Friday, August 28, 2009

Happy Birthday Jack Kirby, the KING of COMICS!!


Jack Kirby, the great creative dynamo of comic books, would have turned 92 years old today. Jack passed away on Feb. 6, 1994, leaving behind him one of the greatest artistic legacy's in any art form.



There are plenty of informative sites and resources you can look at to learn more about the man and his work, but I'd like to just add that in addition to the numerous characters he created and comic books that he sold, maybe Kirby's truly amazing legacy is something else.



I can't think of another comic book artist who has inspired so many others after him. The amount of artists who credit him as a major influence on there work is amazing. And 15 years after his passing, TwoMorrow's is still publishing their JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR magazine! Collected editions of his work are being produced now more than ever, and it's also worth noting how many of his original comic book characters (created with writer Stan Lee) are being turned into big budget Hollywood movies.

All that, plus the lifetime of work he produced, surely will forever stand the test of time. And at the heart of all this was man who just tried to create good work, always provide for his family, and turn in his work on time. He just happened to be an imaginative genius who forever bettered the world of comics!

Happy Birthday, Jack Kirby! Still miss you, sir.


Please check out Michael Aushenker's CARTOON FLOPHOUSE for some personal reflections on Jack Kirby. And Tom Spurgeon at THE COMICS REPORTER has assembled an impressive gallery of eye-popping Kirby art.

2 comments:

Greenblatt the Great! said...

"Jack passed away on Feb. 6, 1994, leaving behind him one of the greatest artistic legacy's in any art form."

Well said! Emphasis on ANY!

Can you imagine if there was a Jack Kirby equivalent in the world of science and medicine? Every disease and the common cold would be cured! He was that important to the game!

Javier Hernandez said...

I really do see Kirby as someone whose art and imagination transcends comic books. It's like calling Da Vinci 'a really good artist', or the Beatles 'a good band'.

Sometimes we're lucky to get someone in an art form who was just too damn big to be contained in that field.