Monthly Archives: May 2010

The House That Jack Built – Tom Kraft’s video slideshow

Tom Kraft, who made the video slideshow above, loaned many pieces of Kirby art to the Fumetto exhibit.

Have you seen Tom’s great What If Kirby website?

Fumetto Panel Discussion – Nadel, Gravett, Hoppe

I’ve posted the slightly-longer-than-an-hour Kirby discussion that Dan Nadel, Paul Gravett and I had last Saturday at Fumetto on Livestream.com. (If YouTube approves the Kirby Museum’s Non-Profit application, I’ll move the video there.)

I’d like to acknowledge and thank Greg Theakston for gifting his Kirby papers to the Kirby Museum – these papers were the source for the Street Code and the V-mail included in the Fumetto exhibit.

Having listened to the talk many times while preparing it for posting, I’m compelled to clarify and/or correct:

  • Many pre-code comics were not “for adults, not kid stuff,” they were all-ages. An important distinction.
  • Kirby’s wartime ailment was trenchfoot, not frostbite.
  • The Fourth World wasn’t only “expensive” considering the sales level, affidavit fraud by distributors contributed to the low sales levels used in that equation.
  • I should not have included Bob Powell along with Joe Orlando and Wally Wood regarding artists’ concerns about being paid for writing the comics via their pencil artwork.

That’s Tom Morehouse speaking from the audience a few times. Tom Kraft manned the video camera. The last question, about Kirby’s output, is asked by Fabrice Stroun.

Thanks again to Fumetto, Dan and Paul.

The House That Jack Built – Paul Gravett’s video tours

Four video tours shot and narrated by Paul Gravett, co-curator with Dan Nadel of this Jack Kirby exhibit mounted by Fumetto International Comix Festival, 2010. I’ve included all four in a YouTube playlist – they should play in sequence.