Bah, Hembeck

We interrupt the usual IDW talk here for this serious bit of news.

Fred Hembeck has been a source of entertainment for years — from his columns to the still-funny FANTASTIC FOUR ROAST, I’ve really loved every squiggly kneed character to come from Fred’s pen. So I couldn’t resist having Fred do a cover recreation of one of the more ludicrous covers I loved from when I was a kid. The Kirby Museum credits this cover, from FANTASTIC FOUR 167, to Jack Kirby and inker Joe Sinnott, and the Reed and Sue, and the buildings, definitely look like classic Kirby, but there’s also some talk that Rich Buckler might have done it. Or interior artist George Perez. I don’t really care about the specifics as much as I just find it so laughably great. The perspective on the arch doesn’t make any sense… the characters are all at their overwrought goofiest… and all those other ’70s flourishes like the floating heads (I appreciate Jonathan Hickman bringing those back on his FF run), the crazy captions… all of these things add up to just great, ridiculous stuff. And that all plays to Fred’s strengths, as you can see.

(You can even see a little Fred cameo inside the arch at the far left of the above image.)