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TRIBUTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44(the 2001 Kirby Tribute Panel, featuring the late John Buscema, John Romita,Mike Royer, Will Eisner, and some guy named Carson)
DECONSTRUCTING HIMON . . . . . . . . .58(three different writers take apart one of Kirby’s finest tales: “Himon”)
IN CLOSING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72(an examination of Kirby’s second Mister Miracle series)
COLLECTOR COMMENTS . . . . . . . . . . .76(escape the humdrum letter columns of other mags by perusing these missives about our last issue)
PARTING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80(on the way out, take a quick look at Jack’s final Mister Miracle page)
Front cover inks: MARSHALL ROGERSBack cover pastel art: STEVE RUDEFront cover color: TOM ZIUKO
Photocopies of Jack’s uninked pencils
from published comics are reproduced
here courtesy of the K irby Estate, which
has our thanks for their continued support.
COPYRIGHTS: Batman, Bekka, Ben Boxer, Bernadeth,Big Barda, Bruce Wayne, Darkseid, Female Furies,Forever People, Funky Flashman, Granny Goodness,
ack Kirby was running from something all his life.Okay, I know that statement might sound strange to any
number of longtime Kirby fans, but bear with me a
minute, and I’ll explain what I mean.This issue is all about the theme of “escape” in
Jack’s work, and so it naturally will feature lots of Mister Miracle, Kirby’s super escape artist; butwhile the rest of the issue will deal with some of the “close calls” that character experienced onthe comics page, I want to delve into what mayhave made Jack so inclined to submerge him-self in this particular brand of escapism calledcomic books—what I term “The Great KirbyBust-Out!” (to borrow a line from the cover of
Mister Miracle #9).Escape was a part of Jack’s life, from
beginning to end. To demonstrate mypoint, I’ve compiled a list of what I consid-er to be Kirby’s top ten biggest real-lifeescapes, in chronological order:
Escape from the Lower East Side (1930s).As a son of Jewish immigrants, Kirby spent
his childhood in one of the poorest neighborhoodsin New York. Daily gang fights were the norm, as fewkids on his block had much else to live for; but Kirby sur-reptitiously kept his imagination and artistic talent alive andflourishing through reading, movies, and drawing, and insteadof following in his father’s blue collar footsteps, used his talents
to find a way out of the slum.
Escaping anti-Semitism (1940s).Early in his career, Jack chose to legallychange his name from Kurtzberg to Kirby (muchto his parents’ dismay). Although he neverturned his back on his faith and ancestry, heopted for the new name for commercialreasons, undoubtedly feeling it couldhelp him avoid any anti-Semitic back-lash in his search for work.
Escape from death (World War II).After enlisting in the Army,
PFC Jack Kirby was assigned tonumerous life-threatening sit-uations as an advance scout.
The experience would be great fodder forfuture comics stories, but he barely lived totell them. After scraping by alive in Patton’sarmy, he was discharged with frozen feet, andnearly had them amputated. WWII was a profoundinfluence on his life—as anyone who met Jack in person (and
heard a war story or two) canattest—and unlike a stagemagician’s act, his death-defy-ing feats were the real thing.
Escape from a dying industry(1950s).
After the end of hisMainline company (and partingways with Joe Simon) as thecomics industry looked to be
collapsing, Jack picked up what-ever work he could find. Hemay have seen the writing on
the wall much earlier, because from the late 1940s-onward, he was constantly pursuing his dream of land-ing a coveted syndicated newspaper comic strip. The
opportunity finally arose with Sky Masters, and itspromise of a better, more secure living and greater
prestige; but the strip waned after an impressivestart, and Jack found himself trapped backworking for a comics page rate just to survive.Arguably, the desperation of the situation ledto the development of the Marvel Universe,
which in turn helped save a dying industry,but it also propelled Kirby squarely
back into it. So in some ways, hisescape to newspaper syndication led
him right back to a trap of his own making.
Escape from New York(1969).After more than 50 years
living in the city of his birth,Kirby uprooted his family
and moved to theother side of the
country. Jackclaimed the
Californiaclime was
betterfor hisdaugh-
terLisa’s
asthma,but no
doubt thefreedom of
being 3000 milesaway from an edi-tor made the
decision all theeasier. Thechange inscenery
appears to have started new ideas brewing in his mind,
which would lead to some of his most mind-bogglingconcepts making their way to the comics page.
Escape from Marvel and Stan Lee (1970).Perhaps the biggest career move he ever made, the
switch to DC Comics meant he was leaving behind thesuccess of 1960s Marvel Comics, for a chance to prove
imself without a collaborator to share the credit with. From this point on, with rarexceptions, Jack wrote and edited his own stories (usually sending in completely letterednd inked work), and never again worked “Marvel method.”
scaping DC (1975).Although what waited for him back at Marvel ended up no better than
hat he was leaving behind, Jack chose not to renew his contract atC Comics when it expired. The failed Fourth World experi-
ment and a string of unsatisfying post- New Gods series leftim looking for somewhere, anywhere else to ply hisade. For better or worse, Marvel Comics was the only
ther game in town, so he jumped ship yet again inopes of a better situation.
scaping the comics industry entirely (1978). Just when things seemed hopeless in the comics field he helped
ioneer four decades earlier, the animation industry came calling.With higher pay, more respect, and much-needed health benefits as he
ntered his declining years, Jack ironically ended his career where it began;nly instead of doing in-betweening for Popeye cartoons, he was a muchought-after concept man (creating thousands of ideas that will likely never beeen by the public), and scoring a major hit with Thundarr the Barbarian.
scaping the “Big Two” (1980s). Jack’s final major foray into comics, rather than for DC and Marvel, wound
p being for independent publishers. Freed of the constraints of company-wideontinuity and editorial dictates (which he experienced one last time on DC’s 1984
Hunger Dogs Graphic Novel), Kirby produced wild, frenetic work like never before.ome loved it, some hated it, but no one could deny his unchained imagination was working at full speed on such projects asaptain Victory and Silver Star.
scape from obscurity (1990s).After years of no new Kirby work on the stands, and a gradual lessening of attention being paid to Jack (including smaller
rowds at conventions, where younger readers flocked to the Image creators), Jack experienced a resurgence of popularity in the1990s. The debut of Phantom Force (with Kirbyconcepts combined with Image inkers) and the Topps Secret City Sagabooks, as well as the release of The Art of Jack Kirby (and not one, but twofanzines devoted to Kirby) helped bring him back to the forefront of fans’minds (although his place in comics history was undoubtedly assuredanyway).
Is it any wonder then, that Jack was destined to make his mark in afield of escapist entertainment? While he may never have mastered theintricate escape techniques of a prestidigitator like Houdini, he certainlyworked his own brand of magic in comics; and the personal chains thatencumbered him throughout his life and career were every bit as difficult
to surmount as anything David Copperfield and co. have ever dreamedup for their acts.★
teve Rude didn’t waste a second when we asked him if
he’d ever done a Mister Miracle #1 cover recreation that we
could run on this issue’s back cover. Although he hadn’t, he
immediately offered to give it a shot. (We thought Steve was a
particularly appropriate choice since, on the the original cover of
#1, Mister Miracle is saying the villains “are in for a RUDE shock.”)
We assumed “The Dude” would do a traditional pen-&-ink
version, and were totally stunned
when a gorgeous pastel drawing
arrived less than a week later.
Steve had this to say about the
creation of the piece:“Some of you may be
familiar with a magazine
called Step-by-Step . Though
I collected it solely for
“Methods of the Masters,” a
section devoted to vintage
illustrators, I have yet to
learn a thing from any of the
Step-by-Step articles. Maybe
I’d have to be there watching
over the artist’s shoulder, or
physically work alongside them,
but for me these articles just don’t
seem to work.
“With that in mind, I’ll describe the process of the Mister Miracle
#1 recreation. It was rendered
in Nupastel, a hard, stick-
like chalk, and done on orange Canson paper. I began by enlarging a copy of the actual Kirby
cover and transferring it onto the pastel paper. I juggled some elements around since there were
no logo or word balloons to worry about, and began to apply the main colors throughout.
“Pastel is a new medium for me and is best suited to painting large images where you can
use broad, suggestive strokes. Eventually, you hone-in on details with smaller and smaller
strokes. This is more difficult than it sounds. Pastel smears easily. Like
all mediums, its drawbacks work side-by-side with its charms. At one
point I dragged my sleeve along an area I’d spent an hour on and smeared
the whole thing. I finally realized the baggy sleeves I was wearing were
the culprit. Instant wipeout. Pastelists have a thing against fixative for some reason, but it’s the
only sane way to work
with the stuff. (I rolled
up my sleeve after that
incident.)
“For the budding
illustrators out there, know
that mediums don’t make an
artist. Practice and accumulated
knowledge do. As Andrew Loomis once
said, the principles apply to all art regardless of the
medium used; be it oil, acrylic, watercolor, or
a stick dipped in mud.
“Problems arise in all mediums as anartist struggles to improve. This situation
usually applies throughout our entire lives.
Our job is to become smarter than the medium, and
not let technical things interfere with the fundamentals
that make a good picture.”
Marshall Rogers took the more conventional route for this issue’s front cover, inking a xerox
of the Kirby pencils shown on the previous page. He had this to say about the experience:
“How does one approach a legend’s work? Jack is so definitive in his linework that there
is little room for interpretation, and yet I consider his style to be representative of form
rather than absolute.
“I also feel an artist should bring something of himself to his work. With this in mind,
and a personal preference to an “organic” rather than “plastic” look to inks (as I talked about during
this book’s interview), I inked the cover you see on this issue.” We originally toyed with the idea of adding one of Jack’s photo-collages to the front
cover’s background, but after seeing the color work Tom Ziuko added to it (not to mention
the spiffy “planet” detailing by Tom’s pal Scott Lemien), we thought the white background
aided our goal of making it look like the cover of one of those 25¢ 1970s DC 52-pagers
They had a frenetic, sweaty quality to them. The DC
books were cool and mannered and the values
were easy to comprehend. Little kids really
do believe in truth and justice and the
American way.So I didn’t know from Kirby. Then
all of a sudden those banners started
appearing in the DC books: “Kirby Is
Coming!” and then, finally, “Kirby Is
Here!” I had no idea who Kirby was. I
thought it might be a character—some
vague association chiming in my mind
with the Rip Kirby newspaper strip. Then
my dad brought me home the first few
Kirby Jimmy Olsen books. That was always a
book prone to bizarre flights of fancy, but—
whoa. I don’t think I knew quite what to make of
Kirby at first.
The book that really, truly, permanently blew my mind was the issue of Mister
Miracle in which he fights the creature from the Id [#8] ; a big, pink, comatose but
sentient wad of bubblegum. There’s this incredible double-page spread of the
Female Furies killing time in their barracks. That panel just completely unhinged
me. The dynamic layout, the wealth of figures and the variety of their costumes,
the air of violence and sexuality, the bizarrely stilted dialogue. From that point on
I was a confirmed Kirbyite.
TJKC: Did any characters or scenes from Mister Miracle influence your novel? For
instance, could a parallel be drawn between Joe Kavalier’s mentor Bernard
Kornblum, and Himon from Mister Miracle? How about between Joe Kavalier’s
own escape from Nazi-occupied Prague, and Scott Free’s escape from Apokolips?
MICHAEL: There may very well be underpinnings of Mister Miracle in my book.
I’m sure there are; but if so, I was totally unaware of them at the time. You couldtoss in that the ‘fictional’ character of Max Mayflower who trains the Escapist is a
bit like Thaddeus Brown, the original Mister Miracle. And I guess that makes
Sammy Oberon!
The surest connection, and the one that I really was conscious of, was between
my guy and Jim Steranko. It was reading about Steranko’s first career as an escape
artist that encouraged me to develop the motif of Houdini and escape artistry that
was very lightly emphasized in the first few drafts. And Steranko also underlies
Mister Miracle. So that’s the strongest link, I think, between my book and JK’s.
TJKC: Your novel features a who’s who of Golden Age comics creators making
cameo appearances, from Stan Lee, Joe Simon, and Gil Kane to Will Eisner and
others; but Kirby seems conspicuous by his absence, not actually appearing as a
character in the novel. Was this intentional, and if so, why?
MICHAEL: Well,
I guess I just sort
of felt as if this
book was, in a
way, for JackKirby, or of
him—as much
as, in a very
different way, it
was for and of
my dad (to whom
I dedicated it).
Having him also
appear in it
might have
seemed like too much, somehow.
TJKC: On page 100 of the hardcover edition, it’s revealed that Sammy Clay’s
mother fell in love with Sammy’s father in “Kurtzburg’s Saloon” on New York’sLower East Side in 1919. In what other ways was the novel inspired by Kirby’s
own escape from his Lower East Side upbringing?
MICHAEL: There was no direct inspiration from Kirby’s life; not really, except
insofar as Kirby’s history mirrored so closely the history of my own grandparents
and great-grandparents, many of whom settled in the Lower East Side, too.
TJKC: An underlying theme of Kavalier & Clay seems to be “Comics are escapism,
but there’s no getting away from real life.” Is that an accurate assessment, and is
there a message there for comics fans?
MICHAEL: I don’t see it that way. I might restate it thus: “Comics are escapism,
and thank God, because without escapist art there really would be no getting
away from real life.” By the way, I believe that all great literature is, in part,
escapist. When you inhabit the life of a fictional character or characters, you aregiven a taste of what it might feel like to be somebody else—to escape, if only for
a moment, the prison of your own consciousness.
TJKC: Can you elaborate on the theme of “escape” in the novel? An example that
seems to fall under the theme is Joe Kavalier’s journey to Antarctica during the
war to escape his past and his brother’s death.
MICHAEL: I read this sequence as more in the nature of an escape in itself; that
is, Joe is locked away in this great frozen box of death, a trap that kills everyone
but him, and he alone escapes; and yet, at the same time, learns that the trap of
memory, of guilt and remorse and shame, is one that he cannot escape, not even
by taking revenge.
TJKC: Another is the Escapist’s secret identity of Tom Mayflower; of course, the
Pilgrims escaped persecution on their ship, the Mayflower.
MICHAEL: Interesting. I just wanted
something that sounded super-WASPy.
TJKC: Help us get into your mind as a
writer. Are those types of occurrences
coincidental or planned? Do you con-
sciously set out to develop these ideas
from the start, or do they evolve, and
come to you as you write? What are
some other areas in the novel that tie
into the “escape” theme?
MICHAEL: Theme is absolutely the
very last thing I consider. I start with a
character, a setting, or a story idea; aninteresting event or episode or sequence
remember ever hearing of a writer or artist he didn’t
like, the lowest being those people whose books
he felt were highly derivative or who he felt were
just imitating or tracing other people’s works.
That certainly did not apply to any of these
gentlemen. He could not mention Johnny
Romita without the phrase, “the guy who
saved Spider-Man.” When Jack went over to
DC, one of the things he very much wanted to
do was a very sophisticated romance comic.
Eventually, the idea got dumbed down into that
True Divorce Cases/Soul Love thing which we didthat Jack never really understood. Through it all, he
kept mentioning how much he wanted to get this man
to work with him. He truly admired his work; Mr. Johnny
Romita, ladies and gentlemen. (applause)
Another artist for whom Jack never had anything but the highest regard was
the gentleman who followed him on the Fantastic Four and Thor . My first ques-
tion, when we get to him, will be, “Just what’s it like to follow Jack Kirby on
Fantastic Four and Thor ?” (laughs) Those of us who felt a certain loss when Jack
left those books were more than delighted to see the expert handiwork of
Marvel’s supreme penciler, Mr. John Buscema. (applause) And if you said to Jack,
“Who do you really admire in comics?”, the first two names heard would be Bill
Everett or this gentleman, whom he especially admired, not only as an artist but
as a role model. I think Will was almost a father figure, in a way. He was in the
business about an hour before Jack. (laughs) And we’re going to talk about that a
little bit. But actually, this man finally achieved something the other night when
he actually won an Eisner Award. (laughs, applause) Is that your first Eisner? I’ve
got three of them, and that’s your first?
WILL EISNER: I hate to tell you what it took to get one. (laughs)
JOHN ROMITA: You didn’t know the right people. (laughs)
EVANIER: So you’ve finally done work that lives up to the standards of Will
Eisner. (laughs)
EISNER: I lied about my age. (laughs)
EVANIER: And here to my left is a gentleman that Jack handpicked as his favorite
inker for the last twenty years of his life. I don’t think people realize how hard this
man worked. To ink everything Jack Kirby did, alone... well, a lot of people couldnot have done that, even badly. To ink it and letter it so well under those time
constraints for that rotten money was an amazing achievement. We owe an awful
lot of thanks to Mr. Mike Royer. (applause) Let me also introduce in the audience
a couple of people very briefly. When I was working for Jack, I had the pleasure of
having as my friend and colleague and partner and co-conspirator, a gentleman
who did an awful lot of work for Jack personally and professionally, and was a
lifelong friend of the family, Mr. Steve Sherman. (applause) And Jack’s other
favorite inker in the last decade or two of his life, and a very close member of the
Kirby family—I mean “family” in the very best sense of the word because he was
practically almost blood over there, Mr. Mike Thibodeaux. (applause) I also do
see one other person here. Jack had an amazing ability to get into trouble, usually
not of his own making, and he had two attorneys throughout most of the Eighties
and Nineties who were dealing with these problems. One was a man by the name
of Steve Rohde who is now a high muck-a-muck in the ACLU. He spends one hour
a week making money as a lawyer and fifty hours a week protecting civil rights.
His former collaborator and partner is now in his own practice and I knew him
mostly as a voice on the phone, dealing with all of Jack’s problems, calling me in
exasperation at whatever stupid thing Marvel was claiming this week. This is Mr.
Paul Levine over here. (applause) I’m going to start with Mr. Eisner—and, by the
way, you all bought this, right? (holds up Eisner’s book Shop Talk to wild applause) I
know you’ve told this story before but you never told it at one of these panels,
about hiring Jack Kirby and his coming to work for your studio—and at some
point, you’ve got to tell the towel story. (laughs) Tell us about the operation that
Jack came into.
EISNER: Well, the company was Eisner and Iger. I former a company with Jerry
Iger who’d been formerly the editor of Wow, What A Magazine that collapsed after
two issues. We owned a shop producing, or packaging, comics. In those days, thepulp magazines were dying and the publishers who were still trying to survive,
were looking for other things to publish. They were publishing comic magazines,
as we called them in those days. They weren’t called “comic books.” Then, as it
came to pass, into my shop comes this kid named Jacob Kurtzberg. Whatever
happened to him, I don’t know. (laughs) He kind of looked like John Garfield to
45
A French Kirby Exhibition (or nearly)!by Jean Depelley and Philippe Jecker
The 2002 Angoulême International Comics Festival (which took place
last January 24th-27th) was a nice opportunity for European comics fans to
admire a wonderful display of originals from the greatest US comics artists,
and the King was not forgotten!
The CNBDI (standing for National Center for International Comics) is a
one-of-a-kind museum in France, since it presents original comics art only
and has been doing sothese past twelve
years, as well as orga-
nizing important the-
matic exhibitions
focused on the nomi-
nated artists once every
year during the Festival.
Although it usually dis-
plays a wonderful col-
lection of classic French
Belgium “bande dess-
inée ” (including art from
Hergé, Jijé, Franquin, and Moebius), US comics are also well-represented,
with samples from the Golden Age of comic strips, EC, underground, and
mainstream super-hero comics. The 2002edition celebrated nominated artist Martin
Veyron’s sophisticated, Parisian humor, but it
was the US artists’ exhibition that definitely
caught the public interest.
The museum authorities (around
Jean-Pierre Mercier and Thierry Groensteen)
decided to open their holdings, and dis-
played a fantastic selection of art “made in
the USA,” with a very original scenography
created by Marie-Annick Beauvery which
occupied two floors of the CNBDI. First, the
visitor was introduced to American comics
by a comic book store reconstruction (much
different than our French shops!), before
admiring samples of modern independentartists (featuring art by Jill Thomson, Jeff Smith, Mike Mignola, and others).
Then, upstairs began a real feast for the eyes: a wonderful Kirby Torch poster
(statted from a Kirby original)
welcomed the fan! The tone was
set; pages of the greatest artists
were showcased under the
moody lights of the museum,
including George Herriman,
Charles M. Schulz, George
McManus, Robert Crumb, Hal
Foster, Alex Raymond, Burne
Hogarth, Joe Kubert, Jack Davis,
Barry Smith, Jeff Jones, as well
as a special exhibition of Will
Eisner’s Spirit! (Will was attend-ing the Festival as guest of
honor and, by the way, he likes
TJKC! ) In the middle of these
treasures, three wonderful Kirby
pages, intelligently chosen to
show different inkers on Jack’s
work, were presented:
• Fantastic Four Annual #1, page 28 f rom the “Sub-Mariner Vs. The Human
Race” story, inked by Dick Ayers (from which the Torch art had been
swiped for the poster)
• Thor #130 page 5, (not too badly) inked by Colletta
• Fantastic Four #97, page 4, inked by Frank Giacoia
One complaint: the frames made it impossible to read Jack’s margin notesand give a clear shot on the Marvel method, but the art spoke for itself: bril-
liant, energetic and inspiring! If consideration was proportional to the amount
of art displayed, Kirby was really honored in Angoulême as he had as many
pages displayed as Foster or Hogarth, and actually more than anyone else!
Surely he couldn’t be dispatched as easily asDarkseid did in the Hunger Dogs graphic novel(and with as pedestrian a means as a gun; talkabout a scene that rang hollow. Himon wouldcertainly have utilized a “follower” to stand infor him, as he did so many times before).
Regardless, it’s amazing that a character who
only appeared in one Fourth World issue—andnearly two years after the epic began—could besuch an important part of the tapestry. So for thisissue, we resurrect the “lovable old rascal” whotaught Scott Free his craft by having three writersgive their take on one of Kirby’s most personal (andfan favorite) sagas: Mister Miracle #9’s “Himon.”
How Do You Kill The ManWho’s Died A Thousand Deaths?
59
Himontary
T h a n k s t o A d r i a n D a y f o r t h e l o g o t r e a t m e n t !