• Marty Lasick (Kirby family friend, and occasional inker of Jack’s commissioned work) • Tom Kraft (trustee of the Jack Kirby Museum) I simply asked them to answer a few questions, in as brief or lengthy a manner as they saw fit. In checking the pulse of Kirby fandom, I encountered a few surprises. What was the first Kirby work you ever saw, and did you immediately like it, or did it turn you off? JON B. COOKE: I have a vague memory of seeing “Ant-Man” in Tales to Astonish. I thought his work was somewhat grotesque and not as accessible as the slick work in the DC, Harvey, and Dennis the Menace comics of which I was more accustomed. I believe I was five years old. STEVE ROBERTSON: Honestly, I can’t remember specifically what the first Kirby artwork I ever saw was (I was only seven years old at the time, in 1960), but it immediately made all other comic books obsolete! I can tell you that it was Jack’s pre-hero monster artwork for Marvel, that I saw displayed on the comic book racks at the local grocery store where my Mom shopped. I absolutely loved it! To put this in perspective, I was an early reader, and I had always enjoyed comic books, but my parents forbid me to buy any “Horror” related material—but the furtive glances that I was able to make at Famous Monsters of Filmland at the local store, and Jack’s monster artwork, were so powerful to me, that it changed my life forever! After this, I never had any interest in comic books that weren’t drawn by Kirby (or Ditko)!
remember being totally absorbed by the story and art and sorry I hadn’t been able to read the previous issue, since it was a continued story. Believe it or not, the very next week I checked the same newsstand and they actually had issue #57 in the back of the stack of comics from the month before. I was very excited to get that issue as well!
ADAM McGOVERN: I saw Kirby work so early in life that everything in the rest of the world looked wrong—not seeing puffy clouds with metallic squiggle-lines or people with mouths shaped like trapezoids took some adjusting to. I received subliminal education in the Kirby style by the comics my older brother left around. The first was probably some Thor story or one of the shorts about Cap in WWII (the 1960s ones by Lee & Kirby)—I was always an inside-my-head kinda kid, so the ideal and fearsome abstraction of Kirby’s look appealed to me right away.
JERRY BOYD: I wish I could remember the first time I saw the King’s work! It really kicks me around at times, because I can remember the first time I saw the work of Steranko, Romita Sr., Colan, Sprang, Ditko, and both Buscema brothers, among others. But Kirby became my king at first glance, and the memory’s gone! But I’ll say X-Men #9 and I did love it!
NORRIS BURROUGHS: I’m pretty sure the first Kirby story I saw was a monster comic, Strange Tales #75 with Taboo, the Thing From the Murky Swamp, and it was pretty scary. I was about nine and I thought the art was really intense. The first thing that made me sit up and notice Kirby as an artist, which also inspired me as an artist, was the amazing sequential fight scenes in Rawhide Kid #30. I think the most wonderfully hilarious image was that of the Kid standing on his head shooting the boot heels off an opponent [above right].
MARTY LASICK: I remember first seeing (what I later found out to be) Kirby artwork on The Fly, “Green Arrow”, Challengers of the Unknown, and some sci-fi short stories. I was addicted from the start and looked forward to Kirby on any book I could find. It is something I have never grown out of. Now I look forward to any Kirby reprints to preserve my original comic book collection and Kirby-IDW original artwork books. Jack in any format never gets old to me. TOM KRAFT: The first Kirby work I saw was The Fantastic Four. My best friend handed to me in a stack of FF comic books when I was sixteen. They were random issues from issues in the #60s, 70s and #80s. They immediately blew my mind! The visual language and power simply thrilled me. I never thought a comic book could be like that, and I was hooked from then on.
DAVID SCHWARTZ: I believe the first time I saw a Jack Kirby comic was when my grandmother bought me a copy of Fantastic Four #58. I was eight years old and it was on the stands at a newsstand near my school. My grandmother used to take my brother Howard and me to lunch each week and sometimes she bought us each a comic book. I was immediately grabbed by the cover as it looked really exciting and very grown-up to me at the time. I
How do you feel Kirby’s legacy has changed now, in light of the Marvel/Disney settlement? COOKE: I firmly believe that Jack Kirby will be remembered and appreciated a century from now, if not by the masses, at least by those who appreciate the best cartooning. ROBERTSON: Frankly, it hasn’t changed at all among anyone who was already a comic book fan, and has any knowledge concerning comic book history. My fervent hope is that Jack’s genius will become more widely recognized! It’s up to you, Kirby Museum! 23