During that time when I was a child living on Hawthorne Circle in Hanahan, South Carolina and a student at George R. Fishburne Elementary School I was quite the comic book fan.
Many of my friends shared my love of these diversions from the real world and in particular my favorites included — but were not limited to — The Hulk, X-Men, The Avengers, Captain America, Superman, and The Fantastic Four.
I would notice the ‘by line’ in various places and discovered that the artist of many of these early renditions of my favorites was either Stan Lee or a man named Jack Kirby.
Far later than that I would learn just what a talented man Jack Kirby was in his field. As is typical of my acquisition of facts — too little, too late.
Jacob Kurtzberg
aka “Jack Kirby”
August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994
American comic book artist, writer and editor. He grew up poor in New York City, Jacob Kurtzberg entered the comics industry during it’s infancy in the 1930s.
Drawing various comic strips under various and diverse pseudonyms, he decided that Jack Kirby would be his nom de plume.
In 1941, he and writer Joe Simon created Captain America for a brand called Timely Comics. He continued creating various others throughout the 1940s many times in conjunction with Simon as well.
He returned to comics after serving in WWII and throughout the ensuing decades contributed to a number of genres from Archie Comics, Atlas Comics, Marvel, DC, and created many of Marvel’s major stars in conjunction with Stan Lee — such as the X-Men, Hulk, Fantastic Four, to critical acclaim and high sales figures.
He left Marvel for DC Comics because he felt that he was treated unfairly. Some of us have this ‘thing’ about being treated fairly. However life simply isn’t always fair. Is it, Susan?
In his later years, Jack Kirby was the subject of great accolades for the many accomplishments of his career and is generally regarded as one of the major innovators and most influential people in the medium of comic books and their characters.
Tags: Observances, People