Silver Surfer pinup by Kirby?

[Ferran Delgado]

Hi all,

 

I just saw this Silver Surfer pinup sold at the same time than the infamous recreations at Sotheby's in 1993 and I wondered how much Kirby there's in the drawing, no matter what it says in the description.

 

http://www.romitaman.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=14748&ArtistId=921

 

or

 

http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/1916/kirbysssothebys.jpg

 

My bet is that Kirby drew a very loose layout directly on the sheet, and someone else did the whole drawing.

 

If you take a look at Doom and SS faces, they are very asymmetricals, as usual in Kirby's last jobs like Super Powers (1985) or the Street Code Story. It looks like he had some sight problems in that age which caused this distortion. This doesn't match with the rest of the drawing which has very clean and firm pencil stokes.

 

Another important item is SS' right leg. There are still traces of the original leg drawn further, but it was redrawn.

 

I think that it's very important to take as reference the Street Code story because it was comissioned in 1983 and published in 1990, only 2-3 years before the infamous comissions were done, and it was preserved in its pencil form, which allow us to check out the look of Kirby's pencil strokes at that age. In fact, in 1993, just months before his passing away, quality shoud be worse.

 

You can see all the pages from the street Code story here:

http://www.tomhart.net/teaching/ComicArt/kirby/streetCode/index.htm

 

And a background about it in the Kirby Museum.

http://kirbymuseum.org/node/201

 

What do you think? Could the same person draw the SS pinup and the Street Code?

 

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Edited to add:

In this darkened image is easier to see the original drawing of the right leg:

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/1163/kirbysothebysdark.jpg

 

[Ferran Delgado]

From the description of the piece:

 

It has recently come to light that some collectors feel Kirby may have collaborated with an assistant on this piece and that Jack Kirby himself may not have drawn this piece in its entirety. Though the specifics of Kirby's working process at the time are unknown, what is known is that this drawing was consigned to the Sotheby's auctions DIRECTLY from Jack Kirby and his family when Jack Kirby was STILL ALIVE! I can also state that after doing some more research on this piece, 2 very knowledgeable High End Jack Kirby art collectors who knew Jack Kirby PERSONALLY, who visited him at his home from the 1970's through the 1990's, they BOTH stated that this incredible Surfer / Dr. Doom pinup was in Jack Kirby's possession at his home with all of his other personal artwork.

[Ferran Delgado]

This is a panel from Super Powers (1986) drawn seven years before the SS pinup:

 

Plenty of Super Powers pages in pencil form in Heritage for you to compare:

http://comics.ha.com/common/search_results.php?ic=homepage_search&Nty=1&Ntk=SI_Titles&Ntt=KIRBY+SUPER+POWERS&N=52+790+231

[Catwoman_Fan]

This is a panel from Super Powers (1986) drawn seven years before the SS pinup:

 

Ferran,

Regarding Super Powers... I think comparing his penciled (auction) commission to any sequential work, that was intended to be inked, is not going to give any clear answers. For many artists today, their commissions are of a much higher than the 22 pages they have to spin out a month.

 

And, Jack Kirby - of all artists - would know how much (or little) effort should go into his comic book pencils.

[Ferran Delgado]

Yes, but the Street code story was intended to be reproduced directly from pencils, and it has a similar look.

[Catwoman_Fan]

You have a point.

 

But, have you compared the Pinup to Kirby's pencil art for the Super Powers (pencil) covers - his cover characters look pretty symmetrical to me.

 

Cover to Super Powers 6

[Ferran Delgado]

Well, heads in cover #6 are from profile's view, so I don't know if they're valid to judge if they're symmetrical.

 

If you take a look at this detail of cover #5, I still see the same trembling strokes and looseness than in the Street Code story. Nothing similar to the SS pinup.