| Kirby: King of Comics | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 29 reviews)
Sales Rank: 5507
Category: Book
Author: Mark Evanier
Publisher: Abrams
Studio: Abrams
Manufacturer: Abrams
Label: Abrams
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 12.4 x 9.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 081099447X
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5092
EAN: 9780810994478
ASIN: 081099447X
Publication Date: February 22, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Jack Kirby created or co-created some of comic books’ most popular characters including Captain America, The X-Men, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, The Mighty Thor, Darkseid, and The New Gods. More significantly, he created much of the visual language for fantasy and adventure comics. There were comics before Kirby, but for the most part their page layout, graphics, and visual dynamic aped what was being done in syndicated newspaper strips. Almost everything that was different about comic books began in the forties on the drawing table of Jack Kirby. This is his story by one who knew him well—the authorized celebration of the one and only “King of Comics” and his groundbreaking work.
“I don’t think it’s any accident that . . . the entire Marvel universe and the entire DC universe are all pinned or rooted on Kirby’s concepts.” —Michael Chabon
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| Customer Reviews: Read 24 more reviews...
 Must reading for comics fans! July 3, 2008
I highly recommend this book for anyone who appreciates Kirby art or has a passing interest in the history of comic books. The book's large format provides for great representations of Kirby's artwork and Evanier does a wonderful job of telling the King's story.
 Was Jack really a victim? NO! He was not cheated. EVER! June 22, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
More has been said and written about Jack Kirby, the true King Of Comics, than any comic book artist I can think of. Perhaps only Will Eisner has more "ink".
I have every Jack Kirby Collector. I have everything about Kirby I could get my hands on.
This is a good book. But I think "Tales To Astonish", is a better book.
In fact "Tales To Astonish" is a great book.
Here is what I learned from Jack Kirby's life and this book and the book "Tales To Astonish". Kirby was a genius at art/comic book storytelling. He was awesome. He was not a victim.
After I read "Tales To Astonish" and I read that Martin Goodman, an accountant working for DC (At that time is was not called DC)and noticed HOW well Superman sold, then started his own company (that became Marvel). He started his own company selling comics. He could not even draw.
At any point in his life, Jack Kirby could have CHOSEN TO BE MORE than just a paid "worker". Kirby and his fans should not BLAME MArvel, Martin Goodwin, Stan Lee, or anyone, for hiring Jack, and for taking the risk (of being in the publishing business) and printing the comics Jack drew. They could have failed and Martin Goodman could have LOST ALL HIS money.
They think Jack was taken advantage of. He was not. All of Marvels checks "cashed".
They offered to pay him to make comics, he accepted. That was a fair deal for both of them.
Jack could have started HIS OWN comics, written his own books, drawn one extra page a week and that would be 50 pages a year-- ALL HIS OWN.
Jack at any time, could have OPENED HIS OWN COMPANY and been his own boss. AT ANY TIME. He never CHOSE it.
He never wrote books in his "free" time and published them. He should have. But for whatever reason, Jack was not 1/100 the business man, let's say Will Eisner was, and that is okay. Jack was an artist. Not a business man. And I say that with no ill intent.
Martin Goodman was a business man and not an artist. Was it his fault he hired Jack Kirby? Steve Ditco? His nephew (Stan Lee). Who should Martin have hired. Thanks to Martin Goodman, we have the Marvel universe. He paid Jack Kirby to create it. Do you see how that works? Without the business man the artist is washing dishes (or waiting tables).
Now, as it turns out in life, some people are great artists and some are great business people. Jack WAS NOT A BUSINESS MAN. But many of Jack's fans are angry (and so was I for years) in the way Marvel "treated" Jack. But now that I am older I think it was UP TO JACK to make his own destiny.
He had the talent. He lacked the business mind.
Most artist "lack" a business mind. It's the way God wired us all.
After I read "Tales to Astonish" I copied Martin Goodman's formula. I wrote several books on very popular subjects (late at night after my 12 hour work days). In less than 2 years those 2 books brought in about 300 thousands dollars..and changed my life.
I followed the Martic Goodman formula and it works!
This PROVES TO ME, that if Kirby (Who has more talent in on finger than I have in my entire body) had gone out and done what I had done, printed his OWN work and sold it, he would have made money. He never tried.
I have been a WAITER, (at restaurants) for most of my life. (17 years).
After I read "Tales to Astonish" I felt that Jack missed his oppurtunities. He had the chance, like Will Eisner did, do have his "OWN" thing. Even if her had to do it part time at night (till it got off the ground).
The business men at MArvel, did not cheat Jack. They HIRED HIM and paid him. It was up to Jack to take his talent and DO MORE WITH IT, than just work FOR OTHERS.
JAck was not a victim. He was not cheated.
He was a brilliant, hard working, artistic genius. Thank GOD SOME business man HIRED him and GOT HIS WORK out there. If not for MARVEL, there would be NO Jack Kirby as WE know him.
I wonder how many Jack Kirby's are waiting tables or selling car insurance because no one like MARTIN GOODMAN, hire them to draw.
God bless Jack. He was the man. But he was no victim. HE chose to do what he did. He was not "forced" or cheated, in anyway.
I never heard Jack say "The marvel paychecks did not cash!"
If you work for someone thay are not "cheating" you by hiring you. They are risking their money on your ideas or work. You an artist always have the option of risking YOUR OWN MONEY--on your projects.
Jack worked for other people--because he chose to.
I loved this book! Minor spoilers. June 15, 2008
Let me preface this review by saying the hard core Jack Kirby fan may not be that impressed with this book; if you have more than a handful of the Jack Kirby Collector issues, you may be familiar with most of the text and images that this book presents.
For the neophyte or moderate Kirby fan, this is really an outstanding book. The 2 page spread of pencils for "Street Code" that begins on page 28 is jaw dropping and worth the price of admission. There are a lot of scans of Kirby's original penciled pages; you can see where he erased and touched up lines and it provided me with more than a few "wow" moments as someone who draws and likes to study others' work.
The text of Kirby's history can be a bit depressing and it is presented in detail here:
- (un)steady work in the 40s and 50s that doesn't bring steady finances.
- Break through characters, art and comics with Marvel in the 60s that do not bring recognition to Kirby among the public at that time.
- Editors liking Kirby's page layouts, but bringing in other artists to change faces of prominent characters with before and after illustrative examples.
Finally in 1978, Kirby got some animation jobs with "young artists who'd grown up on his work and old-timers who valued the hell out of him." Combined with the popularity of comic book conventions and demand for artists' work (though Kirby had to hire lawyers to get pages back from Marvel) finally brought him some well deserved recognition and finances.
Have you read this far? I'll close by saying that this is an amazing book if you aren't already well immersed with Jack Kirby's history.
A LOOK AT THE KING June 12, 2008
When I first started reading comics in the mid-1970s, Jack Kirby had just returned to Marvel from DC Comics. He returned to the character he had helped create, Captain America, with issue #193. I frankly could not understand the fuss. I gradually started putting together quite a back issue collection. Kirby had been the primary artist in the 1960s on two of my then favorite titles, Thor and the Fantastic Four. When I picked up Jack's first Silver Surfer trilogy from Fantastic Four #48 - 50, I was hooked. Ever since then, I've been a Kirby fanatic. For me, and other Kirby fans, we've been given a wonderful gift with Kirby: King of Comics, a brand new, full color hardcopy book written by comic scribe and fellow Kirby enthusiast, Mark Evanier. The 224-page book is filled with rare Kirby art, much of it unpublished or not seen in decades.
The book spans Kirby's entire career and I learned a lot more about the man than I had known previously. For example, I did not know that Kirby had worked on various syndicated newspaper strips prior to his career in comics. Using various aliases, Kirby did adventure strips like The Black Buccaneer and Cyclone Burke, and even the odd political cartoon. Working under the name Charles Nichols, Kirby even drew the Blue Beetle newspaper strip a year before coming to Timely and creating Captain America with partner Joe Simon.
An undercurrent to the book is Kirby's lifelong struggle for financial stability. Today, Jack would be set for life with about one-tenth of his accomplishments in comics. But in the forties, Jack and many others were at the mercy of often unscrupulous publishers who horded the profits to their own, leaving the creators shut out. It was a financial dispute with Timely publisher Martin Goodman that prompted Jack to leave Timely for DC. Kirby's early work at DC is often overlooked but with Simon he helped create the Boy Commandos and The Newsboy Legion, and they revamped Manhunter and the Sandman.
After World War II, Kirby would take work wherever he could find it and for whatever he could get. He was now married to wife Roz and would soon be starting a family. The book contains many rare Kirby covers and page art from publishers other than Marvel and DC. Jack worked for Hillman Periodicals, Headline Comics, Harvey Comics, and Charlton Comics to name a few. An example of how DC eventually fell so far behind Marvel was that Jack returned to DC in the 50s but his work was constantly edited and redrawn so it looked like all the rest of DC's banal, lifeless comics. This was the DC style than then Editor Mort Weisinger insisted upon.
Jack's rise to stardom back at Marvel (then Atlas Comics) did not come overnight. He labored on westerns, romance, monster, and sci-fi titles before he and Stan Lee would create the legendary Fantastic Four. Next would come the Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man, the Avengers, Sgt. Fury, and the X-Men. Evanier has managed to dig up some rarities, unpublished Kirby covers for Fantastic Four #20 and X-Men #10! There are also four simply incredible full pages sketches of The Inhumans that display Kirby's work at its finest. Despite all the successes, Jack was still upset that Stan was getting the lion's share of the credit. Stan never claimed to have been the sole creator of these characters, but if that's what people believed he didn't go out of his way to correct them. Evanier relates a story of Marvel's sale to a new company and nitwit lawyers who thought that Stan even drew the comics as well as write them. It was always an uphill battle for Kirby. Evanier covers the sorry situation when Marvel held thousands of pages of Kirby's art hostage. Under pressure from industry pros and magazines like The Comics Journal, Marvel finally gave Jack some 2,100 pages of art. A fraction of what he worked on but reportedly more than he expected. The art would provide a nest egg for he and his wife.
Kirby's influence and creations cannot be overstated. His work had a power and majesty and flair for the dramatic that many modern artists lack. Kirby's art had personality, no matter what you thought of his style. He virtually invented cosmic, epic storylines. Kirby: King of Comics is like taking a guided tour through a Kirby museum. There is so much beautiful art and so many wonderful stories to read about. Jack Kirby is truly worthy of being called "The King".
Why Kirby will always be King of Comics..... May 29, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is the ultimate autobiography on Jack Kirby. In this volume we get more details on his struggles as an artist, especially those at Marvel. I still hold the opinion without Jack Kirby there would be no Marvel Comics. The universes that he built are still in use today and will be as long as there is a Marvel. Author Mark Evanier took what could have been a 1000 page book and condensed it to a sizable volume that clearly describes the history of Kirby. Long Live the King!
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