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.

The Case of the Missing Witness

I'm sure that anybody with even a casual interest in Jack Kirby knows that the copyright/creator issue involving the heirs of Jack Kirby and Walt Disney/Marvel has gone/is preparing to go back to court again. I hope this time it works in Jack's favor. Maybe the third time is a charm. The biggest obstacle to overcome - and this is only conjecture on my part - seems to be the lack of credible witnesses on the part of the heirs of Jack Kirby. And I only say this because so many of the artists and writers who were around Marvel in the early-to-mid-to-late 1960's are no longer with us. Long time Kirby collaborator Joe Simon is gone and so is Wally Wood, Don Heck and a host of others. On the other hand, Stan Lee is still with us and it's hard to cross-examine the guy when he's the only guy left standing.

I don't think I'm the only person who has made note of this fact. I don't know all the details of the last Kirby vs Disney/Marvel encounter but if memory serves me right, two of the more knowledgeable witnesses who could talk in Jack's favor - that would be Mark Evanier and John Morrow - were pretty much shut down or discounted because they weren't actually around to witness the creative process involving Jack and Stan. I wonder how this argument will be circumvented this time time around. Because really, how the heck do you dispute anything Stan Lee says if all his contemporaries are sleeping in a pine box in Forest Lawn?


The website 20th Century Danny Boy addresses the Jack vs Stan argument and uses Stan's court testimony vs snippets of Jack's famous 1990 interview with Gary Groth (when Jack was deep in trying to get his original artwork back) as the basis for its point/counter-point. In fact, the DB article makes a point of saying that Stan would never lie under oath. I would only mention (again) that if no one is alive to dispute what Stan is saying then what does he have to lose?

If you link to the Groth interview, I can tell you the reader responses are almost as interesting as the interview itself. Somewhere tucked away in a cardboard box I have that original interview. Unfortunately, so much of the history of comics is "tucked away in a box" as well and most of the younger generation of fans and artists has only the revisionist history of Stan Lee to take as fact. I would encourage anyone who wants to be a student of the game to take advantage of Google or any other resource and learn about the comics Golden and Silver Age.

But I digress. The subject here is [the heirs of] Jack Kirby going up against Disney/Marvel. This is a fight that rivals anything Jack could have drawn on paper and certainly has all the drama of anything he could have written. How it ultimately ends up is beyond me but I would have that a satisfactory conclusion is the result: at the very least that Jack is given credit for his creations and co-creations and the financial rewards that come with it.

One of the more poignant offerings regarding the unprecedented output and creativity of Jack Kirby can be found in one of the recent issues of the Jack Kirby Collector, where one-time Kirby assistant Mark Evanier commented that while Jack could churn out page after page of incredible art and despite his ability to come up with new ideas, Jack was at a loss as to HOW exactly comics could be made to sell more, do more and evolve out of the standard 17 page format that he know doubt felt trapped in. It's all about execution (in the business sense) and I have a suspicion that more than a few artistic powerhouses felt the same way: all this talent but how the heck can it be harnessed?

Probably the inverse is also true. I wonder if Stan Lee or any writer would have been nearly as popular if the Fantastic Four or Thor or the Hulk was illustrated by someone other than Jack Kirby. Can great writing save poor art? Can awesome art save poor writing? It's a valid argument and I'm not sure what the correct answer is. There are some great talents out there. Jim Shooter comes easily to mind. His reboot a while back of Turok and Magnus Robot Fighter went nowhere after only a few issues. And you know I thought the writing on those efforts was pretty good! The art not so much. But that's me. Go back to the mid-to-late 1960's and Wally Wood was illustrating Thunder Agents. Superb artwork, right? We're talking Wally-flipping-Wood, the master of Mad Magazine! But the writing sucked! I guess my point is that Stan Lee could have had a master plan: paste comic books all over the place: on milk cartons, cereal boxes, where ever, and I don't think the FF would have registered a blip on the radar if it weren't for Jack Kirby!!

Before Jack came back to Timely/Marvel, Stan had several "go-to" guys and perhaps the most prolific was Joe Maneely. Maneely died a tragic death when he fell in front of an on-coming train. You can say all you want that if Manleey hadn't died and Jack hadn't came back to Marvel, that the FF and other books would have still reached unheard of heights. But I'm not so sure! And keep in mind that Stan - as an editor and relative of Martin Goodman - had the mechanics via Goodman's publishing machine to get the books on the racks. But not even that could save Marvel at the time! Like I said, it's all about execution.

I remember back in the late 70's Jack was supposed to have had the financial backing to put out a line of comic books (Thunderfoot and others). An interview with Jack in Comics Scene shed some light on Jack's mindset but it had nothing to do with the business-end of publishing. Jack was all for giving artists a chance and keeping them on a book in order to let their talent develop, but in terms of execution, he was shooting blanks.

It wasn't Jack's fault. The guy was a creator. He was a producer. He needed a salesperson like Joe Simon or Stan Lee in the same way that they needed an artist like Jack!

I was thumbing through an old copy of Jack Kirby's "second coming" of Manhunter and I thought, "Ya know, you could have given this guy any name besides Manhunter and it would still work." Manhunter was relegated to an issue of 1st Issue Special and then what happens, we readers only get the first part of what I would imagine was at least a two-parter! And then on top of that, Jack ups and goes back to Marvel Comics! Did I forget anything? Oh yes, I think right around the same time the great Walter Simonson did his revamp of the same character, probably to much better results and which allows me to segue to another subject......

A Few Words on (Jack's)Writing

What really jumps out at me, and I mean no disrespect, is that at that stage of Jack's tenure at DC I feel like his writing was firmly aimed at whatever 10-12 year old kids were out there reading comic books. This is not a bad thing mind you. Because back in the early-to-mid 70's there actually were young kids reading comics! Does anyone that young read comics any more? Now we're all in our 30's and even older!

But I digress. We'll get to Manhunter in a minute or two. Getting back to Jack's writing, maybe it was a DC thing, but that last tier of books: SandMan, Dingbats of Danger Street, a handful of others -- they were perfectly suited to someone not quite on the verge of puberty! But then a crazy thing happened: I noticed an ever-so-slight shift in the quality of Jack's writing when he came back to Marvel in that his books "read" a little bit older. The Madbomb Saga in Captain America, The Eternals. At least at the onset it seems like Jack knew who his audience was and they were a bit older than what he was dealing with at DC. This is not to say that Jack was not writing some awesome stuff early on at DC. The New Gods was not meant for kids! Neither was the Forever People or even the Demon! It's just that somewhere along the line Jack decided to go in the other direction and a lot of great stories (IMHO) suffered for it.

So What Happened?

Smarter heads than mine will figure it out. All I know is that about a year into Jack's stay at Marvel he again went retro and started writing for 10 year old kids again. Actually, if memory serves me correctly, after the Madbomb Saga - which zipped along for seven issues and got hammered by fans and pro alike, Jack did an about face and started churning out these turbo charged mini-chapters in Captain America and Black Panther. I don't think any story arc (if you can call it that) lasted more than two issues at most. And than Jack got hammered for that! My own theory: readers wanted stories that were immersed in the Marvel Universe and Jack didn't or couldn't or wouldn't go there. Personally, I think Jack could have taken all the books he was doing at the time and cross-pollinated them without any problem. He could have taken Captain America and stuck him in the Eternals, He could have taken Black Panther and guested him in CA. I think the fans would have jumped over the moon and everyone would have gone home happy.

Well it's all wishful thinking now. Heck, I enjoyed all of Jack's books. His writing never bothered me until he started putting everything in quotes ("  ") and even then it was just a minor annoyance!

Maybe one of these years when Mark Evanier publishes his ultimate Jack Kirby book, we'll all learn what Jack was thinking!

So there I was: at a local weekend garage sale the other day where I was rifling through some old boxes of comics. We've all seen them, been there and done that: oblong and nondescript cartons which - if you're lucky - will be full of surprises. In this case, all the comics were a quarter each and I walked out the door with a few gems: Jack Kirby's Omac #1, a handful of well-worn Kamandi's and a few 1st Issue Specials including issue number 5 which boasted a revamped version of Kirby's Manhunter!All great stuff and hey - how can you lose when the books are a quarter a piece?

Kamandi was a fun book. In fact, of all the great stuff Jack produced during his stay at DC, Kamandi was the only one that sustained itself. Think about it: despite Jack's ground-breaking work on the New Gods, Forever People and Mister Miracle, none of them lasted more than 12-18 issues. Same goes for the Demon. And ditto for The Losers. But with Kamandi, Jack kept plugging along. He was on the title for almost for almost 4 years during which time he wrote and drew issues 1-37 and illustrated issues 38-40 with Gerry Conway during the scripts. Which brings me back to the 25 cent copy of Kamandi #38 that I mentioned earlier.

Way back in the day (and on that particular day I was about 14 years old) I knew something was wrong right off the bat: beginning with issue #34, Jack stopped doing the covers for Kamandi. They were subsequently drawn by Joe Kubert. I've since heard different things: by the time Kamandi #34 was published, Jack was either out the door or close to it and the DC brass at the time decided to cut the ties with Kirby. Now you can say all you want, but there are not two drawing styles more diametrically opposed than Jack Kirby and Joe Kubert. And if my memory serves me correctly, Joe did the covers for the last couple of issues of Omac as well. 

At any rate, as a young whipper-snapper at the time, I can tell you that Kamandi without a Jack Kirby cover made for a decidedly less-exciting book!

But I digress. Kamandi #38, written by Gerry Conway and illustrated by Jack Kirby was not a typical Kirby comic. For one thing there was a lot more comic to read. I kid you not. The average comic book at the time was only 17 pages long. I'm not going to say Jack wrote down to his audience but his stories certainly were not word-heavy either. Gerry, on the other hand, tried to cram in a bit more dialogue and got rid of Jack's famous use of chapter-splash pages. Opting instead to place a chapter-heading on a larger panel. And to be honest, as I'm thumbing through this already thumbed-through issue, Conway could have got rid of those chapter headings altogether.

I'm not going to recap the story of this particular issue. You can find it online. What I will say is that Gerry, to his credit, tried to build on Jack's foundation. And Jack, to his credit, worked solely as an artist, illustrating someone else's script. Something he rarely did during the later stages of his career.

Kamandi soldiered on until  1978 until it fell victim to the infamous DC implosion. And Jack Kirby soldiered on as well, creating a host of other characters and titles of which we'll talk about in the blogs to come!