Thanks for you well thought out comments. I would like to emphasize that I do not share the opinion that Kirby could not draw beautiful women. While much of what you said is true, I am not sure I accept the argument that these “improvements” were done to update styles, that could be done without redrawing the face.

Harry

As for the opinion that Kirby couldn’t draw beautiful women, in my humble opinion that’s a load of crappy crap crap (as Bart Simpson would say). Anyone who has seen Jack’s pencils of female faces knows he could not only draw beautiful women, he could draw STUNNINGLY beautiful women. I think one of the most beautiful portraits of a woman ever put to paper with pencil is the one Jack did of Roz – from memory, while overseas!

So how do we explain why some of his women’s faces aren’t that hot? I believe there were three different factors at work here.

First, as an illustrator I know how difficult it can be to draw an attractive face (male or female) in every position that needs to be shown in every panel of a story. With men’s faces, you can get away with an occassional distortion, but it’s more obvious in women’s faces.

Secondly, the final image is really up to the inker, and very often what started as a small distortion in pencil gets magnified when committed to black ink (the softness inherent in pencil lines diminishes imperfections). And let’s face it, comics ain’t fine art, they’re commodity products done on a tight deadline, so there is rarely time to redo artwork.

Finally – and I think this could be the most important point – Kirby was always much more concerned with telling a good and engaging story than in being an “artist” per se. He often used distortion, exagerration, extreme POV and abstraction to convey action, mood and emotion. As a result, not everything looks “pretty” but it sure tells a story. This is something you yourself (Harry) point out in the loss of expression in the last panel of the sample page: prettier face, but no emotion.

This is actually the same argument I use when someone remarks how Kirby couldn’t write dialogue. My assertion has always been that Jack used the same techniques of distortion, abstraction and exagerration in his writing as in his drawing: his dialogue wasn’t intended to mimic real human speech any more than his characters’ elongated limbs and squared-off fingers were intended to illustrate realsitic human physiology. When you start looking at Jack’s work as expressionistic storytelling, it all makes sense.

Keep up the good work!

~Scott

If you have the two volumes of the cancelled DC Implosion photocopies (which I got at some download site just before it was taken off the air about a year ago, so they are around), you’ll find one or two Grandenetti stories inked by Flessel (credited) which you can use as comparison.