Avengers 4 4 4

[divad]

Question: Was Jack left-handed?

[James J Johnson]

5 minutes ago, divad said:

Question: Was Jack left-handed?

no

[PMminer]

Just to follow up on this, after almost a year at CGC the book is coming back a 2.5 Universal grade. I asked for a blue label instead of green.

Edited July 31, 2022 by PMminer

[grendelbo]

On 6/27/2021 at 4:06 PM, grendelbo said:

2.0/2.5

I wish I could do this in the contest.

I remember this book. I still say the signature is legit. 

Very nice. I'd love to see it in the slab when it arrives. Congratulations.

[thehumantorch]

On 7/30/2022 at 7:28 PM, PMminer said:

Just to follow up on this, after almost a year at CGC the book is coming back a 2.5 Universal grade. I asked for a blue label instead of green.

Congrats.  It isn't a high grade book but it's a wonderful key book and well worth owning.

[KirbyTown]

On 6/28/2021 at 6:57 PM, PMminer said:

but if I could find evidence that it might be real, then awesome!

For whatever it may be worth at this point:

I'm not an autograph expert, but I've spent a lot of time looking at Kirby marks. Unlike his prolific convention signature, I think of the block letter stack as a rarely used maker's mark. His usual signature was consistent in appearance since the time of his early invoices, but the maker's mark was rarely so.

It's true that the cover location is uncommon in comparison to the splash page, but authenticated Kirby cover signatures do exist. However, I don't recall seeing authenticated Kirby blocks in general.

While this marking is on the cover and was done in ink that appears anachronistic, the features match the real marks surprisingly well. If this is real, I can imagine it being a specific request (as Mr. Zipper already mentioned) and perhaps it was intended as a throwback thing depending on where the red ink places this mark in time.

The block letter marks were inconsistent, but they all had a feel. It seems unlikely that a forger would have any interest in such a relatively worthless autograph, let alone be able to perform it so well in one go.

I hope these pics are useful for comparison; first is from a pencil drawing, second is from the Gods portfolio, and last is from this thread:

Edited July 31, 2022 by KirbyTown

[PMminer]

On 7/31/2022 at 5:13 PM, KirbyTown said:

For whatever it may be worth at this point:

I'm not an autograph expert, but I've spent a lot of time looking at Kirby marks. Unlike his prolific convention signature, I think of the block letter stack as a rarely used maker's mark. His usual signature was consistent in appearance since the time of his early invoices, but the maker's mark was rarely so.

It's true that the cover location is uncommon in comparison to the splash page, but authenticated Kirby cover signatures do exist. However, I don't recall seeing authenticated Kirby blocks in general.

While this marking is on the cover and was done in ink that appears anachronistic, the features match the real marks surprisingly well. If this is real, I can imagine it being a specific request (as Mr. Zipper already mentioned) and perhaps it was intended as a throwback thing depending on where the red ink places this mark in time.

The block letter marks were inconsistent, but they all had a feel. It seems unlikely that a forger would have any interest in such a relatively worthless autograph, let alone be able to perform it so well in one go.

I hope these pics are useful for comparison; first is from a pencil drawing, second is from the Gods portfolio, and last is from this thread:

Wow, thanks for that. I came into this thread kind of embarrassed to even show something I thought was so obviously fake. And it may still be. But at this point, knowing the history of this book as I do, and the info posted here by people way more knowledgeable than myself, I'm going to consider it legit. Once again, I may be wrong, but since Kirby had such formative influence on my life growing up I'd like to believe it's the real deal now that it doesn't seem so implausible.

[Engr62]

I'm pretty sure this is an authentic Jack Kibby signature.