Opening Shot I Compare & Contrast

think we all can agree: Jack Kirby was fast! This issue, you’ll read Gil Kane commenting on seeing Jack draw a ten-page Boy Commandos story in one day. For comparison, you’ll also read about Dave Stevens taking two weeks to draw one cover. Both Jack and Dave were great artists, but I’m pretty sure Dave didn’t produce enough material to support an ongoing publication about him, like this one (almost 30 years and still going strong!). Check out this checklist of Dave’s art career: https://www.davestevens.com/gallery/checklist

It only takes a couple of seconds to scroll down through his checklist, whereas the now sold-out Jack Kirby Checklist: Centennial Edition is 272 pages, mostly documenting Kirby’s published work. However, that published work is just one facet of his output. As regular TJKC readers have seen since 1994, there’s a wealth of unpublished Kirby work out there as well—quantitatively more than Dave Stevens’ entire lifetime of work, published or not. That isn’t meant to cast aspersions upon Dave—no one in comics has ever rivaled (or likely ever will rival) Jack’s prolific output, and Dave and Jack approached comics very differently, with unique requirements for their respective work. So there’s really no comparison there.

But think about that: Jack created as much, or more, unseen work, as many artists produced, ever.

Granted, in many cases, there are compelling reasons why it was never published, and some of it saw the light of day, but with minor or major changes made to it. So this issue, I wanted to focus on more of that obscure material, much for the first time—and when it was altered, show side-by-side comparisons of what it looked like before changes were made for publication. Thankfully, there is still this paper trail of Kirby’s original intent and execution, before someone who felt they knew better than Jack, was able to monkey with it.

Comics is a commercial medium, and Kirby was pragmatic enough to know that he was at the mercy of inkers, editors, and publishers who could, on a whim, transform his work to their liking. Despite those “corrections,” I can’t think of an instance where his underlying storytelling was totally obliterated by someone else (although Stan Lee sure came close in a few instances!). Take this issue’s alternate version of Mister Miracle #13’s cover, for example Does the published version (or the splash page) tell the story any better?

With hindsight, many of the alterations seem arbitrary and infuriating. But since Jack cared first and foremost about telling stories, I suspect we fans are a lot more upset about the changes you’ll see here, than Jack ever was. H

[right] Take two genres that Kirby knew well (sci-fi and westerns), add pop culture of the times, and you get 1972’s Sundance of Mars! 1971’s NASA probe Mariner 9 was the first to orbit Mars, and the hit film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was released on September 23, 1969. Jack had to be aware of both, and you can even argue this unused character resembles Robert Redford (who many thought would make a perfect film Captain America back in the day). A sci-fi western set on Mars, starring Redford? Sounds like something only Kirby’s imagination could come up with!

[top] Richard Kolkman commented: “I’ve recently noticed the unpublished concept Sunfire, Man of Flame in a whole new light. It’s from circa 1955—so it would stand to reason this character might be a reaction to Atlas’ 1950s Human Torch revival. If Fighting American was to counter Captain America... perhaps this one was too close to the Torch and was turned down by Crestwood? But it probably was shown to someone, as a masthead was created for this pencil art [same as Night Fighter, which was a concept reworked from an unused Fighting American cover].”