Author: Rand Hoppe

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 acknowledgment that Age of Bronze and Y: The Last Man are experiencing the kind of success that Kirby had envisioned in the 1970s for comics’ future.

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.

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 convention 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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.