Jack Kirby: Legendary Comic Artist

When friend and artist Gareth* posted this today,

“This is a game going around on Facebook designed to fill our world with a little bit more art and thoughtful connection. The game is easy: ‘Like’ this status/picture and I will assign you a comic book artist. Choose the image which you like the most by the artist and post it on your wall with this message.”

I was all over it.

When he gave me Jack Kirby (1917-1994), I wasn’t sure if it was because he thought it was easy (knowing I’m no longer a neophyte comic reader but by no means well-versed in the genre) or because the subject is large enough that he thought I could handle the challenge (knowing I would be likely to research the hell out of Kirby before posting anything).

Naturally, though, the first thing I did was to check our library catalog for holdings and found two books about Kirby and his art. Tales To Astonish by Ronnie Ro and Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby by Charles Hatfied each take a fairly academic approach to Jack Kirby, the former spending more time on Kirby’s tumultuous working relationship with Stan Lee and the latter more on his impact on the genre

Kirby is a legend, not only because he helped to shape the look of comics through the Golden and Silver ages of comics but also because of those he worked with; he helped to define the look of many of the superheroes who now grace movie screens and who live on in series that just keep evolving.

Name a superhero and chances are, Kirby has drawn them. Superman? In later years, yes. Captain America? Right from the beginning. Fantastic Four? Avengers? X-Men? Check, check, and check. He worked for both Marvel and DC so his pencil shaped a lot of them and there is even a HUGE ongoing debate and legal battle over his rights to certain characters including Spiderman.

But Kirby’s work extended far beyond superheroes. He drew across all genres as needed from romance to horror to sci-fi, both cover art and panels. He took on big titles and small with the same amount of care. The resulting body of work is vast and varied but definitely carries a signature style.

Take for example the cover of Captain America No. 1 — “Smashing thru, Captain America came face to face with Hitler” and clearly coldcocks everyone’s favourite Nazi:

And compare that to this panel from Demon (July 1973), a face that looks like melted wax, lit from below like a campfire horror story:

And he could draw pin-up style sexy too, like this panel of The Girl Who Tempted Me; she reminds me of Jane Russel in the promo stills for The Outlaw:

His work with New Gods and The Eternals produced some incredibly frame-worthy pages like this image of New Genesis from New Gods #7:

And this action crowd scene from The Eternals #6

There is no chance I can do justice to the scope of Kirby’s work with a single picture as requested in the Facebook meme, and I can only scratch the surface with this blog post. I highly recommend either of the books I referenced above or, pop into your local comic retailer and find some of his work; it won’t be difficult.

For more background and images check out these pages:

• Artist August: Jack Kirby (art feature)
• Spiderman: The Case for Kirby
• Kirb Your Enthusiasm – a series of blog posts at Hilobrow.

*BTW, Gareth writes and draws comics, as well as co-owning one of the best comic book stores around. If you are in Victoria, do stop into Legends Comics and Books and if you want to get your hands on his comics without coming here, I highly recommend the Enid Jupiter & Lyra Gotham series, now available online through Big Cartel.