Speak-Out Series - True-Life Divorce!

One of the most fascinating projects of the Bronze Age was Jack Kirby's "Speak-Out Series", an attempt to take comics into a more mainstream magazine format. Apparently when DC, desperate for a sales spike, was wooing the "King of Comics" away from Marvel they promised him a great deal, much if not most of which was not realized. (He'd worked for them twice before, so it probably was more a disappointment than a real surprise for him.) The Speak-Out series ended up being two magazines published under the Hampshire Ltd. banner -- In The Days of the Mob and Spirit World. But there were supposed to be others, one called "True-Life Divorce". The remnants of this unpublished magazine have floated in collectors' circles for decades and have been available for view on the internet for many years, but it took the doughty John Morrow and his associates at Twomorrows Publishing to finally get it into print and into my grubby hands where it has belonged for so very long.

The content can hardly be a secret with the title it has. We have here really, almost anti-romance stories, somewhat more realistic tales of relationships gone bad. Much is made of the titles of these stories which all reference the women in the stories, but I was surprised to find that the man's perspective dominates these "romance" tales, a genre generally left for girls. 

"The Maid" is a story about a situation that must've seemed quite novel in the early 70's, a woman who is pursuing her career and the stay-at-home husband who wants her to quit and and live off their savings and have fun traveling the world. His frustration causes his eye to wander and lo they behold Inga the youthful live-in maid. The story is played off making the guy about as innocent as it's possible to be in this situation, almost as if a man had written it. Oh wait -- a man did. 

"The Twins" is about exactly what you think it's about. Identical twins and the problems which arise for the husband here when a doppleganger of his wife moves in and starts dominating the living arrangements. He makes a mistake, but then he's a man. 

"The Model" is the only story which is inked and weirdly also the only story which is incomplete. We have enough of it to know that this successful model doesn't like it when her less-that-reliable hubby has a swanky party while their daughter is sick in an adjacent bedroom. Actually I found her reaction subdued. This one is definitely from the female perspective. 

"The Other Woman" tells the tried-and-true yarn of a mistress who offers excitement and youth to a man who finds himself unhappy with his lot in life. He's a philosopher about it, but when the wife turns up I found her reaction very forgiving. The mistress was not as serene. 

"The Cheater" is the final vignette, a three-page offering a rather subtle story with a twist I hate to spoil and which is not revealed in the page above. John Morrow paid Mike Royer to ink this story for this book and so yes it's true...there's a new Kirby-Royer offering available nowhere else but here. Fantastic stuff that. 

I found these stories surprisingly complex and even at times subtle. The usual Kirby bombast put away and the dialogue even seeming to have degrees of ease and insight. I was much entertain and even a tiny bit enlightened by this phoenix rising from the ashes of time, this entry in Jack Kirby's "Speak-Out Series". 

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