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I just stumbled onto this..



... by artist Tom Scioli, who has done other works in comics over the last 20 years or so in the Kirby style. It's a roughly 200-page biography in comics form of Kirby's life, from his birth and early formative years, and through every stage of his life and career. As much as I already knew, I still learned a lot of backstory I wasn't previously aware of.

It even goes into one of my earlier questions, about what Kirby's personal relationships were with Steve Ditko and others. Kirby and Ditko did have a friendship and socialize outside of Marvel with Steve Ditko, and they did discuss their similar frustrations and deprivations working for Stan Lee. Ditko even tried to convince Kirby to leave as well and offered Kirby work and creative freedom at Charleton, but Kirby has a wife and 5 children, and couldn't afford the pay cut he would get moving from Marvel to Charleton.
Ditko likewise moved to DC, and was likewise disappointed with his lack of creative control of the characters he created at DC, abruptly quitting from the BEWARE THE CREEPER and HAWK AND THE DOVE series he created.
Similarly, Kirby was promised a great deal at DC, that never came to fruition. And Kirby (after Infantino cancelled his Fourth World books in late 1972) similarly after that only stayed till the end of his DC contract in Dec 1975, before returning for another 3 years at Marvel, and then leaving to work in animation after Dec 1978.

I was unaware that Kirby had an earlier heart attack in 1987/1988 and "couldn't even hold a pencil", and from that point forward projects he sold like PHANTOM FORCE for Image, and the SECRET CITY SAGA crossover books for Topps, were from much earlier concept drawings and unfinished pages, or in some cases work finished or completely ghosted by artist/friend Michael Thibedeaux.