We’ve made it to day 20 of this year’s Jack Kirby Tribute Month (created by Howard Simpson). The theme has been Asgard this week: characters who appeared during Jack Kirby’s run on Journey into Mystery/Thor. And today’s prompt is none other than Odin!
Fans will know that Odin is the ruler of all Asgard, and Thor’s father. If you’ve read a lot of the Lee/Kirby stories, you’re aware that their relationship is complicated, to say the least.
An interesting aspect to Odin is that visually, apart from having a solid frame and the white hair and beard, he has no fixed look! Pretty much every time you see him, his attire is different. And more often than not, it’s quite ornate! In comics, this is very unusual. But apparently Jack liked the challenge of coming up with something different for Odin each time you saw him. It wasn’t just from issue to issue; sometimes his apparel would change from scene to scene in the same story!
As a result, what I’ve drawn here is inspired by, but not based off of, any one specific outfit worn by Odin. I pulled my color cues from how he was colored too (crazy things sometimes like the green shadows on the blue gloves!). I don’t know that Jack ever hid a face anywhere in his designs, but that felt right to me to do that (as kind of a tip of the hat to Walt Simonson and his Thor run, second best only to the original. Simonson would do things like that).
Hope you like my take on Odin, and tune in tomorrow for our next visitor from Asgard!
Now that you bring it up, I am sure I that I never noticed the outfit shifts, and I love this “Big Daddio.” I wonder if Jack did the sort of multiple clothes changes in the romance comic output? I will have to look. The reason Jack did this is a question to ponder. In the world of dressing a “sup,” there is not a great deal of variation. Thanks Mark.
Glad you like this.
I imagine that at least in their heroic identities, it makes sense that most heroes have a standard look. But there could probably be more variation of looks when it comes to civilian identities. For example: Clark Kent wearing something other than just a blue suit and a red tie. But I suppose that was intended as a subtle visual cue to young readers who they were looking at.
I think I recall reading or hearing, an interview with Roz Kirby, Jack’s wife, where she said that the most important thing to Jack was telling the story. Fans would write in and complain, or simply point out, that Mr. Miracle’s costume was never the same, sometimes changing mid story but that Jack never really worried to much about it because the narrative was clear.
I guess his point would be that the story was made up of panels and each panel needed to be interesting to look at, which I believe he certainly accomplished.
There’s that quote (apparently from Ralph Waldo Emerson) that “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
John Romita had said that occasionally they’d have to check Jack’s work to make sure that details like the number of discs on Thor’s outfit were consistent. But he was quick to add that things like that were a small price to pay for the storytelling brilliance, excitement and imagination Jack always brought to his work.
I’ve often said that Job #1 for a comics artist is to be clear: so the reader never feels confused or lost during the story. Job #2 is to be as interesting as you can while telling that story. Jack excelled at Job #2. There’s still a lot that modern comics artists could stand to learn in that regard from studying Jack’s work.
Toward your last comment, to quote the Kool Aide man, “Ohhhh yeaaah.”
🙂