Well, we’ve made it to the 31st here, the final day of Jack Kirby Tribute Month (the brainchild of Howard Simpson). And the prompt for the final day of the month, like last year, is a bit of a wild card. As Howard put it last year, “Draw your own original character. The King would want you to create characters you own.”
I dug pretty deep for this one. Presenting a superhero group I co-created with my brother Andy when we were kids: the Knights of Justice! From left to right you have Molecule Man, Sledgehammer, Boomerang King, the Wizard (descending from above), and finally… er, sorry; I don’t remember the purple guy’s name anymore! I could only come up with a vague recollection that he was the speedster of the group. My brother doesn’t remember either.
I drew the original drawing when I was around 15, I figure. And I admit to cringing a little bit at the drawing (those lollipop calves!) and some of those costume designs. All I can say in my defense is it was the ’70s, and I guess I was influenced a bit too much by some of the trendier superhero costumes of the time. And why so many full face masks? Though I do think the Wizard design is actually kind of cool still, even all these years later. Kind of brave to just go full black and white like that.
And that’s an official wrap for Jack Kirby Tribute Month this year, but I have one more thing I want to post tomorrow. Oh, and for what it’s worth, the Knight of Justice are ™ & © Andy and Mark Lewis.
A fitting group for the Superheroes Hall of Fame. Did the two of you ever do a complete story? They seem to be a tall group in the original art. The take you have done for Kirby Month as your own group is very cool. The Lewis eyes really make the characters pop as does the darker sky in the background and the simplicity of the building silhouette with today’s creation. I do like the black and white costume in the mix of the colors of the others in the group. The hairy chested Boomerang Kid with a mustache is worth a bunch of chuckles. No doubt he was great in close shaves. HaHaHa. I know there was actually a Pulsar character. But your sort of invitation to guess for the unremembered name gets me to that possibility–A combination of purple and passing through molecular structures as he vibrates. Thanks for the great month, Mark. I look forward to tomorrow’s surprise,
Very happy you’ve been enjoying this.
No, my brother and I never did a story with these characters. The one drawing was about as far as it got before he felt the gravitational pull of the outdoors, and my own attention got pulled onto other things.
“Lewis eyes”? Didn’t know that was a thing, but that’s how style works, I guess. A lot of it is the things you do unconsciously that make up your style. I’ve seen video links that purport to tell young artists “How to Develop Your Style,” but to me, that’s just something that happens naturally, organically. You keep working, learning from other artists, and it just happens.