After I wrote this article and posted the versions for Cap that Pete Von Sholly provided, I received some additional insight from WiK members about what Jack Kirby might have meant buy the strange pose in Tales of Suspense page laid out by Kirby and penciled by Dick Ayers.
First I'd like to mention that my account of Stan Lee wanting Jack to do layouts for other artists was corrected by Patrick Ford:
By the mid-60s Jack Kirby's output reached a feverous pitch. Stan Lee demanded more and more from Kirby in order to distill Kirby's powerful style as Marvel's house style. To get more out of Kirby and train Marvel's other artist, Stan Lee had Kirby do quick pencil layouts for artists such as Dick Ayers and John Romita, among others, to finish Kirby's designs with their pencils and thus, learn his style. In most cases, as Kirby laid out the page he plotted the stories leaving his notes in the margins.
Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas today and a happy holiday season. Hope your presents include some Jack Kirby treats!
Some 25 years ago, Jack Kirby's art was finally returned to him from Marvel, well at least a fraction returned. In the late 80s, collectors could purchase art directly from the Roselyn and Jack Kirby and later, in the 90's and after, also through Mike Thibodeaux. New art was periodically being released to the market through the then new, Jack Kirby Collector magazine and comic cons, especially the San Diego Comic Con International well into the 2000s.
Last week we all received the news on Thursday of Joe Simon's passing on Wednesday, December 14th. There are many great articles written and about his life and incredible contributions to the comic book industry such as the LA Times and the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Joe was a native of my hometown, Rochester NY.
Today, with Thor's mighty hammer, What if Kirby has smashed the 900th page barrier. WiK now has over 900 pages in the searchable, Gallery section of the website. To highlight this milestone, the panel page to Thor 137, page 5 was chosen. The ongoing mission of WiK and the Jack Kirby's Museum's Original Art Digital Archive is to scan as many pages of Kirby art as there are still in existence. Any and all Kirby art is important to archive and preserve for us and future generations.
WiK is on the road again to scan more Kirby original art for the Jack Kirby Original Art Digital Archive and the Gallery section of WiK. I'll be set up with scanner at Bechara Maalouf's Nostalgic Collectables, booth #1754 at the New York Comic Con from Friday afternoon, October 14 through Sunday, October 16, 2010 at the Jacob K. Javits Center, 655 West 34th Street in Midtown Manhattan. In addition, Rand Hoppe of The Jack Kirby Museum will be at booth #2744 to also scan original comic art for the archive and to promote the museum and its plans for a temporary physical museum.
Today What if Kirby announces having reached the 800th page of Jack Kirby comic art displayed in the Gallery section of the site. This is an important milestone since the Heritage Auction website has archives of past auctions art in high resolution that includes 790 pages of Kirby art. But now, What if Kirby, with its 800 pages has become the largest online resource of Jack Kirby art on the entire web!
The Kirby Museum today announced an initive to bring the works of Jack Kirby to the public on a grander scale. This from the museum's website:
"Our intention is to set up a temporary, or “pop-up,” brick-and-mortar location for the Jack Kirby Museum during this November, December and January. The ideal size for this purpose is between 800-1,200-square-feet, and would feature original artwork, artifacts from Jack’s life, prominent guest speakers, educational programs and installation pieces inspired by and celebrating the unique work and life of Jack Kirby."
WiK will be attending the Comic Art Con, “The First Exclusive Comic Art Convention,” in Secaucus, NJ on September 11th, 10AM to 4PM. I will be set up with scanner at Bechara Maalouf, Nostalgic Collectables to scan as much Kirby comic art as time permits for the Jack Kirby Museum's Original Art Digital Archive and this site. If you are a collector with Kirby comic art and plan to attend, please stop by and have it archived or just to say hello.
[UPDATED 8.29] If Jack Kirby was still with us, today would have been his 94th birthday. Seventeen years after his passing, Jack's creations and contributions to comics is as strong as ever as event with this year's big screen movie releases of Thor and Captain America. Kirby Genesis, a new comic book series, is taking Jack's own concepts and characters in new directions by some of today's greatest comic book talents. So Kirby is everywhere and awareness of his creativity will only grow.
Jack Kirby is best known for his powerful layouts and pencils. But Jack wasn't only about pencils, he had a facination with the fine art of collage making. Many early 60s Fantastic Four and Thor issues, amoung other titles, had his wonderful imaginative collage ensembles. In most cases, inked characters were added later in the production process. The collage was usually done separately with the penciled figures inked on a different page. Jack continued using collages in his personal, 4th World work at DC Comics in the 70s.
I'm back from the SDCCI for less than a week and still organizing and archiving scans. This year's show yield over 150 new pages for the Jack Kirby Museum's Original Art Digital Archive Project and this site. This puts our total to 1,615 pages which is approximately 10% of the available Kirby art estimated to be in existence.
On of the many things I enjoyed in creating this site was the ability to compare and study Jack Kirby's pencils to the original art inks. Jack Kirby in the 1970s installed in his home, a photo copying machine. With it he made copies of most of his pencil pages before they were sent to the publisher for inking. Fortunately, all these copies were saved and stored in yellow manilla folders in his studio. Hundreds of these copies were scanned by John Marrow, editor and creator of the Jack Kirby Collector. These copies were used in his publication and inspired us all.
Today What if Kirby announces having reached the 700th Jack Kirby comic art page, displayed in the Gallery section. To highlight this milestone, a pin-up page to Fantastic Four, Annual 2 featuring Mr. Fantastic was chosen. The ongoing mission of WiK and the Jack Kirby's Museum's Original Art Digital Archive is to scan as many pages of Kirby art as there are available.
Thanks to the many Original Art dealers and private collectors for contributing their art to this site and the Museum's Digital Archive.
What if Kirby will be set up at this month's San Diego Comic Con International to scan more Kirby original art for the Jack Kirby Original Art Digital Archive and the Gallery section of WiK. I'll be set up with scanner at Bechara Maalouf's Nostalgic Collectables from prevue night on Wednesday, July 20th through Sunday, July 24th. In addition, Rand Hoppe of The Jack Kirby Museum will also have a booth dedicated to the museum and will also scan original comic art for the archive.
The original art to this concept piece, roughly penciled by Jack Kirby, was posted on What if Kirby when the site launched last August (see it in the Gallery). Comments started by members quickly focused on how cool it would be to have the cover finished. The cover was really a rough layout of Jack's concept for a new title, I assume, to present to DC Comics. It obviously never became a reality, unfortunately. Jack's layout pencils below.
UPDATED, JUNE 6, 2011. Recently on WiK there has been a debate over who inked the splash page to Black Magic, issue 3, volume 1, page 1. WiK member, Frank Fosco took the time to research this page and originally thought it was primarily inked by Mort Meskin (Who is Mort Meskin?).
Approximately 10 years ago this month in 2001, What if Kirby launched on the web (photo, left shows the original website's homepage). My intension was to provide an online place to feature the recreation work I was doing with Kirby's original inkers, Mike Royer, Dick Ayers, Joe Sinnott, Dan Adkins and others. At that time the site had some of the features seen on today's site such as art zooming and Kirby pencils, recreated pencils and recreated inks comparisons, but was all done by hand. Pretty advanced for its time. For many years the only updates were postings of new commissions.
