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JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR THIRTY-SEVEN IN THE US

$995

NOW SHIPPING FROM TWOMORROWS! SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Number 10, Winter 2003 • Hype and hullabaloo from the publisher determined to bring new life to comics fandom • Edited by Eric Nolen-Weathington

First off, some disappointing news: COMIC BOOK ARTIST magazine is moving to Top Shelf Productions. After five years and two Eisner Awards at TwoMorrows, “Ye Ed” JON COOKE got an offer he couldn’t refuse, so #25 (slated for April, and featuring Alan Moore’s ABC line) will be the last issue before the switch. Refunds to subscribers for issues beyond #25 have been mailed, so if you didn’t get yours, give our phone or e-mail box a jingle. And if you’re missing some CBA back issues, don’t worry; we’re still handling sales of all the TwoMorrows issues until they’re sold out, so now’s the time to stock up! (If you’ve been anxiously awaiting the previously announced SWAMPMEN book, sorry—it’s been shelved due to CBA’s switch.)

Whatta December!

First, an ice storm ripped through Raleigh, NC (TwoMorrows’ home base) and knocked out the electricity for 8 long, cold days! Then, just 36 hours after the lights came back on, wife Pam woke publisher John Morrow at 4am and put him on a plane bound for Miami, to take a surprise week-long Caribbean cruise to celebrate his 40th birthday! (Pam packed his bags while he was consumed with working on the COMIC BOOK ARTIST #23: new KIRBY COLLECTOR, so he didn’t MAGIC OF MIKE MIGNOLA! suspect a thing!) By the time they returned, the • NEW HELLBOY COVER by MIKE MIGNOLA! For those misguided individuals who still think we only holidays were here, and • Career-spanning MIGNOLA INTERVIEW! cover the “old school” artists of the Golden and Silver a trip to visit family • Possibly the most remarkable gallery of RARE AND EE ART ever published! Ages, take note. TwoMorrows production assistant (and (and show off 16MIGNOLA FOR FR TENDEDUNSEEN IN T NO all-around good guy) ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON is is ich month-old daughterERIAL, wh •or JILLyo THOMPSON u paid interviewed, from Sandman to r, be cri AT bs M So TEinDorder. editing our new book series spotlighting the top talent COPYLily) RIGH Scary Godmother! was u’re a print su cere r sin his is WHERE. If yo r website, you have• ou ANYwhy working in comics today! MODERN MASTERS: VOLNG know HARLAN ELLISON talks comics in a lengthy interview! DIyou now at ou one. NLOA it is W d th e loa DO lik wn ns do UME ONE showcases the work of ALAN DAVIS, the catio e to be argwon’t • JOSÉtoDELBO #37 we ch feeTJKC oducing publi rrent,speaks in our classic artist showcase, t pr es or ep od ke m ite e to bs th us we British superstar known for his stunning work on DETECs her owFeb. plus our regular features and more! shipping until pport all su from some ot NSENT, TIVE COMICS, X-MEN, JUSTICE LEAGUE, KILLRAVEN, thanks—your Sorry,do UT OUR CO(EditedL. ded it for free wnloa fans! u Kirby IA by IfJON B. COOKE • 116 pages) DONE WITHO ER 0% AT 10 M and of course, CAPTAIN BRITAIN! This first volumeIfofinstead yo D ely lut TE PYRIGH $9 US POSTPAID (Canada: $11, Elsewhere: it was abso the series explores his life and career with theple longest, G OF OUR CO ase know that $12 Surface, $16 Airmail). GAL POSTIN most in-depth interview Davis has ever given.an Indaddiit was an ILLE what you should do: here’s at you think. tion to pages and pages of rare and previouslythunpubwh e se at’s the case, d an E, purchase a GITAL ISSU lished artwork, Alan gives a tutorial on the artists that DI(March) Alter EgoIS #22 D TH T THING and and REA influenced him, plus his views on graphic storytelling. DO THE RIGH the print edition at our it, Alter Ego #23 (April) ep 1) Go ahead ke to gh e ou as en Also included are interviews with long-time collaborators Paul Neary and Mark Farmer. (Neary bsite, or purch If you enjoy it at your local r we 2)also m ou it fro n for free) or Comic Book Artist #24 (Feb) provides the Foreword, while Farmer contributes the Afterword.) The 128-page trade paperbackleg ships al download of les you to the Digital Editio ader. re id pa lar tit CBA #25 (April, final issue) gu in March for $17 POSTPAID IN THE US. And next up for Volume Two? GEORGE PÉREZ! (which en you as a re T SHARE

ion

TIDBITS lthough DRAW! is consistently our top-selling magazine, it’s also our most erratic at shipping ontime. While the magazine has fallen behind due to contributor and scheduling issues, MIKE MANLEY has vowed to get DRAW! out more regularly in 2003, and has a ton of material “in the can” for future issues, so look for solid quarterly or better shipping starting with #6 (above)! ow that ALT ER EGO is monthly, it’s our most regular mag, and ROY THOMAS hasn’t missed a deadline yet! (Of course, designer CHRIS DAY helps a little, too!) Be sure to check out #23 in April, showcasing the recent discovery of two NEVER-PUBLISHED Golden Age Wonder Woman yarns! RITE NOW! editor DANNY FINGEROTH shared with us this quote he received from STAN “THE MAN” LEE: “WRITE NOW! is a great mag… reading the interviews will turn all your subscribers into better writers. As if we ain't got enough competition now!“ If Stan likes it, we bet you will too! Pick up issue #4 (above) in April, featuring HOWIE CHAYKIN, WARREN ELLIS, and other top pros on both sides of the desk giving tips on writing for comics, animation, and science-fiction!

So just what is TwoMorrows going to do with that empty slot on its schedule once CBA is gone? Glad you asked! We’re hard at work on SUPER-SECRET PLANS for the launch of what we predict will be the NEW MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR! Look for the formal announcement next issue, but rest assured it’ll appeal to the same audience as CBA, and is destined to be THE ULTIMATE COMICS EXPERIENCE!

All characters TM & © their respective holders.

S’long CBA... ...Hello ?

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Coming Soon!

Lightning Strikes Again!

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Hot on the heels of the success of THE FAWCETT COMPANION, TwoMorrows presents BECK AND SCHAFFENBERGER: SONS OF THUNDER, a splitbiography book (with a Foreword by KEN BALD) on the careers and lives of two of comics’ greatest and most endearing artists, C.C. BECK and KURT SCHAFFENBERGER! Both men are known for their seminal work on FAWCETT COMICS, and this upclose and personal retrospective journey takes you from their childhood years to the Golden Age of comic books and beyond! Co-written by FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) editor P.C. HAMERLINCK and MARK VOGER, this book is chock-full of previously unpublished art by both artists, including pre-comic book work, art from CAPTAIN MARVEL, LOIS LANE, and more, plus hundreds of RARE PHOTOGRAPHS! If you’re a fan of either of these Golden and Silver Age greats, this is a book you can’t miss! The 160-page paperback ships in April, for $20 POSTPAID IN THE US.

Barnes & Noble, Here We Come! TwoMorrows has signed an exclusive deal with DIAMOND BOOK DISTRIBUTORS to get our trade paperbacks into major bookstore chains around the world! This extra exposure means we’ll have the opportunity to publish some groundbreaking tomes by authors who might’ve overlooked us with just Direct Market distribution. Next issue, you’ll see the type of material we’re talking about. STAY TUNED!

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #36: THOR’S 40TH ANNIVERSARY!

ALTER EGO #21: IGER STUDIO AND THE JSA!

With pages of KIRBY’s UNINKED THOR PENCILS plus:

• DAVE STEVENS COVER and “SHEENA” section with art by FRANK BRUNNER and other “good girl” artists! • Inside the Golden Age Iger Shop with art by EISNER, FINE, CRANDALL, MESKIN, CARDY, EVANS, & others! • ROY THOMAS on the JSA & ALL-STAR SQUADRON, with art by GIL KANE, JACK KIRBY, ALEX TOTH, and JERRY ORDWAY! • MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, SCHAFFENBERGER, & more!

• KIRBY THOR COVERS inked by MIKE ROYER and TREVOR VON EEDEN! • Never-published 1969 KIRBY INTERVIEW! • Interview with JOE SINNOTT about his THOR work! • JOHN ROMITA JR. discusses his work on THOR! • NEW REGULAR COLUMN by MARK EVANIER! • Huge THOR ART GALLERY, “Tales of Asgard” explored, “FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE,” & more! (Edited by JOHN MORROW • 84 tabloid pages) Four-issue subscriptions: $36 Standard, $52 First Class (Canada: $60, Elsewhere: $64 Surface, $80 Airmail).

(Edited by ROY THOMAS • 108 pages) Twelve-issue subscriptions: $60 Standard, $96 First Class (Canada: $120, Elsewhere: $132 Surface, $180 Airmail). FOR SIX-ISSUE SUBS, JUST CUT THE PRICE IN HALF!

“I HAVE TO LIVE WITH THIS GUY!” TRADE PAPERBACK

DRAW! #5: THE HOW-TO MAG ON COMICS & CARTOONING!

Writer Blake Bell explores the lives of the partners and wives of the top names in comics, as they share memories, anecdotes, personal photos, momentos, and never-before-seen art by the top creators in comics!

• Interview and sketchbook by MIKE WIERINGO! • BRIAN BENDIS AND MIKE OEMING show how they create the series POWERS! • BRET BLEVINS shows how to draw great hands! • The illusion of depth in design, by PAUL RIVOCHE! • Must-have art books reviewed by TERRY BEATTY! • Plus reviews of the best art supplies, links and more!

rrows.comMAG FOR WRITERS OF ww.twomo w COMICS, ANIMATION, & SCI-FI P.C. Hamerlinck, FCA editor: mike@actionplanet.com fca2001@yahoo.com Danny Fingeroth, WRITE NOW! editor: WriteNowDF@aol.com Jon B. Cooke, COMIC BOOK ARTIST editor: jonbcooke@aol.com And the TWOMORROWS WEBSITE (where you can read excerpts from our back issues, and order from our secure online store) is at: www.twomorrows.com

READ EXCERPTS & ORDER AT: www.twomorrows.com

Get practical advice and tips on writing from top pros on both sides of the desk, including: • ERIK LARSEN on writing/drawing Savage Dragon! • STAN BERKOWITZ on scripting the Justice League show! • STEVEN GRANT offers 10 rules for comics writers! • TOM DeFALCO shows the nuts & bolts of plotting! • PLUS: LEE NORDLING, TODD ALCOTT, and more! (Edited by DANNY FINGEROTH • 96 pages) Four-issue subscriptions: $20 Standard, $32 First Class (Canada: $40, Elsewhere: $44 Surface, $60 Airmail).

• ALAN MOORE • WILL EISNER • STAN LEE • GENE COLAN • JOE KUBERT • JOHN ROMITA • HARVEY KURTZMAN • DAVE SIM • HOWARD CRUSE • DAN DeCARLO • DAVE COOPER and many more! (208-Page Trade Paperback) $24 US (Canada: $26, Elsewhere: $27 Surface, $31 Airmail).

(Edited by MIKE MANLEY • 88 pages w/color section) Four-issue subscriptions: $20 Standard, $32 First Class (Canada: $40, Elsewhere: $44 Surface, $60 Airmail).

TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom. TwoMorrows Publishing • 1812 Park Drive • Raleigh, NC 27605 USA • 919-833-8092 • FAX: 919-833-8023 • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

(right) Big John Buscema did a fine job on How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way, but even as a kid, I knew Jack was the one who should’ve been doing that book. So, here’s the cover the way it should’ve been!

C O P Y R I G H T S : 2001 Characters, Alicia, Arnim Zola, Balder, Betty Ross, Black Bolt, Black Panther, Bruce Banner, Bucky, Capt. America, Crystal, Devil Dinosaur, Don Blake, Dr. Doom, Dr. Strange, Dragon Man, Ego, Fantastic Four, Howard the Duck, Hulk, Human Torch, Inhumans, Invisible Girl, Ka-Zar, Loki, Machine Man, Magneto, Mechano, Medusa, Mole Man, Moonboy, Mr. Fantastic, Mr. Little, Odin, Power Man, Professor X, Quicksilver, Recorder, Red Skull, Red Wolf, Rick Jones, Scarlet Witch, Sgt. Fury, Sif, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, Stranger, Super-Skrull, Thing, Thor, Tigra, Toad, X-Men, Yellow Claw TM ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc. • Big Barda, Blue Beetle, Darkseid, Demon, Desaad, Forever People, Guardian, In The Days of the Mob, Jimmy Olsen, K a m a n d i , L i g h t r a y, Mantis, Martian Manhunter, Metron, Mr. Miracle, Newsboy Legion, Oberon, Orion, Sandman, Sandy, Scott Free, Slig, Sonny Sumo, Superman TM & ©2003 DC Comics. • Bombast, Capt. Glory, Darius Drumm, Gladiators, Gods characters, Jacob and the Angel, Jericho, King Masters, Silver Star, Street Code TM & ©2003 Jack Kirby Estate. • Boys' Ranch, Justice Traps The Guilty, Strange World Of Your Dreams, Stuntman TM & ©2003 Joe Simon & Jack Kirby. • Destroyer Duck TM & ©2003 Steve Gerber and Jack Kirby. • Young Gods TM & ©2003 Barry WindsorSmith. • Black Hole TM & ©2003 Walt Disney Prods., Inc. • Conan TM & ©2003 Robert E. Howard Estate. • Spirit TM & ©2003 Will Eisner. • Prince Valiant TM & ©2003 King Features Syndicate.

IT’S ISSUE #37 OF...

...THE NEW JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR!

Contents OPENING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 (the Editor tells how he does it)

INNERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 (Kirby tells us how he did it)

COMPARISON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 (does Jack’s writing stack up to Stan’s?)

UNDER THE COVERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 (gods, gods, and more gods; but where are they?)

KIRBY AS A GENRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54 (Adam McGovern tells how others do it)

COLLECTOR COMMENTS . . . . . . . . . . .78 (letters on #36; we’ll do #35 next time!)

GALLERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 (tracing the evolution of Jack’s style)

NEW COLUMN! KIRBY OBSCURA . . . .56 (Barry Forshaw tracks down obscure Kirby work)

PARTING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 (a great big snake, Kirby-style!)

THINKIN’ ’BOUT INKIN’ . . . . . . . . . . . .24 (Mike Royer tells us how it’s done)

TECHNIQUE SECTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 (analyses of Jack’s tricks of the trade)

JACK F.A.Q.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 (Mark Evanier tells us how Jack did it)

INFLUENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66 (from Foster to Kirby to Windsor-Smith)

Front & back cover inks/colors: JACK KIRBY 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.

The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 10, No. 37, Winter 2003. Published quarterly by & ©2003 TwoMorrows Publishing, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. 919-8338092. John Morrow, Editor. Pamela Morrow, Asst. Editor. Eric Nolen-Weathington, Production Assistant. Single issues: $13 postpaid ($15 Canada, $16 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $36.00 US, $60.00 Canada, $64.00 elsewhere. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All artwork is ©2003 Jack Kirby unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is ©2003 the respective authors. First printing. PRINTED IN CANADA.

Gallery

The Evolution of Kirby’s Style Unfinished Abdul Jones strip (1937) (age 20) One of the few remaining examples of Jack’s pre-comic book pencils, while he still went by his given name, Jacob Kurtzberg.

WHERE DID KIRBY’S TRADEMARK SQUIGGLES, KRACKLE, AND KIRBYTECH COME FROM?

TO KNOW, WE NEED TO EXAMINE HOW HIS STYLE EVOLVED, FROM HIS EARLIEST WORK, TO HIS LAST. SO FOR THIS ISSUE’S GALLERY, WE PRESENT A KAVALCADE OF KIRBY FROM THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER, IN AN ATTEMPT TO SHOW THE EVOLUTION OF HIS STYLE, STARTING WITH WORK FROM THE

1930S Two gladiator studies, circa early 1930s.

Blue Beetle newspaper strip (1/19/40) (age 23) Under a variety of pseudonyms and styles, Jack worked solo on numerous newspaper strips for a small syndicate. You can see the early development of his Golden Age style in the Blue Beetle.

Captain America Comics #4 (June 1941) (age 24) Now we’re cookin’! Though still a bit crude, his work with Joe Simon at this stage really starts to take off, and you can see he’s learning as he goes. The Simon & Kirby team leaves the competition in the dust, and makes Kirby a name to be reckoned with in comics.

Adventure Comics #75 (June 1942) (age 25) A jump to DC Comics leads to better pay, a more refined and slick style, and faster production. As war loomed, Jack stockpiled work and broke his previous speed records.

1940 8

1945 Interlude KO Komics #1 (Oct. 1945) This book was recently sold on eBay as having a Kirby cover. Does it? The signature “JCA” doesn’t seem to lend any clues.

Unused Stuntman page (1946) (age 29) Returning from World War II service, Joe and Jack’s reputation got them an unprecedented deal at Harvey Comics. This partially inked page shows the elaborate panel designs that characterized much of Jack’s work of this era, and his solid anatomical structure; stylized and exaggerated, but always believable. Post-war failures would be forgotten after the success of S&K’s million-selling romance comics in the later 1940s. 9

Thinkin’ ’bout inkin’

Fastest Inker In The

Interviewed by Jim Amash (below) Jack Kirby with Mike (looking very “Austin Powers” shagadelic, baby!) at the 1975 San Diego Comicon.

(far right, top) Mike, at home on the range during one of his many trail rides.

(center) Mike was kind enough to supply us with this list of the inking supplies he uses, both while he was regularly inking Jack, and now.

(above) Mike with mentor Russ Manning in the early 1970s.

(Editor’s Note: I’d always planned to have interviews with both Mike Royer and Joe Sinnott in this issue, and I figured, who better to interview an inker than a fellow inker? After my pal Jim Amash agreed to take time out from his work for Archie Comics to get Mike and Joe on the record, I set out to compile a stack of key Kirby pages inked by each, to use as fodder for discussion. But the stack grew ever larger as I got into it, and both gents sent back additional art of their own to include. So rather than truncate what I think is the most indepth discussion ever conducted with Jack’s premier inkers, I’m holding Joe’s interview till next issue, and giving Mike the full treatment in this one.) MIKE ROYER: When I was a youngster, a couple of things happened. I became fascinated with the artwork and storyline of V.T. Hamlin’s Alley Oop comic strip, which I discovered in some old newspapers at the bottom of my grandmother’s trunk in the attic while looking for letters with old stamps on them. There was a pile of old Sunday sections there. I got ahold of an Alex Raymond Flash Gordon reprint comic book at the local market, and immediately fell in love with Raymond’s work. I began cutting out the new Alley Oop strips from newspapers and taped them together. Then I built a cardboard box and got a crank handle so I could run the strips through the box like a movie screen. Around this time, I found some Big Little Books my mother had stored in the attic. All these things inspired me to do comics. I did amateur comic books in high school. My mother had an artistic bent and encouraged me to do all this. But I didn’t learn quite as much as I should have because my mother was always telling me how good I was. When you constantly hear that kind of praise from one source, you develop an attitude that you don’t have that much left to learn. This isn’t meant as a criticism of my mother because she said what she believed. Artists go through this sort of thing a lot when they are young, I suppose. But there comes a point when you realize you don’t know very much. Another cartoonist and I did a strip for the local newspaper, which we didn’t get paid for, but it was a lot of fun. I was on the high school newspaper and did cartoons there and contributed drawings to the school yearbook, too. After high school, I decided I wanted to do comic strips, not comic books. However, in the late 1950s, it wasn’t the best time to try doing adventure strips, as the newspapers had started turning away from that genre. I got married at twenty and had three children by the time I was twenty-three, so I did all kinds of jobs. In 1964, I decided I couldn’t just go on doing “jobs.” I still wanted to do comic strips, but amended that goal to just wanting to do comics. I fell into the age of Marvel Comics and was enthralled by what was happening: the way Jack Kirby drew and the way Stan Lee told the stories. Since newspapers weren’t interested in the kinds of things I wanted to do, I started leaning towards doing comic books. I still have the rejection letters from Marvel Comics (and other publishers) from the early 1960s. I got into Edgar Rice Burroughs fandom at this time and was getting all the fanzines, eventually drawing a few things for them. I discovered that Russ Manning was a Burroughs fan and I assumed that he would be going to the World’s Science Fiction Convention at Oakland in 1964. Another fan and I produced a comic book based on The Wizard Of Venus, which was one of the last of the

“Carson Napier of Venus” books. We took this fanzine to the convention, but Russ Manning wasn’t there. Camille Cazedessus, Jr., publisher of ERB-dom was there and took a copy of our comic book to him. A few months later, I prepared samples, with the encouragement of Kaz, to send to Russ Manning. I wrote a cover letter, saying that if he ever needed an assistant, that I would like to have the job. Russ wrote back, saying, “If you were here, I see no reason why you couldn’t assist me.” So, I packed up my family, moved to Southern California and bless his heart, Russ gave me some work. Russ put me to work on “Aliens,” which was the four page back-up story that appeared in Magnus, Robot Fighter #12. The pages were sixty percent tightly penciled and sixty percent inked, and my job was to finish the pencils and to match the inking that was already there. I had an advantage because I was a self-taught inker, so I was able to do what Russ wanted me to do. I started working with Russ in 1965 and worked with him until 1979. Of course, during that period, is the ten years of almost constant work with Jack Kirby. I did other work during those early days with Russ. I was working weekdays in a paint store because Russ couldn’t give me full-time work. In the late 1960s, Western Publishing, for whom Russ was doing Magnus, asked Russ to take over the Tarzan comic book. He told them the only way he could do that is to have me assist him, but that it wouldn’t be enough work to afford me a full-time income. Russ informed Western that they would need to give me other work, so that I could help him and also have enough other work to live on. Western did that, so now I was into doing comic books on a full-time basis. This is how I became known in the comic book community in California. In the mid-1960s, I also did some work for an animation company named Grantway-Lawrence. I met Mike Arens there and while I owe Russ the thanks for getting me started in the comic book business, it was Mike who taught me the most. Mike also pushed me into lettering because he knew the importance of an artist being able to handle all facets of the trade, so I’d never have to turn a job down. He said, “Lettering is just like drawing. All those letters in the alphabet are just like objects you draw. You pencil them, and you ink them.” Mike really mentored me and I ended up working for him, too. Richard “Sparky” Moore worked there and he gave me this great piece of advice: “You get your first job on your ability and you get your other jobs on your dependability.” On a fateful day, when my wife and kids were swimming and I was walking from my studio at the rear of my garage, the telephone rang in the kitchen. I ran in, picked it up, and heard a gruff voice say, “Hello, Mike Royer. This is Jack Kirby. Alex Toth says you’re a pretty good inker.” That’s how my association with Jack started. THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: I know the story about how you

West: Mike Royer went over to Jack’s house and inked that great drawing of Jack sitting at his drawing board, with the Marvel Comics characters all around him. And I know you inked a few things for him when he was doing work for Marvelmania. Did Jack try to get you as his inker on any of the Marvel comics? MIKE: I don’t know. All I remember is that Jack said he had me in mind for something and then he left for New York. A few days later, I got a call from Maggie Thompson saying, “What’s this I hear that Jack Kirby’s left Marvel and gone to DC?” I told her I didn’t know anything about it. That same evening, I got a phone call from Jack and he said he’d had it in his mind that I was to letter and ink all his DC books, but they wanted to control those aspects of the books in New York. You know, it’s funny, because I used to see the rare page of Jack’s pencils that were printed in fanzines, and wonder, “Why isn’t anyone inking what Jack’s penciled?” Maybe that thought occurred to me because I worked with Russ Manning and everything had to look like Russ’ work. When I penciled and inked Tarzan filler stories at Western, it had to look like Russ Manning, or at least be pretty close. When I inked Doug Wildey at GrantwayLawrence, I wanted it to look like Doug had inked it. Mike Arens wanted me to ink his work as though he had inked it. I had to match other people’s work at GrantwayLawrence. This was the mindset that I had. When it came to work, I guess I was a chameleon. I didn’t develop a natural style of my own, though I have a bent towards the Alex Raymond/ Russ Manning school of illustration. TJKC: Tell me about the work you did for Jack at Marvelmania. MIKE: I don’t remember what all I did for Jack there. I do remember doing a few pin-ups and some letterheads with the Marvel characters. I remember that Jim Steranko came out here and stayed with me for a couple of weeks in 1970. Jim penciled a bunch of Marvelmania pin-ups that I inked. Jim let me keep the originals since I put him up for a couple of weeks, which I later sold to acquire my first 16 millimeter movie. TJKC: I take it that you inked them in the Steranko style. MIKE: Yep. TJKC: What was the first Kirby book you inked at DC? MIKE: New Gods #5. What amazed me about it was early in the story, Orion was trapped by a giant clam. On one page, it was his right leg that was trapped in the clam’s mouth and on the next page, it was his left leg. But it didn’t matter because Jack’s pencils were so damn powerful that they defied reality. You truly had a suspension of disbelief when reading Jack Kirby’s work. TJKC: Which is something that only a few comic artists ever really achieve. Of course, Jack Kirby’s work was very different than Russ Manning’s.

MIKE: Ohhhh, yeah! However, let me state here for print that they were both master designers. They both learned from the same people: Hal Foster and Alex Raymond. Jack and Russ both designed beautiful pages but were polar opposites. TJKC: Since that’s the case, and since Jack’s work was quite different from what you were used to working on, were you forced to look at a paneled page of Jack’s as a total design element? MIKE: Yes. It was not hard to ink Manning in a Raymond-like illustrative style, and then ink Kirby, who was expressionistic. When it came to inking, it was my job to finish the penciler’s statement. I’ve been accused by some fans of just tracing Jack’s pencils, and sometimes, I thought that’s what I did. But now, when I compare Jack’s penciled work to our finished pages, I realize that wasn’t what I did. I brought something to those pages, but I don’t know if it was me or if it was my conceit that I was trying to finish the page the way Jack would have. TJKC: I understand, but as you know, Jack didn’t always ink his work quite the same way that he penciled it. MIKE: I wasn’t exposed to that then, so it didn’t mess up my illogical logic. (laughs) TJKC: I did the gray tones on a couple of Jack’s paperbacks when DC reprinted New Gods and Mister Miracle. I developed an even a greater appreciation of Jack’s design work and how he put things together, than I’d had before. For instance, Jack would use three different light sources on the same figure, even when there was only one possible light source. Jack was thinking about design more than he was reality. MIKE: Comics are not real life. It’s a mistake for people to approach them as if they are. As Russ Manning used to say, “When you’re drawing comics, you’re drawing something that can’t be done on film.” Of course today, there isn’t anything that can’t be done on film, except for telling stories. (laughs) TJKC: I agree. And you can’t take a naturalistic approach to Jack’s work. You had to think of it as pure design. MIKE: I think you’re right. I might have been thinking that way at the time, but it was probably a subconscious thought process on my behalf. I just looked at the drawings and my first feelings were about being swept away by the power. My second thought was, “I’d better not blow this,” knowing full well that I had to do three pages a day to keep up with him. I had to letter a book in two days and then ink three pages a day. TJKC: Correct me if I’m wrong, but you got a whole book at a time, right? MIKE: Yes. I’d open the package up and breathe in the smell of the Roi-Tan cigars that Jack smoked while he drew these pages. That powerful pencil work, with the carbon smeared all over the pages and the smell of those cigars... it was intoxicating! Then, it was slightly intimidating, because I was thinking that I had all this powerful 25

Mark evanier (below) Robert Latimer took this photo of Jack during a visit to the Kirby home in the 1980s, sitting in the chair, at the drawing table, next to the taboret he used to create so many classic comics pages. (next page, top) Pencil rough for the neverrealized cover to In The Days Of The Mob #2. There are at least two other rough versions of this cover that exist. © Jack Kirby Estate.

(next page, center) We found this collage assembly in Jack’s files; it was probably for one of the experimental black-&-white books he developed for DC Comics in the 1970s (perhaps True Divorce Cases).

Jack F.A.Q.s

A column answering Frequently Asked Questions about Kirby by Mark Evanier “So how did Jack do what he did?” hat’s a question I get from legions of Kirby Kollectors, most recently Tim Woolf. That is, of course, one of those Mysteries of the Ages. How does the human mind function? From whence comes Imagination? How does an artist create a vision and transfer it onto paper? You could study and ponder and wax philosophical from now ’til the world looks level and not come within twenty blocks of a satisfactory answer. Two things I can say with some certainty are: 1. No one can ever fully explain how Jack Kirby managed to create all that wonderful Jack Kirby work. Even he could not explain it. His work was spontaneous and based on whim, instinct and a hefty amount of pure Gut Feeling. Everything he saw, everything he read, everything that happened to him and those around him was input. Just how he distilled and combined all that, forging odd associations of elements, both in story and design, no one will ever understand. Had he been a chef, Jack would have somehow taken salt and cinnamon, mixed them together and wound up with a new and improved kind of Prime Rib. (That is probably not as silly an analogy as it may appear at first glance.)

(next page, bottom) Jack in 1993, sporting the thick glasses he needed later in life, due to years of close-up artwork at the drawing board. Photo by John Morrow.

2. Even if one could elucidate how it was done, that account would apply only to Kirby. I don’t know how he did it; only that nobody else could have. So you’ll have to settle for some more prosaic revelations, like where he worked, what he drew on, what he sat on, and so forth. We’ll start with a brief studio tour. Jack’s first California home was in Irvine, which is located in Orange County, a little less than an hour south of Los Angeles.

That was where I first met him and saw his studio—a small, windowless room that might otherwise have been used for storage. It was on the second floor, not far from the master bedroom. His wife Roz would tell visitors that it was convenient when she woke up at 5 a.m. and discovered that Jack was still at the board: “I just walk down the hall, poke my head in the door and yell, ‘Kirby! Knock it off and come to bed!’” I never saw Jack’s earlier workspaces in New York, but both he and Roz described them as not much grander than the Irvine quarters. The studio in their last East Coast home had been nicknamed “The Dungeon,” which suggests it was not the lap of luxury. Don Heck told me, “He’d be sitting there with his little drawing table and the cigar smoke. The room was full of pocket books, all science-fiction stuff. He was a very avid reader. He was unbelievable—he would turn out five, six pages a day. I was struggling and he was knocking this stuff out... he really did a terrific job.” After Irvine, the Kirbys moved to the first of two homes located in Thousand Oaks, around 45 minutes northwest of Los Angeles. Both of these dwellings had magnificent canyon views out the back and in each, Jack had a large, airy studio with plenty of room to entertain guests. Nevertheless, the physical set-up of his immediate workspace did not change much from Irvine. His drawing table was the same one he’d had for years, the same one he’d had since the Simon & Kirby shop had closed in the mid-Fifties and he’d hauled home one of its tables. When the Kirbys moved to Southern California, it was the last thing loaded onto the moving van and the first thing unpacked in Irvine. The movers brought it in to the new home, and Jack sat down and resumed drawing Marvel Comics on it while the men fetched the rest of the belongings. The table was battered and old and you could see little burn marks where Jack’s cigars had sat too long. Still, it was his table and he insisted it did everything he needed. Fans and friends who visited sometimes offered to get Jack a newer and better one but he wasn’t interested. (Shortly after Jack passed away, the Smithsonian Institute requested the table for their collection in Washington, in recognition of all the memorable work created on it. Owing mainly to red tape, the transfer has yet to be made... but the table has been promised and that’s where it will presumably end up.) To the right of the drawing table was a very shabby end-table that he used as a taboret. Its drawers were filled with antique art supplies and it too was decorated with cigar burns. He sat in a straight-back, upright chair that had been part of a dinette set the Kirbys once owned. Jack had experimented with various “artists’ chairs” offering fancy cushioning and complex hydraulic supports, and decided he liked what he liked. It is no exaggeration to say that, for decades, he spent half his life in that hard, wooden chair. One could perhaps extrapolate an emotional attachment to the seat. Jack often told of how, when he was just starting out as a teen cartoonist, he did his early work at the dining table in his parents’ flat. During the day, his mother would serve him sandwiches and soup as he drew. Then later, he would race to get one more page inked before his mother insisted he vacate so she could set for supper. Perhaps the chair he worked in as an adult reminded him of that. Or perhaps he just found it comfortable and good for his

posture. He labored all kinds of hours but the preferred schedule went something like this. He would start drawing around 11:00 a.m. or Noon, stop for lunch in the mid-afternoon, then work until dinner. Then he would draw a bit more, perhaps taking a break to watch a favorite TV show with Roz before returning to the board until the wee, small hours of the morning. My sense was that the real “creating” was primarily a nocturnal activity and that, during daylight hours, he primarily executed the ideas he’d had at 4 a.m. Much has been written about how fast Jack was—and he was fast. Much of that was because he was direct. He drew with very little planning, very little in the way of roughs. About once a year, I’m approached by some enterprising publisher who says, “Let’s put together a fancy art book of Jack’s rough, preliminary sketches!” I have to explain that there really aren’t that many. Jack got and refined the picture in his head, then transferred it to paper. The few Kirby roughs that exist are mainly cases of an employer insisting on a preliminary comp. At least once at Marvel, he was told a cover was needed for a certain project and he drew one, only to have Roz then remind him he’d been asked for a sketch, not a finished drawing. So he did a sketch based on a cover he’d already finished, sent in the sketch and then, after it was approved, mailed in the drawing he’d done a week before. Still, I think saying Kirby was swift misses the point. His incredible output was also a function of devotion to duty. A lot of artists could have matched his productivity had they also put in 12-14 hours a day at the drawing table, often seven days a week. Many would not be physically capable of this... but Jack somehow was. Insofar as I could tell, he enjoyed the work itself, though he hated the pace at which it had to be created—the fact that he had to leap immediately from the end of one story to the beginning of the next without ample time to think. He regretted that appeasing his employer took virtually all his creative hours and energy. He would have liked to have had more opportunity to create his collages and to experiment

with non-comic forms of writing and art. Unfortunately, after fulfilling his work obligations, he only had a limited amount of time to devote to his wife and children, and he sometimes felt that to write or draw for himself was to steal time from them. Even worse was that he had to labor as hard as he did for what was never that great a paycheck. What he mainly objected to was the “prisoner” aspect of

it... the fact that he had to do it, rain or shine, in good health or poor. “If I don’t draw, we don’t eat,” he said on several occasions and often spoke of being “chained to the board.” During much of his life, Jack lived with a constant worry that his health would fail him, particularly his eyesight, with which he had intermittent problems. The financial effects on his family could have been devastating, and Jack (who never had health insurance until well past age 60, when he began working in TV animation) was ever-conscious of the danger. The insurance was a life-saver—almost, literally—when Jack had his first heart attack a few years later. A brief aside here might be in order. One day when I was working with Kirby, we got to talking

about a recent TV biography of the great comedian, Ernie Kovacs. Kovacs was killed in 1962 in an automobile accident not far from where my parents and I lived. The special, which Jack and I had both seen, had portrayed Mr. Kovacs as a wonderful, free-spirited madman. Almost as evidence, they offered the fact that ol’ Ernie had spent every cent he ever earned and then some— often, recklessly. As a result, his widow (actress Edie Adams) had found herself some three million dollars in debt. This was all presented in the documentary as something quite carefree and colorful. 45

Innerview

“I Don’t Like To Draw Sling Part Two of an August 1969 Interview With Jack Kirby Conducted by Shel Dorf and Rich Rubenfeld Transcribed by John Morrow

(above) Cast and crew of the 1971 Disneyland Convention in Anaheim, CA. First row, center is Carmine Infantino, flanked to his right by Kirby and Shel Dorf. Photo courtesy of Shel Dorf.

(next page) Pencils to an unfinished, unused page from Battle For A Three Dimensional World, the 1982 one-shot comic that presented Jack’s work in true 3-D, complete with stereoscopic (green and red) glasses, and led to Johnny Carson’s gaffe about Kirby on The Tonight Show (see TJKC #35 for details). ©2003 Jack Kirby Estate.

(Last issue, we presented the first part of this never-published interview, conducted in August 1969, just months before Kirby left Marvel for DC Comics. This time out, we pick up where we left off, as Jack discusses his working techniques and philosophies.) SHEL DORF: What is your average work day like? JACK KIRBY: My work day is very erratic. I’ll do a page, and I’ll get up and break up the day that way, and I’ll come back and do another page, and begin work another hour. Sometimes I’ll decide to work very late, and I will work very late. Sometimes I’ll do my quota of pages in quick time, and get off early enough to catch a movie. So, it’s a rare privilege, I think, to be able to do that, because there’s no restriction on an artist in that respect. It’s the pattern of work that I feel is a kind of a boon to me; somehow I’ve earned that kind of routine, and I enjoy it. Possibly I might like a 9-to-5 routine just like a lot of other people, but somehow I feel that I enjoy this more. SHEL: Have you ever had a 9-to-5 routine in your life? JACK: Yes, I have, several times, but somehow I’ve grown accustomed to this way of living. I see nothing wrong with it, I enjoy it, and I break up my day as I see fit. It’s something that makes me feel I’m my own man, which of course I’m not. (laughs) RICH RUBENFELD: What direction do you think the comics are going in today? JACK: I’d love to know that. I’d love to know what’s in the heads of the young fellows who see the images that we project, and

good in it, and use it for himself, but I wouldn’t like to see him telling my story. I’d like to see him telling his story, and I’d like to see what emerges from him; that’s the fun of comic art to me. It might be a technician’s view, but I feel that’s the fun of any creative medium: Seeing what comes up from the next guy. If the fellow has a bland personality, maybe something nondescript will come out. If he’s a passionate person, maybe we’ll see something really powerful. That’s the fun of it for me, to watch what comes out of a human being, and project it for the reader. RICH: Sort of originality from inspiration, in other words? JACK: Not originality exactly, but... RICH: An original thought coming from an inspiration from something else? JACK: No, nobody has an original thought; there’s nothing original. You take what comes before you, and you turn it out for yourself, in your own way. It’s the only thing you can do. There’s nothing in this world that I haven’t seen before, and I’m not familiar with. I can be given any kind of a familiar form, and just turn it around my own way. I won’t draw a car like anybody else. I won’t draw a shoe like anybody else. I won’t draw a hand like anybody else. I’ve been bawled-out for drawing choppy fingers without fingernails, but that’s the way I see fingers. It may be rebellious in a way, and gotten me into trouble, but I can’t help it. That’s how I see fingers. SHEL: It seems to me there’s so much energy being generated, someday they may put your brain in a glass in some museum and study it for a couple of hundred years. JACK: Well, I hope it’s at an Ivy League school. (laughs) SHEL: It seems to me there’s an industrial designer in there, there’s a poet, a storyteller, an adventurer, a graphic designer. There’s just too much for you to be satisfied with any one of these specialized fields, and you seem to have found the perfect medium for expressing all these directions. JACK: Well, I feel that this is not the end of it. I feel that I’d love a little more time to take it down to where it ought to go. I don’t know where it should go, but I feel that the medium leads the artist. I sometimes draw a line and try to find out where the line goes. I don’t feel that you control the line; I feel that the line controls you. And you should follow the line, and probably come up with a very interesting form. I don’t believe in the conventional in art. I don’t feel that art should be so abstract that nobody can get your meaning. I feel like you shouldn’t allow yourself to become trapped in one style, or one form of art, or live in any static way. I feel that anything static is dead. I don’t go for anything that’s dead. That’s why my figures have a lot of motion. I feel that motion is life, and I feel that anything that moves is alive, and that’s where you ought to go. SHEL: Why don’t we see any clay around here? It seems to me the next direction for you is sculpture.

won’t accept them. I hope they won’t accept anything I draw. I hope whoever is coming up with comic art won’t accept anything anybody draws. Give us his own version of what he sees. I’d like to see him take the technical part of my work, if he finds anything 50

JACK: Why don’t you see any harpsichords around here? Because that’s just not my thing, and I don’t know why it is. I don’t have any aversion to clay. I feel that clay has been done; I feel that oil paintings have been done. I feel that watercolor has been done. I don’t want to do them. I don’t know why, I just don’t want to do them, for the reason I don’t give Thor a red beard. I don’t feel he

shots; I Like To Draw Cannons.”

ought to have a red beard. I like to do my own version of Thor. SHEL: Maybe next week you’ll suddenly decide to pick up a lump of clay, and make a figure of the Thing or something, and this’ll take you in a whole different direction. JACK: I wouldn’t say no. I don’t think there’s a set rule for anything. I’m not saying that rules are bad, but I’m saying that rules shouldn’t be unshakable. SHEL: I’m looking at this just from a collector’s standpoint. All the great artists of our times have dabbled in sculpture; Michelangelo, DaVinci and so on. They had some kind of an impulse. Paper was just a canvas, a flat surface; they reached a point where they had to do something in three dimensions. The Jack Kirby pages are 3-D without the crutch, perhaps, of actually doing the object in 3-D. You’ve taken the flat paper as far, I think, as you can go without actually building up on the surface. JACK: That’s because I don’t see it as flat paper. Like I said, I feel that I’m fighting a camera all the time. I feel that the camera has so much more scope than I have. I’d like to try to get that kind of scope into my drawing. I feel that drawings should be expansive, they should be powerful. I can’t see anything going “ping”; I like to see things go “BAM!” I don’t like to draw slingshots; I like to draw cannons. It’s that way with me, and I think everything we do should have impact of some kind. I think that we should be passionate human beings. Really live life in a way that gives us some impact, not to let it flow over us. Of course, I’m living a placid type of life, although I’ve done all the things that make men passionate; that’s under the bridge with me, and I don’t miss them in any way that would frustrate me. (laughs) SHEL: I think you’ve put your finger on the “Jack Kirby Appeal.” Unfortunately we’re not all built that same way. We have these passions within us, but somehow

society has put frames on it, and inhibited these emotions to such an extent that we need this escapism. Kids that go to school and study the books have to keep quiet during class, and they head for the corner drug store. They pick up a Jack Kirby magazine, and these emotions, these passions, come out in them through the medium of the comic. JACK: Well, I agree with you, because who knows what other channels there might’ve been for these passions, if that’s what they are? Around the neighborhood I came from, you were either a gangster or a lawyer. It was that kind of a neighborhood, where there was no in-between; just black-&-white, no grays. A man was either for you or against you; he either didn’t like you or he liked you. And you did the things you wanted, or you were told not to do them. So it’s that kind of atmosphere in which I was brought up, and it’s simplistic, I suppose. Maybe that’s what comes out in the drawing. SHEL: I can’t think of anything else, except, “Who is this guy, Stan Lee?” JACK: Stan Lee is my editor. (laughs) SHEL: How did you first meet Stan Lee? JACK: Stan Lee, I guess, came to Marvel when I was doing Captain America in the 1940s. He was a young fellow, and we were just nodding acquaintances. He was very nice, certainly, and we were nice to each other; we got along. That was about it; there was no evidence that we’d ever get together in any way as editor and artist. It just happened that way, that’s all; I came back to Marvel and Stan Lee was editor. I went to work for Stan Lee, and whatever Stan Lee’s policies are, they’re my policies. Whatever kind of a job Stan Lee wants done, I will do that job. I feel that’s the artist’s job; to cooperate with the policy of the publishing house. I’ve always done that. 51

humbly says so on each splash page, but in many ways it is the most genuinely personal and individual of all of his comic book work. For, the influence on Windsor-Smith is more than a superficial imitation of Jack Kirby’s style—it is a far deeper and more significant part of what makes Windsor-Smith the artist that he is. When Smith began his career in American comics, he pretty much did imitate Kirby, and his first story for Marvel in X-Men #53 was little more than a recitation of Kirbyesque figures, down to the fictional muscles. It was not a great piece of work, but fortunately, the powers at Marvel recognized his talent, and knew that there are many times when an exceptional creator’s first work is nowhere nearly as good as what follows. The young Englishman developed dramatically in stories he drew for Avengers and Daredevil. When Smith found his mature style with Conan, his work no longer looked like Jack Kirby’s, but it did have the weight, the drama, and the powerful storytelling quality that he had learned from his master. Just as we saw Jack Kirby’s departure from Hal Foster, we see in Windsor-Smith’s “Young Gods” the more individual and imaginative elements that Windsor-Smith brings to the work, in particular his exotic architecture and settings, costumes, and the wild flora and geography that populate the stories. What’s particularly charming is that the aspects in which Windsor-Smith’s work differs most dramatically from Jack Kirby’s— for instance, his rendering style and the general “template” of his characters’ faces—

(top to bottom) Barry Windsor-Smith’s evolution as an artist, from his early “Kirby-clone” work (although showing some Steranko layout influence in this unused 1960s Avengers page), to his solo Thing story from a 1980s issue of Marvel Fanfare, to his more recent work from “Young Gods” in BWS: Storyteller #2 (Nov. 1996), where he does his take on Kirby’s Asgardians, with finishings not unlike Hal Foster’s pen-&-ink style.

reveal the powerful influence of Windsor-Smith’s stylistic “grandpa,” Hal Foster himself. There are moments indeed where some of the women in the strip are dead ringers for Val’s wife, Aleta—and Windsor Smith carries it off with such natural grace that it makes a reader smile the way a parent may smile when he sees his children resembling their grandparents. And so we’ve come full circle. From Hal Foster to Jack Kirby to Barry WindsorSmith, we see three stages in the evolution of a comic strip genre. Whether with knights or Norsemen, New Gods or Young, the thread that works its way through the tradition sustained by these exceptional comic artists is one that has given me a great deal of joy and inspiration. I hope it will continue. ★ All art ©2003 Barry Windsor-Smith. Young Gods TM & ©2003 Barry Windsor-Smith. Rick Jones, Thing TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Comparison

Let Comics Be Thy Battlefield

by Rex Ferrell

The combatants? The fifth issues each of Silver Surfer (scripted by Stan Lee) and 2001: A Space Odyssey, scripted by Jack Kirby. Although written about 8 years apart, they make for an interesting comparison. Both books and all characters TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

o all my fellow members of Kirbydom Assembled: In our exuberance for the work of Jack Kirby, some of us have been guilty of taking potshots at Stan Lee. While some of it has been amusing, in the long run these jibes are counterproductive at best, and at their worst, a distraction from what should be our main objective: The establishment of Jack’s name as one of America’s greatest storytellers and certainly, to champion the cause of having him recognized as one of the elite representatives of American Cartooning—just as Ralph Steadman, Hergé, Osama Tezuka, and Keiji Nakazawa are respected overseas, if not world-wide!

As it relates to the Lee/Kirby collaboration and “who did what,” I have always believed that the best way to judge Lee’s story contributions (as opposed to his promotional abilities) was to look at the work that didn’t involve Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko (both of whom had major problems with Stan’s accepting the full writing credit for some of Marvel’s best known stories). On the flipside, many of Stan’s fans have accused us, both directly and obliquely, of dismissing Lee’s contributions while being delusional whenever we praise Jack’s writing talents. I have never “dismissed” Stan, I have just admitted that I actually prefer Jack’s stories more and I think some of my fellow “Kirby-philes” may feel the same. John Grisham may outsell Emily Bronte and may be more “popular”; this certainly can’t lead one to presume that he is somehow a “better” writer. Since the proof is in the pudding as they say, in the following comparison of two of my favorite stories, I hope to show that “The King” more than holds his own against the “Master of Words.”

The Tale of the Tape These two stories are both about the same length; are constructed similarly; both involve the basic concepts created by others and most importantly, portray the heroism of the

ordinary individual. Stan Lee’s story, “And Who Shall Mourn for Him?” (from Silver Surfer #5) and Jack’s tale, “Norton of New York 2040 A.D.” (from 2001 #5-6) are true showcases for their respective styles. Stan Lee is a true student of melodrama. He relies heavily on the use of the three A’s—adverbs, adjectives, and analogies—in addition to humor in order to pepper standard prose. (Example: “Slowly, inexorably, like a human dreadnought, the mighty...” etc.) The overall pacing is slowed down sufficiently to allow him to inject a certain amount of reflection by many of the characters, that which is known by the broad term “characterization.” (As we have learned from numerous imitators, in less talented hands, this practice can be extremely tedious or just plain boring!) By contrast, Jack Kirby, an untrained writer, knows nothing about “standard prose” by definition, only by experience from constant reading. As an artist (like Van Gogh in his letters to his brother) Kirby tends to think visually, relying on allegory and metaphor, in both his prose and his story construction. (Example: “It is said that every man has his dream! And, there is one which belongs exclusively to Captain America! In the private purgatory of the mind, it explodes in the aftermath of a trying experience! And ends in the shadow of a new and greater danger...”) In writing dialogue, Lee endeavors to make the characters speak in a contemporaneous fashion (i.e., present-day English). “Foreigners” and “extraterrestrials” speak English in a stilted or formal tone to imply their “exoticism.” Whenever possible, Lee includes contemporary slang. The fact that no one in real life ever spoke like Mary Jane Watson is irrelevant; her dialogue screams “It’s the ’60s, Tiger!” The drawback is that this dates the work. Much has been said of Kirby’s “awkward dialogue” and “lack of characterization.” Frankly, I don’t agree with either argument. Kirby’s dialogue exposes his influences. The speech patterns of the lead characters is Dickensian in arrangement and operatic in inflection. Metaphors are tossed willy-nilly and declarations are made in short, rhythmic bursts. Whenever someone of less education speaks (replete with “ain’ts” and dropped Ns), the influence of the Warner Brothers’ 1940s gangster movies rears its head, wherein dialogue is delivered with dynamic rapidity. The uniqueness of Kirby’s verbal medley can be unsettling to someone accustomed to a house style, but the reader is well rewarded for their patience. As for characterization, I think what fakes out a few people is that Kirby rarely employs the thought balloon; in other words, his characters seldom stand around and mope. Their pain, love, sorrow, and joy is expressed through their speech and more specifically—through their actions! Because Kirby is also the artist, he is able to infuse the character’s body language with emotional potency.

Jack Kirby Collector #37