Happy 100th birthday Jack Kirby
Aug. 28th, 2017 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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scans_dailyToday is exactly 100 years after the arrival in this plane of reality of one Jacob Kurzberg, whose astonishing imagination focussed into the realm of comic books would become better known as the output of the one, the only, Jack Kirby. And as a community devoted to the medium, it behooves us to celebrate the event.
Okay, that's actually a second Alex Ross piece, but I really like it as it captures what might be described as the Kirby Kosmic aesthetic.
To list his creations would be a fruitless task because there are just so gosh darned many of them. I tried googling the question out of general cuirosity and it gave me 343, but that would be a drop in the ocean.
He was, of course, co-creator with Joe Simon, of Captain America and his cast (Bucky, The Red Skull and all) and created the amazing "punching Hitler" cover for Captain America #1 many months before America had entered WWII (It has a cover date of March 1941), and which led to the even more awesome story of the Nazi sympathisizers who showed up at the offfices he worked, wanting to have a word with him about that, and Kirby, a kid from the Lower East Side in Manhattan took them up on the offer, only to discover they had vanished by the time he got down to the entrance.
(Never gets old and sadly, seems to be getting more timely)
And it wasn't just super-heroes of course, romance's adventure, historicals, crime, he did them all, and he never, ever stopped. He was an in-betweener animation artists for Fleischer in the 1930's,
He worked for Marvel and DC
With Stan Lee, of course, he helped launch Marvel comics in the 60's and boy howdy did he launch it!
The Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom, of course.
The Avengers, the Hulk, the reintroduction of the "original" Captain America, Thor (and all of the cosmicness of Asgard) and.. well there again, the list spirals on into infinity.
And when he felt he wasn't being treated properly by Marvel, he left, to join DC and produced some very.. idiosyncratic material.
At DC he created the Fourth World, the New Gods, Apokalips, and of course, Darkseid himself amongst others.
And such an odd setup, he told the stories he wanted to tell across three different titles (and thanks to "The Lightning and the Storm" podcast interview with Walt Simonson referencing Kirby's work) for summarising this better than I ever could have;
"The New Gods", telling the story from the POV of the New Gods themselves, powerful and cynical and complex, "The Forever People", the children of the New Gods, more naive, more adventurous and trying to find their way in the world and finally, of all places, "Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen" where he told the more human side of the story.
Samples of his work are a mouseclick away, and the characters he created are still dominant at Marvel (The Fantastic Four are... an unusual case at present), and DC so instead of those, , I thought I'd take the chance to show something which, again, Kirby pioneered in his comics, he wasn't content just to draw, if he wanted to show something cosmic and odd, he was just as likely to compose and photograph a collage as a backdrop,
From Fantastic Four....
From Jimmy Olsen
From Spirit Worlsd Magazine 1971
So a happy centeenary to one of the most remarkable imaginations that has ever graced American comics.
And if you feel you have a favourite Kirby story to share, we encourage you to do so!
Okay, that's actually a second Alex Ross piece, but I really like it as it captures what might be described as the Kirby Kosmic aesthetic.
To list his creations would be a fruitless task because there are just so gosh darned many of them. I tried googling the question out of general cuirosity and it gave me 343, but that would be a drop in the ocean.
He was, of course, co-creator with Joe Simon, of Captain America and his cast (Bucky, The Red Skull and all) and created the amazing "punching Hitler" cover for Captain America #1 many months before America had entered WWII (It has a cover date of March 1941), and which led to the even more awesome story of the Nazi sympathisizers who showed up at the offfices he worked, wanting to have a word with him about that, and Kirby, a kid from the Lower East Side in Manhattan took them up on the offer, only to discover they had vanished by the time he got down to the entrance.
(Never gets old and sadly, seems to be getting more timely)
And it wasn't just super-heroes of course, romance's adventure, historicals, crime, he did them all, and he never, ever stopped. He was an in-betweener animation artists for Fleischer in the 1930's,
He worked for Marvel and DC
With Stan Lee, of course, he helped launch Marvel comics in the 60's and boy howdy did he launch it!
The Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom, of course.
The Avengers, the Hulk, the reintroduction of the "original" Captain America, Thor (and all of the cosmicness of Asgard) and.. well there again, the list spirals on into infinity.
And when he felt he wasn't being treated properly by Marvel, he left, to join DC and produced some very.. idiosyncratic material.
At DC he created the Fourth World, the New Gods, Apokalips, and of course, Darkseid himself amongst others.
And such an odd setup, he told the stories he wanted to tell across three different titles (and thanks to "The Lightning and the Storm" podcast interview with Walt Simonson referencing Kirby's work) for summarising this better than I ever could have;
"The New Gods", telling the story from the POV of the New Gods themselves, powerful and cynical and complex, "The Forever People", the children of the New Gods, more naive, more adventurous and trying to find their way in the world and finally, of all places, "Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen" where he told the more human side of the story.
Samples of his work are a mouseclick away, and the characters he created are still dominant at Marvel (The Fantastic Four are... an unusual case at present), and DC so instead of those, , I thought I'd take the chance to show something which, again, Kirby pioneered in his comics, he wasn't content just to draw, if he wanted to show something cosmic and odd, he was just as likely to compose and photograph a collage as a backdrop,
From Fantastic Four....
From Jimmy Olsen
From Spirit Worlsd Magazine 1971
So a happy centeenary to one of the most remarkable imaginations that has ever graced American comics.
And if you feel you have a favourite Kirby story to share, we encourage you to do so!
no subject
Date: 2017-08-28 11:10 pm (UTC)Seriously though, Jack Kirby's influence on graphic novels cannot be understated. The way he did art, pioneered the "Marvel method," just everything this man did. I personally adore his art of outer space and other cosmic backgrounds. Just any time he's allowed to draw other worlds. His designs for alien and fantasy characters were always great as well. They were bombastic and otherwordly and cool and I love it.
We did not deserve him, but I am so glad we had him.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-28 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-29 02:06 am (UTC)(P.S. We can't give Kirby any credit/blame for The Green Team -- that was the work of his erstwhile partner, Joe Simon. Perhaps you were thinking of The Dingbats of Danger Street?)
no subject
Date: 2017-08-29 07:17 am (UTC)Since "Scrappy gangs of kids" was a go-to for Kirby (along with "cosmic god like beings" and "hidden civilisations" etc etc) I don't feel TOO bad about assigning the wrong to him! :)
no subject
Date: 2017-08-29 02:22 am (UTC)His were better. And he ended up doing comics user manuals.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-29 07:08 am (UTC)Kirby did say that his CO did make use of his artistic talents by making him a scout, sending him ahead and then having him draw reconnaissance pictures based on what he's seen.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-30 01:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-30 03:09 pm (UTC)Alfredo Alcala also made use of his artistic talents during the Japanese Occupation of the Phillipine Islands as a young man. He'd cycle innocently past Japanese encampments (in places where a camera would be grounds for being shot on sight) and then sit down and sketch everything he'd seen from memory, then hand it over to the Allies.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-29 03:16 am (UTC)https://www.previewsworld.com/Catalog/Prevue/NOV151910
no subject
Date: 2017-08-29 06:10 am (UTC)The first airing of the Superman TAS, episode "Apokolips... Now!" had a funeral scene that was also a tribute to Jack Kirby and includes cameos of some of characters he made.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-29 07:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-29 06:08 pm (UTC)