We’re getting close to the end! Day 30 of our month-long online Jack Kirby Art Tribute. Suggested/sponsored by Howard Simpson, you can find the work online on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.
I’m going off-menu again today. The prompt suggests doing a “Kirby Collage,” of the type Jack was known for doing in his spare time, sometimes even finding ways to use them in his comics. But I couldn’t think of a way to do that and have it fit in thematically with the rest of what I’m doing. So instead, I chose to draw Captain Victory.
This was the title that launched a brand new comic company in the early ’80s, Pacific Comics. As mentioned yesterday, the fact that Jack Kirby was doing a comic for a new startup publisher and not for Marvel or DC again, was a Big Deal. It was thought that the “Big Two” were really the only game in town, so it can’t be overstated that this was big news.
One of the reasons Kirby was willing to do this was contained right there in the indicia in the front of the book: “™ & © Jack Kirby.” This wasn’t something he was ever likely to get from Marvel or DC, and I’m sure the various frustrations he’d had with both publishers at different points over the years were also part of his interest in going independent again (like he and Joe Simon had tried once before with Mainline).
The story of Captain Victory and his Galactic Rangers was inspired at least in part by Jack watching E.T. and thinking that “first contact” was not likely to be so benign. In fact, considering some of the things that happened when explorers came from Europe to the “New World,” Jack thought more likely it could go horribly wrong..for us! And that was the seed of the story.
Front and center you’ve got Captain Victory. Behind him to the left is Major Klavus, and to the right is Tarin.
Hope you like it. One more to go!
Looks great. There was more to Captain Victory than I knew. I had the early issue and still do. I also just picked up the TwoMorrows number one Graphite Edition. That book is pretty great. It was pretty risky in some ways for Jack to go independent, particularly after Mainline. I have to wonder but will never know; if there was an effort to “subtly” put a corral around Jack’s later day creations? Or if the masses were just looking for other material? The later titles were in another “not buyin’ books” period for me. I seemed to have missed out. Your layout and coloring are once again excellent. Thank you.
Glad you liked this, Joe.
I think there were several things that made Jack willing to do this. Jack was like this creative engine who couldn’t stop creating, yet there had been problems (broken promises and the like) with both of the Big Two over the years. So this was a way of getting around that, and owning his work. It can’t be overstated how important that is to a creator.
He was probably also aware that circumstances were different from what they were when he and Joe did Mainline. You almost couldn’t have picked a worse time to start a comic company: public scrutiny against comics implying them as THE source of juvenile delinquency, then the start of the Comics Code which made it difficult for a new company to get their footing. Almost 30 years later, the atmosphere was better.
Was anyone corralling him creatively? I sort of doubt it. There may have been some in his inner circle occasionally saying, “I don’t know, Jack” about some ideas. But I think being creator-owned, he was pretty much allowed to do what he wanted. There was no one who had the power to editorially second-guess him on his material here, have someone redraw the heads or change storylines.