My wife and I are both tall - our average height is 6 foot 4. As a tall woman she sometimes has bad experiences with short men who blame their height for their problems. But as somebody who has benefited greatly from being tall* (e.g. finding my gorgeous wife) I do have some sympathy for them. Yes, people are judged by their height, and no, it is not fair. So this story hits home for me.
I mentioned before how Kirby stories generally have two hallmarks: first, a grounding in science or nature. The fact that lack of air would be fatal to a sufficiently large giant is a detail that other writers don't consider. For example, years later in Fantastic Four 271 John Byrne wrote a homage to the Kirby monster stories. Byrne also had an ever growing giant. I won't spoil it with how the giant was defeated, but Byrne didn't worry that a monster would defeat himself by his need to breathe.
(To be fair, Kirby didn't cover the other aspects of growing - conservation of mass, being too heavy to stand, the difficulty with lifting a building without breaking it, etc: a science thought experiment has to handle one science idea at a time.)
Second, every page is amazing. This story is a celebration of how amazing it would be to grow, and grow. It reminds me of my favourite book, Journey to the Centre of the Earth: it's not about the monsters or the ending, it's about the the joy of the amazing experience!
Talking of the ending, this is evidence that Kirby plotted these. The art shows the man trying a better formulation, but the text says the opposite, and crams far more text into the panel than could possibly have been intended. When there is extra text that contradicts the art it indicates the person who wrote the plot is not the person who edited the final text.
* Though short people do have some big advantages: their houses feel big, their cars feel big, airplane and coach seats are comfortable, shops stock their sizes, and at reasonable prices (unless they are super small). Sometimes I do envy small folk.
I mentioned before how Kirby stories generally have two hallmarks: first, a grounding in science or nature. The fact that lack of air would be fatal to a sufficiently large giant is a detail that other writers don't consider. For example, years later in Fantastic Four 271 John Byrne wrote a homage to the Kirby monster stories. Byrne also had an ever growing giant. I won't spoil it with how the giant was defeated, but Byrne didn't worry that a monster would defeat himself by his need to breathe.
Second, every page is amazing. This story is a celebration of how amazing it would be to grow, and grow. It reminds me of my favourite book, Journey to the Centre of the Earth: it's not about the monsters or the ending, it's about the the joy of the amazing experience!
Talking of the ending, this is evidence that Kirby plotted these. The art shows the man trying a better formulation, but the text says the opposite, and crams far more text into the panel than could possibly have been intended. When there is extra text that contradicts the art it indicates the person who wrote the plot is not the person who edited the final text.
* Though short people do have some big advantages: their houses feel big, their cars feel big, airplane and coach seats are comfortable, shops stock their sizes, and at reasonable prices (unless they are super small). Sometimes I do envy small folk.
Comments
Post a Comment