Kirby

by Mark Evanier

  To know the man was to maybe, just maybe, comprehend why this was. He was a deep thinker, often taking it to such depths that he got hopelessly submerged in his own imagination. Roz, wonderful Roz, would have to wade in, drag him out, and force him to eat a meal or go to bed. Not only that, but she dressed him and drove him around and took up arms against the sea of troubles that formed his many battles. At her funeral, four years after his, I couldn’t help thinking the following: that it was sad to lose them, but fortunate that they’d died in the right order.

  Not everyone realized what a brilliant man he was. The New York street accent fooled some, and his disconnected manner of talking, careening wildly from topic to topic via invisible segues, fooled just about everyone else. Until they got to know Jack, that is. Many things he said to me made zero sense at the time he said them . . . but what are you going to do? You love the guy so you nod and grin and say “Sure thing, Jack,” and try to act like you know what the hell he’s talking about . . .

  . . . and then days/weeks/months . . . even years later, you think back and the pieces somehow tumble into place. Not only do they form a coherent thought, but a brilliant one at that.

  That was Jack Kirby: not only ahead of everyone else, but often too far ahead of himself. By the late 1980s, it got so he’d tell me something and I’d think, “Gosh, I can’t wait until I figure out what that means.” Once, it turned out to be the conclusion to a conversation about Watergate that had been interrupted in 1971. Another time, Jack delivered a long dissertation on midgets that I still haven’t decoded.

  Steve Sherman, Jack Kirby, and Mark Evanier

  1970

  Photo by Roz Kirby

  FOR A TIME, SOON after he arrived at DC in 1970, a fellow named Steve Sherman and I worked as his nominal assistants. I don’t know about Steve, but I felt about as useful as a RadioShack in Amish Country. Jack did what he did so well and with such single-minded force that other hands and minds could only impede progress. My big contribution? Not getting between him and the drawing paper, which was about all a body could do. Mostly, we kept him company and declined Roz’s omnipresent coffee. As wise as the two of them could be, neither Jack nor his wife could ever grasp the fact that neither Steve nor I drank coffee.

  Seeing Jack come up with it all so fast and so forceful, you might get the impression that he didn’t think; that it all just exploded out of him in free-form improvisation. Not on your life, and not in his life. Jack thought about most of what he did before he did it, and he at least lived it all. The stories of intergalactic visitations—of subterranean civilizations and small g gods striding across terra firma—they were all autobiographical, in emotion if not in deed.

  The emotion seemed to be the key. Once he got that part straight in his head, the perfect picture had a way of appearing right at the business end of his pencil. Just like that. And while he’d sit there for hours, redrawing as necessary to get the story to work, he never had to erase because the picture was poor. Wrong, yes. But poor, never—at least not while he had the better part of two eyes working for him. It was just easier to draw it properly the first time.

  Watching him create, you’d have no idea where it all came from. None at all. Other artists would rough in their compositions, vanishing points, and horizon lines. What little underdrawing Kirby did was all about the storytelling, figuring out the action. The second he realized what should happen, he “saw” the picture. What remained was the least interesting part: filling in the panel, usually starting at the left and working his way to the right, as if tracing a pre-existing piece that only he could see.

  That was how he did it. I don’t know how he did it, but that was how he did it. It had something to do with honesty. And I guess integrity, as well.

  Jack was congenitally incapable of lying, except now and then to himself. Everything he said, and certainly everything he wrote and drew, came from the heart, sometimes by way of the gut. He could be wrong. He could easily (too easily) be confused. But what he couldn’t be was dishonest. If someone had told me that Jack was telling fibs as he levitated across the Grand Canyon, I’d have believed the latter part before I’d have believed the former.

  He was that way about his life, too. He urged me to write about him and his work and career, but he never told me what to write—or more significantly, what not to write—and he certainly never tried to spin anything to his advantage. He’d come off just fine, he knew, in anyone’s account, just so long as they wrote the truth. I sure hope I’ve come close.

  I mention the honesty because it was not only such a shining part of Jack’s life but also of his work. The work was Jack and Jack was the work, and the work was honest because . . .

  Well, just because.

  But there was one other thing about Jack that made his creations so very special. I’ve never told this story to anyone, but I’ll never find a better place for it than here . . .

  In 1970, soon after I began working with Kirby, I quit a job working for the company that put out the Marvel mail order merchandise—the one that had issued the Hulk poster that caused Jack so much resentment. The man who ran the firm combined the less appealing aspects of insanity and grand larceny, and when I resigned, he went all Darkseid on me. His business was failing big, and it was suddenly convenient to blame all that on me.

  He began phoning my home, telling me (or my father, when he answered) that he had proof I had sabotaged his company and would soon see me in prison. He told others that I’d stolen or destroyed his files. I could handle it now and I was even handling it then for the first day or two of harassment. But then a very drunk driver killed a very close friend and a few other matters cranked up the stress . . . and it all sent me into a period of temporary but rather frantic depression.

  I was eighteen years old at the time, a bad age for handling anything more unsettling than jock itch. I did what I could to hold myself in check around others, but didn’t always succeed. One day when we were out working with Jack, he sensed something was wrong and sent Steve out on an errand. When I moved to tag along, Jack said, “No, I need Mark to help me with something else here.”

  He had no task for me. As soon as we were alone, he sat me down, lit his pipe, and said, “So . . . is anything wrong?”

  “No, no,” I insisted. I told him everything was fine . . . and I did a fine job of keeping up that pretense for almost ninety seconds before breaking down and telling him everything. Jack immediately went to the phone, called my harasser, and though it was Saturday, caught him at his office. All I heard Kirby say was, “If you ever bother Mark again, I’ll come down there and punch your goddamn face in,” but that was more than enough.

  Then he hung up, turned to me, and said, “Come on. Let’s have Roz make us some coffee.” As he headed for the kitchen, I just sat there and started to feel better.

  I think of that moment often. I thought of it frequently while writing this book and I decided it had to be in here somewhere. It was my first real clue as to why Jack Kirby was so good at drawing super heroes.

  —M.E.

  Mark Evanier and Jack Kirby

  At some convention. I have no idea who took it. Or what year it was.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  SO HOW DO YOU get so much wonderful art in a book like this? Easy: Ask collectors who treasure everything Jack Kirby did, along with the man himself. Some of this art is mine, but a lot came from Mike Thibodeaux, Peter Koch, the Howell/Kalish Collection, Dave Schwartz, Tod Seisser, Bruce Haley, Randy Saitta, Glen Gold, Zaddick Longenbach, and Barry Pearl. Thanks must also go to the many Kirby fans who offered items that, for obvious reasons of space limitations, failed to make the cut. It’s probably unnecessary to say that we could have filled ten books this size with the wonderment that was created on the drawing table of Jack Kirby.

  Lisa Kirby, who presides over the Rosalind Kirby Trust and protects her father’s legacy, loaned priceless photos and early sketches. The late, much-missed Joe Simon did much to protect tha
t legacy along with his own and couldn’t have been more supportive. Stan Lee answered many a question.

  For various other contributions, I thank Joe Sinnott, Mike Royer, Ken Spears, Richard Kyle, Robert Katz, Richard Bensam, Ferran Delgado, Steve Saffel, Tyler Shelton, Carolyn Kelly, Harlan Ellison, Jim Salicrup, Kris Brownlow, Adam McGovern, Alan Brennert, Will Murray, Nick Caputo, Maggie Thompson, Todd Klein, Leslie Cabarga, David Merrill, Shain Minuk, John Plunkett, Scott Dunbier, and Scott Shaw! Greg Preston, David Folkman, and Geoff Spear shared their expert photography. Alex Ross, an artist whose work Jack lived to see and love, contributed a dazzling interpretation of Jack to the back cover. And Neil Gaiman provided the perfect introduction.

  This book would also not have been possible without John Morrow, publisher of The Jack Kirby Collector, and Randolph Hoppe, who is the secretary/treasurer and curator with the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center. It’s online and open for your further browsing at http://kirbymuseum.org. I am findable online at newsfromme.com, and there is often a lot of Kirby content there. Thanks also to Paul Levitz at DC Comics, and Carol G. Pinkus at Marvel.

  I must also acknowledge all the many people over the years who’ve talked to me about Kirby and shared insights and history, starting with Jack, Roz, and the entire Kirby family, as well as my former partner, Steve Sherman.

  Marvelmania International Production art

  1969

  Art: Jack Kirby

  Which brings us to Charles Kochman, editorial director at Abrams ComicArts, who’s everything you could ever want your editor to be. Charlie’s the guy who said I oughta do a book like this. It took me a long time to decide to do it. I think it took four seconds. (I learned all about saying “yes” from Jack.)

  I also owe a debt to Charlie’s assistant Sofia Gutiérrez, who kept track as art arrived from a dozen different sources; to Jim Killen at Barnes & Noble, Inc., and Larry Dorfman, director of national accounts in sales at Abrams, both of whom championed this book from the start; to designer Paul Sahre and his assistant, Loren Flaherty; to Mark LaRiviere and the ever-patient E. Y. Lee, who handled the design work at Abrams and really made this look like a book; to Liam Flanagan, who reworked the design for this revised edition; to Anet Sirna-Bruder and Alison Gervais in the Abrams production department; and to others whose names will come to me about three minutes after this is off to press.

  Lastly: I didn’t dedicate this book to anyone because it’s mostly Jack’s work, not mine . . . but we all know whose name he’d have put in a dedication. From the moment they met—and knowing Jack, maybe even before that—everything he did, he did for Roz. And later on, for Roz, Neal, Susan, Barbara, and Lisa.

  INDEX OF SEARCHABLE TERMS

  Abdul Jones

  Action Comics

  Adams, Neal

  Adventure Comics

  Adventures of the Fly

  Alarming Tales

  Amazing Adult Fantasy

  Amazing Adventures

  Amazing Fantasy

  Ant-Man

  Argosy

  The Avengers

  Ayers, Dick

  Batman

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  Ben Grimm. See also The Thing

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  The Black Buccaneer

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  Cage, Nicolas

  Caniff, Milton

  Captain America

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  censorship in comics

  Chabon, Michael

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  copyright lawsuit

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  The Double Life of Private Strong

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  Eisner, Will

  Ellison, Harlan

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  Epstein, Teddy

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  First Issue Special

  Fleisher, Michael

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  Forever People

  Foster, Hal

  Fourth World

  Fox, Victor

  Foxhole

  Frankenstein

  Fu Manchu

  Gaiman, Neil

  Galactus

  Giacoia, Frank

  Godzilla, King of the Monsters!

  Goldberg, Stan

  Goldstein, Rosalind (Roz). See Kirby, Rosalind

  Goldwater, John

  Goodman, Martin

  Goodwin, Archie

  Goulart, Ron

  Gould, Chester

  The Great Comic Book Heroes (Feiffer)

  Green Arrow

  Hanna-Barbera

  Hartley, Al

  Harvey, Al

  Headline Comics

  Heck, Don

  Hitler, Adolf

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  Kahn, Jenette

  Kamandi, The Last Boy On Earth

  Kane, Bob

  Kane, Gil

  Kazan, Lainie

  Keller, Jack

  Kirby, Jack

  animation of

  in army

  background of

  Cage on

  Chabon on

  conversations of

  Copperfield on

  death of

  Del Toro on

  Dolmayan on

  Eisner on

  Ellison on

  ethics of
<
br />   financial crisis of

  Goldstein on

  Hanukkah card by

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  Kurtzman on

  legacy of

  letters of

  marriage of

  on Nick Fury v. The Thing

  nickname of

  original artwork of

  pen names of

  political cartoon by

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  Robinson on

  self-portrait of

  Sinnott and

  sketches by, childhood

  in Southern California

  Stone on

  vision problems of

  work ethic of

  writing and drawing methods of

  Kirby, Rollin

  Kirby, Rosalind (Roz)

  The Kirbyverse

  Klinghoffer, Leon “Albie”

  Kubrick, Stanley

  Kurtzberg, Benjamin

  Kurtzberg, David

  Kurtzberg, Jacob. See Kirby, Jack

  Kurtzberg, Rosemary

  Kurtzman, Harvey

  Kyle, Richard

  LaGuardia, Fiorello

  Laughs from the Day’s News!

  “The League of the Handsome Devils!”

  Lee, Stan

  Levitz, Paul

  Lieber, Larry

  Lieber, Stanley Martin. See also Lee, Stan

  Liebowitz, Jack

  Lincoln Features Syndicate

  Lisa Kirby v. Marvel Characters

  The Lone Rider

  The Losers

  Machine Man

  MAD Magazine

  “Magneto v. Titanium-Man”

  Manhunter

  Marvel Boy

  Marvel Comics

  Marvelmania International

  Marvel Mystery Comics

  Max Fleischer Studio

  McCartney, Paul and Linda

  Mercury

  Meskin, Mort

  Metron

  Millie the Model

  Mister Miracle

  movies

  Mr. Keane, Tracer of Lost Persons

  My Date

  The New Gods

  New World Entertainment

  Nick Fury

  Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

  Night Fighter

  Norris, Paul

  Not Brand Echh

  Oda, Ben

  Odin

  Oleck, Jack

  Olsen, Jimmy. See Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen

  OMAC

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  Orlando, Joe

  Our Puzzle Corner

  Pacific Comics

  Parker, Bill

  Patton, George S.

  Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation