8/1/2023 0 Comments Jack kirby![]() ![]() I have noticed that, in certain nerd circles, it’s become kind of cool to put John Byrne down, dismiss his relevance, or otherwise hate on him. So in that spirit, today I'm going to offer a defense of one of the most popular comic artists/writers of the ‘80s and early ‘90s. “Popular = bad” was not a terrible heuristic back then, but it's grown into a tedious formula as the quality of everything from TV shows to pop music has, whether we former New Wavers can accept it or not, wildly improved. Public Enemy, the Cure, and Depeche Mode) that have come to define the ‘80s in people's imaginations were largely outside mainstream radio. This makes sense, as so many of the bands (e.g. This is very much intentional - among Generation Xers like me, there can be a tendency to hate on anything that is popular simply because it’s popular. If you’re one of the (upwards of three!) people who read my monthly awards, you may have noticed that my “nerd treat” often goes to something that is actually quite popular. The recipient of the February Jack Kirby award is: Fantastic Four issues 232-295 - The John Byrne years (which I read on previous Jack Kirby award-winning service, Marvel Unlimited). Kirby was a consummate artist who was, in retrospect, fortunate to have an editor/collaborator who was a savvy businessman and manager who made things happen.Note: I am doing the book award and the nerd treat award separately this month because they will be unusually long. In the end, it seems fair to say that Kirby made huge contributions to Marvel characters-he gave them graphic style and also had quite a bit of influence on the pacing and plotting of the comics they appeared in-but Lee, as he matured was a savvy editor who gave things their editorial oversight and moved things forward. He was, as most comic artists were, a freelancer, not a permanent staff member such as an editor art art director. ![]() So, even though Kirby’s name was often as large as Lee’s on the cover of the comics he helped create, there was a difference in rank. Besides collecting the editor’s pay, he collected writer’s pay. This is the way Stan Lee became the writer. In this way Stan Lee made more pay than he did as an editor. Then Stan Lee would hand them to some guy and he would write in the dialogue. I would write the dialogue on the back or a description of what was going on. I would write out the whole story on the back of every page. In the same interview, Kirby states that he never “collaborated” with Lee, who he felt was a kind of “double-dipper.” He’s about five years younger than me.” Lee, it turns out, was also the publishers cousin and-in Kirby’s memory-a pest who liked to irk those around him. When Joe and I were doing Captain America. As Kirby once recalled in an interview: “I met Stan Lee when I first went to work for Marvel. In the 1950s Kirby began work at Atlas Comics (which later became Marvel) that Kirby first met a young man named Stanley Leiber, who comic fans now know at Stan Lee. One of the things Kirby did best was give his heroes emotions that were credible. But he was more than just an artist: Kirby also understood the psychological complexities that heroes needed to have and he endowed them with a kind of superhuman humanity that embraced both shadow and doubt and which even suggested compassion towards villains. Only an artist with Kirby’s flexible imagination was capable of creating figures that had such extraordinary graphic vitality and striking physical attributes. Kirby was, after all responsible for the first appearance of the “Fantastic Four”-Mister Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch and the Thing-and it was his phenomenal “pencil” skills that made these characters and others take shape and come alive. After Kirby’s death, a 2009 lawsuit filed by the artist’s family to obtain a fair share of movie royalties was settled successfully, helping to posthumously acknowledge his importance. The issue of Kirby not being given adequate credit is what caused him to leave Marvel for DC Comics. He also-if you read what he later had to say-did much more than just draw characters. ![]() While working at Marvel, it was Stan Lee who generally got the writer credit, while Jack Kirby was the artist/illustrator who created the “look” of things while often getting second billing. ![]()
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