7 November 2008

Poster available - % of sales to Kirby Museum

From the "If You Could" project of London design studio HudsonBec:

Kam Tang - "Power Cosmic"

London-based illustrator Kam is one of the most successfully diverse graphic artists working today. A constant re-invention of his aesthetic means his output is consistently exciting, cementing himself as a leading figure in the industry for many years to come. A list of collaborations and clients as long as your arm include The Chemical Brothers, Gnarls Barkley, Burberry, Adidas, the London Design Museum and Royal Mail.

The November print expires in 22 days from posting of this message

Kam is generously donating a percentage of his sales to the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center.

29 August 2008

More Kirby Birthday Celebrations

• John Noonan posted an article on the Netcetera section of the findingDulcinea site.
• Sleestak posted an entry on its Lady, that's My Skull blog.
• Paul Pope posted an entry on his Pulphope blog.
• Jacob Russell posted an entry on his Geekdad/Wired blog.
• Warren Ellis posted an entry on his blog.
• Gerry posted an entry on his Partners West blog.
• Matt posted an entry on the alert nerd blog.
• Dr. K posted an entry on his Doctor K's 100-Page Super-Spectacular blog

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28 August 2008

Kirby Birthday Celebrations

• Bob Heer posted a 91 image cover slideshow on his Kirby Museum-sponsored Jack Kirby Comics Weblog.
• Museum member Mark Badger posted an entry on his Comics and Code blog.
• Mark Evanier posted a few paragraphs and a photo of Jack on his Newsfromme blog.
• Tom Spurgeon posted a number of Kirby art samples on his The Comics Reporter blog.
• Bill Henry posted contributions from a number of comic book creators on the Mid-Ohio Con's Mighty Mighty MOC-Blog.
• Kevin Church posted an entry on his BeaucoupKevin(dot)com blog.
• Chris Sims posted an entry on his Chris's Invincible Super-Blog.
• Heidi MacDonald posted an entry on her The Beat blog.
• Patrick McEvoy posted an entry on his Megaflow Graphics News blog, including his photo with Kirby from the mid 1970s.
• Fake Stan Lee posted an entry on his Stan's Soapbox blog.

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28 August 2008

Kirby's 91st Birthday - Many Updates in the Offing

We'd hoped to have it all ready for a big virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony today, Jack Kirby's 91st birthday, but the darn t-s wouldn't cross and i-s wouldn't dot. Best we can do is announce a few things.

Kirby Documentary

As Rand announced at the Jack Kirby Tribute panel at Comic Con International: San Diego, the Kirby Museum is starting fund raising and pre-production on its feature-length Jack Kirby documentary with Jon B. Cooke and Andrew D. Cooke. You may know the Cooke brothers by their work as Montilla Pictures on the wonderful "Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist", and Jon from his exceptional Comic Book Artist magazine. As a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation, the Museum is going to be funding the production through fund raising. In fact, we are seeding the project with funds from our members' Annual Dues. No doubt, this documentary will be a powerful tool in getting the word out about Kirby and his work, as well as a valuable resource to aid in funding of further Museum projects. Please consider lending your support to this project.

Retrospective

Also through the generosity of our members, and mentioned at the CCI:SD Kirby Tribute panel, the Museum has started a small original art acquisition program. These pieces will be the foundation of our Travelling Retrospective, as well as being helpful resources when we are queried by our peer educational, cultural and literary organizations looking for Kirby assets.

Kirby Kinetics and Web Site

Once we've finished moving the core of our web site over to the open-source Drupal Content Management System, we're going to be premiering a new blog titled "Kirby Kinetics", written by Norris Burroughs. The focus of Kirby Kinetics is the analysis of Kirby's art. Norris was inspired by Greg Theakston's article "That Old Jack Magic" in Amazing Heroes 100 from 1986, which Greg has given permission to post, as well.

Also in the queue are an article on the Boys Brotherhood Republic by Stan Taylor, videos from San Diego and audio files from Jack Kirby Quarterly's Chrissie Harper.

Special thanks

The Museum would like to thank Dez Skinn and Chrissie Harper, publisher and editor, respectively, of Jack Kirby Quarterly 15, for committing to donate a percentage of their revenue to the Museum.

Thanks again to Trustee John Morrow for the support at San Diego, and the percentage of Kirby Five-Oh! and Kirby Checklist - Gold Edition.

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22 July 2008

Kirby Museum at Comic Con 2008

Museum Trustees Rand Hoppe and John Morrow will be based at John's Twomorrows booth, #1215. Please come by and say hi. Museum volunteer Tom Kraft will be helping with scanning original Kirby art, and he and Rand will also be shooting some video, as they did at the NYCC (see 9 June entry below). They're planning on capturing the Kirby Tribute Panel on Sunday morning at 10 am in Room 7AB, and hopefully more! Stay tuned here, as the Kirby Museum will be announcing some exciting new programs.

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17 June 2008

Jack Kirby on "Bob"

Jack and Roz Kirby appeared on the sitcom "Bob", where Bob Newhart played a comic book artist. Other comics luminaries, such as Bob Kane, Mel Keefer, Mell Lazarus (who briefly appears in our clip introducing Kirby), Marc Silvestri, Jim Lee and Sergio Aragones also appeared. Initially broadcast 22 January 1993. Written by Cheri Steinkeller & Bill Steinkeller & Phoef Sutton. Directed by Michael Zinberg.

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9 June 2008

New York Comic Con Kirby Tribute Panel video

Mark Evanier moderates an almost hour-long discussion with Dick Ayers and Joe Sinnott on 20 April 2008 at the New York Comic Con. Video shot by Museum volunteers Tom Kraft and Rand Hoppe. Edited and posted to Google Video by Rand.

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1 June 2008

Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus and Kirby: King of Comics in New York Times Book Review

John Hodgman, author, humorist, resident expert on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, "PC" on the Apple "Get a Mac" ad campaign, compiler of hobo names, provided the New York Times with a sweeping review of not only the Fourth World Omnibus Volume 4 and Mark Evanier's Kirby: King of Comics, but also Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze and Brian K. Vaughn & Pia Guerra's Y: The Last Man. Of special note is Hodgman's acknowledgement that Age of Bronze and Y: The Last Man are experiencing the kind of success that Kirby had envisioned in the 1970's for comics' future.

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2 May 2008

Julius Caesar costume designs

All of the known pieces, some of which were included in the color section of TwoMorrows' Kirby Five-Oh!, have been added to the Gallery. (Museum members who have hooked up their Gallery log-in will be able to see very large-sized versions, as well.) It's unlikely that Kirby didn't provide designs for Caesar, Marc Antony, Brutus, Portia, et cetera, but the whereabouts of these pieces are currently not known.

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20 April 2008

Kirby & McCartney photos added

Museum Trustee Lisa Kirby provided scans of some snapshots of her parents, Paul & Linda McCartney and Wings band members that were taken backstage at the LA Forum in 1976.

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22 March 2008

Paul McCartney & Wings art with audio & video

The Museum's Original Art Digital Archive was a source for images in Mark Evanier's book "Kirby: King of Comics." One piece was the Paul McCartney & Wings pencil drawing Jack gave to Paul & Linda backstage at a concert in 1976. We've included this piece in our Kirby's Real Folks exhibit, as well as audio-visual clips for further context.

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19 March 2008

Captain 3-D page

Scans of all six layers of page 10 of "The Man from the World of D" from 1953's Captain 3-D have been posted to the gallery. Meskin inks on sheets of acetate, and Kirby pencils on the bottom duotone illistration board.

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14 January 2008

Quick updates

Below is only a portion of Kirby Museum happenings since our last update of this page:

Documentary

The Trustees have agreed to a team and their proposal. Rand HOPPE is working with the team on pre-pre-production issues. More news as the project progresses.

Play

We are hoping to produce a showcase or reading of a play about Jack Kirby written by a Museum member. Efforts are afoot with the intent to have it appear in New York City in April. Again, we'll share details as they firm up.

Big Apple "National" Convention

Thanks to Jon B. COOKE, Allan ROSENBERG and Mike CARBONARO, the Museum had a table at the New York Big Apple "National" Convention this past November. Once again, Richard BENSAM and Lisa HOPPE volunteered and helped Rand the whole weekend at the table, which was situated next to Mark EVANIER and Sergio ARAGONES. Original Kirby art was scanned through the generosity of Richard HOWELL, Anthony SNYDER, Becharra MAALOUF and more. Somehow, we missed Simon & Kirby blogger Harry MENDRYK when he stopped by Sergio's booth..

Carl Solomon Book Fair at the Howl! Festival in Tompkins Square Park on NYC's Lower East Side

Thanks to James ROMBERGER and Marguerite VAN COOK, Rand manned a table at the Carl Solomon Book Fair at the Howl! Festival in Tompkins Square Park on NYC's Lower East Side. Lisa HOPPE and Richard BENSAM generously volunteered their time both days, and Trustee John MORROW generously donated some of his Kirby publications for us to sell and build the Museum's coffers. Simon & Kirby blogger Harry MENDRYK stopped by, as did Andy COOKE, director of the documentary "Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist." All those manning the booth enjoyed talking Kirby with the folks who stopped by.

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28 August 2007

Sunday New York Times "Editorial Observer" acknowledges Kirby as "Genius"

A wonderful way to start the week of Jack Kirby's 90th birthday was the publication of Brent Staples' "Jack Kirby, a Comic Book Genius, Is Finally Remembered" in the Op-Ed section on 26 August. Although the piece was spurred by the appearance of Kirby art on 8 of the 20 Marvel Super Heroes stamps issued by the United States Postal Service, Mr. Staples noted the growing interest in Mr. Kirby.

California

Rand and scanner were set up at the TwoMorrows booth at the huge San Diego convetion again this year. He was pleased to talk with Kirby fans like David Schwartz, Glen Gold, Kasra Ghanbari, and Andrew Cooke, to only mention a few. Once again, Mike Thibodeaux, Mike Burkey, Anthony Snyder and more allowed us to scan Kirby pages for our archive.

After the convention, Lisa Kirby also invited Rand and his wife Lisa to stop by her house north of Los Angeles for a visit. A lovely time was had by all, with Rand scanning many pieces from Lisa's personal collection.

Tom Morehouse starts off "Kirby's Real Folks" exhibit

Tom Morehouse, who curated our Kirby's Civil War exhibit, sparks another show titled Kirby's Real Folks. Says Tom, "whether it was a world leader or just some kids he met at a convention; Jack's universe was peopled with real folks." While Tom has gathered examples from some of the more obscure and rare items in his "kirbykrypt" collection, we hope that everyone will contribute. See the exhibit page for more information.

Kirby Museum table at Lower East Side Art Festival

On 8&9 September the museum will be manning a table spreading the Kirby word in Tompkins Square Park in the Manhattan Island's East Village/Lower East Side. Jack Kirby spent his early life a few blocks away. He fought in the ghetto's streets, then worked hard and got out; never wanting to return. The neighborhood has changed a lot since then, but in some ways it's the same. TwoMorrows is sending some Kirby books for fund raising purposes, we'll have samples of our membership gift posters for ogling and enticement - as well as a large print of the spread from Kirby's autobiographical "Street Code". Special thanks to festival organizers James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook for their help.

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30 MARCH 2007

Kirby Museum Co-Sponsors MoCCA'S Spring 2007 Exhibit "Stan Lee: A Retrospective"

What a pleasant surprise to be contacted by Ken Wong, President of New York City's Museum of Comic and Cartoon and Art (a/k/a MOCCA), who asked for our support for the Stan Lee exhibit he was co-curating with comics scholar Peter Sanderson. Ken hoped we would help find some original art and review interpretive materials like display and narrative cards. Our Board of Trustees agreed that the Museum should take the opportunity to participate in educating the show's vistors about Jack Kirby's contributions to the work he produced for Marvel in the 1960s with Stan Lee. The opening reception took place in the evening of the first day of the New York Comic Con, where Rand and Lisa Hoppe enjoyed speaking with Stan Lee, Ken Wong, Peter Sanderson, Kirby Museum member Tom Morehouse (who loaned art and Marvel memorabilia to the show), Jim Salicrup, Danny Fingeroth and more. The exhibit runs through 3 July 2007.

"Jack Kirby SHOULD have a museum!" - Stan Lee

Rand scans at NYCC and WonderCon

Rand Hoppe recently set up his scanner at the TwoMorrows booth at NYCC and WonderCon, where he was able to add archival quality scans of pages from "Bombing Out On The Panama Canal" from Our Fighting Forces 158, "The Devil and Mister Sacker!" from Kamandi 12, the 2001: A Space Odyssey adaptation, an uninked, unused Black Magic cover and the Molecule Man pin-up from Fantastic Four Annual 2, among others. Thanks to Tom Kraft, Tom Morehouse, Mike Thibodeaux, Albert Moy, Anthony Snyder and more for allowing their Kirby pages to be scanned.

Don't forget, we aren't just looking for archival scans. We're interested in compiling scans or photos at any quality level. Visit the project's web page for more information.

Kirby Museum Shop - Amazon and Tales of Wonder affiliate links

The Shop hasn't come together as we prematurely announced in our last newsletter. However, over at his Museum-sponsored Jack Kirby Comics Weblog, Bob Heer offers the next best thing - he's compiled two pages, Kirby In Print Guide and New Kirby - Announcement Page, that contain affiliate links to the Amazon and Tales of Wonder web stores. If you buy using those links, the Kirby Museum will get a portion of each sale to fund its programs.

• Bob Heer's Jack Kirby Comics Weblog
• Bob's New Kirby - Announcement page
• Bob's Kirby In Print Guide

We certainly hope you've stopped by Harry Mendryk's Simon & Kirby blog. Harry's been regularly writing some fascinating studies on Simon & Kirby work.

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19 November 2006

Pencil art photocopies go live!

Jack Kirby pencil art is now viewable in our Gallery. TwoMorrows has donated the results of its efforts in scanning the photocopies of Kirby pencil art to the Museum, and we've made selected pages from Captain Victory, Eternals, New Gods and OMAC available for viewing on our web site. Museum members, however, get a little bit more, as we've made some Captain America scans available to members only. So now, your membership dues not only helps us with in our operations and programs, but it gets you a nice poster and grants you greater access to awesome Kirby pencil art.

Original Art Digital Archive update

Once again, Kirby Museum Vice-President John Morrow donated some of his TwoMorrows Publishing booth space at Comic-Con International: San Diego to the Kirby Museum. This year, Museum member Tom Kraft and Secretary/Treasurer Rand Hoppe were manning a large-format scanner acquiring archival quality scans for our Original Art Digital Archive project. Thanks to the generosity of the Kirby family/Mike Thibodeaux, art dealers and collectors like Anthony Snyder, Glen Gold, Dan Forman, Bechara Maalouf and Dan Forman, the Museum now has archival scans of all interior pages from 1968's “When Wakes The Sleeper!”, first published in Captain America 101, as well as pages from Mister Miracle, Tales To Astonish, New Gods, Journey Into Mystery, a Sky Masters Sunday strip, pencil art commission pieces, full color presentation pieces, and more.

We aren't just looking for archival scans, though. We're interested in compiling scans or photos at any quality level. Visit the project's web page for more information.

Kirby Museum panel at CCI: San Diego report

Lisa Kirby, John Morrow and Rand Hoppe all took part in a special Kirby museum panel in July at the San Diego convention. We discussed our plans for the organization and shared some Jack Kirby video clips with the attendees. Our thanks again to Tom Kraft for helping with the audio/visual tools.

Coming soon!

Unfortunately, the opening of the Museum Shop has been slightly delayed.

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28 August 2006 - Jack Kirby's 89th Birthday, Our First Anniversary

Just a brief note to celebrate Jack Kirby's birth, and to express my thanks to all of our supporters; especially the Museum's continually growing membership, the Kirby family (especially Jack and Roz's daughter, Trustee Lisa Kirby) and TwoMorrows Publishing (a sole proprietorship of Trustee John Morrow).

There's an update coming soon. Stay tuned. - Rand Hoppe

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July 2006 - The Jack Kirby Museum at Comic-Con International: San Diego!

Thanks to the support of Museum trustee John Morrow, the Kirby Museum will be headquartered at the TwoMorrows booth (#1215-1217) again this year. We'll be there to meet and talk with you about our programs, scan Kirby original art for our archive and show some Kirby-related videos on our laptop.

Kirby Museum Panel

We're also having a Kirby Museum panel in Room 7B on Saturday, 22 July from 5-6 pm. Discuss with the Museum's Board of Trustees — Lisa Kirby (President), John Morrow (Vice President), Randolph Hoppe (Secretary/Treasurer) — what the Museum has accomplished in this early stage of its development and learn of its plans going forward. Multimedia pieces will be shown, including video footage of Jack.

Hope to see you there!

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June 2006 - Join the Jack Kirby Museum Internet Conversation!

Blogs

Jack Kirby Comics Weblog

Kirby Museum member Bob Heer has been a champion of Jack Kirby on the internet for a long time. For almost ten years, he has been regularly updating internet newgroups like rec.arts.misc.comics and alt.comic.jack-kirby with the latest Jack Kirby publishing news. On an almost daily basis for a few years, he has been going through his Kirby comic collection, posting a scan, a description, and replying to comments on his Jack Kirby Comics Weblog. We're pleased to announce that Bob has agreed to have the Museum host his blog going forward.

Bob's also compiled a comprehensive web-based Jack Kirby bookstore. Right now Bob's store is available through pages on his blog, with 100% of the Amazon Associate commissions going directly to the Kirby Museum. He'll be helping us integrate the store across the rest of the Museum's web site, as well.

Simon & Kirby blog

Harry Mendryk has been posting to the Kirby-L, the Jack Kirby discussion group, for a few years. He has a keen eye for artistic styles, and studies and writes on Simon & Kirby history. Harry recently started a Simon & Kirby blog filled with his insightful analysis, excellent artwork restorations, and of course, replies to visitors' comments. We're pleased that Harry has agreed to have the Museum host his blog, as well.

E-mail/Web Discussion Groups

Kirby-L: The Jack Kirby Discussion Group (and more!)

Museum trustee Randolph Hoppe has been operating the discussion groups devoted to Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman and Jean “Moebius” Giraud currently on Yahoo Groups for almost ten years now and felt the Museum would be a perfect host or sponsor for these discussions. Additionally, we've started a Kirby Museum “Café” group, for more general discussions that don't fall within the confines of the other groups. These groups are open to the general public, please join us!

Ten Years of Kirby Conversation

There has been an e-mail-based Jack Kirby discussion group of one kind or another for 10 years now. Ten-year discussion group member (and Museum member) Gary Picariello wanted to honor that anniversary with a book that compiles memories, discussion excerpts, artwork and more. It seemed such a compelling study of Kirby and internet culture, that the Museum is going to publish this book itself. We don't have a name for the book yet, but stay tuned.

Thanks for your support!

We'd like to thank Museum member Reed Man for donating a page in his French publication of "The Atomics" #4 to the Museum, which also featured "Abbatoir!" a translation by Museum member Jean Depelley, with new coloring, of the 1954-published Simon/Kirby story "Slaughter-House".

Anyone who picks up a copy of Jack Kirby's Galactic Bounty Hunters in July, will see a full page devoted to the Museum. Arranged by Trustee Lisa Kirby & Member Tom Brevoort, this donation coming through Marvel Comics is especially heartwarming.

Thanks to Trustee John Morrow for providing a page in The Jack Kirby Collector, and the revenue sharing of the Silver Star: Graphite Edition.

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March 2006 - Original Art Scanning Project

We'd like to thank all of our members for their support, which is crucial for the Museum to continue our efforts. If you're not yet a member, please join us!

Our big news for this update is the start of our Original Art Digital Archive project. Museum member Tom Kraft suggested that Kirby Museum volunteers scan both sides of Kirby original art in color at high resolution and provide these scans to the Museum. This archive would not only provide amazing images for the Catalogue Raisonné, but also help scholars and historians in their efforts. Visit the Original Art Digital Archive project's web page for for more information.

TwoMorrows is donating a portion of the revenue from their upcoming Silver Star: Graphite Edition. We're really looking forward to this book!

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December 2005 - Paypal's Up

We put off our second update until we got our electronic giving up and running. Well, now we're connected! Be sure to read up on how we're using PayPal's new Subscription feature to help us manage your membership.

There's been some interesting Jack Kirby news recently:

• The Masters of American Comics exhibit co-organized by the Hammer Museum and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) presents Jack Kirby as one of the 15 influential "Masters". The show opened 20 November 2005 to great acclaim and will show until 12 March 2006. Then it will travel to The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) in Wisconsin from 27 April through 13 August, and then to the NYC metropolitan area. More details to follow.
• 
  Green Arrow stamp
  The United States Postal Service announced that it will issue a set of DC Comics Super Hero stamps in late 2006. Included in that 20 stamp set will be a Green Arrow stamp based on a Jack Kirby drawing. The cover of DC Comics' 2001 Green Arrow collection featured a drawing that longtime Kirby collaborator Mike Royer adapted from a Kirby Bulls Eye drawing. Apparently there will be a Marvel set in 2007.
• Although the home video version of this past summer's Fantastic Four movie was just released, there will be a Special Edition shipped in 2006 that will contain "Jack Kirby: Storyteller" - a one hour documentary about Jack Kirby's life and career. Interviews with Museum Trustees Lisa Kirby and John Morrow, as well as Neal Kirby, Mike Thibodeaux, Mark Evanier, and others are included. John Morrow has seen a preview and gives it high marks for breadth and accuracy.

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28 August 2005 - Jack's 88th birthday, Our Debut.

We couldn't be more pleased to debut on that day. Thanks for stopping by. We've got some interesting presentations, and lots more in the works.

Be sure to try out the comicbook database. Based on the Jack Kirby Checklist, the comicbook database is our first step towards building an complete, online Kirby "Catalogue Raisonné". Programmer Greg Gatlin, who runs AtlasTales.com, has done a great job. The Museum has ambitious plans for the database - what is available now is but a seed which will grow and grow

Anyone who spent time with Jack Kirby reported that he enjoyed telling stories about his World War 2 experiences. Glenn Fleming, a guest to the Kirby home in 1991, recorded Jack describing one particular story that he used in "Mile-A-Minute Jones", published in Our Fighting Forces #159 by DC Comics in 1975. A brief video clip of Jack interspersed with panels from the comic book was prepared by David Schwartz and is presented here.

Although Jack Kirby is currently more known for his work with Stan Lee at Marvel Comics, he had a long, successful partnership with Joe Simon - Captain America, Boy Commandos. Newsboy Legion and Sandman were big hits in the early 1940s. After World War 2, however, Simon & Kirby produced some interesting, non-action-adventure work before tapping into the romance and true crime genres. Presented for your entertainment and edification is Alligator Tetanus 1947. They produced some action-adventure, as well.

One of the Kirby highlights of 2004 was TwoMorrows Publishing's re-working and updating of 1972's Kirby Unleashed. Mark Evanier and Steve Sherman have been kind enough to allow us to use their amended Kirby biography on this site. Newly illustrated with photos, too!

The Kirby Museum's long-term plans include a major traveling retrospective in 2007, a documentary, and more. We can't do this without your help. Please consider becoming a member of the Museum to foster the development of these programs.

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