A University of Wisconsin professor believes the New Yorker ripped off famed comic book illustrator Jack Kirby with the cartoon on the right, which was used for the magazine's popular back-page caption contest. So the professor dug out the Kirby comic on the left and started complaining. The New Yorker said its cartoon was intended as "an overt reference... not an attempt to plagiarize... a tribute," and added an online credit to Kirby, but that wasn't good enough for the prof. So he rang up the Post and complained that Kirby "never got proper credit then, and isn't getting proper credit now." Well, then. The similarity is so great it's hard to imagine the New Yorker cartoonist, Harry Bliss, actually thought he was going to pull a fast one. And the cover is kind of perfect for a caption contest. But if this particular comic book is super obscure, that makes the "it's an homage" explanation much less plausible. Comic book geeks, your services are at last required! How obscure is this Tales To Astonish? (If you can't find our comments section or email addresses, then you're almost certainly not a comic book nerd.) [Post]