50 years ago today, America lost a great man...
...several days later, the assassin was assassinated.
There's been an incredible amount of speculation as to why either killing occured.
The Warren Report presented it's evaluation of the matter, including their analysis of the actions of Jack Ruby, the man who shot President Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
In early 1967, Esquire magazine presented a cover story about it...
...and, instead of doing the usual article with photos, engaged Jack Kirby, the primary artist and co-creator of the Marvel Comics universe to write and draw the piece, using, among other things, exact quotes from the Warren Commission's report.
(Note: normally, I post images "same size" on this blog like the ones above.
In this case, in order to make the tiny footnotes referencing specific pages from the Warren Commission and other sources report legible, I've posted larger files for the story pages that you have to click on to see full-size.)
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Inked by Chic Stone, the art was colored by Kirby using Dr Martin dyes on photostats of the original art.
Apparently, Esquire's art director felt the coloring was clean enough that it could be used as the actual art instead of as "color guides" for standard comic book hand-separated "flat color".
It gives the art a "children's storybook" softness unique to comics until the late 1980s when similar coloring techniques became more prevelent in comic books.
And now a word from our sponsor (us)...
...
kool kollectibles
with this retro design featuring Kennedy's most
famous quote; "Ask not what your country can do for you..." (You know
the rest.) for this week ONLY!
Adapted/laid-out by Harvey Kurtzman and illustrated by David Levine, this re-telling is loaded with Mad Men-era pop culture and political references you'll have to Google to understand if you didn't live through the era!
