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!
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