Jack Kirby art in the 1970s - What's your opinion?

[dr_manhattan]

I love some of the epic, single-panel, 2-page spreads he did in the Eternals

[Whizzer]

I started reading comics in the early 70's and many of the artists I disliked then I love now, Kirby being one of those.

 

I think that the importance of inkers is often underrated and never more so than when discussing the King. Sinnott in the 60's and Royer in the 70's had a hugely positive impact on his work.

 

That said, nobody ever rivalled Kirby for sheer dynamism and storytelling. His characters flew off the page. There would be no place in today's angst ridden comic book talk-a-thons for Jack. He was all about action and moving the story from a to b.

 

In hindsight, I like his 70's work. It is just stylistically different which doesn't necessarily make it better or worse.

 

Taking an overview of all the legendary artists, the only one whose work never seemed to change with time and certainly never deteriorated with age was Joe Kubert. he remained consistently excellent right up until the end.

 

By the eighties and Super Powers /Captain Victory Kirbys' work was certainly poorer. However he had a solid four decades of excellent work behind him by then.

 

I often wish that Jack had lived a little longer, as I feel if he were alive today he would get a real kick (not to mention significant income boost) from the adulation he would surely receive on the modern convention circuit. Can you imagine the lines for a Kirby sig or sketch? It would be nuts!

[Unca Ben]

If the emphasis is on draftsmanship, it could be argued that Kirby might have suffered some decline in draftsmanship, starting in the mid ‘70s.

I believe that Kirby’s inventiveness, original ideas, and creative imagination (an equally important aspect of an artist, if not more so, than draftsmanship) continued into the ‘90s.

 

When it comes to the visual art of drawing and painting, it’s interesting how much weight is given to skill of draftsmanship, rather than creative imagination. The measure of a truly great artist needs to encompass both.

 

For me, Jack Kirby was a great artist throughout his career. He was a composer, conductor, and performer of his own ideas, while many artists that followed just remixed or sometimes improved “cover versions” of his original techniques and concepts.

 

From Merriam-Webster:

Definition of ART

4 a: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects

………………………………

 

‘nuff said.

 

[Unca Ben]

For some reason, when I skim through this thread (and many similar threads which have cropped up over the years), I am reminded of this line from Dickens:

 

"...Oh God! to hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust...!"

Kirby, along with a handful of other artistic pioneers, gave comics their basic visual vocabulary.

 

His style from any given era might not be everyone's cuppa tea. But there should be no doubt whatsoever, especially amongst people who claim to love the art form, that there is an embarrassment of imaginative riches in even the least of his work that is worthy of our attention and scrutiny, and, if not our enjoyment, then at the very least our informed appreciation...

 

I wish I would have read your post before I composed my own, directly above this one.

 

Then I could have just typed, "What he said".

[Speedy-D]

For some reason, when I skim through this thread (and many similar threads which have cropped up over the years), I am reminded of this line from Dickens:

 

"...Oh God! to hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust...!"

Kirby, along with a handful of other artistic pioneers, gave comics their basic visual vocabulary.

 

His style from any given era might not be everyone's cuppa tea. But there should be no doubt whatsoever, especially amongst people who claim to love the art form, that there is an embarrassment of imaginative riches in even the least of his work that is worthy of our attention and scrutiny, and, if not our enjoyment, then at the very least our informed appreciation...

 

Nah, he had his ups and downs just like everyone else. It's just not true that "there is an embarrassment of imaginative riches in even the least of his work." The least of his work can be very boring. To admit that does not detract from who the guy is and what he gave us.

[KirbyJack]

I keep starting a response here and then deleting it.

As that kid once wrote, I don't want to tell you more about my thoughts on Jack Kirby than you want to know.

Suffice to say that I see beauty in it all. Eye of the beholder, and all that.

 

[aggr1103]

New Gods and Eternals were exceptional. Probably my favorite Kirby work of the period. Mister Miracle was pretty good as well.

[MisterX]

 

 

 

[shadroch]

The horrible dialog and inane plots never allowed me to appreciate the art.

 

I tried to read the 2001 series a year or so ago and it saddened me that this was the same guy who gave us that incredible run of the FF.

 

The less said about Kirby's Captain America, the better.

I am going to revisit the Treasury book in the near future but I have long since purged any of his second

run CAs from my keeper box.

[shadroch]

Posted this back in January... no matter what your opinion was of the Kirby 70's... this is what happened in the 80's

 

 

 

Can't help it, but for some strange reason this reminds me of a certain member whose name I won't LIST

[slym2none]

Posted this back in January... no matter what your opinion was of the Kirby 70's... this is what happened in the 80's

 

 

 

Can't help it, but for some strange reason this reminds me of a certain member whose name I won't LIST

 

Is this person full of enough hot air that they could easily fill a dozen blimps and still not be able to fit their ego inside all of them?

 

 

 

 

-slym

[JazzMan]

Posted this back in January... no matter what your opinion was of the Kirby 70's... this is what happened in the 80's

 

 

 

Can't help it, but for some strange reason this reminds me of a certain member whose name I won't LIST

 

Is this person full of enough hot air that they could easily fill a dozen blimps and still not be able to fit their ego inside all of them?

 

 

 

 

-slym

 

That narrows it down to only hundreds on these boards.

[slym2none]

 

 

 

-slym

[sckao]

 

Captain America Annual #3 is one of my childhood books. The plot was pretty complex to a young kid in the 70's (thumbs u

 

Very dark science fiction elements.

 

 

[heliosten]

I'm glad you specified the 70s. Jack is a comic god, there is no mistaking his influence on the medium, he IS one of the reasons there was a Timely, Atlas & Marvel. Having said that, IMHO, his 70s stuff is so stylized it just doesn't appeal to me. However his 70s style epitomizes the ability to get the most out of a brushstroke which is the hallmark of a great artist. I may not really care for his 70s art, but I certainly can appreciate it at times.

 

Chris.

[Bio-Rupp]

One of the problems I had with 70's Kirby.... look at that left arm. How long of a reach is that? 5 - 6 feet maybe

 

This is from the current Clink auction... which also has the blind Cap cover that someone earlier brought up.

 

 

[Number 6]

One of the problems I had with 70's Kirby.... look at that left arm. How long of a reach is that? 5 - 6 feet maybe

 

This is from the current Clink auction... which also has the blind Cap cover that someone earlier brought up.

 

 

 

[JuliusSeizure]

Reading Kirby's books is like reading stuff written by a kid, but in a good way. You know how when you're 8, 9, 10 years old, you have this incredible fertile imagination, and you're always thinking up crazy stuff? Kirby was a guy who had an 8-year-old's imagination for his entire life. I mean that as a compliment, a wonderful compliment, actually. I envy that.

 

I'm not going to say it was all great stuff, but Kirby could spring forth worlds of imagination from his mind, month after month, with no inhibitions. When I was young, I could not get enough of it. I remember ripping through long boxes at conventions, looking for anything Kirby.

 

Commenting strictly on the art - his style is not my absolute favorite, and his anatomy isn't perfect, but it's distinctive and Kirby excelled at the craft of sequential storytelling. He could certainly give lessons to many artists of the last 30 years who draw very pretty pictures, but are very weak on the cinema aspect of comic book storytelling.

 

[jools&jim]

 

Reading Kirby's books is like reading stuff written by a kid, but in a good way. You know how when you're 8, 9, 10 years old, you have this incredible fertile imagination, and you're always thinking up crazy stuff? Kirby was a guy who had an 8-year-old's imagination for his entire life. I mean that as a compliment, a wonderful compliment, actually. I envy that.

 

I'm not going to say it was all great stuff, but Kirby could spring forth worlds of imagination from his mind, month after month, with no inhibitions. When I was young, I could not get enough of it. I remember ripping through long boxes at conventions, looking for anything Kirby.

 

Commenting strictly on the art - his style is not my absolute favorite, and his anatomy isn't perfect, but it's distinctive and Kirby excelled at the craft of sequential storytelling. He could certainly give lessons to many artists of the last 30 years who draw very pretty pictures, but are very weak on the cinema aspect of comic book storytelling.

 

(thumbs u

[vaillant]

I’ve already repeated it in a few threads dealing with the subject, but I will continue to do so indefinitely, because it is a key element to evaluate his 1970s (and especially 1980s) art: you have got to take into account the worsening of his eye illness (well explained in the Marc Evanier biography), for which he saw the images under an increasingly distorted perspective (and the best inkers learned to compensate for that).

 

The biggest problem happened when Jack deliberately choose, because he also wished to give work to younger professionals, to pick new inkers, like (for example) the (then) young Michael Thibodeaux.

In my opinion, Thibodeaux wasn’t excessively fit to Jack’s style, and he also had not the skill to see where the drawings "deranged" in order to correct them.

 

I don’t know from which year is the Royer-inked piece posted by Rupp, but it doesn’t appear a very late piece; in this case the arms seem a deliberate choice.

While the Silver Surfer graphic novel image previously posted still puzzles me, as the whole story seems drawn worse than most of his 1970s Marvel work previous to that point, which is often excellent.

 

Writing was not the topic of this thread, but since someone commented, I’d comment on this as well:

 

The horrible dialog and inane plots never allowed me to appreciate the art.

 

I tried to read the 2001 series a year or so ago and it saddened me that this was the same guy who gave us that incredible run of the FF.

 

The less said about Kirby's Captain America, the better.

I am going to revisit the Treasury book in the near future but I have long since purged any of his second

run CAs from my keeper box.

 

No. "Horrible" is too much a strong word, and pretty unfair. As far as stories goes, as Speedy has said, there were up and downs. The Black Panther series started in a quite bizarre, even goofy, way, but culminated in the Kiber storyline which is one of his most original stories ever (although the story was wrapped up by Ed Hannigan and Jerry Bingham), some of the Captain America episodes were dull, but some are highly original (the Madbomb, the Swine, Arnim Zola – that futuristic take on nazism, etc.).

2001 was a thing on his own, and as any other "pure" Kirby works suffer from a certain extremization, both in themes and dialogue. But it gave us Machine Man.