Thanks for posting that, Nowhereman.

It's nice to see Jack Kirby get some mention outside of comics.

I was surprised, when Kirby died, TIME magazine summarized Kirby's work in about 40 words or less on their "Milestones" page.
That seemed a remarkably short tribute to one who is arguably the primary shaper and influence on what is a uniquely American art form.

As G-Man partly said, he is what Elvis and Picasso were to their chosen fields. The undisputed king.

The time is getting close for the 10th anniversary of Kirby's death, so I thought I'd post the obituary I saved, of where I first heard the news:

 Quote:
Fort Lauderdale SUN-SENTINEL, Tuesday, February 8, 1994:



JACK KIRBY, COMIC BOOK ARTIST

Sun-Sentinel wire services.

Jack Kirby, the artist who helped re-invent the comic book superhero for a new generation, with such successes as Captain America, Spiderman, Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, has died of heart failure. He was 76.

Mr. Kirby died on Sunday [ February 6, 1994 ] at the family's home in suburban Thousand Oaks [California ] after a short illness.

Mr. Kirby worked at powerhouse comic book publishers Marvel and DC, to help develop characters such as X-Men, Spiderman, the Fantastic Four and Incredible Hulk. A frequent collaborator was editor and writer Stan Lee.

"Jack Kirby is to comics what Picasso is to modern art," said Greg Theakston, a comic art collector and publisher in New York.
"They [Kirby and Picasso] were each there at the birth of their new art form, and strongly influenced it, even defined what the form was."



"He created not only artwork, but ideas," said Tom Christopher, a Marvel Comics inker and friend.

Mr, Kirby oversaw the 1960's rebirth of the superhero as a more human, more vulnerable character, and helped stretch the genre's traditionally short stories into the issue-length format of contemporary comics.

Mr. Kirby was born Jacob Kurtzberg in Manhattan. As an aspiring young artist, he teamed up with writer Joe Simon at Timely Publications in New York [ in 1941 ], which was later to become Marvel Comics.

Their first hero was Captain America, created in the dark days shortly before World War II began, to personify America's fighting spirit.


This article is infuriatingly brief, and at several points, which I partly corrected, innaccurate. Kirby's real name was mis-spelled.
And although I left it in, it's debatable whether Kirby created Spider Man, or just simply did a new cover that was used (the famous one by Kirby from AMAZING FANTASY 15), because Ditko's was rejected.


Kirby claims (in his COMICS JOURNAL interview) that he created Spiderman, and then the concept was developed by Lee and Ditko. But others have disputed this.

This article also comes far short of describing the full breadth of Kirby's influence over more than five decades of comics history, and ongoing.

Beyond Captain America, Kirby (with Simon) also went to DC in 1942-1943 and co-created the Newsboy Legion, Manhunter, Boy Commandos, and a new Sandman series. All popular regular features, in STAR SPANGLED COMICS, ADVENTURE COMICS, and BOY COMMANDOS.

In the late 1940's and early 1950's, Simon and Kirby created the first Western and romance comics.
Simon and Kirby also created their own publishing company, publishing such titles as BOYS RANCH, FIGHTING AMERICAN, STRANGE WORLD OF YOUR DREAMS, JUSTICE TRAPS THE GUILTY, FOXHOLE, BULLSEYE and BLACK MAGIC.

In every genre of comics, Simon and Kirby were leaders, and their style was widely imitated, partly causing Kirby to re-invent his style, after parting with Simon (who left the comic book field to pursue an art career in the advertising field, during a comic industry slump in 1955, largely brought on by creation of the Comics Code, where creative jobs in the comic industry largely evaporated).
And Kirby's late 1950's/1960's style is now likewise widely imitated, as his earlier style was.

In his quest to stay fully employed, Kirby ventured back to DC in 1955, and created CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, the first Silver Age superhero group (first appearing in SHOWCASE 6, Feb 1957), and instantly made a huge impact on this new comics era. One can easily see parallels between CHALLENGERS and Lee/Kirby's later 1961 team book, the FF.
Kirby also did a lot of monster and science fiction stories for DC, appearing in HOUSE OF MYSTERY, MY GREATEST ADVENTURE, TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED, and other titles.

Kirby's SKYMASTERS syndicated newspaper strip (similar to CHALLENGERS) was the source of a legal clash with DC editor Jack Schiff, and resulted in a mutually hostile departure by Kirby from DC.

Kirby then took work at Atlas/Marvel from 1958-forward, putting virtually all his creative energy into war, western, romance, and monster stories for Marvel, in titles such as BATTLE, LOVE ROMANCES, TWO GUN KID, RAWHIDE KID, and most importantly STRANGE TALES, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, TALES OF SUSPENSE and TALES TO ASTONISH, among others.
From these latter titles would evolve Marvel's superheroes, and the monsters and villians their heroes would fight.

And in between Marvel assignments in the late 1950's, Kirby also managed to squeeze in additional work and leave his impact on other publishers, doing work for Archie, Charleton and Harvey, creating DOUBLE LIFE OF PRIVATE STRONG, ADVENTURES OF THE FLY, RACE FOR THE MOON, BLAST OFF, and other work. But Kirby obviously found his greatest success at Marvel.

Some key milestones from Kirby's most prolific creative period:

FANTASTIC FOUR 1 (November 1961), intro/origin, the FF.
TALES TO ASTONISH 27 (Jan 1962), first Ant-man story (one-shot).
HULK 1 (May 1962), origin/first appearance of Hulk.
AMAZING FANTASY 15 (August 1962), first appearance Spiderman, classic Kirby cover.
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY 83 (Aug 1962), origin/first appearance Thor.
TALES TO ASTONISH 35 (Sept 1962), Ant-man series begins.
TALES OF SUSPENSE 39 (March 1963), origin/first appearance Iron Man, Kirby/Don Heck art.
SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS 1 (May 1963)
AVENGERS 1 (Sept 1963)
X-MEN 1 (Sept 1963)
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY 97 (Oct 1963), "Tales of Asgard" series begins
AVENGERS 4 (March 1964), golden age Captain America revived.
TALES TO ASTONISH 59 (November 1964), Captain America series begins again.
STRANGE TALES 135 (August 1965) Nick Fury:Agent of SHIELD series begins.
FANTASTIC FOUR 44 (Nov 1965) intro the Inhumans, Sinnott inks begin.
FANTASTIC FOUR 48 (March 1966) intro Silver Surfer and Galactus.
THOR 179 (Aug 1970) last Kirby issue
FANTASTIC FOUR 102 (Sept 1970) last Kirby issue, Kirby leaves Marvel.



Unsatisfied with the way many of the Marvel characters he created were being developed by Lee and others, and feeling a lack of credit for even the stories he was able to create himself, Kirby left Marvel in 1970.
(Stan Lee was taking credit for much of Kirby's story plotting work, and creations. The Silver Surfer, for example, was a character Stan Lee saw for the first time when Kirby handed him the pencils for FANTASTIC FOUR 48, it was not something Lee had scripted, and yet Silver Surfer is widely believed to be a Lee creation, while Lee developed the character with John Buscema in a much different direction than Kirby had envisioned.)

Kirby left to work for DC in 1970, where he was not only able to draw, but also to write and edit the work he created. Kirby began with JIMMY OLSEN 133 (in October 1970), soon followed by FOREVER PEOPLE, NEW GODS, and MISTER MIRACLE. An innovative set of new books, the Fourth World series, with an ambitious concept, modern mythology, symbolism, and social commentary, that was intended to be more than an ongoing episodic series, and instead intended to have a limited run that came to a clear and full conclusion.

But others at DC said Kirby's books were not selling, and so FOREVER PEOPLE and NEW GODS were cancelled in 1972, and MISTER MIRACLE was cancelled also in 1974. This was a huge blow for Kirby, his most personal signature work cancelled out from under him.
Based on this, Kirby left DC as soon as his contract ended in late 1975, and returned to Marvel.

But not before producing another massive collection of new characters and series, in THE DEMON, KAMANDI, WEIRD MYSTERY TALES, FORBIDDEN TALES OF DARK MANSION, DAYS OF THE MOB, SPIRIT WORLD, O.M.A.C., SANDMAN, OUR FIGHTING FORCES, JUSTICE INC., FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL, KOBRA, and others.

And then Kirby returned to Marvel from 1976-1978, and created another flood of new characters, in THE ETERNALS, CAPTAIN AMERICA, 2001:A SPACE ODYSSEY, MACHINE MAN, BLACK PANTHER, and DEVIL DINOSAUR. And though not appreciated by Marvel at the time, these stories generated new distinctly Kirby approaches to characters that were loved by many readers, and have since been revived and imitated.

Kirby's final great contribution to the comics field was creation of CAPTAIN VICTORY in late 1981, launching the first creator-owned mainstream comic book, and also launching the first title by a new independent publisher, Pacific Comics, which also for the first time in comic books, gave royalties to the creator of the series, and pressured Marvel and DC to do likewise for their creators, which in a short period of time they did.
DESTROYER DUCK, a benefit book Kirby later also did for Pacific Comics in 1982, to assist writer Steve Gerber in his legal struggle against Marvel for the rights to Howard the Duck, was likewise yet another milestone for the comics field.

The point of saying all this --and even this lengthy summary doesn't fully account for all Kirby's achievement and influence !-- is to give some idea how much more than his obituary indicates, just how much influence Jack Kirby has had, and continues to have, on the comic book field.

In 1986, I read an article (by Doug Moench in AMAZING HEROES 100)that speculated upwards of 80% of comics creators then employed working on characters and visual storytelling techniques that Kirby created.


Looking at just a few examples, the work of George Perez, Jose Ladronn, series like SAVAGE DRAGON, SUPREME, and 1963, continuations of the NEW GODS and other Fourth World series in various forms, Darkseid as a major villain in the DC universe, and the standard characters and props of virtually every Marvel comic produced over the last 43 years...

Kirby's impact on the field endures.