Comments | fpb: The climax of Jack Kirby's career (a fanzine article from several years back)

fpb

The climax of Jack Kirby's career (a fanzine article from several years back)

Apr 12, 2008 01:03

THE HEIGHT OF JACK KIRBY'S CAREER: 2001 #s 1-7

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heroes and saints, comics, genius, sublime achievement, jack kirby, beauty, art

Comments 5

johncwright April 16 2008, 20:14:39 UTC

This is an amazing article. Thank you for showing it to us.

stigandnasty919 April 17 2008, 10:31:43 UTC

This article, and the others in the set, were the reason I recognised your name when I came across it in Live Journal and the reason why I 'friended' you in the first place. I'd read them all recently when I found a box of old fanzines in the attic and re-read them. (I really miss print comic fanzines - are there any still out there ( ... )

fpb April 17 2008, 12:05:34 UTC

To this I have no answer, because, frankly, my reaction was different. Believe it or not, it was his last run on Captain America that made me an iron-bound Kirby fan. I certainly did not feel a lack of enthusiasm or involvement, and my view is that a collaborator would only dilute the uniqueness of Kirby's self-made artistry. So unless you have an experience very much like a conversion, I do not know that I can do more to explain my view than I have. Even the threatened book on 2001 1-7 would not do it. It is a matter of elementary experience. I have a friend who cannot bear Beethoven - in spite of being well able to read and play classical music. It is a problem to me, because I firmly believe that artistic merit is objective, but one has to recognize facts.

fpb April 17 2008, 12:12:02 UTC

Kirby's art took one Hell of a hit, from which he never fully recovered, when Marvel opted for the catchpenny solution to cut drawing paper sizes in 1968. Kirby's hand needs a lot of space to move, and from then on his layouts never quite recovered. One does not notice so much during Fourth World, because of the intensity of inspiration that blazes through the pages, but even then one has to notice things like the increase in not wholly necessary full-page and double-page spreads. After the dreadful experience of the collapse of the Fourth World line, of course, the sense of constriction caught up with him. In my view, the artistic peak of Kirby is from about 1966 to about 1968, and especially in the rare and breathtaking Thor issues in which he was paired with the great Bill Everett.

stigandnasty919 April 17 2008, 15:20:17 UTC

Was not aware of the change in drawing paper sizes, but that would explain a lot. Those Thor issues would certainly be my choice for his peak at Marvel along with anything featuring the Inhumans (apart from the final issue of Silver Surfer), but I also have a lot of time for some of the material he produced with Joe Simon. Especially on some of the odder titles they brought out. I always liked Black Magic and the various kid gang books. I recently read, in electronic form, some of the strips Joe and Jack did for Fox (I think) and was stunned at how much energy they had ( ... )