Jack Kirby: Military Veteran

Tomorrow - as most of you know - is Veteran's Day. The least we can do for veterans both past and present is reserve a special day in their honor. Let us not forget that Jack Kirby was also a veteran, having served in WWII. There are some great resources, the Jack Kirby Collector and also The Comics Journal Library Volume I (available on Amazon.com and elsewhere) give a little background in Kirby's military serve and the time he spent serving overseas. But I wonder if Jack knew what he was getting into.

Just Sign on the Dotted Line

Several of Jack's contemporaries were able to fulfill their military obligations stateside working for the Army or Navy's marketing and audio-visual branches (Joe Simon and Stan Lee to mention just two). How was that possible? Did these guys know someone Jack didn't? Did Jack get the short end of the stick? Did some recruiter tell Kirby, "Just sign on the dotted line and we'll take care of you!" I'm not saying Jack was famous but he was well-known enough in some circles that you'd think maybe he could have parlayed that fame and fortune into something a bit less risky. Or maybe Jack didn't care.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that Jack felt serving one's country was the right thing to do. What is odd is that Jack and Joe Simon produced a pretty healthy backlog of Boy Commando's stories prior to enlisting. It's not too much of a stretch to think that someone might have connected the dots and put Jack's talents to use doing something more suitable and productive than stringing barbed wire and dodging bullets. Or consider this, why didn't Joe Simon put the word out (OK, for one thing Joe was in the Navy) but he was Jack's partner for cryin' out loud. Or how about someone at DC? You're telling me they didn't have connections?

A Log Way From Home

The bottom line is that whatever happened and for whatever reason, Jack Kirby enlisted and served in the Army and apparently didn't question the cards he was dealt. He sure didn't have time to illustrate much more than the letters he wrote his wife Roz. If any positive came out of Jack's military service it was real-life experience that provided the inspiration and backdrop for any number of stories ranging from Sgt Fury to the New Gods to Captain Victory.

The Losers

And let us not forget the 12 issues of The Losers that Jack wrote, drew and edited during his last year at DC. Often singled out as his most personal war stories, The Losers were probably the last thing Jack would have ever imagined illustrating, but he managed to inject enough of himself into the series to make the title as interesting as anything else DC was publishing at the time. Personally, at that point in Jack's career, DC could have just given him free reign on an original war series of his own design and it would sold just as well if not better.

Veteran's Day for Jack

I personally think Jack's military service had a deeper impact on his well-being than he ever let on. But like a lot of veterans at the time, the majority of men coming out of WWII wanted to get back in the rhythm of daily living and raising a family. It didn't take long for Jack and Joe to reconnect and get back into their winning ways of producing awe-inspiring comics.

Did Jack Kirby celebrate Veteran's Day? I don't think he had the time to dwell on it. But serve he did and he is to be commended for wearing the uniform and defending his country's freedom. A common theme for his comics-producing career!

Remembering Kirby-L

I may be off by a year or so. Lord knows I have enough trouble remembering what I did yesterday let alone five or ten years ago or even longer. But if my memory serves correctly, I'm pretty sure that one of the first, if not THE first Jack Kirby internet forum, better known as Kirby-L, is 20 years old this year. That's kind of cool. An anniversary of sorts for anyone who cares to remember!

Long Ago and Far Away

The year 1994 sticks in my mind but you know it might have been earlier than that. It might have been 1992 which makes this whole affair even older. But not by much. The internet was still in it's infancy. The whole email thing and communicating electronically. Still somewhat of a novelty back then. I was in the military and serving overseas in Italy at the time and one day at the base library - on a whim - I entered "Jack Kirby" into whatever search engine existed. It was probably Yahoo but I don't remember. At any rate, a few things popped up relating to Jack Kirby (who had died earlier in the year) and one of them - I'm sure - was Kirby-L. I probably wasn't even sure what an internet forum was but the fact that a whole lot of Kirby fans were able to meet together and talk electronically every day was almost too much too fathom! I signed up, logged in and a whole new world opened up to me.

A Meeting of the Minds

I don't know how long Kirby-L had existed before I joined. Like I said, it's all foggy now. I was checking some old notes earlier and I see that Matt Gore was one of first or maybe the original moderator. Before that Chrissy Harper over in the UK was a driving force. But it was exhilarating and exciting stuff. I'm convinced that discussions about any one individual goes in cycles: you can only talk about so much many things and then at some point you wind up repeating yourself. That's normal I guess. But at the time of joining Kirby-L, it seemed like everything was new! At least to me it was. I don't believe Mark Evanier had even started his own blog yet, and if he did it hadn't been around for long, but I know he was a frequent visitor on Kirby-L and always accessible to all our questions. Greg Theakston was known to pop in at times as was Tom Brevoort from Marvel. There were many others and it was a beautiful thing. There was a smattering of pros who's names escape me at the moment but to a person, I never recall anyone on Kirby-l not being completely open and honest and sharing in whatever recollections of Jack Kirby they may have had.

Information Overload

When it came to Jack Kirby, the topics we talked about were coming fast and furious: how much Jack earned, where he ate dinner, what type of paper he used. For the most part during my first year on Kirby-l there was never a dull moment. And there was plenty of collateral conversation about Vince Colletta and Joe Simon and the list goes on and on. Here we are 20 years later and some folks are still debating the same things! Concurrently, The first issue of the Jack Kirby Collector had only just hit the stands as well and all of a sudden the playing field burst wide open. I seem to recall that in a short time the popularity of the internet was growing by leaps and bounds at an astounding rate. And exponentially so was the information regarding Jack Kirby.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

And then it happened: forum members started to argue and butt heads and just as quickly as it started, Kirby-L started to get a bit worn around the edges. It didn't end by any means. But long time "members" like Mark Evanier left the site and although others came and went it was never the same. I remember a couple of interesting moments though. There were a handful of anonymous visitors or lurkers or whatever they're called and one in particular was always asking questions. In fact this one guy was in the right place at the right time and was able to pick Mark Evanier's brain pretty thoroughly. The next thing you know the book Tales to Astonish by "Ronin Ro" was published and it seemed like the content was pulled straight from conversations on Kirby-L! Pretty crazy. Maybe Mark remembers it better. Another guy, Rob Steible - known for his outstanding Kirby Dynamics blog made a name for himself and was always asking questions. Like any good journalist he was persistent and darn if he didn't ride the blog-wave to fame and fortune. Well, fame anyway. He's pretty well-known in Kirby circles to this day. As for myself I came and went. The military kept me pretty busy so I never got as deep in with Kirby-L as I would have liked. I think my big moment was arguing with Dr. Michael Vasallo about the artistic merits of Bill Everett.

Honoring Kirby-L

About 10 years ago I had an idea to put an anniversary book together that would honor the life and times of Kirby-L and serve as a fundraiser for the Jack Kirby Estate. I got some great feedback from longtime members. A lot of great articles and things that I forwarded to Randy Hoppe who was going to piece the whole book together. Noble effort on my part but it never saw the light of day unfortunately. Serving my county, raising a family and earning a living took up all my time. Kudos to anyone who can make it happen. But it won't be me! My little gesture to honor Jack Kirby is this blog or what purports to be a blog and this particular entry on the original and best Kirby-L internet forum!

For sure there are other Kirby forums to enjoy if you search for them. Maybe some hybrid of Kirby-L still exists. But that first one was a doozy and will always hold a special place in my clip-art file of memories!

A Few Words About Jim Shooter

I always feel like I'm a few steps behind the pack. When it comes to the Jim Shooter blog (JimShooter.com) I'm probably a few miles behind the masses. Oh well. I have to tell you that I just discovered this blog and although this is probably not news to most of you out there, it is a very cool blog (although not that up-to-date). What is especially cool is if you load the name "Jack Kirby" into the blog's search engine you'll find all sorts of great info courtesy of Jim Shooter's memory from back in the day when he was Marvel's head honcho. In fact, as interesting as his recollections are, the reader/fan feedback is almost just as good and in many cases even more illuminating then what Jim writes about.

Jack and Jim

In my humble opinion, everyone's recollections of a specific moment-in-the-life of Jack Kirby is somewhat skewed or biased based on how one feels about Jack Kirby. I don't think it is a stretch to say that Jack Kirby was pretty much universally loved but that may not have been the case back when Jack was still pumping out enough pages per day to produce almost a book a week. With that in mind it's nice to read Jim Shooter's take on the Jack Kirby art return controversy and Jack's relationship or lack of with Stan Lee. It is really revealing stuff and thoroughly enjoyable.


A Knight in Shining Armor?

Jim Shooter himself was no saint and anyone old enough to remember his 8-year stint as Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics probably has a love him or hate him recollection of the job he did leading Marvel out of the late 1970's and into the early-to-mid 1980's. I'll take the low road and say only that I dare anyone to try and manage such an amalgamation of old and new talent while at the same time keep all of the Marvel line on schedule. And you wonder why before Jim Shooter the EIC position at Marvel was almost like the flavor-of-the-month club.

Jim seems to recall nothing but good times when it came to his relationship with Jack Kirby during Jack's time at the House of Ideas from 1975-1978 and maybe superficially that is so but I wonder how much of that was reciprocated by Jack himself. At any rate there is plenty to read and enjoy and Jim Shooter is to be recommended for putting the words on paper.

So What are you Waiting for?

In terms of being a student of the game I encourage everyone out there to check out Jim Shooter's blog. It seems like it petered out around mid-2013 but that doesn't matter because all the great Jack Kirby articles were posted around 2011. Like I said, Shooter's blog makes for great reading and until said time as to when Mark Evanier's be-all-end-all Kirby book is published (and by now I don't see how it can possibly live up to all the hype but that's another story), blogs like Jim's continue to add another dimension and further layers to the life and times of Jack Kirby.