Issuu

AN ALL-STAR LO O K AT THE KIRBY INFLUENCE Featuring:

Kurt Busiek Steve Englehart Neil Gaiman Ron Garney Dave Gibbons Tony Isabella Dan Jurgens Michael Kaluta Erik Larsen Fabian Nicieza John Ostrander Brian Pulido Joe Quesada Dave Sim Jeff Smith Roger Stern John Totleben Jim Valentino Rick Veitch Charles Vess Mark Waid Barry Windsor-Smith Marv Wolfman AND MUCH MO RE!

$5.95 T

ISSUE #27, FEB. 2000

In The US

Spider-Man, Thor, Ikaris, Iron Man TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Fully Authorized By The Kirby Estate

Kirby-inspired art by (clockwise from top left): Mark Poe (“Kirby’s Trinity”, computer generated), Christopher Saghy (detail from New Gods #6, inked/colored), Paul McCall (oils on masonite, 20" x 29"), and Peter Clapper (“Orion & Darkseid” collage).

Issue #27 Contents SIDE ONE: The 2000 Virtual Kirby Panel.............5 (an all-star line-up tells us how Kirby influenced them—featuring Kurt Busiek, Steve Englehart, Neil Gaiman, Bob Gale, Ron Garney, Dave Gibbons, Tony Isabella, Dan Jurgens, Michael Kaluta, Erik Larsen, Fabian Nicieza, John Ostrander, Brian Pulido, Joe Quesada, Dave Sim, Jeff Smith, Roger Stern, John Totleben, Jim Valentino, Rick Veitch, Charles Vess, Mark Waid, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Marv Wolfman) Collector Comments.........................32 SIDE TWO: Kirby Family Roundtable ...................3 (a discussion with Lisa Kirby, Mike Thibodeaux, Richard French, and Steve Robertson about what’s going on with Genesis West and the Kirby Estate) Jack Kirby On: WWII Influences ......16 (second in a series—this time featuring a frank, firsthand account of Jack’s war experiences; for mature audiences only) Alex Ross Interview ..........................24 (the renowned painter discusses how Kirby influenced him) Kirby’s Fine Art Influences ...............30 (a look at the “two Jacks”; Pollack and Kirby) Kirby Cakes ......................................31 (a French Kirby fan’s wife(!) tells of Jack’s influence on French pastry) There Is No Hiatus ............................31 (believe it or not, Jack’s influence even extends into the music business) Kirby Collector Comicollage ............34 (enter our contest by naming the characters on this issue’s centerfold)

ISSUE #27, FEB. 2000

THE ONLY ’ ZINE AUTHORIZED BY THE KIRBY ESTATE

Side One cover inks and colors: Bruce Timm Side Two cover inks: Mike Thibodeaux Color on all Genesis West art: Rick French Photocopies of Jack’s uninked pencils from published comics are reproduced here courtesy of the Kirby Estate, which has our thanks for their continued support.

COPYRIGHTS: Ajak, Avengers Forever, Bucky, Captain America, Crystal, Dr. Doom, Eternals, Fantastic Four, Galactus, Giant-Man, Hulk, Human Torch, Ikaris, Iron Man, Klaw, Lockjaw, Magnir, Mr. Buddha, Mr. Fantastic, Prof. Damian, Red Skull, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, SubMariner, Thing, Thor, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Wasp, Watcher, Yellow Claw TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. • Batman, Big Barda, Boy Commandos, Brute, Burnadeth, Challengers of the Unknown, Count Dragorin, Darkseid, Demon, Female Furies, Flash, Glob, Green Arrow, Guardian, Hawkman, Henry Jones, Jed, Jimmy Olsen, Lashina, Lightray, Losers, Lupek, Mad Harriet, Mr. Miracle, New Gods, Newsboy Legion, Orion, Richard Dragon, Kung Fu Fighter, Rose/Thorn, Sandman, Sandy, Scott Free, Spectre, Speedy, Stompa, Superman TM & © DC Comics, Inc. • Face studies, Gladiators, Great Gatsby art, Huns, Lisa Kirby’s birthday card, Mindmaster, Sky Masters, Thunder Foot, Toys for Tots art, Wonder Warriors, © Jack Kirby • Darkfyre, Descendants of Atlantis, Disciples of the Dragon, Gin Seng, Knight & Day, Kublak, Last of the Viking Heroes, Malibu Maniacs, Phantom Force, Phobos and his Galactic Bounty Hunters, Rincon, Rudolph Ludwing, Slug, Thunder Hunter, Whitestar Knight TM & © Genesis West and the Jack Kirby Estate • Captain 3-D © Harvey Comics, Inc. • Blue Bolt, Boy Explorers, Fighting American, Speedboy, Stuntman © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby • Shield/Pvt. Strong © Joe Simon • Fone Bone and Smiley Bone TM & © Jeff Smith • Evil Ernie TM & © Chaos Comics • Savage Dragon TM & © Erik Larsen • Rare Bit Fiends TM & © Rick Veitch • Cerebus TM & © Dave Sim.

Our thanks to Bruce Timm for inking and coloring this 1977 Kirby pencil drawing for our Side One cover. Our Side Two cover is of various Genesis West characters; pencils by Kirby, inks by Thibodeaux, and colors by Rick French. The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 8, No. 27, Feb. 2000. Published bi-monthly by & © TwoMorrows Publishing, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. 919-833-8092. John Morrow, Editor. Pamela Morrow, Asst. Editor. Jon B. Cooke, Assoc. Editor. Single issues: $5.95 ($7.00 Canada, $9.00 elsewhere). Six-issue subscriptions: $24.00 US, $32.00 Canada and Mexico, $44.00 outside North America. First printing. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All artwork is © Jack Kirby unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors. PRINTED IN CANADA.

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AN INFLUENTIAL INFLUX OF INTIMATE INFORMATION ABOUT US! ITEM! Sorry gang, our stock of ARGOSY Magazine (featuring Kirby’s 10-page autobiographical STREET CODE story) is SOLD OUT! But we’ll be reprinting Jack’s story later this year in a new publication called STREETWISE, featuring autobiographical short stories by the top names in comics! So far, we’ve got commitments from such luminaries as WILL EISNER, ALEX TOTH, NICK CARDY, JEFFREY JONES, EVAN DORKIN, JOE KUBERT, MURPHY ANDERSON, SAM GLANZMAN, SERGIO ARAGONES, and BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH! With a lineup like that, STREETWISE stands to be the breakaway publication of 2000, and we’re still lining up more talent! We’ll have the final details next issue, so stay tuned!

JOHN’S JUKEBOX Just how influential was Jack? That’s what we’re endeavoring to discover in this, the first of two “Kirby Influence” theme issues. We had SO MUCH stuff to cover, we quickly saw it wouldn’t fit into a single issue, so be sure to pick up next issue for more of our all-star look at the scope of Jack’s influence (as well as the Rich Buckler and Keith Giffen interviews we planned for this issue, but didn’t have space for). Long Live The King!

John Morrow, Editor

ITEM! The 68-page COMIC BOOK ARTIST SPECIAL EDITION #1 is now shipping! To keep CBA going, we need to increase our subscription base, so we went all-out to make it worth your while to subscribe by offering this FREE publication to subscribers only! Besides spotlighting the great ’70s DC Comics (including NEAL ADAMS’ Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali, and RUSS HEATH’S Sgt. Rock), it’s got interviews with MARK EVANIER and STEVE SHERMAN on KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD, plus his SOUL LOVE and TRUE DIVORCE CASES books! There’s also plenty of unpub-

TwoMorrows 1812 Park Dr. • Raleigh, NC 27605 • (919) 833-8092 FAX (919) 833-8023 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com lished Kirby art, so subscribe now for six issues for $30 in the US, and get the SPECIAL EDITION absolutely FREE! ITEM! Speaking of CBA, in February COMIC BOOK ARTIST #7 looks at 1970s MARVELMANIA! Behind an incredible PAUL GULACY cover you’ll find articles, interviews, and rare and unpublished art by the pros who made that era great, like GULACY, BYRNE, BUCKLER, ADKINS, MOENCH, GERBER, MOONEY, SPRINGER,

and more! WARNING: CBA issues are consistently selling out, so order today! Subscribe now, get the FREE Special Edition, and be sure not to miss a single issue of the magazine that’s got everyone talking (and be on the lookout for our upcoming CBA Trade Paperback collection, reprinting those hard-to-find, out of print early issues)! ITEM! Rascally ROY THOMAS’ classic comics ’zine ALTER EGO is wowing old and new fans alike with rare art, new articles, features, and interviews with the greats of the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Ages. ALTER EGO #3 is now shipping, featuring a stunning ALEX ROSS cover and a look at Alex’s and Jerry Ordway’s SHAZAM! work! It’s a special issue celebrating the 60th anniversaries of the Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, and Captain Marvel, with coverage of their creators: Carl Burgos, Bill Everett, C.C. Beck, and more! Subscriptions are $20 for four issues! THE LEGEND IS BACK! ITEM! COMICOLOGY #1 ships in April! It’s the latest publication from the TwoMorrows Family of comics magazines, focusing on the best of today’s comics and their creators! Editor BRIAN SANER LAMKEN is helping TwoMorrows do for modern comics fandom what it’s already done for Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age fans with our other publications, so check out the ad elsewhere in this issue, and subscribe now for $20 for four issues!

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TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING PRODUCTION IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE KIRBY ESTATE EDITOR: JOHN MORROW ASSISTANT EDITOR: PAMELA MORROW ASSOCIATE EDITOR: JON B. COOKE DESIGN & LAYOUT: TWOMORROWS PROOFREADING: RICHARD HOWELL COLORIST: TOM ZIUKO CONTRIBUTORS: MARK STAFF BRANDL KURT BUSIEK PETER CLAPPER JEAN AND NOELLE DEPELLEY STEVE ENGLEHART RICHARD FRENCH NEIL GAIMAN BOB GALE RON GARNEY MIKE GARTLAND DAVE GIBBONS TOM HORVITZ TONY ISABELLA DAN JURGENS MICHAEL KALUTA GEORGE KHOURY LISA KIRBY PETER KOCH RICHARD KYLE R. GARY LAND ERIK LARSEN MARTY LASICK VICTOR LIM PAUL MCCALL HARRY MENDRYCK TOM MOREHOUSE FABIAN NICIEZA JOHN OSTRANDER MARK POE BRIAN PULIDO JOE QUESADA STEVE ROBERTSON ALEX ROSS CHRISTOPHER SAGHY DAVE SIM JOE SIMON JOE SINNOTT JEFF SMITH ROGER STERN MIKE THIBODEAUX BRUCE TIMM JOHN TOTLEBEN JIM VALENTINO RICK VEITCH CHARLES VESS R.J. VITONE MARK WAID BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH MARV WOLFMAN RAY WYMAN, JR. DUNCAN YOUNGERMAN TOM ZIUKO SPECIAL THANKS TO: RICHARD FRENCH D. HAMBONE RANDY HOPPE RICHARD HOWELL ROBERT KATZ GEORGE KHOURY LISA KIRBY MARTY LASICK STEVE ROBERTSON ALEX ROSS MIKE THIBODEAUX BRUCE TIMM RAY WYMAN, JR. TOM ZIUKO AND OF COURSE THE KIRBY ESTATE MAILING CREW: RUSS GARWOOD D. HAMBONE GLEN MUSIAL ED STELLI ROBERT THOMASON PATRICK VARKER A

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The 2000 Virtual Kirby Tribute Panel Conducted by George Khoury

Who’s Who on the Panel In Alphabetical Order: • Kurt Busiek (writer of Astro City and Marvels) • Steve Englehart (writer of The Avengers and Captain America) • Neil Gaiman (writer/creator of Sandman) • Bob Gale (screenwriter of Back to the Future) • Ron Garney (artist of Captain America and The Hulk) • Dave Gibbons (writer/artist of Watchmen and World’s Finest) • Tony Isabella (writer of Satan’s Six and Comics Buyer’s Guide columnist) • Dan Jurgens (writer/artist of Superman and Thor) • Michael Kaluta (artist of The Shadow and House of Mystery) • Erik Larsen (creator of Savage Dragon) • Fabian Nicieza (writer of X-Men and Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty) • John Ostrander (writer of Spectre and Martian Manhunter) • Brian Pulido (creator of Chaos Comics) • Joe Quesada (artist of Daredevil and Ash) • Dave Sim (creator of Cerebus) • Jeff Smith (creator of Bone) • Roger Stern (writer of Captain America and Iron Man) • John Totleben (artist of Miracleman and Swamp Thing) • Jim Valentino (publisher of Image Comics) • Rick Veitch (writer/artist of Swamp Thing and artist on ABC’s Tomorrow Stories) • Charles Vess (artist of Stardust and Sandman) • Mark Waid (writer of Kingdom Come) • Barry Windsor-Smith (of Conan and Storyteller fame) • Marv Wolfman (writer of Crisis and The New Teen Titans)

A couple of gladiators duke it out in these 1970s Kirby pencils.

(Welcome all to the 2000 Virtual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel. Don’t be shy, we’ve saved a special seat in the front row just for you! Many fans were left disappointed when the 1999 San Diego Comicon decided not to conduct its annual Kirby Tribute Panel, so we’ve decided to feature our own by contacting some of the top writers and artists in the industry via in-person, phone, fax, e-mail, and snail mail interviews for you, our ever-loyal readers and Kirby lovers everywhere. Given that all the members of our distinguished panel weren’t assembled together in the same room, we ask you to give us your imaginations just for a short while, and it’ll seem like we’re all magically together in an enormous auditorium for one special moment in time. So close your eyes, join us, and picture this:

The spacious hall is filled to capacity with fellow Kirby fans, young and old, as you take a seat down front. You overhear a few fans behind you discussing who is the better villain, Dr. Doom or Darkseid. While the guy next to you reminisces about his love for Moonboy and his loyal friend Devil Dinosaur, the people in front of you talk about Vinnie Colletta’s eraser and chuckle. Then suddenly the lights dim down and you feel a tingle on the back of your neck as the guests all arrive together and take their seats on the largest stage you’ve ever seen. In all, you see twenty-four gentlemen behind a long row of tables—twentyfour of the best creators who have ever contributed to our four-color medium. In an instant a sense of nostalgia overcomes you; you remember the great 5

tales and beautiful artwork that have at one moment or another touched your heart and entertained your mind. How can you forget the wonders of Marvels or the beauty of “Red Nails,” or where you were when even a Superman could die and infinite Earths became one? Who in this room can say he hasn’t laughed or cried with either Fone Bone or Cerebus? You could go on and on remembering something special about each of the panelists, but today we are all together for one reason: To celebrate the man who has brought us all together, the King of Comics, Jack Kirby. The room is electric. You feel a special kinship with everyone there. The hall is now Standing Room Only. The hubbub quickly dies down as the emcee approaches the podium, and the spotlight shines brightly at centerstage—and now the panel is ready to begin:

#66—“What Lurks Behind The Beehive?” What I do remember is that when I started reading comics regularly, Marvel was running Lee/Kirby FF reprints in Marvel’s Greatest Comics, and Thomas/Buckler new material in Fantastic Four. While I liked them both, I didn’t yet understand the concept of reprints—and I wondered how the people at Marvel knew to put the really good stuff into Marvel’s Greatest Comics. (laughter) I mean, it said “greatest” right on it, so clearly they were choosing the better ones, but what happened when a continued story came in, and half of it was one of the greatest and the other half was only good? Did they split it across Fantastic Four and Marvel’s Greatest Comics? Eventually I figured it out and felt really stupid. But even to my young and befuddled mind, the Lee/Kirby stuff was just head-andshoulders better—the power of it, the emotion, the characterization, the breathless pace. It all just hit harder.

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: Welcome to the 2000 Virtual Kirby Tribute Panel. (applause) For the next two hours we’re going to discuss the works of Kirby and the influence that he has had upon our panelists. My first question: What was your first Kirby comic book, and why did it have such an impact on you? Kurt?

DAN JURGENS: My first Kirby comic was Fantastic Four #58. Strangely enough, I remember not really liking it much. I was a total DC reader at the time, and I just found it all too strange and alien to embrace. The first Kirby comic I remember really going nuts over was Jack’s first Jimmy Olsen when he came to DC. I quickly hunted down all the other Fourth World books and became a devoted follower of the Kirby Magic.

KURT BUSIEK: I don’t remember what my first Kirby book was, though it may have been FF

MARK WAID: An avowed DC fan during the 1960s, I shamefully admit that I missed all of Jack’s work from that period the first time around. Like Dan, my first exposure to Jack was Jimmy Olsen #133—and at age eight, I thought it was the weirdest stuff I’d ever seen! Where was Curt Swan? Where was Pete Costanza? What is this? Nonetheless, Kirby got me. I bought all the Fourth World books— even though I didn’t love them yet, I’m grateful that some small part of me was pounding on the Al Plastino-ized part of my brain and screaming, “You lunkhead! This is genius!” (laughter) I wish I could say that he was an early influence on me, but thanks to my own naiveté, he wasn’t—at least not directly. Only in my teenage years did I come to realize how influential he was on the entire industry and everyone in it—past, present, and future.

Kirby’s production guide for assembling the collage on the cover of Jimmy Olsen #138, including finished inks by Neal Adams.

TONY ISABELLA: My first Jack Kirby comic was an issue of Fighting American, though I didn’t realize it until years later when Harvey reprinted some stories and I found that I remembered a couple of them. Next was probably Challengers of the Unknown, which remained one of my favorite titles even after Kirby left. Again, I wasn’t aware of Jack Kirby per se. I really became aware of Kirby with the Marvel Age of Comics and, most especially, Fantastic Four Annual #1, which I consider the greatest comic book of all time. (applause) DAVE SIM: I’m not really sure which were the first Kirby comics that I saw. I was a DC, primarily Superman-family-under-the-editorship-of-Mort-Weisinger fan, and Mort told us all not to read those other comics, so I thought the least I could do for Superman was to obey. A friend of mind, Dave Kelso, was exactly the opposite—Marvel fan through and through—so it was largely through him that I got persuaded to look at Marvel comics 6

(literally, up to the age of ten I would shield my eyes so as not to accidentally see a Marvel comic). I guess one of the first Kirby books I saw was Fantasy Masterpieces when they reprinted the first few issues of Captain America from the ’40s—or a few stories, anyway—all with dates and issue numbers attached. It was really ugly, muddy stuff, but ugly and muddy in a way that I definitely responded to with the first Red Skull story and all the Nazis and shooting and screaming and so on. People didn’t scream much in the Superman family books back in ’67 or so, so I found it to be attention-getting. A year or so later, I met Max Southall and John Cabeke and Manny and John Balge and other guys who all had these extensive Marvel collections since, back in 1967-68 it was a lot easier to have a complete run of Marvel comics than any of the major DC books. Max had an extra copy of FF #1 that he wanted ten bucks for, and I thought and thought and thought about it. I stole it from him at one point, but I felt bad after and gave it back to him with some lame story I don’t think he believed. As a newcomer to Marvel in 1967-68, I thought the 1961-63 books were the best, with the fat outlines around the word balloons on the cover and strange pinks and oranges and things like the cover to FF #9 and the flat yellow background on the cover of FF #4. That was really how I related to comic books around then. The stories seemed really sort of juvenile but the covers on Spider-Man #8 or FF #4 just looked like something I wanted to own and have with my Golden Age DC books, which also had very grabby covers. JEFF SMITH: For me, it was in 1964, a copy of the Fantastic Four. Ben Grimm wasn’t a comics icon then; he was truly grotesque and frightening. The tragic case of The Thing was really something new in comics. STEVE ENGLEHART: I started buying all the Marvels in the spring of ’65. I believe my first Kirby was FF #49, with Galactus and the Silver Surfer. A hell of a place to start.

JOE QUESADA: My first recollection of Jack’s work was during his stint at DC: All the Fourth World stuff, Kamandi, OMAC and the rest. I noticed Jack’s impact from the get-go; it was the stuff that separated the men from the boys in the super-hero genre. FABIAN NICIEZA: I don’t remember the exact issue because I was too young and had just come to this country, so my English wasn’t that good, but I am positive it was an issue of Fantastic Four around #60something. My older brother and I had been reading DC comics like Superman and Batman because we recognized the characters from television in Argentina (plus the Batman TV show on at that time), until a school friend of my brother’s told him we had to check out Marvel comics.

Simon & Kirby splash to Fighting American #1.

JOHN TOTLEBEN: I was always aware of Kirby’s work and even read his Captain America stories in Tales of Suspense around 1967-68. I didn’t care much for books like The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, Thor or The Hulk so obviously I never read them. Kirby’s work really began to grab my attention when he made the move to DC in 1970 and took over Jimmy Olsen. What was once one of the most droll and boring comics around suddenly became one of the most interesting. When he launched into the Fourth World trilogy—especially The New Gods—I was hooked and stayed hooked right to the end. ROGER STERN: The first Kirby story I read was probably “The Case of the Super-Arrows” in Adventure Comics #251. That had a cover date of August 1958, which meant that I would have read it in the Spring of that year. That was a great Summer, as there was a Kirby Green Arrow story coming out every month. I definitely remember reading “The Green Arrow’s First Case” in Adventure Comics #256. Comics distribution was always spotty where I grew up in central Indiana, so I never saw

Bone by Jeff Smith; not very Kirbyesque, but one heckuva book!

(above) Two upcoming Kirby-influenced projects from Genesis West: Disciples of the Dragon #1 (renamed from Phantom Force; Kirby pencils, Mike Thibodeaux inks) and the cover of Malibu Maniacs #2, featuring the Whitestar Knight (Kirby pencils, Marty Lasick inks). (below) Covers for two of the Genesis West proposals discussed this issue. (lower left) Marty Lasick after Kirby. (lower right) Pencils by Kirby, inks by Thibodeaux and Lasick.

A Kirby Family Roundtable Discussion featuring Lisa Kirby, Mike Thibodeaux, Richard French, and Steve Robertson Conducted at the Los Angeles home of Richard French in August 1999 by John Morrow (Following last Summer’s San Diego Comicon, my wife Pam and I were treated to an afternoon of warm hospitality with the Kirby family. It’s all too easy to forget that the term “Kirby Estate” doesn’t refer to some cold, impersonal corporation, but rather Jack and Roz’s children and grandchildren. Although only one of those relatives was present—Lisa, Jack and Roz’s youngest daughter, and the Estate’s co-executor—it’s not a stretch to use the word “family” to describe how the Kirbys felt about the others sitting around the dining room table that day. Mike Thibodeaux is a longtime friend and confidant of Jack and Roz, who still acts as agent for selling the family’s original art. Rick French is Mike’s friend and partner, who got to know Roz and Jack well, and worked with Jack developing ideas for their comic book company Genesis West. Steve Robertson became close with the Kirbys through regular visits since the 1970s, and has been Mike’s inking assistant, (l to r) Richard French, Steve Robertson, Lisa Kirby, and Mike Thibodeaux. idea springboard, and close friend just as long. Together, they form an extended family whose MIKE: Yeah. We would show up at the Kirby home once a week and goal is to further Jack’s reputation and legacy through the development of spread the artwork out on the kitchen table. Jack was amazing. We’d his unused concepts in Hollywood and the comics industry. We extend our hold up a drawing of a character and, lo and behold, Jack solidified the sincere thanks to them for taking time out for this roundtable discussion.) phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Jack had a thousand words, instantly creating character names and attributes, like he’d THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: To start off, let’s get an idea of what’s been rehearsing for going on with the Kirby Estate. Here’s a stack of Kirby-based ideas; this moment for are you pitching these for animation? weeks. Every detail RICK FRENCH: Animation or live action. On several of the concepts, was impeccable. He we’ve already started production of comics stories, like the Malibu would then segué Maniacs. into his version of the story without TJKC: Was this stuff intended specifically for Malibu Maniacs, or is it missing a beat. unused stuff of Jack’s that you’re recycling? TJKC: You had ads for MIKE THIBODEAUX: We’ve completed four of the twelve scheduled Malibu Maniacs out issues of Malibu Maniacs, and part of it’s Jack’s artwork. There are six at one time, but the double-spreads and a handful of pages penciled by Jack, while half of books never appeared; the twelve covers are also drawn by Jack. Being as prolific as Jack was, what happened? if I came across unused material that could be worked into Malibu Maniacs, Jack gave me permission, saying, “If it fits, use it.” But the MIKE: I wasn’t able bulk of the artwork to these stories is mine. to finish the project. My hand problems TJKC: Did Jack assist you guys in coming up with any of the concepts kind of shot that down. in these? Did you discuss them with him at all? I stupidly undertook too many projects at one time. I was working about twelve to fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. My ulnar nerve and Cover for Rincon—formerly Malibu Maniacs—#6 my radial nerve gave (pencils by Kirby, inks by Marty Lasick). out. I quickly realized I could never produce even half the volume of work that Jack could. To this day, finishing Malibu Maniacs is my priority. RICK: It’s hard to keep Mike concentrated on more lucrative projects. He’s always working on Malibu Maniacs in one way or another. MIKE: Malibu Maniacs was born out of my desire to breathe new life

Jack with Mike Thibodeaux at one of Roz Kirby’s birthday parties in the late 1980s.

on: World War II Influences The second installment from a work-in-progress entitled “Conversations with Jack” by Ray Wyman, Jr. Essays in first person based upon interviews with Jack Kirby and his family between August 1989 through June 1992. Copyright 1999 by Ray Wyman, Jr. (Author’s Note: Although always a gentleman when it came to the public, privately Jack could indulge in a bit of profanity from time to time, particularly when discussing his soldiering days. Couple that fact with my own propensity for the same linguistic crutch and there were times when the bluster of fourand five-letter words (and various combinations) was so thick that Roz—Jack’s wife of 50+ years— had to step into the room and politely remind us that our voices were ‘carrying.’ We must have sounded like a couple of old GI’s resting our bones on a park bench, cursing away the afternoon. Roz asked me to not encourage him, but really he needed no encouragement—in this he was fairly self-sufficient. So, sensitive readers, beware.)

General Patton ell, I can’t remember what happened yesterday; I could not tell you what I ate for breakfast this morning, but I recall the faces of everybody that was in my unit. I recall their names, I recall where they came from, I recall the manner of their speech and even the common everyday things they did; unimportant things that make the whole event real. That is how the mind works: It retains the significant events of our lives by memorializing the important moments. It happens when we are faced with events that are pleasurable and those that are unpleasant, especially when we are faced with danger—at times when our lives are hanging by a thread. It was like that nearly every day of the war. The threat was never far from our thoughts, I can tell you. I am not a master on how the human mind works but it seems fantastic that the mind stores all the little things that make up a period of your life; a string of incidents will fall into place, you know, from all your memories, and that is what produces the image we have of ourselves. Still, it kind of amazes me that I went through all of that. I’m amazed that I’m still here to tell you these things. These interviews, these questions are good for me to reflect and bring back all those times; small things, big things, sometimes insignificant, but all of them are stored right here for the asking. For instance, you ask me how it was during the war and just the mention of the word brings to mind the first time that I saw General Patton. My outfit was lined up and Patton was there with my Colonel and all the other officers. We were all mustered together and the officers stood there talking. We were freezing our asses off; those French winters are extremely cold. A heavy coat is nothing; a heavy coat didn’t mean a damn thing. Whatever you were wearing, it didn’t matter. Only walking saved you from the cold; any physical exertion was better than just standing at attention

Kirby splash-page pencils from Our Fighting Forces #159.

in the cold. There was no snow yet, but it was unforgettably cold. It didn’t matter to the officers; these guys were arguing over something, most of it I couldn’t hear very well, so what I remember is what other guys told me. We were in Northern France very close to the border of Germany and Belgium; and like I said, it was so cold, every one of us was shivering in our boots—not because we were afraid, you know. My outfit was a strong group of fighting men. Every one of them you could trust with your life; we had to, we had no choice. Well, there was Patton, sore as hell. Sometimes he was agitated, but their voices kept low. We couldn’t hear them very well. He wanted to know why we were screwing up his map. He came there with this big map and he spread it out over the hood of this jeep and got all the other officers in my outfit all around to look. Then he looked up at each one of them and said, “What the f*ck are these guys doing here?” and he pointed at the map again and yelled, “What is this? What is this? You’re fouling up the whole f*cking thing! If you’re here, then why the f*ck aren’t they dead? They are all supposed to be dead.” I myself was saying, “Well, sh*t on you. I feel great.” But like I said, I couldn’t hear most of what he was saying, except when he raised his voice and all the other officers stepped back like he was going to slap them. Of course, that wouldn’t happen in an American army, not in public at least where all the GIs could see. So, this went on for—I don’t remember, I was too frozen to care, but it went on for quite a while. I heard that Patton ordered replacements. He thought my outfit had been wiped out. So some foul-up I guess, signals crossed, messages mixed up; it happened quite a lot during the war. The Colonel had fouled up Patton’s schedule and his ability to predict what went on on the battlefield. This is a personal opinion, but I think he was a great General; he kept all of the outfits moving—you can’t win a war just by digging in. He kept his troops moving constantly so the Germans never got any rest—never, at least not in my sector. So in that way Patton was a good leader, a soldier’s General. While he kept us moving, he kept everything else moving with it; we got the best meals and medical care—and if his Colonels needed new troops, he’d bring them himself; and that’s what happened. There he was, mad as hell with our replacements, and there was my Colonel standing there like a common private, scared sh*tless.

tunist. He knew that people were about to revolt because things were so bad by then. At that time, the common man felt downtrodden; it was the same for Americans, we were feeling the same pressures back then, but we had Roosevelt and they had Hitler. It almost happened here; Hughie Long tried the same approach as Hitler. He wanted to take things over and run things for himself. Guys were unemployed and would listen to anybody. They thought he had a better idea; that he could fix the situation. I forget where he came from, but he was always making a big deal about everything. Somebody finally got fed up with him and had him shot. Hitler was immune to this because he was the one doing the shooting. After he took over Germany he grabbed Czechoslovakia, Austria, Poland; he wanted everything and we all knew it was coming. Everybody could see that, but Chamberlain missed the signs. People do not think of him as a good leader because a good leader has to see all of this at once. Now, if you ask if I blame Chamberlain for this war—well, that is possible, but when something happens, who gets blamed? Usually the loser. If we had lost the war they would be blaming us for the whole thing. Poor judgment is only part of the whole story; the rest is buried in everything that happened before you were ever around and what comes out at the end. I was drafted June 7, 1943. I found out the same way as everybody else: They sent a telegram. You get two free telegrams from the Army: One to tell you that you are drafted and one to tell your wife that you are coming home in a casket. Sure, I was drafted, but I didn’t mind going. You didn’t complain about it because it was the thing to do. All my friends were gone, even Joe. You did this sort of thing without asking questions. It was your duty—but, I can tell you that I wasn’t happy about Basic Training. I was at Camp Stewart, Georgia during the Summer; it was always hot and humid. I hated it there and they always gave me a hard time. I am not a guy who likes to be disciplined. I hate discipline of any kind except the kind of discipline I make for myself, like when I draw. If it is not right I’ll redraw it 19 times until I get it right, but Army discipline I wasn’t ready for. “Stand straight. Get up. Lay down. Do this. Do that.” They would wake us up at two o’clock in the morning and make us hike 50 miles, 25 miles up and 25 miles back. That is a long walk with a full pack, a rifle and everything else—that’s a long walk without them. And at two o’clock in the morning, are you sleeping or walking? And you are doing this all on roads as rough as hell. I was not prepared for the military experience personally; most of what I knew about the world came from the papers, books and movies—mainly movies. Like everybody else I was fed stereotypes by the movies, by writers who were pulling down big dough for writing that stuff; they didn’t realize that it was a kind of a beginning of an education for most of the country. There were very limited communications: A telephone was very hard to come by, not like today. To own an automobile you had to be semi-rich, and nobody ever took a cab; those were taken by rich people too. And airplanes? We all took trains back then and you only went on a train when you really had to go someplace. All the things we take for granted today were as far away from us as the sun. I know I may sound like an old rehashing-type, but those were different days. But I did appreciate the opportunity to meet all sorts of people from all over the country. It was a great opportunity, I can tell you. There were guys from Florida, Michigan, Utah, Texas—I don’t think there was one

Boot Camp

(this page and throughout this article) Very early Kirby face studies, circa the late-1930s.

World War II didn’t happen overnight. There are layers of history, a whole series of occurrences that brought us to that critical moment when war was inevitable. I think the British actually knew that but were too proud to admit that they had already failed to contain Hitler. To understand what happened you would have to go back to Napoleon, the Kaiser, the Russian Czar, the British Royalty; these guys never liked each other, they were horrible to each other. They never could keep a promise. They were so busy trying to outdo each other that they lost touch with their own people. Then there was the Great Depression; it hit everybody, not just here. In Germany it took 2 million marks to buy a loaf of bread. Hitler was an oppor17

Alex Ross Interview Interviewed by George Khoury (Who can forget the first time they saw an illustration by Alex Ross? He is quite possibly the most popular artist to arrive on the comics scene since the Neal Adams experience of the late Sixties. He blew us away with his romanticized vision of the Marvel Universe in Marvels. Kingdom Come caused shockwaves throughout the industry and fandom for its sheer power and epic storytelling. And with Earth X, Ross continues to develop as a storyteller, exploring the inner workings of Marvel’s characters, especially many of the ones created by Jack Kirby. Our thanks to Alex for taking time out of his busy schedule to conduct this telephone interview in late 1999, and to Gary Land for supplying much of the Ross art that accompanies it here.) THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: How has Jack Kirby been an influence on you? ALEX ROSS: For me, he’s more of a direct influence upon artists who have influenced me. I’m one of those guys who grew up reading comics by guys who were influenced by Kirby. Even though I did see Kirby—I don’t know; as early as when I was five when he was doing the Sandman comic for DC. I love that comic to this day; it’s one of my favorite things that was forgotten about him. But guys like George Pérez, who he influenced heavily—just about everybody drawing comics post1960s had a huge amount of Kirby in them, whether they like it or not. Even Neal Adams probably owes a great deal to Kirby because of the energy the man put into the entire nature of the art form.

TJKC: In your opinion, where does Jack Kirby fit into the history of comics? ALEX: Well, I’ve said this before in interviews: I feel like Jack is, more or less, the Picasso of comics. He took the form from an infancy stage—you know, the basic illustrations—to all different levels till eventually creating his own form of art out of the language of comics. Also, his expression was indigenous to comics; the energy that he gave comics was unlike anything else, anywhere else. TJKC: What were your first Kirby books? Was it mostly his ’70s work? ALEX: I had a handful of them, and very early on I was familiar with the stuff he was doing for Marvel in the Seventies. I was also equally familiar with reprints, the origin stories of this or that Marvel character (because Marvel was doing a lot of paperbacks at that time) and so I was seeing some of the earliest adventures he had drawn of the FF, Avengers, or whatever. At an early age I was seeing the stuff that really made him famous—really made him what he was to the comics industry. TJKC: Were you naturally drawn to his stuff, or was it too rough for your taste? ALEX: In a weird way I did have a natural draw to it to some degree. In that time period I was personally influenced by what John Romita or Neal Adams brought to art. Those guys were actually a bigger, more direct inspiration on what I thought was the ultimate comics style, but then Kirby had this unbelievable charm for me. I know it doesn’t sound right to just put it in terms of charm, but that’s really what it wound up being. I really loved what his stuff looked like. Alex’s pencil rough for his version of Kirby’s cover to Avengers #4.

TJKC: Do you ever wonder what drove him to do comics for over fifty years, in all different genres? ALEX: It seems to me that he was always exploring different stuff. In the Forties, he bounced around with a lot of different titles other than Captain America. Then going into romance, going into the humor stuff that he did, going into all the stuff that occupied his time 24

in the Fifties—I mean, the guy tried to do so many different things. He always kept trying to expand his horizons. The reason that he had such a long history of super-heroes is that he always found new concepts and new creative room to expand upon them. TJKC: It appears that a person like Kirby only comes every hundred years. How desperately does this industry need a new Kirby to inject some life into it? ALEX: I don’t know if it’s so much based upon just the talent of a talented individual, you know? Kirby wasn’t the reason why comics sold in the first place; that can’t be credited to him. Kirby has more to do with the greatest work, the most inspiring work, that happened within comics. He doesn’t deserve the credit of being necessarily the juggernaut of why comics ever sold, period. In fact, the comics that Kirby is most associated with weren’t often the best-selling comics of their time. I don’t need to argue what Kirby’s worth was. In essence Kirby’s greatest accomplishment was the degree to which one man could inspire so many others—that his works last for so long. There’s simply no better creative force within American comics. Having said that, let me clarify this is American comics, not worldwide comics—because there are plenty of comics around the world, outside the fact that comics were invented in America. Their styles are not affected at all by whatever Kirby did, and in fact they have a better, more stable industry than we have. Japan is not really reeling because of what Jack Kirby did. But as far as America goes, he’s tops. He’s the thing.

TJKC: With the Kirby recreations that you’ve done, you’ve had a chance to study his art a little closer than others. Where is the power inside his art? ALEX: The layout. The energy that is in every single stroke the guy put in. You could sit there and take it apart and compare it to other illustrators and say, “Well, it’s not as realistic as this or as overrendered as this.” But it’s all based upon the energy of the layout, the energy of the line—which is simple enough on its own. By looking at the Kirby Collector, you can really see just how much more power there was in his pencils than any inker, generally, was able to capture. TJKC: What was the process behind the Captain America artwork you did for the cover of TJKC #19? ALEX: I basically just xeroxed it right out of my Steranko’s History of Comics so I already had a copy of the thing. What I did was I took the xerox of that, blew it up to the size I wanted the piece to be, and then had that transferred to a board. I would than basically redraw every single line over his, down the board. I was basically redrawing the thing; before that, all I did was a rough sketch of the same piece to sort of loosely break down the shadow areas that I was going to create that Kirby did not have already, and I was taking the same light sources that he already created: The explosions, the gun blast, and taking all of that and using that as where the In case you missed it: Alex’s cover painting for TJKC #19. It’s just been released as a full-color lithograph; check your local comics shop.

The Two Jacks: Kirby’s Fine Art Influence by Mark Staff Brandl he relationship between the comics art world and that of the ”fine” arts has been a strained one. Yet both are important forms of creativity and are of equal importance to many people, including some fine artists—including me. Traditionally, “high” artists have been condescending to comics art, seeing it as at best a kind of accidental success, and at worst as corporate hackwork. Even the adjectives one must use to name the fields reflect this. Comics fans, similarly, view fine art as too elitist, assuming that the often difficult works of experimental artists are publicity ploys. Impartially judged, both camps are wrong—and yet, unfortunately, sometimes right. Accept my terminology here as simply indicative, not judgmental. Fine artists are those who create in the context of galleries, selling to collectors. Comics means artists of the sequential who create in the context of publishing and sell to a “mass” audience. (This is now in transition; probably niche audiences are replacing a mass public, but that’s a subject for another time.) The Pop artists such as Roy Lichtenstein were the first to begin breaking down this barrier from the “fine” side. His work began as “slumming,” yet he gained respect for comics art as he developed. Many fine artists today grew up with comics as their first art source, thus referring to them without cynicism. This is not always well understood by the two opposing camps. My large abstract paintings, for instance, feature images conceptually derived in processes reminiscent of John Cage or Marcel Duchamp. I have great respect for these two, for Marc Rothko, Jackson Pollock—and Jack Kirby, Gene Colan, and Al Williamson. It is time to end the silly separation of “high” and “low.” Both ends should concentrate on being against mediocrity and cliché, the greater enemies of all art. We must ignore the division. This conviction surfaced in a series of works based on the artistic heroes of my childhood—comic book artists of the ’60s. I made twelve handmade books, some very large installations, and the illustrated drawing, called The Two Jacks—that is, Jack Kirby and Jackson Pollock. I used my standard technique to create the source images, thus it helps to understand this activity. As two critics (Ammann and Schuenze) recently described it:

be far more complex in fractal magnification, dissolving and simultaneously resolving themselves. Broken-down details in zoom allow new structures to originate. The images resulting from this process are then painted.”

While altering Kirby’s drawings in this process, it struck me that they reminded me of Pollock. The images of both these artists are huge in spirit. When I visually remember most comics art, it appears in my thoughts at ordinary comic book panel scale. Likewise much fine art is unintentionally the small scale of an art history book reproduction. However, think of Kirby’s work. Don’t the drawings come into your mind’s eye as huge, mural-like explosions? His images are small in reality but immense in scale. Pollock’s paintings, in a similar fashion, can only be understood live, and then appear larger than they are. Reproductions lose all layering and violence. I realized the power lay to a large extent in Kirby’s marks themselves, as well as in what they represent. No matter how wonderful the inker, his pencils are always light-years better. Using the process outlined above I transformed the strokes making up the knees of Captain America in Kirby’s drawing for Jim Steranko’s first History of Comics. Undreamed-of abstract power was the result— that’s Jack! It was a heady delight to feel as if I were collaborating with him and celebrating him, while uniting important disparities in art:

“[Brandl] enlarges lines, figures, strokes, or aspects of an image important to him in numerous steps and with a profusion of technologies, e.g. photographing, copying, faxing, computer print-out, etc. Interference, ‘noise’, mistakes or irregularities come to the fore through this ‘microscopying’ technique. What are perceived as perfect contours in the source image prove to

The Two Jacks by Mark Staff Brandl, black colored pencil on paper, 1999, 5' x 3'. Mark took Kirby's Captain America drawing from the Steranko History of Comics, isolated the knee, enlarged it, and spun it 180 degrees [as shown above] to become the source material for this abstract work.

Kirby Cakes By Noëlle Depelley, wife of French TJKC reader Jean Depelley n France, on the Epiphany day (the coming of the three Kings at Bethlehem’s crèche—or “cowshed” if you prefer—on the first Sunday of January after the Christ’s birth), it is a tradition for families and friends to gather around a special cake, called Kings’ Cake (the French equivalent of the Twelfth Night Cake) made of brioche or frangipani, in which a one-inched porcelain or plastic figurine—a so-called “bean” (fève in French)—was initially put. The youngest guest goes under the table to blindly assign a piece of cake to everyone. The lucky one who finds the bean is elected king (or queen) of the day and must choose his queen/her king among those assembled, the two monarchs finally wearing golden cardboard crowns. Last January, my husband and I were at home with a few friends, mostly comics fans, to enjoy this popular custom. After the pieces of cake were all distributed, everyone started eating, wondering who would find the precious object (I must confess that I am an avid bean collector, owning more than 5000 fèves). All of a sudden, someone screamed “I got it” and pulled a small colorful character out of his mouth. “He’s got a weird name: Darkid? No, Darkseid!” The other guests suddenly stopped eating. “But, it’s a Kirby character!” We all stood up to see the peculiar figurine and it was indeed the famous DC super-villain (as my husband explained to me). You can easily imagine my surprise (and disappointment), as I desperately wanted to change the subject of our previous discussions. No such luck! Is it necessary to say that the following day, my husband visited every bakery he could to complete the series, wishing to find other Kirby figurines? No luck again. This Darkseid bean belongs to a 12-piece Superman series and is the only character from Jack’s Fourth World (I’m trying to improve my comics vocabulary!). New series of beans related to comics, pulps or movies have been released, such as Tarzan, Zorro, Spider-Man, and Batman, in addition to the traditional characters from the crèche (Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and their animals, and the three Kings). Now my husband accompanies my collector friends and me to the fève conventions to find other Darkseid figurines for his fellow comics fans. Every year now on the Epiphany day, my husband’s got a special thought for a fourth King named Jack Kirby.★

Detail from Jackson Pollock’s painting Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952, enamel and aluminum paint on glass on canvas, 6 7⁄ 8 ' x 16' .

comics/fine, conceptual/sensual, and abstract/representational. However arranged, the resultant strokes worked well and suggested the great Pollock painting Blue Poles. I drew these marks in black colored pencil on paper, layers upon layers over one another, each polished with a stump. They are painstakingly drawn, not ”splashed” as it might first appear; one can see the numerous small strokes inside each larger, represented stroke. The implications are many. Questions enjoyable to consider arise. Is there an effect of Kirby on the fine arts, in addition to his clear and imposing position in comics? Is the effect Zeitgeist, or are these Jacks the two true, antipodal kings of American art as my title suggests and as I now believe? Much is discussed about Kirby’s imagery, themes, narratives, and characters, but what of his development of an overwhelming, powerful plastic mark-making? That too is a wondrous “ballet of violence.” Is the absence of such quality of line one reason why much recent comics art (to say nothing of fine art) seems so flaccid and rococo? In the future will we see works by Pollock, Duchamp, Kirby, and (I would hope) Brandl in the same room, more similar than dissimilar to those future eyes? These are important, poignant questions. I end by quoting Barbara Kruger’s witty New York Times article: “What’s High? What’s Low? Who Cares?” For me, we are all high and low; Kirby is much higher than we know; and I care.★ (The author is a painter who also writes about art frequently for Art in America in New York and The Art Book in London. See his work on the Web at http://markstaffbrandl.home.pages.de/)

happen to be involved with. The “High”/”Low” divide added to the eye/ear dichotomy would seem to make them stand at diametrical ends of the Western cultural experience, right? Not for me. It took me years to painstakingly find out, but there is no hiatus between Kirby, Strawinsky, Picasso, James Brown. Below the immediate surface, on the deep level that matters, “High,” “Low,” visual, musical, literary, all are one, and for musical inspiration I’m now just as likely to look at a classic Kirby/Sinnott cover as I am to press the keys of a piano. It’s been of great relief for me to discover all too recently that my “Comicdom Lost,” this magical anthropomorphic cosmic carnival which accompanied my growth into early adolescence, has not only never left me, but lies within me as a rich ferment, a rare treasure from which to draw continual lessons in power and immediacy. Kirby’s take-no-prisoners physicality and boldness of imagination: My secret dynamite against the walls rationalistic musical training

There Is No Hiatus A Musical Tribute, by Duncan Youngerman “My physical structure is now composed of solidified sound...” Klaw in Fantastic Four #56 he dynamic-yet-static ink figures inside square or rectangular panels on large white sheets of Bristol paper that I breathed, ate, and slept as a young aspiring comic book artist must surely have something to do with my attachment now as a musician to the indelible quality of composition—every rhythm, every pitch codified and fixed black on white for eternity on score paper. But aside from that, nothing could apparently be farther from the raw pop aesthetics of the comic book than the over-refined realm of contemporary classical music I now

Jack Kirby Collector #27