I’m a hoarder. Always have been. And honestly, that’s the reason I can show you exactly where Jailbreak came from. This is a collection that has taken a lifetime and I just love taking these old classics out to share with you.
I still have the comics I was using as reference when I created the Jailbreak album cover for Thin Lizzy. Not copies — the actual ones. Fantastic Four #48, the very first appearance of Galactus. I still have it. Look inside the cover and you can see the stamp from Bamba Books and Toys on Phibsborough Road. Five shillings. And a date. They had a system — you paid, you took it away, you brought it back by a certain date and you got half your money back and took another one. Comics were passed around that way.
I’ve been collecting Fantastic Four since the early issues. I have every single one of them. They’re my pride and joy.
The Silver Surfer or Galactus
Philip and I used to have the most ridiculous debates about Marvel Comics. Philip loved the Silver Surfer, I was obsessed with Galactus, and we could argue about who was best. It was Philip who showed me Fantastic Four #77 and that one comic is probably what gave me the idea for Jailbreak.
The influence of Galactus and Jack Kirby spilled over into everything I did, right up to the time of Jailbreak. If you look at the cover, it’s the quintessential Marvel comic cover. It’s as good as I could make a Marvel comic cover if they ever asked me to. I used the vibe of those figures — that sense of an overlord, something vast and powerful — to create the Lizzy figures. Ideas come from everywhere, and for me they came from Jack Kirby.
Kirby also gave me something else from these specific Fantastic Four comics. The first time I ever saw a photo montage in a comic was in those early Fantastic Four issues — the way Kirby used photographic backgrounds layered with illustration. The colouring was intensely difficult but the effect was extraordinary. I used that idea later in other album covers, including Nightlife.
This year marks 50 years since the Jailbreak cover was released. To mark the anniversary, I’ve remastered the original artwork. A strictly limited edition print is coming — keep an eye on the newsletter for details.