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Born on August 28, 1917, Jack Kirby taught himself to draw when he was a young boy in New York, taking the “Flash Gordon” newspaper comic strip and other sources as his inspirations. He enrolled in the prestigious Pratt Institute but dropped out on his first day, largely due to the financial strain of tuition on his family.

Kirby’s first job as a professional illustrator was as an in-betweener at the Max Fleisher...

Timely had only two stars—the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner. Simon and Kirby created a number of new characters, the most notable of which was Captain America. From there, Simon and Kirby went to work for the Detective Comics Company (known as DC), where they created “The Newsboy Legion” and “The Boy Commandos,” both of which fought the evil Axis powers in their adventures.

In the late 1950s, Kirby was doing much of his work for Marvel Comics. In 1961, with Marvel’s head writer and editor, Stan Lee, Kirby helped create the “Fantastic Four,” which inaugurated a new era of Marvel superheroes. In the years to come, Kirby helped illustrate and generate stories for “The Incredible Hulk,” “The Mighty Thor,” “The Avengers,” X-Men,” and more. Often Kirby’s role was to draw the first issue to get it off to a good start, and then let other artists at Marvel take over from there.

In 1970, Kirby resigned from Marvel and began working for National-DC comics as an artist, writer, and editor. At DC, Kirby helped generate the “Fourth World” series, spawning a whole new universe of modern mythology. Kirby returned to Marvel in 1975 but left for the last time in 1978. He passed away in 1994.

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Recent News: Jack Kirby

Source: Google News

Comics AM | Marvel answers frustrated mom's call for help
Comic Book Resources, May 22nd

“Marvel's shabby treatment of its founding creators, particularly Jack Kirby, has been a bone of contention for a lot of people since the 1980s, at least, so that underlying sense of discomfort was always there. It was the legal decision against the...Read more

The Post Most: EntertainmentMost-viewed stories,videos, and galleries in the ...
Washington Post (blog), May 21st

Jack Kirby did his work-for-hire as he always worked for that next paycheck to feed his family (a characterization supported by both Kirby's Captain America co-creator in “Joe Simon: My Life in Comics,” and Mark Evanier in his excellent book “Kirby...Read more

CREATORS' RIGHTS: How the Jack Kirby case caused acclaimed ROGER LANGRIDGE to ...
Washington Post (blog), May 18th

Much of that heat has stemmed from the decades-long legal skirmishes between Marvel and the late-great Jack Kirby, who created or co-created so many of the Avengers characters, as battles over credit and ownership, rights and royalties were waged...Read more

Jack Kirby/Joe Sinnott Fantastic Four page fetches record $155350
Comic Book Resources, May 16th

A page of Silver Surfer original art by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott from 1966?s Fantastic Four #55 sold last week for $155350 in an auction of vintage comics and comic art that included the very first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sketch...Read more

Comics AM | Hero Initiative, Kirby Museum report Avengers donations
Comic Book Resources, May 16th

The Jack Kirby Museum, meanwhile, reports it has received $1300 from Avengers-related giving. [The Comics Reporter, The Kirby Museum] Conventions | Chris Butcher, co-founder and director of the Toronto Comics Art Festival, reports that about 18000...Read more

Fighting to Rescue the Lost Avenger
Wall Street Journal, May 15th

That was the winning bid for a single page of "Fantastic Four" comic-book art drawn in 1966 by original "Avengers" artist Jack Kirby (and scripted by "Fantastic Four" and "Avengers" co-creator Stan Lee) on the website of Heritage Auctions...Read more

The world needs more photos of Jack Kirby dancing
Comic Book Resources, May 15th

I love old photos of Jack Kirby for many reasons, not the least of which is, in his day, he was one suave-looking, pipe-smoking gentleman. But Sean Kleefeld points us to Greg Theakston's Facebook gallery, where we're introduced to another side of the...Read more

Kamandi #14 by Jack Kirby
Comix 411, May 14th

I used to rank Jack Kirby's Fourth World series as my favorite of all his post-1970s comic book work, with Mister Miracle as my favorite title. Over the years, that shifted. My favorite Fourth World title became Jimmy Olsen because of two things: (1)...Read more

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