Jack Kirby - Page 2 - marklewisdraws.com

Two and Two Is…

It’s now day 13 of the second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month, and we’re in the midst of a week themed for the D.N.Aliens from Jack’s time on Jimmy Olsen. Today’s prompt is the Four-Armed Terror, another character I’ve never tried to draw before.

The Terror was part of a batch of D.N.Aliens cooked up in secret by the Evil Factory to wreak havoc on their opposite, the DNA Project. Feeding on radioactive energy, the Four-Armed Terror and his siblings came dangerously close to ending the Project in a nuclear fireball! But Superman saved the day at the last moment.

To be honest, the Terror was a bit of a challenge to draw. His appearance didn’t seem to be completely locked down, and the inks by Vince Colletta didn’t really help in that regard either. So hopefully this combines enough of what I saw in all those panels to work.

Tune in again tomorrow for another D.N.Alien!

Think of a Number Between One and Ten…

On day 12 of the second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month (created by Howard Simpson), this week’s theme is the D.N.Aliens from Jack’s time on Jimmy Olsen. Today’s character prompt is Dubbilex.

Dubbilex was one of the D.N.Aliens from the government’s secret DNA Project, introduced in Jimmy Olsen. Though perhaps somewhat offputting at first glance, Dubbilex was actually quite friendly and intelligent. Though created at the Project, he worked alongside the scientists, helping with research. He was the face of the Project, introduced to any visiting dignitaries who were allowed through their doors. Later in Jack’s run, Dubbilex was shown to have developed Telekinesis too.

I’d never drawn Dubbilex before (or most of the other characters that are prompts for this week). He was fun to take a shot at. Hope you like my take, and that you come back tomorrow to see the next D.N.Alien!

Jolly and Green

We’re at Day 11 of the second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month, starting the second full week of the month. A new week means a new overall theme: D.N.Aliens (from the DNA Project and the Evil Factory in Jimmy Olsen). Today’s prompt is the Giant Jimmy Olsen.

When Jack Kirby decided it was time to leave Marvel for greener pastures and jumped over to DC, it was a Big Deal! Reportedly, Jack was offered his pick of any DC book he wanted. Jack though was very much a working man at heart; while he was an artist, he was also very conscious of the fact he was working hard to provide for his family as best he could. And he was mindful that other artists were in the same boat, so he was reticent to get anyone booted from a regular assignment that helped to pay their bills. As a result, when offered his choice of any book in the DC line, Jack said, “Give me your worst-selling title,” since he wouldn’t be putting anyone out of work by doing that. This is how Jimmy Olsen (of all books) wound up being an integral part of Jack’s Fourth World Saga at DC.

I’m sure that any regular Jimmy Olsen fans’ heads were probably spinning, over all the wild, crazy action and concepts Jack threw at them. DNA? Cloning? The Hairies? The Mountain of Judgment? In some ways, Jack was probably a bit too far ahead of his time for DC, or for most readers then. It wasn’t until years later that subsequent Superman creative staff seemed to finally catch up with Jack and revisited some of his concepts.

Even before Jack took on the book though, there was something of a tradition of Jimmy Olsen undergoing strange changes or transformations from time to time (look up Giant Turtle Boy, for example). Bringing DNA into the storytelling mix allowed Jack to put a fresh spin on this idea. The Giant Jimmy Olsen was genetically engineered from DNA samples taken from Jimmy by the Evil Factory. He was created to break into the DNA Project , kill Superman and destroy the Project.

I don’t know if Jack was responsible for his coloration, but someone must have amused themselves by coloring Giant Jimmy green, which gave him something in common with a certain big, strong, raging (ahem!) Incredible character at another company.

Hope you enjoy, and tune in again tomorrow to see the next D.N.Alien!

I Can Dig It

It’s now the 10^th day of the second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month, devised by Howard Simpson to honor the creative genius of the King. Howard introduced a fun new wrinkle this year, of themed weeks. This week’s theme has been the Fantastic Four, and on this last day of the week, the final prompt is the Mole Man.

The Mole Man may not be considered the FF’s archenemy, but he has the distinction of being the very first antagonist they faced in their origin story. Like many of the FF villains, he had more complexity to him than your average comic book villain. He commanded an army of Moloids (which I’ve included some of here, free of charge) as well as various giant underground monsters. He was bitter, yet not entirely unsympathetic, having been shunned and basically driven away by most of the rest of mankind.

While I have (on rare occasion) previously attempted to draw some of the other FF characters I’ve drawn this week, this is the first time I’ve ever tried to draw the Mole Man. It was fun!

And that wraps up Fantastic Four week. Tomorrow’s a new week, and a new theme!

You’re All Doomed!

Today makes Day Nine of the second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month, created by Howard Simpson to honor the creative genius of Jack Kirby during his birth month. We’re in the first full week of the month, and the theme for this week is the Fantastic Four. Today’s prompt is Dr. Doom.

Victor Von Doom views himself as being above other men. And yet (though he’d deny it), he’s clearly threatened by Reed Richards’ genius. He’s a bit more complex of a character than your average supervillain. Kirby has been quoted as saying he was inspired in part by The Man in the Iron Mask, and was trying to make him “the classic conception of Death,” without a hint of mercy, by masking him in cold, unmerciful steel. He viewed Doom as being paranoid, and Doom’s perfectionism was what ultimately tripped him up and bent his mind.

Dr. Doom’s mask is kind of tricky to draw! It sort of morphs a bit between panels and appearances, so hopefully I’ve done it justice here.

Tune in tomorrow for the finale of Fantastic Four week!

Stretching the Point

We’re at Day Eight of the second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month, created by Howard Simpson to honor the King in his birth month. A new element this year is each week having a theme, this week’s being the Fantastic Four. If you’ve been following along the previous days, you might be able to guess today’s prompt: Mr. Fantastic.

Reed Richards as Mr. Fantastic is the brilliant scientist/inventor and leader of the FF. A fun aspect of the original Jack and Stan run on Fantastic Four were those scenes where Reed was intensively working in his lab over some wild Kirby-designed piece of equipment. I kind of had that in mind when doing this drawing.

If you’ve seen the original run by Jack and Stan, you might recognize that the way Jack drew Reed kind of morphed over the time he was doing the book. Mr. Fantastic started off a bit thinner in the face initially, but got a little more “robust” later on. I referenced how Reed looked during the middle issues of the run here, which many consider to be the prime period for the book.

The week’s theme is not over! Having covered the FF themselves, tune in tomorrow to see who’s up next.

Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed

We’ve reached the seventh day of the second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month, created by Howard Simpson. A cool new aspect he’s introduced is themed weeks, where each day’s prompts fit within that theme.

If you’ve been following along, this week’s theme is the Fantastic Four. Today’s prompt is the Thing.

Ben Grimm as the Thing is a character who might appear fairly simple and straightforward on the surface, but if you’ve read the original run by Jack and Stan, you realize there’s more to him than meets the eye. He can be funny, but there’s also underlying pain and regret, being stuck in this monstrous form. Later creators have sometimes lost that aspect, focusing more on the comedic elements.

The Thing is not an easy character to draw! I had a bit of a struggle here before I felt like I had it reasonably correct.

Hope you approve. Tune in tomorrow to see who’s next!

He Thinks He’s Hot Stuff!

It’s Day Six of the second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month, we’re in the midst of Fantastic Four week, and today’s prompt is the Human Torch.

In his initial appearances, he was perhaps a bit too formless. Jack quickly figured this out, and codified what we now think of as his classic look. From time to time, some subsequent artists have tried to get creative and find other ways to draw him, but somehow he doesn’t look like himself when you get too far removed from the template Jack set.

As mentioned earlier, I’m trying to get some sense of narrative into these shots. Where exactly is he? Someplace unusual, no doubt. Feels like a story there.

Hope you like what I’ve done here. Tune in tomorrow if you’d like to see who’s up next!

Now You See Her,…

By now you know I’m participating in the second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month, created by Howard Simpson to mark the month of Jack’s birth (he would turn 107 later this month if he were still with us).

The new thing Howard’s introduced this year is weeks that have an overall theme to each day’s prompts, and this week’s theme is the Fantastic Four. I did a group shot yesterday, and today’s prompt (the first of the individual shots) is the Invisible Woman.

At first, her only power was to turn invisible. But I think Jack and Stan realized pretty quickly that this didn’t quite give her enough to fully hold her own with the rest of the group. So they had her develop an additional power: the ability to create force fields. That did the trick.

Sue Storm was originally known as the Invisible Girl, and it wasn’t until John Byrne’s run on Fantastic Four in the ’80s (second best in my opinion only to Jack and Stan’s original run!) that she was re-christened the Invisible Woman. Byrne came up with some of the most creative uses for her powers that had ever been seen, and managed to show once and for all that she was a force to be reckoned with!

Hope you like, and feel free to come back tomorrow to see who’s up next!

Fantastic!

Here’s Day Four of the second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month, and beginning the first full week of August means we also have a new theme this week: the Fantastic Four. And the first prompt is…the Fantastic Four?!

Since we also have separate prompts for each individual character coming up, I thought I might do a “before and after” thing, today being the “before” part of the equation. This was a moment with a lot of drama in their origin story, so I went with it. I always thought it was cool how Jack chose to render the cosmic rays as these sort of “lozenge” shapes. Kind of not all that threatening in themselves indivdually, but fearful because they’re an unknown, and there are so many of them!

I fully admit to appropriating the color scheme used in the original version, because why not? I thought it looked great, and it also kind of reminds me of the almost “pop art” coloring approach used in Alex Ross’ Fantastic Four: Full Circle (which in my opinion is the best version of these characters that I’ve seen in years!).

A note about the FF: while pretty much any Marvel book Jack had a hand in is worth a look, there are two absolutely essential titles he did at Marvel that I feel are the tentposts of his work there, which have to be taken into account when appraising that body of work. In them, you see not just an artist and storyteller working at the height of his craft, but you also get to see something of the man himself and his interests. Fantastic Four is one of those books. In it, you get to see Jack’s fascination with sci fi, the unknown, and with what might be out there. It’s a theme that runs through much of his work, and we got to see a bit of it previously in Challengers of the Unknown at DC.

I did say two titles, so I’m not going to hold you in suspense waiting days to hear the second one. It’s Journey into Mystery/Thor. That’s where you see Jack’s ongoing fascination with myths and legends, which runs throughout his career.

So who’s first up when we move to the individual members tomorrow? I’m not going to spoil that. You’ll just have to check in and see!

Buncha Dingbats!

We’re at day three of the second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month, created by Howard Simpson! The week’s theme (at least for the three days that fall into August) has been characters created by Jack who appeared in DC’s 1^st Issue Special. Today’s prompt is the Dingbats of Danger Street! From left to right up top are Good Looks, Krunch, and Bananas. At lower right is Non-Fat.

As mentioned previously, I never saw any copies of 1^st Issue Special on the spinner rack when it was first published, but laying hands on copies years later didn’t prove to be too costly. Appearing in 1^st Issue Special #6, the Dingbats is kind of a quirky strip. You get to see Jack’s sense of humor, but there’s also a bit of an edge to it too, the sense things are dangerous.

Jack and Joe Simon were the pioneers of the “kid gang” genre in the Golden Age, finding fun and drama in pulling together disparate personalities who might rub each other the wrong way on occasion, but ultimately had each other’s backs. They came up with the Young Allies, Boy Commandos, the Newsboy Legion, the Boy Explorers, and Boys’ Ranch (maybe others that I’m not thinking of at the moment). So this was Jack’s later attempt at another group in that vein. Maybe there’s a bit of the Bowery Boys in there, or maybe it’s just Jack’s own experience of growing up in a tough neighborhood.

Though DC only published the one story, there were at least two more issues of Dingbats Jack drew, which were ultimately “written off.” If you want to see those (in color, no less!), I highly recommend getting yourself a copy of TwoMorrows’ Dingbat Love, which finally brings to light a lot of material Jack did for DC in those days that previously never got to see the light of day.

If you’ve seen the one published issue, you might at first think, “He colored Non-Fat wrong!” Nope! DC got it wrong in the original comic! Jack intended that Non-Fat be African-American. There’s even a drawing he did of the cast where there are brief descriptive notes for each character, and next to Non-Fat, Jack wrote, “Non-Fat is an eager beaver Black kid.” Apparently the colorist who handled that issue of 1^st Issue Special didn’t get that memo!

Like with the other 1^st Issue Special characters, this is the first time I ever tried to draw these guys. Hope you enjoy! Stay tuned for tomorrow, and a new theme!

He Always Gets His Man…or at Least He Did that One Time

This is day two of the online second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month, created by artist Howard Simpson. Like last year, I intend to try to participate in the fun, and see if I can’t hit each day’s prompt.

As mentioned yesterday this (short) week’s theme is the three issues of DC’s 1^st Issue Special that featured creations by Jack. Today’s prompt is the version of Manhunter that appeared in 1^st Issue Special #5.

This is a different take on Manhunter from what Jack and his partner Joe Simon had done back in the Golden Age, and was also distinct from the critically acclaimed version Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson had done a couple years earlier as a regular backup strip in Detective Comics. I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t yet had a chance to read Jack’s version here by saying too much, even this many years removed. But I found this take to have sort of a classic, pulpy inspiration that I enjoyed. If this had gone on to a series, I would’ve been along for the ride, to see where Jack would’ve taken it.

Like I mentioned yesterday, though I never saw this title on the spinner rack when it originally came out, I found it not too expensive when I went looking for it several years later.

I’d never tried to draw this version of Manhunter, so it was fun to do that. I didn’t mention this yesterday, but something I’m trying to do with all of these this time out is to create some sense of narrative, the feeling that each of these might be a moment from the midst of a story. I did some of that last year, but I want to try to consciously do more of it this year.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s!

Carrying the Weight of the World

It’s August, and that means it’s also the second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month (created by Howard Simpson). Basically there are character prompts for each day. I participated in this last year (you can find what I did here on the site), and I’m going to try and do them all again this year.

A new wrinkle for this year’s Kirby Tribute Month is that each week has a specific theme. There are only three days that fall within August this first week, and the theme is Kirby’s issues of DC’s 1^st Issue Special. Today’s prompt is Atlas, who appeared in 1^st Issue Special #1.

I never saw this comic on the spinner rack back when it came out, but like most of the other issues of this title, it wasn’t too costly to buy when I finally came across a copy years later. Atlas is set in an ancient time, seemingly before written history, and to me feels a bit like Jack’s take on a Conan the Barbarian type of character. Like the vast majority of Jack’s work, you get to the end of that issue, and it feels like there’s a lot of potential, if he had been given the green light to continue the story.

I’d never tried to draw Atlas before, so it was fun to do this! Hope you enjoy, and stay tuned for tomorrow’s entry!

The Supreme Allied Commando!

Here’s another fake cover I drew for Big Bang’s History issues. Not only freshly colored, but also inked for the first time! A lot of fake covers needed to be generated for those issues, and there wasn’t time to ink them all. Since they were being printed pretty small, it was okay if some of them were in pencils, as long as they were fairly clean and tight.

Gary Carlson had incorporated into the Badge’s back story that at a certain point during WWII, he took up another name for a time and changed his uniform accordingly, going into action as the Supreme Allied Commando. I think this is the first time he’s appeared in color in this garb.

Initially when I first tackled designing the Badge, I took my inspiration from the heroes Simon and Kirby created for DC (probably the Guardian especially). For this version, I looked back at what they had been doing with Captain America, of course.

While Captain America was a patriotic superhero (the prime one people think of from WWII), I realized awhile back that Simon and Kirby’s Cap stories also had something else going on. There was a definite influence from the “weird menace” pulp genre, with the kind of foes they went up against. It was even on the covers, with the mad scientists performing unspeakable experiments, evil henchmen, deformed monsters, and odd men in hooded robes who would sometimes throw axes. Strangely, I’ve rarely heard anyone else calling attention to that influence.

That’s why all those things are present here. I even came up with names for the two main bad guys that I jotted down on the outside border of my cover: Dr. Von Mungler and his henchman Oggar.

Enjoy! And with the timing of this posting, I wish you a Happy Independence Day!

Oblivious

As has no doubt become clear, I did a lot of fake covers for “The Big Bang History of Comics” issues. This one ended up being especially fun, for reasons you’ll understand when I explain who did what.

This cover is for the most part my work. I penciled it, lettered it, and now colored it. The inks? By none other than (drumroll please) Mr. Mike Royer himself! He was Kirby’s best inker in the ’70s, no question in my mind. I still kind of can’t believe this happened. More about that in a minute.

Oblivia came about because I was thinking of those odd characters like the Black Racer who would suddenly pop up randomly out of nowhere in the midst of Jack’s Fourth World saga at DC. I started thinking about what Joe Kingler (Big Bang Comics’ equivalent for Jack) might have done in the context of working on Venus, and the name “Oblivia” popped into my head. It seemed to me very much the sort of “play on words” name that Jack often used. So a Venus cover featuring her didn’t at all seem out of line.

When I penciled this cover, I had no clue who might end up inking it. I probably wouldn’t have gone ahead and lettered it if I had known. So when Big Bang’s Gary Carlson raised a few possibilities for inkers, Mike Royer being one of them, it was the no-brainer of all no-brainers to say, “Yes!”

I actually had the opportunity to pick up the finished cover in person, and was thrilled with the end result. I got to spend a very fun Sunday afternoon hanging out at Mr. Royer’s home, conversing and hearing a lot of great stories about his time in comics, working for Disney doing licensing art, plus other topics. Again, thanks so much, Mr. Royer!

In coloring this, I heavily referenced the way all those Fourth World covers at DC were colored. That guided me to go in some directions I probably wouldn’t have gone if I were just coloring this normally on my own (like knocking the gangsters out all in green), but it helped to really get across the right period look.

Thanks for looking!

Venus Vs. Cupid

I’m adding another to the group of fake covers I had a hand in creating sometime back for “The Big Bang History of Comics” issues of Big Bang Comics. Credits on this one take a little explanation. Pencils were by Frank Squillace, inks and lettering by me. Frank did a color comp on a photocopy with markers, which I marked up with color formula callouts to create a colorist guide.

This cover ended up being repurposed as an actual Big Bang cover for issue #34, with different trade dress. For that instance, I believe someone at Image actually generated the color file used to print it, based on the color guide we’d provided. I don’t think I actually did that one myself in Photoshop, because after much searching, I don’t seem to have a file for it. Which means the version you see here has been totally recolored by me from scratch in Photoshop, referencing the color guide. I tweaked the rendering in a few spots to plus what was in the printed version a little bit, so a sharp eye might spot some of those differences.

I suspect most visitors will immediately realize that Frank and I were shooting for a Jack Kirby style here. I always thought of Big Bang as sort of “comics history through a funhouse mirror.” It’s known that when Jack Kirby jumped from Marvel to DC, they offered him any book he wanted. Jack wasn’t comfortable with putting anyone out of work, so he said, “give me your least-selling book.” That’s how Jimmy Olsen ended up as part of Jack’s Fourth World Saga at DC. Anyone who’s studied Jack’s work knows he had a lifelong fascination with myths and legends. So I thought, what if instead of Jimmy Olsen, Jack had taken on Wonder Woman? In Big Bang terms, that would’ve translated to Joe Kingler (Big Bang’s Kirby equivalent) taking on the character Venus.

This is the first time this has appeared in color with the original Venus masthead. Hope you enjoy it!

Behind the Badge Again

I explained last time how, when Big Bang Comics did a couple issues focused on the fictitious history of the company (mimicking Steranko’s History of Comics volumes), they needed a whole bunch of fake covers to pull it off and make it all feel believable. Here’s another one from the bunch I generated.

I drew this back then, inked (I believe) by Jeff Meyer. And now for the first time, appearing in color! It’s fun to finally see this realized in this form, after having it exist only in black and white for all these years.

I’m not exactly sure where the idea for this cover came from. Perhaps I was thinking about Simon & Kirby’s kick-off run of Captain America, which seemed to draw a lot of inspiration from the “weird menace” genre of pulps (an ingredient I’m surprised that most people don’t seem to pick up on). I kinda wish I could read “The Vampire of Varney Street!”

I had fun doing this. Hope you enjoy it!

Behind the Badge

Longtime visitors to my site might know that back in the ’90s, I was a contributor to Gary Carlson and Chris Ecker’s Big Bang Comics. The first issue hadn’t quite come out through Caliber yet when I came onboard, I think, but some material was already done.

When I met him, Gary was looking for someone to draw a Simon & Kirby type Golden Age character he had in mind called the Badge, and he’d been pointed my way. I got to have a pretty good hand in developing the character, his look and that of sidekicks Trooper and Bobbie, even making some suggestions about the characters’ back stories. So I have to admit to feeling a bit of proprietary interest in the Badge.

We eventually did a couple issues of Big Bang subtitled “The Big Bang History of Comics,” in imitation of the Steranko History of Comics volumes (not really parody except in the most loving and respectful way, because we all had a lot of affection for those books, as they were a gateway into a lifelong interest in comics history for many of us).

The History issues ended up being Big Bang Comics #24 and #27. If you’ve seen the Steranko books, imitating those meant we needed a whole bunch of fake covers! So I and a number of other artists set about to generate them. I recently made a list, and was shocked to see just how many I did, while simultaneously holding down my day job in animation!

Anyway, to what you’re seeing here: this was one of the earliest fake covers I generated for Big Bang. If my memory’s right, I think it might even have appeared as far back as the Caliber miniseries. I recall it appearing in color, but small, like part of a back cover ad. Recently, I thought it would be fun to go back and revisit a number of those old fake covers I did, and give them the full color treatment they always called out for. Most have never been seen in color at all!

The characters along the left side were ones I just made up on the spot, but most of them ended up appearing in Big Bang stories at one point or another. I sort of thought of Big Bang as “comics history through a funhouse mirror,” and to that end when I was drawing up this cover, I just made up characters that felt like they were playing with some of those familiar old Golden Age archetypes, but hopefully also feeling like you hadn’t entirely seen them before.

Pencils, lettering (and now coloring) are mine; inks were by Jeff Meyer (I believe), who inked several of my fake covers for the History issues, and did a nice job of giving them the correct finished look and feel. You can check out another of our fake cover collaborations here.

I still have other covers in the pipeline that I might post too, but I hadn’t put anything up here in awhile, and thought this might be fun. Hope you enjoy!

And thanks always, Gary, for letting me have a lot of fun on the Big Bang playground! Those interested can check out more recent Big Bang issues over on Indy Planet.

One More for the Road!

Recent visitors to my site in August will know that I was doing the online Jack Kirby Tribute every day, the brainchild of Howard Simpson. it was a blast participating, refreshing my appreciation all over again for all the great work Kirby did over the years.

I stuck to a very specific format with all of these: portraits in a small square, colored with the limited palette used in the old comics most of these characters originally appeared in, even down to the dot patterns. And I had in mind that the end goal was to be able to assemble them all into one composite image. I wasn’t sure how that would work out, but here’s how it did!

This was kind of just a personal challenge/exercise in taking the Tribute a step further. Not sure what happens with it beyond this point.

Hope you enjoyed the ride!

A Jolly Old Time!

We’ve made it! Day 31 of our month-long online Jack Kirby tribute, in honor of his birthday this month (back on the 28^th). The brainchild of Howard Simpson, you can find the work of participants on your favorite social media platforms via the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

The prompt for this last day reads, “Draw your own original character. The King would want you to create characters you own.” So I present: the Jolly Jaunter!

The reason I went with him is that he was a character I originally came up with back when I was 14 or 15, when I was heavily into a phase of trying to draw like Kirby. Kind of a silly, satirical British superhero. I’m not sure where he came from exactly, as at that point, it wasn’t as if I had seen much of jack’s humor work (like Fighting American) yet. Wherever it came from, the idea struck my funnybone, and I had to draw it. Buried deep in my files, I still had the drawing!

It was a little odd, revisiting a drawing and a character I had done when I was that young. How often do you do that? Obviously 14/15-year-old me hadn’t bothered to dig up reference for how a Union Jack flag really works, or really thought through how the color would work. What can I say? The idea amused me at the time. But there you go! For what it’s worth, the Jolly Jaunter is ™ & © Mark Lewis.

Thanks for looking, and for following all my Kirby Tributes this month!

On to Victory!

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!

Silver Star

This is Day 29 of our month-long Jack Kirby Tribute online. The brainchild of Howard Simpson, you’ll be able to find the work of participants on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

I actually posted today’s prompt (a Jack Kirby portrait) yesterday, in honor of Jack’s birthday. So today is catching up with yesterday’s prompt: Silver Star.

There are several unique things about this character. One is (if I’m not mistaken) the story started off as a screenplay, and Jack turned it into this limited series (The covers have a bullet reading “A Visual Novel.”). I believe Jack originally thought in terms of his Fourth World series at DC as an epic story that would come to a definite conclusion, but he wasn’t allowed to do that then. Limited series, or miniseries, just weren’t something comics publishers did yet in those days. If a book was a success, they wanted it to just keep going and going as long as possible.

The other thing about Silver Star was the fact it was not published by Marvel or DC! Pacific Comics was a startup publisher looking to establish themselves as a solid alternative in the marketplace. Though Jack had done work for other publishers over the years, at this point in time the “Big Two” were thought to be the only real game in town. So the news that no less a personage than Jack Kirby himself was going to create new comics for a new publisher was a Big Deal. It can’t be overstated how big that news was at the time. Pacific kicked things off with Captain Victory (stay tuned), but Silver Star was Jack’s next offering through them.

And this part is important: the indicias for both books read “™ & © Jack Kirby.” This was something he wasn’t going to get at either Marvel or DC, so I’m sure it mattered a great deal to him. Jack’s inspiration for the name appears to have come from the Silver Star Medal awarded by the US military for valor in combat. In fact, in the story, Jack has Morgan Miller gaining the nickname from his squad after he’s been awarded the Silver Star.

In the background of this image is the antagonist of the story, Darius Drumm. I’ve never tried to draw these characters before, so that was a bit of a challenge. I’m still not quite sure just how Silver Star’s helmet works…

Hope you enjoy, and please tune in again tomorrow!

The King

It’s the 28^th Day of our month-long online Jack Kirby Tribute, suggested/sponsored by Howard Simpson. You can find the work on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is supposed to be Jack’s Silver Star character, but I’m taking the liberty of shifting things around a little bit. Instead, I’m doing tomorrow’s prompt: “Jack Kirby portrait— Draw a portrait of Jack Kirby himself.” My reasoning is because today is actually Jack Kirby’s birthday! Born in 1917, this would be his 106^th birthday today (if my math is right). So I feel like posting the portrait today is appropriate. A confession: I’m not really a portrait kind of artist. It took some work to get this to where I felt comfortable with it, but I did get there.

The King’s legacy lives on in all the great work he left us, and all the creative inspiration he’s provided. There are some artists who make you feel like giving up, breaking your pencils and walking away, because you’ll never be as good as they are. But then there are artists like Kirby who, although you know you can’t do what he did, there’s something in the work that fires you up and inspires you to go and create!

I hope you like my attempt at portraiture here, and tune in again tomorrow to see my shot at Silver Star.

The Fourth Host

This is Day 27 of the month-long online Jack Kirby Tribute, suggest/sponsored by Howard Simpson. If you’d like to see what other creators might be doing, you can use the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

The prompt for today simply reads “The Celestials.” These characters come from Jack Kirby’s The Eternals book, one of the new titles he created when he returned to Marvel in the mid-’70s. As mentioned in other posts, it appears to me that at this point in his career, Jack just wanted to have his own corner where he could be left alone to do his own thing, and to let others do their own thing, no one getting in anyone’s way.

The Eternals seemed to be Jack taking inspiration from the Erich Von Däniken book, Chariots of the Gods?, which theorized visits by alien astronauts to our world in ancient times, shaping and influencing the growth of our culture. It was fuel for Kirby to tell an epic story about three groups of humanity: the Eternals (whom many myths are built around), normal mankind, and the Deviants. Watching and standing in judgment over all are the Celestials, and the beginning of the book saw their return to Earth as the Fourth Host.

Kirby’s designs for the Celestials were some of the most imaginative character visuals he’d ever come up with. Beings almost beyond comprehension, they didn’t even have what you would be able to call faces.

It wasn’t possible to draw all the Celestials here in this space. There are just way too many of them. So I opted to draw the three I found the most visually interesting. Arishem the Judge is front and center. On the left is Nezzar the Calculator, and on the right is Eson the Searcher.

Hope you enjoy, and please feel free to tune in again tomorrow!

Cap and Bucky

It’s Day 26 of the Kirby Art Tribute, suggested/sponsored by Howard Simpson. You can find the work of those participating on your social media platform of choice by using the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is Captain America and Bucky. Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for Timely (Marvel) back in the Golden Age, they had a huge hit on their hands. While Captain America and Bucky are mostly thought of as being patriotic heroes who fought the Axis, I discovered something interesting on re-reading their early tales: with all the monsters etc. they went up against, Cap and Bucky’s stories seem to be very much inspired by the “weird menace” pulp genre. If you think about it, the Red Skull and how they wrote him at that point would’ve fit in very well in a “weird menace” pulp story. Which is why I opted to make this a night scene.

Joe and Jack only did the first ten issues of Captain America Comics, after which they left Timely. They believed that publisher Martin Goodman was not living up to their profit-sharing agreement, so they jumped over to DC where they created a slew of characters like Guardian and the Newsboy Legion, the Boy Commandos, and their versions of Manhunter and Sandman.

Jack had two other runs with Captain America. The second one was in the ’60s, after Timely had turned into Marvel and “StanandJack” was often treated as if it was one word. That run had something of a James Bond/secret agent feel, having Cap working closely with Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. Jack’s third run was when he returned to Marvel in the mid-’70s, and that was him working solo that time.

An aside: Captain America wasn’t Joe and Jack’s only shot at a patriotic hero. In the ’50s, they also did Fighting American and his sidekick, Speedboy. An interesting aspect of that strip is that it started off as a straight anti-communist superhero adventure, but then pivoted fairly rapidly into a very funny superhero satire, pre-dating the camp craze of the ’60s.

That’s it for today. Feel free to pop by again tomorrow!

The Black Panther, and His Unexpected Adventures

Amazingly, I’ve made it here to Day 25 of the month-long online Jack Kirby Art Tribute, sponsored/suggested by Howard Simpson. I wasn’t sure I was going to get through all of these, but here we are! It’s open to all creatives, and you can find the work on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

The prompt for today reads: “Draw a character or scene from Jack Kirby’s Black Panther series.” I chose to draw Black Panther himself, along with Princess Zanda and Abner Little, two other key characters from that run.

When Kirby left DC to make his return to Marvel in the ’70s, and fans heard he was going to do a Black Panther title, many expected he would just pick up the same continuities and types of stories that previous creators had been doing with the character. But that wasn’t what they got, and some were apparently disappointed. At this point in Kirby’s career, he seemed to want to be allowed to just have a little corner of his own where he could do his own thing without impinging on what other creators might be doing, or having others impinge on his creativity.

You have to take Jack’s Black Panther run on its own terms. His view of the character and the stories he wanted to tell with him seemed to have roots in the types of exotic adventure stories H. Rider Haggard used to write, like King Solomon’s Mines, or She. If this comic had come out four or five years later, readers might have associated it with the sorts of arcane archeology Indiana Jones delved into in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Hope you enjoy, and feel free to tune in again tomorrow!

That Old Devil…Dinosaur

And we’ve reached Day 24 of Howard Simpson’s month-long Jack Kirby Tribute, in honor of Jack’s birthday this month! It’s open to all creatives, and you can find their posts on your favorite social media platforms via the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt: “Draw a character or scene from Jack Kirby’s Devil Dinosaur series.” I’ve drawn Devil himself, and his partner Moon Boy here.

When Kirby returned to Marvel in the ’70s, many were expecting Jack to be working with other writers (like he had with Stan Lee previously). But this time around, Jack preferred to just have his own little corner where he did his own thing. Devil Dinosaur was one of the new titles he came up with.

The book seemed like perhaps it was aimed at a younger audience (It would’ve made a solid Saturday morning cartoon). Artistically, like all Kirby books, it had its moments (there’s an especially imaginative two-page spread that can stand with the best two-page spreads Kirby ever did). There was also a bit of fun in the fact they’d play around with different inkers on many of the covers (like they also did on his Machine Man covers).

Never tried to draw Devil Dinosaur before! Bill Stout or Ricardo Delgado I’m not, but I had fun trying it. Hope you enjoy! And tune in again tomorrow to see what’s next.

Mr. Sandman…Again

It’s now Day 23 of Howard Simpson’s month-long Jack Kirby Tribute. Any creatives are free to play along, and you can find their posts on your favorite social media platforms with the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is “Draw a character or scene from Jack Kirby’s Sandman series. (Garrett Sanford).” That last part threw me slightly. So far as I knew, the character never had a name. But I discovered it was something added by others later on.

Once I got past my slight confusion over the other name, I knew which Sandman was being talked about. Jack and Joe Simon had done their take on Sandman for DC earlier, in the Golden Age (I drew him earlier here). Late in Jack’s time at DC in the ’70s, the concept was revisited and reinvented from the ground up. The script for the first issue was by Joe Simon, which (unless I’m mistaken) was the first time Joe and Jack had been teamed together on a comic since they dissolved their partnership back in the ’50s.

This book is a bit of an odd one. It had no connection to any of the other titles Jack was doing for DC then, and was tonally different from all of them, seeming to skew more towards younger readers. Though that first issue managed some creepy scenes with the Werblink dolls.

I recall reading Carmine Infantino saying that Sandman sold really well for DC. I guess they were caught off-guard, because there’s a gap of a year between issue #1 and #2! And while Kirby did all the covers, he wasn’t back doing the interiors until issue #4. They only got six issues out total. Issue #6 had Wally Wood inking!

Anyway, in addition to Sandman himself, I drew his sidekicks Brute and Glob. I kind of wavered on the silliness of having Glob give him rabbit ears, but felt ultimately like it would be right for that book and these characters, tonally.

Hope you like it, and please feel free to tune back in tomorrow!

New Genesis Is Calling

This is Day 22 of Howard Simpson’s month-long Jack Kirby Tribute, in honor of the King’s birthday this month. It’s open to all creatives, and you can find their tributes on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is Jack Kirby’s New Gods. This was a key book in his Fourth World saga. Those who know their Kirby know that one of the things that always fascinated him and found its way into his work were myths and legends (as seen in Thor for Marvel). The conceptual seed of New Gods seemed to be “The old gods in the myths and legends of the past are something of a larger-than-life embodiment of the qualities those people prized. What are the concepts we value in our modern world, and how would you embody those?”

Obviously this isn’t all of the New Gods characters. It would’ve been impossible to do in this space. So I limited this to those who appeared in the New Gods title, who I hadn’t already depicted (like Orion), and only those from New Genesis, not from Apokalips (like Darkseid). That leaves (from left to right) Metron in his Mobius Chair, Highfather, and Lightray. At the bottom is young Esak. It was still a challenge to try to fit all these characters in!

I hope you like it, and please feel free to come back again tomorrow.

The One Man Army Corps

It’s now Day 21, three full weeks of Howard Simpson’s month-long Jack Kirby Tribute! You can find people’s Kirby Tributes on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt: “Draw a character or scene from Jack Kirby’s OMAC series.” I went with Omac himself, the One Man Army Corps.

Of all the post-Fourth World titles Kirby created for DC, OMAC unfortunately was the shortest-lived. It lasted for only eight issues, and the last issue came to a very abrupt forced ending that was jolting and highly unsatisfying for readers.

The length of the book’s run should not be taken as any kind of indication of the book’s quality. This title was where Jack put out some of his wildest sci fi conjectures about what The World That’s Coming might be like. In the first issue, he had a room where a corporation encouraged employees to go in and destroy things, get all their aggressions out. This was well before such things came about in real life!

Maybe some of the ideas were just a bit too out there for some readers? The rest of us were captivated, and wished Jack had been allowed to continue.

Hope you like, and feel free to tune in again tomorrow!

“Gone, Gone, The Form of Man,…”

It is now Day 20 of Howard Simpson’s month-long Jack Kirby Tribute. Open to all creatives, you can find participants’ Kirby Tributes on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is Etrigan the Demon. One of Kirby’s post-Fourth World titles he created for DC, this was something very different. Rooted in the kinds of word-of-mouth stories about the supernatural that Kirby heard growing up, plus classic Universal monster movies and the like, Kirby also gave it a tie-in to Merlin and the Arthurian legends. The title character was a demon pressed into service on the side of the angels, and another unique angle on it was that Merlin had set things up so that he was a demon possessed by a man (as opposed to the other way around).

The Demon’s original run lasted only 16 issues, but apparently the concept was such that it caught the eye of a number of subsequent comics creators, and over the years that followed they all took their shot at doing something with the character.

I’d never tried drawing the Demon before. It was fun trying to get that expression!

Enjoy, and please feel free to tune in again tomorrow!

From the Bunker Labelled Command D

Here’s Day 19 of the month-long Jack Kirby Tribute, in honor of his birthday this month. Suggested/sponsored by Howard Simpson, it’s open to all creatives, and you can find people’s work on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt reads, “Draw a character or scene from Jack Kirby’s Kamandi series.” I chose to depict Kamandi himself, along with his friend Ben Boxer in his armored-up form. They’re going down into some busted-up Subway, maybe in search of something or someone, obviously on their guard. On Earth A.D. (After Disaster), you can’t be too careful!

I have a lot of affection for the Kamandi book and the character. And it seems like I’m not alone in that. A number of people around my age seem to have a similar affection for the book. And of all Jack’s post-Fourth World titles he did for DC, Kamandi sold the best and lasted the longest, continuing on in other hands for a good while even after Jack left and went back to Marvel.

I think there must have been something in the air at the time. Not just Planet of the Apes, but other films (like Logan’s Run) and sci fi that had a fascination with dystopias that came about after our current world collapsed for one reason or another.

On a personal level, I came across Kamandi just about the time I was beginning to recognize individual artists and remember their names. I’d seen some of Kirby’s work earlier, but had not been quite old enough for his name to register with me just yet. This was the right time, and the right book. I became a full-fledged Kirby nut after this. Not having any connection to wider fandom as a kid and an aspiring artist, I had this naive thought that, “Kirby’s getting older. He’s gotta be like in his 50’s! Eventually he’s going to retire, and someone will need to pick up the baton from him! Maybe it should be me!”

Of course, I had no idea just how many other fan artists there were out there who had similar ideas of trying to be the next Kirby. I went through a lengthy “Jack Kirby phase” as a young artist, not really understanding the underlying “why” of what he did yet. I just saw the surface, loved the energy and the imagination, and thought it was what comics should be. Eventually I grew out of my fixation on trying to draw like him, but I can still see Kirby as a component of my artistic DNA, whether anyone else can or not. Kirby and his work still matter a great deal to me. Which is why I’m participating in this Tribute!

Anyway, hope you like my shot at Kamandi, and please come back for tomorrow’s image!

You Wouldn’t Like Him When He’s Angry!

We’ve made it now to Day 18 of Howard Simpson’s month-long online celebration of Jack Kirby! It’s open to all creatives, and you can find their work on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt was Orion, from the book New Gods. Though he’s most definitely on the side of New Genesis and fighting against Apokolips, he has his demons! His story is intertwined with Scott Free/Mister Miracle’s, and rather than spoil it for you, you can read about it in “The Pact” (New Gods #7).

It was fun to try to capture some of the “angry energy” Orion often has in this drawing. Hope you enjoy! Please tune in again tomorrow.

Just Don’t Get on Her Bad Side!

It’s now Day 17 of Howard SImpson’s month-long tribute to Jack Kirby! Can you believe it? If you’d like to see what others are posting in order to participate, you can find that work on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is Big Barda. Part of Kirby’s Fourth World saga at DC, she was a key supporting character in Mister Miracle, first appearing in issue #4. Raised on Apokolips to be part of a group of warriors called the Female Furies, she later met Scott Free (Mister Miracle) and fell in love with him. Eventually, she followed Scott to Earth.

Barda’s battle armor is one of those Kirby costumes with a lot of detail. It’s consistent in the broad strokes, but has a tendency to morph a bit from page to page or panel to panel as far as the specific details go. I like how it looks, and thought a straight-ahead presentation from the front would be the best way to show it.

Hope you like it, and please come back again tomorrow.

It’s a Miracle!

We’ve hit Day 16 of Howard Simpson’s month-long celebration of the work of Jack Kirby! It’s open to all creatives, and you can find the work people are uploading to your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

The prompt for the day is Mister Miracle. The lead character in the comic named for him, he was part of the Fourth World saga Jack Kirby spun over at DC. Known as Scott Free in his civilian identity, Mister Miracle lived here on Earth and worked as an amazing escape artist. Mister Miracle’s back story is actually pretty profound. I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t read it, but it’s covered in the stories “The Pact” (New Gods #7), and “Himon” (Mister Miracle #9).

I recall taking a crack at drawing Mister Miracle a few times back in high school, as I was a big fan of the Fourth World material. It’s been a long time!

Hope you enjoy, and stay tuned!

It’s Dark Outside!

We’re almost halfway there! Day 15 of this month-long tribute to Kirby. Howard Simpson’s brainchild, it’s open to all creatives, and you can find what people are posting on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is Darkseid. The primary antagonist of Kirby’s Fourth World books at DC, Darkseid was a real gift Kirby gave to DC: a villain conceptually much larger than any other DC had ever had up to this point. It could be argued that with the exception of Galactus, Darkseid even topped most of Kirby’s previous villain creations for Marvel. He was in search of something called the Anti-Life Equation, which would enable him to take over the minds and will of everyone in the Universe!

Hope you like my Darkseid drawing, and feel free to come back and see what’s new tomorrow!

Why So Angry?

We’re at Day 14 of Howard Simpson’s month-long online celebration of the work of Jack Kirby! It’s open to all creatives, and you can find the work people are posting by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt: “Draw a monster or an alien created by Jack Kirby.” There are many possibilities out there! As mentioned previously with Groot, Kirby did a whole bunch of monsters during the Atlas era. But instead of one of those, I opted for the one you see here: Angry Charlie. His visual called out to me.

Angry Charlie was a Kirby Kreation during his run on the Jimmy Olsen comic for DC, which he’d made part of the titles where he was unfolding his “Fourth World” stories, along with Forever People, New Gods and Mister Miracle. Angry Charlie was a creation of the Evil Factory, which was ultimately destroyed at the end of that story. Charlie wasn’t really bad, and the gang had a soft spot for him, so they took him home with them.

Hope you liked Charlie, and tune in again tomorrow!

Let’s Not Force the Issue!

Welcome to the lucky 13^th Day of this month’s Jack Kirby Art Tribute, suggested by Howard Simpson! It’s open to all creatives, and you should be able to find people’s work on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is Sky Masters of the Space Force. Most of the prompts are comic book creations, but this one is from a newspaper strip, done in the late ’50s, theorizing what things might be like in the near future of the dawning Space Age. It’s not a secret that most comic book artists back then had aspirations of working on a newspaper strip. Newspaper strip artists were seen as more prestigious by the general public, and it potentially paid better than comic books. So I suspect when this opportunity came up for Kirby, he wasn’t going to pass it up. Unfortunately, it ultimately didn’t work out so well for him, but I’m not going to get into all that here.

The strip was a good looking one, though it only lasted a little over two years (late ’58 to early ’61). Written by Dave Wood, it also featured inks by Wally Wood (no relation). As mentioned in my previous Challengers of the Unknown post, if you’ve never seen the pairing of Kirby and Wood, it’s hard to envision it working. They’re very different artists. But it works beautifully! Kirby’s energy and lively layouts and imagination are intact, and Wood brings his lighting and naturalism into it. It’s a great combination, if you haven’t seen it!

There have been a few collections of the Sky Masters strips published at various points, so if you’re curious, you should be able to find one. Well worth the effort!

I feel like a little of the Kirby/Wood combo managed to sneak into my tribute piece here. At least I hope so. Enjoy, and we’ll see you again tomorrow!

This Is Rather Challenging…

We’re now at Day 12 of Howard Simpson’s month-long online celebration of Kirby, in honor of the fact Kirby was born in August! It’s open to all creatives, and you can find the work on your favorite social media platforms by using the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt? The Challengers of the Unknown! It’s my understanding that this was a leftover concept from Kirby’s earlier partnership with Joe Simon. As realized in the pages of DC’s Showcase #6 (on newsstands in November of ’56), the characters’ origin might sound a little familiar: four people attempting an aerial voyage that ended in a crash landing which could/should have killed them. But they survived, and came away with a greatly changed outlook on their lives and their purpose moving forward.

The initial installments in Showcase were written by Dave Wood (no relation to Wally Wood). Sales were such that after four installments there, the Challengers got their own title by early 1958. According to the credits in DC’s Archive Edition reprints, Kirby actually wrote some of the early scripts in the regular title himself.

The strip also featured inks by Wally Wood on many installments. Wood was an amazing talent all on his own, and if you’ve never seen Kirby and Wood paired together, you might find it hard to imagine how it could possibly work. But it does, and amazingly well! It’s like you get the best of both artists: the life, energy and imagination of Kirby’s pencils, with the lighting and naturalism of Wood’s finishes. If you’ve never seen their pairing, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Hope you enjoy my salute to Kirby’s Challengers. And stay tuned!

I Am…

It’s now Day 11 of Howard Simpson’s online Kirby Celebration this month, in honor of Kirby’s birthday. It’s open to all creatives, and you can track what they post on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is Groot. Now, some of you are probably saying, “Hey, wait; that doesn’t look like Groot!” That’s because it’s the original version of the character as he first appeared in Tales to Astonish #13.

At that point in time, pre-Fantastic Four, Kirby was batting out many, many monsters stories, one after the other, for Marvel. Issue after issue, month after month, they had to always come up with new ones. Kirby was up to the challenge, always finding interesting visuals for all these monsters.

Groot was just another among this vast horde, along with monsters like Rommbu, ZZutak, Googam Son of Goom, and Fin Fang Foom. Fun, but just a one-off monster, like they pretty much all were. Groot was largely forgotten after the superheroes took over the spotlight, until the creators behind the reimagined Guardians of the Galaxy comic in 2008 decided to resurrect him as part of that team, and reimagine him. Thanks to the Guardians movies, it’s safe to say he’s a lot better known now than he ever was before. However, it’s still fun to remember how Groot started off.

Enjoy, and feel free to come back tomorrow!

Larger Than Life

It’s now Day 10 of Howard Simpson’s month-long celebration of Jack Kirby! Open to all creatives, you should be able to find the work being generated on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is Galactus. He first appeared in the pages of Fantastic Four, in probably one of the best-loved and remembered stories of that book, known by most fans as the Galactus trilogy.

The Fantastic Four carried the tag “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” on its covers. While it was mostly Stan Lee playfully doing promotional hype, more often than not during the book’s initial run by Kirby and Lee, it was truth in advertising. Galactus as a character was something very different. I don’t think anything like him had ever been seen before in a superhero comic. Not just a street thug or a regular human guy in a super suit, he was more a force of nature, virtually godlike. He presented a real challenge to the storytellers. How can you defeat an antagonist like that?

Surprisingly, I realized this is the first time I’ve ever attempted to draw Galactus! I’m not gonna lie; it was a little intimidating to tackle him. His visual, while there are certain consistencies, also fluctuates a great deal from comic to comic. Even his coloring seems to change over his appearances!

Anyway, I felt like he came out okay, to my relief. Hope you enjoy it, and hopefully you might stop in here again tomorrow!

Surfin’ Is the Only Life, the Only Life for me, Now Surf…Surf…

Here’s Day 9 of Howard Simpson’s month-long online Kirby Celebration, during Kirby’s birth month of August. Open to all creatives, you should be able to find other people’s work on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is the Silver Surfer, who first appeared in Fantastic Four during what may be that book’s best-loved and remembered storyline, the Galactus trilogy. He wasn’t anything that was in any plot that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had discussed, and Stan elsewhere has acknowledged that he was surprised when he initially saw the penciled pages to discover him. Jack explained that he felt a character as conceptually big and godlike as Galactus ought to have some kind of herald to accompany and precede him, hence the Surfer.

Stan was so taken with the Surfer, he made him his own, and eventually spun him off into his own title. Not working with Kirby, but John Buscema. It’s a highly regarded book (and character), but Stan’s conception was different from what Jack originally intended. Where Stan had the Surfer previously existing as Norrin Rad, who sacrificed himself and his identity to save his planet, Jack thought of the Surfer as a being who was basically created out of nothing, and was learning as he traveled. That’s definitely how things read in his initial appearance as part of the Galactus trilogy.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my shot at the Surfer. Tune in again tomorrow…

Isn’t It Romantic?

We’re now on Day 8 of Howard Simpson’s month-long Jack Kirby celebration! Open to all creatives, you should be able to find the work of participants on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTribute.

Today’s prompt is less specific than those we’ve had thus far. It’s “Romance Comics.” If you don’t already know it, you may be surprised to hear that the genre of romance comics was created and pioneered by none other than Joe Simon and Jack Kirby! So it’s no head-scratcher that Howard chose this as a prompt. S&K came up with the very first romance comic, Young Romance, and sold the concept to Crestwood Publications. The comic was a huge hit on newsstands, selling 92% of its print run! Of course, sales success like that breeds imitators, which soon followed from the other publishers. But the original S&K stories had a lot more substance going for them, the imitators mostly pale and inferior in comparison.

My choice to represent romance comics was to depict the one character S&K told more than one story about. Toni Benson first appeared in Young Romance #1, in the story “I Was a Pick-up.” Apparently they liked her character well enough that they thought it was worth revisiting her in a second tale, “The Town and Toni Benson,” in Young Romance #10.

I hope you enjoy, and stay tuned!

On the Hunt

It’s now Day 7 of Howard Simpson’s month-long online Kirby Celebration! It’s open to all creatives. You should be able to find the work on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTribute.

Today’s prompt is comics’ original Manhunter! Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for DC Comics back in the Golden Age. Though DC had Paul Kirk as a non-costumed character previously, Simon and Kirby reinvented him as a superhero. They had the character put his previous skills as a game hunter to work now hunting criminals (many of which were creatively animal-themed). Starting in Adventure Comics #73 in 1942, S&K did a total of eight installments. It was popular enough that it continued beyond that in other hands for quite awhile, but it wasn’t the same.

Kirby took a shot at a revived version of Manhunter when he returned to DC in the early ’70s, in a First Issue Special (Kirby did a few of those, debuting new concepts that unfortunately didn’t go any further).

DC apparently liked the Manhunter name, because periodically they dusted it off and did other things with it. One of the more notable of them tied into Simon and Kirby’s Paul Kirk Manhunter: a strip created by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson (his first work that put him on the map with most fans). It ran as a backup story in Detective Comics, which Goodwin was editing at the time. Well worth checking out, it’s been collected a number of times if you haven’t seen it.

But this is about the S&K Golden Age original! Hope you enjoy it. Stay tuned!

Mr. Sandman…

We’re at Day 6 of Howard Simpson’s month-long Jack Kirby celebration online, in honor of Jack’s birthday. It’s open to all creatives, and you should be able to find any posts on your favorite social media platform via the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is Sandman and Sandy. Sandman was actually not a Simon and Kirby creation! Originally created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Bert Christman for DC back in the Golden Age, he had more of a pulp character appearance, running around in a suit and hat, wearing a gas mask and gassing crooks with his gas gun. He pre-dated many other superheroes, first appearing in 1939 in Adventure Comics #40 and The New York World’s Fair Comics #1.

By 1941, it was apparently felt he was out of step with what was going on with DC’s other characters, so Mort Weisinger and artist Paul Norris gave him his new purple and yellow superhero togs, and added Sandy as a sidekick. Simon and Kirby picked up the baton from Weisinger and Norris later that year, most definitely putting their stamp on the character! They dumped the cape that Norris had initially given him (making him look more like an S&K creation), and played around with stories about sleep and dreaming.

Hope you liked my little tribute to the Simon and Kirby version of Sandman and Sandy, and tune in again tomorrow!

Don’t Try This at Home!

We’ve reached the fifth day of Howard Simpson’s month-long celebration of Jack Kirby! Open to all creatives, you can find the work on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is Simon and Kirby’s Stuntman. So far, all the characters have been ones created for either DC or Timely (Marvel). S&K created Stuntman for Harvey Comics!

It was a fun concept. Along with Fred Drake as Stuntman, you had lookalike actor Don Daring, who fancied himself something of a detective, but had a way of getting in over his head. He offered some comic relief in the strip. Meanwhile, Fred Drake as Stuntman handled all the real heavy lifting in solving the cases. And then you also had a romantic triangle with Don Daring’s costar, Sandra Sylvan, who didn’t know Fred even existed.

The strip was quality, like everything Simon and Kirby tackled, but it came out at a bad time. Post-WWII, there was apparently less interest in superheroes, and with all the paper rationing no longer in place, there was a glut of titles on the stands. So the sad thing was that they only got three issues out before the plug had to be pulled.

I tried an idea for my Stuntman portrait that I thought might be a little different and interesting, depicting him in mid-stunt. Hope you enjoy, and see you again tomorrow!

Guarding the Legion

It’s now Day 4 of Howard Simpson’s month-long celebration of Jack Kirby! Open to all creatives, you can find the work on all social media platforms hashtagged #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is the Guardian and the Newsboy Legion! They’re another Simon and Kirby creation which clicked with fans, running from their debut in Star-Spangled Comics #7, all the way through issue #64.

The Newsboys were a group of orphans who lived in Suicide Slum. Officer Jim Harper became their legal guardian. Frustrated with red tape, Harper also adopted the identity of the Guardian to fight crime off-duty in more direct ways than he could while on-duty. You can’t see much of it here, but the Guardian had a shield shaped like a badge, which he made very effective use of.

Clockwise from the Guardian centered at the top are Big Words (in the glasses), Scrapper (in the cap), Gabby, and Tommy Tompkins.

Hope you enjoy, and maybe we’ll see you again here tomorrow!

Allied against the Axis

We’re at Day 3 of Howard Simpson’s month-long celebration of Jack Kirby on social media! Open to all creatives, you can find the work on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is the Young Allies. I must admit that once you get outside of Captain America, the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner, I am less familiar with the Timely characters than I am with DC’s Golden Age offerings. Created initially by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the Allies were a kid gang group that apparently first appeared in the pages of Captain America under the name “the Sentinels of Liberty.” They proved popular enough to be spun off into their own title. Simon and Kirby didn’t stick around for that long.

The Allies were another kid group who fought the Axis. Led by Captain America’s sidekick Bucky and the Human Torch’s sidekick Toro, the rest of the group (from upper left) included Henry “Tubby” Tinkle, (-cringe-) “Whitewash” Jones, Jefferson “Jeff” Sandervilt, and Percival Aloysius “Knuckles” O’Toole.

The Young Allies stories haven’t been reprinted very much, and for good reason. If you bother to dig up artwork online (like I had to in order to do this drawing), you’ll see why. Poor Whitewash is treated in this horribly racist way in the strip. Not that the other characters appeared to be much more than a collection of stereotypes either (the fat kid who’s eating all the time, the tough kid who’s always looking for a fight, etc.).

Anyway, I hope you enjoy what I did with them. See you again tomorrow!

Commandos Calling

It’s Day 2 of Howard Simpson’s celebration of Jack Kirby on social media! I explained a little more about it yesterday. It’s basically open to all creatives, and if you want to find out what people are doing on your favorite social media platforms, you can use the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.

Today’s prompt is the Boy Commandos. They were a Simon and Kirby creation for DC Comics back in the Golden Age, and a big sales success that lasted well beyond WWII, running from 1942 all the way to 1949. Simon and Kirby had a lot of success with kid gangs. The Commandos were a group of orphans from different countries who fought the Axis, commanded by Capt. Rip Carter (upper right corner). At the very bottom left corner in the derby is Brooklyn (I don’t know if he was ever given a last name), and on his right is Jan Haasan from the Netherlands. Above them are André Chavard of France on the left, and to André’s right is Alfie Twidgett from England.

I hope you enjoy, and stay tuned for tomorrow’s drawing!

I Have a Vision!

Longtime visitors to my site will know that I’m a big Jack Kirby fan! August happens to be the month Jack Kirby was born, on the 28^th. Realizing this, Howard Simpson came up with a great idea: a month-long celebration of Kirby and his work online, via social media. I believe it’s open to any creatives, and the idea is “the more, the merrier.” If you want to search them all out and see who’s doing what on your favorite platforms, they should be hashtagged #KirbyArtTributes. I haven’t usually done a lot of social media challenges, but I couldn’t pass this up. Strap in; it’s going to be a busy month!

The first prompt is the Golden Age version of the Vision. If most people are aware of the Vision at all, it’s probably Marvel’s Silver Age version of the character. The Golden Age version was published by Timely (the name Marvel was known by during most of the Golden Age), and despite some visual similarities with the Silver Age version, he was a different character. Instead of being an android, this Vision was a supernatural being who could travel into and out of our world via smoke.

I’ve set certain parameters of my own for my contributions this month. They’re all going to be formatted like this, basically portraits in small squares. I’ve also elected to stick to the limited old school color palette that comic books used on their interior pages for many years. There’s a method to my madness that will hopefully pay off at the end of the month, if I can pull off what I’d like to accomplish.

Hope you enjoy! Stay tuned!