My Essay from KIRBY 100 (Patreon)

Above: Captain America's Bicentennial Battles, pg 32. Written and drawn by Jack Kirby with inks by Herb Trimpe, colors by Phil Rachelson, lettering by John Constanza.  

In 2017 I was fortunate enough to be one of the comics professionals asked to write a testimonial essay for the KIRBY 100 anniversary project published by TwoMorrows, commemorating what would have been Jack Kirby's 100th birthday. The contributors were asked to write about a favorite page of Kirby's work, and while I have a hundred favorite pages (at least, like anyone who's a fan of the King), I wanted to pick something that I thought might not be on anyone else's list. 

Anyway, here's the essay:

I was eleven years-old when Captain America's Bicentennial Battles was published in 1976. An over-sized, all-new, “King-Size Spectacular”, 82-page Jack Kirby Captain America comic was something a fan like myself just had to have, even with the King-Size Spectacular price tag of $1.50 (for which I could have bought six regular comics). Still, it was worth every penny. If nothing else, the 10” by 13” treasury format was perfect for Kirby's visuals. I wished – and still wish –  that all Kirby comics could have been printed at this size. With Kirby, bigger is better.   

I'm pretty sure I didn't spend much time poring over this page as a kid – it reads quickly, there are no background details to study, nobody's getting punched or kicked or blasted. You can picture Kirby's plot notes above the panel simply reading, “Cap raises his hand so we see the mystic mark, “Stop! We're all Americans!”.  As an adult it's my favorite page in the comic. It's still just Cap holding out his hand – but that's what I love about it. Kirby's splashes can generally be broken down to action (the punching and blasting stuff), spectacle (the Negative Zone, Asgard, whatever crazy thing Reed Richards built this month) or a focused character moment (Loki plotting on the throne, Dr. Doom at his dining table, Thor...um, drinking a milkshake). This splash is atypical, a single plot point blown up to grand scale, while also making a larger thematic point. Because, in case you couldn't tell, Jack Kirby is trying to say something here, practically breaking the fourth wall in the process (hint: WE'RE ALL AMERICANS! Corny, I guess, but the thing about Kirby is, he meant it. He meant everything he put down on the page, and that's another reason his comics resonate with so many people).
 

I can't see many other cartoonists making this splash work as well as it does. The average superhero artist would probably focus on the drawing to try to make it sing, rendering the hell out of Cap's fingers and face, deadening it in the process. Kirby's style and approach brings this simple page to life and elevates it to a poster-like punch in the face – one he likely gave no more thought to than as a necessary part of the story to get through so he could move onto the next page. Kirby's energetic style made practically every panel matter, whether it was warring armies or two people talking. Everything pops and flows on this page, emanating from the focal “mystic mark”, to the splayed fingers that lead the eye to Cap's face, bombarded by bursts of speed lines and an over-sized word balloon featuring Kirby's equally idiosyncratic, semi-hysterical dialog. Even the lines in Cap's opened mouth add urgency to the page – I don't know if that's supposed to be a stylized effect or actual strings of saliva in there or both. Herb Trimpe inked this page, which is appropriate, because in his own comics he went for spit-energy Kirby mouths in a big way, especially on the Hulk. And speaking of inking, I just love those thick, fat, fearless brush lines and spotted blacks locking in Kirby's pencils.     
 

Everything was on the nose in Kirby's world, broadly stated in both words and images. The bold and idiosyncratic slashes, squiggles, and blocky masses that made up Kirby's figures and environments were matched with his equally emphatic approach to narration and dialog that combined burst upon the eye and inner ear like a blitz bomb. It's an intensely personal style – heartfelt, uncynical and skillfully paced with Kirby's innate sense of energized and engaging storytelling.   
 

I love everything about this splash and what it says about the man who created it.   
 

Long Live The King.     

Kirby 100: 100 Top Creators Celebrate Jack Kirby's Greatest Work was published by TwoMorrows Publishing  in 2017, in softcover and in a limited hardcover edition with some extra material.