Fantastic Four #37, 1965
“Jacob Kurtzberg (/ˈkɜːrtsbɜːrɡ/; August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994), better known by his pen name Jack Kirby, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium’s major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He grew up in New York City and learned to draw cartoon figures by tracing characters from comic strips and editorial cartoons. He entered the nascent comics industry in the 1930s, drawing various comics features under different pen names, including Jack Curtiss, before ultimately settling on Jack Kirby. In 1940, he and writer-editor Joe Simon created the highly successful superhero character Captain America for Timely Comics, predecessor of Marvel Comics. During the 1940s, Kirby regularly teamed with Simon, creating numerous characters for that company and for National Comics Publications, later to become DC Comics. After serving in the European Theater in World War II, Kirby produced work for DC Comics, Harvey Comics, Hillman Periodicals and other publishers. At Crestwood Publications, he and Simon created the genre of romance comics and later founded their own short-lived comic company, Mainline Publications. Kirby was involved in Timely’s 1950s iteration, Atlas Comics, which in the next decade became Marvel. There, in the 1960s under writer-editor Stan Lee, Kirby co-created many of the company’s major characters, including the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Thor, the Hulk and Iron Man. The Lee–Kirby titles garnered high sales and critical acclaim, but in 1970, feeling he had been treated unfairly, largely in the realm of authorship credit and creators’ rights, Kirby left the company for rival DC. At DC, Kirby created his Fourth World saga which spanned several comics titles. While these series proved commercially unsuccessful and were canceled, the Fourth World’s New Gods have continued as a significant part of the DC Universe. Kirby returned to Marvel briefly in the mid-to-late 1970s, then ventured into television animation and independent comics. … It was at Marvel, in collaboration with writer and editor-in-chief Lee that Kirby hit his stride once again in superhero comics, beginning with The Fantastic Four #1 (Nov. 1961), which some have observed shares many elements of Kirby’s Challengers of the Unknown. The landmark series became a hit that revolutionized the industry with its comparative naturalism and, eventually, a cosmic purview informed by Kirby’s seemingly boundless imagination—one well-matched with the consciousness-expanding youth culture of the 1960s. …”
Wikipedia
Lambiek Comiclopedia
The King’s Gambit
Open Culture – Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey Gets Turned Into “The Weirdest Sci-Fi Comic Ever Made” by Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby double-page spreads
YouTube: Jack Kirby, Marvel co-creator part 1 of 5: Thor : Docuseries 8 by Alex Grand, part 2: Iron Man & Ant-Man, part 3 of 5: Hulk & the X-Men, part 4 of 5: The Fantastic Four, part 5 of 5: Villains & Spider-Man
1960s: Days of Rage
1960s: Days of Rage 