Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity
a confession: i didn’t grow up reading Jack Kirby comics. in fact, i’d go so far as to say that i didn’t really know who he even was. i didn’t know he co-created Captain America, The Fantastic Four, Thor, Hulk, Iron Man, The X-Men, Black Panther, and the entire romance comic genre. i didn’t know he could pencil two or three pages of comic art a day or how crazy impressive that is considering how much detail he crammed into every panel on every page. all i knew was that his work was old — mostly from before i was born — and that it felt like it belonged to a bygone era to which i could not relate.
as a young adult, i heard the stories. the injustice done to Kirby by Marvel. the refusal to acknowledge the debt owed to him, the co-creator of their entire business, no matter what work-for-hire contract he’d signed. Kirby’s story, along with Siegel and Shuster, Bill Finger, and a long list of other comic book creators, became a hot topic of discussion in the 1990s. Image Comics, Dark Horse’s Legend imprint, self-publishing efforts by Jeff Smith, Paul Pope, David Lapham, Colleen Doran, et al. — an entire creator owned comic movement was birthed by a generation of cartoonists that didn’t want to make that same mistake.
but while i began to understand his cultural impact, and the role he’d played in shaping comics, i still didn’t know much about Kirby’s work.
that didn’t happen until just a few years ago when i picked up Mark Evanier’s Kirby: The King of Comics. Evanier’s writing is lively and entertaining, which is a rarity amongst the many comic book biographies i’ve attempted to read (another notable exception being Bruce Canwell — i highly recommend his books with Dean Mullaney on Toth, Caniff, and Sickles). the book is filled with great stories, art, and photos from Jack Kirby’s life. the book did more than just provide me with an understanding of Kirby, it made me a fan.
Jack Kirby was the product of natural talent and lots of hard work. he was also principled, brave (a world war 2 veteran), and self-effacing. he and Joe Simon were sought after hit makers in the 40s and 50s. and then, after Simon took a gig with DC, Kirby teamed up with Stan Lee to do it all over again, creating the Marvel universe. the more i learn about the history of 20th century comics, more i’ve come to understand that there is Kirby, and then there is everyone else. of all the greats that have shaped the history of comics, no one creator came close to matching the impact Kirby had on the industry.
so when the Kirby exhibit came to the Skirball museum last year, i knew i couldn’t turn down the opportunity to see Kirby’s original pages in person.
however.
the Skirball is a two hour drive away from where i live through some of the worst traffic in Southern California. getting there would require driving the 405 from Orange County, through all of Los Angeles, all the way to the Sepulveda Pass — just a stone’s throw from the Valley. to say i was unenthusiastic about making this drive would be an understatement. i dreaded the very thought of it.
but finally, one day last August, my wife and i made the drive. we chose a weekday, hoping a midday trip might allow us to miss some of the worst traffic. and stopped at a little strip mall in Torrance for pho, hoping that breaking up the drive with a hot bowl of soup might make it all a bit more bearable.
it isn’t often that i get to stand in a room surrounded by the work of a great cartoonist. hardly ever, really. I think the last time was the American Masters exhibit at the Hammer in 2005. so i made sure to make a few laps through the exhibit space, stopping in front of this page and that. noticing the impact each inker had on Kirby’s pencils. studying how Kirby composed his pages, how he used line, how he stylized the human figure. looking for notes and doodles in the margins that wouldn’t have made their way into print. trying to take it all in.
everything one can admire about Kirby was on display. his boundless creativity. his mastery of the medium. his incredible motor — he just never stopped.
it made me excited to get back to the drawing board — to make more comics. and for that alone, i’d rank my visit to the Skirball that day as one of my favorite experiences of 2025.
even if the drive did suck.