100 100 Top Top Creators Creators Celebrate Jack Jack Kirby’s Kirby’s Celebrate Greatest Work Work Greatest
100 Top Creators Celebrate Jack Kirby’s Greatest Work
Edited by Jon B. Cooke & John Morrow • Designed by Jon B. Cooke Conceived & Coordinated by John Morrow & Jon B. Cooke Frontispiece Jack Kirby Portrait Painting: ALEX ROSS • Introduction Jack Kirby Portrait Illustration: DREW FRIEDMAN Afterword Jack Kirby Portrait Photography: GREG PRESTON • Proofreaders: ROB SMENTEK and ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON Colorist: TOM ZIUKO • Transcriber: ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON • Cover Artist: JACK KIRBY • Cover Colorist: TOM ZIUKO
Dedication
To the eternal memory of the King of Comics, JACK KIRBY and to the lovely Rozs in our respective lives — BETH COOKE and PAMELA MORROW — who put up with our nutty Kirby obssession as we slave away at all hours of the morning in our own “dungeons” over the last twenty-plus years! — The Editors
Grateful Appreciation and Thanks
To all the Contributors, as well as Harry Mendryk, Tom Kraft, Rand Hoppe, What If Kirby? [whatifkirby.com], The Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center [kirbymuseum.org], Heritage Auctions [ha.com], Cory Sedlmeier, Marvel Entertainment, Andrew D. Cooke, Cliff Galbraith/East Coast ComiCon, Paul Levitz, John Ferrante, Wayne Alan Harold, Richard Pini, Mark Sinnott, and especially Drew Friedman, Greg Preston, Bill Sienkiewicz, & Alex Ross!
Trademarks, Copyrights, and Acknowledgments Kirby100 editorial package © 2017 TwoMorrows Publishing & Jon B. Cooke • All testimonials © 2017 the respective contributors • Kirby Timeline © 2017 John Morrow & Jon B. Cooke Frontispiece © 2017 Alex Ross • Introduction illo © 2017 Drew Friedman • Introduction © 2017 John Morrow • Afterword © 2017 Jon B. Cooke • Afterword photo ©2017 Greg Preston Cover art, opening spread illustrations, back cover illos, background imagery, various, design elements, “Jack Kirby” signature, Deities bonus section illustrations, Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers, Silver Star, “Street Code,” and all related characters and artwork TM & © the Estate of Jack Kirby The Adventures of The Fly, The Double Life of Pvt. Strong © Joseph H. Simon Estate • The Shield TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. Atlas, Batgirl, Batman, Beautiful Dreamer, Big Barda, Big Bear, Blue Beetle, Bug!, Captain Storm, Challengers of the Unknown, Darkseid, The Demon, Desaad, The Dingbats of Danger Street, Firestorm, Flower, Forager, The Forever People, The Guardian, In the Days of the Mob, Jimmy Olsen, Kamandi the Last Boy on Earth, Lightray, Lois Lane, The Losers, Mark Moonrider, Manhunter, Martian Manhunter, Metron, Mister Miracle, The Monkey King, Mr. Freeze, Nightwing, OMAC, Orion, Our Fighting Forces, Pisces, Robin, The Sandman, Serafin, Showcase, Spirit World, Superman, Super Powers, Super Soldier: Man of War, Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, Warden Frye, Weird Mystery Tales, Witchboy, Young Gods of Supertown, Young Scott Free, and all related characters are TM & © DC Comics. Amazing Fantasy, Alicia Masters, Amazing Spider-Man, Angel, Ant-Man, Atlas Monsters, The Avengers, Balder the Brave, Batroc, The Beast, Beta Ray Bill, Betty Ross, Black Bolt, The Black Panther, Bucky Barnes, Bulk, Captain America, Charlie America, Crystal, Cyclops, Devil Dinosaur, Doctor Doom, The Eternals, The Falcon, Fandral, Fantastic Four, Fear, Fin Fang Foom, Fury Force, Galactus, Giant Man, Gorgon, Gruto, Guardians of the Galaxy, Hawkeye, Hela, Hercules, Hogun, Howling Commandos, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, The Human Torch, Iceman, The Inhumans, The Invisible Girl, Iron Man, Karnak, Ka-Zar, The Kree, Lockjaw, Loki, Machine Man, Magneto, Major Victory, Marvel Girl, Medusa, Moomba, MoonBoy, Mr. Fantastic, Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Not Brand Echh, Professor Xavier, Quicksilver, The Rawhide Kid, The Red Skull, Rick Barnes, Ronan the Accuser, Scarlet Witch, Sgt. Fury, Sif, The Silver Surfer, The Skrulls, Sore, Strange Tales, Sub-Mariner, Tales of Suspense, Tales to Astonish, Thanos, The Thing, Thor, Triton, Two-Headed Thing, Tyrannus, Vance Astro, Volstagg, The Vision, The Wasp, The Watcher, What If?, Wonder Man,The Wrecker, X the Thing That Lived, The X-Men, Zabu, and all related characters are TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Boys’ Ranch, Captain 3-D, Fighting American, Foxhole, Stuntman, and all related characters TM & © the Estates of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Doofus TM & © Rick Altergott. Flaming Carrot, Young Funnybook Lust TM & © Bob Burden. Savage Dragon TM & © Erik Larsen. Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre TM & © Batton Lash. Jacklactus TM & © Joseph Michael Linsner. The Fabulous Four TM & © Brendan McCarthy. Destroy!!, Understanding Comics, Zot! © Scott McCloud. Echo TM & © Terry Moore. Mister X TM & © Dean Motter. Elfquest TM & © Wendy & Richard Pini. Alien Legion TM & © Carl Potts. The Mad Mummy TM & © Mike Vosburg. Too Much Coffee Man TM & © Shannon Wheeler. Frank TM & © Jim Woodring. Big Blown Baby TM & © William Wray. Justice, Inc. TM & © Condé Nast. Darth Vader TM & © Lucasfilm, LLC. Conan the Barbarian TM & © Conan Properties, Inc. Alarming Tales, Race for the Moon © Harvey Entertainment. The Jack Kirby Quarterly © Chrissie Harper. Garbage Pail Kids, Mars Attacks! TM & © Topps Chewing Gum Company. Thundarr the Barbarian TM & © Ruby-Spears. The Incredibles TM & © The Disney Company. Rip Kirby, Prince Valiant TM & © King Features Syndicate. My Little Pony TM & © Hasbro Inc. Radioactive Man TM & © Bongo Entertainment. Barnacle Boy, Mermaid Man, Ren and Stimpy, SpongeBob Squarepants, and all related characters TM & © Viacom International, Inc. The Prisoner TM & © ITC Entertainment Holdings, Inc.
TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, North Carolina 27614 www.twomorrows.com • email: twomorrow@aol.com First Printing • June 2017 • Printed in China Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-079-3 • Softcover ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-078-6
T A B L E Introduction by John Morrow..... 6 THE GOLDEN AGE 1. Paris Cullins: Blue Beetle....... 8 2. Allen Bellman: Captain America Comics #5..... 10 3. Mike Vosburg: Stuntman #2............................. 12 THE 1950s 4. John Workman: Boys’ Ranch #3......................... 14 5. Bill Black: Captain 3-D #1..... 16 6. Trevor Von Eeden: Fighting American #1............... 18 7. Bob Burden: Fighting American.................... 20 8. Ed Piskor: Foxhole #5............. 22 9. Joe Staton: Showcase #6...... 25 10. Michael T. Gilbert: The Fly #1............................... 26 11. Rich Buckler, Sr.: Blue Ribbon Comics #5.......... 28 12. Garry Leach: Race for the Moon #2............ 30 13. Dave Gibbons: Alarming Tales #3.................. 32 THE ATLAS MONSTERS 14. Craig Yoe: Strange Tales #89.................. 34 15. Peter Poplaski: Strange Tales #95.................. 36 16. Dave Sim: Boys’ Ranch........ 39 17. Graham Nolan: Fear #2....... 40 18. John Holmstrom: Strange Tales #100................ 41 19. David Lloyd: Amazing Adventures #6......... 42 THE MARVEL AGE OF COMICS 20. Alan Weiss: The Rawhide Kid #28............. 44 21. Al Gordon: Amazing Fantasy #15............. 46 22. Sal Buscema: Fantastic Four Annual #1....... 48 23. Carl Potts: Sgt. Fury #1........ 52 24. Rick Hoberg: Strange Tales #114................ 54 25. Rick Veitch: Fantastic Four #20.................. 56 26. Tom Mandrake: The Avengers #4.................... 58
O F
27. Kyle Baker: Captain America.................... 60 28. Shannon Wheeler: The X-Men #8........................ 62 29. Larry Hama: Sgt. Fury #13... 64 30. Steve Mitchell: Sgt. Fury #13.......................... 65 31. Fred Hembeck: Fantastic Four #34.................. 66 32. Walter Simonson: Journey Into Mystery #113.... 68 33. Adam Hughes: Tales of Suspense #66........... 70 34. P. Craig Russell: Fantastic Four #40–70........... 72 35. Richard Howell: Fantastic Four #45.................. 74 36. Kelley Jones: Journey Into Mystery/Thor #125–130........ 76 37. John Romita, Sr.: Tales of Suspense #77........... 78 38. Paul Smith: Journey into Mystery #106......................... 81 39. Ladrönn: Fantastic Four #49.................. 82 40. John Byrne: Fantastic Four #51.................. 84 41. Ken Steacy: Fantastic Four #51.................. 86 42. Mark Schultz: Fantastic Four #52................. 90 43. Derf Backderf: Tales to Astonish #82............. 92 44. Barry Windsor-Smith: Thor #134............................... 94 45. Terry Moore: Fantastic Four #59.................. 96 46. Marie Severin: Not Brand Echh #1................. 98 47. Joseph Michael Linsner: Fantastic Four #66 and Thor #159............................. 100 48. Wendy Pini: Fantastic Four Annual #5..... 102 49. Brent Anderson: Fantastic Four #69................ 104 50. Dean Haspiel: Tales of Suspense #85......... 105 51. Peter Kuper: Thor #148...... 106 52. Dan Brereton: Captain America #106......... 108 53. Bob McLeod: Thor #158.... 110
C O N T E N T S 54. José Villarrubia: Captain America #109......... 112 55. Joe Sinnott: Fantastic Four #95................ 114 DC AND THE FOURTH WORLD 56. Jerry Ordway: Mister Miracle #1................ 116 57. Dustin Nguyen: The Forever People #6......... 117 58. Will Meugniot: Mattel Comic Game Cards.... 118 59. Al Milgrom: Jimmy Olsen Adventures........................... 120 60. Cliff Galbraith: Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #134........ 123 61. Dan Jurgens: Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #135........ 124 62. Jim Valentino: The Forever People #6......... 126 63. Scott McCloud: The New Gods #5................ 128 64. Steve Rude: Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #136........ 131 65. Jim Starlin: Metron of the New Gods..... 132 66. Jan Duursema: Mister Miracle #5................ 134 67. Mike Royer: The New Gods #6................ 136 68. Tom Scioli: The New Gods #7................ 138 69. Giorgio Comolo: The New Gods #7................ 140 70. Michael Allred: The New Gods #9................ 142 71. George Pratt: Mister Miracle #9................ 144 72. Michael Avon Oeming: Mister Miracle #9................ 146 73. Paul Rivoche: Mister Miracle #9................ 147 74. Bill Morrison: In the Days of the Mob #1............. 148 75. Glen Murakami: Weird Mystery Tales #1....... 150 76. Steve Bissette: The Demon #2...................... 152 77. William Stout: The Demon #15.................... 155 78. Rick Altergott: Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth........... 158 79. Erik Larsen: Kamandi #6.... 160
80. Kevin Eastman: Kamandi #16........................ 162 81. Thomas Yeates: Kamandi #19........................ 164 82. Scott Shaw!: 1st Issue Special #6.............. 166 83. Alan Davis: OMAC #4........ 170 84. B atton Lash: Our Fighting Forces.............. 172 85. Alex Ross: The Sandman #4.................. 174 RETURN TO MARVEL 86. Evan Dorkin: Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles............. 176 87. Bruce Timm: The Eternals #3.................... 178 88. William Wray: What If? #11........................ 182 89. John Paul Leon: The Eternals #7.................... 184 90. Rick Parker: Devil Dinosaur #1................. 186 91. Dean Motter: The Prisoner......................... 188 92. Simon Bisley: Conan ........ 190 93. Bob Budiansky: How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way................... 192 INDEPENDENCE 94. Jeff Zapata: Street Code.... 193 Bonus! Bill Sienkiewicz: Street Code.................. 194 95. J im Woodring: Ruby-Spears work................ 196 96. Paul Karasik: Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers #9....... 198 97. Philip Tan: God................... 202 98. Brendan McCarthy: Captain Victory #13.............. 203 99. Rudy Nebres: Silver Star #1....................... 204 100. Keith Giffen: Kenner Super Powers........ 206 100 Years of Kirby: A Chronology of the King’s Reign......................... 208 Alphabetical Index................. 221 Afterword by Jon B. Cooke..... 222
Introduction
Editor, The Jack Kirby Collector Publisher, TwoMorrows Publishing
by John Morrow
Welcome to the Celebration! while fun, was ultimately in vain. The creators who agreed to share their essays for this book needed little help. If you love Kirby, the problem isn’t trying to think of a page that’s meaningful to you; it’s narrowing it down to only one, from the tens of thousands you digested since first discovering the guy’s amazing work.
f you picked up this book by accident, with no idea who Jack Kirby is, you’re probably lost. But what a great place to lose your way — in the imagination of the greatest comic book creator (and now, film conceptualizer) who ever lived. Jack Kirby was born Jacob Kurtzburg on August 28, 1917. This book is being released exactly one century later, but despite containing over 100 of the top creators in comics and animation — all offering their personal praise for, and critiques of, their favorite Kirby work — it can only begin to scratch the surface of the life and career of the man rightfully dubbed the “King” of comics.
We’ve attempted to assemble this project into some semblance of chronological order, from Jack’s earliest work to his final. That’s easier said than done, however, since numerous contributors couldn’t contain their comments to just one page, issue, title, or even a single era. So all-encompassing was Jack’s influence on comics, and even mainstream pop culture, that many of the contributions here crossover from talking about their chosen Kirby work, to reference a much earlier — or later — strip to make a point about their favorite. (And, truth to tell, some just wanted to discuss the King in general terms, so we simply assigned a pertinent piece to accompany their testimonial, whether it’s mentioned or not.) Such was Jack’s influence and impact, that just like a Kevin Bacon party game, you can connect nearly any Kirby creation to another, usually in far fewer than six steps.
Before co-editor Jon B. Cooke and I began approaching said creators for their cooperation with this 100th birthday celebration, I spent a solid week poring over every Kirby comic book and reprint volume at my disposal, choosing what I felt were key Kirby pages to discuss, and making notes as to why I picked them — all so we could offer the potential contributors a starting point for making their own choices. After nearly a quarter-century of producing my magazine, The Jack Kirby Collector, preceded by more than three decades of my own Kirby collecting — long before I ever imagined it’d end up being my life’s work! — I’ve amassed a gargantuan collection, but still haven’t read every story Kirby produced (though I’m getting close!).
The selections here are surprisingly varied; we assumed most people would choose perennial favorites like the Fantastic Four and The New Gods, and indeed, many did. But work as obscure as DC’s 1970s Sandman and Marvel’s Devil Dinosaur also made the
The exhausting task of reviewing that much material,
Top: Jack Kirby, circa 1968. This photo was subsequently color-tinted. Above: The original art for the splash page from “Talent For Trouble,” Boy Explorers Comics #1 [1946], featuring Jack Kirby pencils and Joe Simon inks. The Harvey Comics title lasted for one single issue on the stands (though an ashcan of #2 was sent to subscribers). 6
Just in case we had difficulty finding 100 contemporary creators to participate (boy, were we wrong to worry!), we also assembled an even dozen essays from existing interviews with older creators no longer with us, many of whom chose those early DC works as their favorite. (A few years ago, Jerry Robinson told me his personal favorite Kirby art was the cover from Adventure Comics #78, featuring Manhunter and Sandman shooting down enemy aircraft; he acquired the original art for it at DC Comics in the 1940s, and kept it ’til just prior to his death.) But, bolstered by the great response, we chose to keep this book’s text all-new, so no posthumous material was needed. The plethora of Golden Age DC Comics material being reprinted these days likely insures that material will be a favorite of a future generation, even if it’s not included in this book. The art here gives a representative sample of what Jack spent most of his life doing, and the essays try to analyze some of the intricacies of how he did it. But he was a notoriously difficult interview subject — his mind raced back and forth from one idea to the next at lightning speed (a trait great for creating wild comics concepts, lousy for giving coherent answers to probing questions about how he created it). Kirby worked so instinctively, that trying to precisely explain his approach to comics can be maddening. So glean as much as you can from the analyses herein, but don’t lose sight of the simple fact that Jack drew from the heart, not from the mind. At some point, it’s time to stop beating your head against the Source Wall, and just sit back and enjoy the magic, power, grace, symmetry, flow, and downright fun of Kirby, unleashed.
cut, proving that Jack’s work speaks to different people in different ways. Noticeably absent is Boy Explorers (one of my top choices, should someone have asked me to contribute to a book like this). Likewise under-represented is Jack’s work with partner Joe Simon on 1940s DC Comics characters, like Boy Commandos, Sandman, Manhunter, and the Golden Age Newsboy Legion.
Enjoy, and Happy 100th Birthday, Jack! You’ve made our lives much happier by your work, and your presence.
Above: This portrait of Jack Kirby is by cartoonist/caricaturist/illustrator Drew Friedman, and it appeared originally as the cover art for Friedman’s Heroes of the Comics [2014], published by Fantagraphics Books. The sequel, More Heroes of the Comics, has been nominated for a 2017 Will Eisner Award for “Best Comics-Related Book.” Top inset: The late, great cartoonist and Golden Age comic book artist Jerry Robinson once confessed that he loved this Adventure Comics cover by Simon and Kirby so much that he acquired it back in the ’40s! 7
Dave Gibbons
Artist/Writer Co-Creator/Artist, Watchmen, Give Me Liberty Two-time 1987 Jack Kirby Award winner, 1986 Inkpot Award
“The World is Ours” Alarming Tales #3, pg. 1 huge publishing sensation when I was growing up was the books of Erich Von Däniken. Most notable of these was Chariots of the Gods, which posited that our human civilizations were pre-dated on our planet by those of ancient extraterrestrials. According to Von Däniken, memories of these alien visitors were responsible for mankind’s many legends of heaven-born gods and, furthermore, the mammoth building feats of antiquity that could only be explained by the use of advanced technology.
It’s an unproven further hypothesis of my own to imagine that Von Däniken might have seen the work of Jack Kirby in his youth, particularly the stories that Kirby and Joe Simon produced for Harvey Comics’ Alarming Tales. Here, in highly compressed narratives, they imagined vivid encounters with alien technologies and races, usually with a questioning resolution that left the motives and result of such encounters obscure. Even if the youthful Von Däniken didn’t absorb these powerful glimpses of otherness, the young Dave Gibbons certainly did.
Even in today’s world of conspiracy theories and purported grand schemes to obscure the hidden truths of history, Von Däniken’s theory was a doozy. Given enough complexity, which the accumulated legends and creations of our history certainly provide, it’s clearly possible to select elements to support almost any scenario. Much though I enjoyed the books at the time, they always seemed to me more redolent of sciencefiction than science-fact.
One of the most vivid was “This World Is Ours,” which ran for only five pages, of which one was an apocalyptic splash page image, showing strangelygarbed victims fleeing a Sodom and Gomorrah scene, fireballs raining down on high tech towers. The story is simple; two survivors of an ancient civilization successfully use their mind powers to control a man who has excavated them from their eons-old slumber in a hidden cave, only to discover they can’t control other humans. As the local small town sheriff explains, their discoverer had previously suffered brain damage and was as compliant as a child. Anyone could control him.
Although I don’t know it for a fact, my assumption always was that Von Däniken had read a lot of science-fiction growing up and had confabulated this with a youthful interest in archaeology to construct his convincingly argued, yet unproven, fantasies. In much the way that people find it hard to believe that hugely significant acts can be carried out by hugely insignificant people, it can be hard to accept that sophisticated construction projects could be executed by relatively primitive technologies.
What makes the admittedly slight story sing in the memory is Kirby’s visualization of the would-be dominators and their world; austere giants in his trademark “science god” outfits, buried in a tomb that manages to be both creepy and hi-tech at the same time. The story is certainly a perfect evocation of Von Däniken’s colorful theories. Who knows, perhaps it might even be part of their inspiration. Or perhaps that is just my very own outlandish conjecture after all.
Top inset: During the post-Seduction of the Innocent period, the comics industry was forced to produce innocuous “Code-approved” material, though even under those constraints, comics packager Joe Simon shepherded some intriguing books for Harvey Comics, including fine work from Kirby. Alarming Tales #3 [1958]. Above: In 1997, Dave Gibbons channeled his inner Kirby for a one-shot combining Superman and Captain America. Next page: Alarming Tales #3 splash page by Kirby, with color and art reconstruction by Harry Mendryk. 32
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Peter Poplaski
Cartoonist/Writer/Editor/Painter Co-Author, The R. Crumb Handbook 1998 Eisner Award winner, “Best Comics-Related Book”
“The Two-Headed Thing,” Strange Tales #95 Misshapen Shapeliness and Shapely Misshapenness: The Heroic Energy of Jack Kirby’s Monster Comics, 1960-63 like Kenneth Clark was making a media reference about the Jack Kirby Marvel monster comics that we loved as kids.
n 1972, I was in college and had just returned from a month in Italy studying renaissance art. By accident, I had stumbled upon the 13-part BBC series Civilisation by Kenneth Clark being replayed on Wisconsin Public Television. I remember my brother, Bill, and I were viewing the second episode, in which Clark quotes St. Bernard of Clairvaux criticizing the Cluniac style of sculpture in monasteries:
For me, St. Bernard’s 12th century commentary using his poetical phrase: “misshapen shapeliness and shapely misshapenness,” also eloquently described and immediately called to mind every Jack Kirby monster character, and it was for this very aesthetical reason we youngsters avidly collected Strange Tales and Tales to Astonish. These magazines weren’t just entertainment, but a reflection of the times in which our youth was staged as well. Of course, we climbed the apple trees in our backyard and played baseball practically every day, but overhead were jet aircraft cracking the sky with sonic booms, practicing no doubt for some possible future conflict with global repercussions. America was living through the Cold War arms race, the race for space, and the Cuban missile crisis. However, all the palpable paranoia and horror of those times — thoughts of possible oblivion — were being transmuted by creative energy and channeled into our favorite distractions; into movies, comic books, and TV. Television was the great com-
“And in the cloisters, under the eyes of the brethren engaged in reading, what business have those ridiculous monstrosities, that misshapen shapeliness and shapely misshapenness? Those unclean monkeys, those fierce lions, those monstrous centaurs, those semi-human beings. Here you see a quadruped with the tail of a serpent, there a fish with a head of a goat. In short there appears on all sides so rich and amazing a variety of forms that it is more delightful to read the marble than the manuscripts and to spend the whole day in admiring these things, piece by piece, rather than in meditating on the Divine Law.” I commented to my brother then that it sounded to me
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mon denominator and a popular show like The Twilight Zone had the wit to show us every week that reality is not really what we think it is. Reality is actually stranger, scarier, and more dangerous than fantasy. The Marvel monster comics had similar storylines, but they themselves, as objects for kids, seemed magical and more intimate. They appeared suddenly in 1960 on the weekly racks of new comics for sale on Thursdays at Peters drugstore. There, amidst the clean realistic rendering that underscored integrity on DC Superman and Batman comics by cover artists Curt Swan and Stan Kaye, next to the modern classicism that the Murphy Anderson inking brought to Carmine Infantino’s Flash and Gil Kane’s Green Lantern covers, behind the movie and TV photo covers of Dell Comics, Harvey’s Casper, and various Classics Illustrated and Archie comics, were buried dark grey or blue and brown covers with a primary yellow or red logo surrounding a large heavy orange or green “something” with text captions shouting, “CAN MANKIND SURVIVE?” The lumpy three-fingered alien-creature-monster drawn by Jack Kirby and inked by Dick Ayers threatened to reach out aggressively. “NOTHING CAN STOP HIM!” This comic book cover grabbed at us as would a movie poster. We were not just watching a scene, we had become part of one. “THERE’S NO PLACE TO RUN!” My first thought was maybe I shouldn’t be looking at this. Calmly I opened the comic book to the splash page. What my brother and I saw (I immediately had to show him even though he was four years younger than me) was like a Ray Harryhausen stop-motion animation movie on paper in every issue we came across. The Two-Headed Thing had weight and moved like the Cyclops in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. Zzutak pulled himself off of a giant Aztec flat canvas to breathe and live in three dimensions like King Kong. The Creature from Krogarr crawled out of the television set. What if the Monster at My Window was at our window? “THERE’S NO ESCAPE!” Actually, Billy and I didn’t want to escape. We wanted to learn. We picked up pencils and tried to draw monsters and dinosaurs like Jack Kirby. When we were given money to go buy ice cream, we’d excitedly put our nickels together so we could buy a Tales to Astonish
Above: Peter Poplaski relaxes with Strange Tales alongside his epic renderings of the awesome Atlas monsters created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, back when Pete conceived of the characters as a toy line! Below: Printed ridiculously small are those illustrations. Previous page inset: Strange Tales #95 [1962]. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
featuring Gorgilla, the Monster of Midnight Mountain. After a few years, the Marvel monsters evolved into the multi-part book-length epics of the Marvel super-heroes burdened with physical and social problems. They were monsters who wanted to be human again. You can witness the transformation in the first five issues of The Fantastic Four
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Sal Buscema
Artist/Actor Co-Creator, Nighthawk, Nomad, Starhawk 2003 Inkpot Award, ’13 Hero Initiative Lifetime Achievement Award
Fantastic Four Annual #1, The Incredible Hulk pin-up wasn’t a huge fan as a kid, but I certainly read comic books, and I didn’t become familiar with Jack Kirby until my oldest brother John got into the business. John was eight years older than I, and he was 20, I believe, when Stan hired him, so I was only 12 at that time, and I wasn’t really familiar with artists. But, later on, as John became a fixture in the business, I became familiar with Jack Kirby’s stuff.
so I thought it was a good time to make a change. The beauty of the whole situation was that I was able to stay in Virginia. Marvel was starting to farm work out to people all over the country, so I didn’t have to move to New York. I went to Marvel with the idea of being an inker. My first love has always been inking. For some reason, I draw better with a brush than I do with a pencil. One of the first jobs that they gave me was at John’s insistence, because he was not happy with the way he was being inked at the time. Joe Sinnott was inking John’s Silver Surfer, and Joe is a phenomenal inker, but he wasn’t inking John the way John wanted to be inked. He knew that I was very familiar with his work, and knew what he wanted, so I was able to give it to him, and he talked Stan into making me the inker on the book.
I got my first job in comics in 1968 when they were expanding the line. I’m not completely certain about the timeline, but that’s probably when they started with Stan’s concept of very, very loose scripting and leaving the storytelling to the artist. I had a very good job with an art studio in Washington, D.C., known as Design Center. They’re no longer in business — they’ve been gone for many years — but, at the time, they were probably considered the top commercial art studio in the area. We did everything from visual aids to advertising, animation — the works. You name it, we did it. But I always wanted to get into comics, and I wasn’t completely happy with the work I was doing at the studio. They were interested in supporting animation and filmmaking, and that’s not what I wanted to do. I wanted to illustrate, and they were moving in another direction,
I wasn’t totally familiar with the body of Jack’s work, but I was certainly familiar with what he was doing for Marvel at the time. Who in the business wouldn’t be familiar with Jack’s work? He was the Babe Ruth of comics! He was phenomenal and, to this day, I think he’s still the greatest comic book illustrator of all time. I’m not sure John was ever asked to draw like Jack Kirby. First of all, John would not do that because he had his own style of drawing. And who could draw like Jack Kirby? Those who have tried to imitate his style of drawing have fallen flat on their faces. I remember a statement from Gil
Top inset: Detail from Sal Buscema’s Hulk illustration in the Mighty Marvel Calendar for 1975. Above inset: Character-filled panel from The Incredible Hulk #278 [1982], with pencils by Sal Buscema and inks by Joe Sinnott, repro’d from the original art. Next page: Kirby’s Hulk pin-up in Fantastic Four Annual #1 [1963], with inks possibly by Sol Brodsky. 48
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John Romita, Sr.
Artist/Art Director/Licensing Ilustrator Co-Creator, The Punisher, Designer, Wolverine Inkpot Award, 2002 Eisner Hall of Fame inductee
“If a Hostage Should Die,” Tales of Suspense #77 In all the other comics, the figures were standing straight up in the same poses on almost every page. Kirby made it a law in his approach that nothing was ever going to be standing straight up stiffly. His stiffest drawing was that first drawing of the costume with the odd-shaped shield. He did that standing straight up, and it was very unnatural for Captain America. Not only was I aware that everything was
first saw Jack Kirby’s work when I was ten years old. I was in the streets of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Everybody assumed, because I could draw chalk super-heroes on the street, I was the authority on art, and I had all of my guys in my neighborhood buying that Captain America book. I remember telling them, “This is no ordinary comic where people are standing still and the dialogue is screaming. The drawing is screaming and the dialogue can’t keep up with it!” I had never heard of him. I was a Daredevil fan, the one with two different colors; he was my favorite character. When I saw the first Captain America I grabbed it… I had a copy of #1, and, like a trillion other comic collectors, my mother lost it. I was very aware when Kirby and Simon left the series, and very surprised that theirs was such a short run. I had no idea that Jack couldn’t be tethered down like a horse in the bullpen there. I was so disappointed when Syd Shores, a pretty good artist, took over for Jack. It just wasn’t the same.
Above left: After Kirby’s departure from Marvel, John Romita Sr. was one artist on Captain America. This vignette of the character is from his work on the Aurora Comic Scenes insert that was included in plastic model kits in the ’70s. Above right: Page from Kirby and Simon’s Captain America Comics #1. Next page: Tales of Suspense # 66 page. Inks by Chic Stone. 78
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Barry Windsor-Smith
Artist/Writer/Illustrator/Author Creator, BWS: Storyteller Multiple award-winner
“The People-Breeders,” Thor #134, pg. 3 ack Kirby meant a lot to me. When I was young, the new American comics that came to England were mostly DCs, and later Marvel started to happen in the mid-’60s. Beforehand, they were all secondhand comics, which you could buy for a tuppence each at the junk shop. As a child, I was reading black-&-white British and Australian reprints of DC’s Superman, Adventure Comics, and Batman, and that sort of thing. While I was as interested in super-heroes as much as any kid, there came a time around the early to mid-’60s when I started losing interest in comics because they were no longer satisfying to me in any way. The Superman stories were stupid and the artwork was bland. Not that they weren’t before — they had been bland all along — but it’s just my temperament had changed. If it hadn’t been for Jack Kirby, I would have been one of
those people who outgrew comics and never looked back. The comic book industry and the movie industry both owe Kirby the greatest debt. Of course he’s gone. I don’t know if there’s a thriving Kirby family anymore, but whoever’s left should be reaping rewards. It would be great if Marvel would sponsor a biographical film about Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. A docudrama type thing. There are enough people who know about their creations now because of the movies, that although it wouldn’t be a runaway blockbuster, it might be an art house hit, and they could probably make their money back from it. I’m talking about a biographical film with actual Hollywood actors. I can’t think of anybody who could play Kirby, but give me ten minutes and I could probably come up with half a dozen names. It would be telling the story of the creation of Marvel Comics. I would love people to know the truth. It would be an inspiring picture, with the right screenplay, and the right sort of independent sponsorship. I think that Stan Lee would go for that instantly, and I think he would be gracious enough to say Jack Kirby is the co-star of such a film. That would be a good way to acknowledge how Jack Kirby changed the comics industry. Left: Barry Windsor-Smith page from a proposed mini-series starring The Thing. “As the four-part series in incomplete,” he explains, “I should mention that the premise of the work is that Ben is left alone in New York and undergoes something of a personal crisis; a mental breakdown in a way where he questions himself as a man or a monster, and his value (if any) to the Fantastic Four. It’s a comedic look at a serious subject for Ben Grimm.” Top inset: Kirby Mavelmania poster. Next page: Thor #134, page three, inks by Colletta. 94
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Bruce Timm
Artist/Writer/Animator/Producer/Director Co-Creator, Harley Quinn, Longtime Producer, DC Animated Universe 1994 and 1995 Will Eisner Award winner, “Best Single Issue”
“The Devil in New York,” The Eternals #3, pgs. 2–3 s a teenager, I remember reading (and presumably enjoying) each issue of The Eternals hot off the spinner rack, but whenever I try to re-read the entire series as an adult, I get hopelessly lost in all the chaotic complexity of Kirby’s grand Cosmic Casserole. Overwhelmed supporting player-slash-audience surrogate Margo Damian sums up my befuddlement when she breaks down and wails, “ETERNALS! DEVIANTS! GODS THAT FLY IN SPACESHIPS! It’s just too much for me, Dad… TOO MUCH!” (And that’s midway through issue #2.) She ain’t kidding, boys and girls — there’s a whole lot going on in these twenty issues, a multitude of wild characters and concepts hurtling at the reader in such rapid succession, it quickly becomes the ultimate example of “One Damn Thing After Another.” Basically a reboot of Kirby’s Fourth World cosmology, mixed with great big chunks of Erich Von Däniken, Madame Blavatsky, Arthur C. Clarke, Bullfinch’s Mythology, and the Old Testament, all crammed into one monthly funnybook and cranked up to eleven. Seriously, it’s exhausting! I’ve lost count of how many times the saga has defeated me. I usually get to about issue #4 — and then I start skimming — and then I stop reading altogether and just look at the pretty pictures. Ah — but what astoundingly pretty pictures they are! It’s 100% “Sense Of Wonder” stuff. Majestic fullpage splashes and double-page spreads abound — enormous byzantine spacecraft and hidden alien cities — gentle gargoyles and beautiful savages and battalions of armored demons…. Looming mysteriously over all, titanic and remote... the inscrutable Celestials. Arishem! Eson! Nezzar! Gammenon! Who are they? Why are they here? What do they want? Danged if I know! Maybe I’ll have an answer next time I tackle the series… if my head doesn’t explode…. Above inset: Bruce Timm’s rendition of his favorite female Kirby characters. Right and next page: Double-page spread from The Eternals #3 [1976] with pencils by Kirby and inks by John Verpoorten. Pgs. 198–99: The pencils to same. 178
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