Jack Kirby Collector #29 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Fully Authorized By The Kirby Estate

$5.95

In The US

68-PAGE ISSUE SPOTLIGHTING KIRBY’S 1970S MARVEL WO RK!

ISSUE #29, AUG. 2000 Feature-Length Unpublished Interview with

Jack and Roz Kirby As they discuss their early years together

Keith Giffen & Rich Buckler Talk about the Kirby influence on their 1970s work

Mike Gartland’s

A Failure To Communicate 1970s Marvel

Cover Gallery showing Jack’s uninked pencils

Kirby’s trials & Tribulations At

1970s Marvel Art From

Machine Man Black Panther Capt. America Devil Dinosaur Eternals And others

The Debut Of A

New Regular Column examining Comics influenced by The King

Unpublished Art including published pages Befo re They Were Inked, And Much Mo re!! Avengers and related characters TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

C o l l e c t o r

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL COMICS STORIES BY THE INDUSTRY’S TOP TALENT. TM

SERGIO ARAGONÉS

PAUL CHADWICK

WALTER SIMONSON

RICK VEITCH

ROY THOMAS & JOHN SEVERIN

JACK KIRBY

BRENT ANDERSON

GRAY MORROW

FEATURING “UFO POV”, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH’S FIRST NEW COMICS STORY SINCE 1997! ALSO FEATURES: JACK KIRBY’S CLASSIC “STREET CODE” COMPLETELY REMASTERED, ART SPIEGELMAN’S ORIGINAL SHORT STORY “MAUS”, & MORE! JOE KUBERT • EVAN DORKIN • BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH

NICK CARDY

160-PAGE TRADE PAPERBACK NOW SHIPPING • PAINTED COVER BY STEVE RUDE FOREWORD BY WILL EISNER • $19.95 ($23 CANADA, $30 ELSEWHERE)

TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom. TwoMorrows Publishing • 1812 Park Dr. • Raleigh, NC 27605 USA • 919-833-8092 • FAX: 919-833-8023 • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

Issue #29 Contents You Can’t Go Home Again .................4 (a look inside 1970s Marvel) Captain, My Captain ..........................7 (the best Cap tale Jack ever did?) Conversations With Jack ..................1 2 (Ray Wyman shares a delightful chat with Jack and Roz Kirby) It Started On Yancy Street................2 2 (Alan Kupperberg takes us down his long & winding road of Kirby comics) Keith Giffen Interview......................2 4 (Lobo’s creator talks straight about Kirby & the current comics industry) NEW FEATURE: Kirby As A Genre..3 2 (Adam McGovern begins his new regular column about other artists’ works that are influenced by the King) CENTERFOLD: Devil Dinosaur .......3 4 (this one’s for you, Randy Hoppe!) Jack Who? ........................................3 6 (to put it mildly: they didn’t like Kirby) Rich Buckler Interview .....................3 8 (the self-described “chameleon” talks about his Kirby influences) Where Have All The Villains Gone?...4 3 (was Arnim Zola the best Kirby could come up with?) 1970s Cover Gallery .........................4 6 (gobs of Kirby’s 1970s Marvel covers, still in their original pencil form!) Tips for Frugal Kirby Collectors.......5 3 (you don’t have to spend a fortune to read Kirby’s best) The Return of the King.....................5 4 (did Jack make a difference at Marvel in the 1970s?) A Failure To Communicate: Part 6 ...5 5 (Mike Gartland examines Kirby’s layout work for other Marvel artists) Collector Comments.........................6 5

ISSUE #29, AUG. 2000

THE ONLY ’ ZINE AUTHORIZED BY THE KIRBY ESTATE

Our front cover is a new Klaus Janson reinking of these back cover pencils from Marvel Treasury Edition #7, featuring the Avengers. Our back cover is inked by Joe Rubinstein, from a Kirby convention drawing of Thena of the Eternals. Our thanks to both Klaus and Joe for their superb work.

Front cover inks: Klaus Janson Back cover inks: Joe Rubinstein Cover color: Tom Ziuko Photocopies of Jack’s uninked pencils from published comics are reproduced here courtesy of the Kirby Estate, which has our thanks for their continued support.

COPYRIGHTS: Abomination, Angel, Arnim Zola, Attuma, Avengers, Baron Blood, Beast, Black Bolt, Black Knight, Black Panther, Bobby Drake, Bucky, Captain America, Crusaders, Cyclops, Daredevil, Defenders, Destroyer, Devil Dinosaur, Donna Maria, Dr. Druid, Dr. Strange, Eternals, Falcon, Fantastic Four (Thing, Mr. Fantastic, Human Torch, Invisible Girl), Ghost Rider, Giant-Man, Hawkeye, Hellcat, High Evolutionary, Hulk, Iceman, Iron Man, Juggernaut, Karkas, Leader, Liberty Legion, Machine Man, Mad Thinker, Magneto, Marvel Girl, Master Man, Miss America, Moon Knight, Moonboy, Moondragon, Mr. Little, Night Flyer, Nighthawk, Nova, Patriot, Power Man, Prof. Xavier, Quicksilver, Red Guardian, Red Rajah, Red Raven, Red Skull, Red Wolf, Reject, Rhino, Scarlet Witch, Sentinels, Spitfire, SubMariner, Super-Skrull, Swine, Thena, Thor, Tigra, Toad, Tony Stark, Toro, Triton, Ultimo, Union Jack, Valkyrie, Vision, Warren Worthington III, Wasp, Watcher, Water Wizard, Whizzer, Wonder Man, X-Men, Yellowjacket TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. • Darkseid, Orion, The Losers TM & © DC Comics • Tiger 21, Victory characters TM & © Jack Kirby Estate • The Shield/Pvt. Strong TM & © Archie Publications.

The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 8, No. 29, Aug. 2000. Published bi-monthly by & © TwoMorrows Publishing, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. 919-833-8092. John Morrow, Editor. Pamela Morrow, Asst. Editor. Eric Nolen-Weathington, Production Assistant. Single issues: $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 elsewhere). Six-issue subscriptions: $24.00 US, $32.00 Canada and Mexico, $44.00 outside North America. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All artwork is © Jack Kirby unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors. First printing. PRINTED IN CANADA.

You Can’t Go Home Again Kirby’s 1970s return to the “Snake Pit” of Marvel Comics, examined by Mike Gartland & John Morrow (Editor’s note: The following article was compiled through published accounts, and particularly through interviews with current and ex-Marvel staffers and freelancers. The goal here is not to point fingers, but simply to put together as accurate an account of Kirby’s 1970s Marvel stay as possible. Some of our requests for interviews were denied, some of our interview subjects simply couldn’t remember many details, and still others wanted to remain anonymous for fear or reprisals from within the industry, so we won’t be “naming names” here. Nevertheless, our thanks go out to all those who contributed information for this article.)

hen Jack Kirby returned to Marvel in the mid-1970s, it was because he needed a change; but he was to discover that some things never change, while others, perhaps, change too much. Although Jack returned to Marvel in the Spring of 1975, this tale’s roots actually are found in late 1973, almost two years earlier. Jack was very disappointed and upset at the cancellation of his Fourth World books, and the news of the cancellation of Mr. Miracle in late ’73 led Jack to start thinking of breaking his then-contract with DC and looking elsewhere for work. Although the matter was resolved quickly with DC, the seed of discontent was planted. Stan Lee had always wanted Jack back (he never wanted him to leave in the first place). As Kirby neared the end of his DC contract, Stan made it known publicly in interviews that Marvel would welcome Jack’s return. But Kirby still harbored resentment toward Lee, stemming from his 1960s stay at Marvel. Stan once said to a mutual friend of the two, “If only Jack wouldn’t hang up on me, I’m sure something could be worked out.” Eventually, the failure to communicate (sorry, couldn’t resist) was smoothed over. Stan told Jack that Marvel was willing to make him an offer, so Jack, still under contract, sounded DC out about a new deal. DC, it became apparent to Jack, didn’t want him to stay on in his present capacity of writer/editor. Once Jack was sure that DC wanted someone else to write with him (or for him), Jack knew he would leave, and told Marvel he was ready to hear their offer. There appears to be a time overlap, where Jack is still doing Kamandi while already having signed on with Marvel, but Jack had some backlog already done on Kamandi. Once DC knew he was going to leave, they decided to bring on Gerry Conway to indoctrinate him to the series and perhaps clean-up some dialogue; this is why Conway is credited as writer/editor on the last Kirby Kamandis. Marvel offered a contract which Jack

(above) Page 3 pencils from Captain America #213, featuring the Red Skull—the only old villain Jack brought back. (top center) A July 1970 photo of the Marvel Bullpen by Steve Sherman. In addition to a never-published cover for a comedy book called “Foops”, pinned on the wall is Kirby’s “resignation” created by Marie Severin, using one of Jack’s old cigar butts Marie found in the office. Seeing this was how many staffers first heard Kirby had left Marvel in 1970. (next page) Splash page pencils from 2001 #9, featuring Mister Machine (later renamed Machine Man).

felt was the best he could obtain at the time. What Jack wanted, to put it frankly, was to be left alone to write and edit his own stories, and have no collaborators (in the storytelling sense) or tieins with other titles done by other people. (This shows how strongly Jack was determined to never again fall victim to losing credit for his concepts or creations—the hundreds of characters and/or ideas he gave Marvel in the ’60s, and was sometimes acknowledged for.) Once Jack returned to Marvel, several projects were discussed; the results of some are made clear in the books that were published. Captain America and the Black Panther were the only Marvel characters (co-created by Jack) that Kirby agreed to return to; everything else would be new concepts, unrelated to the then-current Marvel line. Although the new creations weren’t as noticeable, Captain America and Black Panther became somewhat conspicuous by their lack of involvement with the rest of Marvel. Not only would Jack keep them detached from Marvel continuity, but with the exception of the Red Skull, no established villains were used. The two heroes became involved in an action/adventure genre that could have showcased any action hero; it was entertaining and interesting, but weird to many Marvel fans. Another Kirby book would be based not on New Gods as so many thought (and claimed), but on the then-debated topic of Von Däniken’s book Chariots of the Gods. The comic was originally to be titled Return of the Gods, but since it too closely resembled the Chariots title, it became The Eternals instead, arguably the best of the “return to Marvel” series Jack did. (Interestingly, DC used the title “Return of the New Gods” when they brought back Jack’s opus in 1976 under new creative hands in First Issue Special #13, but abandoned it when they resurrected the New Gods book with #12 in 1977, perhaps because it was also deemed too similar to Von Däniken’s novel’s title.) When Marvel purchased the rights to 2001: A Space Odyssey, it was given to Jack to reproduce as a series. The gem of this run was Jack’s “Machine Man” (originally named Mister Machine until Marvel heard from Ideal Toys about their character of the same name). He was spun-off to receive his own series. When Marvel heard that DC had TV networks interested in turning Kamandi into a Saturday morning cartoon show, they asked Jack for a proposal of their own, and Devil Dinosaur was created. This may help explain why this series reads as it does, because it was devel-

oped with children in mind; of course, many Marvel fans panned Devil Dinosaur as beneath both Jack and them, which shows just how childish some can be. These were the books Jack worked on during this period; he wrote, drew, and edited them, then handed them in to Marvel—and then the problems began. To start with, Jack was in California and Marvel was in New York. There was no way he could tell what was being done to his work in the Marvel offices until it was usually too late. Jack would come to realize that Marvel had changed drastically since he originally left in 1970. There was no Stan Lee to oversee all production; in fact, Marvel had ballooned to such proportions that no one person could possible control it. According to one Marvel staffer of the time, “It was a mess.” Marvel was now being handled by the next generation, many of whom were fans who grew up on Kirby’s work; younger, aspiring people who made the transition from fan to professional. When it was announced that Jack was returning, some of these young writers very much wanted to work with Jack. Some, on the other hand, felt that someone who left the company the way Jack did shouldn’t have been welcomed back with such enthusiasm. When it became apparent that Jack would not

work in collaboration with anyone, some shrugged and went on with their already hectic schedules; some would try and “help” Jack’s books for the sake of quality control; while others... well, there are jerks in every workplace. To state that Jack’s writing (dialogue) was an acquired taste is not insulting, but some of the young writers and editors, who thought themselves better, couldn’t stand it. When Jack’s books came into the offices, these people began doing rewrites; even though Jack was credited as editor, his books would go through another in-office editor before publication. This was standard procedure for the majority of books being done by Marvel at that time; Marvel had grown considerably since the 1960s, so it wasn’t possible for one editor to oversee so many books (Marvel’s revolving door of Editors-In-Chief didn’t help, either). Almost everyone had an associate editor, so in this respect Jack was not being singled out, but his dialogue was being altered to his chagrin, nonetheless. (It should be noted that Archie Goodwin ended up overseeing the majority of Jack’s books, during which time Jack had few complaints.) Stan Lee was still around, but only barely, as he was immersed in other Marvel-related media business. Once Jack discovered that the editorial staff was tampering with his work, he asked Lee to intervene, which he did. Stan even went so far as to review the “before” and “after” on one of Jack’s stories and agreed with Jack that the changes were arbitrary and not beneficial. It wasn’t long after that when, as one Marvel staffer put it, “The spite work began.” The letters pages of Jack’s books began to have more negative mail than positive, which would have been acceptable except that it appeared to be being done intentionally, and some of the negative letters weren’t genuine, but contrived by the staff. Other Marvel books of the time got equal or greater numbers of negative letters, but they weren’t published. Around this time, Jack began to receive hate mail on Marvel interoffice stationery; he even got phone calls suggesting that someone else should write for him. Ex-staffers recall seeing copies of his work hanging in the Marvel offices with derogatory comments and insults written on them. It all just added to Jack’s disillusionment and disgust with the industry altogether. On the letters page of Captain America #214—the last issue Jack worked on—was a sidebar noting Jack’s leaving the series and moving on to other things. Of his ’70s tenure on Cap it was written: “The two years since the return of the celebrated Mr. K have been one big roller coaster ride of incredible encounters and fantastic folks.” Do tell!! Unfortunately, in hindsight, this could be accepted as a reflection on not only what Jack’s characters were going through, but Jack as well! Jack, after spending three years at Marvel, had had it. He was 60 years old at the time and felt burned out (and burned). He felt he had done all he could, and knew he wouldn’t be renewing his contract with Marvel. Upon leaving, he likened it to a pit of snakes that eventually turn on each other. Although there were many fine and respectable talents at Marvel during Jack’s second tenure, as stated before, every job has its jerks, and Jack had to

deal with more than his share of them. Having made some inroads in the animation industry during his last year at Marvel (through his involvement on the Fantastic Four animated series of the time), Jack went full-time into the field. The pay was much better than comics, and the health insurance he received would be invaluable in dealing with his and Roz’s health problems in later years—insurance he wouldn’t have received had he stayed in comics. He found animation much more rewarding (since he didn’t have to live up to his past work there), and he was treated with more respect. There he produced literally thousands of pieces of presentation art, most of which will never be seen by his fans. That’s the ironic part of it all; because he was treated so shabbily by a few at Marvel in the 1970s—some of whom were his fans in the 1960s—we all were robbed of seeing several more years of comics stories while he was still in his penciling prime.★

Page 6 pencils from Devil Dinosaur #5.

swap spit with the lovely Latina babe), but does anyone remember the cast of the relatively recent Next Men? My opinion of Jack’s ’70s run on Captain America, even when measured against the fine work of Steve Englehart, J.M. DeMatteis, Mark Waid and others, is it still holds up pretty well both in terms of the Kirby Kanon and Pop entertainment in general. With that having been said, one must bear in mind: All of the aforementioned writers were essentially putting their own spin on someone else’s character. No one (with the exception of his former partner, Joe Simon) has the right to say Jack’s Cap was “wrong.” You could say that it wasn’t your cup of java but you can’t say, “But—Cap wouldn’t...”. That’s like saying Frank Miller was the only one who knew how to write Batman and who the hell were those Bob Kane and Bill Finger guys?

Captain, My Captain by Rex B. Ferrell have read endless reams of praise for Jack Kirby’s legendary Sixties’ tenure at Marvel, to say nothing of the extraordinary “Fourth World Saga” for DC/National. However, amidst all of the praise heaping, the comics that made me a diehard Kirby fan have been maligned, spat upon, and downright dissed! I’m talking about when Jack finally got a chance to fly solo on his own co-creation— Captain America! While I haven’t yet read the seemingly excellent compilation of the first five issues from the ’40s, I have pored over numerous reprints of the Sixties comics and found them to be action-packed episodes of jingoism masquerading as patriotism. Jack’s third tenure on the series was truly a solo effort in the writing department so there is no Joe Simon or Stan Lee to take the credit or the blame. As far as I’m concerned, the phrase “third time’s the charm” really fits in this case. My first exposure to the Kirbyworks was from those 1970s Captain Americas so I am not as enamored with the writing of Stan Lee as are other people. Although witty and melodramatic, I thought Lee’s stuff tended to get a little predictable. (I’m sorry, but Dr. Doom, Doc Ock and Dormammu all sound alike!) I don’t feel there is a way you could confuse the philosophic Darkseid with the deliciously devious Red Skull! Still, I am here to praise Kirby, not bury Stan Lee. (I like ’em both!)

Cap & The Historical United States With a character named after our country, one is faced with the reality of two Americas: The American Dream and The Historical America, the one run by a government that has not always lived up to

Jack’s Writing Style Some have said, erroneously, that “Jack couldn’t do wordsmithing,” or other such twaddle. True, at times his use of grammar was inaccurate and in other spots, his diction was off (using “destruct” instead of “destroy,” for instance), but how many times has the word “Fortuitous” been misused by some of our Pretentious Purveyors of Puke who call themselves “Writer/Artists”? (“Fortuitous” is not a synonym for “Fortunate”!) One should point out, minus the air of apology, that Jack may not have been formally trained as a writer; still, he was a voracious reader and thus, followed the prime axiom for all aspiring writers: “Duh, learn from example!” Jack had a good ear and since they were his characters, he knew how he wanted them to sound. I find his style unique, vibrant and refreshing as it holds up very nicely, twenty years later. The critically-inclined can have a field day with things such as Jack’s wacky slang or kooky names for some of his characters but they are part of what separates the work of Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, Johnny Craig, and others from the Stan Lee “Wish-l-Wuz” crowd. You see, every would-be Tolstoy should remember the first lesson from Creative Writing 101: One must never use “vogue” words. After the unpublished Soul Love fiasco from just a few years before his return to Cap, Jack must have understood this, despite pressure he may have received from the Marvel Editorial Elite. This is why, 20 years later, I can laugh at “Blazing Bullfrogs,” whereas the “Jive Turkeys” and “Sweet Christmases” by supposedly more talented writers of that era make me want to slit my wrists! The highbrows of today’s comic world can chuckle over the names of General Heshin and Donna Maria (personally, I would have loved to have seen Cap

Kirby’s action-packed pencils for Captain America #207, page 8.

the ideals it loves to exploit. It took a man who actually fought in World War II to understand what would drive someone like Captain America, if such a person truly lived. Contrary to what many modern interpreters would have you believe, I don’t think Cap would defend the American flag overseas if it is used not as a symbol of freedom but as a turf-marker for commercialism (Captain America #1, 1997). Nor do I think he would resign after witnessing corruption in one of the highest seats of government (Captain America #176, 1974). In 1941, Jack Kirby designed him to be a symbol of patriotism, but this was before Kirby himself had gone to Normandy and seen the consequences of “patriotism” (ie. Nationalism)— on all sides. With Stan Lee’s decidedly anti-communist editorial policy, of course Jack couldn’t explore anything remotely controversial in Tales of Suspense. When Jack finally returned to Cap, it was hot on the heels of Watergate and Steve Englehart’s own commentary on that national tragedy. I once read somewhere that Kirby said, “My Captain America has no identity crisis!” With a statement like that, one would wonder if Jack was out of touch. Don’t bet on it. Kirby followed up Mr. Englehart’s superb “Secret Empire Saga” with stories far more frightening; for they did not look at the headlines of the past—but in the quiet, subtle (buried?) side articles on the “page sevens” of every periodical that goes unnoticed in favor of celebrity gossip rags. I’m talking specifically about “The Madbomb Conspiracy” and to a slightly lesser extent “The Secret of File 116.”

Why File 116? As my collection is incomplete (I am missing Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, which I see as a complement to “Madbomb”), I will instead focus on my favorite story, which contains such things as “police” brutality, genetic manipulation, wealth in the service of evil, and of course, the return of The Red Skull! A synopsis of “File 116” starts off with Steve Rogers and company having dinner at a restaurant when some decidedly thuggish “policemen” try to abduct a Latin American waiter who they say is an escaped prisoner. When one of the “officers” draws Last page pencils for Captain America #207. Is it just us, or does the Swine look like John Lennon here? a weapon in the crowded restaurant, Steve and Sam but a nasty fish-like critter that “Black Lagoon”s its way out of the river Wilson get involved by subduing the men, and thus allowing the to attack our hero. Eventually, this creature does away with Santiago and waiter time to escape. Rather than return without their quarry, “the his men and is about to munch on our heroes when his master Arnim police” follow Steve home, render him unconscious with gas, and kidnap Zola shows up. Zola captures our heroes and takes them back to his him saying how much “The Swine” would enjoy breaking the spirit of living castle. Living castle? Yep, ol’ Zola is a Bio-Fanatic who loves a “super-hero.” Yeah, they discovered his costume underneath his messing around with Mother Nature like the evil, headless troll he is. street clothes. They just had no idea with whom they were dealing. Back at the home front, the Falcon (aka Sam Wilson) has decided For all they knew, it was a punk like Spider-Man, not the Living to search for the missing Cap only to stumble onto another one of Legend of World War II! Zola’s living handiworks. Sharon Carter—after many issues of badWhen they reach “The Rio de Muerte” (the River of Death) Steve mouthing Cap for being “Mr. World Saver”—upon a SHIELD agent’s does his Captain America bit and learns about Hector Santiago, the urging decides to come out of retirement and join the fray. She invesone who is called “the Swine.” The Swine is the commander of a tigates a mysterious billionaire who SHIELD believes may be funding Central American prison camp who has despotic delusions and takes the monsters in SHIELD’s “File 116.” In a another Kirby twist, we learn great pleasure in breaking the spirits of his prisoners. Through a the billionaire had been “replaced” by the diabolical Red Skull (boo-hiss)! series of battles with Santiago’s men, Captain America outwits them, It seems that File 116 has been one of the Skull’s little side projects. humiliates Santiago, and wins the admiration of Hector’s beautiful Eventually, all of the protagonists (with the exception of the Falcon cousin, Donna Maria. who had more prominent roles in the preceding “Madbomb” and All of this, we learn, is merely a prologue for an even more fantastic “Night People” storylines) wind up at Zola’s castle which is undergoing story. The River of Death is not named after the prison compound 8

a violent case of indigestion, courtesy of Cap and Donna Maria. In the course of their escape, Captain America is rendered blind after a battle with one of Zola’s savage sentries, provoking the Red Skull into gloating as if he had never done so before. When the castle goes into its death throes, SHIELD, who had been following a signal from a hidden transmitter built into Sharon’s uniform, rescues our heroes. Zola is dead, the Red Skull has been thwarted, and our heroes have triumphed, but at the temporary cost of Cap’s eyesight. Wow!

Captain America & Arnim Zola I see Arnim Zola as a dark precursor of the man of the future. An egotist so secure in his arrogant belief that he can outdo God, he goes so far as to create another body for himself! He sees sentient beings as no more than genetic material whose existence is meaningless unless it can be manipulated for his bizarre experiments. And today, with cloning, reproductive cells and body parts on sale for the highest bidder, how do we know there isn’t someone very much like Arnim Zola busily working his evil and spreading his doctrines to his disciples? When Cap and Donna Maria behold Zola and his bulbous monstrosity Doughboy, Cap, a warrior (let’s be real about it!), a veteran of countless battles, gives wise council for her and us, the spectators: “This is no longer a mere case of good guys versus bad guys! Keep your cool! (and) keep your mind free for action!”

The Swine & Donna Maria Hector Santiago,whom everyone calls “The Swine,” is the commander of a Central American prison camp who takes delight in breaking the spirits of his prisoners. One particular exercise in brutality is taking a starving man and forcing him to gorge himself with the victuals from Hector’s own birthday banquet. Hector is a Central American version of the “gangster” type that Jack was probably all too familiar with from his old neighborhood. A pint-size, two bit Hitler with a Napoleonic complex, he has a cousin, Donna Maria (whose name was either inspired by the original Donny and Marie show or Jack had been watching too many Zorro movies). She sees Hector for what he is but as she has no real power, she can only undermine his authority by smart remarks and flagrant disobedience. She awaits the arrival of a savior— “a real man” who will break Hector as he has broken so many others. However, Hector has done such a thorough hatchet job on the prisoner’s souls, when presented by Captain America with an opportunity for escape, not one of them takes it. I remember reading stories of Harriet Tubman actually having to urge-on escaping slaves at gunpoint when their desire for freedom faltered. I might be wrong, but Jack may have heard or read similar stories from survivors of the Holocaust. With this one scene, Jack demonstrates that it sometimes takes more than a red, white and blue costume to inspire freedom: You have to want it more than life itself. Eventually, Hector is destroyed not by Cap but by a monster even greater than himself— Arnim Zola’s Man-Fish. While Jack may have meant for this to be a replaying of the “bully lesson” (no matter how tough you think you are, there is always someone tougher... yeah, yeah, yeah), it could also be seen as a metaphor for current times. For we are passing the age of petty gangsters and face a greater potential evil: Cold, impersonal science in the hands of men and women without conscience. Donna Maria is the bridge between the two stories, for she and Captain America are both taken to Arnim Zola’s castle. Donna Maria proves she is no “shrieking violet” for she fights alongside Cap with an unexpected determination. She not only initiates the final escape from Zola’s castle but, aided by the later arriving Sharon Carter, she succeeds in destroying two of Zola’s creatures! Regretfully, after the conclusion of the story, we never saw her again, although she was briefly mentioned in #213. Jack left the series soon afterward and took with him Donna Maria and any subplots that might have involved her. I thought she was a very likable character, despite the goofy name.

Captain America #208, page 9.

all? He may have been an American Arnim Zola waiting to happen.

Primus & Doughboy As Captain America and Donna Maria make their first escape attempt, Arnim Zola summons a humanoid creature he calls Primus. Primus is a spawn of Doughboy and proves to be more than a match for Cap. However, as our hero is fearless, he manages to battle Primus to a standstill and even appeared to gain an advantage until Zola intervened. In imitation of Man, Primus wanted to claim Donna Maria as his own, which provokes a heated exchange between he and his master. Primus insists that unlike some of Zola’s other creatures, he is more human and thus, “deserves” the female (Donna Maria). He questions his relationship with Zola, criticizing his use of the “whistle” to control Doughboy and how he never considers the creature’s own desires. Being merely human, without the patience of the Lord God, Zola soon tires of Primus and when he dares to attempt to strike his master, Zola forces him to return to Doughboy, who in turn seems to smile his approval. Did Jack see the confrontation between Zola and Primus as a metaphor for our own questions about existence and the nature of God? Was Primus a modern day Job? Or was he Satan, the rebellious angel?

Sharon & The Red Skull If there is anything Jack has accomplished, it is finally establishing a personality for the Red Skull. I contend, with possible exception of maybe J.M. DeMatteis, no one has handled the Skull with as much finesse as Kirby. Every writer before and after Kirby have either seen the Skull as a raving racist or as “Doctor Doom-lite.” In this series, we finally see the Skull portrayed in a manner that reflects his appearance. In many of the world’s myriad cultures, when used in ritual, a human skull signifies not only death, but also ancient and dark mysteries. In the West, the color red, being the same as blood, symbolizes life itself. The combination of a “red skull” suggests eternal life and in this context, an eternal evil. As Zola dares to manipulate life itself, then how fitting that he is supported by an evil, Satanic agent that wants nothing less than the enslavement of all Humanity. Throughout the series, the Skull speaks of destiny and in a tone that suggests an ancient evil of which he is only an earthly vessel. Sharon Carter, in the hospital recovering from the effects of the gas that Hector’s police officers used to subdue her and Steve Rogers, is visited by a SHIELD official. After showing her the reports in File 116, he manages to convince her to come out of retirement and rejoin SHIELD. In the end, after all their previous arguments, Sharon realizes that Cap was right all along about doing one’s duty. It is good that she returned to action for it’s she who actually confronts the Skull on this occasion. In previous stories (including the most recent one in 1999), Sharon has been used as a pawn in the Red Skull’s little chess games with Cap; a Pearl Pureheart in Mrs. Peel’s leotards, if you will. Jack

Pencils from Cap #208, page 15.

You can say that again! When the two are captured, one could surmise that Arnim Zola planned to use them in his experiments. We later learn that Zola is not equal to the Creator for even though he has the ability to mentally control his creations, this doesn’t extend to organisms created by Nature. He can create a Man-Fish but he cannot even control a creature as simple as a fly. “You’ve told us the truth and it’s the truth that keeps all men free, isn’t it Zola?” Strong stuff; however, Kirby missed an opportunity to make an obvious comparison between Zola’s experiments and those of Dr. Erskine, Cap’s own “creator.” Captain America is just as much a creation of genetic manipulation as the Man-Fish and by extension, a product of government that was meant to be a prototype for the ultimate army. Can one imagine an army of Captain Americas in the hands of a Richard Nixon? When seen in this context perhaps the the death of Dr. Erskine wasn’t a bad thing after 10

chose a different approach on this occasion. Upon learning of Zola’s star-spangled captive, the Red Skull conceived a plan where the disembodied brain of Adolf Hitler—after having been reinstalled into a powerful new body by Zola—would wear the handsome face of Captain America, thus consigning Cap to a living death! A fiendish concept, perhaps even more than Jack realized. I assume the Skull had planned to use the resurrected Nazi as a figurehead. With the handsome face of Steve Rogers, the evil mind of Hitler, and the black heart of the Skull, this was a recipe for horror that could have made the Third Reich look like Woodstock. (Frank Miller pursued a similar theme in Elektra: Assassin, but this comparison should be reserved for The Frank Miller Collector.) Later in Zola’s living castle, a gloating Red Skull strikes the blind Captain America, and is confronted by Sharon in a scene which could have been billed as “Eve versus the Serpent, Part Two.” Sharon, the modern woman warrior, faces an ageless evil:

extraordinary circumstances and how his traditional “American” values and innate courage cause him to respond to those circumstances. With such a dynamic, it would be pointless to expect the type of grandiose dialogue as from a Darkseid/Orion exchange. But from the examples I quoted earlier, the confrontations between Cap and Arnim Zola or Sharon and the Skull contain their own brand of power within that dynamic framework.

Conclusion In the final issues of his tenure, Jack tied up most of the loose ends, although, if there is one criticism I have agreed with over the years, it’s that everything happens so quickly in Kirby stories, Jack would only treat some of his more interesting characters superficially. I for one would have liked to know how Hector Santiago got to be a prison commandant and what type of government he served (Communist, a dictatorship, or even Democratic?). If Donna Maria spoke English, where did she learn it? College? Was she a HispanicAmerican? So many questions... ah, but I guess that is the Kirby Kurse. This man had such a creative mind he managed to make even the most peripheral of characters, in his eyes, look monumental to us (like that silver-skinned hotdogger we all know and used to love!). Overall, as far as I’m concerned, “The Secret of File 116” was not only one of the most exciting comic stories ever made, but the most exhilarating Captain America saga ever! Jack did not try to preach; didn’t give us a flag waving blowhard, but gave us a world wherein everyone was an active and equal participant. Cap was not a one man army; we fought by his side! Through the adventures of Steve Rogers we saw America not as she was, nor as she is, but how she should be! And that’s some pretty funky rhetoric! ★

Sharon: “You’ll pay for that—l swear it! I’m bringing you in to stand trial for every crime you’ve ever committed! And you’ve got enough “murder ones” to make you swing on a hundred different scaffolds!” Red Skull: “Oh— to have the confidence of youth! Exercise one’s fantasies—and to reach for the stars! Foolish snip of a girl! You won’t bring me to heel! Time may do it—but never one such as yourself! I am of a kind that dares to seize the throat of a world!” Sharon: “I hope you tell that to the judge, mister!” For those who feel that after the “Fourth World,” Eternals, and even 2001, Jack’s Captain America seems lightweight, one must remember that the world of Steve Rogers has always been about an ordinary (super-soldier serum, aside) man’s confrontations with

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Conversations With Jack: Roz & Jack (Part I) Based on interviews from August 1989 through June 1992 Compiled and edited by Ray Wyman, Jr. Copyright ©1999-2000 by Ray Wyman, Jr. (During my extensive interviews with Jack for The Art of Jack Kirby, every so often Roz would walk into the living room where Jack and I had set up camp and join the conversation. On some of those occasions we would get into a discussion about how they met, their life together, and other family matters. Roz also had a better grasp of dates, so her input had the effect of keeping Jack “honest.” I have taken many of these impromptu moments and treated them as one contiguous interview. The reader will hopefully enjoy the very candid and wonderful examples of their relationship as did I.—Ray Wyman) ROZ KIRBY: How are you guys doing? JACK KIRBY: We are running the range of comics here. RAY WYMAN: You want to stick around? Give us some pointers? ROZ: I’ll keep this guy honest. You never know what will come out of his mouth. RAY: You’re going to keep him honest? ROZ: You know what I mean. He’ll say anything. JACK: I’ll just blab the whole thing. RAY: Okay. Well, I’ll keep it simple today. Let’s start with how you two met. ROZ: You want to know when we met? RAY: How, when, where, you know. For posterity, Roz. I want to know all the sordid details. JACK: Oh, there’s no mystery. ROZ: Well, I’m not telling you everything. RAY: We’ll see. Actually, I’ll just wait until you’re out of the room and ask Jack the juicy stuff. JACK: Oh, there’s plenty of that. ROZ: The first time… well, Jack was living in Brooklyn in this two-

A 1985 shot of Jack in his home studio. Photo by James Van Hise.

story, kind of brownstone house. His family lived downstairs, and we moved upstairs. I was just a little over 17 years old, and Jack was 5 years older. The first time I saw him he was playing ball in the street; he was wearing these little bathing trunks. He was playing ball with his brother who is 6 foot tall and Jack was only about 5 foot 6, and some other guys. My cousin, Pearl, was with me and she was also 5 years older than me. We were watching the boys play. RAY: The cousin that I met? ROZ: Yeah, Pearl. We were laughing and joking around. She says, “I’ll take the older one and you take the younger one.” I says, ‘I don’t want him; you take him. I’ll take the other one.’ We argued who should get Jack and we hadn’t even moved in yet. The furniture was going up and the parents were getting to know each other. In those days, everyone sat on their stoops. That’s where we were sitting when Jack came over—you know how guys come over to the girls—and started talking to me. He was very polite and introduced himself, his brother and his friends. As it turned out, all the other guys were paying attention to Pearl, because she was older. But Jack stayed with me and we got to talking about this and that. Finally he says, “By the way, I’m an artist. You want to come on in and I’ll show you my drawings?” I Examples of Jack’s early comic strip work from the late 1930s, around the time he met Roz. Jack saved stats of these in his files. 12

instantly thought that it was one of these old gags, you know, the ones RAY: A favorite song? that guys use to get the girls into their bedrooms. But I figured that I ROZ: Actually, I never had a real favorite song. It was all good. was pretty safe. My mother and father were right there and his mother JACK: We would go into the Paramount and hear the bobby-soxers and father were right there, so I went in and was very surprised to scream when Frank Sinatra came out. find that he actually had drawings to look at! That was the first time I RAY: So what happened next? Engagement? When did that happen? ever knew anything about comic books—he was working on Captain ROZ: Jack asked me to marry him on my eighteenth birthday. We just America; there were drawings everywhere on the walls and his table. kind of took it for granted that it was going to happen, but he was so RAY: So what was it like living above the Kurtzbergs? cute about it. ROZ: Well, the family was very quiet. The apartments were very simple. RAY: Jack? Cute? What’d he do? JACK: They were railroad apartments. ROZ: He was a gentleman—he was always a gentleman. We were ROZ: Railroad apartments. married on May 23, 1942; I was 19. RAY: Oh, arranged like boxcars? JACK: Yes. ROZ: You go right into the living room, then you have the dining room and then the kitchen, the bedroom. All in one line. JACK: One room succeeded the other, the doors were all in a straight line, no hallway—that was a luxury. And again, the kitchen was somewhere in the middle. You could shoot a cannon through all the doors and never hit any of the walls. ROZ: When we started dating, we would stay downstairs and sit on the couch in the parlor. His mother and father were right behind the glass door in the bedroom, which was the second room. So you had to be very quiet; you couldn’t make any noise. If you fooled around, you had to be pretty quiet about it! RAY: No, you guys didn’t do that? JACK: Yes, we did. ROZ: He put his arm around me occasionally. JACK: We did more than that. ROZ: He doesn’t need to hear all the details. Anyhow, we would be down there for quite a while and then my father was right upstairs, so about 3 o’clock in the morning, he would come down with the garbage, look in and say, “Oh, Roz is still up?” Can you imagine anyone coming down at 3 o’clock in the morning to take the garbage out? That was his excuse for me to get upstairs. RAY: So, did either of you pull that one on any of your daughters? JACK: No. I’d just throw the bums out. RAY: What kind of music did you listen to? JACK: Oh, they had jazz of course, but they had swing. RAY: What was the music that you guys were into? JACK: We loved dancing to swing. ROZ: It was Frank Sinatra’s time. The big bands. JACK: Frank Sinatra was just a young man at the time. He was just emerging into popularity, and the girls loved him. He was at the Paramount Theater, and when I took Roz out on a date, I took her to see Frank Sinatra and whatever else was playing on Broadway. RAY: Bing Crosby? JACK: No. Stunning pencils from the cover of FF Annual #11, featuring a trio of 1940s characters. ROZ: Crosby was more radio at the time. 13

RAY: At around the time that you two met, Jack—you had already started working with Joe. JACK: Oh yes. Everything was new. The comic book industry was still forming itself at that time. RAY: What you would call ‘a fledgling industry’? JACK: It was in its very, very early stages. It was resolving itself into an industry. We were experimenting to see what would sell best. ROZ: And you and Joe were working in Studio City, because I remember you brought me there. RAY: What was your impression of Captain America? ROZ: Well, it didn’t impress me because I didn’t have the faintest idea what a Captain America was. RAY: What did your parents think about Jack’s occupation? ROZ: Well, they just hoped that he was making a living. That was the only thing that mattered. JACK: If Michelangelo wasn’t making enough, they would have thrown him out! ROZ: I was very ill as a young child. I had asthma; always very bad lungs. They called ambulances to get me oxygen and things like that pretty often. My two aunts would come over to the house and they would cry and they would say, “Oh, she won’t live to get married. She won’t live to do this and to do that.” And I would be looking up at them, wide awake, listening. RAY: What did you think about that? ROZ: I believed them. They said that I was not going to live to do anything, so I believed that it was true. But then I stopped getting sick all the time; they found out how to treat my allergies and I started feeling much better. That was about the time that I met Jack. My parents were so thrilled that I was looking so good and feeling good and that I was going out with a young man that it was great with them. RAY: What is your family name? ROZ: Goldstein. My father was Hyman Goldstein, and my mother was Lena. They were both from Russia. My father came over when he was about five years old with his parents; my mother was brought over with my aunts. Her father was remarrying and the stepmother didn’t want to bring her up, so they brought her over with their family. RAY: Was this about the same time that Jack’s family came over, or a bit earlier maybe? ROZ: Well, they were all about the same time. JACK: The immigrants came in waves. It’s hard to say exactly when unless you are looking at the papers. They settled in New York usually, especially on the East Side. ROZ: But we never lived on the East Side. Jack’s family lived there, but we lived in Brooklyn. JACK: And, of course, Brooklyn was high society to me. When I finally got to Brooklyn, I figured I had made it. RAY: What did you do when you were first going out? What was the first date like? ROZ: It was probably dinner. We used to always go out to dinner. We liked to walk a lot. We would take these walks all through the city. Sometimes we’d ride bikes and go sight-seeing. RAY: Sight-seeing? In New York? ROZ: Oh, there was lots to see in the city: Broadway, Times Square, the Park. We went to all the museums and libraries. We went to see

the 1939 World’s Fair. JACK: We took a ferry ride on the Hudson with the family. ROZ: But I was talking about ourselves, not the family. We went horseback riding once. Remember we were very poor and my father barely made a living, but Jack said he wanted to take me horseback riding. I was never on a horse in my life, and neither was he. Oh, my mother wanted to impress Jack so she went out and bought me a pair of riding boots and jodhpurs—that’s what they called riding pants. They were very odd looking because they poofed out around the seat and were very tight around the knees and ankles. I think she used rent money for that. So finally we went to Prospect Park. Jack tells the man to give us slow horses because we’ve never been on a horse before. The horse was so slow that it didn’t move, just stood there and did its stuff, you know. After a while I started screaming, ‘Get me off this damn thing.’ That was my first and last experience with a horse. I never went horseback riding again. I finally gave the boots and pants

A bombed-out scene from Captain America #193.

RAY: Can you thread a needle? ROZ: He could never do that. Cover pencils from Invaders #15, featuring Roy Thomas’ British WWII heroes, The Crusaders. JACK: Nobody would have ever got me to do that. ROZ: Your father was a tailor. JACK: My father was a tailor, but if I had taken to sewing, you’d have seen the worst darn sewing you’ve ever seen. ROZ: And your mother worked in the bakery. RAY: Bakery? I thought she was a seamstress? JACK: She did that too. She was a very versatile woman. RAY: Tell me more about the courtship. What else did you two do? ROZ: Well, we didn’t have that much money to spend. We had to be careful with our money. JACK: I didn’t act that way. ROZ: He was a big shot, yeah. JACK: Yeah, I was a big shot. RAY: Jack was making a considerable living? ROZ: But he was supporting his parents. RAY: Oh. You were… how old Jack? 24? JACK: Yes—about that. I was beginning to do well. I mean, for that time. $82 a week was what we called good money. I gave it all to my mother. ROZ: No, when you got married you were making $75 a week. JACK: I was making $82. ROZ: $75. From that money, he supported his parents and we were able to get married. In fact, we bought a bond every single week out of that paycheck. JACK: Yeah, we bought war bonds. I had money and things were going our way and I was really good at what I was doing. ROZ: He was fast, too. JACK: Captain America was a sensation. ROZ: Yeah, but you didn’t get the profits from it. JACK: Well, sometimes I can tell you that it was a pretty rough industry. In many ways it still is. RAY: What did you do after you got married? ROZ: We took lots of walks. After we got married we got an apartment near Coney Island and almost every night we used to take a walk to Coney Island. They had the rides there... JACK: I used to love the rides. My brother and I…. away just a few years ago. I had them all those years. ROZ: ...will you wait a minute? Let me finish! We would go to the ferris RAY: You probably kept them from guilt. wheel, that was my favorite. This one time, when we first started dating, ROZ: Yeah. Probably. we were up on top of this tremendous ferris wheel, and it stops on top RAY: What did you wear Jack? and I hated it. It was rocking back and forth and I was getting nauseous. JACK: I think I wore pants, but you never know. JACK: We were about 200 feet in the air. RAY: Roz, how did your parents make a living? ROZ: And he is trying to... the word was ‘mush’ at that time. Mush ROZ: My father worked in a factory. He was a seamstress; he worked on around. When we finally got down, the guy says, “Well, he paid me a women’s clothes, dresses. And my mother worked at home because couple of bucks to keep you up there.” she wanted to be home to watch over the children. She did contract RAY: You tipped the operator? sewing at home. I never slept well at night, so I would sit there sewing JACK: Yes, I did. things for hours with her. We did a lot of that. I still can sew very RAY: To mush around with Roz? well—hand sewing. JACK: Yes, I did. RAY: That’s a craft that is slowly disappearing. RAY: So? Did it work? JACK: Well, it is a quality trade. ROZ: Let’s just say that he had to try another way. 15

ROZ: My father’s, too. RAY: “All your cousins and your aunts,” huh? ROZ: I mentioned that we went bike riding a lot. We did that because we lived on what was known as the Belt Parkway, and they had the bicycle strip there. But he was never on a bike in his life, so I taught him how to ride a bike. So the first time he went on a bike he hit the back of a truck and he went flying into the horse drawn wagon. RAY: Ho, Jack! JACK: Yes, I never rode a bike. I hated bikes. ROZ: [Laughs] He went right into it and right over the horse and landed someplace. JACK: The second time we rode down Prospect Parkway and she rode on one side of this railing and I rode on the other side. I couldn’t steer very well and I went right over the railing. RAY: Get hurt? ROZ: He landed on his head, but didn’t get hurt. JACK: The hard part was getting back on the bike. ROZ: Jack was never very good on a bike. JACK: I was great on skates, but lousy on bikes. RAY: Roller skating? JACK: Yes. I had it down pretty good. ROZ: You didn’t go too often. I went a lot more. After Jack was drafted, I went roller skating with my cousins. JACK: Well, let’s put it this way. She was a better athlete than I was. ROZ: Yeah, that’s true. I was. JACK: It is because that kind of thing wasn’t my kind of thing. I did all these things because she did them. ROZ: We learned how to skate in the streets, then we went to Prospect Park—there were plenty of open spaces there. They had these metal wheels then. Later on, we started going to the rinks and we rented skates that had wooden wheels. RAY: So, you got married… May 23, 1942. ROZ: That’s right. We’ve been married for 47 years. RAY: Should I live so long. And you just took it for granted that you were going to get married. Was that it? JACK: Oh, yes. ROZ: Well, we were going together for about 3 months, and in those days when you go together with someone for 3 months, you are going steady. (above) Jack and Roz’s wedding photo, taken May 23, 1942. RAY: Roz, how did he propose marriage? (below) The dapper couple when they renewed their wedding vows in 1992. Photo by Shel Dorf. ROZ: We were sitting at the park one day and he took out this engagement ring. He didn’t say “I love you” and all that kind JACK: It was a rotten trick, but very sociable. of schmaltz. He says, “I don’t want you seeing anyone else” and he put ROZ: We went to Coney Island a lot and we took walks along the the ring on my finger. boardwalk. We were close to the ocean and the boardwalk was very nice, especially at night. We did the things that any normal, healthy couple would do. JACK: Coney Island was terribly crowded. Everybody loved the beach. There was little room to walk. At night you were stepping over people. Oh, we would step across their heads. Some would be making love and we would step over them. RAY: Sounds like it was one big love fest. JACK: Oh, it was! ROZ: We were a large family and we would have parties quite often, go visit relatives and the grandparents. There was always a get-together of some kind. JACK: Families were closely knit at the time. ROZ: The cousins all lived close by, too. You would have a cousin on one street and another cousin on another street. JACK: Gilbert and Sullivan said something like that: “All your cousins and your aunts.” It was true because families would often entail many people. In my case, my cousins moved out of New York. My family was the only one that stayed. In her case, everyone was there. All her mother’s cousins and her aunts. 16

JACK: She had about five boyfriends. ROZ: It wasn’t five. JACK: Four boyfriends, would you go for that? ROZ: It sounds good. JACK: One of them was a piano player. I discouraged all of them. I knew when I saw Roz that I wanted her and nobody else. I went out with a variety of girls and none of them pleased me as well as Roz. Well, she had a lot of class, which she still does, and the girls around my way—well, they were gyrating all over the place and she wasn’t like that. She was quiet. ROZ: I was, I was very quiet. Now I talk a lot. JACK: She was a quiet girl. She had a lot of what I thought was dignity and she came from a quiet family, very wonderful people. In fact, I loved her family. Everything about her was right. ROZ: But you always fought with my sister. JACK: Well, I discouraged your sister because I felt she was going out with the wrong kind of guys. ROZ: He would chase all her boyfriends away. JACK: And her boyfriends would sometimes be 3 or 4 in a row waiting for her to come out of the house, and I come into the house and I would dump these guys. I would upend the chairs and these guys would land on the floor and I would kick them all out of the house because I felt those were not the kind of guys her sister should be going out with. ROZ: I thought my sister was going to kill him. RAY: Oh man. This really happened? JACK: Yes. And her sister was furious because I was ruining her dates; but I felt I was doing the right thing because I knew people, and I knew the right man would come along. All I knew then was that I didn’t like these guys. RAY: Anita? ROZ: That’s my little sister. RAY: Obviously, she finally met her man. ROZ: Yeah, she married Jack’s sergeant. That was a cute story. Before Jack went overseas, he went to Atlanta for three months. They made him an automobile mechanic, and he can’t even change a tire. My sister was 16 at the time and she was going to come down for a visit. So Jack helped me fix her up with a date. The first one was with a Texan who hated her. They went on the bus and she almost started a riot because she put an old Black woman in the front seat. JACK: Remember, those were different times. There was a lot of things that had to be ironed out. You couldn’t do that sort of thing at that time. Certain people had to go through the back of the bus, and Anita had what people thought back then was very liberal. She had a wonderful mind and was very, very high-spirited. She wasn’t going to stand for this bus driver telling this woman to sit in the back when she had a right to any seat on the bus. ROZ: My sister told the old woman to sit down with her and the bus driver stopped

the bus and threw them both off the bus. The Texan was so embarrassed. He brought her back and he said, “I’m through with her; get her out of here.” JACK: I was in the barracks trying to go to sleep when the Texan came in mumbling, “Never saw such a girl in my life. I’m not going out with that chick again.” I got the whole story from him mumbling in the barracks. He was a witness to the entire incident. He said he slid under the seat, he was so embarrassed. It was really comical the way he was reacting to this whole event. ROZ: The second date was with Jack’s sergeant, Morris Katz. He was about 10 years older than my sister; she was 16, he was 26. They hated each other right from the beginning. They went out but they absolutely hated each other. She was with us for a week and then she

Page 10 pencils from Captain America #194.

went home, and that was that. Three years later, there was a knock on the door. We were living with my parents at the time. This was after Jack got back from Europe. We were trying to get our feet on the ground. Anita was 19 then. There was this knock on the door and there was Morris Katz. “By the way,” he says, “does Anita Goldstein live here?” From that day on, they started going together. JACK: Yes, he took her out on a date. ROZ: And that was that. JACK: From then on, they kept going steady until they finally married. It was from that one visit when he came to see us. RAY: Still together? Where are they living? ROZ: Upstate New York. RAY: How many kids in your family? ROZ: There was 4 of us. Two boys and two girls. I was the second oldest. My brother Irving, myself, then my sister Anita, then my younger brother Larry. All about three years apart. JACK: You know Martin Gould, the actor? Well, he is a cousin of hers. ROZ: Well, a distant cousin. So where are we? RAY: You guys got married. What was life like? ROZ: Well, we were married for a year when they started to draft the men. The war was starting. RAY: Did you guys get a place together right away? ROZ: We got a place in Carlton Place. It was right on the beach, $57 a month. The apartment was so large that we could have a party and sit 12 people in the foyer. That’s how large it was. JACK: Yeah, we had a party in the foyer. RAY: Tell me about the wedding. ROZ: Oh, we had to do everything ourselves. Our parents couldn’t afford to help us, so we did everything. It cost $1,500; we had a hundred people at this catered affair with all the flowers and everything else. We received some nice presents and lots of cash. We didn’t want to spend any of the cash on a honeymoon because we needed it to set up our household. So we told everyone we were going on a honeymoon and in the middle Jack’s realistic rendition of Nazis (from Our Fighting Forces #159, page 6)... of the night we walked from where we had the party—which wasn’t far away to must have told everybody all sorts of fanciful stories. our apartment—and camped out in the apartment. All we had was a ROZ: And we lived in that apartment for about a year when the war kitchen set and one bedroom set, but we were newlyweds and we had started. The draft took all our friends. We had blackouts where all the a good time. The next day, I had to go to this local market to get some windows had to be covered at night. And we used to dress up in our food and I bumped into our next door neighbor. She was the nosiest Civil Defense helmets. neighbor in the world. She says, “I thought you were on your honeyJACK: Yeah, we were air raid wardens. We used to stay up until 3 in moon.” I said, ‘Oh, we forgot some things and I had to come back.’ the morning. They had signals going, so everyone had to put their After that we couldn’t show our face for a week because we knew she lights out, and remember we had to blow our whistle if we saw a light was snooping around. streak and shout, “Get your window shades down.” RAY: Where did you tell everybody that you went? JACK: Well, there were German submarines sinking ships right off the ROZ: I forget. I think we told everybody that we went down south or coast. German submarines were even in the Hudson River. something. ROZ: My father was the head air raid warden in his neighborhood. He JACK: Yeah, to some vacation spot, down south, near the ocean. We was so proud. He had this uniform, the armbands and helmet. He 18

was like a real trooper, wasn’t he? JACK: Yeah, he was a real commander. ROZ: Well, nearly all our friends were being drafted, and I remember the day that we got married we were all dressed up. He wore a tux and I wore my gown, and we were going to the reception, and people were yelling through the car, calling him a draft dodger because he was getting married. JACK: Yeah, on our way to the ceremony, they were calling me a ‘slacker’. ROZ: The reason he wasn’t drafted right away was because he was supporting his parents and me. He was the head of two households. Anyway, after a year of this they finally started calling up even the guys who were supporting families. So we were married exactly one year. I remember moving my furniture back into my mother’s house. We left the apartment, went back with my mother and Jack went into the service. RAY: Jack’s occupation afforded quite a lot of flexibility. JACK: Well, that’s what I loved about my occupation was the fact that I could work at home. RAY: But, what was it like from your standpoint, Roz? What did you think about that? ROZ: It was fine with me. In fact, to me it is like second nature. In fact, when you went to San Jose by yourself, I felt so alone. Even though he is in another room and I might not see him for hours, I just

knew he was there. During that one year, you worked a lot with Joe at Tudor City, and there were other times when he worked out of the house. It was kind of a combination. But he made his own hours. He didn’t work from 9 to 5. So it was entirely different. I was working too. I was working for a company that designed custom lingerie for the rich debutantes. I used to design lingerie. I had to do very delicate lace work and things like that. That is why I was able to do some of the inking for Jack because I always did this delicate work and I was able to hold the brush. RAY: You did?! JACK: Yes, she did inking for me. She inked some of the Challengers. ROZ: And the Green Hornet. I used to help, but nobody ever knew and he never paid me. RAY: Wow. What an epiphany. Roz Kirby the inker! ROZ: Oh, I did those up there on the wall. I did very delicate work. It was easy for me. JACK: Actually, she had a lot of fun with it. Comics, if you are doing good comics, it is fun for both the inker and the artist. Because each of you put the stamp of your own individuality into your style of inking or drawing. So she found herself doing the same thing. She did a wonderful job. I had no complaints. RAY: So, the war was on and all your friends were drafted. JACK: Yes. It was a very, very lonely time, because Roz and I would walk down Broadway, we’d go... anywhere we’d go, we’d walk around Brighton Beach and there were no young people there. It was a ghost town. ROZ: Well, everyone was in uniform too. JACK: They were in uniform. ROZ: If you were in civilian clothes, you felt strange. JACK: Yes, the friends that I hung around with were all gone, Joe was gone; Joe was in the Coast Guard. In fact, he was one of the first to enlist. Roz and I would sometimes walk the street late at night and there would be nobody about, and it was a very, very lonely feeling because we knew a lot of people. ROZ: But, you couldn’t go out too much in the evening anyway, because they had the blackouts. They actually had curfews. JACK: At 3 o’clock in the morning, we were air raid wardens. RAY: I’m sorry. I’m still getting over Roz Kirby, the inker! JACK: But, she was a very good inker. RAY: Anybody else know about this? ROZ: Well, I’ve told a few people, but nobody has made a big deal about it. I did what I had to do, I helped my husband where I could. RAY: Did you ever suggest any stories? ROZ: Yeah, but he never paid any attention to what I told him. He’d get hysterical. If I gave him an idea, he would look at me and just burst out laughing. JACK: Yeah, because her ideas would be so crazy and fantastic. Some were really funny ideas, but I never thought there was an angle I could use. ROZ: Well, I will tell you that Jack has always been very macho. Even the thought of me helping him with a story—the inking was different—that ...and a more fanciful rendition from the cover of Invaders #16. was something I could easily do and he 19

could see it. But even the thought of me giving him a story or suggesting a character or something like that would just drive him crazy. The women’s place was to do the dishes and the cleaning. But he always helped around the house; he wasn’t so macho that he wouldn’t do a few things around the house. To this day, he will do dishes, he likes to vacuum, whatever I want him to do. He always takes the garbage out. I guess I told you the story about the kid calling. Did I tell you that story? RAY: No. ROZ: He was taking the garbage out when some young fan called for him. He wanted to speak to Jack ‘King’ Kirby. And I said, ‘No. You can’t. He’s taking the garbage out.’ RAY: And he must have been astonished, right. “Jack Kirby is taking the garbage out?” ROZ: Yes. And I said, ‘The queen is not going to do it.’ He always helped around the house. RAY: What was life like while Jack was gone to the Army? Do you still have some of his letters that he sent you? ROZ: Yes, I do. Some have cartoons in some of them. ‘V-Letters’, ‘VMail’ they called it. I would send him a letter every single day. Sometimes I would run out of ideas of what to say so I would copy mushy poems— I sent him a new poem every day. It drove him crazy. JACK: Well, it didn’t drive me crazy; it drove my hysterical. And I would get these crazy letters; I would come in from a big assignment

(assignment butchery, okay?) and butchery would mean going behind the German lines with a patrol, and mixing it up, which was my job, I was a scout. And I would go into these towns that nobody had yet, and there would be German patrols there, and I would head the patrol and we would scout around this God-forsaken town, and we would mix it up with the Germans. And there would be hell to pay. And then we would get back to our lines, and they are passing out the mail. I was dazed, you know, by this time. It was a kind of a post-anger; I hadn’t finished with the situation yet and was still in the throes of the most vicious intentions when I came back to this mail. They were insane but beautiful love letters. They were so beautiful that I couldn’t believe it. It was as if I had just gone through a day of slaughtering cows and I have to go into this pastoral pasture to go hug one. RAY: So you felt like the Hulk changing back. JACK: Yes, like the Hulk changing back into a zoot suit or something. It was a trauma, and I would burst into hysterical laughter. I read these words of pure love. And these beautiful, beautiful words that she wrote. ROZ: Which were copied. JACK: You can imagine how well they were done, and it was the purest love letters you ever saw. And, of course, she was doing the right thing. I passed the letters around so that the other guys would see what I was reading. ROZ: He passed my letters around. JACK: Yeah. To the whole squad. RAY: Did you save any of her letters? ROZ: No, he doesn’t have any of my letters. JACK: No, no. I never saved them. ROZ: You said that the pack was lost when you…. JACK: Well, everything was lost when I got back to London. Well, you know, when you were in a hospital, they went through your pack and you never saw most of it again. Some guy, out of the purest kindness of his heart, left me one German pistol. I brought it home. ROZ: So, I would send him letters every day. RAY: Did you ever worry? ROZ: You are worried, of course, yet somehow I never worried about anything really happening to him. The first thing I would do was go to work every day, then when I came home his letter was usually there for me. Of course, if I didn’t get a letter after a few days I used to start worrying. One day, when I was at work I got this call from England that he was in the hospital. And, I didn’t know what had happened. Then finally we found out that his feet were frozen. The first thing that came through my mind was, ‘Thank God, he’s OK’. The next thing I thought was ‘Thank God, it’s his feet, not his hands.’ JACK: Yeah, but with me, it was... anything crazy would have happened to me. Now, I liberated a concentration camp. ROZ: No, let’s discuss this. We aren’t going into the Army part now. We are not talking about the war now; we are talking our courtship and marriage and stuff like that. RAY: So you find out he’s in a hospital in England. What did you do then? ROZ: In those days you couldn’t do much. You just had to wait and see what was going to happen next. But we did find out, and finally I got this telegram, and letters started to come again. Finally we heard that they were shipping him home. What city did they ship you to? I forgot. JACK: Not Atlanta, South Carolina somewhere. ROZ: He had some time left so they put him back into the motor pool to work on trucks and maintenance. RAY: Did you go see him?

Thena pencils from the back cover of this issue.

ROZ: Yes. Once. Well, I was anxious to see him. You have to remember, we hadn’t seen each other in… JACK: Decades. ROZ: ...oh, not decades… two years. Don’t listen to him. JACK: Listen to Roz. She’s got all the facts. ROZ: Anyhow, we missed each other a lot and we wanted to see each other… well, you know. This thing isn’t on now, is it? Because I don’t want to let people in on these kinds of things. JACK: So I got my insurance card, see? It was the same color as the pass. I don’t remember why I couldn’t get one. ROZ: Because he came back late from someplace. JACK: Yes. And I took it out like this, see? I held it so the guard couldn’t see the front. And there are all these guys, they’re going out to see their wives and girlfriends, too. It was a parade! So the guards, they weren’t taking the time to look at everything so carefully. I just walked out with the rest of them. RAY: And? JACK: Well, I went to see Roz. RAY: That’s all? ROZ: Oh, not… well, use your imagination! What do you think happened? [laughs] JACK: We didn’t even close the door. [laughs] ROZ: He didn’t have to hear that… Ray, turn that off. RAY: That’s pretty neat. ROZ: Well, you can tell people once I’m gone. Not before. I don’t want that in the book…! RAY: I promise. So what happened after that? Jack, you went AWOL? JACK: What were they going to do? Put me in the stockade?

COMING IN SEPTEMBER: ™

UNUSED MAC RABOY & GENE COLAN COVERS! Dr. Strange, Infinity TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Capt. Marvel Jr. TM & © DC Comics.

Everybody was doing it. Guys were going over the fence all the time. ROZ: He only had a few months left. So, I went home and waited. Finally, he came home by train. He was so thin! When he went into the service, he was about 175 pounds; he came back weighing 129 pounds. JACK: I was as thin as a rod, believe me. RAY: Were you hobbling or were you walking? ROZ: You were walking fairly well. JACK: Yeah, I was walking fairly well by that time. ROZ: But they had him on disability for about a year. To this day, cold weather makes his toes tingle. He can’t go into real cold weather. JACK: That kind of thing lasts. In fact, that is one of the reasons that we came out to California, because they have snow in New York. I didn’t want to see snow again for a long, long time. RAY: So, when you got back it was 1942? JACK: No, early 1943. ROZ: It was almost ’44. RAY: So, now you guys are back and you were living at your folk’s house. ROZ: Right, we were living at my folk’s house. Then I got pregnant with Susan. She was the first. Then Neal, then Barbara, then Lisa. RAY: I’m tired. JACK: I could use a break. ROZ: How about some lunch? RAY: Coffee, “P and J” I presume, Jack? JACK: “P and J”? ROZ: Peanut butter and jelly. JACK: Oh. That’s my favorite. ROZ: He knows, Jack.★

• GENE COLAN & HERB TRIMPE on Marvel in the ’60s and ’70s! • MAC RABOY’s fantastic 1940s art explored by ROGER HILL! • Double-size FCA (FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA) section with C.C. BECK, MARC SWAYZE, JOE SIMON, and more! • An untold 1969 SGT. FURY tale, with unseen art (and comments) by DICK AYERS & JOHN SEVERIN, and story by GARY FRIEDRICH! • ROY THOMAS on the birth of the ALL-STAR SQUADRON — with rare and unpublished art by RICH BUCKLER and JERRY ORDWAY! • Never-before-seen GOLDEN AGE ART by CARMINE INFANTINO & others! • STAN LEE and ROBERT KANIGHER on their how-to-write-comics books of the 1940s — interviewed by MIKE W. BARR! • MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER on Superman in THE NEW YORKER in 1939—plus BILL SCHELLY on collecting fanzines—and more!!!

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wall of DC’s production department (never Bullpen). When DC Production Vice-President Sol Harrison discovered this forgery, he was shocked. Sol avowed quite vehemently that Marvel wouldn’t get away with publishing their Mar-vell bearing a Beck visage. As usual in those days, DC didn’t get the joke. Sol didn’t joke about the product (except for referring to one of DC’s war titles as Our Farting Forces). Sol’s sense of humor favored the macabre. When Sol attended the funeral of letterer Milt Snappin’s A Personal Reminiscence by Alan E. Kupperberg mother, it was the prototype for Mary Tyler Moore’s classic “Chuckles Bites The Dust” episode. t started on Yancy Street. At least it did for me. I first “met” Jack So, normally, only two events in the staid course of the DC universe Kirby on Yancy Street—or, more accurately, via the cover of would, like a giant rogue comet or invading singularity, disturb the Fantastic Four #29, which promised a story by that name, within. magisterial and usually unalterably eternal orbits at DC Comics: The I’ve wanted to walk the same streets Jack Kirby walked ever since. arrival of a new Joe Kubert Tarzan book, and the other J.K.— Jack I’ve been lucky enough to walk and work with many of Jack Kirby’s Kirby’s—latest “special delivery.” Even hardened and cynical long collaborators. I’ve been scripted by Stan Lee and Larry Leiber. Inked time production department grunts Morris Waldinger and Joe by Wally Wood, Neal Adams, Joe Sinnott, Vinnie Colletta, Frank Letterese would join the gaggle and goggle in appreciation as each Giacoia, John Romita, Chic Stone, Mike Esposito. I’ve inked Steve Ditko. new Fourth World episode unfolded. Others, like George Roussos, John Verpoorten, Sol Brodsky, and Paul Funky Flashman absolutely made waves the moment it arrived in Reinman, I worked with in their various later careers in production the office. If my memory serves me, within a day or so of its arrival, a and as colorists. I shared studio space with Syd Shores. Some, like Don certain Houseroy had paid an undercover visit to DC and had a Heck, Bill Everett, Herb Trimpe, Dick Ayers and, indeed, Jack Kirby chuckle reading this now “infamous” tale. himself, were merely acquaintances. Wonderful, funny, patient Jack Adler Some, like Frankie G., Vinnie and Woody ran DC’s coloring department, among his were loved, and now, often missed other duties. When Tommy Nicoletti, Jerry friends of cherished memory. Serpe, or Paul Reinman would deliver the I’ve worked with them and reveled color guides for a Kirby book, Adler would in their friendship and the “mystiquereview it, as he did all their efforts. Adler by-association” it afforded me. But Jack would often “throw” a YRB2 (red brown) or Kirby was one of a kind. He did it his a YBR2 (dark green) into a panel behind a way and made it look easy—“look” being three-quarter character close-up with an the operative word here. open background. A touch as small as this By early 1970 I was a regular pest— would invariably make an already sizzling er—visitor to Marvel’s small, six room, Kirby page pop like a firecracker. dozen-person office. I often contributed The gracious Gerda Gaettel was another custom-written “fan-mail” for correspondirect link for me to Kirby’s Golden Age days. dence-starved letters pages on request. She proofread his DC titles in the 1970s, just In Marvel’s tiny but happy Bullpen as she had his Timely titles in the 1940s. I watched that dear soul Frankie Giacoia Deadman was to make his appearance inking the finishing flourishes on the in the Forever People and word came back to Fantastic Four #97 cover he was delivering. DC via Jack’s New York liaison, E. Nelson That was my first introduction to a Kirby Bridwell, that Jack needed Deadman art and original, and made to me by another true story reference. Being, at that time, the original. Frank and I later became almost buttinski of all time, my ears opened wide. brothers and I still miss him daily. Now, I don’t loan my books. My books I watched Bill Everett touch up his are like... well, my children. own inks on Thor #174. My letter But this was for the King. remarking on that issue’s “Crypto-Man” And he was about to interpret Neal Adams’ appeared in Thor #177’s letter column. masterpiece. Kirby and Adams. My-TwoVinnie Colletta’s inks were also often Favorite-Heroes-In-One-Adventure-Together. subject to Everett’s augmentation or I volunteered to loan Jack my own perreworking at the request of Stan or pro(above) Kupperberg’s layout for the cover of Invaders #32. sonal collection of Strange Adventures. Off duction honcho Sol Brodsky. (next page) Kirby’s pencils, before a needed Thor facelift (inset). they went to California. The conveyer belt on Marvel’s photoAnd you’d better believe I got them back in pristine shape and in stat machine bore the manufacturer’s imprinted admonition: “Feed a timely manner. And you’d better believe I’ve still got them. Prints Face Up.” Photostat guru and comedy legend Stu Schwartzburg Of course, as a dyed-in-the-wool Superman fan, I’d long dreamt had inked in a cartoon below it portraying a hungry dog lying on his of a Kirby Superman. So I was as disappointed as everyone else when back, his master offering the supine pup a tidbit, saying, “Here, Prince!” DC had artists Al Plastino, and then Murphy Anderson, bring the And there was always the great Mimi Gold. I’ll always love Mimi. famous Kryptonian physiognomy into line with the DC house style. Within a year I was hard at work in the production department Sometimes Superman’s face was “whited-out” with Sno-Pake and of National Periodicals Publications (DC Comics). Vinnie Colletta’s work was re-inked. Sometimes the inked face was Whereas Marvel operated like a small family of merry upstarts, pasted over. Sometimes it was literally cut out of the page and DC was “Big Business” and always a serious operation. Them folks patched in. Sometimes Vinnie left the face uninked and it was passed wore ties to make comic books. There was no running in the halls. on to Anderson. Murphy regularly worked in the tiny, airless room Shortly after DC revived the classic Fawcett Captain Marvel in DC set aside for freelancers’ use. Why ever and what ever way they Shazam!, some freelancer xeroxed a C.C. Beck Marvel head onto a Jim were accomplished, I still feel these alterations were a sad mutilation. Starlin, Marvel Comics Captain Marvel cover. This was pinned to the 22

It Started On Yancy Street

In that same cramped room I watched Neal Adams as he inked, among others, the Don Rickles cover of Jimmy Olsen #141. I also marveled as Neal did his own covers for the book, and his glee in having a crack at his conception of “being” Kirby on the cover of Jimmy Olsen #148. After business hours, Adams would often invade the deserted production room and pore over the latest Kirby originals, professing awe at the King’s raw power and artistic versatility. If anyone out there owns the print version of the original cover art of Kamandi #1, please go and compare it to the final printed cover. Go ahead, I don’t mind waiting. The printed cover has Kamandi and the raft higher up on the art. When I was ordered to adjust the cover to accommodate all the cover copy, I’m glad I had the presence of mind to do all the alterations on a pair of photostats. I hope I did a tasteful job. National Lampoon writer Michelle Choquette was preparing a (never published) book about the 1960s—short, humorous vignettes to be illustrated by cartoonists and illustrators of the day. I watched Wally Wood ink a two- or three-page Kirby sequence about space exploration. The Sky Masters reunited, Challenging the Unknown, right before my eyes! Woody did a great job on it— faithful, powerful, yet not overpowering. Was this the last time these titans met on paper? And what ever became of the result? And what other lost glories? One of the most intriguing “what-if ’s” in the Kirby Kannon was related to me with profound sadness by Woody. When word first ricocheted around the business that Jack Kirby had decamped for DC Comics in 1970, Woody contacted DC publisher Carmine Infantino and virtually begged Note that for the Kirby assignment. If I recall correctly, the original Wood even offered to take a cut in his pagelayout has a rate. Carmine declined. I assume DC sought a giant swastika continuity of the “Marvel Style” in Colletta. on the floor. The published Plus, garrulous Vinnie was always “there,” in cover has the the DC office. Woody was withdrawn, almost swastika a hermit and, probably unfairly, not always restored. considered reliable with deadlines. 1974 found me at Atlas Comics reborn. Perhaps not quite as astute as he had been when he launched Simon & Kirby’s Captain America, I was still working for the post-Marvel Martin Goodman. Goodman hoped to duplicate Warren Publication’s successful Captain Company mail-order operation. For many months the Atlas office was piled high with never-sold SpiderMan plastic model kits. Deciding to rename Atlas’s ailing Phoenix title, Martin Goodman redubbed him the “Man From Mars.” This was mere months after NASA’s Mars Lander had strongly suggested that Mars was lifeless. I gently pointed that fact out and submitted a list of alternatives from which the “Protector” was accepted. For all we know, Stan Lee’s greatest contribution to Marvel over the years was in keeping Goodman out of the creative folks’ hair. As for Jim Warren: In the early ’70s he changed the name of his publishing company to Warren Communications, just, I heard him say, to bug Warner Communications’ DC Comics. By the time 1978 rolled around, I was the regular penciler on

Marvel Comics’ Invaders title. I’d never been fond of drawing covers, but when I was asked to provide a cover layout or rough sketch for Invaders #32, I didn’t hesitate a tick—because it was for Jack. I’d be interpreting Thor, Captain America, Namor, and the Human Torch— for their artistic father! Then Jack’s pencils arrived. They blew my tender little mind— Kirby interpreting my interpretation of Kirby. To turn the story one more notch in the direction of a full circle, longtime Kirby-Kollaborator Chic Stone soon began to ink my Invaders pencils regularly. I went on to a long stretch with Stan Lee on the Incredible Hulk syndicated comic strip, inked by Frankie Giacoia. Vinnie Colletta inked a lot of my pencils, including an issue on my run on Thor. But as a true career highlight, my brief creative stroll with Jack Kirby still stands out as a walk with greatness . And to think, it all started on Yancy Street.★ 23

Keith Giffen Interview Interviewed by Jon B. Cooke, transcribed by Eric Nolen-Weathington (Keith Giffen entered the field of comics at Marvel in the ’70s with a very Kirbyesque style. He became a fan-favorite for his work on Marvel’s Defenders (inked by Mike Royer) and DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes, and as writer on Justice League, and went on to make his mark on such characters as Ambush Bug, Lobo, The Heckler, and Trencher. This interview was conducted by phone in February 2000.)

at Marvel or when he was doing his DC war work? KEITH: No, when he was over at Marvel, when he took over Iron Man. Actually my first real solid exposure to him was when Giant-Man, who was my all-time favorite Marvel character, was thrown out of Tales to Astonish and Sub-Mariner came in. TJKC: And this Adam Austin artist shows up? KEITH: Yeah, the Adam Austin stuff. And then Iron Man finally led to Daredevil. But there were always Jack Kirby books. There was always the FF, there was always Thor or Tales of Suspense or some older comics I was always digging out that had the titles torn off. I probably had most of the early FF. It’s just that none of them had the top half of the cover. [laughs] Very strange collection.

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: Just to get some background, you’re from New Jersey? KEITH GIFFEN: Yeah, born and bred. I was born back in ’52 in Queens, New York, and my first year my parents moved to New Jersey. Although there was one distinction from Queens, NY, and that is the first person who ever held me besides my parents and various doctors was our downstairs neighbor, Whitey Ford. He wasn’t making money hand over fist way back then. [laughs] TJKC: [laughs] When do you remember your first exposure to comics? KEITH: I remember exactly. My mother used to do tailoring work, sewing work for neighbors and friends. She was really handy and capable of cobbling things together out of patterns. So a lot of the women in the neighborhood would go over there and pay her to do what they couldn’t do. And there was this one woman who worked at one of these—I don’t know what they’re called, but they were these big paper plants where all of the comics came with the titles torn off to be destroyed. And she would just scoop handfuls up and bring them to my mother, and she would pass them on to me. The first comic book I remember, and a fan was kind enough to send me a copy so I’ve actually got it—I don’t remember the number, but it was a World’s Finest issue. It was when Batwoman got Superman’s powers. All I could remember about it for years was that it had this big green monster with Mickey Mouse gloves on the cover and Batwoman zooming down. That was my first exposure to comics. That really stood out among the Archies and the various others. From there it was an easy slide to the Fin Fang Foom and the Goom, Son of Goomba books, which are probably my first exposure to Jack Kirby before I knew who he was. TJKC: Were you attracted to Jack’s work? Was there something in it? KEITH: There was something in it that fascinated me. I don’t know if I’d say ‘attracted’ back then. TJKC: Repelled? [laughs] KEITH: No, no, no. I suppose a perverse fascination. It didn’t look like anything else that was out there. During my early comic book collector days I was a much bigger fan of Gene Colan than of Jack. Jack was something that grew on me, like a taste for martinis. It was only after I began in comics that I realized all the work he had done and all the memories I had that were locked into him. I began to understand how important he was, but it was a gradual process. I was a stupid kid. TJKC: Were you into Gene Colan when he was over

(above) The pencils to the cover of Fantastic Four #172.

TJKC: [laughs] You knew the title of the book though, right? KEITH: Absolutely, absolutely. They were wonderful, wonderful books back then. TJKC: You were an avid Marvel collector? KEITH: No. I was an avid comic book collector. I tend to go after what I like. For a while there it was almost purely Marvel, because only Marvel was doing anything that was sparking my imagination and getting my attention. There were things—you know, the Neal Adams Deadman stuff, Nick Cardy’s Bat Lash. So there was some DC stuff, but for the most part it was Marvel. I loved the Tower books, as well. Whatever sparked my interest. The first four or five issues of Creepy. TJKC: When did you start drawing? KEITH: When I was eight years old, I decided I wanted to draw these strange things. TJKC: And did you draw your own comic books? KEITH: Oh, yeah, yeah. All sorts of odd little characters that I would farm around to friends and they’d read them and think, “What an odd friend we have.” [laughter] Miserable, wretched little things. I’ve heard Erik Larsen, before he had the fire, held onto everything he did dating back to maybe the first time he held pencil to paper. But I still don’t do that to this day. TJKC: You don’t save anything? KEITH: No, because I put it down and I loathe it. [laughter] And it takes me a long time to make peace with something I’ve drawn. A long time. TJKC: Do you recall any of the names of the characters? Anything you want mentioned for posterity? KEITH: Oh, boy. No, the only one I can remember was when I was in tenth grade goofing around with a character called Lobo who I finally did something with later down the line. Although, I didn’t call him Lobo. I called him Lunatik with a “k.” And then Marvel got the name and at Marvel I went back and revisited the character. But other than that, no, I can’t remember. Probably, these bizarre little things like a rip-off on the Sub-Mariner called Finman. I really have no memory, but then if you asked me what I was working on last week I’d probably have to refer to notes. [laughs] (above) Unpublished 1990s Giffen penciled page from the never-completed Topps Comics Victory series. TJKC: Did you specifically want to be a comic book artist? business next week.” [laughs] I said, ‘That’s interesting,’ and after I KEITH: Yes. Specifically comic book artist. I had no interest in advertising hung up the phone with her I thought maybe I should just take the bit or any of that. It was always geared toward doing comic book work. in my teeth and start at the top and get turned down all the way down. Just wind up someplace. Back then the top was Marvel, so I called up TJKC: Were you known in school as being the artist? Marvel. I don’t know who the secretary was then, but it was not the KEITH: No, no, no. I was just this odd kid. I cut so close to nerd that most positive—“yeah, um, bring your portfolio in and they’ll look at it really didn’t matter. it and you can pick it up tomorrow.” I was stupid enough. I go into TJKC: [laughs] And when did you start developing a portfolio? New York and drop off the portfolio and I go home. Next day I figure KEITH: I didn’t. I broke into comics by doing everything wrong. I was I’ll go get it and I thought, “No that’s not a good idea.” So I let a day working as a hazardous material handler and I took a week off and go by and rather than just go get it, I called. And the woman said, said, ‘Hey, I think I’ll break into comics.’ So I just drew up a bunch of “Get in here now.” So I go in and she’s yelling at me, she’s really pictures and slapped them together. I figured, let me call up the compissed off at me. It took a while for it to sink in that apparently Ed panies and find out how you do this. I didn’t want to start at the top. I Hannigan—prior commitments had forced him off this back-up strip wanted to start at the bottom. I didn’t want Marvel, I didn’t want in a b-&-w magazine called The Sword and the Star. And Bill Mantlo, who Charlton. Atlas was publishing then. So I called up Atlas and the woman was the writer, happened to see my samples laying around and said, was so positive on the phone. “Oh, yes. Bring your portfolio. Absolutely. “I like him; why don’t we get this guy?” And they couldn’t contact me, We’ll take a look at it. Blah, blah, blah. However, we’re going out of 25

because like the genius I am, I had dropped off my portfolio with my name on it and that’s it. No phone number, no address, no way to contact me. So they needed me yesterday and that’s pretty much how I got my start in comics.

repossessed things. Then one day I just thought, “I’m doodling these things on my own; I think I’ve gotten a little bit better.” So I called Joe Orlando, because I had screwed him over pretty bad and I thought at least I owe Joe hanging up on me—I owe him that much. He said, “Come on in. You’ve been an asshole, we’re going to put you on probation, but you’re going to learn this time. We’ll put you on the Ghost books.” And I gradually worked my way up until I landed on Legion.

TJKC: Was it a play off of King Arthur? KEITH: No, it was a play off The Odyssey. The one I did appeared in whatever the Marvel b-&-w premiere-type magazine was. Marvel Preview or something. It featured Satanna on the cover.

TJKC: The first time I recall seeing your work was on something called “Wood God.” KEITH: That was my second or third thing that got published. Horrible, wasn’t it? The costume—Klaus Janson saved that job. Trust me. God bless you, Klaus.

TJKC: Did you start getting steady work from then on? KEITH: Hell no. I was horrible. I didn’t get steady work at all. I bounced around and eventually went over to DC where they wanted to give me steady work, but I was so stupid I blew myself out of the business. They had me working with Wally Wood and I didn’t see the benefit of that. Talk about idiot. [laughs] And so I left and bounced around with odd jobs. I sold Kirby vacuum cleaners door-to-door,

TJKC: Were you involved in the creation of that strip? KEITH: That was Bill Mantlo’s. It came to me full blown. My early creative stuff was “Rocket Raccoon.” It appeared in Sword and the Star. Just a throwaway character we dropped in there. And I helped a little bit on “Jack of Hearts,” even though that was three-quarters pulled together by the time I did my few bouts with the b-&-w “White Tiger”/Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu thing. TJKC: So you obviously worked closely with Mantlo for quite a while. KEITH: Yeah. TJKC: When you started recognizing the qualities of Jack’s work, did your portfolio reflect that? KEITH: No, my artwork did. Very early, I was very Kirby. I was more Kirby than early Barry Smith. But I was Kirby overlay. In other words, I understood that he used weird linework and squiggles and lots of black, but I didn’t understand any of the underpinning structure. It was an absolute mess. To me it was just proof that after years and years, Jack could make it look real easy. And anybody who thinks he doesn’t know anatomy, he doesn’t know this or that—you give it a shot. He knew just where those lines belonged. TJKC: Did you have an opportunity to meet him? KEITH: Once. DC brought me on board to do the turn-arounds for the design of the New Gods toys for the Kenner Super Powers line. It was Darkseid, Parademon, Mantis, Kalibak, and all. Jack was up at the office that time. They said, “Here, you’ll meet Jack.” I had done a couple of samples of them, and it was really interesting because he’s sitting there looking at it and he said, “These are going to do just fine”—thanking me, which kind of startled me. And, of course, he drags out this huge, huge sheet with this panorama of the New Gods characters in the tightest, tightest pencils. It must have been a very, very early design sheet, because Darkseid’s headgear was the same headgear I used in the Legion of Super-Heroes when I did “The Quiet Darkness.” Everyone thinks, “Oh no, he put a hairnet on him.” Nope. I remembered that from that early picture. I figure I dredged that up out of memory. So, yeah, I met Jack and we had a couple of words once. He ranks right up there with Curt Swan, Ernie Colon, and Gil Kane as one of the true gentlemen in the business. TJKC: How do you look back on it now? You obviously had an enormous Kirby influence in your work. Did you feel you might have been losing

(above) The cover of Defenders #42. Pencils by Kirby.

(above) A two-page spread from Defenders #50 by Giffen. Inks by Mike Royer.

something of yourself in that? KEITH: Maybe, but I didn’t care. If I could become a fraction of what Jack was then I’d still be better than ninety percent of the people around. I don’t think I ever attained that, by the way. But in terms of Jack’s influence, I don’t regret it at all. As a matter of fact, I think I’d be much poorer without it, and given the chance to do it again, I’d do it exactly the same.

KEITH: Probably, yeah. I would say that, but I wouldn’t say that it was a harkening back to a particular phase of Jack’s career. It was just the kind of inking that was laid on top of it; it was the easiest stuff to reference. It was the lazy artist approach of, “Well, this issue of the Paul Reinman-inked FF is a heck of a lot easier to get into and look for little things than the Galactus Trilogy.” That was intimidating. TJKC: [laughs] That’s funny, a lot of artists seem to harken back to that time. Walt Simonson did a Rampaging Hulk magazine for a while. KEITH: Bruce Timm did Avengers and it was glorious. Brought me right back. My God, I could practically smell the inside of the sweet shop I used to buy my comic books at. Hear that stupid rack squeaking around.

TJKC: Did you study his work pretty closely? KEITH: Oh, no. I had a bad incident with studying somebody’s work very closely at one point and I resolved never, ever to do it again. I can get so immersed in somebody’s work that I start turning into a Xerox machine and it’s not good. Although, I will tell you, I could sit down and draw Kirby-style without even thinking about it. It didn’t take much of a mental switchover. To me he’s the dominant comic book figure. As far as I’m concerned, all roads lead back to Jack. That’s why I love this Kirby Collector thing, ’cause now I’m seeing it pure without someone else’s interpretation on top. And I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter how religious Mike Royer or any of the inkers ink him, something’s missing. It’s like it’s been muffled a little bit.

TJKC: And that was the most rushed time, the most prolific time of Jack’s career. He would do these really rushed breakdowns, and Reinman would go over them, and Roussos would go over them and really bat them out quickly. And yet it seems to be a romanticized time for a lot of people. KEITH: I think it just shows Jack’s power. The power of Jack’s work in that even though they were just rushed breakdowns by probably not the best inkers to be over his work, he still came through and it was still unmistakably him.

TJKC: It’s the pencils, right? KEITH: God, yeah.

TJKC: Did working on team books bother you? KEITH: No, no. The books I worked on were books that at that point I was really interested in. As a matter of fact, I still have a soft spot in my heart for Legion of Super-Heroes and you can’t get a much bigger team book than that.

TJKC: Especially when you were working on the Defenders, for instance, were you looking to harken back to a certain period of Jack’s work? KEITH: No, I was ripping-off Jack. TJKC: There seems to be this fascination with the early Avengers kind of style when he was particularly rushed. Some of your material seems to harken back to that, particularly your depiction of the Hulk.

TJKC: Right. [laughs] A huge one. As far as your first regular series, The Defenders was it? 27

KEITH: Um-hmm. First regular series. I think I made a “balls-up” with it. Everyone talks about “Marvel didn’t treat me good when I broke in.” Well, I didn’t treat Marvel good. TJKC: How so? KEITH: Never on time, full of excuses. Just an asshole kid off the street who thought he knew it all and didn’t know anything. TJKC: And after Defenders? KEITH: I had to leave the industry for a while. I had to get slapped down. I had to lick the bottom of the cistern before I could pull myself back up and say, “Maybe guys like Carmine Infantino, and Joe Kubert, and Joe Orlando, and Paul Levitz, and Ernie Colon, and maybe these people, have a point.” TJKC: You had to go out and get a sense of discipline? KEITH: I had to get beat-up first. I had to get beat-up to realize how lucky I’d been to get in first crack, right out of the box. I made myself pay the dues that everyone talks about. TJKC: And then you went over to the Legion? You got back in, like you said, with Joe Orlando’s help? KEITH: I got back with Joe Orlando’s help and did some “Dr. Fate” back-ups. It seemed to impress people enough that I was offered the job of doing back-ups on the Legion. Which I never thought I’d do, because I had really done Paul bad. When I was offered it with Mike Barr, I sat down with Paul and we cleared the air. It’s really to Paul’s benefit. He really put it behind him and said, “Let’s see what we can do on this. I’m bringing Darkseid into the mix, are you interested?” And that just sold me. TJKC: On the Dr. Fate material, did you choose Larry [Mahlsted] to work with or was he assigned to you? KEITH: Everyone was assigned to me. It wasn’t until the books really started selling that I could make a little noise about preferred inkers, but even then I could be overridden. TJKC: But you and Larry worked together for a period of time, right? KEITH: Yeah, yeah. I still like the way Larry’s stuff looks. I’d still work with him again. TJKC: Were most of your inkers pretty faithful to your pencils? KEITH: Ninety percent, yes. I pencil anal-retentively. For a while there I was even drawing in outer space and erasing out the stars.

(above) Great Darkseid! Giffen’s take on the evil one from Legion of Super-Heroes #294.

TJKC: When you and Paul were doing Legion, didn’t it regain a resurgence in popularity? KEITH: Yeah, it did. To this day I don’t know what button we pressed, but the book was doing real well. Even after we were done with “The Great Darkness Saga,” which probably helped jack the book up and draw attention to it, I think Paul and I both agree that every issue after that we were playing “Can you top that?” But I don’t think we ever did.

again, for three years I would go into Andy Helfer’s office at regular intervals and say, ‘Give me the book.’ It became a running gag, and I never expected they would until one day he called my bluff. TJKC: How long did you have JLA? KEITH: Sixty issues, plus the equivalent amounts of Justice League Europes on the other side. I think it might have started a year or two after that. That was fun. I enjoyed doing it, but it reached a point where—not that there were no more Justice League stories to tell, but there were no more Justice League stories I wanted to tell.

TJKC: You didn’t stay that long after that—or did you? KEITH: I did for a while after that. What happened was I did this Legion poster, characters all over the place. And in drawing that Legion poster I totally burned myself out on the book. After the poster I just had to walk away.

TJKC: Were you primarily a writer at that point? KEITH: Plotter. What I would do is I would draw it out like Harvey Kurtzman used to draw out his little war stories. And then Marc DeMatteis would come in and turn my little notes into English, basically.

TJKC: Really? And from there you went to Ambush Bug? KEITH: Then it was just Ambush Bug and picking up assignments. They’d come to me and say, “Does this interest you, does this interest you?” Ambush Bug was one I specifically asked for and any book that I sort of cobbled together I would specifically ask for. Even Justice League was offered to me. Although, for three years before Justice League was finally cancelled, before the Crisis came and they started it

TJKC: So you did breakdowns and MacGuire finished those? KEITH: Yeah, I would sketch a little comic book on typewriter paper and that would be the plot that he’d be given. This way if he saw a better way of working it in terms of storytelling he could do that, but if he was rushed the storytelling was all layed-out for him. 28

TJKC: Did you choose him? KEITH: Andy Helfer discovered him. As I said, these people were assigned to me. Bart Sears was designing the C.O.P.s toys and Andy found him and he was brought on board real fast to save Invasion. People say he’s a deadline problem, but back then he was the deadline savior. He wound up on Justice League Europe, and everyone had fun with these books until we all decided to bow out.

being Marvel and DC being DC, it couldn’t be done. Most of the time I was plotting the books with very few exceptions. I left the visual interpretation and any little inside gags up to the individual artist. Adam Hughes tended to like to do that; putting Jack there or putting his friends in. Mike McKone did it one time. He drew myself, Andy Helfer, and Kevin Dooley as bank robbers. It wouldn’t have bothered me so much, but they were such dead-bang drawings. I never met the guy, but they were dead on. It was funny, I never realized how lucky I was in that so many people who fell onto books with me were good, solid professionals. They really made me look good.

TJKC: There was this specific instance I recall—I think it was also in the Art of Jack Kirby, about Scott Free being buried. There was a priest or somebody presiding over a funeral. KEITH: Oh, yeah. It was Jack.

TJKC: Did you feel you were getting trapped doing the Kirby point of view? Did you want to start stretching yourself after a period of time? KEITH: Yeah. It was a deliberate attempt to try to keep myself interested; try to do different things, try to find a way of reinventing yourself to stay fresh. As it turned out, I found that much easier to do in the writing phase than in the drawing phase. The latter part of my comic book work, it was mostly writing and breaking it down.

TJKC: Was that your specific instruction? KEITH: No, that was Adam Hughes. As a matter of fact, in the crowd was one of his Marvel characters, as well. Unfortunately, Marvel

TJKC: Why was it difficult with the art? KEITH: I don’t know. Maybe it was the time spent on each page. I tend to want to move on. When I was plotting, the average issue of Justice League took me a day to do. When I was writing things I could usually take two or three days and write a full script. The actual artwork itself—I was just spending too much time. My mind would wander off. This is not early on like with Legion, this is later on. I would start losing interest halfway through the story—or worse, get halfway through the series I promised I’d do. Plus, in terms of the last five years or so, the comic book industry has evolved into something... let me put it this way. I love the artform. Comic books themselves, I love. But I hate the industry that’s grown up around it. I hate what the industry has evolved into. I think the primary purpose of the comic book industry right now is screwing kids out of their allowance. TJKC: Doing different variants? KEITH: Yeah, wasn’t that a horrible time? That was where we took our core market and pretty much told him to go to hell. I was always screaming, “The bubble’s going to burst,” and I got people pissed off at me because I started telling kids the truth about polybags. That was the beginning of the end for me. TJKC: Around that same time you returned to some degree to your Kirby roots with Victory, right? KEITH: Yes. To be honest with you, it was more the chance to work with Kurt Busiek, than to play around with the Victory characters. Although there was a certain fascination there to play around in a universe that Jack hadn’t even played around in. I think it’s interesting; flawed, but interesting. Unfortunately, it didn’t go past one issue and that’s my fault, too. When the sales figures came in I said I’m not doing number two, because I don’t think you should publish it. Had that book continued I would have been getting paid by a company that was in the red on that book. It was like The Heckler over at DC. I took a look at the sales figures and I walked in to Mike Carlin and said, ‘Let’s make number six the last issue, because this book

(above) Kirby’s pencils for the cover of Avengers #153.

they claimed I did. There was no time I was sitting there tracing or copying, no. Duplicating, pulling out of memory and putting down on paper after intense study, absolutely. Did Munoz wrong? Mm-hmm, sure did. I guess they could have a nice little article on how you get so fixated on something and so obsessed by it that you can actually do somebody that you’re a big fan of wrong. The odd thing was the end result of the whole thing. I got Justice League and then my career really took off. So I don’t know how that works. [laughter] I’m not kidding. I was so gun shy at that point about putting pencil to paper. I moved into the plotting and the breaking down and telling the story, which I always thought was my strong point anyway. I think I tell a story really well visually. I went into that for a couple of years and the art didn’t seem to matter much anymore, until Trencher came along, which was an experiment in not penciling. TJKC: Going straight to ink? KEITH: Yeah. Taking a zipograph and drawing his glasses and go! TJKC: [laughs] Do you feel that you’ve come as close with that book as any to your own personal style? KEITH: I think Trencher was the closest. It was me spontaneously—not looking at anyone, not referencing anyone, not with anyone in the back of my mind. Just putting it down on paper. Had it survived, more and more blacks would have bled in. I just broke it down to linework at first. Had it continued, God knows what would have happened. It might’ve been really interesting to see where that might’ve gone. It wasn’t meant to be, I guess. TJKC: Did you feel liberated when you were doing it? KEITH: Did I ever. Putting aside the tight pencils—and if the line wasn’t right, just go over it again—it was very Bleckman. He uses those squiggly lines, that kind of approach. That window is on a forty-five degree angle and that window is on a thirty degree angle. Cool! [laughter] That was a lot of fun. It grew out of “Infanticide,” the Lobo “Infanticide” issues. I started moving in that direction, then with the Trencher book I figured, “Let me just push it all the way”; my version of the “big foot” art that seems to be so popular. TJKC: With Lobo and Ambush Bug, did you see that comics needed a good kick in the pants with humor? KEITH: I still think it does. I was told by an editor up at DC that humor is [a dead] genre in comic books. I could have hit him. [laughter] Comic books, for such a small, incestuous, inbred, little business—and I mean that in a good way—we take this job so seriously. All the time I was doing Justice League, even when it was number one and outselling everything DC had, there was not a day that went by that I was not pressured to take the humor out. “It’s destroying the book.” People would yank their characters out of the book. “I don’t want Keith getting them. He’ll make fun of them.” And the deal I had with people was when they walk in the door of the Embassy they’re mine, when they walk out I will return them to you in the same shape they were when they came in. But some people couldn’t handle the idea that Batman had a wry sense of humor, or that Beetle and Booster could be bumpkins. They totally missed the point of the book. With Ambush Bug it was basically comic book Candide; innocent, but broad. It was deconstruction of comics and inviting people to come look under the rug. Maybe pointing out things the companies didn’t want you to know. Like when we did our spoof on Crisis, we told the truth: Crisis on the only Earth we’re allowed to use. It didn’t go over big. There were a lot of people who got their feathers ruffled. Lobo was originally meant as an indictment of the

(above) Unpublished Giffen page from Victory, featuring Kirby’s character Tiger 21. (next page) Kirby 1970s convention sketch of Cap.

isn’t selling well enough to continue.’ Back then I had an attitude— and a whole lot of other people did, too—that’s pretty much gone now. The idea that the freelancer and the company were in this odd, mutually beneficial symbiotic dance, and as long as it stayed mutually beneficial, everything was going to be fine. If I’m under contract with DC, it’s in my best interest to see that DC is healthy and providing me with work. That’s gone right now. Now it’s give me what I want when I want, and a big royalty bag, and screw you. The journeyman is dead. It’s funny, Paul predicted that ten years ago and I thought he was pulling my leg; but apparently, no. TJKC: Just backtracking a little bit, there was a controversy with Ambush Bug with Munoz? KEITH: Yeah, yeah. I didn’t even know what I had at that point. A friend of mine who shall remain nameless, because I don’t want him dragged into this, showed me a whole bunch of xeroxed pages of this Munoz artwork. I was flabbergasted. I think for about a month I couldn’t work. All I could do was study this guy’s work; poring over it and poring over it, until the point I practically became that work, and I stepped over a line. I fully admit that—not for any of the reasons 30

grim and gritty hero with a gun. To me they were villains who were doing the right thing for the wrong reason. But boy, so many people missed the joke. [laughter]

and fast return of comics. I thought that was the best thing. You do the book and a month later it’s out and you get a response from people. I miss that. I miss guiding these books. It’s funny, it’s always the really difficult children that I look back on, like the re-vamping of the Legion, the five years later, that was just agony to get through, because of all the interference and the hassles and the hate mail and everything. I look back at that and I’d go back and do that in a second. The Justice League books with the constant hassling to take the humor out of the books. Punx, which I never even got to finish. I’ve been talking to the people on the Marvel scene. Give me the Impossible Man for one issue and let me rampage through the Marvel Universe. Nobody wants humor. They want all of this X-Men angst. Talk about missing the boat. As I remember, the X-Men angst was these guys were just ordinary people with extraordinary powers. They were no great shakes. I think Jean Grey was a good looking woman, and that was about it. And Warren Worthington was a spoiled, rich guy, right? And, of course they’d whine and moan and bitch and piss around. “Oh, we’re not accepted and oh, we’re mutants and everyone hates us.” I look back and say, “Yeah, they’re outcasts, but now they’re all drawn like a f*cking fashion model. The guys are handsome. The women are drop-dead gorgeous. They got the cars, they got the clothes, and on top of everything else they can fly? Shut the hell up. I don’t want to hear about it.”

TJKC: More guns! KEITH: I thought Lobo was one of these vile, completely unlikable buffoons who would be the poster boy for High Caliber Axis. But apparently he went a whole other direction. Interesting story about Lobo; we did the first series and the damn thing took off and DC did not know what to do with it. I was stuck with a character that I really didn’t like. So as a goof, I cobbled together this Christmas story. It was so far over the top, I sent it in to DC just to watch their eyeballs spin. Two weeks later Simon Bisley calls and goes, “You’re kidding, right?” I said, “What?” He says, “This Christmas thing.” I said, “They sent it to you?” He goes, “Yeah.” Okay, then, let’s jack up the level. We went in and got Santa as a cross-dressing elf-molester and stuff and they published it! At that point I went in to Dick Giordano and he said, “We want to do another Lobo mini-series.” “Okay, Dick, I’ll tell you what. I’m going to stay on this series and continue doing Lobo.” They were thinking of doing a monthly, which I thought was a really bad idea. I knew they’d try to shoehorn him into the DC Universe and he doesn’t belong there. Their continuity— I believe in consistency in comics, but continuity has killed this business. I said, “I’m going to keep throwing stuff at you and the first time you tell me to stop or you censor me I’m going to leave the book.” And he laughed and said, “Keith, I don’t think you can do that, but go ahead, I trust you.” It was the final issue of Lobo’s Back when they called and said, “You can’t do this.” Do you remember the scene when he’s fighting Torquemada and the Inquisitors of Doom?

TJKC: What does Kirby mean to you? KEITH: Comics. There’s no way you can approach comics from any angle without bumping into Kirby. I’m sure if you sat down and talked with Robert Crumb long enough, Jack Kirby would pop up. The punk comic book movement—talk to Gary Pinter; Kirby pops out of his mouth. You can’t escape him. He’s probably the one single, allpervasive influence in this business. If you had one third the career he had, you’d be looked upon as a wunderkind nowadays. A phenomenal talent. I used to think that when Kirby would walk away it would take five or ten people to fill the void, but we don’t have five or ten people anymore—people who I consider being able to come up with a new concept, new ideas, populate those books, feed that common pool. I don’t see it.

TJKC: Yeah. KEITH: That was not in the original plot. TJKC: What was? KEITH: Combat Christ and the Howlin’ Apostles. [laughter] And they said, “Absolutely not.” [more laughter] TJKC: Well, you tried. KEITH: I said, “Okay, fine, so long, take care.” I wished Alan Grant all the luck in the world and walked away from the character. I came back occasionally. I’d be interested in what Steve Ditko meant when he said he’d wouldn’t go back to SpiderMan or Dr. Strange, because you really can’t go back there. It’s not the same character, it’s not the same time. You always look crappy when compared to the earlier work. That’s why when I wanted to do something with Trencher I certainly didn’t revive him as a comic book. I wrote him up as a screenplay and landed him with a producer out there.

TJKC: Do you think the industry passed with him? KEITH: I’ve always said the comic book industry died about three or four years ago. Officially died. Everything that’s been going on since then has been this bizarre publishing version of Weekend at Bernie’s. I think it’s time to turn around and go, “The average comic book doesn’t sell enough copies to place one issue on each seat in Madison Square Garden.” We’re heading for the Franklin Mint. “Order your Civil War chess set and the latest issue of Superman.” We don’t have any more Julie Schwartzs to come in and point the way on how to revive the super-hero genre. We don’t have any Stan Lees or Jack Kirbys. Hell, we don’t even have any Murray Boltinoffs—and if they were able to knock on the door, they would be locked out and beaten into submission by this industry that’s now run by cronies and short-term thinking. ★

TJKC: Is it under option now? KEITH: Uh-huh. I’m doing another ground floor re-write. Somehow, someway they decided, “Oh, maybe we should do it your way.” TJKC: So you’re staying a pretty busy guy? KEITH: Yeah, I got hobbies. I look upon all this stuff as hobbies. I’ve got a horror script out there that Stan Winston has attached himself to as director and is shopping around. I still miss the spontaneity 31

As A Genre

A new regular feature examining Kirby-inspired work, by Adam McGovern

atching the dynamism of Jack Kirby’s design, and mining the cast of characters he created or collaborated on, has long been an imperative of mainstream comics. Now, as generations of artists come into their own for whom Kirby-influenced art is the primary frame of reference rather than one prominent approach, and as Kirby’s pivotal place in the pantheon of pulp culture is belatedly acknowledged, there are proliferating examples of creators who channel his style to a degree unthinkable among his contemporaries, and revivals of his concepts which make them ever more central to the mythos of his two main employers, Marvel and DC. From time to time this column will examine recent homages to “the King,” from stylistic emulations, to current treatments of his characters, to the ways in which his successors handle acknowledging him by name.

M (this page) Thomas Scioli’s very Kirbyesque work from The Myth of 8-Opus, available now. © Thomas Scioli.

(next page) Walter Simonson’s stellar work from Orion #4. © DC Comics.

There’s no better way to start measuring the Kirby influence than to note how far beyond the mainstream it reaches. Thomas Scioli’s The Myth of 8-Opus is a selfpublished indy initially bankrolled by the Xeric Foundation, alternative-comics philanthropists perhaps best known for having funded the original Castle Waiting. This quest saga of a mysterious drifter on the intergalactic plains (the first issue of which should be on sale as you read this) incorporates not only Kirby’s look but also his sensibility in a

The Power of Myth

way which shows the true freshness of the enthusiast rather than the stasis of the imitator. First and foremost there is, of course, the art, which goes beyond almost all current Kirby tributes to not only evoke the rendering style (a rare enough gift to master), but also to apply and advance the all-important compositional sense; some of the most dynamic layouts you’ve seen in a long time, you’ll see here. Also present is Kirby’s hallucinatory imagination; the first issue finds our hero searching through the remains of a dying world shaped like a gargantuan human corpse, with a mysterious and deceptively utopian city thriving upside-down on the ceiling of its skull! And we have Kirby’s fevered classic/pop-culture mix-and-match, creating fresh recombinations on each stir; the mytho-technological wordplay of the title character’s name alone is an audacious gem (if it’s not coming to you, say it to yourself fast or consider the first issue’s title, “8-Opus Wrecks”— which, with storytelling economy in the manner of the master, doubles as the start of the narration’s first sentence!). Along the way we get a few of Kirby’s idiosyncrasies, too. Some of the narrative transitions could be a bit smoother, some of the anatomical passages a bit more convincing, and some of the exposition tightened up; and the covers show how much Scioli’s intricate art could benefit from color or at least tones. But most of these cavils are a product of the full-speed-ahead creativity that makes

Simonson is one of comics’ unduplicable stylists and visionaries—on a par with departed innovators like Gil Kane and analogous to overseas creators, like France’s Moebius, from lands where it’s taken for granted that comics are an art form—and he’s at the height of his considerable powers here, with bravura design, cinematic drama, and resolutely experimental layout that sacrifices nothing in narrative clarity. Sometimesmurky color slightly undermines the impeccable linework I had the good fortune to peruse in prepublication copies, but this series still marks a banner moment for the medium. Simonson is not the only superb artist seen in Orion’s pages; in back-up features some of his leading peers are coaxed into the belly of mainstream comics for the privilege of associating with him, and in return his writing shows singular sensitivity to their work; you’ll find it hard to believe that the flashback sequence drawn by Frank Miller was not scripted by Miller as well. And speaking of fine writing in unexpected forms, also worth the price of a copy is the first-issue text-page’s how’d-he-ever-get-away-with-it disembowelment of market-driven ’90s comics— though the post-Kirby transformation of the Tigra character from formidable middle-aged woman to breastplate-bustin’ babe itself remains a sad sign of the times. Overall, however, while it may be impossible for anyone but Kirby to invest the Fourth World with its full grandeur, Simonson is among those who’ve given it the most dignity. We have just enough space left for the first fruits from TJKC’s Vault of Euphemisms, that almost-real zone in which appreciative creators come as close to crediting Kirby as their corporate hosts will allow. Marvel’s Earth X Issue Zero is “Dedicated to the works of” Kirby and several others, while the company’s X-51 #1 is published “In memory of Jack Kirby”; meanwhile, the joint Marvel/DC one-shot Incredible Hulk vs. Superman comes “With acknowledgment to the work of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby,” right above the “Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster” line long-since mandated by litigation. Kids, spot those euphemisms, send ’em to “Kirby As a Genre” care of this magazine, and we’ll, um, gratefully appreciate your proximity to the mailbox. By name!

By Any Other Name

Be here next time for our Back-issue Bonanza, in which we survey unsung but significant Kirby homages in the still-on-the-shelves or soon-to-be-collected categories.★

Soon On This Site

the book endearing, and even as of the second issue (the last I had prepublication access to), all of the problems are working themselves out as he steams along. In general, the project weaves together Scioli’s own mythic and science-fictional ideas and those of his predecessors with impressive fluidity, the story draws one into its surreal universe with ease, and the visuals meet their ambitions with command. (Check out the Xeric Foundation at www.xericfoundation.com; 8-Opus is available from Thomas Scioli Publishing, 5645 Hobart St., Apt 1, Pittsburgh, PA 15217; sciolit@yahoo.com.) Ironically, the overdue recognition of Kirby’s unfinished Fourth World saga as a major point in pop-culture history has solidified it into a static franchise from the finite serial novel Kirby intend-

The Next God

ed. This imposes certain obstacles on the concept’s would-be inheritors, rendering reams of sequels unmemorable while the most radical departures from the original (Steve Gerber’s brief late-’70s run on Mister Miracle, Waid & Ross’s few pages in the collected Kingdom Come, and Kirby’s own revisitation Hunger Dogs) are, however paradoxically, the only ones which feel canonical. Too often these inheritors focus on plot-oriented cosmic spectacle or character intrigues, rather than the allegorical projection of current social and psychological conflicts that Kirby had in mind. These challenges are no less in evidence in Walter Simonson’s Orion series than in any attempt (though they are, in fairness, mostly built-in), and after four issues the jury is still out on how well Simonson the writer will ultimately transcend them. But for Simonson the artist, as of issue #1 “unmemorable” is certainly not a problem.

Kirby Koincidences

Got a weird coincidence involving Kirby, such as the above Yellow Pages ad for a British mini-blind company? (Read close, now!) Send ’em in! Our thanks to Rob Baldwin of the UK for this one.

DEVIL DINO S AU R EXTRA

Jack’s nine-issue series about a reasoning red dinosaur may not have been everyone’s cup of tea, but Devil Dinosaur definitely garnered its share of fans. So this two-page spread from issue #4 is hereby dedicated to our buddy (and webmaster extraordinaire) Randy Hoppe, the biggest Devil nut we know. We figure anyone crazy enough to create a Devil Dinosaur Devotees website <www.fantasty.com/devildinosaur> deserves it!

Machine Man and Devil Dinosaur but I wasn’t very impressed at the time. The Black Panther was fun from the start! I eagerly awaited every issue and it never bothered me that Jack ignored everything from Jungle Action, a book I had enjoyed for about a year. Even Ricky liked Kirby’s Panther at first, but he really made fun of the Black Musketeers in a later issue and quit reading. We didn’t always understand Jack. I can see that now. We were used to different comic books and Jack’s work for Marvel was strange to us. We got used to it, we matured, we learned a little more about Jack’s legacy. Jack was always ahead of his time but, paradoxically, he was often a little behind his time as well. I don’t think we were quite ready for Jack in 1975, but he was always ready for us, and waiting for the day when we might come around.

Jack Who? by Tony Seybert

hose of us who grew up in the ’70s remember the weekly missions. The careening bicycles, the cracked sidewalks and the alleys, the younger siblings to be ditched or looked after, the chores that had to be finished before you could decamp. And the wild final approach as we raced across the parking lot and descended on the drugstore like marauding Huns. One Tuesday at the end of 1975, there was something unusual about one of the comic books we all enjoyed. Some guy named Kirby had taken over on Captain America. None of us was much over twelve years of age, and the name of Jack Kirby didn’t mean much to us. We quickly reached a consensus on Captain America #193 and the first chapter of the “Madbomb” storyline. To phrase it in the most polite manner possible, we didn’t like it. I bought most of the Kirby Captain America issues anyway but I didn’t like it at all until after “Madbomb” ended. By then, I had read Origins of Marvel Comics and Son of Origins (which was advertised in Captain America #194), I had acquired a few back issues and reprints, and I understood the Kirby contribution to comics a little better. Since I was buying them, the other kids were reading my copies, and Captain America was the subject of much schoolyard debate. Most of it was negative. I was the only one actually paying for them and even I didn’t like them at first. My peers made fun of me for buying every issue of a comic book I didn’t like. We mocked the dialogue. My friend Ricky would read a few pages aloud, talking like a dullard, or lisping, and we would laugh like little demons. (Ricky would eventually accumulate a huge collection of Kirby Fantastic Four comics and most of the first Hulk series.) “Kill Derby” was the subject of much ridicule. We made fun of certain poses. We thought the monsters were weird. The plot was hard to follow. There was always something in Kirby’s Captain America to make fun of. After “Madbomb” ended, we weren’t making fun of Cap anymore. (Well, Ricky thought Kirby’s Red Skull was really stupidlooking.) There weren’t as many of us reading comics either, just a few stalwarts who would give the hobby a few more years. One guy liked the “Night People” storyline and another guy thought Agron was really cool. I was rather partial to the story with the Swine and Donna Maria. Then Arnim Zola was introduced and we were all pointing and laughing again! I didn’t read The Eternals or 2001 when they first appeared. (Years later, I picked up a few issues of The Eternals and found it very (above) Pencils from Machine Man #2. (next page) Devil Dinosaur #7 pencils, featuring one lovely brontosaurus. entertaining.) I did pick up a few issues of

From what I’ve heard of Mr. Kirby, I don’t think he would have minded a bunch of punks sitting on the curb in front of the drugstore and making fun of his comics. We were young and having fun. We were laughing, we were enjoying ourselves. Jack had pleased himself, he had said what he wanted to say, and he was also entertaining his intended audience. Did it really matter that we didn’t see it quite the same way he did? I recently re-read all the books I still have from Kirby’s Marvel period of the ’70s and I think they’re great! I already mentioned how much I enjoyed Black Panther and it still holds up very well. And this time around, I was really getting into Devil Dinosaur. It’s really weird but it’s energetic and original and very entertaining as it documents the prehistoric adventures of a primitive pre-human and his companion, a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Why didn’t I like it in 1978? I suppose I was resistant because there were no super-heroes as such. I only bought four issues so my collection ends with a cliffhanger as aliens attack and capture Moon Boy, and Devil prepares to rush in and save him! (I have to hunt up the rest of the series!) I feel much the same way about Machine Man. I only bought three issues and I wasn’t very impressed at the time. Now, though, I find Kirby’s fable about Aaron Stack, the almost-human robot, to be very compelling. I have no idea why I stopped buying them. That third issue ends with the evil alien, Ten-For, about to destroy Earth after disabling Machine Man. Wow! What was I thinking? (By the way, the earliest issues of both Machine Man and Devil Dinosaur have very interesting editorials by Jack.) Of the comics discussed in this article, the only storyline that still mostly fails to work for me is the “Madbomb” series in Captain America #193-200. I admit I get a kick out of “Kill Derby” in #196, but overall the series is too long and complicated and confusing, and fails to maintain my interest. Well, maybe I’m still an immature punk. I’ll read it again in another twenty years or so and maybe it will make sense. ★

HELP US TRACK DOWN Stuntman © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby.

STUNTMAN!

TwoMorrows Publishing needs your help with our new publication, THE BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY! Produced in cooperation with Joe Simon and the Kirby Family, this colossal volume will compile the complete runs of STUNTMAN, BOY EXPLORERS, & CAPTAIN 3-D! But for optimum reproduction, we need clean photocopies of any and all original art or stats you might have from these series! To make this book complete, we’re particularly interested in pages from the never-published STUNTMAN stories, “Jungle Lord,” “Terror Island” (featuring the villainous Panda), and “The Evil Sons of M. LeBlanc.” We’ll gladly reimburse you for copying/shipping expenses, and send you a FREE COPY OF THE BOOK when it’s published! Requests for anonymity will be respected, so help make this book a reality, and get in touch with us today! Send photocopies of any STUNTMAN, BOY EXPLORERS, or CAPTAIN 3-D art (published OR unpublished) to: TwoMorrows Publishing, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605 • 919-833-8092 • fax: 919-833-8023 • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com

Rich Buckler Interview Conducted by Jon B. Cooke, transcribed by John Morrow (Rich Buckler broke into the comics scene in a big way in the early ’70s with his work on The Avengers and other Marvel, DC and Warren titles. An admitted “chameleon,” Rich has worked in a number of distinct styles, including Jack Kirby’s. Though he has worked on several prominent titles during his career, he is probably most remembered as the creator of Deathlok for Marvel. This interview was conducted by phone in February 2000.)

RICH: Yeah, it knocked me out! (laughter) I wasn’t aware of any artist other than Jack Kirby who was that dynamic with the human figure, and could convey such drama and emotion. It grabbed me right away. I’m probably not the first to observe this. (laughter) TJKC: You obviously picked up on his style in paying homage to it when you were doing Fantastic Four to a degree, but especially when you were doing Thor. RICH: It was more like gratitude. I was so grateful for how much his work inspired me. It was as if I wanted to tell everybody, “Hey, look at this guy!” But sometimes people took it wrong, and thought that I was saying, “Hey, look at me, I can draw like this guy.” But it’s very difficult to get all the drawing distortions; you don’t think like he did. But I think I picked up on the emotion and the drama, and that’s what affected my work the most. I wanted to pay back, and say “thanks,” and also to be a fan; to pretend this isn’t comics work, it’s fanzine work. It was probably very immature of me to do that, (laughter) and not every editor went along with that. A lot of times the editors weren’t thrilled with it. They liked the idea that I was bringing back some excitement, and they missed the Kirby work at the time. It seemed like every time I was able to apply it, I was at a company where Kirby wasn’t. He was always five or ten steps ahead of me.

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: When did you first see Kirby’s work? RICH BUCKLER: Probably Fantastic Four. We’re talking #20, or something in that area. TJKC: Was there anything special about it that attracted you?

TJKC: Do you think in retrospect it was artistically successful? Could somebody really pick up on the very idiosyncratic point of view Kirby has? RICH: I think I did it successfully, but I don’t think I’m the only one. If someone comes up to me and says, “You draw the best Jack Kirby take-off I’ve ever seen,” that could be a compliment, but it could also be taken the other way. What does that mean, to be the best imitator? I hope I captured a lot of what he was about, but of course you can’t really do anything that’s so close it’ll be mistaken for the real thing, unless you think like that man did, and he was a genius. While I consider myself any less so, I don’t have the output he had, and I don’t have the energy and dynamics to the extent that he did so. I had to work at it real hard. TJKC: When you were at Marvel in the mid-’70s working on Thor and Fantastic Four, in some ways it was like having Kirby there, when he wasn’t. RICH: Well, I wanted him to be there when he wasn’t. (laughter) So I know what you mean. But I wasn’t the only one imitating him; I was just probably the one most obvious about it.

(above) Jack Kirby pencils for the cover of Fantastic Four #174.

TJKC: Were you the first professional one to really imitate Jack? RICH: No. Dick Ayers was imitating him, because people wanted the dynamics to be there in the storytelling. I don’t think there was any format edict that was made, “Hey, everybody, you have to draw like Jack.” But Marie Severin worshiped him and wanted to draw like him. Don Heck tried to draw like him, at least from my observations. There were others that were his contemporaries that admired him and

so much fun. TJKC: Is that the first really overt pastiche you did? RICH: That got me in a lot of trouble with people, who went, “What’s the matter with him? He flipped out, he went backwards, he forgot how to draw.” But when you do that style, you do have to forget how to draw to an extent, to do the cartooniness. I think too many artists that really know how to draw well forget that. John Byrne knows how to draw well, and he hasn’t forgotten it. And George Pérez has gotten real good, and his draftsmanship is very good, but he hasn’t forgotten how to exaggerate. TJKC: There was a real transition when you did The Avengers right after #100, with an almost John Buscematype work. Then you did a Giant-Size Avengers with Nuklo that was a very Kirby-pastiche. RICH: That was another giant-size, and I just let loose. I had no editor looking over me saying, “Do this, but don’t do that.” I had Roy Thomas, who was like a guardian angel. He said, “Rich, do your thing. Some people say you’ve got too much Kirby influence, or that you swipe Kirby, or copy him, and it’s a bad thing. I like the Kirby stuff; do whatever you want.” So with those kind of bosses, how could you go wrong, unless you did something phenomenally stupid—which I tried not to. You’re on safe ground, as long as the excitement’s there; as long as it’s good comics. TJKC: So there was no edict that came down for you to draw like Kirby? RICH: No. It was my own crazy idea. I did it strictly to have fun and say, “Hey, Jack, thanks!”

(above) Rich’s splash page for Fantastic Four #150. Inks by Joe Sinnott.

TJKC: Do you recall Jack ever seeing that work or having comment on it? RICH: No. I think I spoke to his wife one time, and she said he took it as a compliment. People’d come up to them and say, “Hey, Buckler’s copying you.” Well, hello! Like I’m the first person who ever copied Kirby? (laughter) I got a lot of attention because I was being the most overt about it, the most blatant. TJKC: Were the comments you received 50/50 positive/ negative? RICH: No, most people were supportive. Most of them loved it. People who tended to get bugged by it were people in the business. I think that just had to do with the nonsense that creeps in with egos and what have you.

wanted to draw like him, and incorporated some of those dynamics. I think George Tuska worked in the Simon & Kirby studio, and at times did work that was trying to pick up on that style. TJKC: But with the approach of storytelling, Marie certainly picked up aspects of it. Actually, all the people who came in after Kirby picked up on it in one way or another. RICH: Marie had her own distinctive style, but she had the same problem I had; she had to work at it really hard. (laughter) After at least ten years of drawing, my draftsmanship got very good. That’s an accomplishment in itself, but anybody can do that with a lot of practice. But to go back to Jack Kirby, you have to draw “badly”; actually, what happens is, you learn realism, and you get to where you can draw so well, you don’t want to exaggerate. Because of the style Jack Kirby was always evolving, it was always exaggerated. It had such cartooniness that allowed for that exaggeration. But when you got really realistic, it didn’t quite work.

TJKC: Do you think part of that could’ve been that you had the technique and facility to expand yourself as an artist unto yourself, and that you were throwing yourself backwards? RICH: There was a period there were it was actually taboo, literally, to swipe. It was supposedly something negative. You weren’t supposed to imitate; you certainly weren’t supposed to copy anything. I think the ones who were the most verbal about criticizing this were the ones most guilty, if they were artists. If they were editors, they were just being hypocrites, because everybody that’s a comic artist has swiped, and is probably still swiping; from photographs, or from other people’s work. Swiping was supposedly a negative thing, and it went around to editors: “This one swipes, don’t give him work.” It got real mean, and it’s ridiculous. The masters from the Renaissance; that’s how they learned. And there’s a tradition of it in comics, and we’re talking commercial art it; it’s not high art. But they took it so serious, it developed into almost a political thing: “Don’t use this guy, he swipes.”

TJKC: I think the first instance where I really noticed it in your work was Giant-Size Super Stars #1. RICH: On that book, they gave me a plot. It looked pretty skimpy, but they said I could do a giant-size. So I sort of really made up the story from a very brief outline, and I drew the entire thing over the weekend. (laughter) I decided I’m going to be a superman, and I’m going to go nuts, and pull out all my Jack Kirby stuff, and that’s what I did. It was 39

TJKC: You’re a self-professed chameleon; you’ve got a Neal Adams approach, a Gil Kane approach, a John Buscema approach. RICH: I always looked at it as commercial art, but I also looked at it as something I feel certain artists had tuned-in on; what I call “good comics,” and the love of comics. Wally Wood had it, Gil Kane, Joe Kubert; if I spoke to any of these men, this is what lit their fires. It was and is there still in their work. You go for good comics and good storytelling, and whatever will get across the best effect, and dramatize the story. If you have to work in a completely different style, you do it.

Kirby’s style. RICH: Jack affected me so much that when I had an opportunity to create and publish my own characters, I thought, “This is it.” Put his name on it, dedicate it to him, let everybody know it’s a fan effort, and just go for it. I got Roy Thomas involved, which wasn’t very difficult to do, because Roy picked up on the energy and loved the idea. Roy is still a big fan—I’d say a “super-fan,” but in the positive sense. There’s no imagining the energy of this man. TJKC: Do you have a whole story arc planned for Forever Warriors? I know it came out as a one-shot. RICH: Yes I did, the whole thing’s supposed to wrap up in three issues each. The Invincibles was sort of a preamble to a series I wanted to do, so it was a series of flashback stories that would hold together in some way. With Forever Warriors, the idea was to combine the feeling of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World, and the style that he had at that time, with The Wizard of Oz. And I mixed it with science-fiction; I’m a huge science-fiction reader. Jack had an incredible mind for stories. He was criticized at Marvel around the time he was working on Captain America. People were saying, “Hey, he’s brought Captain America back, and it’s really cool, but he really needs a writer. Jack really can’t write.” That’s nonsense. He wrote a huge amount of the things he created with Joe Simon, and he was also more or less co-writer with Stan Lee, in that he was so heavily involved in the storytelling and creating the story elements. The man was a natural writer.

TJKC: In retrospect, would you have done such heavy pastiches? Are you satisfied with that work? RICH: I never mixed styles indiscriminately, or mixed two or three different artists’ styles to come up with some odd weirdness, just to be cool or strange. I did it with some thought that comics are an art; I always took comics as an art seriously. There was a method to my madness, and I don’t regret doing any of it. TJKC: As recently as the Forever Warriors, you were paying homage to

TJKC: Was he taking a lot of heat in the office when he returned to Marvel in the 1970s? Did you perceive any hostility in the Marvel offices? There have been stories that there were writers in the Bullpen that really wanted to write, and have Jack Kirby draw their stories. RICH: I wouldn’t blame them. If I were a writer, I’d certainly want to write for someone who could illustrate so dynamically, and could also give you feedback on ideas and valuable storytelling input.

(above) The Black Panther shows off his skills as an ambassador in this splash from Black Panther #10; pencils by Jack Kirby.

TJKC: Was there a feeling that he was wasting his talent by writing as well as drawing? RICH: Well, maybe, but people have their opinions. What I saw was simply, Jack Kirby’s work would come in, and people would say, “Oh, Kirby’s in!” Everybody’d rush over and see what he did, and

Royer,” which I couldn’t. I think the inking samples weren’t what he was looking for, but he was shown other samples that I had sent to Shel Dorf; Shel is the one who orchestrated this whole thing. Jack just got really enthusiastic about the work, and he told me, “If you’re going to New York, tell Stan to give you a job. And if he doesn’t, tell him to call me.” TJKC: Did you ever tell Stan? RICH: I didn’t, because I was young and thought, “Hey, Jack says I’m ready, so I’m ready. I don’t need that endorsement.” So I didn’t use it, I made an appointment with Stan, and I got a job immediately. Stan came up with a plot on the spot, told it to me, and said, “Now go draw it.” And it didn’t occur to me until months later, “Hey, wake up, dummy. That was too easy!” They probably spoke to each other. I think the endorsement was there. Everybody gets some help to get started. TJKC: Do you recall when you heard that Jack passed away? RICH: Yes. It was on my birthday, as a matter of fact. I thought, “Oh, sh*t, what a birthday present.” Terrible; it really sucked. TJKC: What’s your assessment of Jack Kirby’s contribution to the field? RICH: I think there would not be a super-hero genre if not for Jack Kirby, or certainly not as it existed until recently. It probably wouldn’t exist in the form it does now, which I can’t really relate to. There’s too much realism, and it takes itself too seriously. His legacy would be so huge, it’s hard to describe. He influenced almost everybody. TJKC: Do you miss him? RICH: Yes. I miss the whole thing that was going on in comics when he was around, and it seemed to me he’d always be around. When he died, it was like somebody larger-than-life died. To me he was a hero, and still is.★ (above) An unpublished page by Rich Buckler intended for Jungle Action.

pore over it. TJKC: Did you like the work he did in the later ’70s at Marvel; Eternals and Black Panther? RICH: That was very cool. I liked it a lot. Maybe some of the stories seemed... I don’t know what adjectives to use. Hokey? Old-fashioned? Who knows? To me, they were quirky Kirby, because all of the Kirby work was quirky. What, Fighting American wasn’t quirky? (laughter) It always had his quirky sense of humor. So that can’t be a criticism; how’s he gonna write any different than how he saw things? He would combine the craziest ideas, which I loved. That’s the Kirby frame of mind; anything can work. If you want it to, you’ll find a way to make it work if you’re sincere. When he told a story, he put it over. (laughter) TJKC: When you were an editor at Red Circle, did you ever approach Jack do see if he might be interested in doing freelance work for the company? RICH: Yes, we did. He drew a cover of The Shield for an issue of Blue Ribbon Comics. When the publisher said they were bringing back Blue Ribbon, I said, “Why not make it a showcase title?” So they did. Jack didn’t have time to do a story, but he did a cover. He penciled it, and I inked it. It’s the only thing we worked on together. TJKC: Did you bump into Jack at conventions and such? RICH: Now and then, yes. It’d be, “Hey Rich, how ya doing?” That was his manner, but to me, it was amazing that he kept remembering me, because we didn’t know each other that well. He was always respectful of people. I don’t have any funny or interesting anecdotes of him, other than when he told me on the phone to tell Stan Lee to give me a job. He had just moved from Marvel to DC, and I was trying to break into comics. I’d heard he needed an inker, so not knowing any better, (laughter) I asked for some sample photocopies of pencils, and I did up some samples. I figured, “Heck, I can compete with Mike

(above) The cover of Blue Ribbon Comics #5 with Buckler inks over Kirby pencils.

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Where Have All The Villains Gone? Remembering Kirby’s return to Marvel in the ’70s, by Shane Foley nowing what we do now about Kirby’s frustrations with the comics industry in the ‘70s, his creativity and output in his postFourth World work is quite remarkable. But as a late teens fan in the mid-’70s, I knew nothing of this and had only the books themselves to judge by. When Kirby’s return to Marvel was announced in Oct. ’75 (cover date—which, in Australia, was the date we bought the books), I was overjoyed. But for me, it took a further 12 months after he arrived in Captain America #193 before the King was really back. In 1975, at the end of his DC run, Kirby seemed to be biding his time. Why all the featureless opponents, I used to think? Kirby villains used to be fabulous! Every issue seemed to have OMAC or Manhunter up against some sort of blob. OMAC himself was great. Manhunter had tons of Kirby potential. The story ideas still had the usual Kirby out-of-this-world flair. But the villains always looked like monsters, or fat gangsters, or—blobs. Look at Sandman #4. Ugh! (Atlas I never saw. First issues of any series were rare in Australia then.) And where were the star’s great supporting cast? His writing was looser than ever. And to make it worse, his art also seemed looser and clunkier than before (although when Mike Royer returned for Kirby’s last few DC issues, the art was better by leaps and bounds. Maybe that looser look of Kirby’s art wasn’t his fault at all—never did like Berry much.) Kamandi was the exception. He still read well—despite light-on scripting and art under Berry—probably because of the miles of untapped potential Kirby had invested into it in its early issues. Unfortunately, the Kirby who returned to Marvel seemed to be the same Kirby who worked for DC in 1975. Where were the great Kirby villains? Or where was the interesting Kirby supporting cast? Captain America strung together a number of movie themes, and fought bland revolutionaries and monsters. The Eternals was great, with Ikaris and the Celestials, etc. and the writing seemed strong and yes, the supporting cast was fine. But who were the main Earth-bound foes? The Deviants, who mostly looked like—featureless blobs. Again! (Years later, the Deviants seem perfect, but at the time, their appearance, which is what I was disappointed with, seemed like yet more in an endless row of featureless foes.) Like OMAC and Manhunter, the stars of the book were great, but there were no villains that grabbed me. (The Celestials, whether villains or supporting cast, were, in a sense, “featureless,” too. None of them is another Galactus.) 2001 was unique, but it also started with forgettable “blobs.” (Barak was okay, though.) At least Mike Royer was back on most books and the art looked better. Twelve months after Kirby returned to

Marvel, his Black Panther arrived. Issue #1 promised well (for those who weren’t in love with the abandoned Don McGregor approach, that is). Mr. Little was typical ’70s Kirby, but at least Zanda looked okay. And there on page 2 was a great looking Kirby armored assassin. But he was soon gone. Instead, by the end of the issue we faced Hatch-22! Again, a fine idea (though Kirby seemed bogged down in sci-fi futuristic stuff, no matter what strip he did), but he looked like a monster-comefeatureless... thing (not quite a blob this time). Oh, well. Next month, the Reject arrived in The Eternals. He looked good and held lots of

The Reject and Karkas, from Eternals #12, page 6.

promise. So did Karkus, even though he was a “monster-blob.” But at duces his new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants—not up to the standard least here there seemed to be a couple of glimpses of the “old Kirby” of his earlier work, but way better than OMAC’s blobs or Cap’s madrising again. (And Eternals #8 is, in my opinion, Kirby’s post-Fourth bomb baddies—as well as his Mr. 1 & 2, who were interesting despite World writing masterpiece!) being featureless monster-types. Over in Cap’s own mag, things were It was Captain America #208 which proved to be the turning point. even better. The Night Flyer was a genuine Kirby super-villain of old. At last! A great new Kirby villain arrived in Arnim Zola. Sure, he was Things were looking great! All we needed now was a tiny bit of continuity. a sort of “monster,” but he looked distinctive/thought about/well Then, Kirby left Cap. How I hated that! designed. With the following issue’s Red Skull appearance—where he Three months later, The Eternals disappeared, too. This was was incredibly well written by the King—things were great. There unbelievable! were still monster-blobs present in Zola’s two creatures and the Machine Man and Devil Dinosaur then arrived in their own books. SHIELD agents looked horribly dated, but the story culminating in I never really thought much of Devil Dinosaur, but Machine Man was, Cap’s blindness in #112 was terrific. Right up to the stand-off that “fate I thought, a book with loads of potential. The arrival of Ten-For was denies yet again”! I still love it. (It’s funny. I used to groan when Thor would loudly trumpet “The Return of the Grey Gargoyle” or something. C’mon, I’d say, make up new foes, don’t just rehash old Kirby ones! Whereas in Kirby’s case in the ’70s, it was the reverse. Anytime he brought back an old villain was cause for celebration, because he did it so rarely.) But why was this a turning point? Because Kirby was designing villains and supporting characters again. Black Panther gave little hints like #3’s Ogre (and some truly great art). 2001 got in the act with the tongue-in-cheek White Zero. (Was this Kirby’s way of calling traditional super-heroes as “bland nothings”? Nah—that’s reading too much into it!) He wasn’t a real “old time” Kirby hero, but he felt a bit like it. (And while 2001 #6 has nothing to do with this, that issue, in my book, is another timeless Kirby masterpiece, right up there with Eternals #8!!) Two months after the Skull came back, Eternals introduced the Forgotten One. What a great character this was— full of power, mystery, and nobility and with marvelous body armor that was pure Jack Kirby. Kirby would have done great things with him had The Eternals lasted, I’m sure. The same month, Mister Machine debuted in 2001 #8 in what I believe is one of Jack’s greatest origin stories. The agony of the humanoid machines crying out for their faces/ identities was masterly. Mister Machine himself reminded me of “old time Jack Kirby” work, even down to the scene where he takes his own head off. (That’s straight out of a late-’50s/early-’60s 5-pager, is it not?) Out about the same time as these issues were two Kirby Annuals. Eternals Annual #1 saw Tutenex, who looked great. And wonder of wonders, in Captain America Annual #4, Kirby brought back Magneto. Maybe this was an editorial instruction, because it sure didn’t seem like the sort of thing Kirby would do. After a real shorthand story beginning (where both Cap and Magneto Now THAT’S a villain! Arnim Zola debuts in Captain America #208. answer a newspaper ad?!), Kirby intro44

frighteningly well done and he had all the makings of a great villain. The tension between Machine Man and the Army was reminiscent of earlier Hulks. Had all this happened at a different time in Kirby’s life, this strip would have continued, I’m sure. With a bit of imagination, it’s easy to see Ten-For as a major ’60s villain. But as ’78 came, the promising tone of ’77 did not continue. The Black Panther had continued on with sacred water skins and yetis and lost samurais. This was a strange strip. Kirby seemed, towards the middle of his run here, to get uncomfortable drawing the Panther. After drawing him so brilliantly in the FF and in Tales of Suspense (Cap) #97-100, here he gave him teddy bear ears and a square nose. And while all Kirby’s characters looked as strong as ever—almost like figures of stone—his ’70s figures had lost any spring and suppleness they once had. This didn’t matter for many, but for the Panther, I thought it at odds with the character. Storywise, the strip seemed uneven, too. The “Black Musketeers” was a fine idea—pretty unique, actually—but they looked uninspired. (It was always hard for me to like Kirby’s large, middle-aged men and women. Not that I had anything against such people—and now, I am one.) To me, most of it looked uninspired after the first few issues. Again, like in ’75, Kirby seemed determined to design nothing and give nothing away. And maybe this was exactly what he was doing. Late in ’78, Kirby quit altogether. And now we all know why. It seems to me that when Kirby was unhappy at DC, he did good work, but refused to give any design or creation other than the lead character. I liked his OMACs a lot, but I would like to see what the OMAC book would have looked like had Jack been happy with his employers when he did it. Manhunter, too. Returning to Marvel in ’75 must have been awful for him. Despite his praises trumpeted by Stan Lee, he must still have returned humbled. Could he trust Lee any more than before? Of Pencils from Black Panther #5. Yetis hardly make for interesting villains. course not, because if anything, his Yet somehow, in the middle of his three years at Marvel in the tenure at DC had failed. No matter that his success/failure was largely ’70s, something good must have happened. Did he feel finally at due to factors beyond his control—sabotaged even, he might say. He home again? Did his disappointment with his DC treatment wear off hadn’t been nearly as successful as he had at Marvel in the ’60s, and at last? For within his books with a 1977 cover date, the old Kirby they all knew it—and so did he. And I think it shows in the quality of creativity in designing baddies and supporting characters seemed to his work; not so much his drawing or even his writing. I agree with come out again, and that’s what I’ve talked about. He still didn’t give those close to him that say he always did his best; it shows (even though a toss about any Marvel continuity, but that rarely mattered—to me you sometimes have to look past the inking)—but in the creativity anyway. that went into his designs of his villains, supporting casts, and their Like many, my real appreciation of Kirby’s DC work and other surroundings. No wonderfully memorable bad guys with the madbomb, later work didn’t come until later. But for me, 1977 was a different or in anything in Kirby’s initial return to Marvel—just Frankensteins year. It was the year I turned 20. I also enjoyed Kirby more that year and monsters and ordinary Joes. Kirby does them well, but inspired than any other since he’d left Marvel in 1970. That year, it felt like Kirby is better than this. King Kirby was back! ★ 45

Cover pencils to Ghost Rider #23.

Cover pencils to Marvel Two-In-One Annual #1.

Defenders #44 cover. Note the face changes and missing arms at bottom on the published version.

Cover pencils to Marvel Spotlight #29.

Cover pencils to Iron Man #95. The inker took some artistic license with Ultimo’s eyes.

Invaders #9 cover. Cap’s face underwent some minor changes in inking.

Avengers #154 cover. We think this one looks way cooler without the dialogue.

Cover pencils to Invaders #12.

Invaders #14 cover. The Human Torch was substituted for Bucky on the final art.

Avengers #157 cover pencils. Note the layouts below that Jack worked from on these covers.

Marvel Chillers #7 cover pencils. See next page for the published version.

Defenders #45 cover. Jack drew the Red Guardian like the layout, but it was changed.

Cover pencils to Nova #5.

Cover pencils to Weird Wonder Tales #19.

the reprint books, which they used instead of the original covers. When Marvel did use the original covers for a reprint book, they often added word balloons where originally there were none. In the 1970s Marvel was riding high on the foundation that Jack had laid down in the ’60s, but they didn’t seem to value his contributions very much. Having stated my criticism, let me also say that I feel there is a great need for reprint books. As the relatively small pool of surviving Golden Age and Silver Age comics gets more expensive, the chance for new generations of comic lovers to experience these “classics” shrinks. Only by reprinting the classic comics every decade or so will these stories be affordable to the average reader. When Jack was working at DC in the ’70s, that company also put out reprints of his earlier comics. The 1940s Simon & Kirby series “Sandman” from Adventure Comics was reprinted in The Forever People and “The Newsboy Legion” from Star-Spangled Comics was reprinted in Jimmy Olsen. A couple of reprint issues of Simon & Kirby’s Boy Commandos were also published during that decade. One rather obscure series that DC put out in the ’70s consisted of reprints from S&K’s Black Magic. Black Magic was produced by the team for Crestwood in the 1950s. Another bargain for Kirby collectors are the crime comics from the late ’40s and early ’50s. I have in recent years bought copies of Headline Comics and Justice Traps the Guilty in mid-grades for prices between $7 and $15 apiece. These were classic Simon & Kirby works. I don’t know why a comic book which has survived since 1947 would sell for $7. Perhaps collectors are not interested in them, so now’s the perfect time to acquire a few. Happy hunting!★

Tips For Frugal Kirby Collectors by David Penalosa like a lot of other collectors, lost my original comic book collection many years ago. I bought the comics in that original collection from the spinning rack at my neighborhood drug store and at a used book store in the next town. Having originally bought the comics for pennies, it’s hard for me to pay the inflated prices for those comics today. Even if I did purchase a Silver Age comic in NM or VF condition, I’d be afraid to read it for fear of degrading it by creasing the cover. I certainly wouldn’t let a child read it. I prefer to buy well worn comics that I have no hesitation to pick up and read, or let someone else read. I guess you could say I collect “reading copies.” Jack Kirby was responsible for some of the most significant comics in the history of the medium. Collecting the King’s work can be an expensive hobby because many of the comics he did are considered to be “key issues.” What follows are some of the ways I’ve collected a great many of the books Jack drew without spending a fortune in the process. One source of inexpensive Silver Age Kirby can be found in the various reprint series from the 1970s. Marvel’s Greatest Comics reprinted Fantastic Four, Marvel Spectacular reprinted Thor, and Marvel Double Feature and Marvel Super Action reprinted Captain America. There were several monster comics from the ’70s (Where Monsters Dwell, Where Creatures Roam, Monsters on the Prowl, Creatures on the Loose) that carried reprints from the old pre-hero Atlas/Marvel era. Today, all these books can be picked up in the highto mid-grades for about a buck apiece. One drawback of the reprint mags though, was their occasional practice of deleting panels from the story in order to print two to three less pages per book. It’s interesting how one can still follow the stories with these deleted panels. However, it feels to me like the defacing of a work of art. Here’s some examples of panels that were omitted from reprinted stories:

• Fantastic Four #74 (reprinted in Marvel’s Greatest Comics #56) Pages 2 and 3 were condensed to one page Pages 10 and 11 were condensed to one page • Thor #147 (reprinted in Marvel Spectacular #18) Page 5 (a beautiful full-page drawing by Jack) was omitted altogether Pages 9 and 10 were condensed to one page Page 13 was omitted altogether For some reason, some of the best Kirby covers were not used on those reprint magazines. For instance, a mediocre drawing replaced the classic cover Jack did for FF #51 (“This Man... This Monster!”). I wonder what the reason for that was? Perhaps they were trying to keep a consistency in the look of their line. If that’s so, why did they replace some covers and not others, especially some of Jack’s best covers like FF #51? On several of the monster reprint books, Marie Severin re-inked and re-did details on Jack’s covers. Marvel also had Jack draw new covers for some of

Kirby’s 1978 cover pencils for Marvel’s Greatest Comics #77, which reprinted FF #96.

The Red Skull! Now we were cooking! But Kirby’s run on Captain America came to a rather abrupt end in issue #214, after limping along for two issues with the Falcon and a blind Cap battling a rather generic villain named “Night Flyer.” The last page of #214 seemed especially rushed—or perhaps redone to quickly end the storyline— as Cap is miraculously given his sight back. Kirby himself even seems to acknowledge this by having Cap exclaim, “Perhaps the Night Flyer deserves the credit! When he fired that early shot close to my eyes, he must have... ah... jogged the proper nerve into action!” If this had occurred a few years later, during Jon Lovitz’ run on Saturday Night Live!, Kirby might have had Cap add, “Yeah, that’s the ticket!” The final Kirby Captain America panel featured Cap and the Falcon walking off together into a backlit hallway—not quite a sunset, but I guess it had to do. Jack “King” Kirby passed through Marvel Comics in the 1970s like a Summer storm; lots of flash, noise, excitement, and a little danger, but resulting in little real change. As soon as Kirby was—once again—gone, Marvel’s editors and writers quickly reestablished the status quo. More’s the pity. ★

The Return Of The King I by Edward K. Keller

t has been said that you can’t go home again. In 1975, Jack “King” Kirby returned to Marvel Comics after years spent away, and fans at the time expected a rebirth of Kirby’s Fantastic Four. But Kirby’s talents were instead unleashed upon The Eternals, Black Panther, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a character he co-created over three decades before. The “next issue box” of Captain America #192 (cover-dated Dec. 1975) touted the return of the King: “Coming: The great bicentennial block-busting saga of the century! ...lt’s a new Marvel epic by Jack Kirby!!” Just as foretold, Kirby took over Cap as its writer, artist and editor as of issue #193, and the run was destined to last for twenty-two regular issues of unbridled, block-busting excitement! I was eleven years old in 1975 and my pre-pubescent brain had of course recognized that individual people created the comic books I loved so much. But, I don’t think I realized that all these artists and writers had styles all their own. I do remember thinking how odd it was that such a big deal was being made about this Kirby guy coming back to Marvel. Even some of the older kids in the neighborhood were talking about it! What was going on? When issue #193 came out, little Joey Adcock snuck a copy of it into school. It was finally passed to me in Mrs. Reisinger’s art class. For the next forty minutes I missed out on how to draw tree trunks correctly by stealing one glance after another at the thrilling comic under my desk. I had found out what was going on! Right from the start—the cover—this issue captured my attention. Up in the top right-hand corner, the usual drawing of the Falcon was replaced with the copy: “King Kirby is back—and greater than ever!” This was long before the days that having the artists’ names on the cover was considered the norm. This issue started the great “Madbomb Saga,” an epic saga that stretched all the way to the 200th “Bicentennial” issue. To be honest, this extended tale irked me at the time. I was a kid. To me, a “long story” lasted three issues. In fact, I was used to a beginning, some action, and a resolution in the same issue! What I got with Jack was a beginning, a ton of action, and a resolution eight issues later. A story that lasted that long was almost unheard of in those days. “Madbomb” was definitely a new experience for me, in more ways than one. Other kids in my neighborhood reacted in different ways. Some were actually thrown-off by Kirby’s explosive art. It was, to be fair, a huge change from the way the comic had been drawn before by Frank Robbins. Others thought Kirby’s talents were best utilized on his more “cosmic” titles. 2001 and The Eternals were where Kirby could really stretch his talents and make as many “Kirby-esque” mechanisms and landscapes as he wanted, they would say. The letters pages of the Kirby issues echoed my friends’ thoughts. Some rather well known letter-writers sent in their missives to comment on Kirby’s return, including Dean Mullaney and Ralph Macchio. As for me, Kirby’s return to Captain America really took off in issue #210. That issue featured the return of Cap’s greatest foe: The Red Skull! I can’t help it; I’ve always been a sucker for the classic match-ups: The FF versus Dr. Doom; Spider-Man versus The Green Goblin; The Avengers versus Kang; and Captain America versus

The Night Flyer battles the Falcon in Captain America #213.

A Failure To Communicate: Part 6 by Mike Gartland Marvel on a regular basis. In my opinion, once Lee realized that Kirby needed little or no prompting to get a good saleable story out of him, he gave Jack the leeway (no pun intended) to develop characters and concepts that an otherwise full script would have restrained. When Lee also realized that he could adapt that type of collaboration with

The Best Laid (Out) Plans...

ess is More.” Never thought about it, really; just another catchy phrase used by advertising people to try and convince you to buy something—that you were getting something special. What could it mean? Well, I guess it could mean something like concentrated fabric softener, or if a seller was trying to convince a buyer that their “new reduced-size” product was just as good as the previous size (except the price remained the same, or was increased, of course). But it wasn’t until I began to research the layout work that Jack Kirby did for Marvel in the Sixties that I realized what it also could mean. Personnel-wise, Marvel was in a state of flux by the mid-Sixties. Due to the tremendous increase in popularity of the new Marvel line, Stan Lee was in constant search for creative people to help lessen the load; he was also seeking inroads to release new titles while under distribution restrictions. By 1965 books that originally showcased one super-hero found themselves sharing with another; or were dropped totally in favor of a new series. Storylines began to change to a multi-issue, serialistic format. New artists were introduced; Jack’s margin notes from Avengers #14; layouts by Kirby, pencils by Heck, inks by Chic Stone. Jack was brought back some stayed, others didn’t, or stayed but in a in to set the tone and direction for the series, even though he stopped being the regular penciler on it with #8. different capacity, such as inking, coloring, or production. The artists who were to pencil others, and get better stories from them (and free himself from writing these books had to be indoctrinated to the “Marvel method” of story scripts), the “Marvel method” was born. production. Due to the pressing deadlines, and foreseeing that some Chronologically, the precursor of Jack doing layouts might have might have problems conforming in so limited a time, Lee decided been as early as 1963. Up until that time, most of the new super-hero that the best course to take would be for someone to work with these line was pure Kirby/Lee, but by the cover date of March 1963, there is artists who could help them learn to work “Marvel method.” Well, only one book, Fantastic Four, with Kirby art produced. On that month, who better than the one who unknowingly created it, Jack Kirby? all the other titles drawn by Kirby up until then are handed over to To digress for a moment, it is my opinion that the “Marvel method” the other resident artists. The Hulk went to Ditko, Strange Tales went to was not so much a creation as it was an advantageous development. Ayers (which made sense since he was probably even more experienced Lee states in a 1977 interview that it came about in the Sixties, but in at drawing Torch stories than Kirby). Journey Into Mystery tried out a more recent interview with Roy Thomas in Alter Ego, Roy convinces with Al Hartley (but settled better with Joe Sinnott), and Don Heck Lee that it must have occurred earlier, during the pre-hero monster jumped in with both feet, premiering his super-hero drawing abilities era. This makes more sense as it coincides with the return of Kirby to with Ant-Man in Astonish and a new feature called Iron Man in

“L

Original art from X-Men #12 showing Jack’s margin notes and layouts, with Toth pencils and Colletta inks.

Suspense (actually, Iron Man was to premiere earlier, but that’s another story). This was the first attempt to have others continue the Kirby/Lee technique, but many of the stories showed the lack of something (or someone). Of course while this was going on, Jack was not idle; he was behind the scenes drawing and developing, in conjunction with Stan, what would become The Avengers, The X-Men, Sgt. Fury, FF Annual #1 and Strange Tales Annual #2. Up front he continued to draw the monthly FF adventures, a Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man, or Torch story here and there, and the cover art for almost the complete line. When Sgt. Fury, The Avengers, and The X-Men premiere, the process begins to repeat itself. Kirby draws approximately the first year of stories and then another artist comes in to continue; but unlike the earlier non-

Kirby period, Jack doesn’t leave entirely. We now finally come to 1965; there are more titles to draw than ever before, and unlike two years previous, Stan cannot resort to his resident artists to fill in because they already have their hands full drawing books. Enter the freelancers; some were old friends of Stan from the Timely/Atlas days, some were from competitor companies, some were talented newcomers; but none were experienced at drawing stories “Marvel method.” It is during this time and for this reason that Jack is persuaded to do layouts to help these “new” artists. Jack is first credited with layouts in Avengers #14 (cover-dated March 1965), but of course this should not infer that Jack didn’t influence plots or artwork for other artists prior to this. There is an excellent article in the Jack Kirby Quarterly by Nigel Kitching which covers Kirby contributing art “help” on stories where his name doesn’t appear, like Avengers #9-13. On copies of the original art to Avengers #14 there is evidence of Jack’s border notes similar to the type we covered on the Journey into Mystery #111 article in TJKC #26, but this particular issue seemed to have many hands in it; Lee, Ivey, Heck, Stone, et. al. Jack also lays out the stories to Avengers #15 and #16, by which time his border notes become much more expansive and descriptive. These

three issues appear to be Jack’s “dry run” at leaving pencil and story layouts for other artists to follow. By May/June 1965 Jack has finished with layouts on The Avengers and with penciling on The X-Men (issue #11 was his last as artist), but he has picked up “The Hulk” in Tales to Astonish (#68). Up until that time, Steve Ditko was drawing and co-plotting the stories. Mark Evanier related to me that it was Ditko who originally pitched the idea of giving The Hulk a series to Lee; perhaps it was Lee who suggested putting The Hulk in the Goblin story in Spider-Man #14 (cover-dated July 1964) that alerted Ditko that the character was being shuffled around looking for a home. Ditko therefore made the suggestion which led to The Hulk series beginning in Astonish #60 (cover-dated October 1964, after Lee and Dick Ayers indoctrinated Astonish readers to The Hulk in Astonish #59). After leaving the Hulk series, the very next month in Spider-Man, Ditko begins receiving a (long-delayed) co-plotting credit (he doesn’t receive co-plotting credit on “Dr. Strange” until two months later); coincidence? Ditko’s problems with Marvel were growing—but back to Jack. Between June and August 1965, Jack co-plots and draws the Hulk stories for Astonish #68-70 and begins doing layouts—similar to the Avengers stories—for The X-Men; he also adds plot and pencils to help Stan launch the new “Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.” series in Strange Tales. With The X-Men, Jack leaves layouts and border notes for Alex Toth, in what may have been his “try-out” issue. This is not to say that Toth was new to the field; he was an accomplished draftsman long before this, but working “Marvel method” may not have been his cup of tea. He leaves after only one issue, a shame really. By the way, this particular issue (X-Men #12) is of interest not only for the obvious introduction of The Juggernaut; on the originals Kirby layed-out, The Juggernaut was originally intended to look different, with a flat helmet (à la the Atlas Black Knight), a waist apron similar to Galactus’, and spikes on the breastplate. Obviously someone thought him a little too lethal (or ridiculous) looking and Margin notes from Avengers #16. asked for changes. Also it is my opinion Jack’s note below show the involvement he had in helping determine the personalities and motivations of the characters. that in keeping with the ‘Origin of Professor X’ storyline, Jack intended for Cain Marko (The Juggernaut) to be the cause of Professor X becoming crippled. Although I’ve yet to verify this through the original art, the powerful images on pages 12 and 13 seem to confirm this, and the fact that Jack probably came up with the name Cain Marko (“the mark of Cain”) would fit into the brother vs. brother plot. Stan almost always used alliterative names on characters he was writing. Stan of course would have had to change the “Marko cripples Professor X” plot since he knew he had previously established this in an earlier issue of X-Men (#9) using the villain Lucifer. In reviewing the border notes to the originals from X-Men #9 it is apparent that the crippling of Xavier at Lucifer’s hands was not part of the original plot; there are no border notes by Jack pertaining to the incident, and the notes in the borders by Lee pertaining to it are written over erased Kirby 56

(left) Mike Gartland’s lightboxed version of Kirby’s original design for the Juggernaut, which was still visible in blue pencil under a pasted-up stat of the final panel of X-Men #12 (right). Since Jack didn’t tend to use blue pencil, this suggests that Alex Toth also worked on the original Juggernaut figure.

notes. Also there is evidence of Wite-Out correction on word balloons in which the incident is added. So it would seem as though Lee added the crippling plot after the story was handed in, which is why Jack probably didn’t know about it, or remember it if Lee informed him of it; which makes me wonder how much collaboration Kirby and Lee were doing on The X-Men to begin with. (And for those who want to point out that Xavier appears later on walking with Marko in the Korean flashback, you’ll notice by examining the art that there is no evidence that the other soldier was meant to be Xavier in the first place.) Enough with the tangents, back to the story. It is on the books cover-dated September 1965 that Jack is firmly established as layout artist. Jack begins in tandem plotting and leaving pencil layouts for Strange Tales, Astonish, X-Men, and Suspense (Jack was co-plotting and drawing the Captain America series in Suspense up until that point). He is also co-plotting and doing pencils for Thor and FF, plus cover art for the line. On examples of original art, Jack’s border notes begin to become almost paragraph-length, leaving detailed descriptions and brief dialogue for the resident artist. Jack (and maybe even Stan) wasn’t sure who would be drawing what story at any given month, so these notes were not directed at any of the artists’ abilities. Seasoned veterans to Marvel, like Ayers and Heck, probably only referred to them for the plot or occasional panel dynamics. It was the “new guys” coming in that all of these layouts were for. With each title Jack was laying out, Stan tried introducing one of the “new” guys as artist. That was, after all, part of the whole idea behind bringing Jack in on this project. Plots were worked out between Kirby and Lee, Jack would then flesh out the story with varying degrees of pencil work, accompanying the pencils with border directions. The artist would follow this lead, in Stan’s hope that he would add his own technique and flair to the finished art. Lee would then add dialogue and captions and make any last-minute editorial changes. This time period in Marvel marks the beginning of the artistic second wave; we’ll take them one at a time.

After Alex Toth left X-Men, Werner Roth, an old friend of Stan’s from the Atlas days (1950-57) came back under the pseudonym Jay Gavin. Moonlighting from his romance work at DC, Roth adapted readily and within six months was working “Marvel method” with Roy Thomas as the regular artist on the title and stayed with it for almost two years. Kirby is credited with layouts on issues #12-17, although it is possible that he stayed on in one capacity or another until Roy came on in issue #20. From the onset, Jack was more devoted to this title than the others he helped launch at the same time and didn’t seem to leave it creatively until another writer came on. Two of the X-Men’s most memorable foes, The Juggernaut and The Sentinels, were created by Jack during this period. As stated previously, Jack came in on “The Hulk” in Tales To Astonish #68; after drawing the first three chapters he begins doing layouts for Mickey Demeo. Demeo is one of the more recognized pseudonyms in Marvel mythos; the artist’s real name is even more recognized throughout all of comicdom: Mike Esposito. Esposito is one-half of the legendary team of Andru & Esposito, as recognized and loved as Simon & Kirby to many. As with many from DC at that time, Mike took a false name (the Demeo was his then-wife’s maiden name).

Original art from Tales of Suspense #72. As plotlines got more involved, Kirby began leaving longer, almost paragraph-length notes with his layouts.

According to Esposito, Jack’s layouts looked like rough sketches and you had to pull them together as best you could. Sometimes the Kirby layout pencils were defined enough that Mike could draw over them in ink (as opposed to penciling over the layout, then inking it). This may help to explain why, in so many of the stories in the various titles layed-out by Jack, the Kirby look comes through even over another artist’s work. Jack almost always did more defined pencils on the splash and would occasionally pencil a panel here or there. Esposito stays on to pencil a few issues, alternating with Bob Powell, but then opts to ink rather than pencil. In the interim, Gil Kane sneaks in for his first try at “Marvel method,” penciling one story under the pen-name of Scott Edwards. John Romita also comes in for one issue, then “The Hulk” settles down with Bill Everett until issue #84 when he and Jack leave the series. Jack actually was credited with layouts up until issue #83, but #84 credits many Marvel hands so it’s possible he was in on it. Jack stayed with this title for 17 issues; there was only one other title in which he would stay on longer as layout artist. It happened to be the new kid on the block. Anyone from my generation knows about the James Bond series of the Sixties and the plethora of spin-offs that it gave birth to. Stan, ever commercial, ever topical, naturally jumped onto this bandwagon. He and Jack came up with “Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.”; this series showcased all of the crazy high-tech gadgetry and far-out scientific concepts that made the secret agent genre popular and Jack was already known for. Stan also resolved the problem of bringing Sgt. Fury into the current

Bob Powell’s uninked pencils over Kirby layouts for Tales To Astonish #74, from stats in Jack’s files. Marvel sent these to help Jack maintain continuity between issues—which shows how directly involved he was with the plotting.

Note how Jack sets-up the Hulk’s motivations in these notes from Astonish #73.

Marvel timeline by making him the secret agent in the series (Jack and Stan lightly touched on a present-day Fury in the pages of FF #21, as an operative of the C.I.A., but this brought him back in ernest as a regular Marvel character). Jack penciled the first story in Strange Tales #135 (Aug. ’65), but as with the Hulk series in Astonish, he stops doing full pencils and begins doing layouts with the issue cover-dated Sept. ’65. And with this new title would come another “new” artist. John Severin was hardly “new” to the medium, well known for his work with EC, Harvey Kurtzman, Mad, and especially Cracked magazine; his association with Marvel dated, like Roth, from the Fifties when he did mostly westerns for Stan. Although his work showed promise, like Esposito, he didn’t stay long as penciler. After three issues Severin was gone; he ironically goes back in time with Fury, ending up inking Dick Ayers’ pencils on the Sgt. Fury book. After Severin leaves, the “S.H.I.E.L.D.” book becomes a virtual revolving door of interim pencilers; it appeared that whoever was free for an assignment or wanted to try out was given a shot. Sinnott, Giacoia, Esposito, Purcell, and even Ogden Whitney of Skyman/ACG fame pitched in for an installment. The dependable Don Heck did a few issues; and John Buscema came back to Marvel in the pages of a “S.H.I.E.L.D.” book. Buscema was also one of Stan’s “friends of the Fifties” group; Buscema 58

(#7). The Daredevil book was being handled by Wood associate Bob Powell, who was preserving the Wood “look.” In the interim, however, Wood had a huge disagreement with Lee and refused to do any more stories (note: although Daredevil #10 is cover-dated Oct. ’65—two months after Astonish #70—since it was a bi-monthly, it was possible that it was drawn around the same time). By the cover date of Dec. ’65, Wood was gone, and Powell with him. Stan was initially going to bring in Dick Ayers to take over the book, but really didn’t want to take Dick away from his other drawing assignments; as Dick was preparing some pages for the Daredevil book (of which he still has a few), enter John Romita. Romita had just returned to Marvel, In addition to layouts for other pencilers, Jack provided tighter pencils for Giacoia to ink in Strange Tales #141. having known Stan from the “Timely” days; previous to his return he was grinding out romance work likes to relate the story of how, when given the Kirby layouts to the for DC. Stan immediately gave John the Daredevil assignment, but story, he erased them all and drew the book his way. John’s words from unlike Ayers, John was not used to working Marvel method, so... enter The Art of John Buscema: “It was ‘Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.’, and I didn’t pencil it. Jack Kirby broke it down. That’s how much confidence Stan had in me. He had Jack Kirby break it down, and I penciled it over, and repenciled the whole thing. I erased every panel and redrew it, because I couldn’t draw like Kirby... and it came out pathetic.” As has been noted on other occasions, Stan never wanted his other artists to draw like Kirby, but to learn his abilities at dynamic storytelling, which is probably why with the border notes/directions, Jack was requested to do the pencil layouts. After Buscema, with issue #151, “S.H.I.E.L.D.” finally settles down with an artist who not only stays with it, and is a newcomer, but happens to be perfect for the book. Jim Steranko cut his comic art teeth at Harvey, but found fame at Marvel. Like Kirby, his art had a cinematic technique, and more importantly, he executed the “pop art/psychedelic”” style into his then-current work, blending perfectly with the secret agent “camp” look; unlike Kirby, his style was sleek and polished, which also contributed to a better look for this particular series. Steranko would become the definitive artist for “Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D,” and even though his total work for Marvel would end up being less than thirty issues, it was a testament to his talent that it would be enough to ensure his fame. What is also of interest is that, within three months of his first story, by Strange Tales #154, Steranko begins being credited as writer of the series, making him the first regular artist/writer at Marvel. As with X-Men, it appears that Kirby stays with this title until a new regular writer takes over, and as with X-Men, Stan relinquishes the “writing” credit and only edits the book thereafter. Jack does layouts on “Nick Fury” for 18 months, longer than any other series in which he is credited as layout artist; and seeing as how there seemed to be no regular artist on the series until the arrival of Steranko, it is to Jack’s credit that he was able to maintain story quality throughout. Since Jack only did layouts on two issues of Daredevil, some would say why even bring it up? There’s an interesting story behind it; Daredevil was, up until that time, in the creative hands of Wally Wood, who made the character more dynamic, visually stunning, and marketable than he ever was previously. Wood was, however, slated to begin work on the new “SubMariner” series debuting in Astonish #70, which is One of Dick Ayers’ Daredevil tryout pages, before John Romita got the strip, working over Kirby layouts. probably why the character last appeared in Daredevil 59

Jack Kirby. Jack layed-out issues #12-13, and by #14 Romita was well on his way, staying on the title until issue #19 when he leaves in order to take over the artistic seat in Spider-Man. With the “Captain America” series in Tales of Suspense, Jack follows the same program. He was the resident co-plotter and artist from its inception in issue #59 (cover-dated Nov. ’64), until issue #69 when he begins doing layouts. Issue #69 is cover-dated Sept. ’65, just as was Astonish #71 and Strange Tales #136; was this more than just coincidence? (And just as with the Hulk story in Astonish #59, Stan introduces Suspense readers to Cap in a pre-series story in Suspense #58, drawn by Heck, with Kirby art corrections interspersed.) The “new” artist for this series was the indomitable George Tuska. Tuska was well known throughout the industry, drawing every genre imaginable for every known comic book publisher; always on the move, he rarely stayed with any one company exclusively. After issue #69, which was handled by Ayers, Tuska comes in as artist and does his usual yeomanly work for five issues, then he’s on the move again, leaving Marvel for Tower. After another fill-in by dependable Dick Ayers, the series brings in John Romita for two issues, then goes back to Jack doing full pencils by issue #78. Jack stays with the series, co-plotting and penciling until issue #86, then leaves for five issues (Suspense #86 is cover-dated Feb. ’67, the same time he left Strange Tales at #153). Why he left is unclear, but by Feb. ’67, Jack was definitely done with doing layouts. For two years Jack did layout work for Marvel; for completists, the breakdown went something like this: • Mar. ’65-May ’65: Avengers #14, #15, & #16 • July ’65-Mar. ’66: X-Men #12-17 • Sept. ’65-May ’66: Tales of Suspense (Cap) #69-77 • Sept. ’65-Sept. ’66: Tales to Astonish (Hulk) #71-83 • Sept. ’65-Feb. ’67: Strange Tales (Fury) #136-153 • Jan. ’66-Feb. ’66: Daredevil #12 & #13 And these represent only credited layouts; it’s very possible that Jack had story input on one or two issues after he left, until the writer following him either picked up his thread or established his own. With only two exceptions—Avengers #16 and Suspense Kirby was often called upon to make art corrections on other artists’ work. Don Heck’s original Cap #77—Jack leaves all of his last layed-out stories open for the figure is visible under this one, presumably redrawn by Kirby for this Tales of Suspense #58 panel. writer and artist following to conclude. Even the two excepand the Suspense (Cap) storyline is continued by Kirby himself with tions are hardly that, since Avengers #16 leaves the plot thread of the issue #78. If the aforementioned stories give the appearance of my search for The Hulk which is in the following issue (and which also giving credit to Kirby as writer, it is only in the non-conventional vaguely ties in with the Hulk story in Astonish #69 using Kirby paste-ups), sense, as it is my opinion that the plots and stories at this point were coming from Jack. These layed-out stories coinIn addition to Jack’s margin notes, notice how Cyclops’ hand was repositioned in the published version (below) of cide with the same period of time when this panel from X-Men #12. Good call! Jack was developing the interwoven plotlines in FF and Thor, along with the introduction of new characters and concepts there. Jack begins doing layouts in ernest at about the same time as the continuing stories of FF #38-up and Thor #116-up are running. The border notes on all of Jack’s stories become more involved and detailed at this point, indicating that he is leaving more direction and being left more on his own than in the earlier years. Stan was there, to be sure, with plot input, editorial corrections, dialogue, and captions. Stan was credited as “writer,” but at this point he was leaving no written synopsis, plot, or script for Jack to follow. Most of the time there were story conferences, and 60

Stan likes to relate how he would only have to give “the germ of an idea” to his collaborator and send him off; with Kirby he once mentioned that even this wasn’t necessary. “Sometimes Jack would tell me what the next story would be,” he once opined. He also referred to Jack as a “conceptualizer,” which, by definition, implies the act of forming notions, ideas, or concepts; and even the ones not originated by Jack were being passed through him for input if time permitted. With this in view it is my opinion that, although they probably worked more closely in the earlier years, with the expansion of the line occupying more of Lee’s time and the previously mentioned changes in how the stories were being done, the majority of the plots and stories on the books Kirby was involved in were probably coming from Jack. In discussing this topic with several of the artists working on the layout books, more than one mentioned that Jack’s border notes were being left for the writer of the dialogue, not the artist. Stan, in an unpublished interview, stated that he couldn’t understand how Jack could say that he (Jack) was doing the writing; well, there are A good example of Stan dialoguing almost verbatim from Jack’s notes, from Tales To Astonish #73. many examples of Jack’s border drew (or layed-out), and left writing directions, that made him the notes being used by Lee for both dialogue and descriptive purposes (and “storyteller”; something Jack liked to refer to himself as anyway. of course, there are examples of Lee disregarding said notes, sometimes As time went on, Jack was becoming more and more dissatisfied to much better effect). So if co-plotting, dialogue, and captions make with doing layouts for Marvel. It was mentioned in earlier articles how Stan the “writer,” I’d have to add that, since Jack co-plotted, broke down, during this ’65-’67 period, Jack noticed that Stan was getting the lion’s share of the publicity and recognition for all of the characters and concepts that they originally developed together. Others, such as Ditko and Wood, also voiced their dislike of the fact that now, thanks to the “Marvel method,” the artist may have more creative freedom with the stories (to the extent of sometimes doing them virtually solo), but they weren’t receiving any sort of writing credit. The artist would do 75% of the work, but only be paid the standard page rate for penciling; Lee, on the other hand, would be paid for writing, editing, More of Jack’s margin notes, this time from X-Men #14. Kirby layouts, Werner Roth finishes, Colletta inks. and dialoguing a story 61

already fleshed out and drawn. This is not to say that Lee didn’t earn his pay, but the “Marvel method” proved that the stories were at the least co-written where people like Kirby, Ditko, and Wood were concerned; but credit arguments concerning Stan are hardly a new topic. Aside from credits, one topic which Stan strongly supported was a better pay rate for the people working with him. This is where many have come to realize that Martin Goodman was more involved with the new Marvel than had been previously mentioned. One of the main reasons that so many of the artists and inkers that came to Marvel in the mid-Sixties didn’t stay long was because of the terrible pay rates. Although Marvel was becoming financially successful after decades of stagnation, Goodman would not put more money into the comic book division of his holdings; only after the cajoling and sometimes begging of Lee would Detail from Avengers #16. Jack may have done tighter layouts here, as much of his style shows through Ayers’ finishes. Goodman relent. He also was eternally pessimistic concerning concepts, often was paid seven dollars a page for inks; had he been paid more he may telling Stan to cancel books before the first sales figures would come have stayed on and the history of comic art might have been changed. in (as he did with Hulk and Spider-Man); if not for Stan, they would Marvel was notorious for having among the lowest rates in the business, never have gotten off the ground and their popularity realized. Goodman and Goodman tried his best to keep them that way (good business was also ambivalent about talent. It didn’t bother him if an artist quit; savvy, but terrible on morale). to him they were replaceable commodities. Stan knew where the talent Jack, of course, received a better rate as a penciler, but never as was and must have become increasingly discouraged to not have the much as he was promised or felt he deserved. The layout work he did financial backing to lure them away. Artists who would come to Marvel just added insult to injury, as Jack was only paid 25% of his usual page during this layout period were offered as much as 30 dollars a page, rate; near the end it may have been moved up to around a third, but provided that they penciled and inked it; some were offered less. Joe he still felt it was terrible pay. He felt that he was receiving one fourth Sinnott relates the story of how, when he inked the historic FF #5, he of the money for what he considered the important three fourths of the penciler’s job. And as with FF and Thor during this period, it also increased the number of comics per month where Jack was contributing story ideas and plots to comics that were published with sole writer credit going to Lee. Jack announced several times that he didn’t want to do layouts any longer, but was persuaded to do a few more, to help out artists who were new to the “Marvel method” of doing comics; and then a few more and a few more until he finally issued an ultimatum that he would not do any more. This is probably why, although the layout work begins at virtually the same time, it doesn’t end abruptly, but rather peters out. Within eight months of the last story Jack lays out, he comes to the conclusion that he’s given enough ideas to “The House of Ideas,” and because of a failure to communicate, rides out the wave until something better comes along—but the secession of creativity is anti-climactic, as it becomes apparent over the years that what he’s left them is enough to sustain them for decades; and he is yet to receive his proper recognition in the company by the company... shame! ★

Another example of Jack’s lengthy margin notes, from X-Men #16.

(We’d like to thank Dick Ayers, Mike Esposito, Mark Evanier, Richard Howell, John Romita, Joe Sinnott, Clem So, Chic Stone, and George Tuska for supplying information pertinent to the writing of this article.)

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JOHN’S JUKEBOX

Getting behind-the-scenes details on what went on at Marvel in the 1970s is no easy task, as I discovered in putting this issue together. Try as we might, there was no one person who was privy to everything that went on during that wildly creative but haphazard time. Stan Lee had one foot in Hollywood, leaving a revolving door of Editors-In-Chief scrambling to keep up with Marvel’s constantly increasing output. So it’s no wonder that, with all those fans-turned-pros running around with no one to supervise them, a member of the “establishment” like Jack would have trouble fitting in. It’s to his credit he didn’t even try, but instead carried on with what he was so good at: Creating professional, entertaining comics that reflected his own philosophies and interests. Whether or not they were his finest work is debatable (I personally vote “not”), but I certainly like them better now than when I bought them off the stands in 1976-78, and I think they hold up today as well as anything else from Marvel at that time. So I hope you enjoy this issue celebrating the highs & lows of Kirby’s mid-1970s work at Marvel Comics, spotlighting a lot of overlooked gems in the King’s crown. Long Live The King!

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The Jack Kirby Collector is a not-for-profit publication, put together with submissions from Jack’s fans around the world. We don’t pay for submissions, but if 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 list of upcoming themes, to give you ideas of things to write about. But don’t limit yourself to these—we treat these themes very loosely, so anything you write may fit somewhere. And just because we covered a topic once, don’t think we won’t print more about it. So get creative, and get writing; and as always, send us copies of your Kirby art! In no particular order:

John Morrow, Editor

Editor JON B. COOKE has assembled the ultimate look at this offbeat company (people are comparing it to the long sold-out CBA #4, which spotlighted WARREN PUBLISHING), so don’t miss it! And don’t forget the 228-page CBA COLLECTION Trade Paperback, reprinting CBA #1-3 plus 50 pages of new material, and the 68-page CBA SPECIAL EDITION which is yours FREE by subscribing to CBA! ITEM! Rascally ROY THOMAS’ new ALTER EGO #5 is now shipping, spotlighting the JUSTICE SOCIETY in a special issue featuring SHELLY MAYER, GIL KANE, MART NODELL, GEORGE ROUSSOS, FCA with C.C. BECK & MARC SWAYZE, an INFANTINO / ORDWAY wraparound cover, & more! For the best in rare art, new articles, features, and interviews with the greats of the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Ages, don’t miss ALTER EGO #5, on sale now! ITEM! Our newest magazine, COMICOLOGY, has caught on like wildfire—the reorders on #1 have nearly depleted our supply! It focuses on the best of today’s comics and their creators, and editor BRIAN SANER LAMKEN gives in-depth coverage of both mainstream and indy comics, with the focus on behind-the-scenes details and rare art that you’ve come to expect from the TwoMorrows line! Look for #2 in August, featuring MIKE ALLRED!

COMICOLOGY

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FAN FAVO RITES!

It’s a simple concept: What are your favorite Kirby stories, and why? Let us know what you think! Plus, a special section on KAMANDI! KIRBY’S TWILIGHT YEARS!

From leaving Marvel in 1978 to his passing in 1994, we’ll explore the later years of Jack’s life and career, including a heavy focus on his animation work. THE BIG O NE!

Kirby did everything larger-than-life, so from his longest stories and his best two-page spreads to those huge Treasury Editions and more, we’ll devote an entire issue to the biggest moments of his life and career. If it’s big and it’s Kirby, send it in!

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THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #29 A TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING PRODUCTION IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE KIRBY ESTATE EDITOR: JOHN MORROW ASST. EDITOR: PAMELA MORROW PRODUCTION ASST.: ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON DESIGN & LAYOUT: TWOMORROWS PROOFREADING: JOHN & ERIC COLORIST: TOM ZIUKO CONTRIBUTORS: DICK AYERS ROB BALDWIN RICH BUCKLER JON B. COOKE SHEL DORF MARK EVANIER

REX B. FERRELL SHANE FOLEY MIKE GARTLAND KEITH GIFFEN DAVID HAMILTON RICHARD HOWELL KLAUS JANSON EDWARD K. KELLER PETER KOCH ALAN KUPPERBERG ADAM MCGOVERN ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON DAVID PENALOSA STEVE ROBERTSON JOE RUBINSTEIN TONY SEYBERT STEVE SHERMAN WALTER SIMONSON MICHAEL TUOHEY JAMES VAN HISE TIM WILSON RAY WYMAN SPECIAL THANKS TO: RICH BUCKLER JON B. COOKE MARK EVANIER MIKE GARTLAND KEITH GIFFEN D. HAMBONE RANDY HOPPE RICHARD HOWELL KLAUS JANSON GEORGE KHOURY JOE RUBINSTEIN RAY WYMAN TOM ZIUKO AND OF COURSE THE KIRBY ESTATE MAILING CREW: RUSS GARWOOD D. HAMBONE GLEN MUSIAL ED STELLI ROBERT THOMASON PATRICK VARKER

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Collector Comments

Send letters to: The Jack Kirby Collector c/o TwoMorrows • 1812 Park Drive Raleigh, NC 27605 or E-mail to: twomorrow@aol.com _____________________________________________ (First, a correction from #28:The Carl Taylor/Kevin Shaw art on page 76 of TJKC #28 featured characters created by Juan Gonzales, not ones Carl created. Our apologies to Juan for the oversight. Now on to your letters:) _____________________________________________

I can appreciate your attempts to give a little equal time to those who believe Stan Lee did more than just dialogue and edit Kirby during Marvel’s Silver Age, but they always seem to fall on their face. It’s ironic that in TJKC #28, Mike Gartland tries to point out Stan’s catching of inconsistencies in Jack’s art (the two FF scenes on pages 2 and 4), and also features the magnificent page of THOR art on page 23. This page clearly shows Jack’s notes (upper right) having Sif mention that she and Balder lost their swords in the previous battle with the Enchanters (THOR #143). Does Stan opt for consistency? Nope! He simply had someone in the bullpen add swords throughout. Mike’s comment on page 3 of Balder’s “out of character” feelings for Sif don’t make sense. Sif was only introduced in THOR #136 and Balder was only a sporadic guest-star prior to THOR #142. Who says Balder couldn’t have had feelings for Sif while Thor was courting Jane Foster? Besides, Jack’s rendition of Sif in those first ten issues was amazing, so who could blame Balder. [EDITOR’S NOTE: I wrote the captions, not Mike Gartland, so blame me!—John] If someone wants to blast Kirby for inconsistency, those later FF issues are certainly fertile ground. Too bad Stan didn’t catch the giant wrong hand of Reed’s on the splash of #88. Jack had clearly lost his passion for the FF by 1968-1970. But then again, what did Stan accomplish in FF #103-126 after Jack left? Stan worked with two talented artists (Romita and Buscema) and came up with what in two years? Dr. Rambo’s “Monster,” the OverMind, Gabriel (Galactus’ robot herald), and reuses of Annilhus, Diablo, Galactus, Mole Man—and a sure sign of desperation, the Thing turning against the FF again! Big deal. By #126, I’ll bet Stan was longing for Jack’s “inconsistency.” Are we to give credit to Stan Lee for 1964 to 1967 and blame Kirby for 1968 to 1970? Of course not. When Jack was passionate about the FF, he created the ultimate masterpiece of comic storytelling. And when he tired of it, all that was left were stories with great art, but no substance. Jack took all of us (including Stan) for a great ride and like all good things it ended too soon. David Kanafani, Plantation, FL _____________________________________________

Hmm... #28, April 2000! I like the fresh layouts. “The Kirby Version” was very good. Jack had a source for Dr. Doom, too. I was looking through a book of classic movie posters several years ago, just sort of idly flipping the pages—and there was Dr. Doom. I hurriedly flipped back. Nothing. Then I looked more carefully and there it was again. It was a poster for the silent film THE GOLEM. My quick scan across the page had turned the shadow surrounding the Golem into a cloak, making the whole figure into Dr. Doom—a simplified Doom but Doom nonetheless. The interesting thing is that the image Jack must have stored away in his mind wasn’t the actual painting, it was the shape of the painting. Incidentally, I ran into Jack awhile after the first Crest “Cavity Creeps” ad, and I asked if he had anything to do with it. Nope, he hadn’t even seen it. A shame. Trimpe did a great job of being a short-term Kirby. And then there were those covers for the English Captain Britain.... Richard Kyle, Long Beach, CA _____________________________________________

I just got issue #28, and noticed the “Kirby In Turtleland” piece (page 56) on the children’s book story “The Magic Crystal” which featured the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a character named Kirby. I’m not sure if your writer was aware of it, but that children’s book was based on one of our Mirage TMNT “microseries” (our goofy take on

the “mini-series” which had become popular in comics at the time—a “micro-series” is just one issue) focusing on Donatello and his adventure with a guy named Kirby. This one-shot, published in early 1986, was written and layed-out by me (though my TMNT partner and cocreator Kevin Eastman added a page and also co-plotted), mostly as a tribute to the one and only Jack Kirby. I made copies of the layouts and sent them and a letter to Jack, explaining what we planned to do and offering to share the profits on the book with him 50/50 (after all, we were essentially using him as a major character). I also said that if he didn’t like it, we wouldn’t do the book. To my delight, about a week later I got a telephone call from the King. I’m sure I acted like a starstruck geek, but Jack was very nice about it. He declined the profit share, and approved the stuff I had sent him, with one exception: I had drawn him with a cigar in his mouth, as I had seen in photos and caricatures of him, and, as Jack had in the recent past quit smoking, he asked that I remove the cigar (I think he said something about not wanting to encourage kids to smoke). Needless to say, I agreed, and thanked him profusely. This wasn’t my last attempt to partially pay my creative dept to Jack Kirby. In the early ’90s, Mike Dooney, Craig Farley and I were trying to start a second, non-TMNT imprint at Mirage called Next Comics. My contribution was a very Kirbyesque comic called “Stupid Heroes, which I tried to draw with the Kirby “look.” (I think I succeeded in a few panels.) The series never went anywhere, I ended up only doing three issues, and the Next Comics imprint vanished quickly. It was doubly frustrating, as my last issue ended in a cliffhanger which was never resolved. But, as my cartoonist buddy Ken Mitchroney (another bigtime Kirby fan) put it, I was “gettin’ my Kirbys out,” and it was a heck of a lot of fun. Peter Laird, Haydenville, MA _____________________________________________

Just a couple of notes on your piece on Vince Colletta, to round out the facts: Vinnie wasn’t the art director of DC in Carmine’s tenure, only of the romance titles—a job which included a lot of updating reprint romance stories by adjusting hair styles, fashions and cars to enable the reprints to appear contemporary. Vinnie’s gift for illustrating beautiful women was a critical reason for choosing him for this role. He later served as the company’s art director in the mid-’70s, and had some responsibility for identifying new artists and making art assignments in that time. The Colletta and Kirby problems at DC were complicated by the fact that Vinnie was receiving a lower than usual rate for inking Jack’s work. The reasoning for this was some combination of the “ease” of inking Jack’s work (and while as a non-artist I can’t speak to whether Jack’s work was truly easy to ink, his pencils were surely as full and complete as any I’ve seen), the high volume of work being guaranteed under the arrangement (a rarity in the handshake deals of the period), and the amount DC was paying Jack, motivating the company to squeeze the budget elsewhere. None of this is justification for any corners Vinnie cut, just background—later Kirby DC inkers were faced with similar conditions (and still lower rates—but then Mike Royer and D. Bruce Berry were early in their careers and weren’t used to receiving top rates). Finally, while Vinnie’s career includes work that is amazing—and much that was not—some of the great artists of his generation who watched him work acknowledged him as one of the best with a brush. His technical command, skills and talent were undoubted at the time... it was his choices of how much of himself to put into his work on any given occasion that damaged his reputation. And Damon Runyon never wrote a more colorful character than Vinnie, either. But that’s another story... Paul Levitz, Publisher, DC Comics _____________________________________________

The wraparound cover on #28 was a nice idea and successfully rendered: You could have labeled your mag Twomorrows “Pop Art” Publishing! “A Failure to Communicate” was excellent as usual. The idea to focus on Lee’s difficulties to communicate (and not on Kirby’s) was a very nice counterpoint to the last installments. After all, he’s been one of the most tal-

ented editors and dialogists in the field and really deserves praise for channeling Kirby’s imagination. The next thing would be to interview the Man himself! As for Lovecraft and Kirby, I’m not sure I find the link so obvious. If Kirby was certainly touched by the Lovecraftian themes (and who wasn’t?), the mood in their respective work is totally different, resulting in a very superficial influence. As for an example, one should compare Jack’s and HPL’s space gods. Lovecraft was a severe pessimistic individual, whereas Jack truly believed in man. The highlight of this issue was the article on Vince Colletta. That was an excellent idea to have numerous pros discuss the time and the man in a not opinionated way, letting the reader judge the case. This article opens new ways to cover subjects with its multiple angles. As for the gallery, I particularly enjoyed the Steve Rude samples and wish to see more from him in TJKC. Jean Depelley, FRANCE (Our congratulations go out to Jean and his wife Noelle on the birth of their daughter Marie. Hey, a new Kirby fan!) _____________________________________________

A few comments on #28: The alternate THOR #144 cover: “Too detailed to be inked and printed”? Surely, if this were the real reason for its rejection, the PERFECT inker would have been Colletta—he’d simply leave out as much of the background as his editor wanted. I think a better explanation is that Stan or Martin Goodman thought the main characters too small. Four months earlier, FF #63 had an explosion of smaller figures too but they filled the cover. And if Stan asked for a different cover with a bigger Thor, he sure got it in the end. (I wonder if this is the cover Herb Trimpe saw Jack sit down and draw in the Bullpen?) Vince Colletta: I must admit, the silhouetted figures and checkerboarded buildings never bothered me much before, although seeing the buildings in pencil does make one groan. What I really always disliked—and this is accentuated seeing the pencils—is the way Vince lost the dynamics in many of Jack’s faces and figures. (Syd Shores did the same on CAPTAIN AMERICA.) The face of Thor on THOR #144, page 6, panel 1, or again on page 1 (shown in TJKC #26) are typical examples. Also, the face of Him shown on page 43 (Panel 3 of THOR #166, page 7) is infinitely superior in pencil to what we saw in ink. I have no problem, however, with how he softened Jack’s women. Sif (#144, p. 2, panel 1) is a fine example. “The Kirby Version”: Really enjoyed John Alexander’s piece. Some of it seems a bit stretched to me. (Maybe Jack did use the Greek god-looking ‘metrons’ for ‘Him’, but my recollections of the ’60s are that such mythological god-like characters were a dime a dozen in S-F, TV and comics.) But the name sure helps John’s view— although why wouldn’t Jack have used it here instead of ‘Cocoon Man’? (Or maybe he was going to use it for Him’s return but then used it instead on a new figure on his drawing board. Be nice if he could tell us.) But other aspects were very good. I remember well the FF printing the letter (#94?) outlining the parallels between the STAR TREK episodes and ‘The Great Games’ storyline. I’m not at all amazed that Jack lifted the plot like that; what I am surprised at is that Stan would acknowledge it in print and publish the letter. Could it be that Stan had no idea about it until that letter came in? I’m also amazed at the photo of Spock with the ‘weapon’ (I’m not a Trekkie so haven’t seen any of this before). Again, I’m not surprised at Jack using the idea, but at Jack’s total lack of interest in hiding the fact. I mean, Nimoy gets a low budget broom handle with a loop at one end and a box at the other and has to act ‘serious’. Kirby, that wondrous fount of imagination takes the idea, then draws a broom handle with a loop at one end and a box at the other. He really was ‘withholding the creativity’ at the time, wasn’t he? Failure to Communicate: Overall a great addition to this series and one doing its best to be fair to Stan. I’m also very glad to read more and more folks who are of the opinion that Jack worked best when he had a strong editor. That the Fourth World saga “would have flowed better had he employed such an editor” is no slur on the King at all. His better issues would have remained 99% as they

are, while the weaker issues could only have been strengthened. Sound thinking, in my opinion. A couple of questions from the article: Page 2: “It was all Jack could do to keep Stan from bringing back other Golden Age heroes...” Can this POV really be written with such certainty? I know this is the line taken in Ray Wyman’s THE ART OF JACK KIRBY (maybe Ray got this from Jack personally?) but Stan himself certainly denies it (most recently in COMIC BOOK ARTIST #2, page 7). And has the other view—that Marvel’s distribution deal with DC initially limited the use of super-heroes—been debunked? Also whereas it is definitely true that Jack was ‘progressively creative’, I’m not sure I could agree that it is certain that he wouldn’t have tried to resurrect Cap, etc. After all, it was Jack himself who brought back the Newsboy Legion and the Guardian in 1970—a time when he had the most autonomy that he ever had. Page 3: How do we know it was Jack’s idea to intro the romantic tension between Balder and Sif? As Roy Thomas noted in ALTER EGO recently, just because an artist writes something in the borders doesn’t mean he was the one who had the idea. And we do know that this love triangle thing was a favorite theme of Stan’s, whether with Jack (Scott/Warren/Jean; Reed/Sue/Ben) or apart from Jack (Stark/Pepper/Happy; Matt/Karen/Foggy). Karl Kesel mentioning the Challengers reminded me: A lot is made of the FF/Challengers creative link and with good reason. But I think of equal importance is SKYMASTERS as an important predecessor to the FF. Whatever access the Woods and Kirby had to NASA material helped them produce inventions like the Atom Horse. This ‘reality based’ approach to comic inventions is clearly seen in Kirby’s work from then on and is a major part of the FF’s immortality. (How different were the FF’s machines to the rocket ships of Flash Gordon and his ilk.) Scenes from CHALLENGERS are clearly seen in the early FFs (eg. scenes from SHOWCASE #11 and FF #7), but the rocket sled and F-Car from FF #12 are straight out of SKYMASTERS—in my opinion, anyway! Shane Foley, AUSTRALIA _____________________________________________

Thank you for the fascinating and informative article on Vinnie Colletta. As a fan, I was never as down on his inking as a lot of people have been; indeed, your article illustrated how that “scratchy” style gave such a distinctive and beautiful feel to THOR. Joe Sinnott, so deft and magnificent on the FF, would never have given THOR that feel, and whoever made the assignments—I imagine it was Stan—showed editorial acumen beyond the ordinary. Of course, the samples that you ran, side-by-side, of Kirby’s pencils and how Colletta inked them, finally showed me why so many people were down on him. I would never call it butchery, but, yeah, now I understand why, for example, Neal Adams didn’t want Colletta to ink him. I don’t know whether the “make the deadline; screw the details” approach ever actually hurt the books (God knows both the FF and THOR sold very well through that whole period), but your examination and presentation of this aspect of the creation of comics is exactly what a great fanzine is about, and I learned a great deal from it. Particularly gratifying is the fact that the article was fair, presenting both the negative and positive aspects of this artist’s work. You folks continue to do a tremendous service to fans and pros alike with articles such as this. Mark Lerer, Forest Hills, NY _____________________________________________

Mike and Laura Allred were born to ink and color that tech-happy FF-at-home wraparound cover, and the tinkering of the mag’s masthead into pop-art word-balloon dialogue was inspired, as was Laura’s looming ben-day background (Kirby Krackle meets the Liechtenstein Dot!). The surprise defense of Stan—in the “Failure to Communicate” series, of all places—was a thoughtprovoking opener. The detailed tracking of those warped Kirby Monsters was something I’ve been waiting for since issue #1. The perspective on Kirby from France’s genius Moebius was intriguing and overdue—though I heretically rank the three finest Silver Surfer artists as John Buscema, Moebius, and Kirby, in that order, I felt praise

for the King was conspicuously absent from the artist’s essays in the late-’80s Moebius/Lee SURFER graphic novel. I always wondered if this was a case of belated recognition or just lawsuit-era company policy, though in any case the record is now set strait. The above only scratches the surface of a fascinating issue, but one recurrent theme is particularly worthy of further exploration: The influence of the Fourth World on STAR WARS. In this regard the most pertinent question remains unasked; specifically, not whether STAR WARS is a direct swipe from the Fourth World, but whether the Fourth World is an indispensable component of STAR WARS. STAR WARS not only borrows the Fourth World’s father/son conflict and recycles its “Source” as the “Force,” but, from elsewhere in the Kirby cosmology, it turns Dr. Doom into Darth Vader and KAMANDI’s sinister satellite Tracking Site into the Death Star. But beyond Kirby, it lifts the courtly intrigues of Asimov’s FOUNDATION trilogy, the desert settings and messianic plotline of Frank Herbert’s DUNE, and the space opera of FLASH GORDON, for starters. For his part, Kirby stirred his Fourth World from ingredients in medieval politics (the swapping of offspring as truce-sealing human shields), Norse/Teutonic mythology (the apocalyptic conflict which opens the series), the Old Testament (Scott Free’s Moses-like orphaning and upbringing in his enemy’s camp), Buddhism (Scott’s Gautama-like renunciation of said upbringing), and Greek tragedy (Orion and Darkseid’s Oedipal conflict), to name but a few. The significant difference is that the Fourth World draws on timeless sources which resonate on an almost subconscious level with not just generations but millennia of different audiences, whereas STAR WARS is a highconcept hodgepodge of market-tested elements generalized for copyright protection and lowest-common-denominator appeal. The Fourth World has archetypal grandeur to contrast with STAR WARS’ fairy-tale formula. In sum, the Fourth World is a work of layered synthesis while STAR WARS is a work of superficial derivativeness, though many an observer has mistaken the latter work’s mass-marketing for universality. By token of this derivativeness no single source can lay claim to STAR WARS’ provenance, though clearly, the Fourth World gives it the structure without which it would be a different story. Adam McGovern, Mount Tabor, NJ (Don’t miss Adam’s new regular column “Kirby As A Genre” debuting this issue, highlighting works by artists heavily influenced by Kirby.) _____________________________________________

I just saw some very interesting art from TALES TO ASTONISH #82. It’s a twelve-page Sub-Mariner story that Gene Colan did the first two pages of, then became ill and couldn’t finish, so Jack did the remaining ten pages. The first two pages have copious margin notes in what I assume is Gene Colan’s handwriting (as it’s neither Jack or Stan’s). Then when Jack takes over, there are his standard notes around the margins. I guess Gene just told Jack where he wanted to go with the story, and away he went! So it looks like Colan was plotting his own stories at this point. STRANGE TALES #103 isn’t alone among the early Marvel comics to have all the writing on the pages (under the balloons and captions) penciled in by Jack. I’ve seen it on the original art for RAWHIDE KID #22, TWO-GUN KID #55 & #58, and TALES TO ASTONISH #30. I also found it on a page from “The Last Days of Pompeii” story Jack did for CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED in 1961 which was surely from a full script, so the Marvel examples may be also. I’ve also seen it on most of the Simon & Kirby pages I’ve ever seen. I think Shane Foley is correct when he postulates in the letters column that this could be from Jack working from a full script. I would assume, though, that sometimes it would indicate that Jack did the actual scripting. As to which might be the case in any individual instance, I don’t know. Maybe some of the other fans out there with original art will take a close look at it, and write in where they find Jack’s writing. I’d love to hear from whoever bought the art to FANTASTIC FOUR #3 recent-

ly, for instance! I couldn’t see any penciled writing on an AVENGERS #1 page I had, and I’m very curious about other early super-hero pages! Robert J. Karol wonders whether Kirby was familiar with H. P. Lovecraft, or if he ever read WEIRD TALES magazine. In the mid-Seventies, Mike Thibodeaux and I used to go with the Kirbys to conventions and man their table for them. They had us bring a large cardboard box full of old pulp magazines Jack had been storing out in the garage, and had decided to get rid of. There were quite a few copies of WEIRD TALES mixed in with various sci-fi titles. Jack gave me two issues of WT (Aug. ’30 and Feb. ’32) that I wanted specifically because they contained Lovecraft and writers using his Cthulhu Mythos. We lugged that box to many a con, never selling an issue, and finally sold the whole box to a dealer at a San Diego Con for $10 just so we wouldn’t have to keep moving it around! We also had several boxes of comics that the Kirbys had saved from the Forties and Fifties, and even though they were from the Kirbys themselves, we couldn’t interest any buyers! I think we sold a handful of books! Mike Zuccaro writes in to correct the interpretation given in the Dark Horse portfolio about Jack’s series of drawings about God, and I remember Kirby giving the same interpretation that Mike does. Namely, the first drawing is of God and the angels, going about creation. The second in the series is the one commonly placed last, where there are only a few people on the Earth, pleading towards God, whose back is turned. Jack said that once having created us, God, as a good father, had to let us find our own way, not just lay everything out for us. The final drawing (commonly placed second), shows a planet covered with corrupt beings, with God gazing on. Jack said this is what God finds when he looks to see what we’ve done with the gift of life he’s given us. Steve Robertson, Simi Valley, CA _____________________________________________ Loved the Allreds’ cover! Chic Stone meets Roy Liechtenstein! Mike Gartland’s defense of Stan Lee was only fair: Kirby/Lee/Ditko were a comics equivalent of Lennon/McCartney/Harrison, and few will argue that what any one of them did after their break-up was quite on the level of their collaboration. I think Lee’s omnipresent witticisms and cultural breadth were a hugely important part of Marvel’s unique charm in the ’60s, and that literally all of comicdom has followed (or tried to follow) in his footsteps ever since —in fact, I have never read better comic book dialogue or editing. And that’s all the more reason to hate the guy for turning down (directly or indirectly) Jack’s Fourth World ideas, which would have been so much hipper at Marvel, starting around 1967 or ’68, without Jimmy Olsen and Superman and their redrawn faces, but perhaps with Sinnott inks, Lee editing, and guest appearances by Silver Surfer and Co. Duncan Youngerman, FRANCE NEXT ISSUE: Issue #29 picks up where this issue leaves off with an examination of KIRBY’S TWILIGHT YEARS, from the time he left Marvel in 1978, to his death in 1994. It starts with color Kirby covers inked by AL GORDON and PAUL SMITH! Then we present more of Ray Wyman’s interviews with JACK & ROZ KIRBY, and a new interview with the writer who made the 1980s so fascinating, ALAN MOORE! Plus, we’ll interview Jack’s nephew and co-executor of the Kirby Estate ROBERT KATZ about upcoming Kirby projects, and take a look at Jack’s career in animation (including a gallery of some of the most amazing art Kirby ever produced)! Also, there’s more on Jack’s TOPPS COMICS work, HUNGER DOGS, and plenty of rare and unpublished Kirby art from your favorite stories! Because of an incredibly hectic Summer at TwoMorrows, we’re taking a little breather, so #29 ships in November (but we’ll be back on schedule after that). Submission deadline: 9/1/00.

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COMICOLOGY #1: (100 pages) The new magazine for MODERN COMICS fans, with a BRUCE TIMM cover, intv. & sketchbook, JEPH LOEB interview, LEA HERNANDEZ, MANYA, USAGI YOJIMBO, 60 years of ROBIN, & more! $5.95

ALTER EGO #1: (84 pages) ROY THOMAS’ fanzine is back, all-new! STAN LEE, SCHWARTZ, ORDWAY, HASEN, H.G. PETER, FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA, MR. MONSTER, color ORDWAY cover & more! $5.95

ALTER EGO #2: (100 pages) Allnew THOMAS material! EISNER “SPIRIT” story, KANE, FOX & SCHWARTZ on The Atom, LARRY LIEBER & JACK BURNLEY intvs., KANIGHER, FCA, new color KANE & BURNLEY covers, more! $5.95

ALTER EGO #3: (100 pages) More all-new material by ROY THOMAS! ALEX ROSS cover & intv., JERRY ORDWAY, BILL EVERETT, CARL BURGOS, Giant FAWCETT section with C.C. BECK, SWAYZE, & more! $5.95

ALTER EGO #4: (100 pages) Allnew salute: 60 years of HAWKMAN & FLASH! ROY THOMAS remembers GIL KANE, intvs. with KUBERT, MOLDOFF, LAMPERT, FOX, FCA with BECK & SWAYZE, KUBERT covers, & more! $5.95

ALTER EGO #5: (100 pages) Special JUSTICE SOCIETY issue! Intvs. with SHELLY MAYER, GIL KANE, MART NODELL, GEORGE ROUSSOS, FCA with BECK & SWAYZE, INFANTINO / ORDWAY wraparound cover, & more! $5.95

COLLECTED KIRBY COLLECTOR, Vol. One: 240-page trade paperback reprints KIRBY COLLECTOR #1-9, plus a new section with over 30 pieces of unpublished Kirby art, never before shown in TJKC! $21.95

COLLECTED KIRBY COLLECTOR, Vol. Two: 160-page trade paperback reprints KIRBY COLLECTOR #10-12, plus a new section featuring a tour of the Kirby’s house, plus over 30 pieces of unpubl. Kirby art! $14.95

COLLECTED KIRBY COLLECTOR, Vol. Three: 176-page trade paperback reprints TJKC #13-15, a new introduction by STEVE BISSETTE, plus 30 more new pieces of unpubl. Kirby art! $16.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #18: MARVEL issue! Intvs. w/ KIRBY, STAN LEE, THOMAS, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, ROUSSOS, SEVERIN, unpubl. art & more! 68 pages, color Kirby/Sinnott cover. $5.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #20: WOMEN issue! Intvs. with KIRBY, DAVE STEVENS, daughter LISA KIRBY, unused 10-page romance story, screenplay for CAPTAIN VICTORY, unpublished art, more! 68 pages, color Kirby covers. $5.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #21: Intvs. with KIRBY, GIL KANE, BRUCE TIMM, LEE’s DIALOGUE vs. KIRBY’s MARGIN NOTES, Jack’s work at TOPPS, SILVER STAR screenplay, unpubl. art, more! 68 pages, color Kirby covers. $5.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #22: VILLAINS issue! Intvs. with KIRBY, RUDE, MIGNOLA, uninked pencils from FF #49, genesis of KOBRA, features on villains, unpubl. art & more! 68 pages, color Kirby and Kirby/Stevens covers. $5.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #23: Intvs. with KIRBY, DENNY O’NEIL, granddaughter TRACY KIRBY, uninked pencils from FF #49, unused SOUL LOVE story, unpubl. art & more! 68 pages, color Kirby and Kirby/Horley covers. $5.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #24: BATTLES! KIRBY interview, Kirby’s original art battle, JIM SHOOTER, SGT. FURY, GLORY BOAT pencils, unpubl. art, more! 68 pages, color Kirby/Mignola wraparound cover. $5.95

FAX, PHONE, MAIL, OR E-MAIL YOUR ORDER! POSTAGE: ADD $2 to all orders under $10, $3 to orders from $10-30, and $4 to orders over $30

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Street KIRBY COLLECTOR #25: S&K! KIRBY, SIMON, & SEVERIN intvs., unused BOY EXPLORERS story, MAINLINE COMICS, more! 100 pages, color Kirby/Adkins & Kirby/Severin covers. $5.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #26: GODS! COLOR NEW GODS plates, KIRBY & SIMONSON intvs., BIBLICAL INFLUENCES, THOR and MR. MIRACLE pencils & more! 72 pages, color Kirby covers. $5.95

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #28: KIRBY INFLUENCE, Part Two! Intvs. with MARK HAMILL, JOHN KRICFALUSI, KESEL, ALLRED, STEVE RUDE portfolio, COLLETTA’s life, Kirby grandkids, & more! Color Kirby/Allred cover. $5.95

❏ CBA COLLECTION VOL. ONE • $21.95 ($25 Canada, $35 other) ❏ CBA #6 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) ❏ CBA #7 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) ❏ CBA #8 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) ❏ CBA #9 • $6.95 ($8 Canada, $10 other)

❏ $20 for 4 issues ($27 Canada, $37 other Airmail) ❏ CC #1 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other)

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #27: KIRBY INFLUENCE, Part One! KIRBY & ALEX ROSS intvs., KIRBY FAMILY ROUNDTABLE, & top pros discuss Kirby’s influence! 72 pages, color centerfold + Kirby/Timm & Kirby/Thibodeaux covers. $5.95

❏ $30 for 6 issues ($42 Canada, $54 other Airmail) + FREE CBA SPECIAL

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ALTER EGO

❏ $20 for 4 issues ($27 Canada, $37 other Airmail) ❏ A/E #1 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) ❏ A/E #2 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) ❏ A/E #3 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) ❏ A/E #4 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) ❏ A/E #5 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other)

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR

❏ $24 for 6 issues ($32 Canada, $44 other Airmail)

KIRBY CHECKLIST: Lists every Kirby comic, plus books, portfolios, unpubl. work & more! It even cross-references reprints! 100 pages! $5

❏ COLLECTED TJKC ❏ TJKC #18 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) Vol. 1 • $21.95 ❏ TJKC #20 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) ($25 Canada, ❏ TJKC #21 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) $35 other) ❏ TJKC #22 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) ❏ TJKC #23 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) ❏ COLLECTED TJKC ❏ TJKC #24 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) Vol. 2 • $14.95 ❏ TJKC #25 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) ($17 Canada, ❏ TJKC #26 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) $25 other) ❏ TJKC #27 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) ❏ COLLECTED TJKC ❏ TJKC #28 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) Vol. 3 • $16.95 ❏ TJKC #29 • $5.95 ($7 Canada, $9 other) ($20 Canada, ❏ KIRBY CHECKLIST • $5 ($6 Canada, $8 other) $27 other) ❏ STREETWISE • $19.95 ($23 Canada, $30 other) (Subscriptions will start with the current issue)