![]() In July, San Diego Comic-Con marked his centenary with programs and celebrations, including a lifetime achievement award for his largely-overlooked work as a writer. Museums, art collectors and scholars are taking even greater interest in Kirby’s work as a significant legacy of 20 th century American art. ![]() It also reportedly brought tens of millions of dollars to the Kirby family, although the terms remain undisclosed.Ĭessation of the official hostilities between Marvel and Kirby opened the floodgates to a torrent of pent-up recognition for his cultural contributions from fans who enjoyed his work as kids and are now in influential positions in media, entertainment, academia and the arts. The settlement cleared the way for Kirby to finally get co-creator credit on Marvel properties across all media, from comics to movies to TV and videogames. That settlement took place in 2014, twenty years after his death and half a century after he’d established the bulk of his creative legacy. Art by Jack Kirby, DC Comics.īy the late 70s, Kirby was engaged in a protracted legal struggle to establish his rights – a struggle that would last the rest of his life. The issue would not be resolved until Disney, which purchased Marvel in 2009, settled with his estate to avoid a Supreme Court ruling on the entire issue of work-for-hire and copyright ownership that could have upended the entire entertainment industry. the commercial and cultural impact of his Marvel work. Jack Kirby created powerful science fiction comics like Kamandi for DC in the 1970s, but they lacked. However, he became resentful when the more gregarious Stan Lee, who wrote the dialogue and contributed some story ideas, started posing in the press as the primary creative influence at Marvel while Kirby was simply “the illustrator.” Given how Lee ran the creative process known as the "Marvel Method," where the artist made many of the design, pacing and storytelling decisions, Kirby had a strong case. He was as surprised as anyone when college students, serious critics and figures in the entertainment industry like Frederico Fellini and Stanley Kubrick started taking notice of the work he was doing at Marvel. Kirby was a consummate artist, passionate storyteller and genuine visionary, but he worked in comics to feed his family, not his ego. Kirby remained an intermittently productive creator and beloved elder statesman until his death in 1994, but never had the same commercial impact as he did in that mid-60s peak. However the comics audience was moving in different directions. Kirby continued to do powerful, visionary work through the 70s and 80s, including a memorable stint at DC that included the creation of DCEU big-bad Darkseid and his minions from Apocalypse. That work formed the basis for the Marvel entertainment universe that dominates the 21st century media landscape. In an unprecedented burst of creativity between 19, Kirby and Lee debuted the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Ant Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD, The Inhumans, the Black Panther, the Silver Surfer and other major characters. But all that was just an opening act for what he would do in the 1960s at Marvel Comics, working with writer/editor Stan Lee. After the war, Simon and Kirby took comics into new genres like romance, crime, horror, science fiction and adventure. His overpowering, dynamic art style set the visual template for the genre as early as 1941, when he and partner Joe Simon launched Captain America by showing the hero slugging Hitler on the cover of the first issue. Jack Kirby was the most influential storyteller in the history of American superhero comics. Today as the pop culture world Kirby helped to build celebrates his centenary, it's worth looking at why it took so long for the man Stan Lee called "King" to get his crown. And even though Disney has acknowledged his co-creation of the Marvel pantheon, Kirby’s fame has not travelled as far outside the circles of comics fandom as his creations. Kirby's journey from respected artisan to revered creative genius was hard-won and not completed in his lifetime.
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