Pat Kelly wrote to ask…
I saw a partial reprint of the DC First Issue Special where Jack Kirby created the new Manhunter. It had a very intriguing all-text last panel: "Want to see the clash between Manhunter and The Hog? If so, write and tell us! MANHUNTER / P.O. Box 336 / Newbury Park, Calif. 91320."
The California address makes me think this was Jack's own mailbox. Is that correct? Were you working with The King when he produced Manhunter? Do you recall what kind of response this got, why he wanted these sent to him directly instead of DC (I can guess that part) and what response if any Kirby made?
I was not actually working with Jack when he did that Manhunter story though I was visiting the Kirby home often and being of whatever help I could be to Jack and Roz. As I recall, the issues of First Issue Special where Jack introduced this version of Manhunter and another creation named Atlas received virtually no reaction at all.
Both were "pilot" issues Jack did at the request of then-publisher Carmine Infantino. DC was looking to expand their line to compete with Marvel's concurrent expansion so they had a lot of people doing pilot stories for potential new comics but they weren't willing to gamble on starting many of those proposals as new ongoing titles. A few of those pilots were launched as new comics. A few wound up as one-shot issues of First Issue Special. A few weren't printed then but they found places for the material later. A few wound up in two very-limited-edition books DC put together called Cancelled Comics Cavalcade. A few were never printed (or finished) at all.
That was Jack's P.O. Box number and I'm fairly sure it's no longer active. He got it — well, he had Roz rent it — because when he first arrived at DC, the company intended to keep the fan mail away from him. They didn't want it going to California where he was. They didn't want the letter pages in his books to be assembled by his assistants (i.e., my pal Steve Sherman and me). In fact, Steve and I wrote text pages for the first issues of New Gods, Forever People and Mister Miracle and without telling Jack, the New York office discarded what we wrote and had Marv Wolfman write a substitute. Jack, who was supposed to be the editor of those comics, didn't find out until those first issues were on sale.
Jack fought a lot of battles with DC and lost some pretty important ones. Getting control of the letter pages in his comics — though not Jimmy Olsen — was one of the less-important ones he won. When he did, he had Roz rent the P.O. Box and it was also used when Jack went back to Marvel and had a battle with certain folks in the editorial division about what went into the letter columns of the books he did for them there.
