Jack Kirby Collector #78 Preview by TwoMorrows Publishing

rvel Â© Ma TM & ters, Inc. c Chara

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR SEVENTY-EIGHT $10.95

WINTER 2020

Contents

THE

SILVER ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! 25 YEARS ON. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 (a quarter century of this mag) JACK KIRBY AT FLEISCHER STUDIOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 (Kirby’s earliest work was animation)

C o l l e c t o r

ISSUE #78, WINTER 2020

LINK THORNE, THE FLYING FOOL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 (a forgotten S&K hero) HOW SIMON & KIRBY KICKSTARTED THE SILVER AGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 (Challengers or the Flash?) KIRBY OBSCURA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 MARVEL PRECURSORS. . . . . . . . . 22 (he had to start somewhere) SOLID SILVER CONTINUITY. . . . . . 28 (simply the best) A 25-YEAR SEISMIC SHIFT! . . . . . 31 (at this point in Jack’s career...) MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE FALLEN MONSTER… . . . . . . . . . . 34 (heading out the door with Thor) 2019 WONDERCON KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL. . . . . . . . . 40 (Mark Evanier moderates) THE MYSTERY OF MYSTIVAC. . . . 53 (the Mister Miracle mystery) SILVER SURFER GALLERY. . . . . . . 55 SILVER STAR: INCIDENTAL ICONOGRAPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 (Kirby’s final hero examined) CIRCLE OF FRIENDS . . . . . . . . . . . 63 (stories about meeting Jack) THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR. . . . 65 (thanks to those who’ve helped us) EVENT HORIZON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 ( Tom Scioli shares his grand design for the Fantastic Four) GOING MUTTS OVER KIRBY!. . . . . 70 (Patrick McDonnell’s tributes to Jack) THE JACK KIRBY MUSEUM. . . . . . 73 (visit & join www.kirbymuseum.org) THE MONOLITH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 COLLECTOR COMMENTS. . . . . . . . 78 (letters on past issues) Deluxe co ver inks: STEVE RUDE Standard cover inks: STEVE RUDE (new Galactus figure), JOHN ROMITA and JOHN VERPOORTEN (main inks from Thor #170, at right) Standard cover colors: TOM ZIUKO COPYRIGHTS: Ant-Man, Avengers, Batroc, Black Panther, Captain America, Devil Dinosaur, Eternals, Fantastic Four, Galactus, Giant-Man, Hawkeye, Him, Hulk, Iron Man, Loki, Magneto, Maximus, Metallo, Odin, Quicksilver, Rawhide Kid, Scarlet Witch, Sgt. Fury, Sif, Silver Surfer, SpiderMan, Strange Tales, Stranger, Sub-Mariner, Thermal Man, Thor, Two-Gun Kid, Vision, Volstaag, Warriors Three, Wasp, Watcher, X-Men, Yellow Claw TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. • Big Barda, Blackhawks, Cave Carson, Challengers of the Unknown, Flash, Forever People, Green Arrow, Guardian, Jimmy Olsen, Lightray, Lois Lane, Metallo, Mister Miracle, Mystivac, New Gods, Newsboy Legion, OMAC, Orion, Rip Hunter, Sea Devils, Shazam, Slig, Suicide Squad, Superman, The Unexpected TM & © DC Comics • Popeye TM & © King Features • Bullseye, Fighting American, Foxhole, In Love, Link Thorne, Night Fighter, Police Trap, Sunfire TM & © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby estates • Private Strong TM & © Archie Publications • The Fly TM & © Joe Simon estate • Chip Hardy, Flesh Crawl, Galaxy Green, Silver Star, Sky Masters TM & © Jack Kirby estate • Destroyer Duck TM & © Steve Gerber & Jack Kirby estates

The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 27, No. 78, Winter 2020. Published quarterly by and © TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. 919-449-0344. John Morrow, Editor/Publisher. Single issues: $12 postpaid US ($18 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $48 Economy US, $70 International, $18 Digital. Editorial package © TwoMorrows Publishing, a division of TwoMorrows Inc. All characters are trademarks of their respective companies. All Kirby artwork is © Jack Kirby Estate unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors. Views expressed here are those of the respective authors, and not necessarily those of TwoMorrows Publishing or the Jack Kirby Estate. First printing. PRINTED IN CHINA. ISSN 1932-6912

hoto

Pivotal Decisions

25 Years On

by editor John Morrow

Did I do the right thing? Make the right choices? Will I regret this move one day? Here I am in 1996 at one of my earliest convention appearances (that’s Joe Sinnott’s hand on my shoulder!)...

...and accepting the 2019 Eisner Award for “Best Comics-Related Periodical” for Back Issue magazine, in a photo by Kendall Whitehouse.

o r a quarter-century (!), I’ve been producing this magazine on a regular basis. Since 1994, it’s consumed countless hours of my life, and more than once, I’ve stopped to ask myself, “Self, is this the best use of your time and the remaining years of your life, or should you be focusing on something much more lucrative?” Kirby himself must’ve been plagued with that same question, but inevitably reached the answer I have: “As long as I can support my family, the satisfaction I get from my job is just as important as making more money.” So for this Silver Anniversary issue, I’m dropping some extra coin on a very satisfying fifth ink color (metallic silver, of course), and a special silver sleeve Deluxe Edition for those who chose it over the Standard Edition. Alas, due to the ongoing trade dispute between the US and China, the addition of a 30% tariff on our printing means, for the foreseeable future, I’ll have to cut 16 pages from the usual format to keep our cover price the same. But in spite of some very frustrating business decisions I’ve been forced to make, my day job is a pretty nice gig. I get to produce work that I enjoy, and am immensely proud of—just as Jack did for twice as long as I’ve been cranking out this mag. I could’ve spent this entire issue documenting my own personal journey that brought me here, but this mag has never been, and never will be, about me. It’s about Jack Kirby, the man who influenced several generations in ways that we’re only beginning to see now. So rather than deflect any more attention away from him, let me just point 2

you toward our 25th Anniversary book, The World of TwoMorrows, which I’m co-editing with Jon B. Cooke. If you’ve ever wanted to know the nitty-gritty history of how I started TJKC, and ended up with what fans half-jokingly call my publishing “empire,” WOT should be out at the same time this issue ships. It’s filled with photos, memorabilia, and behind-the-scenes details of how TwoMorrows evolved from a 16-page hand- xeroxed fanzine about Jack Kirby, to what it is today. And now, let’s take a journey through Kirby’s own history, with stops along the way to see what kind of pivotal decisions he had to make. I’ve learned a lot from Jack’s successes and failures—most notably that, just like in comic books, even your defeats can come back around as eventual triumphs. I hope you can take away something valuable from this trip as well. H

Kirby’s Bad(?) Business Sense

A lot has been said about how, as good as Kirby was at creating comics, he was equally bad at the business end of things. Sometimes you just make the wrong choice in a situation, and other times you have few options when life throws you a curveball. Over the course of 25 years of documenting his history, I’ve found a lot of key moments where things might’ve turned out differently. Here’s a list of some of those instances—decide for yourself if these were good or bad choices Jack made: • Waiting to get drafted into the infantry in WWII, whereas Joe Simon enlisted in the US Coast Guard and Stan Lee in the Signal Corps, serving stateside • Forming Mainline Comics with Joe Simon, at a time when comics were in a major sales downturn in the 1950s • Signing a napkin contract with Jack Schiff for the Sky Masters newspaper strip, rather than having a legal professional handle the negotiations • Moving to Marvel in the late 1950s and continuing to work without a contract throughout the 1960s • Not walking out of Marvel with Steve Ditko in 1966 • Siding with Marvel in Simon’s 1960s Captain America lawsuit; was there bad blood between Joe and Jack that kept Kirby from discussing it before taking Marvel owner Martin Goodman’s offer? • Taking a loan from Goodman in 1969 to fund his family’s move to California • Moving to DC in 1970, without written guarantees from Carmine Infantino • Burning bridges by parodying Stan Lee as Funky Flashman in Mister Miracle in the 1970s • Moving back to Marvel in 1975, without written guarantees from Marvel

In the 1930s, young Jack Kirby had dreams of being a movie star, hoping to move to Hollywood and become the next John Garfield in gangster films. Thankfully, his mom wouldn’t let him, or he might’ve missed out on a career in comic books. So the closest he got to being on the Big Screen was accepting an offer to use his art talent animating cartoons in 1935— and there begins a long series of pivotal choice made by...

Jack Kirby at Fleischer Studios by Jim Korkis • Originally published online at: http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/in-his-own-words-jack-kirby-at-fleischers/

I (far right) Jack Kirby, age 18 in 1935. (right) Kirby’s try-out (under his given name, Jacob Kurtzberg) to do in-betweening on the Fleischer Studios’ Popeye animated shorts.

(above) Max Fleischer with Betty Boop.

n a short biography of Jack Kirby written by Jack himself that appeared in the Merry Marvel Messenger (the official newsletter of the Merry Marvel Marching Society fan club) in 1966, it states: “Frustrated by bad spelling, I turned to bad drawing and improved both enough in my late teens to land a job in a small syndicate servicing weekly newspapers. “From there to Max Fleischer animation studios— where, for negligible wages, I learned that the human body, in motion, has value and beauty. When Popeye and Betty Boop took the initial steps to throw their pies, it was my job to complete the movements and speed of the action. This operation was called in-betweening. When comic magazines blossomed as a field, I leaped in and drew for anyone who would let me tell a story.” While most of Kirby’s peers in his neighborhood saw their future as policemen, politicians, or gangsters, Kirby wanted to be an artist, but only lasted less than a week at art class at Pratt University because his father lost his job. Kirby dropped out and needed to find paying work. He started doing some artwork for Lincoln Newspaper Syndicate. He also got a job as an in-betweener at the Fleischer Studios in New York sometime in 1935, supposedly earning around fifteen dollars a week. It can be debated that this was his earliest formal art training that taught him about movement and exaggeration. Working in the same room during that exact same time as an in-betweener was cartoonist John Stanley, who would go on to later fame on the Little Lulu comic books among other credits, so it is probable that the

two artists met. Around the same time Sheldon Mayer, Harry Lampert and Gill Fox, all of whom would make an impact in early comic books, were also working there. Stanley left in 1936 to work with Hal Horne on Mickey Mouse Magazine. By that time, Kirby was also gone. He saw there was labor unrest at the studio and left well before the strike of May 1937, and the studio later relocating to Miami, Florida in 1938. He was not working there in 1939 as many sources state because he would have had to be living in Florida. In the summer of 1940, he and his family moved to Brooklyn, New York where he met Rosalind Goldstein, whom he would later marry in 1942. Kirby did admit that one of the benefits he got from working at the animation studio was that he smuggled out large quantities of pencils and erasers, which he used for many years drawing newspaper strips and comic books. Certainly his working on Popeye cartoons inspired the work he did on the comic strip Socko the Seadog done under the name of “Teddy” (below).

After Kirby met Joe Simon and collaborated on the Blue Bolt comic book at Fox Features, the pair decided to form a true partnership, which lasted almost two decades. Following their 1945 military discharges, instead of returning to Marvel or DC (home of their WWII-era hits Captain America and Boy Commandos), they worked for Harvey and Prize Comics, creating strips like...

Here’s a story from Airboy Comics, V4 #5, June 1947 (featuring the first appearance of the Flying Fool). Restoration and color by Chris Fama. Since Titan never reprinted the “Link Thorne” stories in their Simon & Kirby Archives volumes, we’ll be running them all in chronological order over the next several issues.

Simon & Kirby scored big by creating the Romance Comics genre in the late 1940s, but as the 1950s wore on, the comics field was in a slump. In the midst of an anti-comics backlash, Joe and Jack unwisely chose to start Mainline Comics. Their new company failed, and they parted ways. Kirby chose to reach out to DC Comics, picking up whatever work he could, and bringing with him a leftover Mainline concept, that in hindsight shows...

he team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby gets credit for a lot of firsts, including the first kid gang strips, exemplified by the Newsboy Legion; the first successful comics aimed at the love magazine audience (Young Romance); and numerous other pioneering efforts. I want to make a radical proposal. Simon & Kirby also kickstarted the Silver Age of Comics. How can that be, you ask? Run with me here….

(above) Which comic—Showcase #4 or #6—really launched the Silver Age of Comics? If it was the former, the Flash sure took his time getting his own series, as opposed to the Challengers, who moved with almost lightning speed!

The universally accepted trigger for the Silver Age was the appearance of the updated Flash in Showcase #4, September–October 1956. This led to a wave of new incarnations of Golden Age DC superheroes, culminating in the Justice League of America, whose sales directly inspired Marvel Comics to follow suit with The Fantastic Four. Yet the character’s revival did not result in a Flash comic book until 1959, twoand-a-half years after the new Flash’s debut. By any standard, that’s a slow transition from tryout to established title. More to the point, before The Flash resumed its interrupted Golden Age numbering, subsequent Showcase features had already broken out into their own books. As important as the Flash’s revival was to what came afterward, I submit that “Challengers of the Unknown,” which first appeared in Showcase #6, cover-dated January–February 1957, was just as important as the Flash, if not more so, in the comic book comeback that defined the Silver Age. Two consecutive Challengers tryouts appeared before the Flash popped up again in Showcase #8. The Flash did not return until Showcase #13, with his last tryout running in #14, a year-and-a-half after the Scarlet Speedster’s appearance. By that time, there had been four Challengers issues, then the feature received its own title, coverdated April-May 1958. That’s right, Challengers beat the Flash to its own title—and by a solid year. Flash #105 was cover-dated February-March 1959. By the time it

appeared on America’s newsstands, the bi-monthly Challengers of the Unknown was already up to issue #6! It’s clear in retrospect that DC was hesitant to launch new super-heroes in the early 1950s, a time when the comic book industry was under fire from parents’ groups. Launching new titles was an expensive and risky venture—as witness the final titles emanating from the Simon & Kirby studio, all of which were painfully short-lived. The Flash appeared sporadically four times before DC management felt confident enough to award him a title of his own. By contrast, Lois Lane was given her own title only six months after her final Showcase appearance. Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #1 was cover-dated March-April 1958, the month before Challengers #1. No doubt Superman’s success on TV motivated that decision. Even though Lois Lane beat out the Challengers by thirty days, DC’s confidence in the Kirby strip appeared to be much stronger. Only three months passed from their final Showcase appearance to their first issue. Overlooked

...How Simon & Kirby Kickstarted the Silver Age by Will Murray

Jacques Cousteau

Rocky Marciano

Challengers Inspirations? by Will Murray & Mark Clegg While I readily recognize the Doc Savage inspiration in Challengers of the Unknown, I have always wondered if the strip might not have also been inspired by something else, some then-contemporary film or concept. Then one day I read the following Facebook posting by researcher Mark Clegg, which I quote with his kind permission: “On December 31, 1954, Joe Simon, 41, is probably commiserating with his brother-in-law Jack Oleck, 40, one of the main writers for both Mainline and EC. Wondering what to do in the future, do they look back on the “Silver Spider” proposal they did with C. C. Beck for Harvey at the beginning of the year, even though Harvey ended up passing on it? Oh well, maybe someday. Did he and Jack already have their “Challengers of the Unknown” concept worked out? World Heavyweight Champion Rocky Marciano, 29, defended his title on May 15, 1953 in a rematch against Jersey Joe Walcott, 39, who this time was knocked out in the first round. On May 29, 1953, Edmund Percival Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. Published in 1953, Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau described his underwater world research in his first book, The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure (Subtitle: A story of undersea discovery and adventure, by the first men to swim at record depths with the freedom of fish). On December 12, 1953, test pilot Chuck Yeager, 30, set a new speed record at Mach 2.44. The flight though had not gone entirely to plan, since shortly after reaching Mach 2.44, Yeager lost control of the X-1A at about 80,000 ft (24,000 m) due to inertia coupling, a phenomenon Chuck largely unknown at the time. With the Yeager aircraft simultaneously rolling, pitching, and yawing out of control, Yeager dropped 51,000 feet (16,000 m) in less than a minute before regaining control at around 29,000 feet (8,800 m). He did manage to land without further incident.” What if their Boy Explorers had grown up to become Chuck (or Neil Armstrong, another prominent flyboy of the day who’s the splitting image of Ace Morgan), Jacques, Edmund, and Rocky? What if they shared a flight that had a “severe incident”? From the standpoint of timing, and the unity of Mark’s examples, I must say that this is a brilliant observation, and almost certainly true. All four Challengers had real-life counterparts then making headlines. In further support of Mark’s premise, I must point out that Jack Kirby seems to have co-created the Fantastic Four in a parallel way. In April 1961, the Soviets sent the first man into space. Less than a month later, Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was followed by American Alan Shepard. The world was electrified, and a challenging new profession was born: Astronaut. Three months later—precisely the production window for Marvel Comics––The Fantastic Four braved the ultimate frontier. The FF were the Space Age successors to the Challengers.

Neil Armstrong

Edmund Hillary

changing artists yet again and finally putting the foundering crew in colorful uniforms. None of this worked. Rip Hunter, Time Master was the first to fade away, folding in 1965. Sea Devils was cancelled in 1967. After being turned into faux super-heroes in a desperate attempt to salvage their fading fortunes, the Blackhawks disbanded in 1968. I’m tempted to put forth the Metal Men as the ultimate expression of the adventure team trends, but Metal Men may be too unique a strip to fall into any convenient category. They popped up in Showcase early in 1962 and had their own book within the year. Reportedly their Showcase tryouts outsold Superman. In their own title, the Metal Men never again achieved those same soaring circulation heights, its title fading out at the end of 1969. Defying that counter-trend, Challengers of the Unknown continued into the next decade, finally expiring in 1971. But the title feature was soon revived, first with Kirby reprints in 1973, and continued in new stories in Super-Team Family lasting until 1977. In retrospect, the title might be considered the last enduring success to emerge from the Simon & Kirby studios. Challengers of the Unknown is not normally considered one of the most significant titles of the 1950s, but I’m absolutely convinced that it was a key development in the early Silver Age of Comics. And it presaged the cosmic trend of Kirby’s 1960s Marvel work. “Challengers of the Unknown came from their own particular time,” he once explained. “They were post-war

characters. What the Challengers of the Unknown were saying was, ‘Where are we going now?’ That was a question asked in all those stories. In the Challengers, I put them into new gimmicks and the machines that we already had, but I took them two or three stages ahead as to what we might have. I would take them five years ahead. If we had certain generators, I would make a super-generator of some kind, and have my story revolve around that. What would it do to human beings? Perhaps it would summon aliens from some foreign planet and give us the power to do that.” Consider this as further proof. In 1961, when Marvel Comics publisher Martin Goodman instructed editor-writer Stan Lee to emulate DC’s best-selling Justice League of America, Lee huddled with Jack Kirby. By all rights they should have produced something along the lines of The Avengers, starring their classic Golden Age characters like Captain America, the Human Torch, and the SubMariner. Instead of copying the JLA model, they produced a super-hero version of Challengers of the Unknown, which they called the Fantastic Four. The origin and basic formula was virtually identical. Four ordinary human beings survive a near-fatal event, in this case a failed space launch. They come out rededicated and transformed into a global threat-fighting action team. Cerebral Reed Richards paralleled Prof. Haley. Hotheaded Johnny Storm mirrored Red Ryan’s colorful personality. And what was Ben Grimm but a physical twin of Rocky Davis? In that first issue, their astronaut jumpsuits were colored blue. They switched to wearing multicolored versions when they fought the Mole Man, so that they resembled the Challengers, but with individuallycolored two-toned outfits. In their first stories, the Challengers sported twotoned outfits before changing to straight purple. A coincidence? I doubt it! In the

Sample Headline Marvel Precursors

Coming back to Marvel Comics was perhaps Jack’s most pivotal decision, for better or worse. But starting with the Fantastic Four, much of this key 1960s workbyhas distinct... John Morrow

by Alex Grand

t is important to see what Kirby worked on before his work with Marvel that would strongly suggest his contributions went beyond simply just drawing, and that he brought many important ideas and concepts into his collaborations with Stan Lee, co-creating Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, Ant-Man, the X-Men, Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and villains such as Galactus, Modok, Rama-Tut, the Lava Men, Skrulls, Impossible Man, Magneto, the Sentinels, Puppet Master, Ringmaster, and Immortus.

Thor

The Mighty Thor was created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in 1962 in Journey into Mystery #83. 1 Although this Thor is the most famous, Jack worked on a couple of other Thors before this version. Jack had a long relationship with the Norse gods and reportedly loved their stories as a child. His first Thor was for DC Comics, in Adventure Comics #75 (1942), “The Villain from Valhalla.” 2 He would then return to the character in 1957 for DC’s Tales of the Unexpected #16 (1957), “The Magic Hammer.” 3

The Magic Hammer story in 1957 is interesting because we get a prototypical Mjolnir held in Thor’s hand, which matches the hammer Thor held in his 1962 Marvel debut. Another cool precursor from this issue is that Thor’s hammer is tested against a tree in the 1957 DC issue. 4 Jack Kirby would have the Marvel Thor do the same thing in his first appearance in Journey into Mystery #83. 5 The plot of the 1957 DC issue revolved around Loki stealing Thor’s hammer. This 7 8 same plot would be used in Journey into Mystery #92 (1963), 6 where Loki would steal Thor’s hammer, causing a great deal of mischief. Another fun fact is that the first villains to fight Marvel’s Thor in Journey into Mystery #83 are the Stone Men from Saturn, 7 and that these Stone Men have origins in Jack Kirby’s fascination with the Easter 4 Island Stone Men which he first used for DC in House of Mystery #85 (1959), 8 then later in 1961 for Marvel’s Tales 5 to Astonish #16. 9 22

As the 1960s flowered, Kirby’s imagination had reached new heights, and his storytelling skills were unprecedented. His plotting and page compositions were groundbreaking, telling fully cinematic stories on the static newsprint page. This “Silver Age” of comics still stands as the most influential era in comics history, largely because Kirby chose to create a...

Solid Silver Continuity

by Norris Burroughs

he Silver Age pretty much coincided with my upbringing. I was ten years old in 1962, and began to absorb whatever aspect of the art world that caught my attention. Being a kid often in a candy store, I started noticing some comics on the racks with images that seemed to leap off their covers. (Nearly everyone who has described Kirby’s work has used that analogy at one time or another.) The first ones were Kirby monster books that seemed a bit intimidating at my tender age. I cautiously read some of these at various friends’ homes. Then, as the TV Western craze began escalating, I picked up some issues midway through Kirby’s run on Rawhide Kid. I started noticing that the artist had a way with panel transition, very much like the way a film was cut. It was his sense of continuity that was remarkable. A few months later, Incredible Hulk #1 was the book that started my obsession with continuity in earnest. In that series, Kirby was exploring the Jekyll and Hyde aspect of human nature and he was playing with different ways for that transition to be depicted. Kirby had the first Banner-to-Hulk shift happen dramatically at moonrise, and used shadow and light to his greatest advantage. The drama of change back to humanity

was just as suspenseful. We see on page 11 of the first issue the Hulk fling young Rick Jones aside like a rag doll, but in the nick of time at sunrise the boy is saved. Banner regains his humanity in a masterful series of four moment-to-moment panels. 1 Later in the issue, Kirby shows a three-panel tier of only Banner’s hands changing moment by moment into those of the Hulk. 2 He then cuts to the crash of the Jeep and the ominous figure of the creature’s head emerging from the wreckage to

By 1965, Marvel Comics was officially a cultural phenomenon, being lauded in newspaper articles, TV, and on college campuses. Kirby’s style was the Marvel style, and even lesser titles had the propensity to become breakaway hits with his involvement. This was a pivotal year for Kirby, as Steve Ditko left Marvel, asking Kirby to join him in solidarity. Jack, with a family to support, chose to stay despite his issues with the company, and proceeded to give comics...

A 25-Year Seismic Shift! (below) For this pivotal story for Sgt. Fury #18, Kirby was enlisted to draw the key first and last pages only, but received no credit for it.

ccording to Greg Theakston’s Complete Jack Kirby, Volume 1, Jack Kirby’s first art produced intentionally for a comic book—as opposed to reprints of newspaper strips reprinted in comic book form—was published in May 1940. It was Crash Comics #1 featuring the five-page “Solar Legion.” He was 22. So what was Kirby doing exactly 25 years later?

by Shane Foley

25 years after May 1940 brings us to May 1965. At this point, Marvel is revitalized and the second phase of the Silver Age was beginning. Not only was Kirby the master of having revolutionized the art of comic storytelling in such areas as dynamics in art and theme matter; not only was he a joint architect with editor Stan Lee in bringing about the new Marvel style of comics; but he was now poised to revolutionize himself—again! Marvel released twelve new comics dated May 1965—and Kirby was involved with ten of them! • Fantastic Four #38: cover + 20 pages • Thor (Journey into Mystery) #116: cover + 21 pages • X-Men #11: cover + 20 pages • Avengers #16: cover + 20 pages layouts • Tales of Suspense #65: cover + 10 pages (Captain America) • Tales to Astonish #67: cover • Sgt. Fury #18: cover + 2 pages (1 & 20) • Strange Tales #132: cover • Kid Colt #122: cover • Two-Gun Kid #75: cover Only Spider-Man and Millie the Model didn’t have any Kirby touch! Ten covers and 93 pages (with only 20 or 22 of those pages being rough layouts)—a massive workload. But in the middle of this massive workload, there was a revolution in both art and storytelling happening. Through Kirby’s career, most stories had been relatively short. Even the longer crime stories and love stories usually ran for only fifteen pages. By now at Marvel, the page count per story had increased, with 20 to 22 pages—a whole issue—being the norm. But things were beginning to evolve further. When Ant-Man was changed to become GiantMan, editor Stan Lee roped Kirby in for the transition. Kirby hung around for the second story as well, but this time (Tales to Astonish #50, Dec. 1963) the story was continued—not just a subplot thread, but a genuine cliffhanger ending: A first for Marvel. Lee must have liked the idea, because later the same month, he did something similar with Don Heck on Thor (Journey into Mystery #99, then #100). The very next issue of Journey into Mystery (#101), Kirby returned to Thor as a regular assignment. He’d begun the feature in Journey into Mystery #83, but then, as with Ant-Man/Giant-Man, Iron Man, and the Human Torch, he did only irregular issues. But now, with this issue, dated February 1964, the strip was his—and he immediately celebrated with another two-part story. The Fantastic Four soon also experimented with a two31

In 1968, Kirby took a loan from Martin Goodman to fund a move from New York to California, ostensibly because his asthmatic daughter needed a more conducive climate—but he undoubtedly needed the change as well. Not feeling properly credited, appreciated, or compensated for his creations, he quietly made plans to leave Marvel Comics, and closed out the 1960s with some of his least-inspired work of the decade—serviceable, but nothing groundbreaking. He was saving his best ideas for another time—and another company. But...

(right and below) Unused page from Thor #169. Long after it was rejected, Kirby added much greater detail to the backgrounds—either for his own amusement, or to increase its resale value.

here’s this book that I keep reading over and over—pawing at it, actually, like a curious dog. It’s a Marvel trade paperback, The Essential Thor, Volume 4, reprinting, in black-&-white, Jack Kirby’s final year or so on the book (Thor #167, cover-dated August 1969, to #179, August 1970). It also goes far beyond Kirby’s exit, with fill-ins by Neal Adams, into the early issues of John Buscema’s long run, past Stan Lee’s departure as regular writer and ending with the first few Gerry Conway-scripted issues. The book covers about 29 issues total, spanning maybe two-and-a-half years, wrapping up the 1960s and speeding into the ’70s. Only about 29 issues—but what a difference, if you jump from the first story in the reprint volume (the Lee-Kirby-Vince Colletta “This World Renounced!”) to the last (the ConwayBuscema tale from 1972’s Thor #195, “In the Shadow of Mangog!”, in which the only real connection to 1969 is Colletta’s penwork on the inks). It’s fascinating to watch Buscema transition in as the book’s permanent artist and to see Lee transition out as its permanent writer (he retains an editor’s credit on the Conway issues reprinted here). How could Thor survive losing both its captains? By losing only one at a time, over a long period of time. It basically worked the same way on Fantastic Four. What’s most “essential” about this Essential collection is that we have, under one cover, Kirby’s last year on Thor, one of his masterwork titles. These issues were done when Kirby’s relationship with Marvel was fatally fraying and when he was readying to make his leap to DC. His distraction shows in some of the work; did Lee notice? Whether he did or not… it was an odd year for both the book and the team that produced it.

Mean

Let’s examine these final issues one by one.

Thor #167, August 1969 Cover Date

A John Romita cover? Signed by JR? It’s clear why Lee rejected Kirby’s rather dull version [shown at left], but it’s a sign of the bumpy months to come. The story finds Odin sending Thor on “a mission most grave”— to find the planet-killing Galactus. “It could take an eternity, my love,” sighs Sif in a lovely Colletta-textured splash page. Two pages later, we get another splash featuring Loki and Karnilla the Norn Queen—it looks great, but story-wise, it adds little. (By this point, Kirby was holding back new ideas and new characters and using more “pin-up” splashes to pump up the issues.) The main action here is just as advertised on Romita’s cover. Loki waits for Thor to transform into

while, Back At The Fallen Monster… by Robert L. Bryant Jr.

Dr. Don Blake upon a rooftop, then attacks without mercy, easily grabbing the magic cane, but all-seeing Odin calls foul and zaps Loki back to Asgard. Page 18 is another cool splash, this one showing Galactus devouring another world, his great hands clouded with—smoke? Energy?— while the black skies fill with refugee ships.

Thor #168, September 1969

“Galactus Found!” proclaims the Kirby cover, as the space god’s hand lunges for Thor and the reader. “Could take an eternity”? Well, I suppose you could argue that for kids, the month-long wait between issues was almost an eternity. But you have to wonder—did Kirby miss an opportunity by not stretching the search over two or three issues? It would have been a chance for Thor to find sidebar-type stories on strange worlds, or to encounter fleets of ships fleeing Galactus (as the Thunder God did once before). The preparation for Thor’s odyssey takes longer than the mission itself. The Odinship departs Asgard on page 2; Thor is inside the hold of Galactus’ worldship by page 7. “Could take an eternity”! Takest thee a chill pill, warrior woman. But this issue marks a major short-term change, because it’s the beginning of Colletta’s several- issue absence as inker, resulting in a far different look for the book for months. The inker here is George Klein, whose DNA is closer to Joe Sinnott than to Colletta. And someone—maybe Klein, maybe someone in the Marvel production office—has used generous amounts of Zip-A-Tone on many pages. (I think it works more often than not; the looming side of the guard’s head on page 1 is a study in cross-hatching, a pleasure of textures.) Much of this issue is devoted to setting up the threat for the next few books—the Thermal Man, birthed at “a secret atomic experimental center in the mysterious Orient.” Sounds promising, but it’s really just another Big Bad Communist Robot on its way to crush “the accursed free world!” Who needs a rampaging robot when we have Galactus, the space god who must be found even if the quest “would take an age”? We don’t want Thermal Man; we want Galactus. But we must visit with Thermal Man for five pages while he escapes the Reds, is recaptured, packed aboard a missile, and shot off to America. Back to Galactus! He wants to talk to Thor about his secret origin—who he is, how he came to be. The fans are salivating now. Yesssssss. We get six panels of secret origins. In flashback, the Watcher sees a starship

crash “ages upon ages ago” on a “far-distant planet,” and he spies the plague-pocked, blotchy hand of a dead crew member. It’s only sort of a teaser, though. More later. Back to Thermal Man! He’s made his way to New York, interrupted the regular TV broadcasts and drawn the attention of Thor’s pals Balder and the Warriors Three. Fight coming! And more secret origins.

Thor #169, October 1969

Better men than I have examined, in the pages of TJKC, this sort of baffling issue. There may be no answers. I won’t rehash what’s been said before about Galactus’ birth, except to note that the inker here is again Klein, that someone still has a supply of Zip-A-Tone in his desk, and that the cover is a pastiche of photostatted interior panels from the issue, which serve as background for an apparently Romita-drawn outline of Galactus, which serves as background for a definitely Romita-drawn Thor figure. It may be the oddest cover ever done for a Kirby comic. But yeah, we really do get Galactus’ secret origin and a flashback visit to his plague- polluted planet Taa, a “now-dead paradise.” We see Galactus as he was when he was only a man (not yet named in this version of the origin). And we get that strange panel on page 14 in which Galactus seems to be stooped and wearing Watcher-type robes. Another panel shows the space god creating “suitable and unique attire which could regulate his energy”—from pure energy he makes his own Galactus helmet, armored tunic and boots. (A little too much information here? 35

(above) As the Galactus origin story in Thor #169 was being developed by Kirby, Marvel sent these states from #168 to Jack to follow from. We’re still trying to unravel the full story of why there is almost a full issue of #169 rejected pages, but more info can be found in the updated, expanded second edition of Kirby & Lee: Stuf’ Said, available now from TwoMorrows.

In 1970, Kirby made two fateful decisions, which would have lasting impacts on his future. One was to leave Marvel for DC Comics, to launch a new concept—an epic tale weaving through multiple comics, which was eventually dubbed the “Fourth World.” The other was hiring two young fans to serve as his assistants—a duo that are still serving as his personal historical raconteurs today, documenting his life and career as recently as at the 2019... Held Sunday, March 31, 2019 in Anaheim, California. Featuring (as shown on next page top to bottom) moderator Mark Evanier, Steve Sherman, Tom Kraft, John Morrow, Paul S. Levine, and Tom King. Transcribed by Sean Dulaney. Copyedited by Mark Evanier.

MARK EVANIER: Hello, I’m Mark Evanier, and this is Steve Sherman, this is John Morrow, this is Tom Kraft over there, and that’s Paul S. Levine. [applause] This is my final panel of the convention. [applause] Thank you. And in many ways, it’s the most fun because it’s fun to talk about Jack. It’s a way of spending more time with him. Actually, you can spend more time with Jack just by wandering through the hall downstairs. I defy you to walk ten yards without seeing some remnant of Jack Kirby somewhere: A character he designed, an artist imitating his style… People with square fingertips. [laughter] Whatever, they’re down there someplace. And it still stuns me—the presence he has in the artistic community, and how I keep running into people who start talking to me about Jack Kirby without knowing I had any connection to him. This has happened to me…. Every two months or three months, someplace, I’m somewhere where I hear someone talking about Jack. They react to a T-shirt design or something like that. I think I told this story on another panel, I was at a Costco one time—they had this thing they were selling, a CD-ROM with the first ten issues of Fantastic Four, Avengers, Hulk, so on… INFANT IN AUDIENCE: Whaa-a-a! EVANIER: Right! [laughter] And I thought, you know, it’s Costco, it’s like eight cents, whatever they charge for these things. I think, “This might be handy to have.” So I have all of my purchases there—I’ve got toilet paper, I’ve got my paper towels; they won’t let you out without one or the other— and this Hispanic kid, about 16-17 years old is boxing up my purchases… [Tom King arrives to join the panel] And this is Tom King, folks. [applause] So, I’m at a Costco, buying a CD-ROM of Jack Kirby’s stuff. It’s got Jack Kirby drawings on it, and this 40

WonderCon Kirby Tribute Panel kid... [Tom King starts chuckling] And what do you make your money doing these days? [laughter] ...and the kid shows me the CD-ROM before he puts it in the box and says, “This is the work of Jack Kirby, the greatest comic book artist who ever lived. Marvel f*cked him over.” [laughter] And I immediately looked to see if the kid could see my credit card or Costco card and had recognized the name, and somehow he made the connection. But no, he had no idea I even knew who Jack Kirby was. [laughter] I told him I had met Jack Kirby, and it was like I’d told him I had met the Easter Bunny. [laughter] It was like, “No, you can’t meet Jack Kirby. C’mon!” [laughter] There are people on the Internet, if you’re on certain forums, who are complaining that nobody knows who Jack Kirby is. These people are wrong, and they are becoming less and less correct as every year goes by, because Jack’s fame is spreading. It is not always spreading at the expense of Stan Lee’s, and I resent the people who think you have to take from Stan to give to Jack. You have to take a few things from Stan, but… [laughter] Robert Kirkman did this documentary on super-heroes—it was on some channel last year—and I was interviewed for it for, like, seven hours or whatever, and of course they used about eleven seconds of me. And when I left, there was one line I said in it that I was sure they’d use, and I was afraid that they’d use it out of context. It’s something that I very much believe, but you have to have some context for it to be a good statement. I was afraid they’d use it without the context and it turned out they didn’t use it at all. But at one point they asked me, “How do you feel about Stan Lee becoming so rich and famous?” I said, “I begrudge Stan Lee nothing except sole credit.” And these guys smiled like, “Ooooh! We’ve got a good quote here.” And then it didn’t make it in. Steve and I had the extraordinary fortune and good luck to know Jack and get to work with him for years, and it was an amazing experience. We were hired by Jack in February of 1970. He and Roz took us to lunch at Cantor’s Delicatessen on the 8th or 9th—I can point out the booth we were sitting in. Jack had potato pancakes, I had a corned beef sandwich… I don’t remember what Steve had, but I remember a lot of completely useless details about things. [laughter] And

Jack told us that he was going to be leaving Marvel— which at first we thought was a joke. STEVE SHERMAN: Yeah. Back then, that was a shock. Like, “What?!” EVANIER: Yeah. And he said, “I’m going to work for DC and I need some assistants. Would you guys like to be my assistants?” Steve and I took a long time to say yes. I think it took, what, a second-and-a-half? SHERMAN: Yeah. EVANIER: At that point, the job was unformed. He didn’t talk about what we were going to do, what we were going to get paid, if we were going to get paid. It was a decision I have never regretted for one second of my life. I don’t think you have either, Steve. SHERMAN: No. In fact, the older I get, the more I realize just how lucky we were to be able to not only know him, but to work with him and hang around him, because he was just a tremendous guy. EVANIER: Steve and I will now demonstrate for you one of the main things we did for Jack. We would sit in Jack’s studio—he would be at his drawing table and we would be sitting, in rather uncomfortable chairs as I recall— turning down coffee. Roz was always trying to give us coffee, which we didn’t like—and Jack would tell us the whole plot of an upcoming story he had. And we would then say, in unison—I would say, “Hey, that sounds great, Jack!” And Steve would say… SHERMAN: “...sounds great, good! Can’t wait to see it!” EVANIER: And we were done. [laughter] And then we would come out [the] next week and there’d be all the pages… for a completely different story! [laughter] We’d say, “What happened to the story you told us last week?” and he’d say, “That’s the story I told you guys.” We’d go, “No it isn’t, Jack.” [laughter] At one point, we were supposed to write an issue of Jimmy Olsen and we came up with this plot about the Loch Ness Monster. Steve came up with the Loch Ness Monster and I came up with putting Jimmy Finlayson in it from the Laurel and Hardy films. So we went out and told Jack the story we had. We pitched it to him, and he added lots of ideas to it. We told him this story and he loved everything we said. I was taking notes like crazy of his contributions 41

(previous page) Jimmy Olsen #139 pencils. (center) Original header stat for the New Gods letter column, which Mark and Steve compiled each issue.

EVANIER: I think I actually have it. It was kind of nice to write a script that was pre-rejected. [laughter] He had forgotten we were assigned to do it. He literally forgot. That’s because his brain was off in other universes. JOHN MORROW: There is this really cute girl Jack drew in that issue, and as a kid, when I saw that picture I thought, “She must be based on some real person.” Do you know the one I’m talking about? EVANIER: I don’t think it was based on anyone—or if it was, it might be based on someone Jack saw for two seconds on the Spanish language channel on TV. [laughter] Jack usually watched the Spanish language channel on TV. One time I said to him, “What are you watching today?” and he said, “A bunch of crying Mexicans.” [laughter] He didn’t want to have a show on with English in it, because he’d start to pay attention to that, but if it was background noise, it was music… it was a comfort thing. It didn’t distract him from what he was doing because there was no English spoken.

to it… and we went back and we wrote the script out, this 23-page story, and we put our hearts into it. We argued a lot about things—friendly arguments. Steve and I, we never had a real argument, did we? SHERMAN: No, no. We were just having fun. EVANIER: So we brought the script out proudly to Jack. Now what we didn’t know was that on Monday morning, Nelson Bridwell at DC, who was Jack’s liaison, called Jack and pointed out to him— nobody had called Jack to tell him that Jimmy Olsen had been increased from 8 times a year to monthly. They had changed the schedule, but no one had bothered to tell the editor, [laughter] and they suddenly noticed they needed an issue of Jimmy Olsen right away. So Jack said, “Well, I guess I’ve got to write an issue of Jimmy Olsen!” and he sat down and he had, vaguely in his head, a story about the Loch Ness Monster. [laughter] He then wrote the story and drew it in five days—23 pages in five days; that’s what he was capable of in his prime—and we brought out our script. It was the first time in my... I’ve done a lot of scripts that people have rejected, but usually they read them first. [laughter] Jack had already written the issue, and drawn it.

SHERMAN: Although, his favorite movie was Gamera, the flying turtle. He would just crack up when the fire would come out of the turtle’s ass. He thought that was the greatest thing he ever saw. [laughter] If the Gamera movie was on, he watched it. EVANIER: Remember we brought a movie out to show him one time? The Valley of Gwangi. SHERMAN: Yes. I had a 16mm print. EVANIER: This was before you could watch a movie on TV. It was a big novelty to watch a movie in your own home. SHERMAN: Yeah, we had the 16mm projector… EVANIER: We sat and watched The Valley of Gwangi, which I had seen eleven times and you had seen fourteen times, and Jack was so excited about it. Someplace, I guarantee you, there is something in that movie that wound up in a comic. SHERMAN: Well, Devil Dinosaur I would guess.

EVANIER: Maybe that’s where it came from, yeah. I’m going to ask Tom Kraft to tell us what’s up with the Jack Kirby Museum. TOM KRAFT: Lots of things. So, as you may know, The Jack Kirby Museum is a nonprofit. We’ve been reaching out to different exhibi-

SHERMAN: And he didn’t give me sole credit, either. [laughter] EVANIER: We looked it over and it was a great issue. It was fine. It was terrific. And he paid us for the script we did, because Jack believed that people should get paid for the work they do. A couple of times, we would arrange for Joe Sinnott to ink something or Mike Royer, and Joe would always offer to do it for free, and Jack would say, “No. You’re a professional and professionals should be paid.” [To Steve] Do you have a copy of that Jimmy Olsen script? SHERMAN: No. 42

In 1972, Jack’s Fourth World books at DC Comics are still breaking new ground, but DC, unhappy with their sales, cancels New Gods and Forever People, takes him off the Jimmy Olsen book, and leaves only Mister Miracle on the stands. As he prepares to launch new titles Kamandi and The Demon, Kirby hastily rearranges his planned stories to get “Himon” into print in Mister Miracle #9 before the series is forced away from his epic vision, and leaves behind...

The Mystery of Mystivac (below) Original art from Mister Miracle #12, courtesy of Heritage Auctions. But unlike what the cover blurb promises, there’s no “Speed Trap” in this issue.

by Glen Gold

aybe the most frustrating question you can ask a fiction writer is, “Is this autobiographical?” That’s because the answer sounds swampy: “It’s all made up, but of course my imagination is guided by what I experienced, and I’m not necessarily in control of that process, and now that you mention it, that talking rabbit does sound a lot like my dad, but no, really, it’s all made up.” Also, sometimes there is no relationship between life and fiction except coincidence. I have written a couple of articles about finding autobiography in Jack’s super- hero work. I think his feelings about leaving Marvel are reflected clearly in Silver Surfer #18 and his depiction of PTSD in Captain America is a pretty obvious nod to the effects of combat on any veteran. But this time I’m not 100% sold on my analysis, which I present in the spirit of finding the face of a saint in your morning toast: It’s there if you squint right. Maybe. Pop quiz, and keep your books closed: Who exactly was Mystivac, the villain in Mister Miracle #12? If your answer was “an alien pretending to be an Asian idol masquerading as a robot working as a chauffeur for Colonel Darby whose power is having his voice obeyed, but also he ‘operates ballistically, like a hand-gun’ and has claws that go SNIK,” I bow down to you for keeping track. One thing he isn’t? “The SPEED Trap,” even though that’s promised on the cover. But if Jack had another five pages, I’m sure Mystivac would have also been a speed trap. Mister Miracle #12 is a great-looking book, but it veers and careens weirdly, even by Fourth World standards. Eight of the first nine pages are about Scott and the Female Furies engaging with the United States Navy—first a trap as a publicity stunt, then beach shenanigans when it’s implied that the sailors might have paid a little too much attention to the women bathing without having first asked for consent. But the remainder of the book lurches into a totally different storyline, when the rich Colonel Darby bets (unwisely, of course) against Scott in a battle against the aforementioned Mystivac, almost as if Kirby was going one direction, then something 53

After his DC contract is up, Kirby moves back to Marvel Comics in 1975, producing new series including Black Panther and The Eternals, but office politics cut his stay short. One high point is his final collaboration with Stan Lee: A new graphic novel of his creation The Silver Surfer. It reaffirms the character’s importance to Jack’s legacy, even as he chooses to leave mainstream comic books for good, and explore the field he started in: Animation.

David Blumberg recalls attending Phil Seuling’s New York Comic Art Convention at the Commodore Hotel on July 3–7, 1975: “I was a dealer so I had access to being the first one on line when Jack was signing. He signed the program book, with many other famous artists. He also signed my Strange Tales Annual #2 and did not recall that he worked on that book, as it was a Spider-Man crossover. The signature was on the splash page. All I can say is that he was a really nice, down-to-earth guy and had no problems with his ego, which is the sign of a true legend.” David created a tribute piece of the Surfer, titled Jacob Kurtzberg 1968/ Jacob Blumberg 2018, incorporating his background art with Kirby’s foreground figure.

During his restless late 1970s stay at Marvel, Kirby was still cooking up new concepts in hopes of finding other avenues to support his family. He developed several properties like Captain Victory and Thunderfoot for his own “Jack Kirby Comics” line which never materialized. But in 1981 when Pacific Comics offered a new Direct Market for comic book distribution, and creator-ownership of characters, Jack had several concepts ready to help save the industry.

Give That Man...

Incidental Iconography

...A Silver Star!

An ongoing analysis of Kirby’s visual shorthand, and how he inadvertently used it to develop his characters, by Sean Kleefeld

ne of the benefits of looking at Jack’s later creations is that we have a great deal more of his work preserved in pencil form, as he began making copies of them before sending them off to be inked. This gives us some greater insight into his process, as we can compare Jack’s originals against what was ultimately published to see exactly what changes may have been made by an inker or production artist after the pages left Jack’s drawing table. One such case, of course, is Silver Star. The original Silver Star sketch that Jack made is dated January 1975 and features a very patriotically themed hero. 1 (Hardly surprising with America’s bicentennial the following year already receiving a fair amount of media attention.) Although the basic form of the hero looks much like how the character ended up (indeed, the very pose is virtually identical to the one ultimately used on the cover of Silver Star #1), he’s colored in a decidedly American flag motif, complete with red and white stripes running across his chest and torso. The “Silver Star” name is almost entirely in reference to the military medal and is not really conveyed through the costume at all, except perhaps by a star

2 emblazoned on the character’s belt buckle. This one concept drawing eventually got worked into a screenplay that Jack co-wrote with Steve Sherman, the first draft of which they finished in 1977. With that treatment, Jack created some additional sketches of the title character. 2 Two of them show how Jack removed the patriotic motif, and started veering towards a more monochromatic look—one fairly light and airy, and the other more covered in shadow with a large star belt buckle. In both these cases, Jack retains some form of gauntlets and some headgear that covers everything but the character’s face.

Jack Kirby always chose to treat his fans and fellow pros graciously, at convention appearances, and even hosting them in his own home. So when he ended up fighting a very public battle against Marvel Comics in the 1980s over the return of his original artwork, it’s no wonder the level of public and industry support he received was unprecedented, thanks to his lifetime dedication to his family, fans, and his...

Circle of Friends

A few Kirby encounters, recounted

My family knew Jack and Roz when I was a kid; we belonged to the same synagogue, Temple Etz Chaim in Thousand Oaks. Here’s the card he made for me at my Bar Mitzvah. I first met Jack when I was around 11 or 12; our Rabbi took me to his home for a visit since I was a lover of comic books and loved drawing. His home was amazing, full of his collages and artwork everywhere. Jack became friends with my dad and we visited him many times over the years. He’d always take a look at my artwork and give me advice, autograph new comics, and Roz would make us sandwiches. I never heard him complain about how poorly the industry was treating him during this time. Instead he spoke about gods and aliens, the goodness in people, and that somewhere out in the universe, “there’s a lot of traffic.” He would occasionally add that I should read less comics and get a nice girlfriend instead. There isn’t a day that doesn’t go by when I don’t think of Jack and Roz. Jack IF YOU ENJOYED THIS PREVIEW, inspired my own successful career in design, but more imporCLICK THE LINK TO ORDER THIS tantly, he taught me how to treat others with kindness and ISSUE IN PRINT OR DIGITAL FORMAT! humility. Dan Rosenberg I moved to Thousand Oaks with my family when I was 10, in 1980. We joined a synagogue, Temple Etz Chaim, and that’s where I attended religious school. One day (it must have been between 1981 and 1983, as I had my Bat Mitzvah in 1983 and then no longer attended religious school), a man came to draw for the kids. I think it was a Sunday, during Sunday School. It was the grandfather of a girl, Tracy, who also must have attended the religious school. I don’t think Tracy was in my grade, so I wasn’t really friends with her, but my mother and her mother were friends. Anyway, this man came and drew my picture. I didn’t really KIRBY COLLECTOR #78 SILVER ANNIVERSARY! How Kirby kickstarted the Silver Age with know who he was—remember, Challengers, revamped old characters for the ’60s, and the lasting this was 1980, well before the Internet, and before the explosion of what Marvel is today. influence of his Silver Surfer! Plus: PIVOTAL DECISIONS Jack made throughout his career, a Kirby pencil art gallery, classic 1950s story, I remember my mother telling me that Jack Kirby, the man, was a famous comic book artand more! Unused KIRBY/STEVE RUDE Thor cover, and a DELUXE ist. I don’t remember anything else about being drawn—did I wait in line? Did he make EDITION with a KIRBY/RUDE Silver Surfer outer sleeve. conversation with me? I have no recall, as I was likely 11 or 12, and am now 48! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (DELUXE EDITION w/silver sleeve) $12.95 I had that picture tacked in my room, on my bulletin board, for years. When I left (Digital Edition) $4.95 home in 1987 to go to college, it got boxed up with all my other childhood memorabilia. That box got moved around to different houses, and states, without getting unpacked. Last year, my son (now age 15) got really into the Marvel Universe, and I remembered the picture. I dug it out of the box. I can’t believe how well it held up. While it’s faded (the original paper was a sky blue) and the edges pinpricked from my various pushpins over the years, the drawing itself is perfect. I wish I had realized back then how amazing it is to have a picture drawn of me by Jack Kirby, because I would have taken much better care of it. As it is, now that I have unearthed it, I got it framed professionally with special glass to protect it from further damage. And it’s hanging proudly in my living room. I love the picture—it’s me as a super-hero. I told my son that one day that drawing will be his, and he can tell his kids that it is a picture of Grandma Becca as a super- hero, drawn by the great Jack Kirby. Becca Barr http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_57&products_id=1520