“The Marvelous Art of Jack Kirby” will be exhibited by the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey from 28 March through 16 May 2010.

During the opening at 2pm on Sunday, 28 March, artist/instructor/collector (and Kirby Museum member) Charles David Viera will present a gallery talk where he will speak of the many contributions that Jack Kirby has made to American Pop Culture and offer insight to the artwork in the exhibition.

Below is a list of pieces being exhibited. The list is currently incomplete, though; some story page details need to be verified, a Fantastic Four page with ink art by Joe Sinnott is not included.

Stuntman: “Curtain Call for Death!” page 7, 1946
Story and script by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon. Pencil art by Jack Kirby. Ink art by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Lettering art by Howard Ferguson
First published: Stuntman Comics 2, June 1946 (Harvey Comics).

Bulls-Eye: “Grandma Tomahawk” page XX, 1954
Story and script by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon. Pencil art by Jack Kirby. Ink art by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Lettering art by Ben Oda.
First published: Bulls-Eye 5, April 1955 (Mainline Comics).

Sky Masters of the Space Force: “Mayday Shannon” strip 46, 1958
Story by Jack Kirby, Dick Wood and Dave Wood. Pencil Art by Jack Kirby. Ink art and lettering art by Wallace Wood.
First published: Sky Masters of the Space Force, 30 April 1959 (Adams Syndicate).

Two-Gun Kid: “The Outlaw” page XX, 1960
Story by Jack Kirby with Stan Lee. Pencil art by Jack Kirby. Script by Stan Lee. Ink art by Dick Ayers. Lettering art by XX.
First published: Two Gun Kid 55, August 1960 (Marvel Comics).

Fantastic Four: “The Micro-World of Doctor Doom!” page 12, 1963
Story by Jack Kirby with Stan Lee. Pencil art by Jack Kirby, Script by Stan Lee, Ink art by Dick Ayers. Lettering art by Artie Simek.
First published: Fantastic Four 16, July 1963 (Marvel Comics).

X-Men: “Enter, The Avengers” page 8, 1964
Story by Jack Kirby with Stan Lee. Pencil art by Jack Kirby, Script by Stan Lee, Ink art by Chic Stone. Lettering art by Sam Rosen.
First published: X-Men 9, January 1965 (Marvel Comics).

Thor: “The Grandeur and the Glory!” page 3, 1965
Story by Jack Kirby with Stan Lee. Pencil art by Jack Kirby, Script by Stan Lee, Ink art by Vince Colletta, Lettering art by Artie Simek.
First published: Journey Into Mystery 124, January 1966 (Marvel Comics).

Thor: “The Grandeur and the Glory!” page 5, 1965
Story by Jack Kirby with Stan Lee. Pencil art by Jack Kirby, Script by Stan Lee, Ink art by Vince Colletta, Lettering art by Artie Simek.
First published: Journey Into Mystery 124, 1966 (Marvel Comics).

Thor: “The Grandeur and the Glory!” page 11, 1965
Story by Jack Kirby with Stan Lee. Pencil art by Jack Kirby, Script by Stan Lee, Ink art by Vince Colletta, Lettering art by Artie Simek.
First published: Journey Into Mystery 124, 1966 (Marvel Comics).

Captain America: “The Secret!” page 6, 1966
Story by Jack Kirby with Stan Lee. Pencil art by Jack Kirby. Script by Stan Lee. Ink art by Frank Giacoia. Lettering art by Artie Simek.
First published: Tales of Suspense 86, February 1967 (Marvel Comics).

Captain America: “In The Name of Batroc!” page 7, 1968
Story by Jack Kirby with Stan Lee. Pencil art by Jack Kirby, Script by Stan Lee, Ink art by Dan Adkins. Lettering art by Sam Rosen.
First published: Captain America 105, September 1968 (Marvel Comics).

Forever People: “Super War” page XX, 1970
Story, script and pencil art by Jack Kirby. Ink art by Vince Colletta. Lettering art by John Costanza.
First published: Forever People 2, April 1971 (DC Comics).

Soul Love: “The Teacher!” page 6
Story, script and pencil art by Jack Kirby. Ink art by Vince Colletta. Lettering art by John Costanza.
Unpublished. Produced for Soul Love 1, 1971 (DC Comics).

Soul Love: “The Teacher!” page 7
Story, script and pencil art by Jack Kirby. Ink art by Vince Colletta. Lettering art by John Costanza.
Unpublished. Produced for Soul Love 1, 1971 (DC Comics).

Soul Love: “The Teacher!” page 8
Story, script and pencil art by Jack Kirby. Ink art by Vince Colletta. Lettering art by John Costanza.
Unpublished. Produced for Soul Love 1, 1971 (DC Comics).

In The Days of the Mob: “XX” page 6, 1971
Story, script and pencil art by Jack Kirby. Ink art and lettering art by Mike Royer.
Unpublished. Produced for In The Days of the Mob 2, 1972 (DC Comics).

Kamandi: “The Devil’s Arena” page 21, 1972
Story, script and pencil art by Jack Kirby. Ink art and lettering art by Mike Royer.
First published: Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth 4, March 1973 (DC Comics)

The Eternals: “The Devil In New York” page 14, 1976
Story, script and pencil art by Jack Kirby. Ink art by John Verpoorten. Lettering art by John Costanza.
First published: The Eternals 3, September 1976 (Marvel Comics).

Machine Man: “Quick Trick” page 1, 1978
Story, script and pencil art by Jack Kirby. Ink art and lettering art by Mike Royer.
First published: Machine Man 6, September 1978 (Marvel Comics).

Superman & Challengers of the Unknown: “Give Me Power, Give Me Your World!” page 15, 1985.
Story and script by Bob Rozakis. Pencil art by Jack Kirby. Ink art by Greg Theakston. Lettering art by John Costanza.
First published: DC Comics Presents 84, August 1985 (DC Comics).

Additional events hosted by the Hunterdon Art Museum in conjunction with the exhibit:

1 – a lecture titled “Appreciation of Comic Art” presented by Joseph Mannarino on Saturday, 10 April at 12 noon.

2 – Doug Baron will teach a Beginner Comic Book Illustration Class for adults (16 and over) April 19-May 17. `

Hunterdon Art Museum on Google Maps

At July 2008’s Comic-Con International: San Diego, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund auctioned “The Teacher!”, a story Jack Kirby wrote and drew for National Periodical Publications’ aborted Soul Love magazine. Inked by Vincent Colletta and possibly lettered by John Costanza, “The Teacher!” was one of six stories Kirby produced for Soul Love.

The many white-out and blue pencil corrections on the characters’ faces throughout this story point to the turmoil of the Soul Love project.

Having moved to California in early 1969 and left Marvel a little more than a year later, Kirby pitched a number of trend- and segment-hopping ideas to his new publisher, National (DC). One possibility was DC entering the non-juvenile black-and-white comics magazine segment. Trailblazed a decade and a half earlier by William Gaines with Mad Magazine to avoid the Comics Code Authority in the wake of the U.S. Senate’s “Kefauver” Juvenile Delinquency Hearings, the black-and-white comics magazine segment was the haven of Warren Magazines, publishers of Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella.

Unfortunately, the distribution of Kirby and DC’s first entries into the segment, Spirit World and In The Days of the Mob magazines, was unreliable. Soul Love, intended to tap into the black “urban” market, died on the vine; in addition to the distribution woes, the magazine was hindered by tinkering with the art at the DC offices over concerns of the representation of African-American faces.

As with all pieces included in the Kirby Museum’s Original Art Digital Archive, both sides of the art pages were scanned at 600 dpi, in RGB color, and saved with a lossless compression algorithm.

Thanks to the CBLDF for allowing us the time to scan this wonderful ten page artifact from an interesting period of Kirby’s career.

A few of the pages:

1971 – The Teacher! page 1

1971 – The Teacher! page 2

1971 – The Teacher! page 6

The one hundredth issue of The Comic Reader was a double issue with a color cover.

Jack Kirby was asked to contribute a cover, which was to include Captain America, Batman, Superman and Captain Marvel. Kirby drew a piece, which seems to have been rejected for the piece that was published. Without interviewing editor/publisher Paul Levitz or assistant editor Paul Kupperberg, the assumption is that the unused piece had characters from two companies together on the cover, which is traditionally considered unwelcome by their respective rights holders. The used piece has characters controlled at the time by National Periodical Publications, Inc (DC Comics) on the front.

The Comics Reader 100 was published by TCR Publications, New York, New York, USA. August-September 1973.

1973 – Comic Reader 100 back and front cover

1973 – Comic Reader 100 back and front unused cover pencil art

Color art by Carl GAFFORD.

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National Periodical Publications reduced their editorial page count from twenty pages to eighteen pages after Kirby produced “The Body Bank!” (published in OMAC 6, July 1975), bringing about some work by DC production staff to cut two pages.

Their most obvious choice was to edit the first chapter, as it contained one of Kirby’s signature spreads. Their decision was to remove a full tier panel from the fourth page, and replace it with a reduced version of the spread. The four page chapter was now two pages.

2008’s Jack Kirby’s OMAC: One Man Army Corps from DC Comics restores chapter one to Kirby’s original. Unfortunately, the art on the initial splash page is still stretched, as mentioned in our previous post.

1975 – “The Body Bank!” chapter 1

2008 – “The Body Bank!” chapter 1

DC Comics’ program of publishing new collected editions of Jack Kirby’s work has been wonderful. It is a great time we live in, with so much of Kirby’s work available in the stores. Having these books at hand certainly helps the Kirby Museum in its mission “to promote and encourage the study, understanding, preservation and appreciation of the work of Jack Kirby”. A huge thank you to everyone associated with bringing this series about.

Unfortunately, 2008’s Jack Kirby’s OMAC: One Man Army Corps contained a few production errors: many of the splash pages that originally contained indicia were stretched to fit the printed page.

Two examples with the original 1974/5 printing on the left, and the 2008 printing on the right.:

“New Bodies For Old!” page 1 comparision

“The Busting Of A Conquerer!” page one comparison

I’ve aligned the images at the top text.

There’s one very nice improvement that DC brought to the OMAC book, which I will highlight in a future entry.

Thanks to James ROMBERGER for the heads up.

In the early 1990s, Jack KIRBY was asked to produce a piece for a coffee table book, “The Art of Mickey Mouse.” Kirby produced two pieces – both inked by Mike THIBODEAUX.

One piece, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” was not used.

1991 – The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

This one was:

1991 – Mickey Mouse

with color art by the book’s co-editor, Craig YOE. Craig posted about this piece on his blog, which is the source for the scan.

Click on any of the graphics in this article for more information:

1968 – Captain Glory

1993 – Captain Glory cover

1993 – The Art Of Mickey Mouse cover

Click here to view the Real Folks exhibit.

Tom MOREHOUSE writes –
As a lifelong collector of Jack Kirby’s work, one of the things that I always enjoyed is the sense of reality about the universe Jack created. His fight scenes work because as a fighter himself, Jack would think about how (if he had the skills/powers of the protagonist) he would go about taking down his opposition. While some have a problem with how accurately he drew his handguns, Jack’s weaponry & machinery always looked like it should be able to do whatever he wanted us to believe it could. Another factor in conveying a sense of reality to his stories was the inclusion of recognizable "real people", whether it be a world leader or just some kids he met at a convention. Jack’s universe was peopled with real folks and that’s the focus of this exhibit/archive; to gather and document as many examples of these as possible.

So start pouring through your Kirby comic collections and memory banks and send the museum scans of the primary panel/page on which the person appears along with the issue name, date, etc.. If the illustration is from some publication other than a traditional comic book, please include scans of the entire article for reference use. Be sure to identify the figure(s) in the scans. You can contact me at mohavipack@aol.com, or Rand at curator@kirbymuseum.org.

To start things off I’ve gathered examples from some of the more obscure and rare items in my Kirbykrypt collection as well as a couple of examples from standard comics.
– Tom MOREHOUSE

This exhibit/archive is an active, ongoing project – we’ll be adding to it as we go. Click on the Captain America page above to see the whole exhibit. So, as Tom says above, contact us with your suggestions and scans.
– Rand HOPPE

The Face on Mars
Story and pencil art by Jack KIRBY and Joe SIMON.
Ink art by Reed CRANDALL.
Color art by unknown.
Lettering by unknown.

Five page comic book story.

“The Face on Mars” Race For The Moon, New York, New York, USA: Harvey Publications, Inc., September 1958 (2).

1958 – The Face On Mars initial splash

1958 – Race For The Moon 2 cover