The Power of Ka-zar

One of the last things Jack did for Marvel before he left to work at DC Comics. Kirby's version of Tarzan -- Ka-zar from Astonishing Tales #1 (1970).
A rare example of Sam Grainger inks on Kirby. Looks like Fabio during the 80s.

Unpublished Prisoner

Three pages from Jack's unpublished Prisoner adaption. Notice the last one is still in pencil form. Maybe the magazine was cancelled right in the middle of the inking process.

Devil Dinosaur Part II

The published version of the Devil Dinosaur splash posted yesterday, followed by another spectacular example from the series. Mike Royer inks on both pages.

Devil Dinosaur Splash

One of my favorite Kirby double-splash pages. From Devil Dinosaur. A scan of the original artwork.

Cap Pencils

One more great Kirby pencil piece, Captain America. Looks like this is from the 1960s

Disneyland Convention 1971

Here's an obscure comic book convention poster featuring Jack's Mister Miracle. Ironic seeing the Disney name on a DC Comics Kirby piece from the 1970s considering Disney just paid billions of dollars for Jack's Marvel creations. Can Disney buying all the DC comics characters be far behind?

Here Comes the Hulk

Two Hulk pin-ups. The first one is from the early 1970s, the second looks like it's from the 1980s.

Big Barda Pencils and Inks

Another brilliant pencil piece, this time of Jack's Fourth World character Big Barda, penciled sometime in the 1970s. In early 2000 Mike Royer recreated the pencils and added inks resulting in the image below it.

Close Encounter of the Kirby Kind

A remarkable image I recall popping up on eBay several years ago. I know nothing about it, can't imagine what it was for. Wonderfully detailed pencil piece. I don't think I've seen it published anywhere, so wonder what became of it. I hope it isn't locked forever in some collector's vault, I'd love to see an HQ scan of the artwork one day

Unpublished Avengers Page

A real treasure. An unpublished Avengers page in pencil form. I can't image why Stan Lee rejected this one. It looks very solid to me. Notice how Jack would leave blank space at the top of the page, giving Lee room to add text. I zoomed into some of the frames so you can see details of Kirby's pencilwork.

Kirby Pencil Art

Two pencil illustrations it looks like Jack gave to Don Heck as a gift.


Here are close-ups of the top and bottom half of the image.

You can see Jack signs it: "To Don and the Mrs.; Good Friends -- Jack Kirby 1966."

Kirby/Heck

It's a shame Don Heck didn't ink Kirby's pencils more often. Here are four more examples of Kirby/Heck presentation pieces that are fantastic. I bought a set of these from the Kirby Estate a couple years ago. I suppose these are a few of Jack's characters created in the late 1960s not owned by Marvel or DC. These also look like they were painted using watercolors by Kirby.

Kirby/Heck Captain America

A beautiful Captain America piece by Jack and Don Heck. Looks like Kirby watercolors. It's dated 1966. I have no idea what this was for, maybe a commission piece?

Simon & Kirby American Heroes

I don't have too many examples of Simon/Kirby artwork in my files because when I was collecting scans from about 2003 - 2005 my main focus was on Jack's 1960s material. Plus at that time there weren't a lot of Simon/Kirby interior scans available and the original books themselves were very expensive.

I want to make this website a kind of kaleidoscope where I flash all over Jack's career, so I'll do a quick eBay search and see if I can find some gems.

Looking at the brilliant Simon/Kirby covers as I scroll through all the hundreds of comic books for sale reminds me of summer afternoons in the 1970s where I'd wander down the block and check out a neighbors flea market. Finding a box full of old comics that were a nickle apiece was like finding buried treasure.

Here are a couple Simon/Kirby scans I thought were great. First of all, look at this mess.

Beautiful Kirby/Simon art from 1954, but this is why I love looking at comics online. I shudder to think about what those brown stains on the cover of that book might be. I remember when I was about 9-years-old in the late 1970s going to a friend's house to buy some comics, because he had a mint condition copy of Star Wars #1 for me. Only one problem, unfortunately his cat went to the bathroom on it. Not saying that's what happened to this book, but I don't expect to see it in a CGC slab anytime soon.

I've also met a lot of collectors who say they love the smell of newsprint, but I'm not a member of that club. I love looking at comics on the computer, which is one of the reasons I decided to start showing some Kirby art on this website. In my opinion, looking at art on the computer makes the process more active, I can cut and paste images and try and put together my version of the ultimate PowerPoint presentation on the diversity and dynamics of Kirby's art and storytelling.

I hadn't seen this cover before and it actually made me laugh. Fighting American #1, Kirby/Simon art (1954).

Not your typical "super-villain." Looks like a human version of George Lucas's Jabba the Hut.

Here's the last Simon-Kirby Captain America cover before Jack and Joe headed off to war. Attributed to Kirby/Crandall (1942).

Kirby Inks

Jack rarely inked his own work, especially after 1960 where he was predominantly a penciler, but here is a rare example most Kirby scholars agree was inked by Kirby himself. The cover to Fantasy Masterpieces #4 (1966).

The smaller images at the left and on the bottom appear to be stats taped to the artboard, but this image is original art.

I wonder why out of almost 10,000 pages of artwork for Marvel during the 1960s, this is one of the only images Jack inked. Maybe there was some strange deadline problem, and Jack was in the Marvel offices and quickly added ink to this page?

Storyboard

A strange piece called simply "Storyboard." Maybe Kirby was experimenting with cinematic storytelling. Looks like Jack inked this image and colored it himself. The art is dated 1982. Looks like some kind of water damage on the top and bottom.

Ruby-Spears Art

Some spectacular examples of the recently-revealed Kirby Ruby-Spears artwork, Jack produced during the 1980s. I'm guessing the filmmakers who develop these properties will get Tom Selleck to play the first character in the third image.

Comicsville

Great Kirby/Royer cover from 2001: A Space Odyssey #5 (1977). The first part of Jack's 2-part epic "Norton of New York."

On April 12, the New York Times reported Joe Ruby & Ken Spears, and Sid & Marty Krofft are forming a partnership. They have 600 production boards of Kirby art produced for Ruby-Spears in the 1980s that had been boxed up and unseen for decades, and are planning to revive these unseen Kirby characters "in as many forms as possible."

Jack's Marvel and DC work is also filled with great unexplored characters like Norton of New York, one of my favorite Kirby stories from the 1970s.

Zooming in to the crowd of aliens, here are at least 12 more potential new Kirby characters.

Plus if you count this fellow off to the left, that's 13.

Disney-Marvel could call them "Jack Kirby's Threatening Thirteen," or something along those lines.

Norton running away from that angry Comicsville mob reminds me of the first time I mentioned Kirby was involved in the creation of Spider-Man on a comic book internet forum.

Ardina

Beautiful scan of Ardina from the Silver Surfer graphic novel. This image is a xerox taken from the original art.

A close-up of her face. Very nice Joe Sinnott inks here.

Also notice if we zoom in rally close, the impeccable craftsmanship of little details like the stars and buildings.


Here is another scan of Ardina and the Surfer, from a scan of the original art.