THE PRISONER ORIGINAL ART EDITION
The Lost Village
RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Titan Comics
Writers Jack Kirby, steve englehart Artists Jack Kirby, Gil Kane
A mid-’70s Marvel adaptation of Patrick McGoogan’s surrealist ’60s TV series, drawn by comics titans Jack Kirby and Gil Kane! Sounds thrilling, right?
Sadly, reality doesn’t quite live up to expectations, for the simple reason that very little was actually completed. Neither Kane (working to Steve Englehart’s script) or Kirby (pulling double duties) got beyond compressing opening episode “Arrival”, and of the resulting 35 pages of pencils, only five of Kirby’s take were properly inked and lettered before – for reasons now lost in the mists of time – the project was shelved.
Still, it’s interesting to compare and contrast the competing versions. Barring the necessity of spelling out interior monologue, both remain pretty faithful to the original script; Englehart goes the furthest off-piste, having Number Six run into a 20-foot-high wall as he tries to escape the Village, and giving the man he resigns to a name (Belson). Kane’s layouts are more dynamic, while McGoohan’s glaring intensity is a perfect match for Kirby’s style.
The lack of an introduction is baffling – we advise turning straight to page 47 for Englehart’s account of how he came to work on the project. The collection is further padded out to 74 pages with a newly coloured spread, a short essay on the show, reproductions of both Englehart’s typewritten script and the press book for the series, and some short biographies.
As an exercise in archive raiding it’s most welcome. But ultimately, even for Prisoner completists, this is likely to be just a one-time browse – one which leaves you wistfully regretting that there isn’t more to see.
Because Steve Englehart had already quit Marvel, he only had a day in which to write his script, staying up all night.