It is hard to overstate Jack Kirby’s contributions to the medium of comic books. Not only did he create or co-create many popular and long-lasting characters, but his bombastic artistic style and talent for storytelling have influenced nearly every artist in the industry.
Born Jacob Kurtzberg, Kirby was the son of Austrian immigrants and grew up on the lower east side of New York (Scioli 1). In this neighborhood, Kirby became familiar with violence first hand. Street gangs were common, with vicious fights breaking out between the groups of children. While the fights could become quite violent, with bottles and bricks being thrown as well as fists, there seemed to be a code amongst the different gangs to take care of the injured (Scioli 9).
Kirby’s love for fantastical stories came from a number of sources. He listened to stories told by his mother while she worked in the kitchen. Films about Zorro, pulp magazines with aliens and robots, and more, all these planted the seeds of storytelling within him (Scioli 10 and 17). His love for the medium of comics came from the Sunday newspaper, using these strips to teach himself how to draw.
In order to help support his family, Kirby started working from a young age. He worked as an “in-betweener” at Max Fleischer studios (Scioli 18), which involved animating the frames between the more important actions that lead animators would draw. Kirby viewed the job as monotonous and too similar to factory work, so he left for jobs that he felt allowed him to be more creative. He began working in the relatively new medium of comics, and soon met Joe Simon who would be a longtime collaborator and friend (Simon 82). Simon had recently been hired by Martin Goodman, the owner of Timely Comics which later became Marvel Comics. Goodman wanted Simon to create new material, as the company had previously bought content from third-parties (Howe 16). While not the first character the two would create for the company, Captain America is the most famous and longest lasting. Kirby was passionate about the new character. With a tight deadline for the first issue, Simon suggested having some of the other artists assist with the pencil work, but Kirby refused (Scioli 32).
The issue was a hit, selling approximately a million copies (Howe 20). But the issue wasn’t without controversy. It was published in December of 1940 (Evanier 50), nearly an entire year before the U.S. entered the conflict of World War II. At the time of publication many people were not just hesitant about entering the conflict, but even supported Hitler’s rise to power. One day while in the Timely offices Kirby received a phone call from someone threatening to physically assault the artist for the depiction of Nazis in the issue. Kirby wasn’t one to back down from a fight, and said he would wait downstairs in the lobby. Nobody showed up to follow through with the threat (Scioli 39).
Despite the financial success of the series, Simon and Kirby wouldn’t receive the royalties promised to them for Captain America Comics. An accountant at Timely informed the two that all of the company’s expenses were being billed to the series, and as such there was no recognized profit from which to owe loyalties (Howe 22). The two resumed doing freelance work for other companies, attempting to keep this secret from their employers at Timely. They were eventually discovered and fired. Kirby felt certain that it was Stan Lee who had ratted them out, despite a lack of evidence, and swore he would kill Lee if they ever encountered each other again (Scioli 47).
Kirby was eventually drafted into the army (Scioli 54). One of his superiors learned of Kirby’s artistic skills, and assigned Kirby to be an advance scout and to draw maps of the surrounding areas (Scioli 61). This was a dangerous role to take on, and meant Kirby would often have to go behind enemy lines. However, it wouldn’t end up being enemy combatants that posed the greatest threat to Kirby, but the cold weather. Kirby eventually developed frostbite, his feet turning purple, then blue, and amputation was considered (Azéma and Depelley). Fortunately, he made a full recovery and returned home.
Back in the US, Kirby teamed up again with Joe Simon in creating comics. The two worked on superhero comics, horror comics, and together they invented the genre of romance comics (Howe 34). But the business of comics as a whole was soon threatened by external forces. Spearheaded by a psychologist named Frederic Wertham, there was a national push against the medium, claiming that they corrupted the minds of children. While much of the ire was targeted to the popular horror genre, there was still backlash against the medium as a whole. Wertham wrote a book on the subject, Seduction of the Innocent, and was also called as an expert witness for a Senate subcommittee hearing (Howe 30). Many companies went out of business due to the fallout, and many artists lost their jobs. Kirby continued working in the field, doing work for DC Comics for a time until legal disputes led him to leave the company (Scioli 101). Desperate for work, Kirby went back to work for Stan Lee at Marvel (Scioli 101).
The accounts differ about what happens next. Lee claims that he had been told by the publisher, Martin Goodman, to create a new superhero team, and decided to make something more mature and emotional (Howe 2). Kirby claims that he came in with the idea and told Lee he’d be able to turn things around with a new sci-fi based superhero team (Scioli 106). Regardless of the impetus, the result was Fantastic Four #1.
This would be only the start of a series of new creations from Kirby and Lee. Due to Lee writing numerous titles, he would briefly speak with the artist to come up with a general plot, the artist would then draw the issue, and then Lee would go in afterward to fill in the text and speech bubbles (Howe 4). This would eventually be known as the Marvel Method. With Kirby’s sense of storytelling he needed minimal, if any, direction on how a story should go.
Kirby and Lee created a wave of new characters and teams, such as the Hulk, Ant-Man, The Avengers, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, and more. Due to Kirby’s iconic style being definitive to Marvel, Kirby would often draw the basic layouts for issues and then other artists would flesh out the art (Scioli 117). This increased workload was a drain on Kirby, and he felt that he wasn’t being credited or paid properly for his work. Eventually, Kirby decided to try working for Marvel’s main competitors again and signed a 3-year contract at DC Comics (Howe 106).
At DC, Kirby had big plans, introducing concepts that he had been thinking about for years. He wanted to create a new, interconnected universe much like what had been built at Marvel years earlier. Stories like The Forever People, New Gods, and Mister Miracle were the basis of this new mythology he was crafting, all connecting in one larger story (Scioli 149). Unfortunately, these titles were deemed too complex for the market, and were canceled before the overarching story Kirby planned could be finished (Scioli 159). Becoming frustrated with the constant micromanagement of his work, Kirby elected to not renew his contract with DC and returned to Marvel under the condition that he be the writer, artist, and editor over all the titles he was assigned to (Howe 164).
Kirby remained adamant on retaining full control of every possible aspect of the comics he was working on. He declined working with other writers, and only agreed to do a single What if issue of Fantastic Four with the agreement that he would do the writing on it (Scioli 167). He even began having the fan mail for his series directed to his home in California so that he could choose which letters would be published, as he felt the New York offices were deliberately choosing to show a majority of negative letters in an attempt to hurt his sales (Scioli 169).
Almost as a bookend to the beginning of his career, Kirby found his way back into animation. First he did storyboards and concept art for a never-released cartoon from Marvel, and then he accepted a job at Ruby-Spears Productions (Scioli 173). But he would never be fully away from comics, doing numerous projects on the side as well as other creative endeavors. He eventually had health concerns that prevented him from working as intensely as he once did, but kept things quiet as he didn’t want to be “put out to pasture” (Scioli 182). He continued working diligently until the end of his life, though he did take his first ever vacation to The Holy Land (Scioli 183).
Jack Kirby died on February 6th, 1994 due to heart failure (The Associated Press).
Despite the many setbacks and frustrations Kirby faced in his career, the impact of his work cannot be fully measured. Beyond his direct involvement in character and story creation, his techniques have influenced numerous artists still working in the field. According to Schumer: “The many artistic tropes Kirby rendered — abstract, intangible concepts like ‘power’ and ‘energy’ made manifest in hyperbolic visual dimension — became standards in the medium” (Schumer 73). Much like the characters he created, Jack Kirby has become a hero and source of inspiration to many, and the world as a whole is better for his existence in it.
Works Cited
The Associated Press. “Jack Kirby, 76; Created Comic-Book Superheroes.” The New York Times, 8 February 1994, https://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/08/obituaries/jack-kirby-76-created-comic-book-superheroes.html. Accessed 11 May 2023.
Azéma, Marc, and Jean Depelley, directors. Kirby At War: La Guerre de Kirby. 2017. Tubi TV, https://tubitv.com/movies/562030/kirby-at-war?start=true.
Evanier, Mark. Kirby: King of Comics. Harry N. Abrams, 2008. Accessed 3 May 2023.
Howe, Sean. Marvel Comics: The Untold Story. HarperCollins, 2012.
The Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center. Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center, https://kirbymuseum.org/. Accessed 14 May 2023.
Morrow, John. “Jack Kirby Collector.” TwoMorrows Publishing, https://www.twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=57. Accessed 14 May 2023.
Schumer, Arlen. The Silver Age of Comic Book Art. Collectors Press, 2003.
Scioli, Tom. Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics. Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed, 2020.Simon, Joe. Joe Simon: My Life in Comics. Titan, 2011.