by Mark Evanier
FANTASTIC FOUR
no. 72
March 1968
Art: Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott
Marvel Comics
Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott
Their first meeting.
Photo: Samuel J. Maronie
1975
FANTASTIC FOUR
Unpublished cover intended for no. 52
July 1966
Art: Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott
The first cover featuring a black costumed super hero required a different design, and in the process the Black Panther’s mask was redesigned to hide his face and race. Reportedly, this was to avoid outraging certain distributors who were expected to object.
Though deemed a masterwork among super-hero comics, the “Galactus Trilogy” (as it was later nicknamed) sparked considerable friction, at least from Jack’s end. As he drew the story, he decided to give Galactus a herald—someone to announce the impending arrival. Stan takes up the narrative . . .
“Jack may have come up with the name Galactus, or I might’ve. I probably wanted to call him Irving. The thing came back and I could hardly wait to start writing the copy. All of a sudden, as I’m looking through the drawings, I see this nut on a surfboard flying through the air. And I thought, ‘Jack, this time you’ve gone too far.’”
The nut on the surfboard was the Silver Surfer. In the story, he turned on his master, came to the defense of Earth, and a comic book superstar was born. One of the most popular of all the Marvel heroes had popped up where no one expected. Just like that.
The Surfer became a source of special contention between Lee and Kirby. Though he regarded the earlier Marvel heroes as primarily his concepts, Jack had at least discussed them with Stan before drawing their first stories. But the tale in which the Silver Surfer had debuted had been plotted and illustrated before Lee had even heard about the metallic guy hanging ten through the galaxy.
Both men became possessive about the character Stan sometimes cited as his favorite. A year or two later, Jack would be plotting a Fantastic Four that would fill in much of the Surfer’s backstory when he’d get some disturbing news. Marvel was launching an ongoing Silver Surfer comic and Stan was doing it with another artist, John Buscema. In fact, the first issue—already heading off to press—detailed an origin that Stan had devised for, as he called him, the Sentinel of the Spaceways.
Jack hadn’t been told about this, and it killed his own plans for the character and the story he’d already partially drawn. Lee’s origin also ran contrary to Kirby’s view of the hero. Jack saw the Surfer as a creature formed of pure energy, one who had never been human, which explained why he’d been roaming about the Fantastic Four comic, asking Earthlings to explain love and hate and other (to him) alien concepts. In Stan’s story, the Surfer had been a man on another planet who sacrificed human form to save the woman he loved.
That may have been the Surfer that Stan had been writing, but it wasn’t the one Jack had been drawing. Kirby especially didn’t like that he hadn’t been given first refusal on doing the new book. His idea had been taken from him in every possible sense.
By this time, his relationship with Stan had deteriorated in so many ways. Marvel was hot. Marvel was getting great press. An awful lot of it skewed in Stan’s favor, which may have been only natural. Stan was editor. Stan was the guy who welcomed reporters to his office while Jack was home drawing Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Stan also gave a much better interview than Jack. He was witty, charming, and eminently quotable.
Above and following pages
The Inhumans
FANTASTIC FOUR SPECIAL
no. 5
November 1967
Art: Jack Kirby
Marvel Comics
“We need to fill some pages. Do some pin-ups of the Inhumans!” That’s what Stan Lee probably said to Jack, and Jack responded with pin-ups that were so fine, someone somewhere probably tore them out of his comic book and actually pinned them up. These are reproduced from Kirby’s file copy stats of the pencil art made after Stan indicated the copy placement for the letterer but before any inker got his hands on the art.
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Stan and Jack attend a National Cartoonist
Society event in 1966.
To Jack’s complaints about pieces that identified Stan as sole creator—sometimes even of Captain America—Lee pleaded not guilty. He had no control over what reporters wrote. Once, when the Sunday New York Herald Tribune ran a major feature on Marvel, Stan made sure Jack was included in the interviews, but it didn’t matter. The published article still painted Stan Lee as the creative genius, and Jack Kirby as a buffoon who took dictation. Roz was so upset that the morning the paper came out, she woke Stan up at home to demand he do something about it.
As Marvel grew and Stan got busier, Jack was inventing all the plots for the comics they did together. He’d figure out an issue, draw it up, and write notes to Stan in the margins explaining what the heck was going on.
Sometimes Stan’s scripts would merely paraphrase what Jack had written. When they did, Jack would resent that he was receiving no credit or pay for what he was contributing to the writing.
Sometimes Stan would deviate wildly from what Jack had intended. Jack didn’t like that, either. He loved the stories he developed, and would often feel that Stan’s word balloons stripped some issue of its meaning or inverted a key concept. Jack especially resented it when Stan would take the first part of a story in a different direction than he’d intended. Not only would Jack feel his work was being harmed, but it also meant he’d have to redraw the last half (without pay, of course) to correspond.
Similar complaints caused the exit of several artists, Steve Ditko and Wally Wood among them. Both went off to jobs that could never have accommodated or sustained Jack. The Kirbys, with four kids and a steady stream of financial crises, were still just getting by on what Marvel paid.
The only comic book company that might have offered as much was DC, where Kirby was still persona non grata. Not only were several editors there hostile to the whole idea of Jack Kirby, but Jack had been told about an “understanding.” DC still distributed Marvel’s product, and there was an agreement, Jack was told, about not raiding one another’s talent pool. Marvel wouldn’t compete for artists by raising rates. DC, in turn, would not rob Marvel of the indispensable services of Jack Kirby. (Some artists did leave DC for Marvel, but not because they got more money.)
Jack began playing it safer. He would do simpler stories that Stan could dialogue without, he hoped, demanding redraws. He would also try to refrain from suggesting new characters with spin-off potential—or as Roz put it, “No more Silver Surfers until he gets a better deal.” It was agonizing for a creator like Jack, but he did it. At least, he tried to do it. When a new idea came to him, he jotted it down on a scrap of paper and, usually, lost it. Once, he got careless with a cigar, started a small fire in his workspace, and lost over fifty concepts—or as Roz put it, “A whole day’s work for Kirby.” Some new characters survived, however. Some lived to be rendered as fancy, full-color presentation drawings. Jack’s idea was to accumulate a pile of new concepts so that he could sell them to . . .
Well, that was the part he hadn’t figured out yet. There didn’t seem to be any potential customers.
Above and following pages
Presentation drawings for a proposed new version of Thor.
1968—1969
Art: Jack Kirby and Don Heck
Color: Jack Kirby
NOT BRAND ECHH
no. 1
August 1967
Art: Jack Kirby and Frank Giacoia
Marvel Comics
Lee and Kirby engage in a little self-spoofery.
Above and following page
TALES OF SUSPENSE
no. 80
August 1966
Art: Jack Kirby and Don Heck
Marvel Comics
As that better deal seemed ever more unlik
ely, Kirby’s relationship with Martin Goodman also deteriorated. Goodman was still selling comics in record numbers, and the characters were being merchandised. Jack’s plots and designs were on TV shows, his art was on toys . . . and he wasn’t seeing a nickel from any of it; just the occasional rate increase of a dollar or two per page. There was still nothing for him to live on if he became unable to draw.
Jack worried about getting his due. He heard that Bob Kane, the official creator of Batman, had made a million dollar deal with DC Comics. At about the same time, a writer there named Bill Finger had demanded a better deal, including higher rates and health insurance. Finger and other writers who made similar demands were quickly terminated. It was common knowledge in the business that though he hadn’t received the credit line, Finger had created as much of Batman as Kane had, maybe more.
The lesson was not lost on Kirby: Bob Kane, who’d been recognized as the creator of a successful property, had gotten rich. Bill Finger, who hadn’t, had gotten fired.
Then one day, Goodman sold his company. Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation acquired his publishing empire for a price Kirby described as “less than the value of Ant-Man alone.” Jack would point to the reported amount as proof that Goodman was a man lacking vision: “I could never get what I was worth out of him because he had no idea what his company was worth.”
The sale was executed with swift, almost surgical precision: One day, it was rumored; the next, it was a done deal. The only impediment had been Stan Lee.
The new owners didn’t know from Jack Kirby, but they’d read enough of those magazine articles to know that Stan Lee was the creative genius behind Marvel’s success. They would not purchase the company without him. As Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon put it in their book, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book, “Goodman encouraged Lee to sign a three-year contract so that he could close the deal. Lee did so loyally, receiving a raise in base pay and a promise from Goodman: ‘I’ll see to it that you and Joanie [Stan’s wife] never have to want for anything as long as you live.’” (If one believes Raphael and Spurgeon, the promise was quickly forgotten.)
Kirby’s lawyer contacted the new owners to tell them that Marvel had two creative geniuses. The response was along the lines of, “Don’t be silly. Stan created everything and the artists just drew what he told them to draw.” Roz recalled the attorney saying he’d even spoken to one high exec at Perfect Film who thought Stan drew all the comics, too.
FANTASTIC FOUR
no. 87
June 1969
Art: Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott
Marvel Comics
Program book for the San Diego Comic-Con
1983
Art: Jack Kirby
Via hindsight, Jack would later admit that this was the end of his Marvel tenure. At the time though, he couldn’t face that. He kept pressing for a better deal—or at least a renewal of his last, expired contract with Goodman. All he wanted was a little more money, some kind of long-term financial security for himself and his family, and an official acknowledgment of his status as co-creator. No more of this “Stan did it all” talk.
In the comic book industry of the eighties and beyond, that kind of working arrangement would be fairly standard, even for beginners. Artists who cited Kirby as their chief inspiration would become millionaires drawing comics he’d help start. But in 1968, it was far beyond out of the question. Not only was Jack refused, but he was lectured like a child with no sense of the world in which he lived. The company, he was told, had to do business the way it did. Any other financial setup and they’d have been bankrupt by week’s end.
Kirby didn’t believe that—not for a nanosecond. In fact, quite the opposite: The business, he told everyone, would have to change or that attitude would destroy it. He just feared it wouldn’t change in time for him to collect.
Then Perfect Film’s business folks just stopped talking to him or his lawyer. Goodman, who stayed on to run the company for its new owners, wouldn’t talk to him either. The only person he could speak to was Stan, who kept saying, “I have nothing to do with that.” Stan was busy jockeying for his own place in the new operation.
TALES OF ASGARD
no. 1
October 1968
Art: Jack Kirby
Cover sketch
Marvel Comics
COVER DESIGN
Before the eighties and the popularity of comic book specialty shops, comics were sold primarily on newsstands. Among publishers, there was a widespread conviction that the cover sold the comic . . . and some carried that belief to the extreme: You could put any old junk inside, they said, if the cover was strong enough.
At Marvel in the sixties, they didn’t take it quite that far but Martin Goodman rarely glanced inside the books he published, occasionally demanding a cover be redone or retooled. Stan Lee did what he could to make the outsides grab potential customers, and on most books during Marvel’s formative years, that meant a cover by Kirby. When Jack came by the office to drop off pages or discuss upcoming plots, the two would huddle over a drawing table and figure out cover scenes, perhaps a half dozen at a time. Often, Stan would convey poses he imagined by climbing up on a chair or desk and striking the very stance while Jack did quick sketches. Once home, Kirby would discard the sketches and work from memory, delivering finished pencil art on his next visit.
The results were striking and very, very commercial. Over at rival DC, when they saw Goodman’s sales encroaching on theirs, meetings were convened and explanations were demanded. The editors there were unimpressed by Marvel’s content and couldn’t fathom how that “crude stuff” could be selling.
They finally decided it was all in the covers and took steps to win that war. Award-winning artist Carmine Infantino was engaged as a kind of cover editor to design detailed comps and supervise execution. At times, it seemed more effort went into the packaging than into the product.
Lee and Kirby hadn’t gone to those lengths. They’d just come up with a good idea and had Jack draw it. But eventually, Marvel began to match DC in meticulousness. From about 1967 on, there would be detailed cover preliminaries generated and okayed in the office, usually not by Kirby but by someone on staff—often, Marie Severin or John Romita. When Jack did covers, he worked from those approved compositions.
Kirby was not displeased by the process. Drawing stories interested him a lot more than drawing single, standalone illustrations, plus there was never a proper moment for him to do a cover. If called upon to draw one before he did the tale being depicted, he generally felt detached. He hadn’t experienced that adventure yet, hadn’t found his emotional handle on it. And when he was asked to draw a cover for an issue already completed . . . well, that story was over and forgotten as far as he was concerned. He did his best but he was just as happy to have someone else design his covers, as Joe Simon so often had in their collaborations.
Only occasionally after ’67 did he design his own, and when he did he was usually forced to prepare and submit an actual cover sketch. In his life, Jack did very few preliminary roughs for anything he drew, so a surviving comp for Tales of Asgard no. 1 (the first and only issue) from October 1968 is a rarity. It was returned to him with Stan Lee’s notes in green pen, and Jack then did the finished art, which was inked by Frank Giacoia.
Jack generally disagreed with the publishers as to importance of a great cover. It was good to have one, of course. But as he once put it, “All that does is get them to try your book once and if they don’t like what’s inside, they’re not coming back. If they do like what’s inside, they’ll be too eager to get into the next issue to even stop and look at its cover.”
Above and following page
Art: Jack Kirby and Frank Giacoia
Toys for Tots
Kirby (assisted by the author) contributed the key art for the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve’s annual Christmas charity drive poster.
1969
The Hulk
Unus
ed poster for Marvelmania International
1969
Art: Jack Kirby
THE INCREDIBLE HULK POSTER
There were many incidents that caused Kirby to quit Marvel in 1970, but they all came under two headings: One was the firm’s refusal to make any sort of long-term financial commitment to him. It wasn’t so much that the money wasn’t good as that it wasn’t guaranteed and could end abruptly if his health failed or one of the new owners just plain wanted him gone. The other category, which was not unrelated, was that Jack felt he’d done a lot more than having just drawn up Stan Lee’s ideas—they were his ideas, too, and sometimes more his than Stan’s. Jack wanted that acknowledged. Over and over though he was refused, and there were just too many slights; some perhaps misperceived but some that were unmistakable.
One of several “last straws” came when a mail-order firm that was doing business with Marvel engaged Kirby to draw some posters of the Marvel heroes. Jack drew eight superb drawings which, in a rare move, he inked himself. Then someone at Marvel decided that the proposed line had too much Kirby in it and ordered that four of Jack’s posters be replaced by the work of other artists. So right there, Kirby was insulted and—since he was never compensated for the four unused posters—financially harmed.
But it got worse. Someone at Marvel liked the design of Jack’s Hulk poster. They just felt it should be illustrated by Herb Trimpe, who was then the artist on the Hulk comic. Trimpe was told to trace Kirby’s drawing, which he did, effectively just re-inking it and altering the head as per his version of the character—a character, of course, that Jack had co-created and designed in the first place.