
Page 3: The Four Superheroes rush back to their rooms and change into their costumes (which must have taken a long time, as evidenced by the "Later ..." caption). They fly into the sky and confront Thunder Man, who is a gigantic lightning bolt (and probably should have been called Lighting Man). I can only surmise that I was confused as to the difference between thunder and lightning. Thunder Man hurls, from the tip of his bolt, lightning bolts which, in true "Batman" style, cause the entire panel to fill with sound effects, as Green Man apparently gets cooked.
Page 4: I'm not entirely sure what is going on here. As far as I can tell, Thunder Man throws a lighting bolt at Gold Man, who then transforms into Star Man (the big star with a face). Invisible Man decides to turn invisible. Someone uses their X-ray vision on him, for reasons I cannot imagine. Star Man seemingly transforms into some sort of knife. These odd transformations would be used in other comic book characters over the next several years.
It should be pretty obvious that these two pages were done very quickly; much quicker than the first two pages.
Page 5: I think that's 2-in-1 Man; I probably completely forgot about him. He gets zapped. Then Star Man as the flying knife charges in and chops off the tip of Lighting Man's bolt, which is apparently the source of his powers. Then Invisible Man somehow produces a large bomb with a burning fuse, the kind that appear in the Bugs Bunny and Road Runner cartoons.
Page 6: The bomb is apparently hurled and Thunder Man blows up. "Later ..." The Four Superheroes return to their base and go to sleep. "Later ..." The Four Superheroes wake up and reconvene in the meeting room.
I believe that my thinking behind this issue was to start with the opening scene of the castle (from my dream), gather The Four Superheroes together, and then have them fight Thunder Man. Obviously, I hadn't mapped out how the fight was going to go, and I ran out of ideas before I ran out of pages, hence the very quick ending to the fight.
Page 7: Not sure what William is thinking about or why he is sighing. Draw your own conclusions. Then, the meeting ends with Green Man says that he forgot what they were meeting about. If this were a sitcom, everyone would have a good belly laugh as the ending credits rolled.
Pages 7-8: Since I was basically making up this story as I went along, and I started out with a blank eight-page book, my story ended before I ran out of pages. So as a "bonus," we get some exciting scenes from the next issue, when the Four Superheroes battle Octopus Man (obviously a rip-off of Dr. Octopus from Marvel Comics with his mechanical tentacles, but different in that he appears to have octopus-like appendages). Not much can really be discerned from these snippets, except for a bit on the stairwell of the headquarters, Green Man rescuing/flying with a girl (distinguished by her long hair) and a character, possibly Gold Man, behind bars. These scenes look like they were hastily scribbled to fill out the last two pages. I would usually come up with an idea for a comic, and either drawing the cover or doing a "preview" sequence would usually be enough to satisfy my need to create the story ... because the next issue, as far as I can recall, never come out.
Darn you, Denny Paul Upton (French)! If it wasn't for you and your Spider-Man comic books, we might not have set upon the path that has lead us to today ...
All contents copyright © 2007 JLK Productions