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EIGHTY-THREE
SPRING 2022
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Fighting American TM & © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estates.
JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR
$10.95
Contents
THE
FAMOUS FIRSTS! OPENING SHOT Not so famous firsts. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 JACK FAQs The 2020 Kirby Tribute Panel, featuring Alex Ross. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
ISSUE #83, SPRING 2022
C o l l e c t o r
KIRBY OBSCURA More monsters and stone men. . . . 22 RE-VIEWS The challenger of the Silver Age. . . 26 FOUNDATIONS More unseen Link Thorne. . . . . . . . 32 PUGILISTICAL Kirby’s 1950s feud with DC . . . . . . 40 GALLERY First issue specials. . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 KIRBY KINETICS Jack Kirby intention . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 INCIDENTAL ICONOGRAPHY All Atlas, no Charles. . . . . . . . . . . . 62 RETROSPECTIVE Kirby’s cosmic god concept . . . . . . . 64 COLLECTOR COMMENTS. . . . . . . . 78 Front cover inks: MIKE MACHLAN Front cover colors: TOM ZIUKO COPYRIGHTS: Ant-Man/Henry Pym, Atlas Monsters, Attuma, Avengers, Beast-Killer, Black Knight, Black Panther, Black Widow, Bucky, Captain America, Cobra, Cyclops, Devil Dinosaur, Dr. Doom, Dr. Strange, Enchantress, Executioner, Falcon, Fantastic Four, Gabe Jones, Galactus, Hawkeye, Hercules, Howard the Duck, Hulk, Human Torch, Iron Man, Ka-Zar, Kang, Loki, Luke Cage, Mad Thinker, Mandarin, Marvel Stone Men, Medusa, Melter, Mercury, Mole Man, Moonboy, Nick Fury, Odin, Princess Zanda, Quicksilver, Rawhide Kid, Red Skull, Rick Jones, Scarlet Witch, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, Sub-Mariner, Super Skrull, Taboo, Thing, Thor, TwoGun Kid, Wizard, X-Men TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. • Aquaman, Arna, Atlas, Batman, Cave Carson, Challengers of the Unknown, Congo Bill, Congorilla, DC Stone Men, Demon, Doom Patrol, Flash, Green Arrow, Inferior Five, Jimmy Olsen, Justice League of America, Kamandi, Kingdom Come, Losers, Metal Men, Metallo, Metamorpho, Negative Man, Penguin, Riddler, Rip Hunter, Robin, Sandman, Sea Devils, Secret Six, Shazam/Captain Marvel, Suicide Squad, Superman, Teen Titans, Titano the Super-Ape TM & © DC Comics • Black Magic, Bulls-Eye, Captain 3-D, Fighting American, Link Thorne, Race for the Moon, Speedboy, Stuntman, Three Rocketeers TM & © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Estates • The Fly, Private Strong, Silver Spider TM & © Joe Simon Estate • “Angel,” King Masters, Kirbyverse characters, Sky Masters TM & © Jack Kirby Estate • Cave Carson, Comet Pierce TM & © the respective owner • Thundarr the Barbarian, Ariel TM & © Ruby-Spears Productions or successor in interest • Terminator TM & © Skydance Media • Conan TM & © Conan Properties, a division of Cabinet Entertainment • The Avenger/ Justice Inc. TM & © Condé Nast Entertainment or successor in interest
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Believe It or Don’t! The K in g ’s Ea
rli
est Work Jack’s FIRST PUBL ISHED ART was in TH E BBR REPORTER (1933-36, the new sletter of his boys’ club The Boys Brotherho Republic). His FIRST od PROFESSIONAL JO in-betweener on PO B was as an PEYE CARTOONS (1935–1937) for the MAX FLEISCHER AN IMATION STUDIO, until Fleischer moved his shop to Florida (Kir by’s mom wouldn’t let young “Jakie” relocat because there were “na e ked women down the re”). IN THE NEWS
At the LINCOLN NE WSPAPER SYNDICA TE in 1936, he used differe nt styles and pseudo nyms on EDITORIAL AND AD VICE CARTOONS (such as “Your Health Comes First!”). The strip SOCKO THE SEAD OG (1936-39, signed “Teddy”) was his FIRST PUBLISH ED CONTINUITY ART (his POPEYE experie nce likely helped him land the job on SOCKO, a knockoff of E.C. Segar’s Spinac h-eating sailor).
DOWN FOR THE Co
un t
The British tabloid WA GS #64 (March 20 featured “The Count , 1938) of Monte Cristo”, TH E FIRST FULL-PAGE COMIC BOOK STOR Y BY KIRBY. It later ran in JUMBO COMICS #1 (Sept. 193 8), making it the FIR ST KIRBY ART PUBLISHED IN A U.S . COMIC BOOK.
Take CHAMPION COMIC S #9 Cover! (July 1940) sported KIRBY’S FIRST CO
VER ART.
(above) Believe it or don’t, here’s some fascinating facts about the King of Comics!
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The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 29, No. 83, Spring 2022. Published quarterly (supply-chain permitting!) by and © TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. 919-449-0344. John Morrow, Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $15 postpaid US ($19 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $49 Economy US, $72 International, $19 Digital. Editorial package © TwoMorrows Publishing, a division of TwoMorrows Inc. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All Kirby artwork is © Jack Kirby Estate unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors. Views expressed here are those of the respective authors, and not necessarily those of TwoMorrows Publishing or the Jack Kirby Estate. First printing. PRINTED IN CHINA. ISSN 1932-6912
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Mark Evanier
JACK F.A.Q.s
A column answering Frequently Asked Questions about Kirby EVANIER: And there is no one else in the history of comics that you could do 79 issues about without even scratching the surface of all there is to say about the guy. It’s an amazing testimony to how fascinated we all are about Jack, and how much creativity there was there to write about.
The Annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel
from Comic-Con@Home 2020 Posted online on July 24, 2020
(below) The issue that started the Marvel Universe, Fantastic Four #1. Shown on these pages is Alex Ross’ interpretation of that cover, in both pencil (from a 2018 variant cover) and paint (from the 1994 poster of it).
Featuring Alex Ross and John Morrow, and conducted by Mark Evanier Transcribed by Steven Thompson Copy-edited by John Morrow and Mark Evanier [Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Comic-Con International couldn’t take place as an in-person event in 2020, so panels such as this one were featured online at the virtual Comic-Con@Home event. You can view the panel at this link: https://youtu.be/qI0z4tUHe_s]
MARK EVANIER: [above] Good afternoon or whatever time it is where you are. I’m Mark Evanier and this is the annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel. Since Jack passed away in February of 1994, I have demanded of every comic convention I’ve attended that I get to do a Jack Kirby tribute panel. This is because, first of all, I was fortunate enough to know Jack and work with him and I feel an obligation to share some of what I observed with the world. And secondly, it’s because when I go to a convention, everybody asks me questions about Jack and I answer some of the same questions over and over. It’s easier and a lot of fun to get everybody who loves Jack’s work together in a big room at some point in the convention, and discuss him. So, we do that every year in San Diego. We can’t do it at San Diego this year so we’re doing it online. So welcome. If you’re interested in Jack Kirby, this is the place you should be. I am joined this year by John Morrow, who is the publisher/editor, person behind The Jack Kirby Collector. It started out as a little newsletter about his favorite artist and now… how many issues is it, John?
We are also joined by Mr. Alex Ross. There’s nothing that Jack liked better than to see new talent emerge in the comic book field, particularly people who brought something new to the game. He was not that impressed by people who showed him imitation Jack Kirby artwork—and he saw a lot of it in his life. He was impressed by someone who came in with a new art style, a new approach, something that had not been seen in
JOHN MORROW: [right] Working on finalizing issue #79 right now. 4
comics before, but who was able to capture the same dynamism that he looked for in his work, the same humanity where humanity was appropriate, the same excitement where excitement was appropriate. And he saw Alex’s early work and loved it! I wish he could’ve seen what you’ve done in the last few years. Did I just say something wrong, Alex? ALEX ROSS: [right] Well, is that…? I wasn’t sure if your memory was accurate. We’ve talked about this before. He did actually see my work? EVANIER: Yes, he saw your work. He saw a replica you did of the cover of Fantastic Four #1. What year did you do that in? ROSS: [laughs] I thought I did it after he died!
high-profile project before his passing in February 1994. Ross’ Fantastic Four #1 poster was released in 1994.]
EVANIER: Well, he saw something of yours. I remember talking about it with him. [Editor’s Note: The publication date of the Marvels miniseries was January–April 1994, so Jack easily could’ve seen that
ROSS: Okay. I know that he died in ’94 and I can’t remember. I thought I did that piece in ’94 after I’d done all the Marvels issues, but my memory might be flawed. EVANIER: I think it is because I remember Jack at the previous San Diego Convention, which would have been in July of ’93… we were in the old Convention Center back then. This may have been the last time we were in the old Convention Center. I remember somebody had a print of that cover and I remember someone showing it to him and I was interested in his reaction to it. And now, having given you a compliment, I’m gonna take a little bit away by saying Jack loved almost every artwork he saw. He was very encouraging to everybody. And he liked creativity. The only two things you could do with your artwork that would have gotten a negative reaction out of him is if it looked like you were just copying somebody else, slavishly, or if you were lazy, if you hadn’t put much effort into it. Those were the two things that got a negative out of Jack. Everything else he praised, including some stuff that I thought was pretty awful, frankly. But he was so giving to new talent. There was no one who didn’t get his attention if they came up and said, “Mr. Kirby, I’d like you to look at my work.” There are some people who I think exploited that a lot, but he was very supportive of new people, in a way that not everybody in the industry was, because some of these guys felt like dinosaurs when the next species was arriving. They felt they were supposed to move aside for them, or be shoved aside, for the new kids coming in. He talked in a very unusual way, with his mind always racing. I tell people the average mind goes from A to B to C to D. Jack would start with A, then do R, then do W, then go back and pick up J, and at some point, he’d have you “on beyond zebra,” as in the Dr. Seuss book—all new letters. He jumped around a lot, and I think a lot of people didn’t always understand him. There were times when Jack said things to me and I would go, “Yeah, Jack! That’s great!” and I would have no idea what he was talking about. Then, a week later, a month later, even a decade later, I’d suddenly go, “Oh! I get it now!” He was taking part of this conversation and part of that conversation and jumping from place to place. And I have this overview of Jack’s work that a lot of his 5
Re-Views (next page, top) Original art from Challengers of the Unknown #7, inked by Wallace Wood. (below) The Flash didn’t get his own magazine until the Challs solo mag was up to issue #6.
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Challenger of the Silver
n Jack Kirby Collector #78, I made the bold assertion that Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s “Challengers of the Unknown,” an unpublished feature that had been orphaned with the 1956 demise of Mainline comics, kickstarted the Silver Age of Comics by demonstrating that a team of adventure heroes could sell. Many before me noticed the obvious: that Kirby’s Fantastic Four was a super-powered version of his Challengers of the Unknown and not simply Marvel’s response to the sales success of the Justice League of America. Both groups took on the challenges of the Space Age— space travel, aliens, monsters, time travel, and advanced technology in the wrong hands––in book-length stories. Their parallel crash-landing origins and similar jumpsuit outfits make this undeniable. However, few picked up on the undeniable fact that the Challengers triggered a significant trend at DC/ National Comics, one that for some reason rival publishers failed to capitalize on. Case in point: I was given advance photocopies of Mark Evanier’s 2008 book, Jack Kirby: King of Comics, before interviewing him on the project. When I came to the section on Challengers of the
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Unknown, I was surprised that Mark had placed little importance on the book. When I pointed out to him all the COTU imitators produced at DC in the wake of the title’s debut, Mark quickly saw my point. He was able to make a modest textual change to reflect his new understanding. The sales success of the 1957 Challengers’ Showcase tryout issues [#6, 7, 11, and 12] caused it to leapfrog ahead of The Flash, who had also been sales-tested in the pages of Showcase, so that the Challengers got their own title long before this new incarnation of the Scarlet Speedster was so honored. This takes nothing away from The Flash, or from editor Julie Schwartz, who spearheaded DC’s first successful super-hero revival of the post-Golden Age era. The debut Challengers story came two issues after Showcase #4. But four issues passed before The Flash’s second Showcase tryout. Challengers was the first experiment to appear in two consecutive issues of that title, which quickly began the norm for new features. Later, three consecutive issues became common, and whenever early sales reports were exceptional, a fourth appearance was scheduled––a certain sign that a feature was poised to migrate into a title of its own. But as I pointed out in my TJKC article, “How Simon and Kirby Kickstarted the Silver Age,” The Flash and Green Lantern were relative latecomers in the 1950s DC sales sweepstakes. By the time The Flash got its own title, Challengers of the Unknown was already up to issue #6, and that was after four Flash Showcase tryouts. FOLLOW THE NUMBERS Circulation always dictates a publisher’s decisions in the world of comic book magazines, as it does with any periodical house. Challengers was a breakout concept during a serious sales slump in the comics field, and led to DC duplicating that success with other action teams in their two tryout books, DC having shrugged off the Silent Knight/Viking Prince focus of The Brave and the Bold in 1959 after 24 issues in order to make it a sister to Showcase.
Age
by Will Murray
“Rip Hunter, Time Master” was the first test. It worked. After that came the original Suicide Squad in the first non-historical-hero issue of The Brave and the Bold. “It was done as a fill-in because things were so bad that they had to try three books of a title to see what would catch on,” Suicide Squad inker Mike Esposito told me. “So they’d do three months and that would be it. They put it out with The Brave and the Bold or Showcase under another banner before they’d give it its own title. I remember the one with the dinosaurs––the big monster that attacked Coney Island. We had a lot of fun with it.” Then came “Sea Devils,” followed by “Cave Carson, Adventures Inside the Earth.” No doubt Sea Devils was partially inspired by the high TV ratings of the syndicated Sea Hunt TV show, then in its second season. But in every case, DC was simply re-formulating the Challengers four-man team concept, but with different characters, backgrounds and franchises: Time travelers, skin divers, spelunkers—and a quasi-military scientific quartet of troubleshooters in the Suicide Squad. GOODMAN MISSES BADLY How Martin Goodman failed to pick up on this trend is beyond me. Maybe it was because each of these groups had such different backgrounds. The normally canny copycat publisher failed to realize that a trend had developed. The oft-told tale that during a golf game with DC’s Jack Liebowitz, Goodman learned of their huge circulation success with the Justice League of America comic book, has been fairly well debunked. But for years, it was believed that the Fantastic Four was a direct response to JLA’s soaring sales. A much more likely explanation is that when Jack Kirby pitched the Fantastic Four to Stan Lee, he revealed something that Lee may not have known: that Challengers of the Unknown was a breakout hit, and DC was busy reformulating it any way they could.
It was probably from Kirby, not Lee, that Goodman learned that the Challengers represented a major comic book trend––the adventure team pitted against super-scientific threats.
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Foundations
Here’s still more of Simon & Kirby’s Link Thorne work, this time from Airboy Comics V4, #8 (Sept. 1947), with art reconstruction and coloring by Chris Fama. This story wasn’t included in Titan’s S&K reprint volumes. We’ll continue with another installment of the complete Link Thorne stories next issue.
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Pugilistical
Don’t Get Mad, Get Even The impact of Kirby’s feud with DC Comics in the late 1950s and early 1960s, by John Morrow
(right) Cap and Bucky are, as the title stated, back from the dead in Young Men #24 (Dec. 1953), as drawn by John Romita. (below) Mid-1980s drawing of Fighting American and Speedboy, alongside the duo’s debut in Fighting American #1 (May 1954).
“Yeah, I think anger will save your life. I think anger will give you a drive that will save your life and change it in some manner.” Jack Kirby, from The Spirit magazine #39 (1982)
W
hen Joe Simon and Jack Kirby saw Marvel (née Timely/Atlas) Comics’ Young Men #24 on newsstands in late 1953, they were livid. It resurrected Captain America, their most popular creation (which publisher Martin Goodman had cheated them out of profits on in the 1940s). So what did they do? They channeled their fury into creating their own new patriotic hero in Fighting American #1, which was drawn right after that rebirth of Cap hit the stands. The idea was to make a better version of the patriotic hero, and use it to hit Goodman where it hurt the most: In the marketplace. I guess you could argue that they got their revenge, since Young Men was cancelled with issue #28 (June 1954), and Timely’s relaunch of Captain America only made it three issues (#76–78, May–September 1954). Fighting American outlasted them both (#7, April 1955, was the final issue). But their gambit was inevitably futile, since by that point, all comics sales were heading South. Parents’ groups and the media were beginning to push back on the most lurid titles being produced, and it was spilling over to S&K’s relatively clean-cut work. Even EC’s successful humor comic Mad (no doubt the impetus for Fighting American switching from serious super-heroics to satire after only one issue) eventually had to move from comicto magazine-format to survive. Kirby’s anger and frustration swelled throughout that decade, following the April 19, 1954 release of Fredric Wertham’s book Seduction of the Innocent (and the subsequent April–June 1954 Senate hearings about comics being the cause of juvenile delinquency), the resulting 1956 demise of his and Joe Simon’s Mainline Comics company—and then, after hustling to get enough work to survive that tumultuous time, he lost a legal dispute with DC Comics editor Jack Schiff [above] over the Sky Masters newspaper strip (which led to his blacklisting at DC at the end of 1958). Regular readers of TJKC know many of the details of these events, but imagine going through all of that in a relatively short span of time—it’s safe to say Kirby was on the ropes at the start of 1959. The comics market was in decline and looked down upon, and Jack was forced to return with his tail between his legs to Marvel Comics and Martin Goodman, just to stay solvent. After reading Will Murray’s and Mark Evanier’s observations of that era in this issue, I felt it was time to examine the sparring that went on between Jack and DC in
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that frustrating and historically nebulous period between Mainline Comics ending in 1956, and Jack spearheading the early 1960s Marvel Comics revolution which so defines the Silver Age of comic books. First of all, let me state at the outset (in case it wasn’t obvious): What I’m about to present here involves a fair amount of speculation—but is based on a very thoroughly researched timeline, so I think it’s a credible scenario. This is the kind of exploration that couldn’t be conducted without years of others’ accounts, and history slowly revealing itself. Much like how a conversation with Jack in person sometimes wouldn’t make total sense until much later, this historical analysis pulls together bits and pieces that only come from decades of studying Jack and hearing the remembrances of others (and of the credits offered by the experts at the Grand Comics Database [www.comics.org]). As a rule of thumb, I’m working from a timeline of stories being drawn two months prior (and DC plots formulated three months prior) to the actual publication date, not the cover date. It’s not a perfect system, but close enough for this exercise, I feel. So, how did Kirby’s brawl with DC evolve during the early Silver Age of comics? DOES BERNSTEIN BEAR SCRUTINY? We need to start with a documented account: that writer Robert Bernstein [left] did indeed at times take the train into New York City with Jack while they both worked for DC, and pick his brain for ideas. That prompts the question: Where might those Kirby ideas have appeared? One big pitfall of this speculative approach is that, you could probably sum up anyone else’s comic’s plot in one sentence, and imagine Kirby making a spectacular story from it—he could “plus” just about any basic story idea. Conversely, another writer could easily water down a great Kirby idea into something mundane. So we have to dig deeper to find work with his influence on it. Jack seemed to be physically incapable of not creating something all the time. Even when he wasn’t actively working on a paid project, his mind was racing with ideas, and he was finding any avenue to express them he could, as evidenced by his 1950s TV teleplay ideas, newspaper strip proposals, collages, etc. He literally couldn’t contain his creative energy. A telltale sign of Kirby’s involvement in a comics story is that very act of “creation”—inventing something new that wasn’t there previously. So a major supporting character, a new villain, an origin story—these are what I’d look for to determine if Jack might’ve injected some creative juice into another writer’s work. Kirby had landed on his feet at DC after Mainline collapsed, was already working on Challengers of the Unknown when Robert Bernstein came to prominence at DC, and Jack would soon revamp the “Green Arrow” strip in editor Mort Weisinger’s Adventure Comics, starting with issue #250’s “The Green Arrows Of The World” [below, drawn March 1958]. Weisinger [right] had a reputation for his bad temper and being difficult to get along with, so creators would undoubtedly commiserate about having to work for him. Kirby, having dealt with Mort, would be understandably prone to help out a fellow worker who was in the same boat. Bernstein was retained as the existing Blackhawk writer when Quality Comics’ line was absorbed by DC in 1956, and had worked on DC’s war comics before migrating to Weisinger’s Superman family line, starting with Action Comics #234 [plotted around June 1957]. That first job was a tale entitled “The Robot Animals” in the Congo Bill strip [left].
1956–1958
THE PATH TO DC’S DESTRUCTION
Let’s follow Jack’s tracks at DC in the 1950s, and what led up to his dispute with DC editor Jack Schiff, and his eventual return to Marvel Comics: • November 1956: “Challengers of the Unknown” debuts in Showcase #6, based on an unused Simon & Kirby Mainline idea (the story was drawn Sept. 1956, assuming Jack hadn’t already drawn the first story while Mainline was still in business). • April 1957: Kirby draws Thor and Loki as characters in Tales of the Unexpected #16. • Dec. 1957: Kirby draws Challengers of the Unknown #1, based on the success of the Challengers Showcase tryout issues. • January 1958: Talks begin for the Sky Masters of the Space Force newspaper strip. • April 1958: Kirby has Rocky exposed to cosmic rays in space, endowing him with temporary super-powers (including growing to giant-size, as well as manifesting flame powers and invisibility) as he draws Challengers of the Unknown #3 this month. • April 15, 1958: Kirby signs Schiff’s percentage contract for his involvement in negotiating the Sky Masters syndicate deal. • June 8, 1958: Timely/Atlas artist Joe Maneely dies, leaving Stan Lee without his go-to illustrator. Kirby receives his first Marvel assignments for Strange Worlds #1 and World of Fantasy #15 this month, taking up Maneely’s slack. • July 1958: Jack Schiff requests a higher percentage on Sky Masters, to which Kirby balks. • Sept. 1958: Kirby loses his Adventure Comics “Green Arrow” job after drawing #256 this month (because of the close association between editors Schiff and Mort Weisinger). As the tensions over the Sky Masters arrangement mount, Robert Bernstein’s revamp of “Congo Bill” into “Congorilla” would’ve formulated this month. • September 8, 1958: Sky Masters of the Space Force debuts in newspapers. Also in September, Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island by Thor Heyerdahl is released, detailing the discovery of stone statues on Easter Island. • Oct. 1958: Kirby draws the “Negative Man” this month in House of Mystery #84 (edited by Jack Schiff). He also draws his final “Green Arrow” strip for World’s Finest #99 (Schiff was also the Managing Editor of that magazine). • Nov. 1958: Kirby draws “Stone Men” for Schiff’s House of Mystery #85, influenced by Aku-Aku. • Dec. 1958: If Kirby gave Bernstein the plot idea for Superman villain Metallo in Action Comics #252, it would’ve been here. • Dec. 11, 1958: Jack Schiff sues Kirby, and Kirby counter-sues Schiff, effectively ending his career at DC. He draws his last issue of Challengers of the Unknown (#8, with the story “The Prisoners Of Robot Planet”), and then is blacklisted at the company... ...and as Will Murray documented earlier this issue, in his anger, Jack sets out to “destroy DC.”
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Gallery
1st Issue Specials
Commentary on pencil art for some of Kirby’s “first” issues, by Shane Foley
[right] The Demon #1 (Sept. 1972), page 11 A spectacularly plotted and visualized first issue for the Demon saw this stunning design for Morgaine LeFay for this one issue only. As of #2, the design is simplified. Glorious pencil work here. The detail in panel 1 of this page is stunning, yet clarity is never sacrificed, and the reader sees all the characters easily. Notice how the placement of the figures gently forces the eye in an arc from Morgaine around to the serfs below, and then the arc continues directly to the focus of the next panel. [next page] Kamandi #1 (Nov. 1972), page 10 What can we add? Beautiful, complete pencils, with spot-on storytelling and direction. Who would have thought Kirby could produce such stellar work as this, both here and on the Demon, in the midst of the traumatic termination of his Fourth World? Notice how Kirby is so adept at drawing vehicles that look authentic and appear to sit so solidly on the ground.
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Twice-told Kirby covers, with commentary by Shane Foley
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JACK KIRBY INTENTION t occurred to me at some point that one of the things that made Kirby’s artwork and storytelling so effective was the clear intention of the figures in the panel. Kirby always made sure that his images told the story with powerful visual cues, so it could be read and interpreted even before the addition of dialogue. 1 For instance, if one looks at this page from Rawhide Kid #19 [1960] below, you instantly know from his positioning, that the Kid is in danger and prepar-
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ing to defend himself. His posture is tense, but he is centered and balanced. He is a trained gunman and although his back is to his opponent, he is trying to find a way to reposition himself to his advantage. His legs are flexed and set in a wide stance that he can quickly move out of. His hands hang loosely near his guns and his head is cocked slightly over his right shoulder to see his would-be attacker. In contrast, that attacker’s body language indicates that he is a braggart and a bully, shrill and probably a coward. He is off balance and possibly drunk. 1 His arms are lifted as if he is puffing himself up with bluster so that his adrenaline will overcome his fear. Although he seems a threat, you instinctively believe that he could easily lose his nerve. The angle of the Kid’s hat brings the viewer’s eye to the dancers in the upper right quadrant. They all shrink back with the sudden fear of potential violence. On stage, they occupy a realm of their own, but they are not immune. In front of them, two figures move away from the action. The larger figure in the green vest is ready to take off, his head and arms leading his bent legs. If we consider the concept of composition, we can actually suggest that the room itself has intent. The receding hallway behind the Kid is the space/time from which the threat emerges. The Kid is constrained by the boundaries of the room. The space in which the action takes place is an enclosed board upon which the game is played, and the actors within are defined by their place in the composition. We clearly see that the Kid is hemmed in. The edge of a table in front and to his right limits his movement. The curtains hanging at above right crowd him. The edge of the bar and the fallen chair are also barriers. The headline at the top tells us that the Kid must fight or crawl, but we can see that by the images. We are thus pulled into the scene and are anxious to see how it resolves. When considering intent, a figure’s stance is of primary importance, as is its size and positioning within the composition. We need only look at this image of Odin from Journey Into Mystery #123 [1965, next page] to see that he is a figure of supreme authority by his framing in relation to the canvas. Odin is pretty much at dead center of the frame, and we are looking up at his imposing three-quarter front pose. He stares at some distant point in space that only he can see. His stance exudes confidence and 2
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Retrospective (next page, top left) Michael Griffith (aka Jack Kirby) does a bang-up early job in Science Comics #4 (May 1940). (next page, top right) A beautiful Mort Meskin penciled splash page for the never-published Captain 3-D #2 (circa 1954). (next page, bottom) A remarkable Kirby illo for Martin Goodman’s pulp magazine Marvel Stories Volume 2, #2 (Nov. 1940).
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’ve been New Kirby stories appeared virtually a fan of every week. It was astounding. Jack Kirby Back then, he was simply J. for almost 60 Kirby, for that was all the signature years, ever since Stan Lee allowed him. Soon, Kirby I started reading comic books had a first name and he started at the tail end of 1961. My timtransitioning from monsters and ing was pretty good. I came in aliens to super-heroes. I brought just as the great Kirby Explosion Fantastic Four #4, then Incredible of Cosmic Creativity was about Hulk #1. Soon there was Thor and to commence. It was, let’s face an emerging legion of powerhouse it, the Big Bang of Comics for my protagonists. generation. I read other publishers, of While I don’t clearly recall course: DC. Charlton. Radio my first introduction to Jack Comics. But I never suspected that Kirby’s work other than it had DC’s Challengers of the Unknown to have been on one of Marvel’s had been created by Kirby, who many monster titles, I was able had abandoned it to other hands. to recreate it from memory and Nor did I recognize that emblemon-sale dates. It was “KRAGOOM! atic image of the Fly that decoThe Creature Who Caught an rated his cover logo was a Kirby Astronaut!” in Journey into drawing. Mystery #78, March 1962. Twenty years in the This was a creepy comics business, Jack little 7-pager inked by Kirby had saturated the Steve Ditko, Stan Lee’s field. He was about to favorite Kirby reclaim and re-energize it. inker, and The super-heroes one of mine. came tumbling out. Kirby “Kragoom” was was such a dominant one of the last of figure that even though the “Big Monster” tales he didn’t originate Iron Man, Kirby did. Lee was everyone assumed he did. phasing them In a way, they were corout in favor of rect. Kirby designed the shorter, spookoriginal clunky armor. ier stories. His cover for Daredevil A second #1 smacked of being Kirby tale, a concept sketch, but “The Sorcerer,” how much of the character backed up the design was Kirby and how first. My other favorite Kirby much Bill Everett will probably never be inker, Dick Ayers, embelknown. lished that one. It was a Even Spider-Man, the most un-Kirby by Will Murray perfect example of the type of fantasy tale hero in the growing Marvel firmament, Kirby had specialized turned out to have Kirby roots in a thing called the in since the days he Silver Spider via The Fly. produced Black Magic But the true wonder was not simply the new with Joe Simon (and super-heroes. Kirby had created a young army of them in fact, “Black Magic” in the two decades before the 1960s—although hardly is referenced on the any possessed true super-powers. It was in the expandcover). ing universe which these new Marvel heroes explored. Soon, I discovNot just on Earth and near-space, but in Atlantis and ered the companion Asgard and across other dimensions. Not content titles––Strange Tales, with fighting crime and super-criminals through his Tales to Astonish and super-heroes, Kirby pushed the frontiers of comic book Tales of Suspense. Kirby melodrama out beyond its farthest extensions. led off every issue with Comic books would never be the same again. They haunting tales like “The couldn’t, any more than a supernova could revert to Two-Headed Thing,” being just an ordinary sun. “The Martian Who Stole a City,” and “The I read it all and loved them all. To this day, I still Midnight Monster,” think the best era to grow up reading comic books was which led directly to in the 1960s. Jack Kirby was not the only genius at work The Incredible Hulk. in that incandescent decade, but he was the greatest
COSMIC Kirby & the
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genius. To this day, no other comic book talent created or co-created so many enduring heroes. Over time, my interest in Kirby the artist shifted to Kirby the man. His creativity intrigued me. Who was this guy who executed pages and pages of art at supernormal speeds? What made this creative dynamo tick? From whence sprang his unique genius? I don’t know if the answer will ever be known. Jack Kirby was a cigar-smoking human volcano of inspiration—a prolific absorber and regurgitator of ideas. Give him a weak concept—say, Ant-Man—and Kirby would make it seem inspired, if not brilliant. “An idea can come from anywhere,” he once declared. “The process of creation has no standards. You either think it out by yourself or talk it out with someone else or with a group... but eventually you come up with something. Ideas are everywhere.”
Although I met Jack Kirby a few times and interviewed him twice, I never got to know the man. But others who did know him described a fascinating figure. Artist Chuck Guidera first encountered him in 1940, when he applied to Fox Comics for work and met the newly-minted team of Jack Kirby and partner Joe Simon, who was art-directing at Fox. “Joe Simon hired me right on the spot and he said, ‘You’re going to be my assistant.’ The guy that was sitting in back of him was Jack Kirby. He was doing ‘Cosmic Carson.’ I still remember that. He used to talk to himself quite a bit. Nice guy. Real nice guy. Of course, Jack Kirby and Joe were getting ready to do Captain America.” DC editor Jack Schiff, who worked with the duo in the ’40s and ’50s, told me the following: “I would say that Jack was more creative, but wilder. Joe was the guy who would pull it together. We once had a sort of race in the front office. We had a big artist’s room. Jack and Mort Meskin were sitting next to each other and there was some copy we needed pretty quickly from both of them. Each of them turned out five pages of pencils. Beautifully. It was really something. After a while, people began to crowd around watching. And they would both go ahead undisturbed. Meskin was a more careful artist than Kirby, and that’s where Joe Simon came in, in a sense taming or correcting some of Jack’s stuff.” Gil Kane, who broke in with the Simon & Kirby studio: “I remember Mort Meskin saying that he just 65