Lucas Blogs About Jack Kirby

True story, the Krackle effect actually emanated from Jack Kirby's person during moments of inspiration. Also, any statement immediately following or preceding the phrase "true story" is a lie.

So, what's this book's deal?

Well, as you might guess from the title: Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics is a comic book biography of Jack Kirby (né Jacob Kurtzberg) one of the most influential comic book artists of the Twentieth (or any other) Century. It's written and drawn by Tom Scioli. You may recall that in the past I have expressed enthusiasm for comic books based on characters created by or evoking the style of Jack Kirby.

You may have mentioned him a few times, yes.

Heck yes, I have! Even before I knew who he was I was a fan of his creations. I loved the X-Men, Iron Man, and Fantastic 4 cartoons in the 90s.

I'll give you the X-Men but the Iron Man and FF cartoons in the 90s sucked.

I don't deny that, but I loved them. I especially loved the Silver Surfer and the Watcher. When I was a little older I watched the DC Animated Universe which started incorporating Kirby's Fourth World characters in Superman: The Animated Series (also, they drew another Kirby creation, Det. Dan Turpin to look like Kirby himself) and they had an episode with Jason Blood/Etrigan and Klarion the Witch Boy in The New Batman Adventures. And as I got older I started getting interested in the stories that inspired those cartoons I'd loved as kid/young adult. I'll spare you the list of Kirby works I've gone back and visited (because it's not long/deep enough to be impressive), but suffice it to say that I love his bold, chunky character designs, his crazy techno-contraptions, his iconic effects drawing, and the way he began incorporating collage pop art backgrounds as his career went on. His best stories combine mythic scope and personal stakes, and even his less inspired stuff is still pulp-y fun.

Are you going to talk about this comic book or are you just going to ramble about how much you love Jack Kirby?

Fair enough. Scioli tells the story of Kirby's life, starting with his parents meeting in New York after emigrating to America from Galicia in the former Austro-Hungarian empire. He chronicles Kirby's early life in Brooklyn street gangs, his love of science fiction pulps and newspaper comic stips, his early work as a pulp illustrator and comic artist to help his family make ends meet, his deployment in WWII, his marriage to his wife, Roz, and, of course, the partnerships that made him, if not a household name, a least a figure with a strong cult following, and his continual struggle for editorial control of recognition for his work. Like I said it's a biography.

You could stand to elaborate a little more.

That I could. Scioli writes the book from Jack Kirby's perspective. As an author's note makes clear, he's using Kirby's POV as a narrative device. This makes the story feel more personal than a plain biography might, but it is important to remember that none of the narration is verbatim quotations from Kirby, but Scioli's representation of Kirby's views. There are actually a few instances where Scioli foregrounds other people, specifically Kirby's future wife, Roz, and his most famous collaborator/credit hog Stan Lee (someone who's definitely a household name). For the most part this works. Kirby comes across as a workaholic, not so much by choice but because of the economic realities of comic book publishing at the time. In order to provide for his family, he essentially had to stay up all night drawing comic books nearly constantly, to the detriment of his other artistic ambitions, like writing science fiction or drawing a newspaper comic strip. Given that Kirby is the narrator, the book is biased towards his point of view, but it's one that's aware of its subject's faults. Scioli depicts Kirby as prone to grudges and resentment (not entirely without reason), and not always willing to stand-up for himself in the workplace. And, I only mention this because it's the only error I spotted, it mentions that Kirby designed costumes for a college production of Julius Caesar, but Scioli errs in claiming the production was at the University of Southern California (USC), when it was, in fact, at my alma mater, the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC — FIAT SLUG!). The error occurs on page 133 of the hardcover edition.

NEEERRRDD!!!!!!

Is a rhetorical device I created bullying me. Have I become a Modern Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus?

NEEEEEEEeeeeeEEEEERRRRDDDDDD!

I guess that answers that question. Let's move on.

Yes, let's.

So the art also helps tell the story.

As it should.

That's not quite what I meant. Scioli varies the style of the art to reflect the era when it takes place. While the character designs maintain a degree of continuity, Kirby is always drawn as a diminutive figure with a big head, the overall style of the drawings flows from something not unlike the massive, lush panels of 20s newpaper comic strips into something more closely imitating the look of 30s and 40s superhero and war comics and finally segues towards a bit more of the pop art look favored by Kirby's later work. It's subtle, you don't really notice it as it's happening, but if you flip from the first page, detailing the story of how Kirby's father left Galicia to the final page where Kirby addresses the reader, the change is surprisingly stark. I particularly like the fact that Scioli never really mimics Kirby's style unless he's recreating examples of Kirby's artwork.

Yeah, I guess it would be sort of hack-y to tell the story of Kirby's life in Kirby's style.

A little, yeah.

So, what's the conclusion?

Well, if you want to know more about the life of Jack Kirby in a medium that he had an incalculable impact on, then yeah, pick this one up. It's good.

Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics by Tom Scioli, Ten Speed Press hardcover edition, 2020, 196 pages, pairs well with a cold beer on a hot afternoon

Links:

Here's the author's website, if you're into that kinda thing.

You can check out Kirby's designs for UCSC's Julius Caesar production here.