Fully Authorized By The Kirby Estate
CELEBRATING THE LIFE & CAREER OF THE KING!
Issue #12, Oct. 1996
A 44-p age International Theme ISSUE Spotlighting Jack’s Influence Aro und The GLO BE! Two Rare 1970S
Kirby Interviews (One in English For the First Time)
John Byrne Interviewed! Transcript of the 1996 Kirby Tribute Panel at Comic Con International: San Diego , Featuring
Mark Evanier, Roger Stern & Marv Wolfman Around The World WIth Kirby:
Asia, Australia, South America, England, Italy, France & More! Unpublished Art including Captain America Pencils Befo re They Were Inked, And Much Mo re!!
1996 Eisner Awards Nominee For Best Comics-Related Publication
Captain America © Marvel Entertainment, Inc.
A Controversial Canadian Speaks:
$4.95 In The US
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A KIT & KABOODLE OF KAPTIVATING KIRBY KONSCIOUSNESS! ITEM! There’s a couple of Internet-related Kirby items you should make note of. First, the TJKC Web Site (put together by Rascally RANDY HOPPE) has moved! The new URL is: http://www.interactive.net/~thehop/kirby (it’s still got samples of art and articles from each issue of TJKC). Secondly, if you enjoy interesting discussions of all things Kirby, join the KIRBY MAILING LIST. Send e-mail to MATT GORE (who’s taken over the list from Chris Harper) at mhg@matthew.cumberland.org and ask him to put you on this FREE mailing list. Then prepare yourself for a daily deluge of e-mail; Kirby is a hot topic of discussion! ITEM! TJKC spent three wonderful days at the CHICAGO COMIC-CON this past June, hobnobbing with all the rabid Kirby fans in the midwest! Thanks for making us feel so welcome; we’ll sure try to attend again next year!
Pure Imagination’s The Complete Kirby Vol. 1 (a series reprinting all of Jack’s work from the beginning of his career) is ready to go to press, but 400 people must commit to buying a copy before it can be published. Only 150 people have so far, so there’s still a long way to go! Volume 1 includes Jack’s early work from Blue Bolt, Red Raven, Crash Comics, Jumbo Comics, plus other early comic book and comic strip work (some never published in the US), and a text feature to put it all in perspective. Vol. 1 will be a 164-page softcover in black-&-white with color cover for $25. If you’re willing to commit to purchasing a copy, write to Greg Theakston, Box 669902, Marietta, GA 30062 or e-mail him at: 75451.3472@compuserve.com and let him know. DO NOT SEND ANY MONEY NOW! You’ll be notified by mail when it’s published. ITEM! Speaking of conventions, this past July 4th weekend, TJKC was in San Diego, CA for the 1996 COMICCON INTERNATIONAL. The KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL took place on Saturday (a transcript is in this issue), and we got to see lots of old and new friends (including Jack’s daughter LISA, granddaughter TRACY, and nephew ROBERT). DARK HORSE COMICS unveiled their new KIRBY PORTFOLIO (with the help of ROZ KIRBY), and we had our annual TJKC display of Kirby art. It was a real kick when they announced TJKC was nominated for BEST COMICS-RELATED PUBLICATION at the EISNER AWARDS (congratulations to THE COMICS JOURNAL, who won in our category). We enjoyed an afternoon at SDCC founder SHEL DORF’s house, and got to chat with MARK EVANIER, STEVE SHERMAN, STEVE RUDE, MIKE THIBODEAUX (who invited us to stay at his home in Los Angeles after the con - thanks, Mike!) and many others. And during our visit to the Kirby house, Roz kept us laughing with stories, like the time Jack was yelling at daughter Lisa for something, and Roz bonked him over the head with a frying pan! (“Not all that hard, but you could hear the ‘bong’,” she said.) We had a great time, and thanks to everyone for making us feel like family! ITEM! COMICS REVUE has just begun reprinting Jack’s SKY MASTERS daily strips, picking up where Pure Imagination’s volume left off. #124 is $5.95, and in stores now, or write to: PO Box 336, Mountain Home, TN 37684. ITEM! Rambunctious RICHARD KOLKMAN is hard at work on the updated Kirby Checklist, so this is your last chance to send in errors and omissions from the existing one from Blue Rose Press’ THE ART OF JACK KIRBY.
JOHN’S JUKEBOX American comedian Steven Wright came up with one of my favorite comedy lines: “It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to paint it.” And if you think about it, that’s exactly what Jack Kirby did all those years; he painted a swath of action and adventure, not just in America, but all across the world. Roughly 10% of TJKC subscribers are from outside the US (they discovered Jack through foreign reprints of his work and American imports), which underscores how widespread the Kirby appeal is. It transcends language barriers, and “speaks” to people on its own level. This really hit home to me when a man walked into our booth at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con and asked (in a French accent), “Are you zee gentleman who publishes zis magazine about Jack Kirby? I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy eet!” It was none other than MOEBIUS himself! He went on to say how he’d been reading each issue, and what a fan he was of Jack’s work. It just goes to show what a small world it really is. So this issue, we’re on a journey to examine Jack’s influence around this “tiny” world of ours. And since Jack is so widely recognized around the globe as the co-creator (with Joe Simon) of Captain America, I couldn’t resist having most of the art in this issue feature Cap and Bucky (and let’s not forget that nefarious Nazi, the Red Skull!). Enjoy the trip! Long Live The King!
John Morrow, Editor • 502 Saint Mary’s St. • Raleigh, NC 27605 • (919) 833-8092 • FAX (919) 833-8023 e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com
ITEM! At this summer’s comic conventions, we got 560 more names on our petition to get Marvel Comics to give Jack a co-credit line. If you didn’t get to sign, write to: Mr. Terry Stewart, Marvel Comics, 387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016 and ask that Marvel put “Created by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby” on books they cocreated. (This is in conjunction with MARK MILLER’s ongoing letter-writing campaign. So write already!) ITEM! Gregarious GREG THEAKSTON reports that for Vol. 2 of his COMPLETE KIRBY reprint series, he still needs a copy of Famous Funnies #80. If you know where he can get it in any condition, call him at (770) 433-1468. ITEM! Bashful BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH (who inked the cover of this issue of TJKC for us) just published the first issue of his new monthly omnibus comic STORYTELLER at Dark Horse Comics. Barry’s a long-time Kirby fan, and STORYTELLER includes a series called YOUNG GODS which is dedicated to Jack, and inspired by Jack’s work on THOR and NEW GODS. Look for it in stores now! ITEM! Donations to the educational fund that was set up in Jack’s name shortly after his death can still be sent to: The Jack Kirby Educational Fund, Temple Etz Chaim, 1080 Janss Rd., Thousand Oaks, CA 91360.
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KIRBY COLLECTOR CHECKLIST These Issues Of TJKC Are Available – See Page 42 TJKC #1: This 16-page INTRODUCTORY ISSUE features rare Kirby posters, articles on a 1978 Kirby traveling display and the MARVELMANIA PORTFOLIO, Jack’s original OMAC concept sketch, an unused THOR page, and more! $2.50 ($2.70 Canada/Mexico, $3.70 outside N. America) TJKC #2: A 16-page GENERAL INTEREST issue with rare 1970s SANDMAN pages, a fan’s phone conversations with Jack, MARVELMANIA PORTFOLIO plates, unpublished FANTASTIC FOUR panels, a page of the Jack Ruby ESQUIRE story, other rare art, and more! $2.50 ($2.70 Canada/Mexico, $3.70 outside N. America) TJKC #3: A 16-page CAPTAIN AMERICA theme issue with a JOE SIMON interview, more MARVELMANIA plates, convention sketches, 1960s & 70s CAPTAIN AMERICA pages before they were inked, and more! $2.50 ($2.70 Canada/Mexico, $3.70 outside N. America) TJKC #4: A 16-page GENERAL INTEREST issue, with a MIKE ROYER interview, more MARVELMANIA plates, THOR pencil pages before being inked, unused ATLAS #1 cover pencils, Euro-Kirby fandom, and more! $2.50 ($2.70 Canada/Mexico, $3.70 outside N. America) TJKC #5: A 16-page GENERAL INTEREST issue featuring transcripts of Jack’s 1972 speech at VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, unpublished FANTASTIC FOUR pencils, how Kirby used real people in his comics, essential Kirby collectibles, unpublished KOBRA pencils, and more! $2.50 ($2.70 Canada/Mexico, $3.70 outside N. America) TJKC #6: A 36-page FOURTH WORLD theme issue featuring interviews with MARK EVANIER and STEVE SHERMAN, more of our MIKE ROYER interview, the NEW GODS portfolio, the story behind HUNGER DOGS and Jack’s original ending to NEW GODS, and unpublished art, plus FOURTH WORLD pencils before being inked! $4.95 ($5.40 Canada/Mexico, $7.40 outside N. America) TJKC #7: A 36-page KID GANG theme issue with an unpublished 1987 interview with Kirby, overview of the S&K KID GANGS, plenty of unpublished art from BOYS’ RANCH, BOY EXPLORERS, JIMMY OLSEN, DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET, X-MEN, and more! $4.95 ($5.40 Canada/Mexico, $7.40 outside N. America) TJKC #8: (Our first full-color cover!) A 36-page all-star CONVENTION theme issue with transcripts from the KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL at the ’95 SDCC (with JOE SINNOTT, MIKE ROYER, MARK EVANIER, and TONY ISABELLA), convention memories, essay by JIM STERANKO, CAPTAIN AMERICA pages before they were inked, convention sketches, and more! $4.95 ($5.40 Canada/Mexico, $7.40 outside N. America) TJKC #9: A 44-page FANTASTIC FOUR theme issue with everything you wanted to know about the FF! JOE SINNOTT interview, FF pencil pages before inking, the original version of FF #108, unpublished art, and more! $4.95 ($5.40 Canada/Mexico, $7.40 outside N. America) TJKC #10: A 44-page HUMOR theme issue! ROZ KIRBY interview, STEVE GERBER on DESTROYER DUCK, GOODY RICKELS, FIGHTING AMERICAN, plus JIMMY OLSEN and THOR pencil pages before inking, other unpublished art, and more! $4.95 ($5.40 Canada/Mexico, $7.40 outside N. America) TJKC #11: A 44-page HOLLYWOOD theme issue! STUNTMAN, THE BLACK HOLE, LORD OF LIGHT, THE PRISONER adaptation, Jack’s career in ANIMATION, NEW GODS vs. STAR WARS, unused movie ideas, lots of unpublished art, and more! New Kirby/Steranko and Kirby/Ordway covers. $4.95 ($5.40 Canada/Mexico, $7.40 outside N. America) TJKC POsTEr: Full-color, 17” x 23”, shipped in a sturdy mailing tube. See page 42 of this issue for a look at it, and to order. Price includes shipping. $7.00 ($8.00 Canada/Mexico, $10.00 outside N. America)
you know, they are proud, and I think if you did something like that, your mother also would store your stuff; that’s how mothers are! In my neighborhood, you know, they didn’t even know what an artist was; to be someone, you had to be a car mechanic, and so when I became an artist, people couldn’t understand, they thought I was mixed up in something illegal.
Wow-What An Interview! A rare Italian interview from the 1970s, translated by Fabio Paolo Barbieri Nessim Vaturi, an Italian fan, interviewed Jack Kirby during Jack’s trip to Lucca, Italy in 1976. Before taping started, Kirby told Vaturi he was particularly happy about this interview because his Italian fanzine was called WOW! COMICS—similar to one of Kirby’s own early titles. The interview was only published in Italian; the original is not available, so Fabio Paolo Barbieri re-translated it back into English. If anything sounds odd, remember; this is a translation of a translation.
NV: After Jumbo, what did you do? KIRBY: After Jumbo, I started to gravitate towards more stable and secure magazines, that were just then coming out; things like Atlas Comics, which later became Marvel. And then of course I did some things for DC, and some things for a man named Victor Fox. Victor Fox’s name might have come out if you interviewed any artist my age who worked in the first years of comics. He was a publisher, he published Weird Comics, and in general books with names like Weird, Pow, Hit. And there were publishers like “Busy” Arnold
NESSIM VATURI: You said earlier that early in your career you used to work for a book called WOW! JACK KIRBY: Yes, it was the first magazine I worked for. Jerry Siegel and Will Eisner used to publish it. They were my bosses back then, and those were the first years of comics, and WOW–What A Magazine was one of the first comic magazines. Many of the artists who worked in it went on to create great features of their own, as we were to see. People call this the Golden Age of comics – I mean the Forties. NV: Do you remember anyone? KIRBY: Yes, I remember all the people who were there. There was Eddie Herron, who created Captain Marvel, and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. They worked for DC from the beginning, they came on the scene when everything had just been created and everyone ran around from one company to another. When Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster came along, they found their place at DC and stayed there. I was a nut... if another company offered me more, I went, so I leaped around like a fly; maybe this was a good thing after all, because it allowed me to work in different organizations, and meet different people. NV: After working for WOW, where did you go? KIRBY: I worked for Jumbo; I did a “part feature,” one of the first sorcery strips, called “The Diary of Dr. Hayward.” I’ve still got the book; my mother kept it. But I’m not a collector, a hobbyist or a specialist. I’m a doer; that’s what you can call me. I do things and then forget about them. But mothers,
In the mid-1960s, Jack had his personal Golden Age copies of Captain America #1 & 3-10 bound into a hardbound volume. For the occasion, he did four Cap-related pencil drawings and had them stitched into it; two inside the front cover, and two in back. All four are in this issue, and Barry Windsor-Smith was kind enough to ink this one for this issue’s cover.
The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 3, No. 12, Oct. 1996. Published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Advertising, 502 Saint Mary’s St., Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. 919-833-8092. John Morrow, Editor. Pamela Morrow, Assistant Editor. Single issues: $4.95 each US, $5.40 Canada, $7.40 outside North America. Six-issue subscriptions: $24.00 US, $32.00 Canada and Mexico, and $44.00 outside North America. First printing. The initial printing of this issue was mailed the week of Oct. 21, 1996. All characters are © their respective companies. All artwork is © Jack Kirby unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors.
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who had their own companies... many of those companies and groups have vanished; today only Marvel and DC are left. NV: You have enormous experience. How are comics made in America? We know there is a staff work system. KIRBY: What they did was to organize a way to share work among several people; you can have a letterer, an inker, then there is a colorist who puts in the color for the printers, and then of course you have the penciler, and he is the artist. If the artist had to do all those things, he would never get the time to do all the work, so all these people are necessary. NV: Clearly the inker matters too. KIRBY: Yes, sure, a good inker with an attractive style can make the artist’s work look very good, but obviously the main element is the penciler. The penciler is the one who tells the story, who visualizes it. It’s not a writer’s medium, a letterer’s medium, an inker’s medium, it’s just... the penciler tells the story, as I said; the writer could write his heart out, and be one of the finest writers in the world, but if he gets the wrong artist doing his story for him, it dies; that is, the decisive factor is the artist. Take for instance your own magazine WOW. The first thing you see is the drawing, and that tells you what the product is. You remember LIFE Magazine? They used to have terrific writers in LIFE, but what used to sell the magazine were the photographs. The best photographers sold the magazine, the most striking pictures... it was that kind of product.
and knew all these horror stories, and they used to make my hair stand on end; and this may have been decisive... I used to love doing that sort of thing, because you get a response from people; I think my mother wanted a response from me. In other words, if your mother wanted your attention for something, she might shout at you or box your ears; or she might tell you a story, like mine used to do with me. NV: Maybe it’s the best way. KIRBY: I think so too. NV: You have written your own stories, text and drawings? KIRBY: Yes, that’s what I always do and that’s what I’m doing now. NV: So nobody writes your scripts. KIRBY: No, never. NV: How do you feel about Italian comics?
NV: How did you start to do comics? KIRBY: I started out as an animator in the Max Fleischer studio; that is, not really an animator, but an “in-betweener.” I say animator because it sort of gives an idea of what I worked on; but it’s not really the right word, maybe. The animator is the guy who controls the entire production, while I, I was seventeen or eighteen at the time. I only worked on a light table and did in-between poses so the character could move on the board. I did that for a bit, but then the studio decided to relocate to Miami and I stayed in New York and did other things. I used to work for a small newspaper syndicate that supplied 700 newspapers. I did sports cartoons, editorial cartoons and comic books. I think this experience gave me what I needed, a starting point to tell a whole story in comics, which I later did in comic books. NV: Is there a special reason why you chose comics? KIRBY: I don’t know. I think none of us knows clearly why he is drawn to some things. I know I used to love storytelling. At least my mother loved it. She was a wonderful storyteller, she had come from “Frankenstein country”
Speaking of Barry Windsor-Smith, here are the original pencils from a page he inked in Jack’s 1976 “Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles” Treasury Edition. 4
KIRBY: All European comics have a flavor ours haven’t. Americans are fairly straightforward people, they get to the point fairly quickly. Europeans on the other hand seem to like to linger a bit more with life. They like looking at life in its various aspects, and they observe... I think they are more perfectionistic than we are. I noticed many European artists are better than I am; that is they are better draftsmen, but l don’t know whether they are better at telling a story than I am.
mous canvas, and so they could produce paintings that impress people far more than what we do. Who, looking at a small panel, say two by three inches, could be as impressed as he would be in an art gallery?
NV: Maybe the point is that you are very good at getting and keeping people’s attention. KIRBY: Yes, because that is my job. My job is not to be a fine artist, no, it’s not a matter of draftsmanship. No, I say the artwork is important, but it’s not everything. I mean my job is to sell comics.
NV: A fairly common question: What’s your favorite character? KIRBY: Maybe my answer will be fairly standard too, but I think if I indicated a character above the others I would denigrate them all, and therefore a bit of myself, a part of me. So when you see one of my characters you should know I put a lot of work in each of them, because I feel as though they were people. If I drew a portrait of you and neglected it, I would feel that something is missing, so I couldn’t make it less rounded and real than you are; I should be able to talk to him as if to a person.
NV: Well, you do it very well. KIRBY: Yes, because it’s very simple. Many times I might draw a man without fingernails; I couldn’t care less about drawing fingernails if the reader is still paying attention to the story in spite of that. Because the nails aren’t the point of the story, it’s the drawing that leads them to the point, that’s what matters. It may be a nose, it may be a foot, it may be anything.
NV: Right now we are seeing a lot of comics characters being transposed to the movie screen. Do you think that’s valid? KIRBY: Yes, absolutely, because it’s a very dramatic sort of thing, and l think that the man who is to make the next mythology will be drawing from the comics. That is the origin of all our characters. Tarzan is a mythological character, like Samson or Thor or Hercules; they are all “superheroes.”
NV: Are there any European or Italian artists you particularly appreciate? KIRBY: I look at European artists as I look at American artists. I think, as I said, that nearly all of them do a great job. The fact is I don’t speak European languages well enough to be able to follow the story and so I can’t judge, but speaking only from an artistic viewpoint, they’re great.
NV: Do you think these transpositions would be better in animation or in live action? KIRBY: Well, live actors would give them that extra dimension, they would be a lot more powerful than drawings. If I was to dress a man in a superhero costume, he would have twice the impact of a drawing, if he was the right man. NV: Any messages for WOW’s readers? KIRBY: Well, I would tell them that they can’t give up comics. And if they tried they wouldn’t manage, because they can’t give up comics any more than they can give up films and television; because this is a visual age, a time in which we perceive the world through images. If our TV is on the blink, we go to the cinema or buy a comic, because we all are always communicating, we communicate with images. I hope that as they go on, comics will tell better and better stories, and greater too, to entertain people; because in the end all our existence here on earth is centered on spending time together. I think this is the reason there are comics, and the reason for comics or any other medium to exist is so we can entertain each other without beating each other over the head with clubs.
NV: Did any of the “masters” influence you? KIRBY: Yes, there were three, that is naturally the big three: Alex Raymond, Hal Foster and Milton Caniff. Everybody regards them as masters. There were no art schools where you could go and study how to make comics; every man was a school for the next man. Maybe it was like that in the old days here in Italy, when people like, for instance, Michelangelo would have assistants and apprentices, and the people who came after them very likely were good artists too, and did good work. They were the school for later artists, and clearly their influence could be found in the work of artists who came after. You’ll find elements of Milton Caniff in my work, and the same goes for Alex Raymond, because I used to love what he did with the human figure, how harmoniously he managed to bend it. Therefore I followed him, like everyone did, but I also created a style of my own.
While Jack sketched the WOW! magazine cover drawing (see above), he commented that he draws Captain America with heavy, clenched fists; a lot of people blame him for drawing fists and such too square. He said it’s because he is short; a big man might draw a more elegant character, whereas he draws him compact and muscular. From his perspective, that’s how he sees him. As for women, he says his are big because he has always lived with women who were, in every sense of the word, large; all women in his family were handsome, but big. He is now drawing a Spanish woman in Captain America who is an imposing character, and therefore she must be drawn large. The talk ended with Kirby mentioning that he and his wife intended to visit Florence, and inviting the interviewer to visit him in America.) ✪
NV: And now you’re going to be a model for the coming young people? KIRBY: Yes, exactly. There may be something in my style that will suit other artists, so automatically it’ll become their school. You don’t have to pay a lot of money for a school; all you have to do is take a comic book and try to analyze the essential drawing methods I use. NV: There are at last two ways to draw, that is “strips” that tell a story, or else composing a panel that goes maybe beyond... KIRBY: Yes, it can be done—that is, do you mean balloons that come out of the normal panel, or... I have done some experiments with what they call format. Of course, I thought comics should be fairly broad, so I started using double page spreads. My drawing style is fairly broad too, so I still think so today; I think a comic book ought to be six feet tall, so the artist could go wild drawing it, and produce an impressive picture. This sort of comic book would have a big impact on the public. Classical painters had the advantage that they had gigantic panels available to them; they could work on an enor-
(Editor’s note: To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Jack’s Italian trip, I’ve accepted an invitation to have the TJKC Kirby art display shown at the 1996 International Comics Fair in Lucca (which runs Oct. 31 – Nov. 10). Then it will be displayed in Milan, Rome and Naples over a three-month period (with press coverage from the leading Italian newspapers), offering a rare opportunity for the Italian public to see Jack’s work firsthand.) 5
Kirby In The United Kingdom England
Spider-Man, so with little Kirby material). These comics stayed with the successfully tested format pioneered by Odhams, and so of course continued to rely heavily on Kirby material from the ’60s. For the Kirby collector, the majority of his material was reprinted by Marvel UK in their comics published in the ’70s. Since the mid-1980s, Marvel UK has abandoned reprints and concentrated on a line of new material; ie. DeathsHead, Motormouth, etc. There is no question Kirby’s art and scripting were influential on a whole generation of comic book artists, but his artistry helped create a whole industry in the UK. At least 75% of Marvel’s reprints were Kirby material. In the late ’60s Jack Kirby’s art raised the expectations of British comic book readers, who had, with few exceptions, been used to static, basic, almost minimalist artwork. The American reprints in the 1960s were the first comics to appeal to the adult reader, and so lay the groundwork for an adult interest in comic books. It was a combination of larger-than-life adventure, fantastic concepts, and characters
by Mark Cartwright
The phrase “comics are for kids” was never truer than in the United Kingdom. Despite a headstart over the US and the rest of the world in printing this form of entertainment, it was over a century later before an English publisher printed anything remotely aimed at adults. How was the prevailing adult derision towards comic books altered, permitting 2000 A.D. (featuring Judge Dredd) to be printed in 1977, and gain acceptance to the point where more issues of 2000 A.D. are now sold to adults than to children? The answer is just two words: Jack Kirby. Between 1874 and 1966, English comic books were solely aimed at children under twelve years of age; both their artwork and scripts were overly simplistic, lacking even the merest hints of controversy or adult themes. There were just two exceptions: The Dan Dare strip in the Eagle comic and reprints of the American comic Captain Marvel, both occurring in the 1950s. War, sport, and stories focusing on schoolchildren were the main themes; superheroes were virtually nonexistent. In 1966, Odhams, who published the weekly comic Wham, began including reprints of the Fantastic Four, drawn by Kirby. The artwork, even in black-&-white, was much more dynamic than anything seen in English comics and quickly became so popular that it was joined by sister publications Smash, Pow, Fantastic, and Terrific. By 1967, there was simply no room for homegrown English strips, and all of the above comics were featuring 100% Marvel reprints. Originally Wham had both Fantastic Four and Batman reprints, but such was the appeal of Kirby’s Marvel work that Batman was replaced by Thor, X-Men, Sgt. Fury, Nick Fury, Avengers, and Spider-Man. The best analogy to compare English comic strips of the ’60s to Kirby’s Marvel work would be the difference between Flash Gordon cinema serials in the 1930s and the Star Wars Trilogy. DC and Marvel comics were imported into the UK in the 1960s but were much more expensive than their British counterparts. American material became very popular once available in the cheaper British format. The style of English comics has always differed from American comics, in that they are published weekly on the cheapest paper, and apart from the cover and centerspread, are in black-&-white. English comics don’t focus on one character, but instead will have five or six different stories, each being five or six pages long. This often set up cliffhangers in American reprints that just didn’t exist. In response to the success of their material reprinted in an English format, Marvel set up “Marvel UK” and began their own reprints, with the first issue of The Mighty World of Marvel on October 7, 1972. It ran for 329 weekly issues until 1979, when it changed its name to Marvel Comic continuing from #330-352. It was revived again for 17 issues in 1983-84. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the line was expanded adding Daredevils (11 issues in 1983), Fury (25 issues in 1977, with Sgt. Fury reprints), and Spider-Man Comics Weekly (666 issues – really! – 1973-85, focusing on
Captains America and Britain, drawn in the mid-1970s.
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who used ordinary everyday language, even if it was with a strong US dialect. Moreover the children who read the Marvel reprints in the ’60s and ’70s were ready to accept the comic 2000 A.D.’s launch in 1977, with its heightened levels of action, and concepts of fantasy and science-fiction aimed at persons over 12. 2000 A.D. could not have survived and flourished without the acceptance of both adults and children. In turn 2000 A.D. was responsible for highly-regarded industry talent like Brian Bolland, Garth Ennis, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, and Dave Gibbons, who ironically all ended up at DC. Without Kirby’s material to pave the way, Bolland, Moore, etc. would have been turned away, or been forced to eke out a living writing or illustrating simplistic stories in England about children, for children. How do you track down these Kirby UK reprints? Well, the good news is they are very inexpensive; an average of 20 cents for the ’70s issues, and 50 cents for those from the ’60s. The bad news is that very few comics dealers in the UK stock them because of their low value; you are more likely to find them in secondhand book stores than recognized comics stores. Another comic book format unique to Great Britain along with the weekly comics are the Christmas Annuals: Hard-cover books released just before Christmas, collecting various strips found in a weekly comic. From the late-’60s through the mid-’80s, annuals reprinting Marvel and DC stories were published. Odhams published annuals carrying the logos of Smash, Fantastic, and other titles they published. During the 1970s and ’80s Marvel UK published annuals such as Marvel Superheroes Annual. Unlike the weeklies, they reprinted whole uninterrupted superhero stories, many by Kirby. They too are inexpensive—from $4 to $8 each—and can be found in much better condition due to their hardcovers. To find weekly comics and annuals, check the magazine Comics International, a British publication that has most of the comic book retailers in the UK advertising. Now that Marvel has abandoned the concept of their Marvel Masterworks books, these English reprints are the most affordable way of acquiring Kirby’s Marvel stories. His DC Fourth World series has unfortunately not been reprinted in England. Commercially since the late ’60s, Kirby’s American back issues, despite downturns in the value of his comics in the US during the late ’70s and ’80s, have consistently remained at the high end of values in Great Britain. Only Neal Adams and Barry Windsor-Smith can rival the longevity of the values placed on Kirby material in the United Kingdom. ✪
Scotland
A 1969 sketch that ran in “Infinity” fanzine.
In October 1972 that all changed. On my way home from work I noticed a new comic on the newsagents counter (not the same newsagent – I never went back); it was called The Mighty World of Marvel. It contained The Hulk #1 (the first 10 pages), The Fantastic Four #1 (the first 13 pages) and the entire Spider-Man story from Amazing Fantasy #15. I bought it and never looked back; I was hooked again. Although this first issue was mostly black-&-white with green shading (yes, green shading), I no longer cared whether I was too old to read comics; I was happy. Over the next six years Marvel UK was able to reprint almost everything Kirby had done since Fantastic Four #1. I guess, like a lot of people, the ’60s happened for me in the early ’70s with Marvel UK reprinting all of the ’60s Marvel work. By the mid-1970s I had discovered fandom and somebody else in Inverness who, at my age, still collected comics; legitimate at last, I could come out of the closet. However, by the early 1980s I was becoming bored with comics; there was little from Kirby, and there was no one with that magic touch to sustain my interest. Then on Saturday, April 13th, 1996, while in Glasgow taking my son back to University, I was browsing through a comics shop when I discovered The Jack Kirby Collector #9. I was hooked, yet again. ✪
by Ray Owens
I was born in 1948 in Inverness, the capital of the Highlands of Scotland. My first encounter with American comics was in the late 1950s; the distribution was poor and erratic and my pocket money was very limited. Most comics were obtained by swapping with friends and were mostly cartoons, monsters or westerns, with the odd superhero title. The comics were produced mostly by DC, Dell and Gold Key with a few Atlas titles appearing from time to time. By the early- and mid-sixties, distribution began to improve and I had discovered Marvel comics, and in particular the Fantastic Four by Jack Kirby. The art just leapt out of the page; I was hooked. By 1968 and the Marvel explosion, I was collecting seriously—especially anything Kirby. Then it happened: I “grew up.” One Saturday when collecting my Fantastic and Terrific at my local newsagent, the woman serving me said in a loud voice in the middle of the busy shop, “These aren’t for you, are they? You’re surely too old to be reading comics.” I stopped, and in time threw out my entire collection. I certainly knew of no one else in Inverness reading comics at my age and I had not heard of fandom, so she must have been right; I was too old to read comics. 7
Ireland
A Class Act
by Ed Hatton
Kirby comics, while thin on the ground, can be found in Ireland. Reprints of Kirby work available in the US are distributed here; old Kirby comics can be found in comics stores and in book stores, and old British reprints of Kirby work can also be located. American comics have become very popular here in the past few years, and there are several comics stores in Dublin and other cities in Ireland that sell new comics and collectors’ magazines from the US. Some Irish kids grew up buying American comics, but not many. Although American comics have probably been marketed in Ireland on and off since the 1940s, superhero comics were never very popular here. Kids’ tastes ran toward humor, sports, war, and horror comics. The fewer American comics sold, combined with the low odds of their survival in anything near good condition (the damp environment is very hard on them, and their covers almost always bear price stamps), means the ones found in comics shops are horribly overpriced. I did have some luck at a book sale at a local secondary school where I found a substantial pile of American comics that included several Kirby issues: Challengers Of The Unknown #75, Mister Miracle #6, Forever People #6, Our Fighting Forces #152, and several issues of Where Monsters Dwell and Monsters On The Prowl that reprint Kirby’s excellent prehero monster stories. Ultimately, however, it is cheaper to buy Kirby comics through the mail from the US and pay the extra postage. Kirby comics can be found in Ireland in one (almost) native source: British black-&white reprints of American material. I picked up several of these recently and found Kirby material in three of them published by Class (see sidebar): Amazing Stories Of Suspense #122, with a Kirby Giant-Man cover from an issue of Tales To Astonish; Secrets Of The Unknown #131 reprinting “The Torch Meets the Iceman!” and the cover by Kirby from Strange Tales #120; and Sinister Tales #116 reprinting Kirby’s 11-page story “The Day That Ant-Man Failed!” from Tales To Astonish #40. Always used to seeing Kirby’s work in color, I was pleasantly surprised by these reprints. Undiluted by color, the black-&white artwork is better able to convey a sense of Kirby’s mastery of line and layout, aspects of his style that can sometimes be obscured by the final published product. In fact, for those of us who don’t have access to original Kirby art, these and similar British reprints may be the only place where Kirby’s work (primarily his 1960s work for Marvel) can be seen in its original, black-&-white format. ✪
by Chris Harper and Mike Kidson Alan Class started a line of UK black-&-white horror/mystery reprints back around 1962, and finally called it a day early in 1989. Much—though not all—of this material came from the Atlas/Marvel vaults. The Class Series, as they were known, often contained terrific, rare Kirby and Ditko material; mostly old monster stories, some of which Marvel has never reprinted in any form! Occasionally, a Marvel superhero reprint would turn up (I have Class reprints of the first Thor story and a Ditko Dr. Strange). The paper used in the books was awful; they were, essentially, bargain-basement productions. But looking at some of the horrendous reprints Marvel has issued in recent times, the one virtue the Class books have is that they often tend to retain much more of the original, fine linework. They’re pretty scarce these days, but not terribly expensive, and are a wonderful, affordable source for rare Kirby material, if you can track ’em down! Titles included Secrets of the Unknown, Creepy Worlds and Sinister Tales among others. ✪
A hilarious Kirby spoof from the UK, by Roger Langridge! Poor Jimmy... 8
Review: Jack Kirby Quarterly by Jon B. Cooke he most important Kirby-related project to come out of the United Kingdom is, without a doubt, Chris Harper’s Jack Kirby Quarterly. The magazine is filled with raging debate, controversial commentary, and impassioned reviews, oftentimes about the most minute details of Jack’s creative output. The long letter columns and Harper’s chatty editorials are abuzz with the latest controversy in our little fan niche, and JKQ is alive with the culture of Kirby. The full range of opinion and emotion in Kirby fandom can be found here, from the vehement (if sometimes knee-jerk) defense of slights made to Jack’s work, to fawning adoration of the artist’s collaborators, and it is evolving into one great magazine about comics. Like the magazine you’re holding, JKQ is chock-full of Kirby pencils and rarely seen work. But the resemblance ends there, as different editorial emphasis in each periodical complement—but don’t coopt—each other. TJKC is the more sedate, scholarly one, and JKQ is (ironically, as it is a British production) the less reserved, more opinionbased ’zine of commentary and review. Much of the earlier issues are devoted to essays by numerous British fans of the “What Jack Means to Me” variety. While sometimes what is omitted can be a blessing (as when we are spared the second part of Clive Scruton’s incoherent essay on aquatic comics, “Snorkeling in Heaven”), some of the less reserved material in JKQ is exasperating. Fabio P. Barbieri’s long-running, if long-winded, review series, “A Monarch Abused,” examines Jack’s ’70s Marvel comics, sometimes in painfully excruciating detail. An insightful and intelligent commentator, Barbieri does the field of study a great service in re-examining the artist’s most unpopular work. His work could benefit from more rigorous editing, for the reviews seem to get endlessly longer and more verbose about Jack’s somewhat lesser work. Despite a slightly erratic publishing schedule (eight issues in three years), the magazine just gets better and better in all aspects (though this reviewer has found #2 to be his overall favorite), and each issue jumps leaps and bounds in graphic design. From the rankly amateur look of the debut number, to the slick presentation of the latest issue (#7, shown above), JKQ has come a long way and becomes more provocative and impassioned with each new issue. JKQ is the heart of Kirby fandom. The heart of JKQ itself is to be found in the two interviews with Jack in the first and second issues. Harper obviously loves Jack’s work and his reverent and informed questions elicit the gracious and supportive gentleman that was Jack Kirby. (While now out of print, the initial, long interview will be reproduced along with the best articles in the forthcoming JKQ Special, due in 1997.) The interviews are JKQ’s touchstone, and disciple Harper follows the King’s advice when Jack (in his last words to the editor, made mere weeks before his passing) told him, “All you have to do is just be yourself. Write things the way you see them, and it’ll come out great; I can assure you of that.” It is advice that was very well heeded. ✪
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(right) A convention sketch of Cap, from an early issue of JKQ. (center) The cover of JKQ #7, which is now shipping. (top) This Red Skull piece is an 18" x 24" pencil drawing, done for a fan named Ira. The hat appears to have been added as an afterthought, since the top of the head is visible through the hat. 9
(Editor’s note: Issues of JKQ run from 20-24 pages, with black&-white covers and interiors. Perhaps the highest praise I can give JKQ is the fact that, if Chris and I weren’t swapping complimentary subscriptions, I wouldn’t hesitate to plunk down the cash for each new issue myself. It’s a must-have Kirby item!)
4-Issue Subscriptions: INSIDE NORTH AMERICA: In the US, send $16 US ($22 US from Canada and Mexico - US funds only, please) payable to: MONTILLA PRODUCTIONS P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892-0204 Back issues #4-7 are available for $4 ($5.50 Canada/Mexico). OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA: In the UK, send £4.50 UK (Europe/Eire £7.00 UK, Rest of World £9.00 UK - UK funds only, please) payable to: CHRIS HARPER, 25 Napier Drive, The Parklands, Tipton, W. Midlands, DY4 7NW, U.K. Please specify what issue you’d like your sub to start with, and write “JKQ” in the memo line.
John Byrne: A Canadian In King Kirby’s Court Interviewed by Jon B. Cooke (John Byrne is perhaps best known as the man who revamped Superman and as the artist who defined the quintessential Wolverine. He has long been a major force in the American comics scene since his tenure on Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men over a decade ago. Byrne’s association with the concepts of Jack Kirby dominates his work today and he has taken over the current New Gods revival beginning with issue #12. This interview was conducted via computer on America Online in February and September, 1996.)
TJKC: One of your first published efforts was the Kirby tribute cover of FOOM! #11, embellished by Joe Sinnott, who also inked your initial run on FF. What was it like working with Joe? JB: Joe is the consummate professional. You put a line on a page, you know exactly what it is going to look like when Joe is done with it. He’s also one of the nicest guys I know. A big Bing Crosby collector, as you may know. He once asked me what my favorite song was, and when I said it was Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” he gave me a 45 of “Der Bingle” performing that song! Lucky I didn’t say “Kung Fu Fighting,” I guess!
THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: When and where in Canada were you born, and when did you move to the US? JOHN BYRNE: Actually, I was born in England, in a town called Walsall (where I was only born, we did not live there), and grew up in a town called West Bromwich. My family emigrated to Canada when I was eight, and I moved to the US when I was thirty.
TJKC: Was the cover of the final Devil Dinosaur the only Kirby art you worked on? JB: That was the only time I actually inked Kirby’s pencils. The first time I saw the real thing, in fact, as opposed to xeroxes. I was amazed at how complete they were, how tight. You could easily have shot from them, no inking necessary.
TJKC: When were you first exposed to Kirby’s work? JB: I was probably first exposed to Kirby without realizing it was Kirby. When we first emigrated from England I was exposed to American newspaper strips, and the three I most clearly remember from that first few months are Alley Oop, Li’l Abner and Sky Masters. And I know I must have seen some of his Green Arrow and Challengers of the Unknown work at DC. I used to read the Marvel monster titles in the barbershop when I was a kid. It was there, in fact, that I first saw Fantastic Four #2, which I only had the chance to skim over before it was my turn in the chair. I was left thoroughly confused, thinking the FF were villains!
TJKC: Did you ever meet Jack? JB: I met Jack twice, both times [at the] San Diego [Comic Convention]. The first time was my first trip to SD, and I took the opportunity to ask him about Captain America, since I had just taken over the art chores on that title. I asked him what he had in mind, what single guiding element was most important when he drew Cap. Unfortunately, what he said was of little use to me, since it came from his own background, his own upbringing and take on the world. I was forced to find my own handle on Cap, which was probably for the best anyway, since anything else would have been warmed-over Kirby. The second time I met Jack was at his last SD Con, only a few months before he died. He was greatly reduced, shrunken (and he was not a big man to begin with, physically), and I was reminded very poignantly of how surprised I had been when I met him the first time, and saw what a little guy he was — tough as nails, you could tell, but small, not at all what you would expect of the container for so much cosmic energy!
TJKC: Specifically, what stories do you remember most fondly? JB: I seem to remember blocks of stories, runs on titles, rather than specific instances — although “This Man, This Monster” stands out as a gem in the FF. Certainly, when I think of Kirby I think immediately of his unequaled — both in quality and quantity — run on Fantastic Four, and his Fourth World.
TJKC: Do you think Marvel treated Kirby fairly? JB: Of course Marvel treated Kirby fairly — they treated him exactly the same way they treat everyone! You can’t be more fair than that! I think the problem is perceptual; comics as they exist today, and as they
TJKC: Did Kirby’s work have an influence on your decision to go into comics? JB: As a part of the greater whole, I would say yes, though not in specific. Probably the single artist who made me want to do comics, if I had to pick one, was British; the late Frank Bellamy, who blew me away as a kid with his work on Dan Dare and Heros the Spartan. Kirby’s greatest influence on me was in how I approached my own work on the titles he co-created at Marvel and DC. 10
have existed for the last decade, are almost totally different from what and deconstructionist history that has been shoveled into the mold they were when Kirby started, and indeed from what they were for most Kirby created. I get to start with a clean slate, everything having quite of his career. There is an image people have of Kirby, of Siegel and literally blown up in the issue preceding my debut, and I will be Shuster, of Ditko being “ripped off ” by these huge, faceless corporarebuilding the whole tapestry in a fashion similar (though in no way tions. In fact, everyone who worked in comics understood what the identical to) what I was allowed with Superman. I won’t be eradicating deal was, and there were very few moves made to change that deal. I what has gone before, as I did with Superman, but I will be creating a have even been told, by people who worked for him, that Kirby himself clean starting place. And, of course, since Kirby’s last issue of the first ran his own company (Mainline) the same way, with everything workseries was #11, and my first issue will be #12, I cannot quite resist made-for-hire and no return of artwork. What is difficult for many approaching it more or less from the direction that mine is the “next people nowadays to imagine is that the artists didn’t want the artwork issue” after Kirby’s last. back. There was no market for it. What were they supposed to do with TJKC: What’s the significance of Jack Kirby in the world? Beyond sentiit? And it is important to remember that comics ment, what’s the importance of his work in the bigger scheme of things? are, after all, an extension in a way of the comJB: None. This is the hardest thing for those of us who work in comics; mercial and advertising art fields, and there is slave we may, labor mightily to produce works which, no return of artwork there. The up-front money in context, are considered masterpieces, but to the real is considered a buy-out. world have no significance whatsoever — unless as It’s unfortunate that Lee, Kirby, Ditko, and fodder for “artists” like Roy Liechtenstein. Some of others did not reap the benefits of the characters Kirby’s co-creations have entered the public conthey created, but to say they were treated sciousness to a degree — Hulk, X-Men — but it took “unfairly” is to distort history. Times change. other media (television) to get them there. And, It’s sad that Jack Kirby, who was the great sadly, while people like Chuck Jones have innovator in so many areas, was not, ultimately, achieved a well-deserved fame and acknowlone of the engineers of what had turned out to Business card art for neighbor’s horse training service. edgement beyond the small corner of their be some of the most beneficial changes. Instead (left) Another drawing from Jack’s bound set of CA. peers, I suspect Kirby and his ilk never will. — and in many ways I see this as an insult to the man’s memory — he is viewed mostly as a martyr to the “Cause.” TJKC: What about his place in the comics industry? And, at the risk of biting the hand that is currently feeding me, I JB: Well, of course it’s impossible to gauge Kirby’s total influence on the have always been bothered by what I perceived as a certain hypocrisy comics industry as a whole! Even people who are but barely aware of in DC’s approach to the whole matter of Kirby. Yes, they restored to him his work now mouth his name reflexively, diluting the effect (and the the license on the New Gods, and I applaud them for this (though I have memory, sad to say). Suffice that he was one of the single greatest forces not seen them taking similar action with anyone else), but I thought it this industry has produced, one who will likely never be equalled since was particularly two-faced when they took out a full page “open letter” the time, the place, and the man all added together into a syllogism. in various trades demanding Marvel return Jack’s artwork. The only TJKC: Jack Kirby’s talent had a great impact on the comics industry. reason DC was not in the same position as Marvel, after all, was that Without his imagination and artistry the business would be in a vastly Marvel had a policy of warehousing the artwork it kept, while DC different state. What kind of impact does John Byrne want to leave? gave it away or destroyed it. It is well to remember that much of the JB: One of the things that embarrasses me most in my professional Silver Age DC artwork which survives today does so by virtue of edilife is when people call me the “New Jack Kirby.” I’m not, never will tors having given it to friends and visitors. There was no greater conbe. For one thing, I would probably not exist as the artist I am if it sideration of the “creatives” at DC than anywhere else. DC was simply were not for Kirby. For another, I will never amass the kind of creative first to take significant steps to correct this. output Kirby did. If I can leave a body of work that has even 50% of I also find it sort of darkly amusing that when I came into the the respect Kirby’s work gets, I will see that as a major achievement. business around 1975 it was Siegel and Shuster who were getting the attention Kirby would later receive, being seen as having been ripped TJKC: From your first published pieces to recent postings on America off by the company (I don’t think they were). What made it all so very Online you have shown respect and affection for Kirby’s work. Can ironic was that, at the same time, I would hear stories of what a moneyyou define what it is about his work that is of such importance for you? grubbing creep Bob Kane was — and the only reason for this, really, JB: Kirby is the compleat comic book artist. A true master of the was that he had not suffered the same fate as Siegel and Shuster. For medium. Not a particularly skilled draftsman, per se, (not a Will Eisner, their actions, the creators of Superman were canonized, while for his or a John Buscema, or a Joe Kubert, to name but three), but one who the co-creator of Batman was ostracized. Sounds like a classic no-win exploited his skills to the maximum effect and produced some of the situation to me. Years later it made me wonder what would have hapmost definitive works in the medium.✪ pened if it had been Stan Lee who had left Marvel, and Kirby who had stayed. Kirby, throughout his career, demonstrated himself to be a staunch “company man,” fiercely loyal to the people he worked for, right up to the day he no longer worked for them. If he had stayed and Stan had left, would the perceived roles of “Good Marvel Daddy” and ell us what your favorite Kirby story of all time is (any story Jack “Bad Marvel Daddy” be reversed? worked on qualifies, whether as artist or writer, but please list only
Enter The Big Kirby Contest!
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one single story/issue). WE PRINT THE RESULTS NEXT ISSUE, SO THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO ENTER! ENTRY DEADLINE IS NOV. 15, 1996! We’ll randomly draw voter’s names and award the following:
TJKC: What is it that makes Kirby’s Fourth World a milieu so attractive for you to return to time and time again? JB: Darkseid is a great villain, one of THE great villains of literature, in fact, though he is never likely to be acknowledged as such. In creating his Fourth World, Kirby spread a mammoth tapestry which he, himself managed only to skim over. Others have picked up threads since, with limited success, and I wanted whenever and wherever I could to do my part to restoring and maintaining the original vision. Mostly what I hope to do is subtly undo some of the revisionist
GODS Portfolio, 21st Century Archives Kirby Card Set, Italian magazines reprinting the Silver Surfer Graphic Novel, New Gods #1, and Argosy Magazine with “Street Code” story.
Grand Prize
2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th place winners will be randomly awarded Card Sets, Italian Magazines, and miscellaneous Kirby comics. So vote already!
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Kirby “Down Under” Australia by Shane Foley I discovered Kirby in 1967. In Australia at the time, the Phantom newspaper strip collected into comic book form was the most popular comic. (It still is, having just passed its 1100th issue!) American Marvels were more or less freely available; I used to own Strange Tales #106 and a pre-Ant-Man Tales To Astonish, and since I didn’t live in a heavily populated area, I presume other readers had better access than I. I remember having an Australian black-&-white copy of Daredevil #1, so some Australian reprint material was happening then. 1975 saw the introduction of Newton Comics in Australia which, for about two years presented monthly editions of Marvel material. FF #1-23 were printed this way, as well as some of Jack’s Captain America. (I’m not sure how Jack’s work might have seemed to some, because right next to FF #1 with its early ’60s art were reprints of Silver Surfer #1, Planet of the Apes #1, Conan #1, etc.) Later, about 1977–78, with Newton gone, different reprints turned up. Marvel replaced their American editions of Spider-Man and Fantastic Four with black-&-white (and cheaper) Australian editions, with old stories as back-up features. The first was FF #187, with FF #1 as its back-up and so on. This practice continued until FF #223, by which time the back-ups were up to FF #22. Alongside these two titles, Avengers, Hulk, etc. were also published, but with early ’60s material and with 3 issues combined into each issue. Thus, Avengers #1 (Australian edition) contained original issue #1, #2 and #3, and the same went for Sgt. Fury, X-Men, Captain America (starting at #100), Eternals, 2001, Black Panther, and a host of other non-Kirby Marvel stuff. I know having originals is often preferable, but I’ve always loved comics to read, not store away, so I am grateful for the chance that a lot of these reprint books gave me to delight in Kirby offerings that would otherwise be unavailable. ✪ (above) A torn and tattered copy of Gordon & Gotch’s Mighty Comic, reprinting Jack’s first 1970s DC work from Jimmy Olsen #133. (below) Australian Avengers #1, published by Newton Comics.
by Mark A.P. Muller During the 1960s, Gordon & Gotch of Australia reprinted DC comics in black&-white editions averaging 80 pages. For example: Superman Supacomic #100 cost 20c and contained two Superman stories, two Batman stories and one Superboy story. Most of these comics had censors reletter corrections to words that weren’t ‘proper’ English (e.g. ‘color’ was corrected to ‘colour,’ ‘check’ to ‘cheque,’ ‘dollars’ to ‘pounds,’ etc.). Any references to previous issues were whited out. I purchased my first Marvel comic because I was bored, had already bought my Superman Supacomic for that month, and the latest shipment of comics to the newsagent was about a week late! I reluctantly purchased Tales to Astonish #98, cover dated December 1967 with the famous duotone cover. I was hooked! I didn’t have a lot of money and so mainly chased Marvel comics through secondhand shops, book exchanges, church fêtes, etc. I quickly noticed this guy ‘King’ Kirby was somehow more exciting than any of the DC artists! In 1968, I started buying the British Fantastic and Terrific for 10c each to satisfy my hunger for Marvel stories. In 1972, the English released another title called The Mighty World Of Marvel that reprinted early issues of Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Spider-Man, etc. These comics were horribly presented in black-&-white on cheap, shabby paper with stipples and screen tints and a spot color that was usually a garish green! Still, it filled many a hole in my growing Kirby collection. In 1975, Newton Comics printed letters from Australian readers with a ‘Gentle John’ (attempting to emulate ‘Smilin’ Stan’) responding. This was a fine opportunity for fans to at long last contact others who loved comics. When Jack moved to DC, the Fourth World series was reprinted by Gordon & Gotch in All Favorites (Forever People), Superboy (Mr. Miracle) and Mighty (Jimmy Olsen and New Gods). Before the mid-’80s, distribution of American comics was a haphazard affair. It was commonplace to only import from issue #4 onwards. I had to hope the #1-3 issues would be reprinted in black-&-white to complete my collection! This was how I originally obtained my New Gods comics. Once comics became more popular and specialty comics shops sprung up to directly import from America, the Australian reprint companies saw the writing on the wall and discontinued printing. I look back over my collection of black-&-white reprint issues, which I mutilated mercilessly by tearing out Kirby stories along with others of interest. Finally, after many years of searching and discovering, I gradually obtained many original American editions. What a thrill! ✪ 12
13 Jack’s uninked pencils from Captain America #101, page 11, and #102, page 5, from photocopies made at the Marvel offices and sent to Jack before they were inked. In many cases, Jack’s margin notes for Stan Lee got cropped off when his pencils were copied (especially on the sides, like the ones for the middle panel from #102, page 5), but we always have—and always will—show any that are at least partially legible.
Jack Kirby Recalls Lucca, Italy DORF: Did they also show movies—as we do? KIRBY: Yes, they showed movies. They showed cartoons from Yugoslavia. They showed European cartoons. They showed the earliest Disney cartoons. I saw a Disney cartoon that I saw as a teenager back in ’33.
(This interview was part of an ongoing series called “The Fantasy Makers” conducted by Shel Dorf, and was originally presented in The Buyer’s Guide for Comic Fandom #213, December 16, 1977. Thanks to Shel and Carl Taylor for supplying copies of this interview, which is © Shel Dorf.) SHEL DORF: I understand last year you visited Lucca, Italy. What was your reason for going there? JACK KIRBY: Well, I was invited to go to Lucca as a part of the American representation at the Lucca Awards Festival. Roz and I went with a contingent of people who we had a great time with, and who we learned to admire because of their articulate comments, and they knew their craft. And, we felt that when we got there, that there would be people just like them. We had a great time.
DORF: Can you tell me a little bit about the ceremonies that included yourself? Did you have an interpreter to help you know what they were saying? KIRBY: Strangely enough, it was exactly like that. It was like the UN. They had a battery of interpreters in the boxes on the side of the theater. And, the professional cartoonists, the cartoonists who attended the thing and were in line for the awards, were seated in the front rows of the theater. We all had earphones. And our legs were caught in the wires, when I got up to get my award. I was kind of nodding, you know... I always nod during politicians’ speeches, and they had the mayor of Lucca on the podium, and somehow they called out my name, and Roz nudged me, and I did a Stan Laurel/Oliver Hardy bit, tripping on all of the wires.
DORF: This is the big event that the Italian Society of comics buffs put on once a year. How long does it last? KIRBY: Well, the event lasts a week, and it is held in an opera house which is really a unique facet of the thing because, you know me, I am a sensitive dramatic, and being in an opera house is a dramatic moment for me. I walk across all these tiers, all these boxes full with people, and it’s a thrill knowing that I am in that kind of a place, considering that I have never been inside an opera house.
DORF: What did they have to say about you, and your career? KIRBY: Well, they thought I had established some sort of a format which other artists have followed in comics. I believe my record stands for itself. And, somehow they found that my record had this particular value, and I got the award for that. My stuff has been printed in Italy, all these years. I mean as long as, say, Marvel, Atlas, or any other company had international distribution. They always had some feature that I did. It is a rather unique feeling to find out from these people themselves that you’re known by them, and they follow your stuff, and they respect you for the amount of work that you put into it.
DORF: This is typical of the Italians to treat cartoon art as one of the fine arts, isn’t it? KIRBY: Evidently, it is. I found it so. I found that the Italians are truly an international group, that they are international-minded. I know we had representatives from Mexico there, from Argentina, from Canada. There were people from North America and Europe, and I didn’t see any Asiatic representation in particular, but I am quite sure that they had people from all over the globe there. DORF: How many people were there, at the festivities? KIRBY: Well, the square was crowded, let me say that! They had sort of an astro-dome structure in the center of the Lucca square, and this astro-dome structure housed the dealers, people with unique things to sell, people who exhibited their drawings from many countries. I saw Spanish people there, and Italians, of course. There were Russians and Yugoslavs, it was really an interesting week for people who like comics.
A 1970s drawing of Cap and Bucky. 14
DORF: The Italians are passionate people... do you remember some of the accolades that they said about your work? I am interested in what they said about you because the Italian fans, for the last ten or fifteen years, have published beautiful reproductions of comic art, expensive-quality paper, beautiful inks, the very best treatment. So, they
were some who could not converse in English, and I used an interpreter, in that particular case. But on the whole, Roz and I enjoyed some delightful conversations. DORF: And, they gave you an award? Can you describe the award? KIRBY: Well, actually, there were two awards. There was a plaque which was presented to me by the mayor of Lucca, and it has the image of the opera house on it. It is a substantial award, in weight anyhow. I believe it is an etching of the opera house of Lucca which, of course, I am always going to remember because it was so colorful. The other award was a gold-plated statuette of the Yellow Kid, mounted on Italian marble. And, it has an inscription on the statuette itself which is in the dialogue of the Yellow Kid, which in turn, I believe, is supposed to be the first comic strip ever done. DORF: How many international artists received this award? KIRBY: I don’t exactly remember the number, but I know Jeff Jones was the other American who received the Yellow Kid Award. Dave Pascal, an American got a scroll commendation. There were a few Yellow Kid Awards. I couldn’t exactly name you the people who got them, but one was a Spaniard and the other was an Italian. DORF: This is the most coveted award the Italians give out? KIRBY: I believe so. The Mexicans got an award for animation and they were quite exuberant, and I wound up in their van... and, I had to tell them how much I love foreign work. And, of course, I had no trouble doing that because I do. I love people who work hard and are justly rewarded for whatever they do.
Pencils from CA #104, page 20. Stan’s note atop the page says to check for consistency on Cap’s neck, and the next issue box apparently said “Prisoner Of The Prankster” (it was later changed to “Batroc”).
DORF: Did you have time to see much of the city while you were there? KIRBY: Yes, Roz and I looked over Lucca, and it is an amazing old town, but also amazingly modern. The streets are narrow. There are no sidewalks. The automobiles chase you all over the place, and it is fun dodging them; however, the stores are well-stocked with modern goods. You can buy things of value there that you can get here. Of course, they have their own foreign stamp on them, but it is enjoyable to really go shopping there. I learned how to say things in Italian. I learned how to ask for soap.
DORF: Do they have good restaurants? KIRBY: Their restaurants are terrific. They have terrific restaurants, they have terrific food, and they have terrific personnel who serve you. It is a pleasure eating in any Italian dining place. I hope that many more Americans go there, and enjoy themselves as much as I did. If you manage to run across Jeff Jones, or Dave Pascal, you’ll probably get a lot more flowery adjectives about the Italian eating places.
must feel very deeply about the value of comic art. KIRBY: Well, they feel that my work is provocative, that it has a dramatic craftsmanship. And, I believe that it has affected them in the same way it has affected Americans. They love Captain America. They feel, somehow that they are a part of Captain America, just as the Americans do. I suppose if they had a Captain Italian, it would be the same image. The Frenchmen feel the same way about Captain America.
DORF: Did you look at the work of some of your Italian brothers in cartooning; did you get to meet some of the Italian artists? KIRBY: Yes, I did.
DORF: You find that you are speaking an international language. KIRBY: I have no difficulty talking with these people. Of course, there 15
KIRBY: I was Private, until I got my battlefield commission where I made P.F.C. DORF: Well, this time your trip to Europe was a much more pleasant trip. Now, do you think this is going to influence you? We all know the Jack Kirby war books are the direct influence of your years spent as a soldier, during the second World War. Are we going to see some kind of an influence of this last trip to Lucca, in your work? KIRBY: Possibly it might show up as atmosphere in a detective script, or a locale for a science-fiction story. It will turn up as locale. The people will turn up as interviewed, just like my own relatives, my own friends, who turn up as heroes and villains, because impressions of people remain with you, and they come out in your drawings. So, the people I might have met in Europe will turn up, as either background people, or principals in some of my stories. DORF: Did you have any interesting experiences while you were over there? KIRBY: Yes, Roz and I were on a bus that had television and radio, and we were heading for Florence from Pisa, and everybody on the bus burst into song for some reason, as if somebody had turned on a production number. There were a lot of young people on the bus, and it was like a musical comedy. And Roz and I had a great time over it. We got to Florence which was an interesting town. We were too late to see any of Michelangelo’s works. DORF: What do you mean you were too late? KIRBY: Well, we just arrived at the wrong time of day. The place where Michelangelo’s work is exhibited—statue of David, of course, and others—that museum was closed, and Roz and I just missed it by a hair. Then we just traveled around Italy. We were in Rome for five hours. We saw Pisa for a couple of days. And, of course, Lucca was a place we loved to explore.
For Lucca, Jack drew this interpretation of the star of the world’s first weekly comic to feature a regular character (Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday #1, May 3rd, 1884). Ally Sloper was created by the 19th Century British cartoonist Charles Henry Ross, and made his debut in August 1867. He’s an eternal optimist, in spite of his ever-growing list of failed get-rich-quick schemes. His name refers to his tendency to slope off down the nearest alley when debt collectors show up! Denis Gifford asked Jack to draw something for an Ally Sloper revival; the result was this pen and marker sketch titled “Sloperman” — Jack’s take on Ally in superhero mode! It captures Ally’s likeness and personality perfectly, even though Jack probably knew very little about the character.
DORF: Did you get to see St. Peter’s Basilica or The Vatican? KIRBY: No, I didn’t. We saw the inside of a Roman restaurant, in which we had a great time. They had great food and they were great people who ran it. I feel that people have more of a priority than monuments, and I have a much better time around people. DORF: How was the wine in Italy? KIRBY: The wine was as good as the people. DORF: Where did you stay, when you were in Lucca? KIRBY: We stayed at the Hotel Napoleon, where the other artists were housed, except Roz and I were in what they term a villa apartment, which was a beautiful duplex, which was adjacent to the hotel. We had two large rooms and a dining room. We had a bathroom that was tremendous, and there was a huge sitting room which I didn’t discover until the day after we were given the apartment. And, it was just a beautiful place. They stocked a little Frigidaire with wines and sodas and cheese. When you used these things, they would refill them automatically. Roz and I were also given fruit. Of course, the best part of the entire adventure was getting together with all the other artists in the hotel lobby, where everybody was up and talking to three or four in the morning. We just had a great time. We hung out with the Britishers, who made us feel a lot more comfortable because we were able to understand them better. They also had a discotheque at the hotel, which Roz and I avoid because we are still Tommy Dorsey fans. But, don’t get me wrong, I just don’t pretend to be anything... some of them grew up in certain times.
DORF: Besides the artists, did any of the fans, the young artists come to you with their portfolios, as they do at conventions here? KIRBY: Strangely enough, they did. And, I got to meet most of them in the astro-dome structure I told you about... the place was crowded and there was a variety of people there. Of course, there were a lot of young people, and many of them aspiring young artists with portfolios. And, I examined as many as I could. I criticized their bad points. DORF: Did you have an interpreter at your side? KIRBY: No, I didn’t. Somehow, I communicated with them; most of the young Italians manage to speak English well, for some reason. Maybe, it is the influence of American movies or comics, themselves, which initiate and introduce them to the American language. DORF: How about the Italian artists, the old pros? KIRBY: The old pros were great! They have their own styles of doing things we invent. And it is a wonderful thing for me because I love variety. I love looking at a house here, and seeing how the French would construct the same house, or the English version of that same house, or the Italian version of that same house. I know they would be different, and they would have their own touches, and this is my own analogy to their approach to comics. They are doing our comics in their own way.
DORF: Just to get back to the ceremonies a little bit, can you explain how the award was presented? You were in an opera house. Did they have some kind of a set on the stage or a table on the stage which you sat behind? KIRBY: No. What they did have was a battery of microphones. And a delegation of Lucca officials. Those pictures you are looking at now will give you an idea of the kind of atmosphere we were in. These are
DORF: Was this your first trip to Europe? KIRBY: No, I made a previous trip in ’44; ’43, I’m sorry. DORF: And, at that time you were Private Kirby? 16
the tiers and boxes in the opera house beyond the people in the pictures. I took the liberty of posing with Garibaldi, one of the few monuments which I took the time out to spend some time with. These are frescoes on a monastery door which I thought were interesting. This is a cathedral on the grounds where the Tower of Pisa is located. This is also part of the grounds where you have the statue of the two wolves who symbolize Romulus and Remus.
there wasn’t time to really get to know the Italians well. We could only make surface reflections. And, that is all we really had time to do. We did everything I think you could do in a week. DORF: It was only a week? KIRBY: It was only a week, but a very substantial week, and a very edifying week. So, there was little loss there, at all. If Roz and I had to make the Italian trip again, we would look forward to it with great pleasure.
DORF: And here you have the photo of the leaning Tower of Pisa. Can you go inside that building? KIRBY: Yes, you can, except at this age, I’m pretty chicken, so I just spent my time looking up at it, which was impressive enough.
DORF: Well, thanks Jack, for your impression of Lucca and the Yellow Kid Awards. KIRBY: Well, I hope that somehow you go there someday soon, and perhaps become addicted to it, like we have.
DORF: Who is this gentleman here? KIRBY: That is David Pascal. David Pascal is an American artist. I don’t know how much he has done as far as comics magazines are concerned. But I know he has done extensive work with American comics. He’s very active in linking these international organizations with our own.
DORF: I’d love to meet the Italian fans. It would be a thrill for me. KIRBY: I think you should. I think the Italian fans have an outlook that you might be interested in, and perhaps add a little to our own outlook.
DORF: He’s kind of the American representative in Europe? KIRBY: Yes, he’s an American representative in Europe. He spends a lot of his time in Europe, and is well acquainted with people who are interested in comics.
DORF: Now to touch briefly on your career; do you consider yourself a winner or just a survivor? KIRBY: I consider myself both. I consider myself an individual who is interested in life, and who wants to live it the best way he can, and does what he has to do to make it meaningful.
DORF: What was the weather like in Lucca at the time? KIRBY: Well, the weather was sort of our fall weather. We had a little rain, but the temperature was pleasant. The days, of course, were pleasant. Roz and I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. That’s a shot of Pisa.
DORF: I would say that of the thousands of people who have attempted the kind of a career you have and failed at it... what is the secret of your success? KIRBY: The secret of my success, if you can term it that, is the fact that I gave to it. I gave it all I had. There is blood and bone and sinew behind the whole thing. There are hours of thinking and hours of doing, and then, I spared nothing.
DORF: It looks very modern. KIRBY: Yes, it is. It is very modern, indeed. It is very close to looking like an urban square in California. DORF: Did you find that there is a lot of use of the Italian marble? KIRBY: Well, you see it on occasion, but it is not used extensively. Most of the old structures are solid stone. And, of course, the stone is rather chipped and worn in places, but I think that adds to the charm of a place. It was the kind of a town in which you could wander around and see everything that might interest you. DORF: Here, this photo here, is of side streets. It looks like these are very old buildings, one right on top of the other. One built into the other. KIRBY: Yes, that is the impression... DORF: Almost like a tenement. KIRBY: Not really. They are not tenements in the sense that we know them. And I know tenements real well, because I was born in them. I can only say that these houses are... they... you react differently to them, than you do to a tenement. DORF: But you can feel the antiquity of the structure? KIRBY: The antiquity is there, certainly. DORF: It’s kind of a nice mood. Do you think you’ll use these in one of your stories? KIRBY: I hope to. I probably will because my visit left such a good impression on me, somehow I will continue it in some ways. DORF: Did you take any guided tours through the city? KIRBY: We didn’t take any guided tours, but there were buses available. We took the bus I spoke of earlier. I’m glad we did because it was such a pleasant experience.
Another piece from Jack’s bound volume of Captain America.
DORF: Did the hosts of this Lucca Festival take you to their homes, or show you their collections, or anything like that? KIRBY: No, strangely enough, we didn’t visit any homes. Actually, 17
I gave it everything. What’s come out of it is for you to pick up and look at.
deserve it, and he doesn’t deserve it, to my way of thinking. DORF: Why do you think the other guys failed, and you succeeded? KIRBY: I don’t think anybody has really failed. I don’t look at people as failing. I look at people as losing interest. I don’t accept failure; I don’t accept people who say they fail. I say that somehow people lose interest in the things, it has run its course. That’s the way I feel. A lot of people who feel they should have become artists should never have been artists, because they never wanted to be artists in the first place. If they wanted to be an artist, they would have stuck to it, and made something out of it, somehow.
DORF: Did you always draw well, even as a child? KIRBY: I couldn’t analyze figures and bone structures in the classic sense. I came from an atmosphere where if you were half a winner at anything, you were an intellectual; therefore, I had to figure out everything on the run. I took what I could from Alex Raymond. I took what I could from Milton Caniff, who are still my heroes, and I took what I could from whoever gave me what I wanted and instilled it in my own work. DORF: In those days, when you were grinding the stuff out, did you have any idea that some day, this work would take you over to Europe and be honored as a writer and artist? KIRBY: Nobody knows what’s going to come. One can only hope that things work out right. As for grinding out stuff, I never ground out stuff. I did work very fast, but I never ground it out in the sense that other people might... my kind of grinding out is very valuable.
DORF: You mentioned Alex Raymond. I heard a story recently where someone said that in the early days, Alex Raymond really couldn’t draw that well. But, one summer he went home, and nobody saw him at all. He locked himself in his room and whatever he did in the manner of study, nobody knows, but that fall, he came back to King Features, and he could draw like a whiz. It was amazing that this one summer turned the tide for him, and Alex’s craftsmanship came out, and he became very, very good. KIRBY: Well, that only emphasizes my point that hard work will make a success of it.
DORF: In the early days, you were not paid as well for your work as you are now. KIRBY: That’s right!
DORF: Has the comics code affected the approach to your work at all? KIRBY: No, not really, because I’m a conventional sort of a man and I have my own personal code of what’s wrong and what’s right. I know where my own line is. I never cross it. And, my line happens to coincide with the lines laid down by the code. I’m not claiming that I am a Victorian. I’m claiming that I was conditioned to a certain type of rule, and I live by that rule.
DORF: Has your attitude toward your work changed? KIRBY: No, never! If you are a sincere person, that thing is always part of yourself. Whatever I present is genuine, and myself. It’s never adulterated and I have always told the truth, [although it was] painful some of the time. Truth, to me, is important because people are important. I feel that I’m not going to be phony to myself or the next guy. I don’t
DORF: Your stuff is still very exciting to look at, and touches a nerve, in a greater way. Things jump out at you, and the story grabs you, in the same way that some of the modern television programs do, only they have to resort to cars exploding and people getting machinegunned to death. There seems to be an excess of violence. To me, if I might pontificate for a little bit, it seems to be a cheap shot. It’s easy for a writer to grab the audience when you machine-gun twenty people and then three cars blow up in a ball of flame. You’ve got the viewer’s attention and you’ve shocked them into a stoned condition as the commercial comes on. You don’t have to do that. I’m talking about television now, not comic books, but how would you handle this situation? KIRBY: I can only tell you this, it is due to competition. ABC will compete with NBC, and NBC will compete with CBS. When CBS puts out a police story, NBC will put out a police story. And, ABC will put out a police story. And of course, you will have the action on all three channels. Excess, I believe, is strictly due to competition. If one channel has a successful format, you can be certain that the programming on another channel will follow suit with their own. When a saturation point is reached, you’ll find a different format on next season’s row of shows. DORF: Have you ever, for reasons of good sales, used excess violence, or done something that you felt was not your thing? KIRBY: No! I have always done my thing, in my way. I can gain the reader’s attention in my own way, and I never go beyond it, and I never have to. I never have to shock the reader by showing anything ugly or repugnant which some people feel they have to reach for, in order to gain attention. I don’t have to reach that far. I believe I have enough brains to conjure something up that will do equally well, and certainly not be as offensive.
The final drawing from Jack’s bound CA volume. He confused Bucky with Fighting American’s Speedboy, and drew a winged ‘B’ on his chest!
DORF: What determines how much detail you put into your work? Do you have to establish a location 18
and do a lot of background work before you feel comfortable in telling a story? KIRBY: Well, a story is to my mind nothing more than impressions. You don’t have to put an elaborate background in every panel, but you should have enough of the background in the story to give the reader an idea of where he is, where the story is taking place. That background has to become part of the overall image. So you not only know what is happening, but where it is happening. And, of course, that becomes part of why it is happening.
Submit Something-Get Free Issues! he Jack Kirby Collector is a not-for-profit publication, put together with submissions from Kirby fans around the world. Since we’re not-for-profit, we can’t pay you for your efforts, but when we print art or articles you submit, we’ll send you a FREE copy of that issue or extend your subscription by one issue. Here’s a tentative list of upcoming issues, to give you ideas of things to write about. But don’t limit yourself to these ideas—we may run a miscellaneous issue here or there, so anything you write may be published. And as always, send us copies of your Kirby art!
T
#13 (Dec. 1996): Supernatural Issue
The Demon, Black Magic, Strange World Of Your Dreams, Atlas Monsters, Chamber of Darkness, The Hulk, Kirby costumes, the Golden Age Vision, and other spooky subjects. Featuring an interview with—and cover inks by—Dick Ayers! Deadline: 11/1/96. #14 (Feb. 1997): THO R Issue
Let’s hear from you, Asgard fans! Featuring a Chic Stone interview! Deadline: 12/1/96. #15 (Apr. 1997): SCI-FI Issue
Solar Legion, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Machine Man, Sky Masters, Race For The Moon, Starman Zero, Eternals, Jack’s work for pulps, & more. Deadline: 2/1/97.
DORF: I find, for me, it is becoming a little harder to read comic books because so many of the young artists coming up seem to be overly interested in doing individual illustrations. In other words, their panels don’t move, and they don’t advance a story. But the one thing I like about your work is that you have the ability to move a story from panel to panel. Is this something you did consciously? KIRBY: Yes, it is. It is my own particular format. I suppose there are other people who engage in the same type of format. I don’t know if it works for them. I suppose it does, on occasion. But, I know it works for me. It works steadily for me. I am an individual that is oriented to that kind of thing. And, I believe I turn it out just as a matter of course.
#16 (July 1997): To ugh Gu ys Issue
From Foxhole, Our Fighting Forces, and Bullseye to Boys’ Ranch, Kid Colt and In The Days Of The Mob, the testosterone will fly as we cover cowboys, gangsters, spies and soldiers in one issue. Deadline: 4/1/97. #17 (O ct. 1997): DC Issue
Kamandi, Atlas, Kung-Fu Fighter, OMAC, Kobra; we’ll cover Jack’s 1970s DC books (plus more on the Fourth World), and go back further into the Golden & Silver Age to cover Challengers Of The Unknown, Green Arrow, Manhunter, and more. Deadline: 7/1/97. #18 (Dec. 1997): Marvel Issue
Jack’s return to Marvel in the 1970s gets its due, as we spotlight 2001, Captain America, Black Panther, Machine Man, Devil Dinosaur, The Silver Surfer Graphic Novel, and more. Deadline: 9/1/97.
DORF: Have you ever advised any of the young artists away from doing individual illustrations? KIRBY: I advise young artists, I advise all young artists to work in ways that are comfortable to them. In other words, I’ll tell a story my way, but perhaps they have a different way of telling a story.
We’ve got a stellar lineup of comics professionals who’ve agreed to ink old Kirby pencils for our covers, including Steve Rude, Chic Stone, Terry Austin, Bob Wiacek, Karl Kesel, and more to come!
DORF: Do you think their way is as effective? KIRBY: It is up to them to make it effective. They’ve got to find a way to make their storytelling effective. I found my way. ✪
Submission Guidelines: When we print something you submit, we’ll send you a FREE copy of that issue or extend your subscription by one issue. We’re looking for: • Rare and unpublished Kirby art • Original articles and essays on Jack’s life and career • Kirby interviews and correspondence • Kirby convention and fanzine art and articles • Photos and personal recollections of Jack • Published and unpublished reviews of Jack’s work, etc. Artwork should be submitted in one of the following forms: 1) Good quality photocopies (color or black-&-white). 2) Scanned images - 300ppi TIFF, JPEG, or GIF file for IBM or Mac. 3) Original materials (carefully packed and insured). Text should be sent in one of the following forms: 1) Typed or laser printed pages with no “fancy” fonts. 2) E-mail via the Internet to: twomorrow@aol.com 3) An ASCII computer file, IBM or Mac format. 4) For previously printed articles, photocopies are OK. We’ll pay return postage and insurance for originals - please write or call first. Please include background info whenever possible.
(top) Jack draws at a 1972 convention. (right) The Red Skull, from 1970.
Keep TJKC Going—Send Something! 19
Kirby Around The World Just how far does Jack’s influence stretch? Kirby fans around the globe tell us! (Editor’s note: The following are submissions sent in from Kirby fans around the world, discussing various aspects of collecting Jack’s work outside the US. Many of them don’t speak English as their primary language, but overall, everyone did a wonderful job of overcoming the language barrier. I’ve attempted to correct the occasional instances where broken English might have made it difficult to understand the author’s intent; please be assured that any alterations in meaning were unintentional.)
South America Argentina by Patricio Alberto Cocaro I am a 27 year old Kirby fan from Argentina, and I discovered Jack’s work when I was 6. I enjoyed reading Kamandi and Mister Miracle. The only comic books available in the ’70s here were Mexican editions of DC comics. Up to that time I believed that Jack Kirby only worked for DC Comics because his Marvel Comics work was beyond my reach and knowledge. I learned about Kirby’s work at Marvel in my adolescence when I got some Brazilian editions of Marvel comics, but I had to learn
Portuguese (here in the Pampas we speak Spanish). Then I knew about what I consider the most brilliant epoch in comic book history: The Marvel Universe in the ’60s. Today it’s easier to find any original edition either from Marvel or DC, and I found out that the Mexican translations I read in the ’70s were untrustworthy. Nowadays I still enjoy reading comic books but I don’t read them as often as I did when I was a boy. Comics are the most precious memory of my childhood and when I see my cousin walking along the streets of Buenos Aires searching for hard-to-get editions, my mind goes back to my “golden age,” and I feel as curious and happy with comics as I used to at age 6. ✪
Brazil by Wilson Costa de Souza Today in Brazil, we have many comics shops distributing almost everything published in the US and Europe. Marvel’s mutants rule and, as it appears in the US, comics are having a hard time surviving. And Jack’s standing very much parallels his position in the US. Here in Brazil, we have three kinds of comic book readers. First is the old timer, those very ancient guys who read Golden Age comics and know that Kirby, Simon, Siegel & Shuster, C.C. Beck, Kane and other creators were involved, and they revere these guys. When talking with them about Kirby, S&K Cap is the first subject that comes to mind, immediately followed by the Vision, Newsboy Legion and Young Allies.
A 1991 Spanish edition of Captain America’s origin from Tales of Suspense #63. (above) A Mexican reprint of Demon #2. 20
But they also remember him for Bullseye, Boys’ Ranch and Fighting American. Besides Will Eisner, Simon and Kirby are the Golden Age creators most respected here. The second group here, between 30 and 45 years old, started reading comics in the ’60s and were rudely awakened to the Marvel Age and Kirby by TV, of all things. In 1967, one of the most popular shows on TV was the “Super-Herois Shell”; those Marvel cartoons of the ’60s taken directly from the comics. Shell Oil used to promote the show, so if your dad had a car and stopped at a Shell station, he’d arrive home with a free issue of Captain Z (starring Captain America & Iron Man), Superxis (starring Namor and the Hulk) or Album Gigante (with the Mighty Thor), each with Kirby art. At the same time, small, independent publishers were printing Kirby’s pre-hero monsters and Atlas horror material, although Kirby’s Avengers, Human Torch, Ant-Man and others remained unknown here until the ’80s. In April ’69, both Spider-Man and Daredevil received their own magazines here, but not the Fantastic Four. Looking back today, it’s a huge anachronism when you consider that the comic that started the Marvel Age remained unknown here almost a decade later. By the end of 1971, almost all Marvel comics had disappeared from the newsstands. But in May ’72, a comic called O Homem de Aso (Man of Steel in English) presented stories originally from Jimmy Olsen. This series, more than any other, defined who Kirby was in the comics community. But although all of Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen was published, no New Gods, Forever People or Mister Miracle ever graced us, and it’s doubtful they will ever be printed here. At the time, a terrible recession hit, and only Superman and Batman comics were published. At the beginning of the ’80s, the publisher dropped out of comics. From 1975 to its end, the only Kirby comic they published was Kamandi #1, and then continuity was phased out to post-Kirby tales.
Finally, the third group of readers here are the ones who started reading from 1980 onwards. The publisher had to win them over with good art and stories, so they began with Marvel reprints in 1980, publishing all of Kirby’s Captain America that hadn’t seen print before. Other Kirby works were published sparsely, whenever continuity demanded it. Then, in 1985, after acquiring the rights to publish a comic starring Superman, they decided Jack’s DNAliens saga would be included. But this new printing was disappointing, to put it mildly. Many of Kirby’s panels disappeared, and those beautiful collages were eradicated and sometimes changed to being unrecognizable. The less said about this the better, as the 67 pages of Jimmy Olsen #136-138 were reduced to 45 pages—a dreadful package. From time to time, Kirby work from Marvel or DC pops up. But publishing costs being what they are here, much of his latter work— from Captain Victory to Silver Star—remains unknown to the fans at large. A few weeks ago, Phantom Force #1 hit the stands, and there is word that a small publishing outfit is planning to re-present all of Jack’s Green Arrow tales. Who knows? Perhaps this new generation of Brazilian readers can also know what Jack was all about. ✪
The original 1972 Brazilian translation of Jimmy Olsen #136 (right), and the 1985 version (above). The later version was translated by a doctor who tried to educate readers on the full meaning of DNA, human cells, etc., obliterating Jack’s collage in the process. 21
Europe Germany by Cord Wiljes What is the general importance of Jack Kirby in Germany? Outside the world
(above) The German Hit Comics #81 from 1969 reprinted FF #76, one year after it originally appeared in the US.
(below) A German album reprinting Jack’s Captain Victory.
© Hendrik Dorgathen
(right) Hendrik Dorgathen’s homage to Machine Man. Dorgathen was honored as “Best German Comic Artist” in 1994.
of comics fandom, it’s pretty much non-existent, to say the least. Superheroes have always been of marginal interest in the German comics market. While the German equivalent of Walt Disney’s Comics And Stories sells almost a million copies each week, the German edition of X-Men folded due to poor sales. And there are no superheroes originally created in Germany. Accordingly many of Jack Kirby’s works never found their way to our neck of the woods. We had editions of Fantastic Four, Mighty Thor, Incredible Hulk and most of his other Marvel works, but few of his earlier works and simply none of his later DC series: No Fourth World, Demon, or Kamandi. Surprisingly, Captain Victory was published in Album format and Silver Star in digest format soon after their distribution in America, and both had a “created by Jack Kirby” label on the cover. Let’s start at the beginning: In 1966, Schweizer Bildschriftenverlag (BSV) began publishing Marvel titles in the weekly series Hit Comics, which featured a rotating cast of Marvel characters. It was printed in black-&-white with the typically German “pedagogical” typeset lettering (done with a simple typewriter). In 1974, Williams Verlag took over and published Marvels in color with decent hand-lettering and a successful attempt to duplicate boastful Stan Lee hype. Unfortunately they closed in 1978 due to financial problems. Since then Marvels have been published by Condor Verlag mainly in digest format and again with typeset lettering. Nevertheless, even Jack’s most famous creations are relatively unknown to the general public. A mention of the Incredible Hulk might at best earn you a comment on Lou Ferrigno’s acting abilities in the TV series. Thor is at least known from Northern mythology, and The Fantastic Four might remind somebody of the popular music group Die Fantastischen Vier, who probably thought of the Beatles—the Fab Four—when they chose the name. And does it really surprise anybody that Captain America never gained much popularity in Germany? So when cartoonist Walter Moers (see next page) rendered the Sentinel of Liberty, he could only have hoped for diehard comics fans to appreciate the joke. But there is always an exception to the rule, and one of Kirby’s creations gained a wider popularity in Europe than in America; namely the Silver Surfer (sometimes called Der Silberstürmer). It’s definitely NOT due to the fact that surfing is popular on our side of the big drink (it surely isn’t, as the waves here are too small), but to the more melancholic and fatalistic European outlook on life, and maybe our affinity for tragic love stories. Nevertheless, the King left his mark on the German comics market, as many of today’s comics pros found their way to the two-dimensional world through the works of Jack Kirby. One who holds Kirby’s graphic abilities in high regard is illustrator and comic book artist Hendrik Dorgathen, whose homage to Jack Kirby’s Machine Man graced the official posters of the 5th International Comic Salon Erlangen (the biggest German comic convention) in 1992. Original Kirby art and prints receive premium prices, and I remember the signed Edition Déesse print (see TJKC #4, pg. 4) going for DM 900.00 ($650.00) at a convention. And sometimes you stumble upon a swiped Kirby drawing on posters advertising a band’s concert—his pre-Marvel monsters seem to be especially wellsuited for this purpose. But to put it in a nutshell: Regarding the appreciation of Jack Kirby’s works, Germany is still lagging behind other countries. We might at least take some pride in the fact that German director Fritz Lang, through his masterpiece Metropolis, was an early important influence on the young Kirby. A very cinematic approach to comics and his breathtaking futuristic cityscapes have, after all, become Kirby’s trademarks. So how did this reader happen to become a true follower of the King? When I was in elementary school I placed my greedy little eyes on some back issues of Die Ruhmreichen Rächer (The Avengers) and Der Mächtige Thor, which a local secondhand 22
© Walter Moers, Eichborn Publ.
one (#19169) was Thor #4, containing The Mighty Thor #163. After that each of the series was continued separately (the numbering picking up from the total of issues printed under the HIP imprint) with De Vier Verdedigers continuing till #81 (reprints started at FF #43 and ended at FF #134), De X-Mannen running up to #28 (reprinting out of order stories from The Uncanny X-Men #17-59, the only Kirby work being from X-Men #17 in X-Mannen Classics #18) and De Machtige Thor going up to #16 (reprinting Mighty Thor #139-140 and #160-165 by Kirby in the first 6 issues). So that is not a lot of Kirby. All stories were reprinted in beautiful black and white, with shoddy binding and the horrible typewriter lettering. ✪
Spain by Eduardo Lopez Lafuente The day I discovered Kirby is one of those childhood days that
Translation: “Damn! Captain America and Captain Liechtenstein!” Drawn by Walter Moers, a German cartoonist and author of children’s books. He was awarded the Max-und-Moritz-Preis in 1993.
gets engraved forever in your memory. I was seven years old and a classmate had invited me to his birthday party. I was already a great enthusiast of comic books (especially Wayne Boring’s Superman and Carl Barks’ duck tales, which I still love), and after eating cake I began to search among the birthday boy’s comics to see if there were some I hadn’t read. Then I saw something I’d never seen before. It was a comic book with incredible characters and drawings that came alive on the page; with a villain that, unlike anything I had read before, seemed able to kill the heroes, and with eyes (I’ll never forget those eyes) that exuded evil through his iron mask. The heroes were the Fantastic Four, the villain Doctor Doom and the comic book FF #3940 (every Spanish issue printed two American comic books). And there was more; the FF headquarters, a building full of technological wonders in the middle of New York, was being controlled by that incredible villain called Doom. The FF, by the look of it, usually had some incredible superpowers (in those issues they had lost them) like I’d never imagined (a man made of fire, a man made of rocks!). But beyond all that, what really impressed me most was the tragic and tortured figure of Ben Grimm; a man that finally freed himself from his own Mr. Hyde, only to have to come back to by Ger Apeldoor him voluntarily—knowing that there Anyone looking for interesting was no going back—for the purpose of Jack Kirby stuff in Holland can stop saving his teammates from death. His now. There isn’t any. The appreciafinal battle with Doom is one of the tion of American-style comics didn’t comic book passages that has moved me really get started until Holland startmost in my entire life. I still remember ed doing both the Marvel and DC his words while trying to free himself superheroes. And even then it was from Doom’s gravity-gizmo: “Creetelo, only the younger fans who picked Muerte, tan solo creetelo!” (“Believe it, them up. So anyone who knows Doom, you just believe it!”). It is one of about Jack Kirby does so secondthose sentences that you just can’t forget. hand, or through American publicaAt the end, Ben leaves his teammates, tions such as TJKC. But that doesn’t just before Reed and Sue’s wedding. I mean his stuff didn’t get published had to read how it continued! over here. I remember how, while I was readA firm called Classics Nederland ing the comic, some of my classmates published several Marvel titles under were telling me to stop reading and play the HIP imprint. They included with them, but it was impossible. Kirby’s Kirby titles The Fantastic Four (De magic had already put a spell on me. Vier Verdedigers), The X-Men (De XThat afternoon, the boy whom the Mannen) and Thor (De Mächtige Marvel comics were first published in Spain in the middle 1960s in a Thor). HIP comics were numbered horrible pocket format that destroyed the original page composition party was for received a lot of presents, continuously, not by title. The first (as shown in this reprint of Fantastic Four #64.) It just goes to show but I’m sure that none was as wonderful one (#1901) appeared in 1966 and that lousy editors with no respect for this artistic medium are every- as the one I received. I was given a unistarted ‘Spinneman’ with a reprint of where. Fortunately, in the 1970s they were reprinted in their original verse. A universe filled with endless wonAmazing Spider-Man #29. The last format, although without the original covers, and in black-&-white. ders. Jack Kirby’s universe. ✪
bookseller offered in his display. But I did not dare buy any because I thought they were for adults! They looked so mature, important and serious. In my early teens I finally managed to get hold of some issues and liked them very much, but I had to read them in digest size and out of sequence, so their full impact was lost on me. After some time of swallowing up every comic within reach, I gave up comics for several years and tried to grow up. Then back into my life entered Jack Kirby: In a bookshop I discovered a copy of New Gods #6 (the Baxter reprint). I do not know how the issue had gotten there, as the store had never carried original US comics before and did not ever after. Presumably it had been planted there by divine providence. Needless to say that I was blown away and hooked for life. The New Gods had all I had ever looked for in comics: The larger-than-life characters, the cosmic conflicts and the heroic grandeur. Now—several years and some thousand comics later—I can truthfully testify that without Jack Kirby, I wouldn’t be who I am now! And though we never met he will always have a special place in my heart. ✪
Holland
23
ASIA Malaysia by Tham K.S., Hong Kong The part of the world I grew up in was the sleepy little island of Penang on the
(above) A 1970 Danish reprint of Yellow Claw #2. (below) A Hebrew-language edition of Hulk #1, published in the mid-1980s in the Middle East. This comic, like all Hebrew publications, reads right-to-left; so all the artwork is flopped, mirror-image from the way it originally appeared in the American version.
North Western corner of peninsular Malaysia. The exposure to and influence of American pop culture during the ’60s, while I was still in shorts, was only in its infancy, unlike today. Like any other evening after the setting of the equatorial sun, my aunt would take us kids for a short stroll (that’s the only kind there) down the side lanes after dinner towards our usual pit stop: A kind of local “soda fountain” on wheels. (It’s basically a guy selling ice cold drinks, juices, snow cones and fruits.) Alongside is another complimentary stall, most likely owned and managed by his relative, selling candies, peanuts, cigarettes... and yes, comics! If you can, picture the munchies spread out on the main deck of his cart, while the side furthest from the patrons houses the “goodies;” namely the cigarettes, tin toys, fireworks... and yes, comics. The comics are pegged at their top left corner to a clothesline he strung across his cart, all in two neat rows. The lower row usually consists of the British pulp weeklies like Beano, Dandy and sometimes grown-up stuff like LIFE Magazine. The upper row, easily sighted from the most awkward angle, consists of the Marvels and DCs. In those days and at my early age, knowledge of English and all things Uncle Sam was next to zilch. But mesmerized by what’s hanging on the upper row over a period of a few consecutive visits, I would finally decide on one and part with my hard-earned savings, purely on the basis of the cover art. Just like a good pop tune that has to knock you off your feet within the first few opening chords, the cover had to say it all as far as I was concerned. Reviewing before purchase was a no-no (for increased shelf life); you had to take your chances like the rest of the kids. The covers that stopped me dead were those that said, in one frame, a synopsis of what I get for my money; the action, the story, the crisis, the guest heroes and/or villains—the you-will-not-know-how-it-will-end-if-you-don’t-buy-me effect. As I grew up, having kept my small collection intact, I discovered that the man who was responsible for all those great covers that seemed to leap out at me was none other than Jack Kirby. By the way, I was never disappointed when I got home; the pages inside were even more devastating! My only frustration was the erratic supply; the issues were 3 to 4 months behind. There was no guarantee the next issue would appear at the stand, and because of their relatively low popularity back then, most titles were single orders or not at all (first issues were as likely as rain in the Sahara). In later life, my frequent foreign posting meant the occasional interruption to my supply of Kirby’s output (the DC years in particular), which I try to rectify by going to conventions or back issue specialists. Now, I have an even more relevant source: This very magazine! Continue the good work. ✪
Singapore by a Singapore Kirby Fan Jack’s work was readily available in Singapore (the original American editions, although most, if not all, had prices irritatingly stamped on them, thankfully usually on the back of the book itself ); they were available at the (mainly roadside) newsstands which sold lots of other tidbits as well. The comics, for the most part, would hang enticingly on clothes pegs strung out along wires, so that at least one corner would almost surely be creased! Many would in fact become dog-eared at the hands of browsers (or weatherbeaten if left unsold for too long). Browsing was quite common (depending on the kindness of the stall owner), as the price of each book was quite prohibitive and could set one back by almost a bowl or plate of noodles. Relatively few people were educated in English and this could also have been a contributory factor to lower readership. But it was clear that there was no real systematic carrying of books, so that continued stories became the bane of regular readers, as one hunted from newsstand to newsstand for the elusive denouement. Secondhand book stores, however, did a roaring business in a ‘one-for-two’ exchange, but most books there would be torn and tattered (but at least this helped increase availability); the ravages of the tropics also ensured that virtually none of the comics would survive (not in high grade anyway!). It should be noted that comics reading is generally frowned upon as being juvenile and a waste of money; to what extent this is a product of the pragmatic cast of Singaporean society is a topic for speculation. Reprints of Jack’s work in Marvel Masterworks (and others) are readily available now. 24
Remaining secondhand copies of Silver Age comics have, however, mysteriously vanished (could this be due to the fact that some of the initiated now realize that they are of value today?). What is clear is that Jack Kirby dominated the scene insofar as Marvel comics were concerned. Steve Ditko’s Spider-Man was distinctive, but Jack’s work seemed to be seen in virtually every title put out by Marvel. Indeed, so distinctive was his style that by the time he moved to DC, his work was also easily recognizable. It is unclear what the market was like between the two giants (DC and Marvel), but Marvel comics were clearly quite popular for their more realistic portrayal of life and (perhaps most of all) for their art, to which Jack contributed the giant share. ✪
Philippines by a Philippino Kirby Fan I became a Kirby fan in 1969, as a ten-year-old in the Philippines. This was a difficult thing to be because the hunt for American comics was an exercise that required much patience, an ability to get around at least three cities, and not a little cash. I grew up in a then-quiet corner of what eventually became absorbed into the giant city of Metro-Manila. The Philippines has its own robust comic book industry, but the snobbish considered them inappropriate entertainment for the middle and upper classes. But one thing was indisputable; no one drew like Jack Kirby. Perhaps my earliest exposure to Kirby was when I was about six years old, and a cousin lent me the most exciting comic book I had yet seen; the first Fantastic Four Annual. But it wasn’t until my tenth birthday that I got hooked — my brother gave me a copy of Thor #167 as a present. After that, I tried to get my hands on any Marvel comic I could find. Some stores carried them sporadically, and then they’d dry up and you’d have to find another source. I tried to orchestrate errands or rides that would bring me close to one of my precious sources in any of the cities clustered around Manila. I traded with my school friends. I begged my cousin for his old comics. Anytime we travelled around the country, I scoured every little shop or “reading room” my parents would let me go into. (A reading room was a business that rented out comic books. They’d have domestic and foreign comics covering all the walls and you selected the one you wanted to read, paid a fee, found yourself a chair or bench in the room, read your comic book, and then put it back on the wall.) I even subscribed, and received one treasured issue out of the twelve I paid for. I can still identify the exact source of each one of those first kernels of my collection: Thor #159 and #160, Sunshine Supermarket, Baguio City; Thor #175, Bontoc, Mountain Provinces; Fantastic Four #36, traded with Milton Chua. Once I got them, what bliss they were! I poured over each issue again and again — they had to last me until the next hit, and who knew when that was going to be? When Kirby left Marvel, I followed and picked up the rare Kamandi or Forever People that popped up. When we moved to the US, it was almost too easy; just send a check and the back issues showed up in my mailbox. Go to a single convention and choose from a dozen dealers. And if you subscribe, you actually receive all 12 issues! When I reread those comics today, I still thrill the way I did as a child being absorbed into another world. I regret never having met Jack Kirby, but I thank him for the magic he worked on me. It must be very powerful magic, because it’s as potent now as it was almost thirty years ago.
A page from a Greek magazine called KLIK, which is unlike anything published in the US. They once had an article on comic book heroes, with photos of models superimposed over drawings of various characters. In this one, the Silver Surfer is exclaiming in Greek, “I know that the journey to the land of the ice will be long and trying. But I am not worried. As long as we are united.” Somebody mistook his shiny appearance as ice!
Other Kirby Translations by Tristan Lapoussière • ITALY: Fantastic Four and Captain America were published bi-weekly from the 1970s onwards, and in gorgeous giant editions in the early ’80s, published by Editoriale Corno. Kamandi got his own title in the mid-1970s, with Kirby’s New Gods and Sandman as back-ups. Black Panther was a back-up in the regular edition of FF. • PORTUGAL: Distri Editora, in the early eighties, published early episodes of Hulk and Thor in their own titles—their first publication in this country! No FF, no Captain America. Unlike Spain, translating seems very inactive in Portugal. • GREECE: Marvel comics were translated in the late 1970s (transcribed from the Greek alphabet) by Kabanas Hellas. Kirby material included Black Panther, The Eternals (as a back-up to Star Wars), and 2001: A Space Odyssey among others. • TURKEY: Marvel comics were translated in the early eighties by Alfa Yayinlari in black-&-white digest-sized books. Some Kirby may have been included. French translations were read in other French-speaking countries (Switzerland, Belgium) and were shipped, at one time, to North-African French-speaking countries (Morocco, Tunisia), and even to Canada (which had its own translations by les Editions Héritage). 25
Italian reprint of Invaders #8, sporting a Kirby cover.
Third Annual Kirby Tribute Panel featuring Mark Evanier, Marv Wolfman, Roger Stern, and David Spurlock, and held on July 6, 1996 at the 1996 Comic-Con International: San Diego Transcribed by John Morrow EVANIER: Good afternoon. My name’s Mark Evanier, and I’m pleased as it were. This gentleman is currently publishing a number of comics to have this opportunity to remind you all about what Jack Kirby himself featuring his work and the work of others, and has become a meant to us. This is the 14th Jack Kirby tribute panel I’ve hosted at very fine artist in his own right. This is J. David Spurlock. (applause) conventions, and the third here. When we started this, people said to I want to start by asking our traditional question here. We’ll start me, “How many of these are you going to do?” And the answer is, with you, Roger. What was the first Jack Kirby comic book you we’re going to do them until we say everything people want to say remember that made an impact on you? about Jack. Which means we’re never going to stop doing them. We’ll STERN: Boy, that would probably have been Adventure Comics, one of do them at every convention, every place they’ll let me as long as I’m Jack’s early Green Arrow stories. I started reading the Superman comics alive and possibly in front of a microphone. I don’t know if I have to because I saw him on TV. The thing about Action and Adventure and tell anybody who showed up for this why we’re doing these panels. Detective and World’s Finest is they had extra features in the back, like But just in case there’s one person in the room who’s unaware, this Green Arrow and Aquaman and Congorilla. A lot of good artists convention would not be here, this industry would not be here, if not worked on Green Arrow over the years, but one day I picked up the for Jack Kirby. Amidst all the commerce and hustle that goes on at new issue, and I’m going, “Wow, this is really different!” It’s incredithese conventions, we think it’s important to take a few minutes and ble, dynamic, with shadows and things. Really exciting, and occasionremember Jack and his contributions to the field. ally, there’d be something really strange in it; like here’s Green Arrow I’ve gotta tell you that people throughout the entire convention and Speedy, and they’re riding a 60 foot giant arrow through a rift in have been constantly coming up to me, asking me questions about space into another science-fiction realm. Well, they never did that Jack, and going by John Morrow’s booth buying The Jack Kirby before! (laughter) It was sorta weird, but the way it was drawn, you Collector. The interest in Jack’s work continues to grow and grow. I’ve believed every bit of it. invited up here a couple You believed there was of people who worked a 100-foot tall alien with Jack or knew Jack, named Xeen Arrow, to talk about him. Let who was the Green me introduce to you, on Arrow of another the far end of this panel, dimension. One of the a gentleman who’s been stories was what I writing for DC and thought at the time was Marvel for a long time. a retelling of the origin He’s worked on a lot of of Green Arrow, but it the strips Jack started, actually was a totally almost all... well, new origin for Green nobody’s worked on Arrow, which has more almost all the strips Jack or less been adopted started, this is matheover the years. It was matically impossible. really greatly exciting. But he’s done a very fine Of course, there were job of keeping the spirit no credits on the stoalive. As you all have ries, so I had no idea seen occasionally, peowhy Green Arrow ple kind of trace and (l to r) Marv Wolfman, David Spurlock, Mark Evanier, and Roger Stern. looked different. But I imitate and steal. Jack sure liked it! Within a was never wild about that, but he was always very flattered when couple of years, I was starting to realize there were different people someone took his work and extended it and gave new angles to it. who did this. It wasn’t the same guy who did all the stories, there This gentleman has done a very fine job of keeping, most recently, the were different styles. Guardian, the Newsboy Legion, and the DNAliens material in the My hometown paper, inept and inadequate as it was, had a comics Superman book. This is Roger Stern, ladies and gentlemen. (applause) section with maybe two or three strips. It was like, Pricilla’s Pop. Capt. Next is someone who’s known Jack a long time. Marv will tell Easy was there, and always some third strip that was there for awhile. you stories probably of going to the Kirby household, in what year? One day, the third strip that was there for awhile was Sky Masters Of WOLFMAN: Aww, who could remember, it’s so long ago? Since I was The Space Force. And I went, “Oh, this is the guy who does Green thirteen. Arrow! His name is Kirby Wood!” (laughter) Then I always looked for Kirby Wood’s stuff, and it appeared in odd places like Archie Comics’ EVANIER: Marv has also done an amazing number of books that Jack Adventures Of The Fly, and Double Life Of Private Strong. I could never started, and a number of other books he didn’t start but which were figure out why the main character’s secret identity was the name of extensions of his work. He was the Editor-In-Chief of Marvel Comics the book, but it was exciting. Within a few years, I discovered it was for about an hour-and-a-half. (laughter) Anyway, this is Marv ‘Jack Kirby.’ And I looked for his stories wherever I could find them. Wolfman, ladies and gentlemen. (applause) As you all know, Jack had a lot of fans whose work he encourEVANIER: I would not have thought that Green Arrow would’ve been a aged, who later became professionals, and who carried on the torch lot of people’s first Kirby work, but I guess it was. Marv, same question. 26
A bunch of Kirby characters done for a fan in the early 1970s, including the Green Hornet & Kato!
WOLFMAN: Same answer. (laughter) Ahh...!
seen. And all the same type of material that Roger was talking about.
EVANIER: Thank you. David? (laughter)
EVANIER: David? Same question.
WOLFMAN: At what may have been the first of the Kirby tributes, in Oakland right after Jack passed away, I was one of the four speakers. Mark was the moderator as always. All I did was talk about the memories I had as a kid growing up. The first one I said was “a giant arrow comes down on earth.” And you could see half the audience, who were within ten years of my age group, all going, “Yeah.” Images like that. You didn’t know who the artists were. I may have seen books earlier, because my time-sense could be wrong. I don’t know if the Green Arrow stuff came out before Challengers or what, but those are the images that I can recall; giant hands coming out of cupboards, the most bizarre up-angles onto the Fantastic Four buildings, when you don’t even know who the people are who are doing it, you just know how wonderful the art is. The perspective is being shown from angles no other artist would draw, and makes it more dynamic. The detail work was unbelievable, and these weren’t comics that were staid little pictures that nobody did anything in. The characters could be standing stark still, and there was a dynamism to the figure work, and an intensity to the way they were drawn, even though they’re standing still, that just goes, “Wow! This is incredible!” Green Arrow was probably the first time that I fully recognized an individual artist who was affecting my way of thinking about things. That just blew my mind away in ways that I’d never seen before. Again, I may have seen Jack’s stuff earlier. I’m sure I saw some of the western material, which I later bought whole collections of. And I’m sure I saw a lot of the previous stuff, but Green Arrow was probably the one where most specifically I was aware of this artist as being different from all the other artists I had
SPURLOCK: I don’t remember precisely what may have been the first, but the ones that affected me were a little bit later on. I’m a kid. It was Avengers #1 and #5, and still to this day I remember copying the cover of Avengers #1, and #1 and #5 always hold something special to me. First of all, the team-up, the team thing with the Avengers overall. Getting all these super guys together seemed real interesting. They were all pretty much Kirby characters, which just added more magic to it. #5 was The Lava Men. For some reason, it just seemed to capture being a kid to me. Things I did as a kid, running around, adventures we’d make up. EVANIER: In the time since we started this panel, about 50 more people have come into this room, so we have enough here for a proper ovation. Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Roz Kirby. (applause, standing ovation) WOLFMAN: Let me say right here, a lot of people here probably got up in honor of Jack to applaud Roz. I got up because of Roz. When I was going to Jack and Roz’ house at the age of thirteen, and just being in awe of watching Jack draw on the board, Roz would take me and Len Wein—who joined me on these little treks—upstairs and made sure we had sandwiches, made sure we had milk, made sure we had whatever we wanted. It was like, “You don’t have to do this.” “No, you have to eat. You want to join us for dinner.” (laughter) I stand up for her 100%; a wonderful person. (applause) EVANIER: I think it was even more than that, Marv. Because I think 27
one of the reasons Jack was able to get to the drawing board every day was because of Roz. He did this incredible amount of work, and she was the one who was always taking care of him, making sure he got there, providing all that inspiration. I used to say that Jack was a twoperson operation for a long time. Before anybody else asks me, I’m pleased to announce that I think we are just about through with the legal problems on the Kirby Tribute Book. (applause) It’s been taking forever. It is unbelievably complicated. A couple of lawyers have spent... if they charged us for this, it would be a fortune. A number of attorneys have spent a lot of time trying to work out the logistics. Frank Miller and I have spent a couple of hours this afternoon working out some plans. I think we’re actually going to be able in two or three months to announce a target date to have this book out. And everybody is nagging me about being in it, so it will be quite spectacular. I want to ask Marv, if he would, to elaborate on those visits a bit.
at that point, and still have ever seen. Jack was not an artist who just sketched something in. Every line was precisely in place. And that’s really important when you consider how many artists just sketch, and it’s up to an inker to sort of figure out what to do. And during this whole time that he’d be drawing and coming up with these incredible visuals from God knows where—because you never saw anything that indicated where the visual would be coming from—Jack would be talking! He’d be talking about books he’d read, usually that had to do with science. He talked to us at one point— about 5-6 years before the New Gods ever came out and Jack was still at Marvel—all about the New Gods stuff. We knew the characters, we knew all this stuff. He’s the first one who ever started talking to me about cloning. Now today, that’s a common word. Back then, none of us had ever heard of it. But he had read about it in an article in some science magazine, and followed through and investigated it. A lot of people feel, because Jack was a supreme cartoonist and was drawing these bigger-than-life drawings, that there may not have been a lot of research or a lot of thinking about what went beyond it. But he was working it out through a lot of research before he ever sat down to do the pages. He knew what he wanted to do, and he had these elaborate concepts in mind long before we ever saw it. One of the best stories was: I had just sold my first story to some mystery book at DC Comics. I had come up with an idea for a superhero and roughed it out in my mind. Jack had asked us what we were doing, and I mentioned I’d sold my first story, and I’d just come up with this character. And he said, “Tell me about it.” Meanwhile, he’s never stopped, he doesn’t stop drawing, ever. Just constantly, and it’s all this brilliant stuff. And I tell him everything I could possibly know, that I’d spent months coming up with, trying to create this character. And the only reason I hadn’t proceeded with the character was I hadn’t figured out a couple of important things about him. Within two minutes, he was telling me more about the potential for this character than I ever could have dreamed. He was going off in places that were so perfect for my creation. It’s like, this is how you do it! You just don’t stop thinking. You don’t limit yourself by saying this is as far as your thinking process can go. You go 40 steps further. And I’m just listening to him create my character, so much better than I have ever done it. He started doing sketches of the way he saw some of the things that should be in it, which I still have. It was one of
WOLFMAN: Len Wein and I would go out to East Williston, and we were young kids. For us, the idea of just meeting somebody who was in comics was one of the most incredible things. We didn’t know a lot of people at that particular age. Later on, we visited companies and stuff. By that point, we did know who he was certainly, and had been collecting all the back issues we could ever find, which was pretty hard to do because there weren’t back issue stores or conventions. We’d come over, and Roz would just insist that we had to eat something, to make sure we were healthy. Then we’d go downstairs to the room where Jack drew, and Jack would just be drawing against an art board. It was unbelievable. To this day, I do not understand it, because he was drawing one of those issues in the run of the 50s in Fantastic Four, so it was some of the best Fantastic Fours ever done. And he would just start and draw a little hand over here. Then he’d draw a foot over there, and a belt buckle over here. There’s no little blue line drawing to indicate how he was going to link the stuff up at all. And he would draw a little bit more, and a little bit more, then suddenly he’d start at the upper left hand corner and connect it all. And the finished drawings were unbelievably complex. The perspective of these buildings, and dozens upon dozens of characters, were absolutely perfect. It was as if he not only saw it in his head, but he was tracing it. He didn’t have to sketch it and then tighten it up. It was some of the tightest pencils I had ever seen
This art ran in color in the September 1966 issue of Esquire Magazine. Note how a John Romita Spider-Man figure was pasted over Jack’s art. 28
the most incredible teaching lessons that I’ve ever had. Jack was not only someone who could create instantly, and brilliantly, but he was probably more free with ideas that anyone I had ever known. If he could talk to you and give you advice or ideas on how to improve your stuff, he didn’t hold it back. He wasn’t going, like a lot of people do, “Well, if I give you the idea, you’ll make a mint out of it, and I won’t. So I’m not going to say a word.” Jack was absolutely free with his thoughts, free with his emotions, free with all of his ideas. He was so straightforward and so good about it. No wonder he was The King. There was no way around it. He earned it through absolute ability, but more than ability, just humanity. We love the guy. One of my proudest moments was writing the intro page to all of the first issues of the Fourth World series. Just to be able to do that was the least I could do for the man who sort of taught me everything I sort of know. SPURLOCK: I didn’t meet Jack until the ’70s at conventions, and I was real happy for the short periods I was able to spend with him. But I experienced the same things you’re talking about. The word I’d like to us is ‘fount.’ He was bubbling with ideas. He had ideas coming out all over the place. I was going away stupefied, thinking, “Gee, if I had a tape recorder, we could go twenty years into the future of comics, just with the ideas we talked about in 15 or 20 minutes.” Also, having to do with the drawing, you can be a great craftsman in art, and a draftsman. If I was to think of someone who had very great structure or draftsmanship, I’d think about people like Alex Toth, Wally Wood, Steve Rude. And some people see the stylization of Kirby, especially later on when he totally developed, starting in the 1960s at Marvel. It became so stylized that you start to think, “Whoa, this is all style, and the draftsmanship isn’t there.” But the style was like the the icing on top of the draftsmanship. Steve Rude would be the perfect person to back this up. Especially in the 1960s at Marvel, the draftsmanship was absolutely perfect, and the style came on top of that. And that comes into the part about the tracing, where it’s not learning, it’s not experience, how much you’ve drawn, and he drew so many pages that he picked all this up, all the draftsmanship and structure. But that is what is the genius, and what separates Kirby from the rest, is the idea of tracing. It wasn’t just experience, and know-how and professionalism. It was something that’s coming from beyond. Both the ideas, the fount of ideas, and also being able to just kind of see the thing, where you can kinda trace it out. I remember a quote from John Lennon that applied to this, where he said, “I can sit down with a deadline and craft a good pop song, but that’s not where the excitement comes from.” The excitement comes from, for example, one morning he woke up with the tune of “Imagine” in his head. That was more exciting to him than sitting down and writing a professionally-produced song. That was the same thing with Jack. It was pure genius coming through him like light through a prism.
These drawings were interspersed among photos of college students in the September 1966 Esquire Magazine. SPURLOCK: About what Marv said about the giving nature, about putting out all those ideas without worrying about, “If you take this somewhere, what is my chunk of the pie?” That’s why we’re all here today, because of the spirit of Jack, and the type of person he and Roz are. That’s why he deserves everything we can give him.
EVANIER: I’m writing a book about Jack, apart from the Tribute Book, just covering every Kirby anecdote and story I can and putting them down. They come from the strangest places. I found an old interview I did many years ago with a writer named Ed Hamilton, who wrote for DC for many years in the 1950s and ’60s. He tells a story of a writer who worked for DC on the Superman books, and was having trouble coming up with premises. The guy would get on the train going into New York, and he couldn’t come up with a premise. One day he only had another 20 minutes before his stop, and he had to go face Mort Weisinger, and he didn’t have an idea. And he looked over and he saw Jack sitting there with his portfolio, heading into town. He went over and struck up a conversation, and mentioned Superman. By the time he got to New York, he had a whole pad full of ideas for Superman! (laughter) Thereafter, he would always ask Jack, “Hey, when you going into town again?” And Jack would say, “Oh, next Thursday.” So next Thursday he’d go down to the subway train and wait until Jack showed up, (laughter) and he got through several years of Superman just with these ideas.
EVANIER: Roger, talk about the challenge a writer faces when he takes over a Kirby book. STERN: Oh, boy! (laughter) Well, you sit there, and you go, “How am I possibly going to get close to equaling this? There’s no topping it, it’s already been topped by itself.” When I was working at Marvel, probably 90% of the characters that I worked with in stories had come from Jack at one point or another. When I wound up working at DC, one of the first things I sat down to do was a Superman story with the Newsboy Legion, and I’m going, “Here I am doing Jack’s characters again.” The thing in trying to write a Jack Kirby character is, there’s an inherent nobility in the character. Even the villains. Dr. Doom has got to be one of the greatest villains ever created in comics. And you don’t want to get on his bad side, but there’s still a morality about the character, there are things that he wouldn’t do. You have to address that, you have to be faithful to these characters. Otherwise, you’re just doing a bad knockoff of them, it’s not really the characters. 29
EVANIER: Marv, do you want to talk about that, too? WOLFMAN: I wrote the Fantastic Four for awhile. I was given the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man to work on, and I really wanted to write the FF, because I just loved it. And I didn’t really want to write Spider-Man, because as much as I loved it, it didn’t seem to be the type of thing I could handle. I quickly found exactly the opposite, because every time I started Fantastic Four, I was overly intimidated. Nothing I could do before, since, or from now on I’m certain, will equal the creativity of FF #30-80. Just the absolute total initiation of concepts that had never been seen before in comics, month after month after month. Now, for the young audience who may have come here because they like Jack’s stuff, or for whatever reason you come, it’s hard to remember, unless you were around prior to Fantastic Four #30, none of this stuff that we take for granted in a very watered-down, multiply-xeroxed fashion at this particular point, ever was there. There was nothing as big as Galactus, there was nothing as unique as the Silver Surfer. There was nothing as tender as so many of the little scenes that Jack would draw into “This Man, This Monster” or so many others that he would do. One of the pictures that so defined things to me was in Tales Of Asgard where Loki is just walking away into the distance, his back hunched up. He has lost, and you knew it. No comics artist had ever put into a single picture, so much emotion into a drawing that made you realize how powerful a scene could be. None of us can copy this stuff, none of us can duplicate it. I wish I could. I would love to say I did a great Fantastic Four. The best I can say is, “Maybe it didn’t suck too badly compared to those issues.” (laughter) Really, I can not conceive of things the way he did. Since he was plotting so much of that material, to have come up with one totally new idea after another, not just a good idea, but absolutely new to the world of comics. And then to do it on Thor, and come up with all of those characters that we saw, and then to do it on the other books. And when you thought that it was all over after 100 issues of the Fantastic Four—what more could Jack possibly do?—hit with the Fourth World stories... (slams fist on table) you can’t do it. Before I left Marvel, I announced I was asking to quit the Fantastic Four, because I could no longer even pretend to come up with stories that good. As good as some of the issues that have followed by other people, no one has approached, in my mind, one-tenth the quality of Fantastic Four #30-80, just in imagination alone. So I try not to do too many Kirby characters. (applause)
Splash page pencils from Captain America #101.
the best of those people have ever been. So the writing, the art, the people, the backgrounds, everything, created a world which illustrators generally can not do. They just draw phenomenally well. Jack wasn’t a phenomenal draftsman in an illustrative fashion. Jack was a phenomenal artist, which is very different. EVANIER: As I talk to people about Jack, as I have a lot lately, I increasingly find people saying, “Y’know, I didn’t like The Demon when I first read it, and I went back recently and reread them and they’re speaking to me now on a whole other level.” I wasn’t a huge fan of The Demon when it started. If you list Jack’s work by your favorites, something’s gotta be on the bottom of the list, and I was not a big fan of The Demon. I went back about a year ago and reread them, and I was really impressed with the writing, with the wordsmithing, every essence of it there. As with Jack’s drawing, sometimes there’s too much to get immediately. You’ve gotta go back and look at the wording, look at the phrasing, and some of the things which sounded odd at that time... I think he was just ahead of his time. Go back and reread some of those stories. They will change on you. The copies that have been sitting on your shelf are different now somehow. (laughter) I want to throw this out to two things to the audience: One is questions of us, and the other is just your own impressions of Jack, his work, the man. Anybody that wants to can just jump in here.
SPURLOCK: We’ve got two writers here, and they’re talking about Jack’s writing. What’s funny is, both of them have totally accepted that Jack’s writing was totally integrated between the visual and the writing part. You’ll probably, in discussing Kirby with other people, come across people who say, “Oh, Jack Kirby wasn’t a great writer.” What they would be talking about would be his wordsmithing, which he was not a great wordsmith. But his storytelling was the maximum, and the writing and the plotting and the integration of it with the visuals. WOLFMAN: One of the things that I think a lot of people today forget, 25 years after some of those great creations, in looking at some of the wonderful artists who followed Jack—whether it’s Neal Adams or Jim Lee or a lot of others—they’re illustrators. Jack was a cartoonist. Jack created a world that was totally believable. No, it wasn’t the most realistic drawing in the world, but if it were, it wouldn’t have had the majesty. That’s why his stuff worked in the writing, for the type of stories he did, not the dialogue per se. He was an absolute cartoonist, as 30
AUDIENCE: A comment on the writing, and the wordsmithing not being good and so on. He did not waste any words. There was no redundancy. With other people who scripted over his art, some of the stuff would become so redundant. He did not waste words, and they didn’t just repeat what was drawn.
EVANIER: On the new Superman cartoon show that’s being done now, we’re doing a few episodes that feature Fourth World characters. I wrote the first one which features Darkseid, and in the same episode it’s got Terrible Turpin, who’s a returning character throughout the show. It’s got Ugly Mannheim, and the first one I wrote has Kanto in it also. Darkseid’s in it for the last eight seconds. Darkseid’s contract says he doesn’t get a lot of screen time. (laughter) And the second one, which Steve Gerber and I co-wrote, adds Kalibak and Desaad. Those characters have had an enormously long life. They’ve been in many venues, they’ve survived Hanna-Barbara cartoons, and toys. There’s something about Jack’s work that endures, the names and all.
EVANIER: I think a lot of people had trouble with the dialogue on the Fourth World books, because they were expecting Stan Lee-style dialogue. It’s like when he changed inkers, and Vince Colletta went away and Mike Royer came in, there was an initial negative reaction because the comfort level wasn’t there. They expected Kirby art to look a certain way. Eventually most of the Kirby fans came around to preferring what Royer did, I believe. But initially, there was a resistance to it because they thought he was changing too much, when if anything was wrong with Mike’s work, he didn’t change enough. I don’t think Jack ever attempted to write Stan Lee-style dialogue. I don’t think he liked Stan Lee-style dialogue, at least not for the New Gods, nor did he really approach storytelling the same way. In the same sense that Jack was not trying to depict real anatomy in his people, he was not trying to depict real speech patterns so much as kinda doing his own version of an opera on the page. If you cut the Marvel stuff out of your mind and read just New Gods and Forever People and Kamandi as a self-contained unit, I think that they speak to you on a different level. I know a lot of fans who got into comics after, who were first exposed to the Eternals or Devil Dinosaur, and consider that their favorite Kirby work. I was really surprised how many professional artists, for this Kirby Tribute Book, fall all over each other to get to the Eternals. It was their favorite comic, and that’s another one I would’ve put low on my list of Kirby stuff, but that was one of their first exposures to it, and they appreciated it as a self-contained creative work of a writer and artist who were the same person, speaking with the same mind.
WOLFMAN: I think one of the things you also have to think about when you talk about Jack is... you keep talking about the superhero work, because that’s probably what’s most well-known. But Jack was also equally successful in a lot of other genres. I was not exposed to his romance comics until much later. In fact, at Mark’s house, the late Carol Kalish talked about it so much that one day, we were all up until 3:00 in the morning after a convention. And she mailed me a dozen of the romance comics. God, he did a wonderful job with that. I knew the crime stuff, I knew the western stuff specifically, because Boys’ Ranch is one of my all-time favorite comics. If you forget the superhero stuff, there’s an entire career of several artists who have done all these other works. They just happen to be Jack Kirby. EVANIER: Like the war books he did, and the human moments in those. I was a big fan of his Our Fighting Forces, which a lot of people didn’t notice when he did that book for a year or so. AUDIENCE: On the Superman animated series, the visual they’re doing for Terrible Turpin is Jack Kirby. EVANIER: Yeah, it looks an awful lot like Jack, yes. Scott?
(Audience member comments on how we’re now used to the unusual names of characters like the New Gods, Mr. Fantastic, and Doctor Doom.)
SCOTT SHAW (from audience): Relating to the romance books and to Terrible Turpin, I just discovered a romance book I’d never seen before
Jack’s original 1980s pencils to the wraparound cover of Pure Imagination’s Jack Kirby Treasury, Volume 2. (Note: these pencils are for sale; see the ad on page 42.)
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that Jack did that Marvel published. It’s about a girl that spends all her time reading romance comics. Has anybody ever seen this one? She meets a guy in the park... (laughter)
When Jack left the Jimmy Olsen series, I think there was one or two stories of the Newsboys in the background, and then they disappeared. It was all the better for us because we were able to say, “Here they are again!”
EVANIER: Let the record show that Roz Kirby raised her hand! (laughter)
AUDIENCE: At the time when the Fourth World stuff was coming out, they switched and started doing the reprints of Simon & Kirby stuff, which was the first time I had ever seen that. In some ways, I enjoyed that more. The Captain America stuff was being reprinted at the same time, and that was when I realized there had been this whole Kirby career beforehand.
SCOTT SHAW: It turns out that this guy’s a comic book artist. She falls in love with him, and both characters are slightly idealized versions of Jack and Roz. (laughter) And then it turns out it takes place within that comic. It’s like an infinity cover, only this is an infinity story, stepping back a step each time. I forget what issue it’s in, but you’ll probably read about it in the Kirby Collector.
STERN: Speaking of the reprinting, I sort of got into the Marvel mythos a little on the late side. I started reading around 1965-66. The first five years had already been done. But Marvel by that point was doing Marvel Tales and Marvel Collector’s Item Classics, reprinting stuff. It was
EVANIER: It always intrigued me that Jack liked all the genres he did. I don’t think he had a huge preference for war over western. I think he probably liked the ghost comics a little less than the others, because they got to be a little too much about death. But he loved doing a war story, he loved doing a western. There was nothing that didn’t interest him to write about. AUDIENCE: If you open up any old Thor, forget all that mess that’s written on it. Just look at it. You get mesmerized. I read the tabloid Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, which was such a beautiful, nice story and showed his love for the country. I remember being 15 or 16 years old and going up to him and telling him how much I loved it. I basically fell all over him and told him this, and he just looked at me, and his voice goes (in a Kirby accent), “You write the next one, kid!” (laughter) How can you not love a man like that? AUDIENCE: A couple of years ago, it was announced that his art board was going to be put on display by the Smithsonian. Has that happened? EVANIER: (to Roz Kirby) Has the Smithsonian called lately? ROZ KIRBY: It’s still at my house. EVANIER: But they want it, though. The Smithsonian, being an historical society, is in no hurry for anything. (laughter) They’ll get around to it when they’re good and ready. AUDIENCE: Who made the decision to bring Jack’s characters back into Superman? When Jack left, they were pretty much ignored for awhile, and in the early 1980s, you started to see them coming back. STERN: Most of us who were working on the Superman books as of the relaunch in 1986 were all big Kirby fans. Byrne’s a big Kirby fan, Ordway’s a big Kirby fan, and I’m a big Kirby fan. When I first got on board at DC, one of the first things I discussed with Mike Carlin and John Byrne was doing a little Newsboy Legion story for Action #600. We talked about it a little bit, and they went, “Well, maybe you should do some of this, too,” and it sort of grew until it became an entire Annual, because the characters took over, there was no room for them in a 6-page story. I loved the Jimmy Olsen stories, with the Newsboys, and the old Newsboys, and the Guardian, the Project, and the Whiz Wagon and all that stuff. Since we relaunched the Superman series, I set out to make sure as much as possible of the old stuff we loved still survived in the new version. I discovered that with about 95%, we could just say, “Here it is again!” (laughter) I’m so happy we were able to do that, because now we can have the Guardian hanging out in Suicide Slum, and all these other characters interacting. It’s so much fun.
Pencils from CA #103, page 19. Sharon got a hairstyle change when these pencils were inked! 32
discussed or brought up at prior conventions. I’m just curious if there was more tension there than had been talked about in the past. EVANIER: It’s been talked about a lot, actually. I think there were times when Jack was very mad at Stan, and times when Stan was very mad at Jack. Personally, I think a lot of that is so deeply rooted that it can’t be discussed casually. You’ve got to go back to the entire structure of how the industry treated people. Jack had, over the years, a lot of occasions to be angry at the way he was treated, and justifiably so. I think Gil was trying to make a point of relating the anger that Jack had at some points to his artwork. Jack did everything very passionately. One of the things that I was always fascinated about in his artwork is he really kind of drew from the gut. His work was very honest. The feelings that were expressed were all feelings that he had felt. He certainly used his anger and frustration about some of the things in the industry for stories. Some of the villains in both the Marvel and DC books were based very obscurely on feelings that Jack had about cowardice or selfishness on the part of various executives at various companies. I think that Gil was making a very apt point. Am I answering your question at all? (laughter) It was accurate at times, and Jack did not get from this industry as good as he gave, and we all know that. And he had a right to be angry. AUDIENCE: Jack Kirby worked for Ruby-Spears for about six years. How come we haven’t seen any cartoons out of all that work? WOLFMAN: When I worked at Ruby-Spears doing the Superman cartoon series about 5 or 6 years ago, I got a chance to see a lot of the artwork, and it was wonderful. It’s slowly being reprinted and made available for people to see. I think the Kirby Collector printed a couple of the pages. Jack would design various new concepts for shows, and on their own it’s sometimes hard to let them go up. I think a lot of the ideas that were at Topps were made available through ideas that he had done over at Ruby-Spears. What happens is, in animation you’ll draw ten giant pieces for a cartoon show presentation. If the show doesn’t get done, it was just thrown into the vault, because if it’s been refused, it’s not going to get brought back next year. So it would just be ten pictures. Now they were beautiful, at least the ones More pencils from CA #103. Notice how the next issue blurb changed when it was published. I saw were, and I assume they all were, because every like catching up. A friend of my older brother had collected them, so one I did see was great. But they’re just hidden away because that’s the I’d go over to his place, up in the attic, and read like crazy. way it was done, not because they were kept from anyone. They never I go to the newsstand one day; this was like in the late 1960s, got turned into shows. during the Batman period, where everyone was coming out with as (Audience member comments on Jack’s 1970s work on The Losers, and how many superheroes as the possibly could. I look on the newsstand, and poignant it was compared to the preachiness of other writers’ post-Vietnam here’s a Harvey comic. I pulled it out and said, “Wait a minute, this is war comics.) a rip-off of Captain America, but it’s says ‘Simon & Kirby’ on it.” There was an article in it about how this was a reprinting of stuff from the EVANIER: We talked about this last year on the panel, but I always 1950s, and I went, “Wow! It’s another Kirby character I didn’t know thought that book was a case of Jack taking a very weak concept and about. This is great!” building it into something. Jack never really liked handling other peoThen I waited forever for the next issue [of Fighting American] to ple’s characters, and I don’t think he particularly liked that particular come out, and it never did. (laughter) assignment, but there was a wonderful work ethic there. I don’t think there’s too many cases of Jack not giving 100%. There’s a couple of times when he may have been prevented from giving 100%, but he always tried to do his best work. And he took a very silly concept and produced
AUDIENCE: In the recent Gil Kane interview in The Comics Journal, he’s talking about Jack and the intense feeling he had toward Stan Lee. This suggests a greater intensity between the two than I’ve seen 33
a very personal work out of it. They were not his characters, it was not his format, and yet it’s a Kirby book, because he drew from his wartime experiences. Everybody who met Jack heard a World War II story. When he did the war stories with Joe Simon or with Stan Lee, it was filtered through their experiences. With Our Fighting Forces, he had the chance to do World War II the way he remembered it, and it was a very honest book, I thought. AUDIENCE: There’s an amusing Jack-related letter in a Strange Tales from around 1966, that actually merited the Bullpen’s page. It said, “I don’t like the art on the X-Men. Why don’t you have Jack come back? He’s hardly doing anything now.” And the letter responded by saying, “He’s doing Fantastic Four, Thor, Cap in Tales Of Suspense, and laying out The Hulk and Nick Fury, and doing two-thirds of our covers.” I thought it was really funny, because... EVANIER: So he had plenty of time, then? (laughter)
said, “Yes he did.” And I pulled out the issues and showed him, and he couldn’t believe that Bill Everett, the creator of the Sub-Mariner, had been inking his pencils. He thought, “Why would Bill Everett be inking somebody else’s pencils? Bill Everett could create his own story.” That’s how little attention he paid to that. SPURLOCK: If you look at those Collettas, they look like they’re years older, where the Everetts are really a lot snappier and livelier, because they’re truer to Jack’s pencils, more like what he did on New Gods a couple of years later. EVANIER: In Mr. Colletta’s defense, I should say that he was not paid very well for that work. The industry didn’t pay anybody that well then. They paid inkers probably worse than anyone else for the time spent. The editors were very happy with what Colletta did. He didn’t ink those books at gunpoint. He handed them in, and they said “great” and gave him another issue to ink. So he was fulfilling his assignment,
AUDIENCE: Yes. Most people can hardly get a monthly book done. In that same issue (#148), he actually scripted the Strange Tales Nick Fury story, because Stan had taken his vacation. AUDIENCE: Late in the Thor issues, I noticed the inking got real bad. I wondered if Kirby ever was concerned about how the inking got at that point. EVANIER: One of the things that I was frustrated with about Jack was that he didn’t really take much... it wasn’t that he didn’t care about the inking. One of the things that Jack was very serious about was that he didn’t want to cost another professional work. He was very respectful of everyone else’s need to make a living. If somebody was ruining his pencils, as I felt several artists were over the years, his attitude was,“Well, that guy’s gotta put groceries on the table.” I don’t think Jack was as interested in the finished rendering of his work as some other artists were, because I think to him it was the story. When I’d start complaining about Vince Colletta’s work, he’d say, “No professional inker ever ruined a story that was truly well-told.” SPURLOCK: Do you know what inker you’re thinking of? Toward the end Bill Everett inked some stuff. AUDIENCE: I can’t remember what offhand. I know it was a Galactus... EVANIER: George Klein inked some issues, which I thought was very nice inking. SPURLOCK: There were some of the things that Klein did on Jack that really didn’t fit. He was used to doing a lot of crosshatching, and crosshatching doesn’t really work on Jack. And the first issue or so that Bill Everett inked, he did a lot of real fine line work, and that really doesn’t work either. But Everett, if you look at what he did, it took him about an issue to get it down. But once he did, the Thors that Everett did after he stopped trying to do fine line stuff were fantastic, and much more true to the Kirby pencils than the Colletta inks. EVANIER: And yet, at one time I was telling Jack that I thought Bill Everett was the best inker he had on Thor. He looked at me like I was nuts and said, “Bill Everett didn’t ink Thor.” And I
1970s pencils from CA #202, page 16. As in his 1950s romance work, Jack managed to turn a sequence of talking heads into a visually dynamic page. (And Sharon’s hair changed again when it was inked!) 34
EVANIER: There’s no right and wrong answer to this. If you liked Colletta’s inking, fine. Jack did not dislike Vince Colletta’s inking. The negatives on that come from other people, of whom I am one. Like I said, I think it was miscasting more than it was a lack of talent. It was also low budgets. Jack put tons of stuff on those pages, and Vince was not being paid huge amounts of money to spend time on that. He was encouraged to do the books the way he was. We all come to our favorite Kirby works in different ways. My own take on this is that the inkers had to be appropriately cast. I thought Joe Sinnott was the right inker for Fantastic Four, I thought Frank Giacoia was the right inker for Captain America. There were issues of Fantastic Four that Giacoia inked and issues of Captain America that Sinnott inked, and they’re still beautiful comics, but somehow it just seemed a little more right to me the other way around. And if you saw Thor through Vince Colletta’s linework, that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that, and Jack would be the first to tell you that. I just think there’s a consensus. John did a poll in the Kirby Collector on favorite Kirby inker, and I think Mr. Sinnott was the runaway favorite, and Mike Royer had a very sizable second place finish. But there’s no wrong answers on those questions.
Mid-1970s fan drawing.
and if you have a complaint with the books, I think the fault lies with the people who assigned them, not the man. You can’t fault Vince Colletta for inking like Vince Colletta.
AUDIENCE: Did Jack read any comics on a regular basis? EVANIER: Very few. When he had time for reading, he read sciencefiction magazines, he read the newspaper. I had some very interesting political discussions with Jack I recall now. We sat one day and talked about Nixon for two hours. And he sat down and wrote a Darkseid sequence afterwards. (laughter)
AUDIENCE: Talking about Vince Colletta, I think clearly there was an evolution in his inking, as time went on. I know he’s not held in high regard by a lot of people, but if you look at the early work he did with Thor, when he first came on the book, I think what he was doing was spending more time with it, and actually gave it a look that I almost think was older. It was most appropriate for Thor in certain ways. It was scratchy, the armor had chinks.
WOLFMAN: Roz, in the early days, was Jack a comics reader? ROZ KIRBY: He never read the comics. He was too busy doing them. SPURLOCK: He was the comics. Someone said something a little while back about goofy-named characters. I think that today, a lot of people almost make excuses for working in comics. Jack had a great respect for the medium, and great respect for where he thought the medium could go. In one issue, he may just do a simple comics story, for what it’s worth, and maybe show some things between the characters like the war stories we were talking about. In another one, he’s going all out, cosmic revelation stuff. And both are great, pushing the boundaries to the limit and knowing exactly what he’s doing, never making excuses because he loved comic books.
SPURLOCK: It was almost like Ernie Chua inking Conan. A little roughness, a little antiquity. AUDIENCE: Yeah. I felt that as he went off to DC and got on with his career, he clearly wasn’t spending the time on the books, and there was a real change there. The other thing I wanted to mention was this discussion of him not realizing who was inking his work. I think I’ve heard Mark talk about when it was time to do the New Gods, he had so many ideas, and was trying to do so many things at once. It was very difficult for Jack to be linear over issues because he was telling an epic. He was here, he was there, and it all would have come together in maybe 40 issues. But it seems like he doesn’t really have time for the details because he was always reaching for the ideas that were moving him. He was on to bigger and better things.
AUDIENCE: I remember the first time I ever saw death in a comic was in a Sgt. Fury, when he killed off Junior. That was real traumatic, I thought. Here’s a main character, gone.
WOLFMAN: Where are the stones? (laughter)
ROBERT KATZ (Jack’s nephew): I just wanted to relate one thing. I’m a member of the family, and I knew Jack all my life. I got to know artists later in life, and it seemed like artists always rhetorically ask, “How was Jack so creative? How was he so prolific?” And I’ll tell the family secret, I do know the reason. The reason is that he married the perfect woman for him. He married the woman who was patient, because he was pretty eccentric. She was patient, she took care of him, she gave him the ability to spend the time with his art, that somebody else probably wouldn’t have had the ability to deal with. Every time you read a page of Jack Kirby’s art, Roz Kirby is also there, and you should keep that in mind. (Roz pats Robert on the head affectionately) (laughter, applause)
SPURLOCK: There might be a little nostalgia involved in that, having to do with when you were reading those books.
EVANIER: And I can’t top that, so we will see you next year for the fourth annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel. (applause) ✪
EVANIER: That’s probably correct. AUDIENCE: I hope I don’t get stoned for saying this, but I always liked Vince Colletta’s work better than Mike Royer’s.
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Kirby: The French Connection Translating Kirby In France by Tristan Lapoussière omics translating in France has a rather long history, since comics and comic strips were published as early as the 1940s. Golden Age characters included Superman, Batman, the Sandman, Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel Jr., the Shadow, the Spectre, Black Condor, and many others, as well as a good deal of comic strips, particularly those syndicated by King Features. German occupation, and then anti-Americanism due to political developments, caused comics to dwindle in France until the mid-fifties, which saw the translation of numerous DC titles and characters. The first superheroes were reintroduced in France in 1958, but it is not until February 1969 that French readers were introduced to Marvel superheroes, beginning with the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and the Silver Surfer. They proved so popular that they managed to survive through hardships brought about by government censorship, and paved the way for each and every Marvel character. Comic books have been translated by a number of publishers in France over the decades, but three are particularly famous:
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• Artima, later known as Arédit, folded in late 1987 after a forty-year existence. They reintroduced superheroes in France, but this is often obscured since they appeared in black-&-white digest-size publications. Later they produced comic book-sized color albums. The material they translated includes DC, Marvel, Tower, Charlton, Gold Key/Western, and MLJ/Archie/ Red Circle. They were by far the most prolific publisher, totalling roughly 12,000-15,000 issues (sometimes printing several comic books in a single issue – the page amount ranged from 68 to 196 pages!) in all genres – superhero, sci-fi, war, horror, western, romance, etc. • Editions Lug was founded in 1950 and now goes under the banner of Semic International. They introduced Marvel characters in France and have translated only Marvel material, except for a brief try at Atlas/ Seaboard material. Most of their superhero titles were color comic book-sized or oversized publications. They are the only publisher still translating comics, recently expanding to include Image titles. • Sagédition was founded in the late 1930s and folded in 1987. They had the sole rights to Superman and Batman and their family books, except one-shots and graphic novels. They also published a variety of Gold Key/Western material, as well as some Atlas/Seaboard titles.
You may have wondered why there is so much Kirby-oriented activity in France (see TJKC #4, pg. 4). This is because Jack Kirby has played an important part in our own view of comics. From a look at what Kirby work was translated (see the chart on the next page), you can draw some simple conclusions: • the period which is best represented is Kirby’s work at Marvel in the 1960s. Out of 22 titles Kirby handled, 12 have 100% reprint rates, and 7 others are above 50%! • the other period well represented is Kirby’s work at DC in the 1970s, but the rates are more contrasted; while 11 titles out of 15 had rates at or near 100%, there are two 0%s, the most notable being Jimmy Olsen (it stems from the fact that the Superman and Batman rights – and hence, their related titles – were detained in France by one company, Sagédition, while all other DC material, including the Fourth World titles, was translated by les Editions Arédit). One thing also worth noticing is that nonsuperhero genres were widely translated in France. It is due to the fact that most of the publications translating American material were anthology titles, and sci-fi, mystery, western or war stories were thus used as fill-ins, contrary to what I know of sundry other European countries (Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, and even Turkey), where comic books were mostly character titles. American anthology titles were never translated in most of these countries. Finally, it must be said that comic books were translated in France in a variety of formats, ranging from the worst to the best; that is, from black-&-white “petits formats” (digestsize comic books), with original page composition sometimes rearranged and touched-up to fit the smaller size, to comic book-sized albums (with glossy covers and quality paper), to oversized albums. This variety of formats is another characteristic of French translations; only in Turkey and Brazil have I found equivalents of “petits formats.” Other countries kept the comic book-sized presentation, except Italy which had giant editions of the Fantastic Four, Captain America and Spider-Man among others. (Tristan Lapoussière is a French researcher of comics and fan of Jack Kirby. He has published several articles and been a member of several French fanzines about comics. He is now a member of APA-I, devoted to comics checklisting/indexing, and honorary archivist for the Swiss fanzine Savage World of Fantasy (SWOF). Besides his passion for comics, he indulges in old time radio shows and classic TV series.)
“Almanach De Tarzan,” a rare, oversized 1946 French comic book, contained Blue Beetle daily strips #1-60 in French. (above) 1984 French Sandman album. 36
Kirby Work Translated In France PERIOD
GENRE
1938-1956
Blue Beetle comic strip Sandman/Manhunter
1957-1961
1961-1970 (Marvel)
1971-1975 (DC)
1976-1978 (Marvel)
1981-1986
TITLES TRANSLATED IN FRANCE
RATE
One episode from 1939, published in 1946 in France ? Misc. stories from Adv. #73-75, 77, 80, 81, 84, 85, 87, ? and World’s Finest #6 publ. in 1984 Sandman album Sky Masters comic strip One run from late 1950s-early 1960s ? Superhero Showcase #6, 7, 11, 12 (all Challengers stories) 100% Challengers of the Unknown #1-8 (9 out of 14 stories) 64% Adventure #250-256 (3 out of 7 Green Arrow stories) 43% World’s Finest #96-99 (no Green Arrow stories) 0% 33% Advs. of the Fly (at least 2 out of 6 stories) 0% Double Life of Private Strong (none) Sci-Fi/Fantasy House of Mystery (6 out of 10 stories) 60% 50% House of Secrets (2 out of 4 stories) My Greatest Adventure (all 7 stories) 100% 70% Tales of the Unexpected (7 out of 10 stories) Journey Into Mystery (at least 20 out of 46 stories) 44% Strange Tales (at least 7 out of 42 stories) 17% 50% Tales of Suspense (at least 21 out of 42 stories) Tales to Astonish (at least 3 out of 43 stories) 7% 0% Other Sci-Fi/Fantasy titles (none) Western All-Star Western #99 100% ? Rawhide Kid (at least 2 stories) War Battle (none) 0% Other Genres (none) 0% Superhero Amazing Adventures (Vol. 2) #1-4 (Inhumans) 100% Amazing Spider-Man #8 (Spidey/Torch back-up) 100% Astonishing Tales #1-2 (Ka-Zar) 100% 100% Avengers #1-8, 14-16 Captain America #100-109, 112 100% Daredevil #12-13 100% 100% Fantastic Four #1-102, 108, Annual #1-6 Incredible Hulk #1-5 (6 out of 9 stories) 67% Journey Into Mystery #83-125, Annual #1 (all but 3 Thor stories) 92% (all but 6 Tales of Asgard stories) 79% Silver Surfer #18 100% Strange Tales #101-105, 108, 109, 114, 120 (3 out of 9 Torch stories) 33% #135-153 (all Nick Fury stories) 100% Tales of Suspense #39-41, 43 (1 out of 4 Iron Man stories) 25% #59-75, 77-86, 92-99 (all but 4 Cap stories) 89% Tales to Astonish #27, 35-40, 44, 49-51 (5 out of 11 Ant-Man stories) 45% #68-83 (all but 1 Hulk story) 94% #82-83 (only 1 of 2 Sub-Mariner stories) 50% Thor #126-up (all Thor, Asgard & Inhumans stories) 100% X-Men #1-17 100% Sci-Fi/Fantasy Chamber of Darkness #4-5 (at least 1 story) 50% War Sgt. Fury #1-7, 13 100% Superhero (mostly) Demon #1-16 100% First Issue Special #6 (1 out of 3 stories) 33% Forever People #1-8 (8 out of 11 stories) 73% Justice, Inc. #2-4 100% Kamandi #1-40 100% Kobra #1 100% Mister Miracle #1-18 100% New Gods #1-11 (all except back-ups from 4, 5, 7, 8) 99% OMAC #1-8 100% Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter #3 100% Sandman #1, 4-6 100% Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (none) 0% Sci-Fi/Fantasy Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion (none) 0% Weird Mystery Tales #1-3 (no montage from #2) 99% War Our Fighting Forces #151-162 100% Superhero Black Panther #1-12 100% Captain America (#193-200 only) 33% Devil Dinosaur #1-9 100% Eternals #1-4, 15-19, Annual 1 50% Fantastic Four #236 (Kirby story not published) 0% Machine Man #1-9 100% Marvel Treasury Special: Bicentennial Battles (none) 0% Silver Surfer Graphic Novel (publ. in 6 installments) 100% Super-Villain Classics #1 (1983) 100% 2001 Treasury Edition (none) 0% 2001: A Space Odyssey 100% What If? #11 (none) 0% Superhero Captain Victory (at least #1-4, in oversize format) 29% DC Comics Presents #84 (none) 0% Destroyer Duck (none) 0% Heroes Against Hunger #1 (none) 0% Hunger Dogs Graphic Novel (none) 0% New Gods #6 (none) 0% Silver Star #1-5 (not #6) 83% Super Powers Vol. 1, #5 100% Super Powers Vol. 2. (at least #1-2) 33%
(above) The Jan. 6, 1996 edition of Libération—one of the main daily French newspapers—had articles about scientists exhibiting the first real samples of anti-matter, created in the particle laboratory at Cern in Geneva. They chose to use this Kirby FF #62, page 8 splash (a Negative Zone story) to illustrate it! (below) A Thing drawing by French artist René Hausman, part of “Jack Kirby: Hommages,” a non-profit tribute book dedicated to Jack. Several European artists drew Kirby characters for this book, which was published earlier this year in France.
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An American Devil In Paris A tale of Jack Kirby’s quarrels with the French censors, by Frédéric Fougère he road to French fandom was a tortuous and stormy one for the King’s creations. At the end of the sixties, after the most important Paris comic book publishers (e.g. Hachette and Dargaud) turned down an offer to publish a bunch of Marvel series, it was doubtful they could find a road at all. At that time, French comics (bandes dessinées) fell into two classes: Large format hardcover albums of quality series (sold in bookshops), of which Tintin is both the inspiring father and the best example; and what has come to be known as train-station comics— anonymous, fast-written and hurriedly-drawn stories published in black-&-white on cheap paper in softcover booklets, filling train station paper stalls with their numerous color covers and improbable names. The former were the ones any good parent would wish their kid to be involved with, and the latter would have to be read with a flashlight under the blanket. It’s not surprising that the first category would refuse to accept American comic books within its carefully guarded sanctuary, and that a small publisher named Lug, which had until then specialized in train-station comics, would enthusiastically accept to publish them. As Claude Vistel, former managing director of Lug, recalls, “It was something completely new and we liked it straight away.” Soon a new Lug magazine named Fantask was launched, which included such great stuff as Spider-Man, Buscema’s Surfer and, of course, Jack Kirby’s FF. Quite new to Lug Editions (and to all paper stall comics), this magazine was printed in color. You can imagine the treat for the readers of those first Fantask issues (1969). Alas, this blessed age of innocence was to be a short one. Fantask was cancelled after only seven issues, for reasons stemming from French legislation for youth publications. To understand the untimely death of the early Lug superhero titles, one needs to take a closer look at the way the French law envisions publishing, and especially the publishing of books for young people.
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The Sentry Sinister: A Closer Look At French Censorship
visions as a whole were harmful to juvenile sensibility.” But even banning a magazine for people under 18 is quite serious, since it may lead stall-keepers to refuse to sell it. The following Lug magazine, Marvel, which again featured the early FF, was banned for sale to the people under 18; this led to its cancellation after 13 issues in April 1971. In the following years, the CSC would keep a close watch on every Lug monthly publication; the FF and the Thing in particular were one of their chief concerns, and Claude Vistel was frequently called to defend her books before them. Lug eventually found a solution that kept them out of trouble; they separated the Fantastic Four from the other series and published them in large format quarterly albums. The albums were not checked by the CSC because the publishers were not obliged to send them for examination. Regardless, those first problems played a crucial part in the subsequent amount of effort Lug devoted to avoiding another flame of censorship from the CSC.
Beware The Green Teddybears From Hell After those difficult first years, it was some time before Lug had serious problems with the CSC again. And believe it or not, it was because of Kirby once more! In 1977, the Lug publication Strange welcomed a new Kirby series called Les Eternels. The August issue included “The Devil in New York” (Eternals #3) without modification, and must have prompted some remarks from the CSC. This time Lug tried to anticipate the CSC’s move, making the series look like a real Christmas tale for kids, and the Deviants like big green teddybears! But, in spite of preventive measures, Lug still got insistent urges from the CSC to cancel the series, which they finally did. The “Night of the Demons” issue (#4) was the last Kirby story Lug tampered with (afterwards they mostly turned away from Kirby’s work). At the end of that episode (Strange #93), it read: Dear readers: The insistent and repeated warnings of the Commission de Surveillance et de Contrôle prompt us to cancel the series les Eternels of our own initiative. Until we find a story that would be publishable in France, we shall feature a second Spider-Man episode, which will help make up the delay with the American edition, which many of you complain about.
In France, all periodic publications meant for children and teenagers are subject to Law #49-256—which dates back to July 16, 1949! Eternals #4, with and without censored Deviants. The keystone of this law is the Commission de Surveillance et de Contrôle (CSC), a commission meant to watch and control what gets published for young people In a subsequent issue of Strange, due to questions from frustrated throughout France. This commission’s main job is to check that books readers, Lug came back to the reasons for the Eternals’ cancellation: published satisfy the requirements of the law, and to point out the It appeared to us that the Deviants might shock the members of the would-be violations to the Department of the Interior. The Commission Commission. We did not want to risk the banning of Strange. may recommend any of the following penalties for the offenders: Even though such concern for the monstrosity of characters does 1) banning the sale of the books to people under 18 seem a little way-out today, it is quite understandable since the CSC 2) banning their display in public and their advertisement on posters consisted of people aged 65 to 70 who knew nothing about comics. 3) banning their advertisement in papers, magazines, or on radio Claude Vistel claims that, had there not been any threat, there would 4) the pure and simple banning of the books outright have been no censoring on Lug’s part: “It is so much more complicated Fantask was outright banned by the CSC, due to “its terrifying scienceto censor than to publish a story just as it is.” It is not easy to determine fiction, traumatizing monster fights, atmosphere of anguish and the what censorship was recommended by the CSC and what came from violently colored drawings of its tales.” They claimed “its nightmarish Lug as a preventive. In Vistel’s words, “We cut out the onomatopoeia; 38
the sounds particularly shocked the Commission, since they do emphasize violence a great deal. We sometimes cut out entire drawings or pages; for instance, when a fight extended over three pages, we would get it down to one page.” She acknowledges that Lug tampered with certain drawings more severely, modifying them “when the faces were too twisted and monstrous.” Though the CSC’s official mission was to ensure the books remained within the bounds of morality and legality, its members were prone to go beyond this, often finding the characters “ugly and grotesque” and making aesthetic judgements about the series under examination. As far as Kirby’s work is concerned, what always made the members of the CSC frown were the FF, and specifically old Benjy. As for the part Lug itself played in this censorship, there is no reason to doubt that there was indeed a definite threat on their books in the early years. It was survival that motivated Lug to censor stories, a practice that might have gotten a bit excessive later on, as times changed and the CSC softened its stance a little. (However let us not forget that the Eternals were pushed out of Strange by the CSC, as late as 1977!) Still later, this survival concern was probably mixed with sincere feelings that some books were too violent (particularly Frank Miller’s work on Daredevil and Wolverine). Claude Vistel herself acknowledges, “We would never have published the very violent comics, out of ethical concern.” This can hardly be relevant to Kirby, who must simply have fallen victim to some antiquated view of what kind of reading should be offered to teenagers, kept artificially alive by the overall inertia of French law. On the other hand, without this misplaced outburst of primness, who knows? The unforgettable FF albums might never have seen the light of day. ✪ Frédéric Fougère has been cursed with the burden of sacred initials and orange rock-like skin, and to ceaselessly walk the streets wearing nothing but blue shorts. He hasn’t met any good-looking blind sculptresses, yet.
The King In France by Philippe Touboul have been impressed by Jack Kirby’s work since I was ten years old, but for the sake of this article I decided to ask around for some feedback on the way the King is perceived in our country. Working in an import comic book shop, it was relatively easy to find people having interest in his work, and after some hours of nostalgic discussion it appeared that many of those experiences were very close to my own: Long before discovering the original US comic books, a lot of French teenagers had been stricken by the powerful drawings of the giant-size reprints of les quatre fantastiques (Fantastic Four). To these kids, Kirby became a star not only because he worked on all those extraordinary Marvel characters (Thor, the X-Men, and Captain America were available to us on a fairly regular basis), but also because his drawings leaped from the pages in a far more powerful way than those of the other artists. For almost everyone I talked to (mainly fans around 25), Kirby was the first artist they differentiated from the others, looking up his name and collecting the publications it showed up in. Carl Barks has been known as the good Duck artist, but for us Kirby was the good American Super-Hero artist. A lot of French collectors also remember the unfair treatment Kirby’s work has suffered from, on a repeated and almost systematic basis. All the fans I talked to keep vivid memories of the frustration they felt, not being able to fully explore the richness of Kirby’s most personal creations such as the Eternals, because of censorship. But perhaps this controversial aspect of the King’s style only strengthened the interest of many collectors. In fact, we can only smile nowadays as we are witnessing the long delayed recognition of the universal quality of his contribution to the art form. Today the mark of the King is less perceptible on the younger generations of French fans, who prefer ultra-violent, manga-style kinds of stories. But one can’t help but notice that, twenty years after the great precursors of science-fiction comics such as Moebius or Philippe Druillet, a lot of artists have incorporated into their more classical European layouts elements of storytelling created and developed in the US by Kirby. Thus, the legacy lives on this side of the Atlantic, the great comics of yesteryear being fondly remembered by those who had the luck to be young when they were first translated, and new production flourishing which at last takes into account the titanic work of the man who remains the greatest master of the field. ✪
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Philippe Touboul read too many comics when he was a kid, and must now redeem himself by working in a comic book shop. Let this be a warning to future generations. 39
The Black Panther debuted in France in Album #3 of Les Fantastiques. These French reprint albums were published quarterly some 23 years ago, on good paper at large size (the regular European graphic novel size). They reprinted the FF comics, 4 stories at a time, beginning with FF #44 to the end of the Kirby period, skipping just one issue and putting FF #72 in the wrong chronological place. Instead of Kirby covers, they featured new covers painted by a French artist, inspired by one of the original covers of the issues being reprinted. These albums remain affordable in France, between $10-$50 per book.
The 1984 French Sandman album included a reprint of Simon & Kirby’s first Manhunter story from Adventure Comics #73.
Le Roi Des Comics A French publishing history of the Fantastic One, by Nicolas Waldmann t is an unmistakable fact: Jack Kirby is the cornerstone of comicdom as we know it today. He is the pioneer and inspiration to all modern artists. From space opera to horror, from mythology to technology, from war to magic, Jack has graced every field of reality and imagination. Over the last few decades, the adventures of Jack’s heroes have dazzled millions of readers around the world. As far as France is concerned, some of Jack’s most famous characters such as the X-Men and the FF introduced French readers to modern style superheroes. However, a few truths should be known about France. Jack Kirby remains mostly known in France for his creations at Marvel and DC Comics. Apart from a few scattered Challengers of the Unknown stories published in the very early 1970s in Aventures Fiction (a pocket-sized publication), and a late compilation of the early adventures of the Sandman, very few of the characters created by Kirby before the 1960s ever reached the French public. Kirby gained eternal recognition following the 1973 release of the first graphic novel of the FF (known in France as Les Fantastiques). The limited availability of US comic books in France at that time, combined with the tailoring of FF stories to French publishing standards (roughly Graphic Novel format) contributed to the large popularity of Kirby in the 1970s (though most fans probably did not know
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Jack makes his point at the 14th San Diego Comic-Con, in this cameo appearance in Stan Drake & Leonard Starr’s comic “Kelly Green,” which was translated into French in 1987. Also in this sequence were SDCC founder Shel Dorf, Will Eisner, and the late Burne Hogarth. the artist’s name). During the second half of the ’70s, black-&-white pocket-size publications featured adventures of Kirby heroes that did not make it to the pages of Strange, such as The Demon, Kamandi and Thor. However, due to the small size of each issue, stories had to be reformatted to fit the pages. Pocket-sized magazines also published later Kirby stories left out by Strange such as 2001 and Devil Dinosaur. The irregular publishing schedule in France across various magazines of different sizes made it very difficult to collect and follow the exact chronology of stories, especially Thor, which was featured in no particular order in at least three different formats over a period of 10 years. Apart from a scattered one-shot adaptation of Captain Victory and a few issues of Silver Star, Kirby disappeared from the French comics scene during the mid-’80s. It is interesting to note, however, that France is one of the countries where a collected version of Kirby’s Black Hole adaptation was published in the early ’80s. His name, however, was not even mentioned in the book. Another significant landmark of the period was the release of the November 1987 issue of Les Cahiers de la Bande Dessinée, almost fully devoted to the life and work of Jack Kirby. The cover, however, featured Captain America illustrated by John Romita! During the ’80s, the growth in the number of comics retail outlets, mostly in Paris, contributed to the emergence of a French market for comic books. However, interest in Kirby stories remained low and Kirby books were mainly sought after by collectors. As for today, although new Kirby collectors can mostly be found among readers with sufficient exposure to the comic book medium, regular homage paid to Jack by most artists has led readers to find out about the man whose inspiration can be felt in every shining armor of Image Comics and behind Marvel’s and DC’s yearly cosmic dramas. These new readers may also be driven by the curiosity to learn more about the man who, after all, is at the origin of most of the popular superheroes of today. Also, news of the death of a famous artist always attracts purchasers for various reasons ranging from curiosity to speculation. Finally, reasonable selling prices and the availability of most of the ’70s Kirby books are also an important factor of the renewed interest in Jack’s work. If, according to a French philosopher, eternal life is to be found in the memories and stories left and told by future generations to another, then there is no doubt that Jack is going to be around for a long time—in fact, probably as long as people are interested in stories about real life, wonderful and noble heroes, once inspired to a man who was just earning his living. ✪
Kirby’s French series published in pocket-size editions sometimes had backgrounds added and extended to accommodate the different format (like this page from Kamandi #6). If you’ve ever wondered what went on in Jack’s backgrounds beyond the panel borders, here’s your chance to find out! 40
Wars on a big screen, either! The point is that many of us “old folks” take things for granted. Jack Kirby’s career covered six decades and produced thousands of pages. TJKC serves as more than just a review forum. It’s a library of words and pictures that can be enjoyed by seasoned fans as well as inform curious new ones. If not here, then where can this information be found? Rich Vitone, Chicago, IL
Collector Comments Send your letters to: The Jack Kirby Collector c/o TwoMorrows • 502 Saint Mary’s St • Raleigh, NC 27605 or E-mail to: twomorrow@aol.com Thanks for your patience while we took a month off between issues; we needed it to read the flood of letters we got regarding Steve Rude’s letter in TJKC #11! To say that Steve struck a nerve with some fans would be a major understatement:
(As an long-time Kirby fan, I can relate to Steve’s attitude; after all, who among us doesn’t enjoy learning previously unknown facts about Jack? While I don’t think he meant his comments to be taken as harshly as some folks did, Rich sums up exactly how I see TJKC: As an ongoing tribute to Jack that will hopefully expose more people to his genius.Thanks to everyone who wrote expressing their support of our current mix of retrospective articles, behind-the-scenes features and interviews, which looks to be the format we’ll be sticking with for the foreseeable future. But don’t worry: We’ll keep digging for more Kirby “secrets” and run them every chance we get.)
Please continue publishing information that may bore Steve Rude to tears. It can only draw in younger fans just discovering a true comics giant. Mike Roberts, Bixby, OK I, for one, enjoy the mix of known/unknown Kirby info you’ve been putting together. Sure, there are lots of us who know lots of things about Jack and his work, but there’s at least as many, if not more, folks out there who don’t! It works, don’t fix it! I also like the fact that you’re not hung up on only using unpublished art! The majority of it is not Kirby’s best (perhaps why it was unpublished in the first place). Since your purpose is to spread the word about why Jack is “King of the Comics,” why not showcase his best stuff? Tom Morehouse, Garfield, NJ
Jim Steranko’s article about inking reminds me of some things Jack (and Roz) had to say about it. I’m with Jim as far as preferring Jack’s own inking on his pencils. When Mike Thibodeaux was inking Jack and I helped fill in blacks, we loved Jack’s old ’50s inking so much, we used to leave some lines in the blacks for the color to show through (as Steranko describes, and did himself on the Stuntman piece). But Jack himself didn’t like the practice anymore (during the early 1980s), and told us he wanted all the blacks to be solid black. He felt the open spaces for color made the artwork look dated. About Wally Wood, Roz said, “He makes Jack look like real art!” Both Jack and Roz thought highly of him. Jack had mixed feelings about Vince Colletta. He felt Vince was fine, but he said that Colletta employed “a regular factory” of helpers who didn’t always stick to the highest standards. I made the mistake of criticizing George Bell’s inking to Jack. He responded, “Inky Roussos? You don’t like Inky’s stuff? I thought he did fine!” Turns out “George Bell” was a pseudonym for George Roussos, an old hat at comics work and at inking Jack in particular in the ’40s and ’50s. Armed with that knowledge, and looking back over the FFs and Sgt. Furys he inked, it does look like early Kirby! Looking at issue #11, I have one complaint: The size of some of the reproductions. I would rather have seen the Lord Of Light drawings as double-page spreads, perhaps in a series of issues. Oh well, you could always still do it! Steve Robertson, Simi Valley, CA
Let me go on record as disagreeing sharply with Steve Rude’s dismissal of the articles in TJKC as “boring” and “uninformative.” Steve’s complaint assumes that “we all know” the stuff in the articles already, but I’m not so sure about that. We may think we know, or may know it one way, but the richness of Kirby’s work invites more than one way of understanding, more than one avenue of interpretation. I don’t think most of the retrospective articles are aimed at neophytes; I think they’re aimed at seasoned readers, to get us thinking about familiar subjects in new, not-so-familiar ways. The goal, it seems to me, is to nudge us out of our accustomed, complacent ways of looking at Kirby’s work, and into entertaining fresh views on the subject. This kind of re-thinking is valuable even when the object of attention is some familiar Marvel or DC superhero book—in fact, it’s especially helpful with such books (e.g., Fantastic Four), because most often they have been viewed through the filters of “official” corporate history, rather than seen as aspects of Kirby’s whole career. Certainly your FF issue provided such a welcome reassessment of its subject: The articles by Darcy Sullivan and Richard Kyle, for instance, helped me see the FF in new and illuminating ways. Yes, TJKC is a reverent, frankly celebratory ’zine, the kind you want to goggle at and savor like a good comic—but it is also a resource for future scholars of Kirby’s work. It’s that added dimension, the critical dimension, which makes TJKC more than just a nostalgia ’zine. TJKC is essential reading for comics scholars as well as a tasty, attractive package. Steve’s comics work shows a keen understanding of Kirby’s craft, but I think there are other, equally valid ways to show an understanding and appreciation of Kirby. Since Kirby was an original thinker as well as a great cartoonist, there’s ample room for essays which place his various works (both famous and obscure) within the context of his personal vision. Kirby’s ideas and preoccupations, no less than his awesome artwork, reward patient critical effort. TJKC has achieved a happy balance of gosh-wow enthusiasm and strong scholarship, and I for one would hate to lose this rare combination. Charles Hatfield, Storrs, CT
(Thanks for the comments on inkers, Steve. And you may yet see those Lord Of Light drawings at large size—how’s that for an ominous mention of things to come?!) DINGBATS ALERT! In Adventures of Superman #521 (March 1995) there was a very fun cameo of the Dingbats of Danger Street. Now I have created “The Dingbats of Danger Street Admiration Society,” a non-profit, unofficial fan club dedicated to Jack, the Dingbats, and all those wonderful Kid Gangs! Anyone can join just by sending 50¢ and a 6" x 9" SASE for their cool-as-cool membership kit. Jim Beard, 6625 Wickford Sq. #28, Sylvania, OH 43560 (Speaking of clubs, does anybody out there have a copy of ComicScope #1, a fanzine which was published by a group called the International Comic Club in East Point, Georgia around 1972? It was supposed to have an interview with Jack in it, and two articles about his Fourth World series. Please send photocopies if you have it!) NEXT ISH: It’s monsters, magic, and mystery in our special Supernatural Theme Issue! #13 is a lucky number as we spotlight Jack’s work on spooky subjects, starting off with a new interview with (and cover inks by) DICK AYERS, inker of Jack’s pre-hero monster books! We’ll also feature a 1975 interview featuring Jack and Walter Gibson (creator of The Shadow)! Plus there’ll be special features on The Demon, The Hulk, Atlas Monsters, Black Magic, Simon & Kirby’s Golden Age Vision, Spirit World, and a section on costumes that Jack designed for various characters over the years (showing some original concept sketches that will surprise you!). And throughout, we’ll display pencils from Jack’s books BEFORE they were inked, show plenty of unpublished art from the Kirby archives and private collections, and more. We’ll see you in sixty! Until then; be afraid. Be VERY afraid!!
I’ve got to object to part of Steve Rude’s letter in TJKC #11. His description of most of the articles as being “boring, uninformative... and a colossal waste of time...” is at least selfish and at most short-sighted. He is, after all, an artist, so of course he would prefer visuals over text. But, does he seriously think that everyone knows everything about Jack and his output? I’ve been collecting comics since 1962, selling them to make my living since ’76, and I learn something in every issue of TJKC. Steve should ask around at cons and see for himself just how low the level of knowledge of comics history is among kids. There are smart teens who have never heard of Will Eisner or Al Williamson, and who wouldn’t know the difference between pages by Steve Ditko and Wally Wood. These same kids have never seen Flynn’s Robin Hood, or Casablanca, or Touch of Evil, or The Wild Bunch. Some have never seen Star
COPYRIGHTS: Capt. America, Red Skull, Capt. Britain, Baron Zemo, Galactus, Ant-Man, Hulk, Bucky, Dr. Doom, Thor, Loki, Iron Man, Wasp, Sharon Carter/Agent 13, Nick Fury, Steve Rogers, Machine Man, Silver Surfer, Crystal, Human Torch, Lockjaw, Rick Jones, Yellow Claw, Black Rider, Jimmy Woo, Toro, Sub-Mariner, Union Jack, Invisible Girl, Thing, Dr. Strange, Spider-Man, Mr. Fantastic, Fantastic Four, Angel, Watcher, Eternals, Deviants, Black Panther, Ikaris © Marvel Entertainment Group • Mr. Miracle, Granny Goodness, Orion, Mark Moonrider, Jimmy Olsen, Big Barda, Boy Commandos, Superman, Demon, Batman, Sandman, Sandy, Guardians, Brooklyn, Kamandi, Challengers of the Unknown, Green Arrow, Speedy, Manhunter, Oberon, New Gods, Blue Beetle © DC Comics, Inc. • Capt. Victory and the Galactic Rangers © Jack Kirby • Uncle Giveaway, Bullseye, Fighting American, Speedboy, Yuscha Liffso, Sawdoff © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby • Young Gods © Barry Windsor-Smith • Kelly Green © Stan Drake & Leonard Starr • Green Hornet and Kato © The Green Hornet • Link Thorne, Airboy © Hillman Periodicals • Shield/Private Strong, The Fly © Archie Publications, Inc. • Capt. 3-D © Harvey Publications, Inc.
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$29 plus S/H. Ray Spivey, 512-3384971 evenings, CST. ______________________________
Classifieds (10¢ per word, 10 word minimum) ______________________________ WANTED: The Marvelmania Portfolio. I am willing to pay the highest prices possible. Contact - Brian Postman, #2A, 238 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010 or call: (212)213-6242. ______________________________ WANTED: Sgt. Fury Annual #1, Sgt. Fury #2, Battle #64-70. Any condition, Xeroxes OK. Need for TJKC articles. Jon B. Cooke, P.O. Box 601, West Kingston, RI 02892-0601. 401-7824571. E-mail: JonBCooke@aol.com ______________________________ GREEN HORNET STRIKES. Jim Steranko signed/limited print. Only
WANTED: Argosy Magazine, Volume 3, #2, which featured Jack Kirby’s “Street Code” story. Write to: M. Lee, 7356 W. Beverly Blvd. #2, Los Angeles, CA 90036. ______________________________ WANTED: Kirby reprints for READING: Challengers #76, 80 (will trade #72, 77), Super DC Giant #S-25 (Challengers). K. Groeneveld, 177 N. Congress, Athens, OH 45701. ______________________________
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COMIC TEST COVERS: Mr. Miracle, Kamandi, others. Limited DC cover approvals $10-$25 each. Ray Spivey, PO Box 27274, Austin, TX 78755, (512)338-4971 CST evenings. ______________________________
Celebrating the life and career of the King!
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TJKC Is Trying To Locate MIKE RICE (Who Lived In California In The 1970S) For Info On “Galaxy Green.” Please Help Us Find Him If You Can! THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #12 A TWOMORROWS ADVERTISING PRODUCTION IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE KIRBY ESTATE EDITED BY JOHN MORROW DESIGN & LAYOUT BY JOHN & PAMELA MORROW PROOFREADING BY RICHARD HOWELL COVER COLOR BY TOM ZIUKO CONTRIBUTORS: GER APELDOOR FABIO PAOLO BARBIERI MARK CARTWRIGHT JEFF CLEM PATRICIO ALBERTO COCARO JON B. COOKE WILSON COSTA de SOUZA SHEL DORF GUSTAVO FERRARI SHANE FOLEY FRÉDÉRIC FOUGÈRE ANDREA GIBERTI DAVID HAMILTON CHRIS HARPER ED HATTON JOE HEFFERNAN RICHARD HOWELL STEVE HURLEY ILIAS THAM K.S. MIKE KIDSON EDUARDO LÓPEZ LAFUENTE TRISTAN LAPOUSSIÈRE MARTIN LUND ANDREW MACKLER HAROLD MAY MIKE McLESTER MARK MILLER BRET MIXON DAVID MORRIS MARK A.P. MULLER RAY OWENS MARK PACELLA PHILIPPE QUEVEAU DAN REED STEVE ROBERTSON GORDON ROBSON STEVE SHERMAN CARL TAYLOR DANIEL TESMOINGT GREG THEAKSTON PHILIPPE TOUBOUL NICHOLAS WALDMANN CORD WILJES EREZ YAKIN TOM ZIUKO SPECIAL THANKS TO JOHN BYRNE GARY CARLSON SHEL DORF MARK EVANIER D. HAMBONE CHRIS HARPER RICHARD HOWELL MARK PACELLA STEVE SHERMAN DAVID SPURLOCK ROGER STERN GREG THEAKSTON BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH MARV WOLFMAN TOM ZIUKO & OF COURSE ROZ KIRBY MAILING CREW GLEN MUSIAL ED STELLI PATRICK VARKER BOB PERMER AND THE OTHER KIRBY FANS IN RALEIGH, NC
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Is This An Unused Simon & Kirby Page?
© 1996 Big Bang Comics
Nope! They’re pencils from The Badge, a loving tribute to all those Simon & Kirby characters of the 1940S, now appearing in Big Bang Comics! Big Bang pays homage to the characters and creators you grew up reading, by featuring new sto ries done in the classic styles of your favorite Go lden and Silver Age comics!! You’ll notice these new c harac ters look remarkably familiar, as you thrill to the exploits of the Knight Watchman (a la Bob Kane), Ultiman (a Siegel and Shuster tribute), Mighty Man (with a tip of the hat to C.C. Beck), and many mo re! And these new stories are so lovingly put together, you’ll think yo u’re reading an o ld comic!! Big Bang is published by Image Comics, and is available monthly in comics shops worldwide, or you can o rder back issues belo w! If you’re ready to put the fun back into reading comics, yo u’ll get a blast out of Big Bang Comics! O rder to day!!
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COMICS HAVEN’T BEEN THIS MUCH FUN IN 50 YEARS!
Please check items yo u wish to o rder:
Volume 1 (from Caliber Press, 1994-95) ❏ Big Bang #0: GOLDEN AGE Knight Watchman, Dr. Weird, Thunder Girl - $2.50 each ❏ Big Bang #1: GOLDEN AGE Badge, Venus, Knight Watchman, Beacon - $2.50 each ❏ Big Bang #2: GOLDEN AGE Ultiman, The Blitz, The Human Sub - $2.50 each Big Bang #3: SOLD OUT! ❏ Big Bang #4: 1990s versions of Ultiman, Galahad, Thunder Girl, Megaton - $2.50 each Knight Watchman: Graveyard Shift (1990s version) ❏ #1 ❏ #2 - $3.50 each Dr. Weird (1990s version!) ❏ #1 ❏ #2 - $3.50 each ❏ Dr. Weird Special - $4.50 each Volume 2 (from Image Comics, 1996) ❏ Big Bang #1: GOLDEN AGE Mighty Man, Knight Watchman - $3.00 each ❏ Big Bang #2: GOLDEN AGE Knight Watchman/Shadowhawk Team, The Badge - $3.00 each ❏ Big Bang #3: SILVER AGE Knight Watchman/Ultiman Team, G.A. Thunder Girl - $3.00 each ❏ Big Bang #4: GOLDEN AGE All-Star homage, incl. The Badge and others - $3.00 each
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Captain Victory © Jack Kirby
Jack drew this Captain Victory art for a 1980s French portfolio. Inks by Michael Thibodeaux. Color by Tom Ziuko.