Ignore naysayers - this is the best of the King

books:


	• Kirby: King of Comics Mark Evanier Abrams, 2008 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 26 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Why Kirby will always be King of Comics.....

This book is the ultimate autobiography on Jack Kirby. In this volume we get more details on his struggles as an artist, especially those at Marvel. I still hold the opinion without Jack Kirby there would be no Marvel Comics. The universes that he built are still in use today and will be as long as there is a Marvel. Author Mark Evanier took what could have been a 1000 page book and condensed it to a sizable volume that clearly describes the history of Kirby. Long Live the King!

A LOOK AT THE KING

When I first started reading comics in the mid-1970s, Jack Kirby had just returned to Marvel from DC Comics. He returned to the character he had helped create, Captain America, with issue #193. I frankly could not understand the fuss. I gradually started putting together quite a back issue collection. Kirby had been the primary artist in the 1960s on two of my then favorite titles, Thor and the Fantastic Four. When I picked up Jack's first Silver Surfer trilogy from Fantastic Four #48 - 50, I was hooked. Ever since then, I've been a Kirby fanatic. For me, and other Kirby fans, we've been given a wonderful gift with Kirby: King of Comics, a brand new, full color hardcopy book written by comic scribe and fellow Kirby enthusiast, Mark Evanier. The 224-page book is filled with rare Kirby art, much of it unpublished or not seen in decades.

The book spans Kirby's entire career and I learned a lot more about the man than I had known previously. For example, I did not know that Kirby had worked on various syndicated newspaper strips prior to his career in comics. Using various aliases, Kirby did adventure strips like The Black Buccaneer and Cyclone Burke, and even the odd political cartoon. Working under the name Charles Nichols, Kirby even drew the Blue Beetle newspaper strip a year before coming to Timely and creating Captain America with partner Joe Simon.

An undercurrent to the book is Kirby's lifelong struggle for financial stability. Today, Jack would be set for life with about one-tenth of his accomplishments in comics. But in the forties, Jack and many others were at the mercy of often unscrupulous publishers who horded the profits to their own, leaving the creators shut out. It was a financial dispute with Timely publisher Martin Goodman that prompted Jack to leave Timely for DC. Kirby's early work at DC is often overlooked but with Simon he helped create the Boy Commandos and The Newsboy Legion, and they revamped Manhunter and the Sandman.

After World War II, Kirby would take work wherever he could find it and for whatever he could get. He was now married to wife Roz and would soon be starting a family. The book contains many rare Kirby covers and page art from publishers other than Marvel and DC. Jack worked for Hillman Periodicals, Headline Comics, Harvey Comics, and Charlton Comics to name a few. An example of how DC eventually fell so far behind Marvel was that Jack returned to DC in the 50s but his work was constantly edited and redrawn so it looked like all the rest of DC's banal, lifeless comics. This was the DC style than then Editor Mort Weisinger insisted upon.

Jack's rise to stardom back at Marvel (then Atlas Comics) did not come overnight. He labored on westerns, romance, monster, and sci-fi titles before he and Stan Lee would create the legendary Fantastic Four. Next would come the Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man, the Avengers, Sgt. Fury, and the X-Men. Evanier has managed to dig up some rarities, unpublished Kirby covers for Fantastic Four #20 and X-Men #10! There are also four simply incredible full pages sketches of The Inhumans that display Kirby's work at its finest. Despite all the successes, Jack was still upset that Stan was getting the lion's share of the credit. Stan never claimed to have been the sole creator of these characters, but if that's what people believed he didn't go out of his way to correct them. Evanier relates a story of Marvel's sale to a new company and nitwit lawyers who thought that Stan even drew the comics as well as write them. It was always an uphill battle for Kirby. Evanier covers the sorry situation when Marvel held thousands of pages of Kirby's art hostage. Under pressure from industry pros and magazines like The Comics Journal, Marvel finally gave Jack some 2,100 pages of art. A fraction of what he worked on but reportedly more than he expected. The art would provide a nest egg for he and his wife.

Kirby's influence and creations cannot be overstated. His work had a power and majesty and flair for the dramatic that many modern artists lack. Kirby's art had personality, no matter what you thought of his style. He virtually invented cosmic, epic storylines. Kirby: King of Comics is like taking a guided tour through a Kirby museum. There is so much beautiful art and so many wonderful stories to read about. Jack Kirby is truly worthy of being called "The King".

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Kirby is king

I ordered this book because Jack Kirby happens to be my favorite Marvel artist of all time. After having read the book I learned so much about the man and all of his difficulties in getting the recognition he so richly deserved. The book also has a rich visual feel to it. It is an oversized book filled with anecdotes, drawings and examples of an artist who seemed to have struggled so much and who has left us a beautiful legacy. A great buy, don't pass this one up.

Ignore naysayers - this is the best of the King

After reading some of the negative comments in a few of the reviews, even in the so-called "positive" reviews - I just had to add my 2-cents: THEY'RE WRONG! This is nothing short of GREAT.

I'm not just speaking as a Kirby Devotee (which I am), or even a comic collector (also true). My exposure to Jack Kirby's groundbreaking 60s work at Marvel inspired me to become an artist and graphic designer. He was kind enough to respond personally to me when I was 14 and sent him a sample of my own comic work. I was lucky enough to meet Jack and Roz personally many years later in the mid-70s and spend part of an afternoon with him one-on-one. So I'm speaking from a deep familiarity with his work and some personal experience, as well as my professional background.

First, let's dispel the notion that KIRBY: KING OF COMICS is a biography. It isn't. There is no place in the book that calls it a "biography". It also isn't an art book with too much copy. This is a compendium, a celebration of Kirby's life and accomplishments, an overview with additional depth, an inside look from the people who knew him, worked with him, lived with him and loved him, with an attempt at balance and historical perspective that is often lacking in other biographical works about Kirby.

It's true that much of this material has been covered before, both in the shorter biographical works that have appeared and in the very excellent "Jack Kirby Collector". However, Mr. Evanier has done an excellent job of both organizing the information in an exciting and dynamic way, and adding details and perspective not available to other writers. Just the fact that he has had access to Roz Kirby and the Kirby offspring adds insight not previously seen. Not only that, but the "voice" Mr. Evanier uses is more chatty, more casual, more like Jack than any other book about Jack I've read. Despite what some reviewers have said, this does not come off as an uninvolved objective journalist. It sounds to me like a guy talking about a very dear friend without over-inflating the facts.

As far as those who think there's too much negativity and blame-laying, all I can say is lighten up! There were plenty of things that got under Kirby's skin, and he could be quite vocal about them. But he didn't dwell on those things for long, and neither does the book. The fact is, some bad things happened, and Jack was treated unfairly in a lot of ways. All of that is covered here, along with Jack's opinion about the situation, and quotes from others involved. Unfortunately, Kirby could be a little naive when it came to the business side of things, and his kind nature was easy to take advantage of by some of the unscrupulous folks in publishing. However, that is not the main focus of "Kirby".

What is the main focus are his accomplishments, and the book makes it clear (if there was ever any doubt), that Jack Kirby did more to create the look, feel, language and dynamism of comic books as they exist today than any other single person.

As for the art, I'm here to tell you that you ain't seen nothing of Kirby unless you're one of the fortunate few who can afford to buy an original comic page. Even the reproduction in TJKC - which is excellent - can't compare. Each and every piece of art is reproduced in full color, even the black and white pages. That may not make sense to those of you unfamiliar with printing and graphic reproduction techniques. But seeing both the penciled and inked pages AS THEY ACTUALLY LOOK IN PERSON is totally different than looking at a black and white reproduction. You can see all the nuances of Kirby's pencil lines, his shading, the un-erased (and sometimes even the erased) images behind the inking. The power and dynamic these pages illustrate are unmatched by anything else I've seen about Kirby's work. And yes, there are still some things that have never been seen before.

My recommendation: keep an open mind, buy the book, and read it as if Mark Evanier was sitting in your living room, telling you all about the guy who did more for comic boooks as an art form than anyone else.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Jack Kirby created or co-created some of comic books? most popular characters including Captain America, The X-Men, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, The Mighty Thor, Darkseid, and The New Gods. More significantly, he created much of the visual language for fantasy and adventure comics. There were comics before Kirby, but for the most part their page layout, graphics, and visual dynamic aped what was being done in syndicated newspaper strips. Almost everything that was different about comic books began in the forties on the drawing table of Jack Kirby. This is his story by one who knew him well?the authorized celebration of the one and only ?King of Comics? and his groundbreaking work.

?I don?t think it?s any accident that . . . the entire Marvel universe and the entire DC universe are all pinned or rooted on Kirby?s concepts.? ?Michael Chabon

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