Monday, August 28, 2017

Jack Kirby's 100th Birthday

 
Jack Kirby is the single greatest creator ever to come to the comic book industry. He was there at the beginning of the art form and produce more art and created more fantastic concepts than anyone else before or since. There is a reason he is called THE KING. He had more imagination in his little finger than someone like the idiot Liefeld who worked with the great man before his death - a privilege that was NOT his due. Liefeld absorbed NOTHING from his time with Jack. I wish like Stan Lee that he lived long enough to see the great love everyone has for him at conventions around the world. I think that adoration would have embarrassed him and this is why I love him.
 
Marv Wolfman (not a slouch himself) once said that if man ever reaches the end of the Universe they will see a sign that says 'created by Jack Kirby'. I can think of no higher or no more deserved praise. 
 

 
The so-called "King of Comics" — a title he was too humble to claim for himself, but was gifted by the alliteration-loving Stan Lee (Jack "King" Kirby, get it?) — was born 100 years ago Monday, and it was less than two decades before he was working as a professional cartoonist under a variety of pseudonyms. (Jack Kirby" was itself a fake name; he was born Jacob Kurtzberg, and Kirby was just one of many names he used professionally, alongside Jack Curtiss, Ted Grey and Fred Sande.) In a career that lasted almost 60 years, he didn't just revolutionize comics — more than once — he also came up with the building blocks of contemporary pop culture as it exists today.

That Marvel Studios wouldn't exist without Kirby is, of course, obvious. It's easier to name the Marvel Studios movies that aren't based on characters he co-created (For the record, those would be Guardians of the Galaxy, although Kirby was responsible for Groot, and Doctor Strange and Spider-Man: Homecoming, both of which had Steve Ditko as the guiding light instead of Kirby), and even those movies contain concepts that Kirby was responsible for or build on Kirby's ideas. His influence extends further, though: Fox's Fantastic Four and X-Men? Kirby drew the first issues and co-created both franchises alongside Stan Lee. The villains of the upcoming Justice League (as teased in last year's Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice) are also, it turns out, Kirby's creations
 
http://www.denofgeek.com/us/books-comics/jack-kirby/248736/jack-kirby-comics-greatest-storyteller




 
 
Of all of Kirby's work. I love his monster comics best. He or Stan would come up with a goofy word like FING FANG FOOM and Kirby would draw up the creature from nothing but his endless imagination.
 
 



 


 
Of all his character, my favorite is Mr Miracle. He came out of a story that Jim Steranko told to Kirby about his time as an escape artist.
 
 
I love this GIF of a Kirby designed piece of mad science that Kirby specialized in. This is what genius looks like.
 

 
Devil Dinosaur? Machine Man?
Bitch, please!
 

2 comments:

Debra She Who Seeks said...

Yeah, too bad he didn't live to see his comics come to life in the movies so spectacularly thanks to CGI.

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

He and Stan would have had the best cameos.