Axiom’s Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

By John J. Joex

Jack "The King" Kirby

American Dissolution: You might think that in 1965, Jack Kirby would have been on top of the world. By that time, a kid who had grown from a life of poverty in the New York streets dreaming of drawing comics had become one of the most recognized names in the industry. “The King”, as his credits on the Marvel pages he drew during the 60’s lauded, had gone from a boy who could barely afford paper to draw on to a man who had created or co-created some of the most memorable comics in history including Captain America, The Boy Commandos, Black Magic, The Fantastic Four, The Mighty Thor, and many more. However, despite his stature in the world of comics, Jack Kirby was not pleased with his situation.

Even though he had co-created much of the Marvel Universe with Stan Lee, he felt he did not receive the credit and compensation that he deserved from the titles he worked on. The “Marvel Process” of creating comics involved the writer and artist coming up with a basic story for an issue which the artist would then draw followed by the writer adding the dialogue. Since Stan Lee “wrote” almost every Marvel title during the 60’s, he took the writer credit while the penciller took the artist credit. Kirby, as with many other artists working for Marvel, felt he deserved to share in the credit as writer because he did much of the work of crafting and fleshing out the story. However, the company was not willing to extend him these credentials.

Kirby, along with others, began to feel like labor-for-hire as they watched Stan Lee bask in the glory of Marvel’s unlikely rise to fame and often receive the full credit for creations that he collaborated on with others. To make matters worse, Jack Kirby felt he had little job security as the contracts the artists were asked to sign treated them like contract workers and as an impending sale of the company loomed. He had already seen Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, depart from the company as the result of bad blood with Stan Lee. And Kirby had come up with an entire new line of characters that he preferred not to share with Marvel because he knew he would not have editorial control over their titles nor would he retain the rights to his creations (at that time, all characters created by artists and/or writers were owned by the companies they worked for).

So when an opportunity to jump ship to Marvel’s main competitor, DC, presented itself, Jack Kirby decided the time was right. Then editor-in-chief Carmine Infantino promised “The King” that he could work on whatever he wanted to at DC and that he would retain creative and editorial control over his books (though he still would not own the characters he created). With renewed enthusiasm for his craft, Kirby headed to DC at the beginning of the 70’s and created the Fourth World series (which introduced Darkseid and the New Gods) that would go on to become legendary in comics (more on that in a future column). However, the company that had made many promises to lure an industry icon to their fold started to have some buyer’s remorse. Some members of the DC editorial staff were not thrilled with Jack Kirby’s creations as they felt the new titles did not fit in well with the company’s stable of characters. Then, just as the Fourth World series was really picking up steam, DC cancelled it. Not because the sales of the titles were bad, but because a recent price-war with Marvel had caused a shake-up within the company, and the Fourth World comics had not sold well enough to justify their continuation in the mind of the DC executives.

After Kirby saw the creation that he had poured his heart and soul into cancelled by the company that had promised him so much, he swallowed his pride and worked on several more titles for them (one of which, Kamandi, is a personal favorite). But he became more and more disillusioned with his situation and eventually elected not to stay on with DC, but to return to the Marvel bullpen. While there in the mid to late 70’s he created and worked on several more titles, but his enthusiasm had waned. What was worse, he got into a tiff with Marvel over the return of his original artwork that would go on for years and would eventually become a renowned battle in the comics industry.

By the late 70’s, Jack Kirby, who had become in legend in comics, had been made to feel like a has-been by the industry in which he had played such a pivotal role. As he grew older, he looked at a future of demanding hours with inadequate compensation. It was only his chance move into the world of animation that made his twilight years (he passed in 1994) more bearable. He first ventured in that direction when assisting with the late-70’s Fantastic Four cartoon. He then went on to work on Thundarr the Barbarian and other shows and started to receive a salary much higher than what he had ever seen from his comic book work. He also finally received health insurance benefits, which was very important for him and his wife at their advanced age. He dabbled a bit more in comics in the early to mid 80’s with Pacific Comics and DC, but eventually turned away from the industry he helped make famous to focus primarily on animation in his later years.

As the independent publishers that rose in the 80’s like Pacific Comics and First Comics shepherded changes to the industry, artists and writers started receiving much larger compensation for their work (often tied closely to the sales of the books they worked on), and many companies started to allow them to keep the rights to the characters they created. Sadly, though, Jack Kirby participated only in the very beginning of this movement as by then he had already soured on the industry because of his experiences over the prior two decades. Kirby had experienced the American Dream by making is living drawing comics and becoming a legendary artist in that field. Then he suffered the American Dissolution as the corporate attitude that had developed a stranglehold on the industry treated him as a contract laborer and showed little respect for the creations he relished in producing. Still, he is well remembered by comic book fans for how he changed and revitalized the industry (time and time again), and he has left an extensive volume of work from which we can all revel in his memory.

Previous: Part 1 – American Dream

Mini-Review – Tales to Astonish: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and the American Comic Book Revolution

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

This book by Ronin Ro is ostensibly the story of Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Joe Simon and their part in changing the comic book industry. However, he focuses primarily on Kirby with Lee and Simon taking second-banana roles. He keeps his sight on their professional careers, which ends up giving us a biography of sorts for Kirby because that period covered the majority of his living years. The book is not as comprehensive a look at Kirby’s life nor as well written as Mark Evanier’s Kirby: King of Comics (see review from the last column), and I do question some of Ro’s facts. It also lacks any pictures other than the cover (probably an issue of rights and the publisher not willing to shell out the money to include artwork). Still, it is a quick read and goes into more depth on Kirby’s partnerships with Stan Lee and Joe Simon. I picked it up at a bargain-bin price and was quite pleased with the book. If you want read about the life of “The King”, start with Evanier, but pick up this one as well for supplemental reading.

John J. Joex is looking for Comic Book Artists to collaborate on one or more ideas he has developed. Click here for more info.

The Jack Kirby Store: Offering a comprehensive selection of compilations of The King’s work available on Amazon.com including the Fourth World, Fantastic Four, Kamandi, Thor, Captain America, The Eternals, and many more.

By John J. Joex

American Dream: The story of Jack Kirby’s life starts out much like the stereotypical American Dream tale. He was born in 1917 to a family of immigrants who lived a life of subsistence in the rough, tenement districts of New York City. Jack did would he could, such as selling papers, to supplement his family’s meager income, but he longed to draw. He would scribble his creations, inspired by the works of Milton Caniff, Hal Foster, and Alex Raymond, on whatever scraps he could find and dreamed of one day making a living from his talent even though it promised only a barely livable wage.

Through his determination, he managed to do just what he wanted and landed a job with the Fleischer Studios where he drew “inbetweener” cells on the cartoons they produced like Popeye. He then graduated from this to the Lincoln Newspaper Syndicate working on knock-off comic strips. Ultimately, by around 1940, he moved from this work to the then burgeoning industry of comic books. He produced a few strips on his own at first, but then he met up with Joe Simon and formed a partnership that would become legendary in comics (the first, in fact, of two such partnerships he would participate in).

Simon and Kirby actually produced the first issue of Captain Marvel Comics, though they did so uncredited. Shortly after that, though, they would sky-rocket into fame with the creation of Captain America, and while the Captain was not the first patriotic superhero, he quickly became the most popular and helped establish the creative duo as a valuable commodity. And when Simon and Kirby decided that Martin Goodman at Timely (later to become Marvel Comics) was not compensating them well enough, they jumped ship to D.C. where they worked on yet another line of popular titles including The Sandman, The Boy Commandos, and The Newsboy Legion. More importantly, their stature as hit-makers allowed them to negotiate for a percentage of the profits of their books, placing them among the better paid talent in the industry.

Both Simon and Kirby headed off to the war shortly after that, and when they returned home found that comics had changed once superheroes no longer had the Axis enemy to fight. Still the two carried on and took comics in new directions. They created romance comics with Young Romance, and worked on crime, horror, and western books in the days after superheroes had lost their luster. And all the while, the pair continued to receive a pretty decent salary for an industry notorious low wages. Ultimately, the team disbanded, though, when Joe Simon decided to leave comics for advertising after the industry nearly collapsed in the wake of the anti-comics crusade that arose from the notorious condemnations and unsubstantiated links to juvenile delinquency by such “experts” as Dr. Fredric Wertham.

Kirby soldiered on in the comics field though, working for various companies including D.C. in the later fifties before returning to Marvel (then known as Atlas) during a low point in that company’s history. Sales for Atlas’ books had dropped drastically and the company had let most of its staff go. But then editor-in-chief Stan Lee welcomed Kirby back and quickly put him to work on as many titles as possible. They mostly produced bland monster / sci fi throw-away stories that would not offend the newly created Comics Code which shepherded over the industry. But then, on one fateful day, company owner Martin Goodman asked Stan Lee to come up with a superhero team book that would compete with D.C.’s popular Justice League title. Lee sat down with Jack Kirby, and the partnership (which would soon become as famous as the Simon and Kirby team that preceded it) ushered in the Marvel Age and changed the comic book industry.

The Fantastic Four was a huge hit, and in no time Kirby found himself co-creating other titles such as Thor, The Hulk, The Avengers, The X-Men, the revived Captain America, and many more which would provide the foundation for the Marvel Universe.

Jack Kirby may have started out as a boy who could barely afford to pay for the paper to sketch his ideas on, but by the mid-60’s he had become the “King” and was known by practically every fan who bought comics on a regular basis. And while you may think this would have afforded him the carte blanche that he enjoyed with Joe Simon back in the heyday of their partnership, that’s far from the truth. In fact, within a few short years, Kirby would find himself at odds with Marvel and ready to defect to that company’s competitor.

Next: Part 2 – American Dissolution

Mini-Review – Kirby: King of Comics

Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)

I have only scraped the surface of the events of Jack Kirby’s life from his childhood to his participation in the birth of the Marvel Universe. You can find many sources with more information on the “King’s” life, but start with Mark Evanier’s Kirby: King of Comics. Evanier spent years as Kirby’s assistant and is the foremost scholar on his life and work. In this book, he gives a full retrospective of Jack Kirby’s life and career, written in an easy to follow, breezy style. The book is also loaded with samples of the “King’s” artwork, including many rare sketches that Kirby aficionados will devour. At full retail of $40, it is a bit pricey, but Amazon.com and other sellers usually have it a pretty deep discount somewhere in the $26 – $32 range. In any case, it is a must have for Kirby fans and a great read for anybody interested in a behind the scenes look at the comic book industry from its nascent years to the mid-80’s.

Previously from The Kirby Files: The Essential Jack Kirby

John J. Joex is looking for Comic Book Artists to collaborate on one or more ideas he has developed. Click here for more info.

Visit The Jack Kirby Store for a comprehensive selection of compilations of his work available on Amazon.com including the Fourth World, Fantastic Four, Kamandi, Thor, Captain America, The Eternals, and many more.