Jack Kirby Collector #8

Fully Authorized

By The Kirby Estate

$ 95

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$5.40 Canada $7.40 Foreign

CELEBRATING THE LIFE & CAREER OF THE KING!

An All-Star Convention Theme ISSUE!

Issue #8, Jan. 1996

Transcripts from the Kirby Tribute Panel at the 1995 San Diego Comic con, featuring

Joe Sinnott, Mike Royer, Mark Evanier & Tony Isabella A recap of Our Traveling

Kirby Art Show A Rare 1975

Kirby Interview a look at Jack’s

Convention Art A 1972 convention panel With

Kirby & Alex Toth How Jack Met

Paul McCartney including Pencils From Captain America and S.H.I.E .L.D. Before They Were Inked-And Much Mo re!!

Artwork © Jack Kirby

Unpublished Art

on this publication. She got to meet many of the people who send us wonderful, gushing letters of support. She got to make lots of new friends, both fans and pros. And she got to see for herself why so many people say such glowing things about Rosalind Kirby.

Maybe we are geeks. But if so, we’re the most kind, thoughtful, considerate, generous, and just plain nice geeks on Earth. And we’re brought together by a love of the incredible work, talent, vision, and warmth of one of the most remarkable creative geniuses of our times.

Our convention experiences inspired us to produce this All-Star Convention Theme Issue, and we unabashedly dedicate it to the prospect of fostering that Kirby geekiness that lives in each of us.

If you’re new to TJKC, here are the ground rules: We produce it on a not-for-profit basis, just for the fun of it. We only charge enough to cover costs, and we always keep our back issues in-stock at cover price. If you happen to possess unpublished Kirby drawings or original artwork, or have old fanzines, posters, etc.. with art by Jack that hasn’t seen the light of day in many years, we ask that you submit a good-quality photocopy of it for us to print. Or if you’d like to write an article for publication, submission details are on page 7 & 35. We can’t pay you, but if we print something you submit, we’ll send you a free copy of that issue, or extend your subscription by one issue.

Now c’mon, you Kirby-Geeks. You’ve got a new issue of TJKC to read. Run down to your parent’s basement and enjoy!

Jack at the 1991 San Diego Comic Con (photo by Mark Blackney)

Long live the King!

Copyrights:

Dangerously Geeky?

Demon, Dubbilex, Four-Armed Terror, Jimmy Olsen, Kamandi, The Losers, Mr. Miracle, Orion, and Superman are ™ & © DC Comics, Inc.

ecently, the San Francisco-based review-zine Destroy All Comics reviewed The Jack Kirby Collector #6 (our Fourth World theme issue). Let me quote the intro for those of you who missed it: “The idea of a whole magazine about dead artist Jack Kirby is pretty weird, kind of obsessive and dangerously geeky, but at the same time, it’s about a really great and important comic-book artist, and has plenty of interesting information.”

Now don’t get me wrong; I love all the press we’ve been getting since starting TJKC, and it’s been overwhelmingly positive. In fact, the review of #6 in Destroy All Comics was very favorable. The reviewer even called TJKC an “almost insane magazine,” which I took as a major compliment. But his comments got me thinking.

Are we a bunch of weird, obsessive geeks?!

This question weighed heavily on my mind for days after reading the review. It’s not like I live in my parents’ basement, or forget to bathe regularly, or lack involvement with the opposite sex. I’ve got a comfortable home, a beautiful wife, a successful business; so what if I want to spend my evenings and weekends putting together a magazine about a comic book artist?

The same goes for our subscribers. They come from all walks of life: Doctors, Lawyers, Animators, Writers, Teachers, Police Officers.

We’ve even got female subscribers. Surely we’re not geeks. Not us.

But why, then, do we spend our disposable income on old comic books, original art, posters, hardcover reprints, portfolios, trading cards, etc... all by the same man? Why do our palms sweat when we see an unpublished piece of Jack’s art? And why do so many of you call me (long distance!) if your new copy of TJKC is one day late?

Let’s face it. We’re geeks.

My wife Pam is new to the comic book scene, so our recent travels to the summer comic conventions showed her just how weird some of us are (as you’ll see in this issue’s write-up of our trip). But at the same conventions, Pam saw firsthand why I’m willing to spend my free time

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John Morrow, Editor 502 Saint Mary’s St. • Raleigh, NC 27605 (919)833-8092 • FAX (919)833-8023 Email: twomorrow@aol.com (This issue’s cover is a piece Steve Rude inked for the 21st Century Archives Kirby card set. No one’s quite sure what it was originally drawn for, but the characters and background bear a striking resemblance to those on page 5 of New Gods #1.

Check it out, and decide for yourself! The original pencils are on our back cover.)

The Jack Kirby Co llecto r #8 Edited by: John Morrow Design & Pro duction: John & Pamela Morrow Pro o freading: Richard howell Co ver Co lo ring: Tom Ziuko Co ver Inks: Steve Rude Remember: All TJKC contributo rs Receive one free issue fo r their effo rts!

Special thanks to : Terry Austin Mark Evanier Ron Evry Al Gordon Chris Harper Randy Hoppe Richard Howell Tony Isabella Jerry Ordway Mark Pacella Mike Royer Steve Rude Steve Sherman Joe Sinnott Jim Steranko Chic Stone Greg Theakston Barry Windsor-Smith Tom Ziuko Pam, Nikki, and Abby & of course, Roz Kirby

Agent 13/Sharon Carter, Black Panther, Capt. America, Dr. Strange, Hydra, Ikaris, The Indestructible, Magneto, Nick Fury, Pildoor, Red Skull, S.H.I.E.L.D., Silver Surfer, Sub-Mariner, and Thor are ™ & © Marvel Entertainment Group.

Broom Hilda is © Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate.

Snoopy and Linus are © United Media Services.

All editorial matter is © the respective authors.

All artwork is © Jack Kirby unless otherwise noted.

#8 Contributo rs: Jim Amash Mike Arndt Mark Blackney Danny Cantrell Shel Dorf David Hamilton Chris Harper Fred Hembeck Richard Howell Jim Korkis Mark Mayerson Tom Morehouse Mark Pacella David Penalosa Patrick Price Steve Rude Danny Serafin Scott Shaw!

Steve Sherman Jim Steranko Daniel Testmoingt Greg Theakston Erez Yakin

The Jack Kirby Collector, Vol. 3, No. 8, Jan. 1996. Published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Advertising, 502 Saint Mary’s St., Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. 919-833-8092.

John Morrow, Editor. Pamela Morrow, Assistant Editor. Price per issue: $4.95 U.S., $5.40 Canada & Mexico, and $7.40 outside North America. Six-issue subscriptions: $24.00 U.S., $32.00 Canada & Mexico, and $44.00 outside North America. First printing. The initial printing of this issue was mailed the week of Dec. 18, 1995.

All characters are © their respective companies. All artwork is © Jack Kirby unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors.

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New Kirby Tribute Book

Kirby News

im Steranko and Mike Thibodeaux are continuing work on their Kirby tribute book. It promises to contain a large assortment of previously unseen Kirby artwork, including many pieces from the Kirby family’s private collection. But to fill the book out, they need more unpublished Kirby art. If you have any obscure Kirby art in your collection, including rejected covers and pages or nice convention pin-ups, please send photocopies of it to Jim at Supergraphics, Box 974, Reading, PA 19603. And while you’re at it, make an extra copy and send it to us at TJKC!

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Jack Kirby: A Celebration hings are still proceeding on Jack Kirby: A Celebration, the tribute book Mark Evanier and Frank Miller are co-producing. Stay tuned for more details. We gave the wrong address for Mark last issue: His new mailing address is 363 S. Fairfax Ave., #303, Los Angeles, CA 90036.

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We Need A Volunteer!

Golden Age Kirby On Microfiche

e’re working on compiling an up-to-date checklist of everything Jack ever had published (including reprints and interviews). Compiling and cross-checking all this information is a time-consuming task, and we need a volunteer to take on the bulk of it. Qualifications should include a thorough knowledge of Jack’s work (although you’ll have interaction with many knowledgeable Kirby fans to help you out), access to a computer (Macintosh preferred), good organizational skills, and a detail-oriented mind.

We can’t pay for your services, but we can offer a LIFETIME SUBSCRIPTION to TJKC in return! If you’re interested in volunteering, drop us a letter detailing why you feel you’re the one for the job. We look forward to hearing from you! We’ll announce our decision next issue, so hurry if you’re interested.

As a starting point for the checklist, we’re using the existing one from Blue Rose Press’ The Art Of Jack Kirby. So keep sending those lists of errors and omissions from the AOJK checklist, or if you’ve got an accurate list of your own to contribute, write us!

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icroComics Incorporated has many Golden Age Kirby comics available on microfiche (it’s like microfilm, but comes as a 4" x 6" sheet, usually with a single comic per sheet). The color reproduction is beautiful, and you don’t have to worry about harming a valuable comic by actually reading it! The fiche price through Dec. 31st is $33.95 per set of five comics, or $7 each. You’ll need to have a microfiche viewer, which costs about $225.

You can also get 8 sets (40 issues) plus a viewer, or 15 sets (75 issues) with no viewer for $430. Here are some of the Kirby comics currently available:

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• Adventure #72-91, 100, 102 (Sandman & Manhunter, plus assorted covers) • All Star #14-17, 19 (Sandman) • All Winners #1-2 (Captain America) • Captain America #1-10

• Detective #64-83 (Boy Commandos) • Marvel Mystery #13-27 (The Vision) • World’s Finest #6-13 (Sandman and Boy Commandos) • Yellow Claw #2-4

They have many non-Kirby titles as well. Ara Hourdajian, the president of MicroComics, is considering expanding its offerings to include Silver Age comics. Unfortunately, the microfiches have not been very profitable, and they and the copyright holders have to be convinced that they could sell a sufficient number to make it worthwhile. Silver Age comics would be filmed two per fiche so would cost about $3.50 per comic. If you’d be interested in getting early issues of Fantastic Four, Thor, Challengers of the Unknown or other Silver Age titles, or you’d like more information or a catalog of titles, contact Ara at MicroComics Inc., P.O. Box 243, Ridgewood, NJ 07450, or by e-mail to arah@aol.com (their Web site is at http://www.ftech.net/~micro/mci.htm).

Kirby On The World Wide Web e’ve got a Jack Kirby Collector Web Page, thanks to TJKC subscriber and webmaster Randy Hoppe, who put it together for us and keeps it updated. The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is: http://www.mordor.com/thehop/kirby Randy’s done a wonderful job on it, and he deserves a big pat-on-theback for his efforts. The TJKC Web Page includes biographical information on Jack, so uninformed visitors can learn a little about him. It also includes a synopsis of each issue of TJKC published to date, and samples of Kirby art and articles from each issue. And copies of the updated Kirby Checklist will be available for free downloading once it’s completed. If you’re on the Web, be sure to check it out and let us know what you think.

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TJKC Gets Distributed, Goes 2x-Size tarting with this issue, TJKC is distributed to comic shops worldwide through Diamond Comic Distributors and Capital City Distribution. We made the move now for one main reason: submissions to TJKC are down, and we need to reach more Kirby fans to keep it going. But to compete for customer attention on store shelves, we felt we needed color covers. So we’re taking the risk that comic shops will order enough extra copies to offset the cost of color and the huge discounts we have to offer through distributors. If your local shop doesn’t carry TJKC, show them a copy and ask them to look for it in Diamond’s Previews magazine or Capital City’s Advance Comics, or they can get it directly from us at a discount. Only by maintaining and expanding our current subscriber base will we be able to continue publishing TJKC. If you got this copy at your local store, consider subscribing from us.

Not only will you save money and get your issues sooner (in a cool envelope!), you’ll leave copies in stores for new readers to discover. And we ask current subscribers to keep subscribing directly from us; if we had to give a distributor a discount on all our copies, it would force us to cease publication.

Starting with this issue, TJKC is officially 36-pages permanently. This size has proven so popular that we’re keeping it for good (rather than opt for an occasional 16-page issue, like #1-5). The price is reflected in the new subscription rates of $24.00 for six issues in the U.S. ($32.00 Canada and Mexico, $44.00 outside North America). We’ve adjusted your accounts accordingly, and if you had the equivalent of a single-size issue left in your account, your mailing label will show “.5” issues remaining in your subscription. So you’ll need to send an extra $2.00 U.S. ($2.50 Canada and Mexico, $3.50 outside North America) to even it up to a full issue.

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Keep Sending Letters To Marvel! et’s keep up the pressure on Marvel Comics to give Jack a co-credit line on the characters he co-created. In conjunction with Mark Miller’s ongoing letter-writing campaign, we’re asking all Kirby fans to send a letter to: Mr. Terry Stewart, Marvel Comics Co., 387 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10016. Tell Mr. Stewart politely but firmly that you feel Jack deserves to have his name listed (with Stan Lee’s) everytime Marvel publishes a book with one of his characters in it. Do it for Jack, folks!

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Have You Read Jack’s Novel? any fans don’t know that Jack had been working for several years on a novel called The Horde! It’s a tale of racial hatred and mysticism set in Mongolia, but Jack never completed the final draft. So far, two stories from it have been published, with the assistance of author Janet Berliner. One was in the July/Aug. 1994 issue #4 of Galaxy Magazine (back issues are $5.00 postpaid, from: Galaxy Magazine, PO Box 370, Nevada City, CA 95959). Check your local bookstore for a new anthology book entitled David Copperfield’s Tales Of The Impossible which contains a second story from The Horde!

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Don’t forget that you can still make donations to the educational fund that was set up in Jack’s name shortly after his death. Send to: The Jack Kirby Educational Fund, Temple Etz Chaim, 1080 Janss Rd., Thousand Oaks, CA 91360.

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Uninked pencils from Captain America #103, page 18.

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Page 2 pencils from Strange Tales #141.

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Page 3 pencils from Strange Tales #141.

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Page 8 pencils from Strange Tales #141.

John & Pam’s Excellent Adventure

by John Morrow, Editor of The Jack Kirby Collector emember those awful “What I Did On My Summer Vacation” papers you were forced to write in grade school? After the fun I had this summer, I almost wish I was back in school to write one! My wife Pam and I traveled to several comic conventions to promote TJKC, and the adventures we had rivaled anything I’ve ever read in the pages of a comic book. Everywhere we went, we found fans with severe cases of Kirby Fever, made even worse by the display of nearly 25 pieces of rare and unpublished Kirby artwork we brought with us. So strong was the response that we got almost 800 signatures on a petition to get Marvel Comics to give Jack a co-credit line (for details on how you can participate in the campaign, see page 3 of this issue). Here’s a recap of our excellent adventure.

First came Heroes Con in Charlotte, N.C. in June. This three-day show is rapidly becoming one of the best in the southeast, and it was gratifying to see so many Kirby fans there.

Thanks to Todd McFarlane’s long autograph line (which snaked right in front of our booth), our Kirby display had a captive audience of between 1000-2000 people that weekend.

Next came the San Diego ComicCon at the end of July. Our booth was constantly full of Kirby fans, many of whom weren’t yet aware of TJKC. Needless to say, we picked up a lot of new subscribers, and numerous comics pros came through to see the display and talk about Jack’s influence on them. Mark Evanier moderated a Kirby tribute panel, and was kind (or We displayed this unused cover from What If? #10 with the published version alongside it, foolish) enough to ask me to sit in on it. (You’ll prompting many people to wonder why Marvel chose to have it redrawn. (We don’t know, either.) see the transcript of the panel on page 22 of this mistake of asking us for a little background information on Jack. Once issue.) All in all, it was an amazing four days on Jack’s “home turf.” we (with the help of inker Jim Amash) finished talking his ear off about Finally, we attended the Dallas Fantasy Fair for three fun-filled Jack’s amazing career, his article on Heroes Con ended up focusing on days in August. Besides meeting a lot of old and new friends in the Jack, including mention of the campaign to get Marvel Comics to give southwest, this gave us the opportunity to talk to Jim Steranko about him co-credit. In San Diego, the Sci-Fi Channel showed up, asking to the upcoming Kirby tribute book he and Mike Thibodeaux are workuse our display as a backdrop for the introduction to a segment they ing on (details of the book are on page 3 of this issue). were filming on Jack. We naturally agreed, and the feature was supThe Kirby mystique seemed to attract the media wherever we posed to air sometime in October. (The A&E Network was also filming went. A reporter from the Charlotte Observer newspaper made the a Biography episode on Stan Lee’s life, which we heard devotes a substantial amount of time to Jack’s contributions.) And in Dallas, I was interviewed about TJKC on a local cable access show about comics.

As you’d expect, some strange things happened at the cons.

Imagine my surprise when a young fan at Heroes Con proudly showed me a 1995 issue of X-Men that was supposedly autographed by Jack (based on the date, I was a bit skeptical about the authenticity of the signature). Pam swears that one day in San Diego, a clueless autograph seeker walked up to her, and with a totally straight face asked if she was “Jacquelyn Kirby.” (Please tell me you’re kidding, Pam!) Another day, a fan continually insisted she explain why Jack drew six fingers on a throwaway character in one panel of an obscure comic book from thirty years ago. (Poor Pam; the whackos seemed to show up while she was minding the booth!) And we had to gently tell more than one inquiring fan why Jack wouldn’t be appearing at our booth.

After the San Diego ComicCon, we spent a few days in Los Angeles, The Sci-Fi Channel invades the TJKC booth in San Diego. where we were treated like royalty! After visiting Mike Royer’s house 8

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and seeing his incredible collection of old movies, western memorabilia, and original newspaper strip art, we got to partake of some outstanding barbecue at his favorite watering hole.

Another day, Mark Evanier treated us to Groo Burgers at his favorite restaurant, and afterwards showed us a fraction of his immense collection of original art and videos. Later, a producerfriend of the Kirbys took us out for dinner, and showed us some character designs Jack drew for a proposed movie. (Look for a feature on this in our upcoming The ever-delightful Rosalind Kirby.

Hollywood issue!)

As great as it was getting to meet so many of our subscribers, the absolute highlight was getting to finally meet Jack’s lovely wife Rosalind face-to-face in San Diego, and visit her at home.

Words can’t express how wonderful it was to visit the Kirby house, and spend an afternoon just sitting and talking with Roz about the old days, their kids, and Jack.

If you’ve never been to the Kirby house, you’ve missed an amazing experience. After driving up an incredibly steep mountainside, we pulled up to a remarkably unassuming home. (Somehow, I guess I’d expected “The King” to live in a literal castle!) As Roz answered the door, she greeted us both with a gentle slap on the cheek (a sign of affection, she assured us!). Walking into the foyer, I was immediately struck by how warm and inviting the Kirby home is—perfectly in-keeping with the image that came across the one time I met Jack.

After a few minutes of chit-chat at the kitchen table, Roz could tell I was anxious to see the rest of the house, so the grand tour began. She started by showing us some of the amazing collages that line the walls (the reproductions in Jack’s comics don’t do them justice). In the living room was a huge pencil drawing Jack did of his grandfather, with the most hypnotic eyes imaginable. A trip into Jack’s studio revealed his timeless drawing table and taboret, looking as if they were waiting for him to sit down and create another masterpiece. The walls were lined with just a few of the many awards and tributes he received over the years.

After seeing a couple of Jack’s hand-colored illustrations, I was totally awestruck. And while a couple of spots on the walls were bare, Roz assured us that the art was only temporarily missing while being used for the upcoming Kirby portfolio from Dark Horse Comics.

The view from the backyard was breathtaking. The beautiful swimming pool and immaculate landscaping added to the charm of the Kirby home. Roz said that when they first saw this house in the 1970s, Jack immediately walked around to the backyard while she went inside. When she came out a few minutes later, Jack said, “We’ll take it.” When she suggested he might want to look at the inside before deciding, Jack told her, “We can change the inside. We can’t change this view.”

After nearly three hours of seeing the house and talking with Roz (which went by much too quickly), we said our goodbyes. As we drove

away, it felt as though I was riding on air. A lifelong dream had finally come true—I’d gotten to visit the Kirby home, and it had totally lived up to my expectations. Roz was as charming a hostess as anyone could ask for, and although Jack wasn’t physically there, he was all around us, in every drawing, and knick-knack, and collage.

We made a lot of new friends on this trip, and met many “old” ones face-to-face for the first time. And we saw firsthand what a tightknit family the Kirby community is. No one could hope to be part of a nicer family.

We plan to put together another Kirby art display next year, and hope to take it to conventions in other parts of the country (particularly New York, Atlanta, and Chicago). If you know anyone on the planning committee for cons in these areas, please put us in touch. If you have art you’d like to have included in the display (as originals or copies), please contact us soon.

And if you’ll be at the San Diego ComicCon in ’96, look for us.

After the excellent adventure we had this year, Darkseid himself couldn’t keep us away!★

Captain America and the Alien, from the display.

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The Traveling Display All pieces listed with a star (★) were originals. Others were reproductions shot from the originals. Anything listed that hasn’t yet been in TJKC will appear in the next few issues.

• Early Thing drawing, 1962, pencil, 51⁄2" x 9" • Unused Kobra #1 page, 1975, pencil, 10" x 15" (see TJKC #5) ★ Unused Black Panther splash, 1978, pencil, 10" x 15" (see Kirby Masterworks portfolio) ★ Black Panther vs. Four-Armed Terror, 1983, pencil, 10" x 15" (see page 14)

• Unused Thor page, 1966, pencil, 10" x 15" • Unpublished Fantastic Four pin-up, 1965, pencil, 10" x 15" • Unused Atlas #1 cover, 1975, pencil, 10" x 15" (see TJKC #4) • Unpublished Dingbats Of Danger Street #3 page, 1975, inked by D. Bruce Berry, 10" x 15" (see TJKC #7) • The Real Mr. Sacker, 1972, pencil, 10" x 15"

• Captain America and the Alien, 1979, pencil, 10" x 16" (see page 9)

• Unused cover to Silver Surfer Graphic Novel, 1978, inked by Joe Sinnott, 10" x 15"

• Unused panels to Fantastic Four #108, 1970, pencil, 10" x 15" original page size

★ Alternate splash page for Stuntman #1, 1946, pencil, 12" x 18"

★ Captain America drawing, 1985, pencil, 13" x 16" (see below)

★ Self-portrait with Fourth World Characters, 1983, pencil, 10" x 16" (see TJKC #7)

• Unused What If? #10 cover, 1978, pencil, 10" x 15" (see page 8)

• Unused Stuntman page, 1946, partially inked, 12" x 18"

• Unpublished page from In The Days Of The Mob #2, 1971, inked by Mike Royer, 11" x 15" (see page 27)

• Unused Devil Dinosaur page, 1978, pencil, 10" x 15" (see Kirby Masterworks portfolio) • Unused Thor page, 1969, pencil, 10" x 15"

★ Unpublished Boy Explorers page, 1946, pencil, 12" x 18" (see TJKC #7) ★ Unused Black Magic splash, 1951, pencil, 12" x 18"

• Alternate cover for New Gods #1, 1971, pencil, 10" x 15" (see TJKC #6)

• Unused cover to Fantastic Four #20, 1963, pencil, 10" x 15" We also displayed several photocopies from Jack’s files, a set of printed interviews from years past, copies of the full pencils to 2001: A Space Odyssey #8 (the first Machine Man story), and a copy of Jack’s Prisoner adaptation.

Our thanks to Jim Amash, Jerry Bails, Len Callo, Jeff Clem, Jeff Gelb, David Hamilton, Chris Harper, Richard Howell, Frank Johnson, Peter Koch, Tom Morehouse, Jerry Ordway, Philippe Queveau, Greg Theakston, Peter Von Sholly, and Barry Windsor-Smith for supplying art for the display.

Thanks also to Shelton Drum of Heroes Con and Larry Lankford of the Dallas Fantasy Fair for donating space for the Kirby display at their conventions, and to Fae Desmond of the San Diego ComicCon for fitting us in at the last minute. And special thanks to Rosalind Kirby for allowing us to put this display together, and for her warm hospitality during our visit.

This Captain America drawing was one of the originals we had on display.

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The Kirby I Was Destined To Own

by Danny Cantrell n the day after Thanksgiving, 1978, I attended my first big city comics convention—New York City’s Creation Con. While taking in the sights of the dealers’ tables, I came upon a table with a great Kirby pencil drawing of Orion of the New Gods. When I picked up the piece, I noticed that another drawing

by Kirby, this one of the Red Skull, had been taped to the back with masking tape. I believe the asking price for both drawings was $40, but for some reason I passed on making the purchase (perhaps because Marshall Rogers and other artists were doing custom drawings for $5-10).

Five years later, I was visiting a comics shop in another city in my home state. There, in a glass display case, was a drawing of Orion which looked suspiciously like the one I had held in my hands in New York. I asked to look at the piece, and when I turned it over and looked at the back, there were four distinct impressions where masking tape had been removed!

Once separated by years and hundreds of miles, this drawing and I had again crossed paths, and this time we would be more than “ships that pass in the night.” I handed the proprietor his $20 asking price without hesitation, and the piece has remained, unseen by other eyes, for the past 13 years in my collection.

Now, thanks to The Jack Kirby Collector, I can share this fine piece by Kirby in his penciling prime.★

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The date Jack did this drawing is unknown, but it’s probably from around 1973.

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1972 Comic Art Convention Luncheon Jack Kirby and Alex Toth, Guests of Honor (originally published in the 1973 Comic Art Convention program book) Originally transcribed and edited for publication by John Benson, submitted by Mark Mayerson © 1973 Phil Seuling

what they’re doing is using me as a product, just as you would use apples and oranges. You have to start somewhere, and I was just the nearest thing that was around. I’ve given them that, and I think they’ve been using it to the best advantage possible. Also, I think they’re rendering a service to people interested in comics with the exhibit downstairs, by illustrating comics in the various stages of production.

I think that kind of thing has never been done, and fans have had to scrounge for some kind of evidence on what the comic method is like.

I feel that all the operations of doing a comic should be made available to people who want to know how it’s done. And Communicators Unlimited is doing that in a limited way, (laughter) but at least they’re doing it. I’m hoping a lot that they’ll have a future. I think they will.

Because they’re young, they’ve got plenty of time, and they’ll do it.

As for God... (laughter) gods are nothing to laugh at. (laughter) If we laugh at gods we laugh at dramatic versions of ourselves. Gods are not the objects we think they are. Sure, they’re overpowering, they’re omnipresent, they overwhelm us and they make a lot of noise. Sure they make a lot of noise, because,

JIM STERANKO: Jack, I think one of the things on everybody’s mind today, when they view your work, is the question, “What will Jack Kirby do next?” So, briefly, could you tell us some of the things that you have planned in the immediate future?

JACK KIRBY: Well, let’s just say that, being a family man, it’s going to be nothing exotic. (laughter, applause) It’s going to be a very, very wholesome character, with all of the virtues that a wholesome character should have, but with enough interest in his exploits to maybe sustain him with the readers for a long time. Of course, the books I have coming out now are Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth, which is kind of a unique thing, and The Demon, which is a demon as super-hero, and also a challenge because of its uniqueness—that’s already out, and it seems to be initially getting a response. So I’m trying a lot of things, and I think they’re worthwhile because of their uniqueness, and I hope you all like them, and I hope to do a lot of things in the future that will really interest you. The only thing I can say is keep looking, keep watching, keep reading, and I thank you for every time you pick up some of my stuff. (applause) STERANKO: About a month and a half ago, a number of people got together for an International Congress of Comics. About 90 cartoonists from all over the world, from Spain, Italy, South America, Mexico, converged at a hotel here in New York, and it was not a surprise to discover that many of them spoke of Alex Toth— Robert Gigi, Jean Giraud, and particularly Hugo Pratt, who won a number of awards this year as an international cartoonist, told me that one of his influences was Alex Toth. Alex has always been the artist’s artist, and maybe we can get him to make a few comments about his position as that kind of cartoonist.

ALEX TOTH: Heh-heh, you kind of left me hanging there. I don’t know exactly what to say. “My position as being an artist’s artist,” is that what you said?

PHIL SEULING: Is that like a gentleman’s gentleman? (laughter) TOTH: Well, it’s very flattering to be called that—an artist’s artist.

But anyway... I’m also told I’m not commercial enough, and I hear that often enough that I’m starting to believe it.

Program book art from the 1976 Baycon.

(If you’re the one who copied this for us at the ’95 SDCC, please contact us. We want to credit you for a free issue!)

STERANKO: I think that’s to your credit.

TOTH: Well, whatever. But the bank account doesn’t get any bigger. That’s about all I can say about that particular question.

STERANKO: Does anyone have some questions?

BOB COSGROVE: In the display downstairs there are three large ink drawings that struck me as attempts to portray your version of God. I wonder if you could comment a little about those. Also, will your firm Communicators Unlimited be offering prints of them?

KIRBY: First let me say that Communicators Unlimited is a firm which was organized by my son Neal and Steve Sherman, and 12

individually, gods are us, they are our own feelings, the feelings that we never express. Sure, we’d like to have a lot of money, but we never do. We’d like to say a lot of things, but we never say them. And we want to live as an overpowering presence which we’re never going to do, because we’re just average people and we’re going to live average lives. We’re going to live as comfortably as we can, and that’s rational— but inside us are those feelings and we have to express them and they come out as gods.

People make a mistake when they think people are taking a passive interest by worshipping these images, which are merely themselves. I think it must have been some Norseman with a rusty helmet and a muddy beard sitting on the bank of a river scratching himself... he looked like nothing, you know, and he knew it, but somehow he wanted to have a better image of himself, and he concocted Odin and Thor and Hercules and Samson and a lot of other figures that stood sky high. And in that reflection he saw himself, and by worshipping that reflection he himself became bigger, and his helmet became shinier and his beard became silkier, and he was able to throw around that thunder and lightning. And I feel it hasn’t changed much, except that we’re sophisticated enough to rationalize it better. We know what they are, at least I think so, and accept them for that. I use them in comics because they are impressive, they are powerful. You don’t have to analyze them, but you can enjoy them by absorbing their exploits.

They’re really superb images. And actually those are the things that you’d like to be doing, making a noise bigger than yourself, being an image bigger than yourself. I think people might have seen that in the first Superman. We all live with these ideal images... sometimes bad images. And those are a reflection of ourselves, too. I feel that my character Orion is all of us; the good side and the bad side of us.

Actually we in ourselves are some kind of a grand opera, only in our everyday living only the writers and artists see it dramatically. We see it dramatically too, but only in our own eyes. So when we see it expressed in a magazine, we relate to it. We sense that it isn’t just Orion and it isn’t just Darkseid, Darkseid and Orion are real somewhere. So the gods, or anything else that we write about, are all reflections on ourselves; what we’d like to be, what we don’t like to be, what we hate, what we love, and what we love and hate at the same time. So, sure the stories are sometimes contrived, sometimes uninspired, but they’re stories; the characters and the cast are real, because whoever’s in that story is a reflection of the guy who buys that comic book.

1977 Comic Art Convention drawing.

KIRBY: That’s always a possibility. The group thing is familiar to me.

That’s not a hangup. That’s environment. I was brought up in that environment. That was the easiest thing to come up with in comics for me, because it was something I knew. Some people called it a club; around my neighborhood they called it a gang—“a gang of kids.” It had no evil connotation to us—just kids that hung around together. I knew their types—I tried to reflect their types. And when they began they got a good response, because there were other people involved in the same sort of thing. So, of course, if I’m going to do another book, I might very well do it, because it would come very natural to me.

STERANKO: Jack, from the very beginning of your career you’ve been concerned—perhaps obsessed in some cases—with the gods-on-earth theme, going all the way back to your character Mercury. Do you know how that started?

STERANKO: Could you tell listeners about the evolution of your style as an artist? You started back in 1938 or ’39. Like Alex, you were also an animator, at the Fleischer studios. That certainly must have had a great deal to do with your ability to envision action on a page, action like no other cartoonist has ever evolved. Could you tell us something about your concepts of action and movement on a comic book page?

KIRBY: It must be a hangup of some kind. (laughter) I’m prone to my own environment and express it in the terms of gods. Maybe I was oriented to some sort of mythology. I speak in terms of mythology.

Another man will speak in terms of straight adventure, or in terms of romance. I’m communicating in my own way. And I try to make variations of it from time to time in order to be commercial. I have to make a living; I have a family. I’m oriented in that direction.

KIRBY: Movement to me is everything. Analyzing it now as a mature person, to me motion is life. Something that doesn’t move is dead, and I instinctively like to live. Everything I do moves—when it stops moving I don’t touch it. Of course, in the early period I would never have analyzed it that way. I liked figures that moved, figures that fought and twisted, and there’s nothing ugly there. Violence is just like a well-timed dance, a ballet. I’d put myself in these situations, and it would become like a problem—what would happen if I fought five guys, if I fought six guys, and I’d work out the whole problem, and I’d

STERANKO: Jack, you created your own niche in the comics field, particularly with the kid gangs; the Young Allies, the Boy Commandos, the Newsboy Legion, the Boy Explorers. And the Challengers of course were a team; the X-Men; and the Forever People was a magnificent team of the ’70s, the ’80s and the future. Do you have any other plans for a group of heroes?

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your stuff is very filmic also. You can see a motion picture developing, frame by frame, panel by panel. But there seems to be a difference. Do I see it right, or do you think I’m wrong when I say that Jack’s movement originates with the subject and your movement originates with the camera?

TOTH: I’m sure getting some hard questions here. I don’t know how to answer that. I think the subject is what dictates the layout. I hope you’re reading me wrong. I like to be true to the subject and give it whatever I think it needs. I also like action.

I just want to jump back to something as far as Jack is concerned.

Wherever our differences may be in approach, I think Jack has got a positive thing going in his work. We’ve had an awful lot of negative things come into comics and magazines in recent years, but I think his stuff pulls the readers constantly because there is a positive force constantly being expressed there.

And when we talk about gods, we’re really talking about heroes, and “heroes” has become kind of a dirty word. In the last ten years or so we’ve gotten into the nonhero, anti-hero thing, and we got into this thing about the common man. But when we got into “common man” we got into “slob.” And I think that is not “common man.” I think that was a downgrade of what “common man” was really all about. And I think we’re more interested in the uncommon man and that gets us back into “hero” and that gets us back into “gods,” and someone to follow and admire and emulate. And that’s something that will never be knocked out of Kirby. That will always be there, that positive dynamic force which is “hero”— and it’s not a dirty word.

Getting back to my thing again, I’ve studied film for years, and it’s more or less dictated how I interpret things in pacing a story. And very often I disagree with the writer as to the breakdown of a page or the pacing of the scenes either by putting more panels in or maybe Black Panther vs. The Four-Armed Terror (part of the TJKC Kirby display). changing some or leaving some out for be timing it perfectly, you know. the betterment of the story. But I hope that I’m being true to the subI suppose, like Woody Allen, I have these fantasies and I put ject. I respect good writing and I don’t respect bad writing, and I try them down on paper, and I thought they came out great. And I tried to be true to that script, and I try to plus it whenever possible—that’s to work them out in animated sequence. Of course, in reality I’d have our job. A bum script comes in and you’ve got to make that thing gotten the bejabbers knocked out of me and wound up in some work. And that’s the job, to give the story as much as you can to make hospital ward. But in those fantasies you couldn’t beat me. (laughter) it work better, and sell it. That’s the name of the game, selling it, interNot only that, but I looked graceful—which I wasn’t; I was very poorly esting all of you out there in buying it. coordinated. So, sure I thank the comics for that—for bringing some I happen to work in things that are perhaps a little quieter than of my fantasies into graphic form. I had the opportunity to do it, and Jack’s, and since I have worked in film... eventually... I found out that I was gratified for that reason. (applause) there was this very close affinity between the script and storyboarding the film and film itself, whether live or animation.

SEULING: I want to ask a question that kind of leads from that. Jack STERANKO: Do you find there’s a difference in approach between an talked about motion and we all know what he’s talking about. Alex, 14

animated film and the breakdown for a live action film?

TOTH: Well, you credited me with being an animator, and I’m not an animator. I have laid out for animation, and I have designed for animation, and I have done some animation, but very little, and I wouldn’t dare call myself an animator. It’s a very complex ballgame.

STERANKO: Is there a difference in your approach to a film and a comic book?

TOTH: Well, not in the technical sense; I think it’s in the method. No, the approach is the same. I don’t switch gears when I’m doing a storyboard for a film or a strip for a magazine. It’s reading and rereading that story, and sometimes you’re bored to death with it, but you gotta draw it. Sometimes there’s nothing in there... you’re totally turned off. But you try to create your own little hook to hang your enthusiasm on. You’ve got to do that; otherwise you turn out a loser. If you have a good script it just sails through your board—it draws itself. And that’s a great thing, to be turned on by a good story. And they’re so damn hard to come by.

STERANKO: You said something last year which I have never forgotten. You said, “For the first half of my career I was concerned with discovering as many things as possible to put into my stories; rendering, texture, detail. For the second half of my career, I have worked as hard as I could to leave out all the things...”

You have more fun with it as the observer or the reader, especially as the observer of art, because when you do come upon a simple piece of work, your eye draws in all the rest of it that isn’t there. You’re participating, and this is a kick that we all have. I have it to this day. I just bought a twelve-year run of Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs, from 1930 to 1942. Now that man draws so simply that you can count the lines. It’s all that stuff that he leaves out that he lets you participate in... it’s beautiful, it’s absolutely gorgeous artwork, and it’s a lot of fun. He had a lot of fun, and he makes you have a lot of fun reading it, looking at it and enjoying it. And it’s the same with Jack.

If your work is too rich, if you’re socking in all of this gorgeous technique panel after panel, you bore the hell out of your reader. You’ve got to let him rest once in a while, back off and participate by drawing in things that he doesn’t see there in black and white. And I think that’s the key to it—simplicity, economy. I have been told that my work is economical. I still don’t think so. There’s still a hell of a lot there that could be thrown out or revised.

And apropos of this I remember many years ago I used to usher at the Society of Illustrators during their lecture season. And Robert Fawcett, who was one of the greatest magazine illustrators we ever had, walked onto the stage at one lecture with this huge 30" x 40" illustration board which he turned facing the wall away from the audience. And after this talk he picked it up, turned it around; and it was a huge copy that he had made of a Peter Arno cartoon, and you know how simple his work was. And Robert Fawcett said, “I’m not going to rest until my work is as simple as this.”

That was a beautiful line, and he meant every word of it. We’re all striving for that economy to do more with less. It’s a great thing to strive for... I’ve talked a hell of a lot.

TOTH: That goes back to this little fellow sitting over here—Sol Harrison used to drive me out of my mind! From 1947 to 1952 I was working for National Comics and he was Production Manager there. I’d bring in a job and the editor would see it and then I’d walk into the Production Department and I’d show it to Sol, whose opinion I respected, and he’d always say the same damn thing; “Very nice—but you don’t know what to KIRBY: I think what Alex is trying to say is... (laughter, leave out.” So I used to go around and around applause) what he’s trying to say is that a single line by with him about this, and I’d say, “What the an artist could be a cop-out from doing an extensive hell do you mean? I’m trying to do my picture. But a line from a good artist is different, best.” But, “You don’t know what to leave because the good artist will pick out the line that is out,” was always the comeback. important, the line that he thinks you would like to A convention Finally, Joe Kubert and I started see. A good artist can do something very simple, which drawing Jack exchanging letters on various subjects aside I would like to do sometime, instead of putting a whole battle did for Fred from work, and we got into a little corresponscene into a panel.

Hembeck in dence discussion about “how do we change There’s something else I would like to stress. You 1980. through the years.” And that’s when I made mentioned Sol Harrison and there are other members of the that observation. It finally hit me that that’s production staff, and there are the editors like Nelson Bridwell. what happens to an artist or a writer or any Strangely enough, artists will sometimes have their own ego trip about other professional. You’re learning, you’re a magazine; “I contributed the art.” Or a writer will say, “I contributed reaching out for all kinds of things to put into the writing.” Well, the production staff and the editorial staff also make your work. You’re constantly exposed to all kinds of influences and bits a big contribution. The overall magazine has an individual stamp— of information that you’re seeking out in order to enrich your work, it’s an individual stamp of a lot of people. The conceptions of a lot of and I think you do spend the first half of your career, however long it people go into that one magazine. You see the individual stamp of the may be, in learning what to put in, and it’s only after you’ve reached a logo, which makes the magazine its own distinct product; the individual certain age or maturity that suddenly you start to look at it in a differstamp of the lettering. You can tell a DC magazine a mile away. Why? ent way, and you say, “There’s too much going on in there that doesn’t Because these people have made it its own unique product. So I feel that need to be there.” Now, how do you leave out the right thing, you the production staff—people like Sol Harrison and Nelson Bridwell— know... that’s the secret of it. And I think you’ll see that in the work of should be given their own recognition for contributing to the overall artists—painters going all the way back in time, sculptors, writers, product, because the overall product is the thing that interests you. who finally honed their craft down to a point where they are able to condense all of what they want to say into the least amount there.

STERANKO: As long as they don’t make any changes in our work.

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KIRBY: Okay, but that’s between us. That’s not between the reader and the magazine. Sure, we have our differences; we iron them out, we come to compromises, sometimes we come to loggerheads, but that’s our business.

But the overall product is almost like a fingerprint, the individual fingerprint of a group of people and that’s what’s marvelous about it, because it’s really a living thing; it’s put together by a group mind.

that I can’t draw a handsome face as well as I could maybe twenty years ago. I think I’m getting a little off into more average faces, perhaps. So the movie star label I don’t think is valid. I must disagree, Steranko.

KIRBY: It’s a very strange thing; in many of my characters I’ll see reflections of my own family. Sometimes it just comes out that way.

And it can be a villain, a hero, or a guy in the crowd, and he’ll suddenly look like my father or my uncle, and I’ve had a couple look like my brother-in-law—he never looked so good. (laughter) An artist draws from his own environment; whatever he sees in his own experience I think comes out in the drawing. And sometimes it’s even shocking to me to find people I like from my own family suddenly coming out as characters that are very unwholesome. But the resemblance is there, and it’s one aspect of the strip that becomes very entertaining to me.

If other artists looked into it they could probably find their families there. I remember that Steve Ditko would draw characters which would all look unique to his own ethnic group, but it’s because he knew those people and I know my own people. Alex probably knew...

STERANKO: I think Sol Harrison had a comment to make about his relationship with Alex back in the ’50s and after the ’50s.

TOTH: You don’t dare.

SOL HARRISON: I just wanted to say... (applause) that as far as Alex is concerned and as far as National is concerned, I think he’s learned his lessons very, very well. (laughter) There is nobody today who can touch him because he’s just at the crest of his career as far as commercial comics are concerned. And no matter what he says about improving the product (as he did in his keynote speech), I think it’s very healthy for our industry, and I think in the future he’s going to see some things that he’ll be more happy with.

STERANKO: Movie stars. (laughter)

STERANKO: Alex, of course there’s a great difference between your work and Jack’s. You are perhaps at opposite ends of the spectrum, but both are magnificent talents. Could you tell us something about your approach to the romance of the story that you’re telling. I know both of you are great romanticists, but whereas Jack is mostly concerned with the cosmic kind of romance, your work seems to embody a kind of high fashion romance. (scattered laughter) Your work, your people are very chic. (laughter) Bob Powell drew ugly people in ugly ways into his stories, very human kinds of people. You draw movie stars in yours. It is a very kind of high fashion approach to comics. You’re a romanticist.

KIRBY: All I can say is that he’s lived in Hollywood longer than I have. If all of you were to have an opportunity to draw or express yourself in some way, it would all come out in the things that you know. Worshipping the individual as I do, I feel that every individual is valuable because he is an individual, and because he is alive. Whatever he does is valuable too, and it’s interesting because it’s an expression of his own experience. So I feel that Al has seen very nice things and met very nice people. You know, when Jim said he’s slick, I feel that he’s met some very slick characters. (laughter) STERANKO: I know that when you’re asked what your favorite strip is you always answer the one you’re working on now. But if you had to be remembered for one particular series in your 35 years in comics, what would that series be?

TOTH: You know you ask me unanswerable questions, you know that? I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. (laughter) Jack, you interpreted what I said. Now you interpret what he said. (laughter) KIRBY: He said you were slick. (laughter, sustained applause)

KIRBY: I’d like to be remembered for all my work, really.

A quick marker sketch Jack did at a convention.

TOTH: Old slick, eh? Well, I (laughter) “I’m going to be don’t think I have a talent for remembered”—he’s already fantasy. My talent has to do with reality. I can’t quite go out into speaking about me in the past tense. (laughter) those other worlds that Jack can. That’s his own thing. I deal with The only thing I can say is that I’ve always tried to do my best at reality; I try to keep one foot in reality, whatever the subject matter is. every stage of my time. I know that when I began I’d feel very foolish I’ve tried to stretch into some of the areas where Jack has been, and I like anybody without any training. The opportunities for training and don’t think it’s worked—I don’t think I fit there. practicing are much more abundant today than they were in my day. I I think it’s because of the interest in film and what is possible think people are all willing to help today. It was very hard for me to that makes me come off kind of quiet in the way I interpret stories. learn to draw, because I had to cannibalize everybody in sight. I’d My interests center in that area—the way things really are, as take somebody’s fingers and somebody’s arms and somebody’s shadopposed to any high imaginary level, and I think that’s maybe what ing, and of course I incorporated it into my own style. And sooner or you’re talking about; about real-type people. The movie star bit I later my anatomy began to straighten itself out. don’t cotton to much. Believable people and believable characters is what I’m about.

HARRISON: When? (laughter) STERANKO: But you draw beautiful people.

KIRBY: Sol is the company’s finger boy. Nobody is perfect with him, and that’s good. He’s always going to remind you that you’re human, and you’ve gotta have a guy like that around.★

TOTH: I never look at them that way. I have been aware of the fact 16

you.” Jack gave Paul and Linda the drawing which they thought was “smashing.” Paul thanked Jack for keeping him from going bonkers while they were recording the album in Jamaica. It seems that there was very little to do there, and they needed to keep their kids entertained. Luckily, there was a store that sold comics, so Paul would go and pick up all the latest. One night the song “Magneto vs. Titaniumman” popped into his head. The thing about Jack was that within a few minutes you felt as if you were his best friend, so Paul too was soon laughing it up with Jack as if he had known him for years.

Lisa had her camera with her so they all ended up taking pictures, one of which Gary carried with him for years (showing it to one and all) of Paul, Linda, Gary, Lisa, Roz and Jack all smiling and pointing.

Paul asked them if they had tickets for the show (remember three nights sold out) and they said that they didn’t. Paul gave a nod to someone, and magically four tickets appeared stamped in big red letters: COMP. They all said good-byes and the Kirbys and Gary were led through a door and out into the audience. They were seated stage center about 15 rows from the stage. On one side was Ryan O’Neal and the other Michael Douglas.

The show started and when it came time for Paul to do “Magneto” he introduced it by saying, “In the audience tonight we have the creator of Magneto and lots of other comic characters, and I’d like to dedicate this song to Jack Kirby.” The audience gave a roar of approval and Jack waved.

After the concert they headed back to Thousand Oaks, Jack puffing on his cigar. “Ya know, Gary, I really appreciate this,” Jack said laughing, “and to show you how much, we’re gonna stop at Bob’s Big Boy for some chocolate cake!”★

Jack Meets Paul McCartney

by Steve Sherman

n late summer/early fall of 1975, Paul McCartney, former Beatle, was on a World Tour to promote his new band, Wings. They had just released the album “Venus and Mars.” One of the tracks, “Magneto vs. Titanium-Man,” was inspired by characters from Marvel’s X-Men comic.

When the tour hit Los Angeles, it was a really big deal. This was to be McCartney’s first L.A. appearance since the Beatles breakup.

Tickets were sold out immediately for the three-night event.

The day of the first show, my brother Gary decided that it would be pretty cool if McCartney could meet Jack, since it was obvious that McCartney was a Kirby fan. Figuring he had nothing to lose, Gary phoned Capitol Records, which is headquartered in Hollywood. He asked to speak to the A&R (Artists & Repertoire) rep for Paul. When they put him through he told them that Jack Kirby had done a drawing of Paul and wondered if Paul would be interested in meeting Jack.

It turned out that the A&R guy was a Kirby fan, so he said that he would check it out with “Paul’s people.” About an hour later he called Gary back and said, “You bet, Paul would be happy to meet Jack.

Show up at the Forum about an hour and a half before the show.” Gary quickly called the Kirbys and told Lisa, Jack’s daughter, to show Jack a copy of the album and to turn out a sketch for McCartney. The show started at 8:00 pm which gave Gary only three hours to drive to Thousand Oaks and back to the Forum in Inglewood.

When Gary arrived Jack showed him the “sketch” he had done. As Gary remembers it was a knock-out.

Jack had done a fully-rendered 11" x 17" drawing of a giant Magneto holding his arm out towards the viewer, with Paul and Linda standing in his palm and the rest of the band in the other hand, with all kinds of Kirby planets and what-nots floating around the background.

All in the time it took Gary to drive the 45 minutes to the Kirby house.

One of the interesting things about Jack’s portraits was that unlike his comic art which tended to be exaggerated and blocky, the portraits that he sometimes drew of his family, and the one of Paul and Linda, were much more realistic and very detailed, much like Jack’s artwork of the late thirties. Gary said it looked like the cover of an album.

With Gary at the wheel of the Kirby’s Lincoln town car, they headed south to the Forum. While Lisa, Roz and Gary were excited, Jack contentedly puffed on his cigar (he still smoked ’em then) and was more concerned about stopping along the way and getting some chocolate cake (a Kirby weakness).

Arriving at the Forum, the foursome proceeded to the rear stage entrance, where they were greeted by the Tour Security Chief, who was also a Kirby fan. Jazzed to meet Jack, he escorted them inside, where they were greeted by Linda McCartney. Linda then took them on a brief tour; Gary remembers that she opened a door to a room and there were the Wings musicians (does anybody remember who they were, outside of Denny Laine?) sitting around drinking Jack Daniels. Then around the corner came Paul. “’Ello, Jack, nice to meet We don’t have Paul’s drawing, but here are splash page pencils from Capt. America Annual #4.

I

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When Jack sent penciled pages to Marvel Comics in the 1960s, Marvel would dialogue and letter the pages, then send him a photocopy to help him maintain continuity from issue to issue. Here are Jack’s pencils to Captain America #103, page 15, from one of those photocopies in his files. Notice Jack’s margin notes for Stan Lee to dialogue by, and Lee’s handwritten note to change Sharon Carter’s hairstyle “thru-out.”

romance comics and it mellowed us somewhat.

Jack Kirby Interview

Q: The material you did for Crestwood was, more or less, superior to what you were producing, just before and after your employment there. Was this due mainly to your having editorial control?

KIRBY: Yes—in Crestwood, we had complete control of editorial policy, of writing, of artwork. We set our own standards and Joe and I just about had complete say over our material. We tried everything! We were getting into satirical strips for the first time. I tried to do a satirical super-hero with Jack Oleck’s Fighting American in order to get something new and, hopefully, get some response from a declining readership. They did as well as any books of their time. It sounds like I might be finding excuses, but the field was in very bad straits at that time. Not only did publishers have internal pressures, but they also had external pressures. One day a guy might buy a new car, and the next day find the publisher cleaning out the offices. They were in a shaky frame of mind. Only the publishers with outside sources of revenue had any confidence at all.

(Originally presented in the 1975 Comic Art Convention program book) Interviewed by Steve Sherman Many tributes by intelligent critics have been written about Jack Kirby. The only thing missing from the analysis, and the celestial praise, and the biographical notes is the man’s own words. And Jack Kirby is no slouch when it comes to words. He is articulate, idea-oriented, and pointed.

We may see his work as so basic that it seems instinctive, but Jack has an observer’s eye and an awareness of his effectiveness which make him a commentator worth listening to—as you will find in this interview, garnered from conversations Mark Evanier and I had with him when we were planning a companion volume to the King Kirby Portfolio.

Steve Sherman, 1975 QUESTION: What is it that would compel a man, such as yourself, to stay up all hours of the night, penciling comic books?

JACK KIRBY: Probably something in my psychic make-up! I decided to do comics because I liked comics. I developed a deep interest in them at a rather early age and ventured to answer an ad which publicized a cartoon correspondence course. I was probably twelve or thirteen at the time. What makes me stay up all night? Probably because I want to make a living!

Q: You’re asked constantly where you get your ideas from. Any clues?

KIRBY: An idea can come from anywhere. The process of creation has no standards. You either think it out by yourself or talk it out with someone else or with a group... but eventually you come out with something. Ideas are everywhere. The guy in the shipping room might come up with something and what he has to say might be quite valid. The fellow in charge has to have an editorial sense. In other words, he must recognize the salability of an idea.

And, while anybody may have an idea, it is the person with the editorial capability who will recognize its relevance to the particular situation at hand.

Black Magic came about because we saw a trend emerging in comics back in the fifties; something begun by others but which we had to pick up on if we didn’t want to get left behind. It wasn’t a new idea to use all those ghosts and spooks, but it was a saleable idea at the time and we were fortunate to get involved in it early. We had to compete with E.C., so it was tough.

Q: At that time, you and Joe Simon were editing, writing and drawing for the Crestwood people. And you had quite a staff under you—some men who could rival or even surpass the crew at E.C. Editorially, were you trying to do things differently?

KIRBY: E.C. was very basic in their approach to horror. By that I mean, they left nothing to the imagination; same with most of the other horror producers.

That may have been part of their downfall. You can only throw that kind of thing at the public so long before they develop an immunity to it. I think we were a little more restrained with our stories, but that may be because we were putting out a lot of

The drawing that became the cover for the 1975 Comic Art Convention program book.

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Q: You had a fine staff, the time. I prefer to though. pencil three pages on KIRBY: Extremely talan average day or if it’s ented! Some of the best a cover, about three men the field has ever hours. seen were part of our staff. It was a wonderQ: What do you conful time to work in the sider a good artist? field —if you neglect KIRBY: One with imagthe financial problems. ination and the ability I wouldn’t class the to tell a good story. fifties as the greatest How well a man draws period in comics—it cuts no ice with me, if was, to be frank, a really what he’s trying to ugly period. Ugly express comes out clothes, cars, people. vague and choppy.

But it was a time when the most productive Q: What about writpeople in comics were ers? still in the field. Marvin KIRBY: The same type Stein was with us—he of man. A guy with a was a first-rate man fertile, active mind. and one of the best The Demon meets Broom Hilda, Snoopy, and Linus! Does anyone know what con this was from? The writer I respected artists we had. Mort most is now deceased.

Meskin was at his height. Steve Ditko was blossoming out and doing His name was Eddie Herron. He created the original Captain Marvel fine work. There were still writers and artists around... Good ones. It and was responsible for numerous stories which I considered top was certainly akin to working in a sort of Renaissance period. rate. He also fathered the Red Skull.

Q: Were people trying to break into the field at that time?

KIRBY: Well, I think many more were trying to get out. (laughs) But, yes, we had guys coming up who wanted to break in. People like Jules Feiffer, Roy Lichtenstein. If their stuff looked good, we’d give them a script. More than once, we’d give a guy a script and never see him again.

Q: Was it easier to write the stories back then?

KIRBY: Well, maybe not easier in terms of the time required. In simplicity, yes. By that I mean World War ll lent itself to good dramas.

The whole thing could have been written by some hack out at Warner Brothers. It was a black and white issue with a villain who was so completely evil that it was just made to order. Anything you did in World War ll was an act of nobility. If you hung Hitler or killed hundreds of Germans, you were on the side of the Angels. I once got a letter from a Nazi who told me to pick out any lamppost I wanted on Times Square because, when Hitler arrived, they’d hang me from it. It was typical of a genre of fans who have long since died out.

Q: As the fifties drew to a close, the super-heroes began to return.

When you began the Challengers of the Unknown, were you striving more for a super-hero rebirth or for breaking into science fiction and adventure material more?

KIRBY: The issues I did were still formative and I can’t answer for what DC did with them. But they were heading for the super-hero image when I left. In many ways, they were the predecessors of the FF.

Q: You enjoy reading the mail, don’t you?

KIRBY: Yes, I love it. I think that’s because I love the fans—even if some of them are Nazis. But when we were doing those romance comics at Crestwood, you should have seen the mail we got. There was some lady who wanted me to adopt her daughter because she could tell from my stories that I was a good man!

Q: At this time, you also started again at Marvel.

KIRBY: Right. I was given monsters, so I did them. I would much rather have been drawing Rawhide Kid. But I did the monsters... we had Grottu and Kurrgo and It... it was a challenge to try to do something—anything with such ridiculous characters. But these were, in a way, the forefathers of the Marvel super-heroes. We had a Thing, we had a Hulk... and we tried to do them in a more exciting way.

Q: Why was it always Simon and Kirby?

KIRBY: Simon was bigger! He was also the letterer, most of the time.

With a parlay like that, I didn’t have a chance. He’s also older then me— like a big brother. He was great at layouts. One of the few true professionals this field has seen. He still is.

Q: About your drawing. At your fastest, during that time, do you have any idea how many books you were doing?

KIRBY: I felt, for a while, like I was doing them all. The stuff I wasn’t penciling, I was doing layouts on. I got the books going—I think that was mainly my function—so that, as Marvel acquired a top-notch staff, they could keep them going. You should remember that prior to this the entire staff consisted of Stan Lee, Sol (Brodsky) and Artie (Simek). Artie was in the most secure position, because no matter what, the books had to be lettered. Anyway, I laid out the first Iron Man and plotted it and Don Heck finished it up. Same with Daredevil—Bill Everett penciled it over my breakdowns. And I’d pass them on to other people.

Q: So why did he give up comics and get into magazines?

KIRBY: He was discouraged. A lot of guys were and Joe wasn’t the first guy to try for bigger things. When Crestwood went under, it was typical of a lot of bad breaks we all had to put up with. A lot of guys got out of comics for one reason or another... C.C. Beck, Eisner, Kurtzman...

People of importance to comics left. I suppose I’m considered some sort of a dinosaur in the field, but I’m sticking with comics. I feel it’s an important and powerful medium. I feel it’s been belabored by people who have an ax to grind—it’s been down and it should be lifted to a point where it really proves its national importance. This is a visual age and comics are a visual medium. Not only can the intellectuals grasp it, but also the common man. And, despite what a lot of people may say, it’s the common men who make history.★

Q: Were you penciling much faster then?

KIRBY: Yes—there were lots of pressures and I was struggling most of 21

The Kirby Tribute Panel Held on July 28, 1995 at the 1995 San Diego ComicCon featuring Joe Sinnott, Mike Royer, Mark Evanier, Tony Isabella, and John Morrow (transcribed by John Morrow) EVANIER: Thank you all for being here. We’re going to make this an and I think Jack may annual event. We all know why we’re here. We want to talk about Jack have told me once, that Kirby a little bit. We should take a moment at all these conventions to he really didn’t like talk about Jack, because we all would not be here if not for Jack. We’re inking his own stuff, going to rotate this every year, and try to get everybody who ever because it was like worked with Jack on these panels. The convention, by the way, is doing it twice, he had probably going to get Joe Simon out here, and we’re all very excited to go over it again. So, about that. (applause) the monster book came Let me introduce you to the people up here. You’re probably all in, and I was overgetting a very fine magazine called The Jack Kirby Collector. On my far whelmed by it. Jack did left is the gentleman who puts it together, Mr. John Morrow. (applause) great monster stuff, but On my immediate left is a friend of mine. I’ve known this gentleman this was called for 28 years—that’s enough. (laughter) He worked on one of the more “Pildorr.” I think he recent Kirby projects, the Kirbyverse at Topps, and countless other was a space pirate or things over the years. He’s been influenced by Jack, who was a friend something, and when I “Pildoor” appeared in Strange Tales #94. of his. This is Tony Isabella. (applause) On my right, we have two genlooked at it, I was tlemen who made it possible for you to enjoy Jack Kirby’s work over amazed by the characters. To this day, I still think that Pildorr was the the years. You all know their work very well. I’d like to introduce Mr. prototype for the Thing. Maybe Jack wasn’t conscious of it at the Joe Sinnott, (applause) and Mr. Mike Royer. (applause) I think we owe time. But if you ever find that story and look at it, he looked like the these gentlemen an enormous thank-you for bringing as much of original Thing, the lumpy Thing. He was a pirate, he had a patch over Jack’s work to us as they did over the years, and for going over those one eye, and these great cohorts of his were these monster-looking pages and putting every single thing in that was there, and then some. guys with teeth sticking out all over the place. It was just a great story.

Those of you who had the pleasure to see Jack’s pencil work know that Down through the years, when Jack and I started getting some artwork there was something in there, with all due respect, that no inker could back, I made a swap with Jack. I sent him some stuff that he wanted, ever capture, but these two and I got the rest of the Pildorr gentlemen, I think, got closer story that I wanted. I have the than was humanly possible over complete story now, and it’s the years. When I think of all the something that I really would great Kirby work that was lost to hate to part with. Y’know, you us by people who didn’t know have favorites, and this is what to do with it or didn’t do a certainly one of my favorites. conscientious job, I think we It’s one of the first things I did owe them a special debt of gratiwith Jack, and I think it was tude for a lifetime of very fine one of the greatest things he service. (applause) ever did, even though it was Okay, there’s someone in one of the monster things that the room who is more imporpredated the superheroes. tant than any of them. I’d like you all to meet Roz Kirby. (thunEVANIER: You inked so many derous applause, standing ovation) people over the years. Talk I’m going to ask the first about what was different about few questions, and you can all inking Jack. Was there anything join in a little later. Joe, tell us really different? about the first time anybody ever sent you a Jack Kirby page SINNOTT: First of all, when and said, “Here, ink this.” you got Jack’s work, you got it Shown here at the 1995 San Diego ComicCon are Roz Kirby (seated) and all at once, you didn’t have to (l to r) Joe Sinnott, Mark Evanier, and Mike Royer.

SINNOTT: Well actually, it was a wait for it in dribbles and drabs, western, Mark. Stan for some which you did with a lot of reason called me up and said, “Joe, I’ve got a western here. Jack doesn’t artists. There were many reasons for it. Certainly Jack was a prodihave time to ink it, and I can’t find anybody to do it.” I had never gious worker, and he was a fast worker. So when I got the stories, they inked anybody’s work at that time except my own. This was twelve always came all at once. I’d get 22 pages or whatever. Not only that, years after I’d started at Marvel. So I said, “Sure, send it up. I’ll do it.” but there wasn’t a single line drawn that wasn’t there. You didn’t have It was one of Jack’s average westerns, and he did a beautiful job on it, to correct anything. Everything was there, and you had no problems naturally. And I inked it, no big deal, and I mailed it back to Marvel. It with anything. Everything was shaded in, he never left anything for was a five- or six-page story, and then about a week later, Stan called the inker to think ‘What should I do here? It’s very vague.’ Which has me up again, and he said, “I’ve got another Kirby here, it’s a monster happened with a lot of pencilers, but certainly not with Jack. story. I’d like you to ink it, Jack doesn’t want to ink it.” I always felt, Everything was complete and every time I got a story, he was the one 22

artist I looked forward to getting his work, because you were always overwhelmed by what he had done. You can’t say enough about him.

“You can ink it as line... you can ink it as solid black area. Whatever you do is fine, Joe. You’re tops!” (laughter)

EVANIER: I know the answer to this, but between the time you started inking Jack, around ’57 or ’58, and the time you did all the Marvel stuff, how many meetings did you have with Jack during that period?

SINNOTT: I was going to say something about Jack, but you threw me off balance. (laughter) We’ll come back to it.

EVANIER: I’m sorry. Let’s talk to Mike for a second.

SINNOTT: I met Jack Kirby once in my life, can you imagine? It was at the 1976 Marvel Convention in New York City. I thought I was introduced by Marie Severin, but...

ROYER: I want to say something about Joe. Joe had the same kind of passion for comic art that I think Jack had, and I like to think I have that passion. And I think that you were an influence on Jack, because he saw the beautiful job you were doing. When I started inking Jack, I would look at how you inked it, and I realized looking at this evolutionary period of your early inks and later inks, that he started penciling certain things the way that you inked them; things such as outer space, which is basically a configuration of black circles that come together in large masses and feather out. He started penciling that the way you inked it. I think it’s interesting, this cross-influence.

EVANIER: I thought I introduced you. (laughter) SINNOTT: You did!

EVANIER: It doesn’t matter!

SINNOTT: Yes it does, because now I can tell the story that Mark Evanier introduced me to Jack Kirby! But in any case, Jack and I hung around each other the whole convention, and I never had a greater time.

SINNOTT: Something like that was bound to happen, even though it was unconscious on Jack’s part.

EVANIER: Remember the first thing you discussed? I remember this.

Jack had gotten used to doing a thing with his pencils where he would take an area and fill it full of very close-together black lines. He didn’t blacken the whole area in, there were white streaks between them.

And Joe pointed to some pencil samples in a Kirby art display on the wall, and he said to Jack, “Do you want that in as line, or do you want it as a solid black area?” And Jack thought for a second, and he says,

EVANIER: Joe, wasn’t there a period when you, either because Stan said something or you looked at the books, and said, “I think I better submerge a little less of Jack’s stuff, and let a little more of his style through.”

SINNOTT: Yeah, I told that story yesterday, Mark. (laughter)

Jack’s cover drawing for the program book from the first San Diego convention in 1970 (it was originally called the San Diego Golden State Comic-Con).

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EVANIER: Well, how many people want to hear it again? (applause)

when I got #5 in the mail, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It overwhelmed me, especially the Thing. Of course, I had seen Reed in other forms, and even Johnny Storm, of course, and Doctor Doom. It was amazing to see these characters. And then I realized I had missed #1-4, and I ran out and tried to buy them. But after I did Fantastic Four #5, actually, people don’t know this, but...

SINNOTT: When I first started getting Jack’s work, as great as Jack was, nobody is perfect, right? So I used to look at Jack’s work and say, “Jack doesn’t draw his ears the way Alex Raymond draws an ear. So I’m going to make Alex Raymond ears on Jack.” That’s how I made my ears, I patterned my ears after Alex Raymond. So I used to make Reed’s ears like Alex Raymond’s a little bit. And we all know Jack had the tendency of not putting his eyes on the same plane, which was very unique with Jack, he was probably the only artist who ever did it. But it made his work so unique. And I used to change that a little bit, I fixed the eyes.

And I used to slim his girl’s hips down. I always felt like Jack had the girls a little too ‘hippy.’ Then it got to the point where, a year or two later, I said, “Gee, I shouldn’t do this, it’s not Jack Kirby.” So I started doing it just the way Jack had it down there, at least I tried to. And I think it certainly worked out much better that way. But I think that happens with anybody who worked with Jack. They may have said, “This’ll look better if I do it this way, maybe Jack will like it this way.” If you just inked every line that Jack had down, the way he had it, you couldn’t have done any better.

That was the bottom line. That was the way it should’ve been, just the way Jack put it down.

EVANIER: This man did about two panels of #6.

SINNOTT: I did! How did you know that?

EVANIER: I know this stuff! (laughter)

SINNOTT: Stan sent me #6 right away, and I inked about two panels, and I got another assignment in from a company I was doing some biographical work for, and I just had to do that. So I sent the FF back to Stan and said, “Stan, I can’t do it.” I regretted it, but I just couldn’t do it at the time. So in any case, there was a long stretch where I didn’t do the FF, so when he sent me #44, I started working on it again.

But it was a few right after that where Stan called me and said, “Joe, I really like what you’re doing on Jack’s work. Please continue doing what you’re doing. If there’s anything that has to be changed, go ahead EVANIER: I remember one time and do it because we like the you were inking one of the guys way you’re doing it.” But I who was tracing Jack later. Of don’t think I changed much, course that guy was working off maybe the slimming of the legs the printed books. And I a little bit, but here again, I remember talking to you, and was wrong. I shouldn’t have you said, “I’m inking drawings done it from the start. And I inked before. This is like déjà maybe later on, on some of the vu. They’re coming in penciled later Fantastic Fours, I may with my ears on them.” (laughhave gotten a little too slick, ter) Speaking of inking Jack exactly the way he penciled, Mike Royer’s inks for the unused cover to Mister Miracle #10, as shown on the cover which can happen. But then again, slickness was all part of let’s talk about Mike. of The Buyer’s Guide For Comic Fandom #19 (August 15th, 1972). the superhero genre, so that ROYER: The second book that I inked was a Mister Miracle, what was was never criticized. Stan liked my inking. He’d always give you a little it, #5? And because at that time I was heavily influenced by Leonard pat on the back every now and then, which you don’t often get. I Starr, I just had this bug that I was going to try to make Big Barda couldn’t have had a better association with Stan and Jack. So you prettier. Of course, in doing so, it wasn’t Jack’s Barda anymore. And can’t imagine how bad I felt when Jack moved over to DC. At the time it’s the only time that I remember Jack ever saying anything critical.

I felt nobody could replace him at Marvel—Marvel’s going to go He said, “Don’t EVER change the faces!” So I never did after that. down the tubes. Of course, nobody’s indispensable, even Babe Ruth (laughter) And he was right! Because what I did wasn’t Jack anymore. wasn’t. And certainly nobody ever replaced Jack in that respect. I missed him terribly.

SINNOTT: When I got FF #5 in the mail, I lived up in the Catskill Mountains. I never went to the city. Everything was done by mail. I EVANIER: Mike, tell us what you’re doing now. never went down to the office, because it was like taking a whole day ROYER: I create product for the Disney stores. I’m a character artist, out of your schedule, and there was really no reason for it. So that’s product designer, and I almost exclusively do Winnie-The-Pooh and the reason I didn’t see Jack all those years, and a lot of the other Tigger and all the Hundred Acre Woods characters. Believe it or not, artists. When Stan sent me #5, it was the first Fantastic Four book I there isn’t a day that I sit down at the board with a blank sheet of worked on, I didn’t even know the Fantastic Four existed. I didn’t see paper, that I don’t think about Jack. Because what I learned from Jack #1, 2, 3, or 4. I never bought a book off the newsstands. I would go in is that a blank sheet of paper is a wonderful challenge, and it’s a and buy my own book. This was in the days when Marvel was on a challenge that should be met, you should have fun, make it exciting. shoestring, so-to-speak, and they didn’t send you the books like they And believe it or not, you can have fun and make Winnie-The-Pooh do today. Unless you went down to the office and took one off the exciting, and vital, and alive. rack, you had to go out to the cigar store and buy your own book. So 24

I wanted to talk about one way that Jack influenced my life. When I first started inking, the books would come in the mail if I didn’t pick them up in person. And I’d open the package, and I was just overwhelmed by this incredible aroma of Roy-Tan Cigars. (laughter) Of course, this was in a simpler, more innocent time when we smoked and didn’t realize what we were doing to ourselves. And this was in a period when I was smoking cigarettes, which I gave up thirteen years ago. At this time, those pages just... it was intoxicating. So I ran out and bought a package of Roy-Tan Cigars. (laughter) Of course, having been a cigarette smoker, I didn’t know how to smoke a cigar. So I’m going through five of these suckers a day because I’m inhaling them! (laughter) And about a week later, my wife comes out to the studio, and I’m laying on the floor going, (in a wheezy voice) “I don’t know what’s wrong with me!”

And she says, “Maybe you should stop smoking those Roy-Tan Cigars!” (laughter) I don’t know if that has anything to do with comics’ history.

EVANIER: I’m going to throw this open to questions from the floor.

But before I do, before somebody asks this, Frank Miller and I are proceeding with this tribute book to Jack Kirby that has gotten enormously out of hand. We’re now at over 600 applications to be in it by artists, and they’re still coming in. Everybody wants to know when it’s coming out. The answer is, when it’s done. Right now we’re waiting for some legal problems to be cleared up. We have a who’s who of artists that is staggering. People who’ve never worked on Kirby characters or worked with Jack or even met Jack have come to me and said, “I want to be part of this because I respect this incredible body of work.” I can’t tell you exactly when the book’ll be out, and I can’t tell you when the lawyers will get finished with the properties, but it’s taking shape and it’s going to be quite a monster. You’ll hear more about it, I’ll start putting out press releases as soon as I have a better idea about it. Anyway, questions: Sir...?

EVANIER: It’s a good story! Okay, let’s go to my left here. John, you’ve done some wonderful publications about Jack. You always ask everybody else, what was the first Kirby thing they saw. What was yours?

What was the thing that got you hooked?

AUDIENCE: When Jack went to DC in 1970, Al Plastino said he did the faces for Jack on Superman. How long did that last, and who did it after that?

EVANIER: I can answer that one. I know a man in New York who’ll tell you all about that. (laughter) Jack penciled, and Vince Colletta inked,

MORROW: Probably Kamandi. I remember going to the newsstand and seeing it there, and I remember being blown away by talking tigers and gorillas. At the time I really loved Planet Of The Apes, but he was taking that into a totally different direction. Just conceptually, it blew me away, and I started picking those up and going backward from there to the Fourth World stuff, and later the Fantastic Four. But conceptually, his work just completely blew my mind.

EVANIER: So what’s your favorite work today—The New Gods?

MORROW: Yeah, that holds a special place for me, because that’s kind of where I really got hooked. But I go back and read those Fantastic Fours, and the things he came up with, around issue #50-60, I could just read those books over and over, and never get tired of them.

EVANIER: Tony, same question. What was the first thing of Jack’s that got you hooked?

ISABELLA: I didn’t realize it was Jack at the time, because I was much younger. It was probably Challengers Of The Unknown, with these four guys palling around and having a great time. But the thing that changed my entire life was the first Fantastic Four Annual, which to this day I’ll tell you is the greatest comic book ever made. It was just 72 pages of all this stuff. The lead story was the longest comic book story I’d ever read, and after you get through 37 pages of New York being invaded by the Sub-Mariner, and all these plot twists and everything and all these great characters, there’s like another 30 more pages of other stuff. It was probably like an overdose of imagination, but from that moment on I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted to do in the world other than do comic books.

That is still my favorite comic book, but there’s a story that, probably a week doesn’t go by in which I don’t think about it. And every now and then I think, if I ever write a story half as good as this story, I’ll have done something. It’s a story called “This Man, This Monster” from Fantastic Four #51. (applause) Just one of the best explorations of what it is to be a hero, because the star of the story is not a hero at the beginning of the story, and makes that leap, makes that period of growth, becomes a hero by the end of the story, and it’s still one of the most moving stories I’ve ever read.

Splash page from Tony Isabella’s favorite comic ever made – Fantastic Four Annual #1.

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the first two Jimmy Olsens and the first Forever People. At that time DC decided they didn’t like the way Jack drew Superman. I don’t know why it took them three issues to figure this out, or why they thought you could give Jack Kirby a DC paycheck and he’d turn into Curt Swan. It’s like, they ran around going, “Oh my God, this looks like Jack Kirby drew it!” (laughter) At that point, they had Al Plastino repaste the first three issues. Jack was not pleased by this. I think he was less bothered by the fact that they were retouching his work than by the fact that he was kind of put on notice that DC required him to do DC comics. He thought he was hired to NOT do DC comics. Thereafter, Jack drew the issues, even though he knew Superman would be retouched, he did not shortcut them, he drew them fully.

Some of you have seen Jack’s Superman Xerox pencils. I thought they were fine, but they were also doing this to some other artists. They did this on a Mike Sekowsky Supergirl, even though he’d been drawing Superman for ten years in Justice League. Then, after the page went to Vince Colletta, he inked everything but Superman and Jimmy Olsen.

Murphy Anderson, who was on staff in the DC offices, inked the Supermans and Jimmy Olsens, with the exception of the two issues of Jimmy Olsen that Mike inked.

ROYER: They sent me Al Plastino model sheets, so I fine-tuned them just enough that I knew it would please them, but it wouldn’t look like somebody had pasted somebody else’s head on them. So at least it was all inked from the same hand, and fine-tuned a little bit. See, Jack was absolutely the supreme impressionist. And everything he did had such impact. I remember when I started at Disney in ’79, they were still producing the Treasury Of Classics Sunday strips, which were an advertising tool for motion pictures. They were only in about 40 newspapers at that time, but it still was a viable advertising tool. And Yet another rejected Jimmy Olsen cover design, from #145. Did DC accept even one of Jack’s Olsen covers? they thought that The Black Hole was the spaceships, and the only way you can protect a trademark and going to be a real big picture. (laughter) And so, since I had a backproduce that kind of merchandise is to be absolutely accurate in the ground in comic books, they said, “Mike, who should we hire?” And I strip. So it was my job to fix Jack. I say that with a little bit of laughter, said,“Jack Kirby.”And they said,“We don’t think we can afford him.” So because what Jack had drawn worked because it was Jack, and it was they went with somebody else, who gave them a line of B.S., and when strong, and it was powerful. And by the time I finished, they were he delivered his first two pages, they said, “Oh my God, Mike, give us “on-model.” But if they’d just done them the way... but you’ve got to Jack’s number.” (laughter) So they called Jack, and used the standard protect your trademarks. That was an interesting situation where I Disney line that, as their lawyer said, “We’re not out to screw anybody, had to spend a day each week fixing Jack when I knew that, you don’t Jack, but we keep the originals.” But they didn’t tell him they’d be in fix Jack. Did that answer the question? What was the question? the Circle Galleries three weeks after they saw print. But being the impressionist that he was, they put me in charge of inking the strip EVANIER: The question was about Superman, but that’s okay. (laughon-staff, I inked and lettered it. And it was my job to fine-tune all of ter) Anyway, Jack continued to do these books. Murphy Anderson, the robots and the spacecraft because, part of Disney licensing is the who’s a very nice man, had the class to go up to Jack and apologize to merchandising potential. And they wanted to produce the robots and 26

him one day and say, “They forced me to do it, they were holding my kids hostage” or whatever it was. (laughter) He made a very good point when he said, “The problem was not that I was redrawing Jack, the problem was that I was inking a few figures and Vince Colletta was inking the rest of the book. If I’d inked the whole book, it would’ve worked.” And I think he was probably right on that.

There’s another person who very much wanted the inking assignment at DC named Wally Wood, who they turned down. (groan from audience) I think it would’ve looked pretty good if he’d done it.

and I said, “I’m going to ink this exactly the way he penciled it. I mean, exactly!” And of course when it was over, it was kinda like, “Why did I do that?” (laughter) Because as powerful as his pencils are, you either print them as pencils or you ink them as best you can to keep the power and the passion.

AUDIENCE: Is there a possibility of getting out the second issue of In The Days Of The Mob? ROYER: Yes, let’s get that out! (laughter) I think it’s the best work I ever did on Jack, because his pencils were so good, and the stories were so neat, it was like 1952 and it was Boys’ Ranch. I want to see it, not relettered the way DC did it in Amazing World Of DC Comics #1.

AUDIENCE: When is Jack’s Prisoner going to be available?

EVANIER: Mike, you can talk about that. You worked on The Prisoner.

ROYER: Well, the trouble when you get to be an old codger like me is, you forget a lot of the little fine details. Was it ever printed in some sort of fan publication?

EVANIER: I think there’s a couple of books being talked about or planned that will print everything of Jack’s that was not published, if

AUDIENCE: Steranko printed it.

ROYER: All I know is Jack sent me the pencils. I had fun working on the pages I did. I worked in a method where, to keep things consistent, I wouldn’t start at the top of a page and then ink to the bottom. I knew I had to do ‘X’ number of pages a day to pay the mortgage. So to keep the work consistent, I would do a panel or two on a page, then go to another page. So if you had a bad day, your bad work was spread out, and if you had great days, it was spread out. And at the end of the book, people don’t know what day you were having trouble with your brushes. So I may have done maybe equal to four or five pages. There was the double-page spread, the title page, and of course, since I lettered the books, I always liked to experiment with the title lettering. I figured that if this was The Prisoner, the title lettering should look like it was done with a stencil, and things like that. Will it ever be printed? I don’t know, I think it should be. And I mean what I said in my interview in The Jack Kirby Collector, that if you’ve got pencils of Jack’s, print the pencils. Because we’re not going to have any new pages. (To Joe Sinnott) This is my favorite inker, and I don’t think even if you like Joe’s or you like my work, that we should ever touch them. You need to keep the purity of his pencils. But if somebody prints these, they shouldn’t be inked, they shouldn’t be finished. Unless you print two or three versions; your version, my version, and Jack’s pencils.

SINNOTT: It’s too bad Kirby’s work couldn’t have been printed in pencil.

It’s a crime to touch them.

ROYER: With the second Kamandi, I had another one of these wild bugs,

An unpublished page from In The Days Of The Mob #2.

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Jack’s art for the cover of the 1972 San Diego program book, featuring his then-new Demon and Kamandi characters. they can get the rights to it. The Prisoner stuff may be a problem because those characters are now owned by ITV off someplace in England.

else ever did that either. But the Thing did evolve quite a bit, as you know. Especially so when other people took it over, and not to the betterment of the Thing. I often tell people when we’re talking about the Fantastic Four, I have a page that I just wouldn’t part with. It’s one of his best, but certainly not his greatest. But for some reason, I always liked the page. I think it’s from #95, where he’s holding up the apartment building, and he’s saying, “I wish somebody would help me here. I don’t want to make this a lifetime job” or whatever.

Which brings me to Jack’s backgrounds. Nobody could draw bricks like Jack could, or rocks, or any of that stuff. And I used to love to do Jack’s backgrounds. In fact, when I did the FF, I did over 60 issues with Jack, and I inked every single line myself. I never had a background artist. I just wouldn’t let anybody touch it, because I just wanted to do it myself. It was such a pleasure.

AUDIENCE: The Prisoner is based on the TV series?

EVANIER: Yes. It was an adaptation, and a real neat one too. Of course, Jack had already done that before in Fantastic Four, if you remember those sequences. Another question...?

AUDIENCE: Could you talk about the evolution of the Fantastic Four, and how the Thing changed in size and shape?

EVANIER: That sounds like a question for Joe. How tough was it to ink the Thing?

SINNOTT: Very easy. Although he took time, just the mechanics of doing it. Shading in the rocks took time. I’ve been doing a lot of sketches of the Thing this morning, and you can draw him in three or four minutes, he’s easy to draw. But the key to the Thing is the way you shade the stones, really. And many inkers over the years have done him differently. Of course, you’ve got to ink him the way Jack penciled him. The way Jack penciled the Thing was a sight to behold.

I used to love the way Jack gave the Thing a goofy look every now and then. Nobody else ever did that. And the way he walked, he walked like he was stomping, you could feel the weight of the Thing. Nobody

AUDIENCE: This year, we lost Mort Meskin. Two years ago, I had the privilege of meeting him, and he talked about how much he admired Jack Kirby. I told Mort how I’d heard Jack mention that he admired his work, and Meskin couldn’t believe it. He was so awed with Jack’s work, he couldn’t believe Jack felt the same about his work.

EVANIER: Mort Meskin was one of Jack’s favorite artists.

SINNOTT: Not to interrupt, but I think Mort was being very humble, because I don’t know how anyone can not appreciate Mort’s stuff. He 28

was way ahead of his time.

With all the great artists we have around today, we did have really a few good ones back in the early ’40s. I was a kid then, and I used to love some of the artists. Bob Kane of course, and I loved Reed Crandall’s work. Reed was a great illustrator.

I just got a nice call the other day. Somebody from Image* called me and wanted to know if I would ink just four little panels, just the character in the panels, of one of my favorites when I was a kid. He did Crime Doesn’t Pay. Remember George Tuska? George was a great artist down through the years. And I’m looking forward to seeing the pages when they come in. *(Editor’s Note: Kurt Busiek asked Joe to ink Tuska’s pencils for his Astro City comic.)

sive?” And then Jim sent me the several pages Jack had actually done on the book, and it was the most brilliant adventure situation comedy.

Jack had found a way to do a story about Satan and a bunch of tools of Satan, and make it not only acceptable, but very, very funny and entertaining. So from that point on, I just treated the book that way.

One of the conditions for working on the book was, do I get to call up Jack, do I get to talk to Jack? I’m not going to bother him a lot, I just want to talk to him. Even if he hates everything I do, I just want to have the chance to talk to Jack occasionally. And as Roz can confirm, I didn’t call them too much, but I called them.

EVANIER: Collect? (laughter)

EVANIER: I spent the day with Joe Simon about three weeks ago.

ISABELLA: No, I didn’t call them collect. I billed it to Topps. (laughMeskin worked in the Simon and Kirby shop, and I said to Joe, ter) But it was a great deal of fun working on it, because first I said, “Leaving Jack aside for a minute, who was the best artist you had in “Let me try doing these stories by thinking like Jack.” My head the shop?” and he said Mort Meskin. exploded, so I said, “Okay, I can’t do it like Jack.” And I called up Jack, Jack had told me a story once, and I asked Joe if it was true. They and he said, “Well, do it your way. Do it the way you would do it.” But were doing Young Romance, and there was a strip you can’t work on a Jack Kirby creation without thinking of Jack. that appeared in it called “Nancy Hale.” It was an Would Jack like this, would this be something Jack would find advice strip, and Meskin used to write it and acceptable? So basically, that’s the way I did it. I tried to think draw it. They had the first issue ready to be as much as I could like Jack. I tried to have a real good time sent to the Comics Code, and Jack was closing with it. One of the things I’ve always liked about Jack’s the book up, looking through the pages. He work was the comedy aspects of it. I tried to put a lot of came to the Nancy Hale story Meskin had that in the book. I think it’s some of the best comedy just turned in, and he flips through and writing I’ve done in my career. I had a great deal of goes, “Ah, there’s nothing wrong with fun writing probably the most unlikely, but most Meskin’s work, just put it in.” And he fun comic book I’d ever done. And it seemed to be suddenly went, “Wait a minute, did I see fairly well received. something?” And he went back, and the whole strip was Nancy Hale, who’s this EVANIER: John, in The Jack Kirby Collector, what are Dear Abby-type advisor, and a guy comes you getting the most requests for? What are people in who has a problem with his wife. And most interested in? What aspects of Jack’s work?

Nancy Hale rips her clothes off, and they start having sex on the desk. (laughter) MORROW: They want to see The Prisoner. I’ve gotten They called Meskin, who was in the probably 50 people writing in saying, “Will you print outer office, and said, “What’d you do here?”

The Prisoner there?”

He said, “Send it over to the Comics Code. I They want to see unpublished interviews want to see what they say.” (laughter) And Jack with Jack, and we’ve got a couple of those coming said, “You know what they’re gonna say!” And Mort up. They love seeing these pencil photocopies. said, “I just want to see the memo on that one, with For those of you unfamiliar with the publicathe list of things that are wrong!” (laughter) tion, Jack, either through the comics companies Joe told me this story exactly the way Jack did. or through his own copier, copied his pencils Simon and Kirby got together to decide whether to before he sent them off to be inked from around send it over. And they finally decided that if they sent 1968-on. A lot of these still exist, and it’s very it over, the Code would get mad and they’d pay for it in interesting to compare and see, first of all, how faithother ways. So they went to Meskin and said they couldn’t ful the inkers were. Of course, we have two of the most send it. So he reached into his bag, and he’d prepared an alterfaithful down here. But also the ones that weren’t all that The Silver Surfer, faithful. And even more interesting is seeing some of the nate, clean story, and they printed that instead. And Jack said as inked by Dave changes the comics companies made, often for no apparent the same thing that Joe said: “Of all the great work that Stevens for an Meskin did, that was the best thing he ever drew.” (laughter) reason. Everybody wants to see more and more of those. old San Diego Tony, let’s go back to you for a second. You did one of People want to see the whole Fourth World series in pencil, ComicCon Jack’s last creations. Talk a little bit about the inspiration there. in a hardback volume. May not happen, but... program book.

ISABELLA: Jim Salicrup, who I’ve known since he was a EVANIER: We’re putting out this tribute book, and we’re asking teenager, had just become Editor-In-Chief at Topps. They made an each artist to draw a Kirby character. And of course I have to negotiate arrangement to use all these great Kirby characters. The first thing with certain people. Somebody wants this character, I say, “How about Jim said to me was, “Do you want to be part of the Kirbyverse?” He this character instead?” It’s fascinating the characters artists want to didn’t even have to ask the question. And then he tells me what it is— draw. One of the very first things that went was, every single one of it’s a book called Satan’s Six. And I’m picturing my mother, my the Eternals went immediately, but I could not give the X-Men away. incredibly Catholic mother, as I call her up and say ‘Gosh Mom, I’m Nobody wants to draw the X-Men. For a long time, the number one writing a book called Satan’s Six.” (laughter) And she goes down to the character was Devil Dinosaur. (laughter) I think Captain America and church, lights every candle, (laughter) burns down the church, gets Fighting American have pulled ahead. Big Barda has been requested arrested for arson... but I figure; it’s Jack Kirby. by more people than you can believe. It’s really a staggering thing.

I had no conception. Jim hadn’t sent me anything on it. I said, I had this one artist on the phone. This story should go no fur“How could you possibly do a book called Satan’s Six that isn’t offenther than this room. (laughter) This artist was going on and on about 29

how he wanted a major star Kirby character, and this person was not a very important artist. But I’d say, “Why don’t you draw The Red Ghost?” and he’d say, “I’m a more important person than the Red Ghost.” And we’re not relating importance in the industry to importance of Kirby characters. So I gave this guy a choice of three, and said, “Call me back and decide.” So I’m kind of annoyed. Why don’t you just do a drawing?

We asked Joe Kubert, the first person we asked, and he said, “There are no bad Kirby characters, I’ll draw anything. If I can’t make any Kirby character into a good drawing, I shouldn’t be in this business.” He was very classy, so we gave him Captain America. (laughter) We got him off the table, because everybody else was asking for him.

Now when they come in and say they want Captain America, we say, “Joe Kubert’s doing him.” And it’s, “Okay, fine...” (laughter) I got a phone call from Moebius’ agent, and it turns out Moebius wants to be in the book. A few weeks later, a package arrives with a beautiful drawing in it, but I have no idea who the character is. (laughter) So I call his agent to ask who the character is, and he says, “I thought you knew.” (laughter) We’d sent him a pile of Kirby comics to look at, and he picked out a character who inspired him to draw.

So I had to dig out the issues we’d sent him, and we figured it out.

How many people here remember The Indestructible? (silence) In Thor #132, the aliens are about to conquer the world, so they sent an advance robot ahead to destroy Thor first. He was called The Indestructible. They sent him out on page four, Thor met him on page five, destroyed him on page six, and he was never seen again. (laughter) So I realized here was this one guy who was fussing that he deserved a very important Kirby character. And here is Moebius, who may be the most famous living comic book artist in the world today, and he’s just drawn the most obscure character Jack ever did. (laughter) He liked the design! He thought it was a neat design. Not only was it encouraging, but Kubert’s right; there’s no bad Kirby character. I thought that was neat. Anyway, another question from the floor.

AUDIENCE: I was wondering why the work Kirby did before Marvel was so different than his early Marvel work. Was he consciously trying to do a new style when he started doing the “Marvel” style?

Because the old DC stuff was tighter.

EVANIER: I think if you’d met the DC editors, you’d know the reason.

My opinion would be that first of all, when Jack was doing the early Marvel stuff, he was working so fast that a lot of that happened. DC was a very rigid company at that time, and they liked everything to look like it was drawn by Dan Barry, and he had some very great

restrictions. All the artists were drawing very tight and rigid. And even the stuff Jack inked himself, that Roz inked with him, is not as flamboyant. It’s very technically wonderful artwork. It’s surprisingly imaginative for the kind of work that DC allowed. But I think that at Marvel, he was just encouraged to be Jack Kirby.

ROYER: Well, a truly creative person is not going to stand still. He’s going to evolve, he’s going to experiment. We talk about Jack’s powerful drawing, but he was one hell of a designer. There’s only one other artist that comes close to Jack in designing a page, and that’s Alex Toth. They were both geniuses of design, and when you’re concentrating on these things, people change. You evolve, you go this way, you’ll come back. It makes it exciting and interesting when you’re sitting at the board, and no matter what your reasons or why you have to do so many pages, Jack had the passion to try things and experiment. If you’re any good—and Jack was great—you just don’t do it the same way all the time.

AUDIENCE: You can’t get any tighter than the two-page spread in Demon #1.

ROYER: Well, maybe we need to define the word ‘tight.’ Are we talking volume? You can look at Challengers Of The Unknown and there’s a lot more volume of characters and detail on the pages. But you look at work he did several years later, which may be less involved, but it’s much more powerful because he’s constantly evolving.

EVANIER: I asked Jack once about one of my favorite strips, which was Bullseye, and he said to me, “Y’know what one of the hardest parts about Bullseye was? Every time I drew Bullseye firing the arrow, Joe Simon would say, “You’re drawing the bow wrong. He’s holding the bow wrong.”” (laughter) So when I met with Simon, I had a sketchbook where Jack had drawn Bullseye for me years and years ago. And I showed Joe the drawing, and he said, “The bow’s wrong.” (laughter) Anyway, George...?

GEORGE CLAYTON JOHNSON (FROM AUDIENCE): One question.

I’d love to have the panelists talk a little bit about the character of Jack.

Jack Kirby to me always seemed to represent the highest standard for behavior, courtesy, gentleness, consideration, sincerity, honor, dignity; you know, character of the man. I’d love to hear what the panelists have to say.

ROYER: Gee, you’ve done such a beautiful job defining the class of Jack Kirby. Jack was, I think, a consummate gentleman. Several people today have said, “Can you remember back when DC killed New Gods, how Jack reacted when you got the new books?” And all I can remember is Jack calling up and saying we’re not doing New Gods anymore, we going to do something else. If Jack were incensed at the decision, I didn’t know it. He probably internalized a lot of those things. It had nothing to do with our working relationship and he probably felt that if he were upset, there was no reason to share it with me. I don’t know if that’s the definition of a gentleman, or class, or whatever, but there was just something about him.

Jack was in many ways a gentle giant.

It’s hard to describe Jack and the legacy that he’s left us all artistically, and his The Indestructible from Thor #132 – the throwaway character that inspired Moebius. humanity. You’re a much more articu30

late man than I am. Let’s let someone who’s really articulate... (looking to Evanier) (laughter).

ISABELLA: I had dinner with Mark last night, and we were talking about some of the real buttheads in the comic book industry. And I said one of the few wise things I’m likely to say this weekend, which was: If anybody in the history of comics had a right to be arrogant, it was Jack Kirby. And he was always the friendliest, most generous, most real human being you could ever want to meet. He was the first professional I met. Mark was working as his assistant. He drove me to the Kirby house. Roz fed us. From the moment he met me, Jack Kirby treated me like I was just as good as anybody else. Every time I ever saw him talking to anyone, he treated them that way. He was just the best class act in the comics industry, and he should basically be the model that all of us base ourselves on. If we ever get half that classy, we’ll be better human beings for it. (applause)

solve the problem. He could look right at the drawing and know exactly, not what was wrong with the anatomy, but what was wrong with the attitude in which it was produced. And he would give these people this wonderful advice. I’ve had, in the last year or two, people come up to me and say, “I just figured out what Jack told me in 1974.” (laughter) Because they had just reached a maturity level where they were able to apply it, and they realized what it meant. There was a wisdom there that I find, to this day, uncanny. I just never knew a nicer person in my life.

ROYER: I think that Jack is a guy who, when you first met him, is extremely disarming, because he was not what you expected. The first words I ever heard from him were (in a Kirby accent), “Mike Royer?

Alex Toth says you’re a pretty good inker.” The next day I was at his house, and he said, “I’d like to have you ink this bio page for MarvelMania.” I said, “Okay, when do you want me to bring it back?” and he said, “Oh, you can sit here at the board and do it.” And I’m going, “My God...! (laughter) I’ve wanted to put a brush on his pencils for years and he’s saying sit down at my board, and you can do it now?” And Roz says, “And we’ll have lunch later.” (laughter) And I met the family, and it’s like... (laughter) Talk about intimidation! I was scared to death, but at the same time, it’s like... I don’t know how to describe it. I guess that’s class.

EVANIER: When did you get so smart? (laughter) I endorse everything Tony just said. One of the things that impressed me about Jack was that he treated everybody with respect, even some people who... I’ve said that Jack treated everybody with respect until they gave him a reason to do otherwise. What I should append to that was, they had to really, really... Jack always gave everybody the benefit of the doubt. Other people come to conventions to get work, EVANIER: I should some people come to convenmake sure everybody tions to sell stuff, people want understands that when to make money. Other people Mike was doing those come to conventions because books... Joe had it easy, they’re interested in showing Joe didn’t have to letter how important they are, and them also. Mike had to how many autographs they letter and ink those pages can sign. Jack came to conas fast as Jack did, and I hope ventions because he just he won’t mind me saying this. loved people. He loved DC was not very liberal with standing down there in the the money at that point, they dealer’s room for three were not paying enough. days, talking to everyAnd Jack very much body, saying, “I thank appreciated, in addiyou. I thank you,” over and tion to Mike’s obvious skill as over again, while Roz sat an artist, he appreciated the prothere going, “Let’s get outta fessionalism. Before Mike ever Jack’s art for the Friend Of Fandom award certificate, given out at the SDCC. here. Let’s not come back. met Jack, Mike had the reputaEnough of this!” (laughter) And I tion in our business of being a would stand there and go, “You’re coming next year, knock it off. guy who, if he said the pages would be in at 3:00 on Tuesday, they You’re gonna be here, let’s stop kidding ourselves.” I met Jack when I were there at 2:59 on Tuesday, without fail. I worked for a lot of the was seventeen, and I had a period where I was going through some... same editors, and they all said the same thing. And Jack appreciated y’know, everybody at some point has this year or two in their lives the effort Mike was putting in, because he was finally getting the when they’re going through emotional problems. Mine are going to books exactly the way he wanted them after a year or so of frustration end soon I hope. (laughter) I had very little patience, and the patience at DC. Mike just did an absolutely first-rate job, and Jack appreciated Jack had with people... some people would come to Jack for advice on it, and I think we all did very much. Any other questions? their artwork; people to whom I would say, “Learn a trade other than drawing. Give up, you have no chance.” Jack, without saying, “You can AUDIENCE: Could you talk about the reasons Jack went back to make money in comics,”—because he would never do that to someMarvel in the mid-’70s? one—he would encourage them and give them advice. And if they were smart enough to hear it, Jack’s advice was wonderful. He listened EVANIER: I think he was offered the chance to not work for DC any and he really knew what he was saying. If you were listening for longer. (laughter) This is the subject of a long thing which maybe has “Here’s the shortcut to get fast work,” he wouldn’t tell you that. He less to do with Jack... everybody left DC at that point, it was not a would tell you something metaphysical, he would tell you something very friendly place to work. I don’t think they appreciated Jack the spiritual, something intellectual that you could apply to your work to way they should have. I don’t think they ever understood what he did.

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I think anytime you take Jack Kirby, you put him in and say, “Let’s have him do Jimmy Olsen...”

I’ll tell you a dumber thing that they put him on. He did a wonderful job. It’s one of those Kirby books nobody ever talks about. It’s the stupidest assignment, but I think it’s one of the best things he did.

It’s called Our Fighting Forces, with the Losers. (applause) It was the one time in his career when, with no one else involved, he got to do World War II his way. And those of us who knew Jack were so sick of hearing the World War II stories. (laughter) Doug Wildey used to run into a room, and when he saw Jack, he’d go, “No more World War II stories!” (laughter) And since Doug passed on, all I can think of is that he’s up there now surrounded by Jack’s World War II stories, and he can’t go anyplace else.

with. It was by Bob Kanigher, who Jack got along with like Arabs and Israelis; they didn’t like each other, they didn’t get along. And Jack took those books and did this wonderful... he was totally miscast. But that was another thing about Jack, he could take anything and do a good job with it; even the worst characters in the world, the worst premise, the worst assignment, and he would make gold out of it. I always loved those books. I think they were real neatly written comics, and they’re autobiographical in many ways. The fact was that DC didn’t appreciate what he did, and Marvel gave him a nice offer, and he went back. I don’t think Marvel treated him very well at that point because of some office things. I think by that point there were some people in the office who thought that the way to deal with Jack was to attack him in his letters pages, and complain that his stuff wasn’t being written by them. I can’t tell you how many fans of Eternals come to me, and Devil Dinosaur, and Machine Man. I’m amazed. It’s wonderful work, but I still don’t understand that someone’s favorite Kirby stuff would be Eternals. I’m a New Gods guy, a Fantastic Four guy, a Challengers kind of guy, and every generation has their favorite Kirby stuff.

ROYER: I really enjoyed inking those books.

EVANIER: They’re great stories! And the thing that’s so weird about them is, it was a Bob Kanigher book. It was a bad comic to begin

ROYER: What about Sky Masters, where one of the characters was named Doctor Royer? (laughter) EVANIER: I think it’s still neat that one of the Newsboy Legion was Nixon. (laughter) There’s one speech in one of the New Gods, I’ve gotta spend a day and read these over and find it. It talked about Watergate, and I was a big Nixon freak, and I’d told Jack a story about why my father hated Nixon. On my father’s deathbed, I promised him I’d never vote for Nixon. Nixon had already died by this point, but my father wasn’t taking any chances, because you never know with Nixon. (laughter) I told Jack how my dad felt about Nixon, and Jack thought it sounded very much like Darkseid, and he sat down and wrote a speech for Darkseid about taking over the world. And when I read it, I remember thinking, “That’s Nixon. Darkseid’s doing Nixon.” (laughter) And when I figure out which one it is, I’ll put it in John’s magazine. But Darkseid was about everybody in the world that Jack thought was a craven, greedy bastard. He encapsulated everybody he was ever mad at, everybody he ever thought was cruel to other people, and put them in Darkseid. That’s why he’s one of the great characters. And by the way, it’s Dark-SIDE, not Dark-SEED. Will you please tell people this?

Before we adjourn, are there any questions?

AUDIENCE: I’ve been to the Kirby Collector booth downstairs, and they have the petition to be signed and such. To let everybody know, what can we do?

EVANIER: We are talking to the right people at this time. There are a few things going on I’d rather not discuss. But sign the petition John has to get Jack’s name credited on all the books properly, but understand that there are things being done on other fronts. I’m going to make a prediction that next year at this time, when we have one of these panels, we’ll have some very happy things to celebrate. (applause) Actually that’s a very pleasant place to end this. Thank you all for coming. (applause)★ An unpublished Losers page from Our Fighting Forces.

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admiration for Kirby’s work, followed by a quicker goodbye, this person hurriedly left the convention to go outside and calm down.

The excitement of meeting his idol overwhelmed him.

We conducted a panel where people got to ask Jack about his work and at one point, he was confused about the order in which he drew certain characters in the late 1930s and early 1940s. I was in the audience sitting next to Roz, and supplied him with the correct sequence, whereby Roz shook my head and said humorously, “This guy knows everything. What a character.” The audience laughed and I felt very warmed by Roz’s affectionate kidding.

At lunch that day, one of the convention workers pinned a corsage on Roz’s shirt. Both Roz and Jack were very grateful and after it was pinned on, Jack gave Roz a kiss. It was heartwarming to see that Jack didn’t mind showing affection in public. He was always 100 percent of what he was, no matter the situation.

During a brief lull at the show, I observed a young man entering the room and he made a beeline straight back to where Jack was. He asked Jack a few questions and got him to sign a few comics, including Red Raven #1 and Captain America #1. Then he produced a small frame and from it removed the ad we placed in the Comics Buyer’s Guide promoting the show. He asked Jack to sign it and afterwards carefully slid it back into the frame.

He stayed a couple more minutes and then shook Jack’s hand and said goodbye. “But you just got here,” Jack said. The fellow replied, “Yeah, but I just drove ten hours from Chicago and I have to get back, because I couldn’t get enough time off from my job to come meet you.”

I asked, “You drove ten hours just to come here for fifteen minutes?”

“Yes. I figured that this might be the only chance I ever get to meet Jack Kirby and I wasn’t going to miss him for anything.” Roz and I sat there in amazement. And while Jack was amazed, I suspect he was more humbled and touched by the fact he evoked such a response from another human being.

The show was a success thanks to Jack and Roz. When we said goodbye at the airport, I hugged them both, and as I walked back to my car, I thought to myself ‘You two gave me more than a great convention. You gave me a greater appreciation for the love and human decency that always spoke through Jack’s work, and I’m grateful for the chance to experience it firsthand.’ I’m glad I had the chance in later years to express those feelings in-person to the Kirbys.★

Jack Comes To AcmeCon ’85

by Jim Amash he first time I talked to Jack Kirby was in 1978 when I was a freshman at the University of North Carolina at Greenville. A friend of mine had his phone number as well as those of Isaac Asimov, Fred Dannay (Ellery Queen), Ray Bradbury, and John Belushi.

We decided to call Jack first and picked his birthday to do it (hoping he might be willing to hear a “Happy Birthday” greeting from fans).

Eventually, we talked to all of them that night but Belushi, who we never got to speak to. Jack talked to me like he’d known me all his life and from that time on, I called him every couple of months for the rest of his life.

In 1985, I was co-manager of Acme Comics in Greensboro, NC. We put on one-day comic conventions every year, and that year we decided to ask Jack to attend. Jack and Roz were hesitant about coming because they were unable to attend during the time we usually put shows on. We moved the date of the show to accommodate them, and since a mutual good friend of ours (Julie Schwartz) was going to be there, things finally came into place. Before long, Greg Theakston called to say he was coming also.

I’ll never forget waiting for their plane at the airport with the other convention managers and Julie. I started getting very nervous because I’d wanted to meet Jack all my life. My idol was soon to be here! A million thoughts entered my mind, but when I saw the Kirbys walking up the ramp from the plane, I blurted out, “I’d know Jack Kirby anywhere!” It was as if a photograph came to life.

Jack smiled and said, “I’d know Jim Amash anywhere.” We shook hands and he squeezed my hand very hard and said, “Pretty strong for an old man, aren’t I?” I noticed his arms looked like solid steel. We talked as I was driving the Kirbys to the hotel and at one point, I looked in my rear view mirror to check the traffic. I saw Jack’s face and thought ‘My God! He’s in my car!’ I nervously gripped the steering wheel tightly the rest of the way.

That night, a group of us went to dinner—the Kirbys, Julie, Greg, Murphy Anderson, and those of us who put the convention on.

Later that evening, I got to look through Jack’s portfolio and purchase several pages of art.

Even though I had been talking to Jack for years, I still called him “Mr. Kirby.” Jack said I didn’t have to do that. When I asked what he preferred to be called, he said, “Call me Yonk.” Jack explained that Yonk is the Yiddish term for Jack. I ended up calling him Jack. Later on, I usually just called him “Kirby,” as did Roz. The night before the convention, we cooked out at the apartment I shared. Since this was June and the humidity level was high, we were all trying to get Jack to remove his sweater. He relented by offering, “I’ll take it off if Murphy removes his jacket.” Murphy did to great applause, and Jack followed by handing Roz his sweater. We tried to get Murphy to remove his necktie, but he drew the line at the coat.

With the public removal of Murphy’s omnipresent coat, another Kirby first had been achieved.

Jack was the perfect convention guest. He seemed to have as much fun as those who came to see him. Jack always had a way of making one feel like one’s presence at that show was important to him. And I think it was. Jack was always delighted to see the effect his work had on others, validating the honest efforts of producing that work.

The attendance was 550 (the most ever for our shows up to that point), and I’ll bet most talked to Jack that day. I noticed the wide range of emotions that permeated the convention. They ranged from sheer delight that the most important comics creator ever was there, to those who were too awed to approach Jack. But people found that Jack was as approachable as a man can be. With one exception, nervous people relaxed and opened up once Jack started talking. I introduced a friend of mine to Jack and after a quick hello, expression of

T

(Besides being a friend of the Kirbys, Jim Amash is an inker for Marvel and Malibu Comics, whose recent work includes Mantra, Ren & Stimpy, and Power Rangers. Shown below are (l to r) Jim Amash, Jack and Roz Kirby, and Julie Schwartz at AcmeCon ’85.)

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inking work by then. So Joe is correct that he never spoke to DC about it, nor vice-versa. But I believe I said in an interview once that if DC had wanted him (i.e., been willing to match his Marvel deal), they probably could have stolen him away. And that may have been the basis for the erroneous report.

2. Jack did ink that drawing you printed on page five... up to a point. I did the Kirby signature on the rock and finished everything to the right of it. The drawing was used on an ad flyer and it had to be extended so either I drew those rocks or Jack penciled them and I inked. Now that I look at them, they aren’t so good so I suspect the former. (I was eighteen at the time... what do you expect?)

3. I’m pretty sure the Galactus drawing on page 6 wasn’t done for Marvelmania... just reprinted on one of their items. But I couldn’t tell you what it was done for. (Mark’s right: It was from a pin-up in FF Annual #5.)

4. Rich Morrissey’s piece, “Down on the Ranch,” was excellent... but I believe he is wrong that the traditional arrangement of Simon and Kirby was for Jack to script and pencil and for Joe to ink. Simon wrote a lot of their stories, as did other writers like Ed Herron. There are probably a lot of stories where they collaborated and, five minutes later, couldn’t sort out which of them had done what.

5. Referencing Rich’s article on the Newsboy Legion: Murray Boltinoff had zero input on Jack’s Jimmy Olsen work. Through some fluke of DC protocol, his name was on those books as Editor but Jack worked the same way he did on the books that listed him as Editor. Any input he received from DC came from Carmine Infantino or from Nelson Bridwell.

6. In the same article: I didn’t name the DNA Project. I may have suggested the name of the DNAliens. When Will Meugniot and I started our comic book, The DNAgents, we were weeks into production when it suddenly dawned on me that our title employed the same wordplay. I recalled that it was one of the few names I ever suggested to Jack that he used but I wasn’t certain. I asked Jack and he dimly recalled it being my suggestion... but basically told me not to worry about it. So I never have.

7. I don’t think DC committed to several issues of Dingbats because they thought fans of the TV show Welcome Back, Kotter would pick it up. The show went on the air in September of ’75, long after the issues would have been drawn and the first one would have been scheduled. (I also don’t see the similarities between the comic and the show.) By the way, as you may know, I was a Story Editor on the show for its second season and just last night, Nick at Nite reran the episode of the show which Jack, Roz and two of their daughters came to see taped. It’s the one where a gym coach slapped Vinnie Barbarino and I think I can hear Jack laughing in one scene. I remember him being excited that the gym teacher was played by Scott Brady, who in his western movie days had been one of Jack’s favorite actors.

8. The photo of Mike Royer on page 29 was taken either by Steve Sherman or myself at my drawing table in the offices of Marvelmania, probably in late 1969. The artwork before him is a letterhead that Jack penciled and Mike inked—probably the second thing he ever inked of Kirby’s. (He didn’t ink it in the office; he was just posing with it for the photo.) I am skeptical that Jack had Mike in mind when he designed the character of Bananas, though it’s possible.

Hope these points help to enrich everyone’s knowledge of one of my favorite subjects, J. Kirby.

Mark Evanier

Collector Comments Send your letters to: The Jack Kirby Collector c/o TwoMorrows • 502 Saint Mary’s St • Raleigh, NC 27605 or E-mail to: twomorrow@aol.com Sorry for the delay on this issue—we had to wait for our new distributor’s order before we knew how many to print! But look on the bright side: Next issue ships just over a month after you get this one! And now, in-keeping with this issue’s all-star theme, here are comments on #7 from a couple of comics pros: TJKC #7 was just chock full of wonderful stuff! I have a great affection for Kirby’s (and Simon’s) Kid Gangs, so naturally this issue has kept me smiling for days. A couple of items were mentioned in the course of the issue upon which I might be able to shed a little added light.

Vis-a-vis Rich Morrissey’s overview of the Newsboy Legion: When Ron Frenz and I brought the Newsboys back in Superman Annual (Second Series) #2, I was bound and determined to re-establish as much from the old Jimmy Olsen days as would fit within the revitalized Superman continuity. Our intention wasn’t to go Kirby one better (something which I rather doubt is possible, at least where his own creations are concerned), but to re-introduce the Newsboy Legion, the Project, and all the other great stuff that Jack had whipped up in the early ’70s. I’m exceedingly happy that we had to change very few things. (I’d also have to disagree with Rich about the Hairies being dated. On the contrary, I think there is potential for a whole series in the concept of a pacifistic mobile society of technocratic iconoclasts. Wish I had time to write one!)

We made the young Newsboys clones of the original to explain why they were such exact duplicates of the originals, and because it fit in so well with the whole premise of the Project. The names for the older “Newsboys” were designed to reflect the sort of ethnic mix which often rubbed shoulders (or butted heads) in the real-life Suicide Slums of the 1930s and ’40s. (By the way, Tommy’s last name has been spelled a couple of different ways over the decades, but the spelling we’ve settled on is “Tompkins,” without the “h”.)

I have to agree that Karl Kesel has done a much better job with the Newsboys than I. Karl’s slant on just about all of the Kirby characters continues to impress me. I don’t know how he does it. (Must be all the K’s in his name... yeah, that’s it.)

Related to this is a comment made in the letters page by Tom Hamilton. I fondly recall the Shocking Tales digest from the early ’80s which reprinted (not nearly enough) Kirby work from the old days at Harvey. And, like Tom, I remember being intrigued by the number of concepts that Jack had come back to. In fact, I was so impressed by the parallels between “The Cadmus Seed” and the later series involving the Project, that—when I sat down to write that Annual some six years later—I just had to rename the Project “Cadmus” as a tip of the hat to Jack’s earlier story.

You know, I learn something new and amazing every time I read an issue of TJKC. (I can’t wait to read more about Jack’s meeting with Frank Zappa!) I do have a question, though, that I hope you or one of your readers will be able to answer. Over the years, in reading about Jack’s boyhood, I’ve seen references to his family living on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, in Hell’s Kitchen, and in the Bronx. Which of these—if any—are correct? Or did the Kurtzbergs move a lot?

Roger Stern

(You make some great points as usual, Mark. I’m sure Rich Morrissey didn’t mean to slight Joe Simon’s contributions to the S&K team, but thanks for pointing it out.

Regarding the Dingbats, we goofed! The earliest DC inventory stamp on the splash page to Dingbats #3 is dated 11-30-74, so Kotter definitely came much later as you said. But although there wasn’t any similarity between the show’s plots and the comic, the (superficial at least) character parallels are still pretty amazing to me: Good Looks is handsome Vinnie Barbarino, Krunch is tough Juan Epstein, Low-Fat is skinny “Boom-Boom” Washington, and Bananas is wacky Arnold Horshack.)

(I asked Roz Kirby to shed some light on this, and she said Jack grew up on the Lower East Side, not Hell’s Kitchen or the Bronx. Roz has agreed to an interview for our April issue, so we’ll delve more into Jack’s early years then.)

You did your usual fine job with the seventh issue—as usual, a wonderful repository of info and affection for Jack. I have a few additions/corrections...

1. Regarding your apology to Joe Sinnott for saying he’d offered to ink a New Gods book at DC: I may be able to shed light on the source of this belief.

I was talking to Joe every week or so at the time and I believe I read him a quote from Stan Lee, who’d been asked about Jack leaving Marvel and going to DC. Stan had said, among other things, that he thought it was a mistake for DC to hire Kirby and not to also go after Sinnott. Joe wondered aloud if he should try to get an offer from DC or if he should expect one. We talked about it a bit and later, I inquired and found out that what Marvel was paying Joe was well above what was then DC’s highest inking rate. There was also some sort of health or insurance plan at Marvel that made it pointless for Joe to even consider switching and, anyway, Colletta had been promised all of the

Next Issue...

we’re back on bi-monthly schedule with our longawaited Fantastic Four Theme Issue! #9 features an interview with inker Joe Sinnott, highlighted by a “new” Kirby/Sinnott cover. We’ll restore FF #108 to its original, unaltered form, utilizing Jack’s unused pencils. Plus we’ll have features on The Inhumans, Black Panther, and Silver Surfer. And throughout, we’ll display Jack’s FF pencils BEFORE they were inked, show early unused pencils, hear fan analysis of the series, display plenty of unpublished art, and more! #9 ships the second week of February, so expect it soon! Until then, Pam and I wish you all Happy Holidays and a great New Year!

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Classifieds WANTED: Especially interested in Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko pre-hero Marvel and early Marvel superhero covers, splashes, and pages. Buy-Sell-Trade!

Other artists too. Conrad Eschenberg, Rt. 1, Box 204-A, Cold Spring, NY 10516, (914)265-2649. ______________________________ WANTED: The Marvelmania Portfolio. I am willing to pay the highest prices possible. Contact - Brian Postman, #2A, 238 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010 or call: (212)213-6242. ______________________________ WANTED: “Jack Kirby’s Heroes & Villains” (1987 Ltd. “pencil” edition of 1000 copies, signed and numbered).

Contact: Brian Postman, #2A, 238 East 24th St., New York, NY 10010 or call (212)213-6242. ______________________________ WANTED: LATE 1940s-50s S&K Comics: Black Magic, Headline, JTTG, YL, YR, etc. Pre-hero Marvels: Amazing Fantasy, Journey Into Mystery, Strange Tales, Tales Of Suspense, Tales To Astonish. Have many duplicates to swap. Geoffrey Mahfuz, Box 171, Dracut, MA 01826.

(508)452-2768.

KIRBY ART: Kamandi #24, page 20.

Great page, action. $200. 908-9460851. ______________________________ SELLING: Forever People #1, New Gods #1 (1970s series). Both VF. $25.00 apiece, postage paid. Patrick Price, 2614 Lyon Street, Des Moines, IA 50317. ______________________________

If you’re viewing a digital version of this publication, PLEASE read this plea from the publisher!

LOOKING for New Gods reprint #6, as well as people that have Kirby material to sell in the Southern Ontario area (mail order sucks), also 1978 Surfer Graphic Novel. Call 1-905-549-7964. ______________________________

his is COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL, which is NOT INTENDED FOR FREE T DOWNLOADING ANYWHERE. If you’re a print subscriber, or you paid the modest fee we charge to download it at our website, you have our sincere thanks—your support allows us to keep producing publications like this one.

If instead you downloaded it for free from some other website or torrent, please know that it was absolutely 100% DONE WITHOUT OUR CONSENT, and it was an ILLEGAL POSTING OF OUR COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. If that’s the case, here’s what you should do:

FOR SALE: Limited number of ballpoint pens and colored pencils that were in Jack Kirby’s drawing table when he died. Certificate of authenticity included. $25 each. Tom Horvitz, 21520 Burbank #315, Woodland Hills, CA 91367, (818)716-8664. ______________________________

1) Go ahead and READ THIS DIGITAL ISSUE, and see what you think.

2) If you enjoy it enough to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and purchase a legal download of it from our website, or purchase the print edition at our website (which entitles you to the Digital Edition for free) or at your local comic book shop. We’d love to have you as a regular paid reader.

3) Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR COMPUTER and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. 4) Finally, DON’T KEEP DOWNLOADING OUR MATERIAL ILLEGALLY, for free. We offer one complete issue of all our magazines for free downloading at our website, which should be sufficient for you to decide if you want to purchase others. If you enjoy our publications enough to keep downloading them, support our company by paying for the material we produce.

WANTED: Marvelmania Magazines #1 (1969), 1 (1970), 3, 4, 5, 7-??. I subscribed but only got #2 and #6! Top prices paid. Paul Gravett, 44A Yukon Road, London SW12 9PX, ENGLAND. ______________________________ MICHAEL SALATA of New Orleans(?), please re-send your address so we can mail your issue of TJKC. We couldn’t read your handwriting!

We’re not some giant corporation with deep pockets, and can absorb these losses. We’re a small company—literally a “mom and pop” shop—with dozens of hard-working freelance creators, slaving away day and night and on weekends, to make a pretty minimal amount of income for all this work. We love what we do, but our editors, authors, and your local comic shop owner, rely on income from this publication to stay in business. Please don’t rob us of the small amount of compensation we receive. Doing so will ensure there won’t be any future products like this to download.

Enter The Big Kirby Contest!

TwoMorrows publications should only be downloaded at

www.twomorrows.com

ell us what your favorite Kirby story of all time is (any story Jack worked on qualifies, whether as artist or writer, but please list only one single story/issue). So far, only a few entrants have chosen the same story, so don’t be afraid to be original! We’ll print the results in TJKC #13, and randomly draw voter’s names and award the following:

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GODS Portfolio, 21st Century Archives Kirby Card Set, Italian magazines reprinting the Silver Surfer Graphic Novel, New Gods #1, and Argosy Magazine with “Street Code” story.

Grand Prize

Subscriptions

2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th place winners will be randomly awarded Card Sets, Italian Magazines, and miscellaneous Kirby comics. So vote already!

Send me the next 6 issues of The Jack Kirby Collector. Enclosed is:

Send Submissions-Get Free Issues!

❏ $24.00 in the U.S. Start my ❏ $32.00 (U.S. funds) in Canada and Mexico. sub with . ❏ $44.00 (U.S. funds) outside North America. #

When we print something you submit, we’ll send you a FREE copy of that issue or extend your subscription by one issue. We’re looking for:

❏ Please run my classified ad in your next enclosed printed or typed copy with per word per issue. Total cost of ad: $

• Rare and unpublished Kirby art • Original articles and essays on Jack’s life and career • Kirby interviews and correspondence • Kirby convention and fanzine art and articles • Photos and personal recollections of Jack • Published and unpublished reviews of Jack’s work, etc.

issue(s). I’ve words at 10¢ .

Total enclosed: $_____________ (US funds only, please).

Name

Artwork should be submitted in one of the following forms: 1) Good quality photocopies (color or black-&-white).

2) Scanned images - 300ppi TIFF, JPEG, or GIF file for IBM or Mac. 3) Original materials (carefully packed and insured).

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We’ll pay return postage and insurance for originals - please write or call first. Please include any background information you have on art.

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