Here’s a lovely little portrait of Jack by Croatian artist Robert Solanović, who posted it at his facebook page in August last year. Robert’s comic credits include Mister Mačak, Slatka and Kljunovi. He currently illustrating his first English language project, Unfinished City. You can see more of Robert’s work via Facebook and DeviantArt.
Doug Hazlewood inks two new pieces from Kirby originals.
Doug writes: “The FIGHTING AMERICAN piece I inked over bluelined vintage pencils I found online. I worked with them in Photoshop to make them not so ‘squatty’. In making the image more proportional to 11 x 17 it made him not look so blocky and a bit more slender. I liked it better. Maybe the original was not quite as squatty and it happened with someone saving the copy of the image that way. I know someone inked it for publication somewhere before, as there is a color version online. This is my crack at the pencils. I remember how exciting it was to see the ads for the Harvey reprint back in the 60’s and I finally got one I think through the mail. I had been unaware of the character.”
X-MEN #9 title splash recreation. “I definitely tried to be very faithful to the original one. Can’t improve on that Kirby/Stone goodness!! Inked over printed bluelines.”
Scan of original splash page by Kirby and Chic Stone via What If Kirby
Today marks the 96th anniversary of Jack Kirby’s birth and to celebrate KIRBY-VISION proudly presents our annual portrait gallery in honour of ‘The King of Comics’.
Jorge Freire
Craig Peters
Craig writes, “I’m more a writer than an artist, so I took one of my favorite pieces of Jack’s work and … well, rewrote it.” – Click Image to enlarge.
Derek Langille
For an extra visual treat check out Derek’s Flickr collection of 165 Kirby Double-page spreads.
Also joining in the Birthday celebrations with non-portrait pieces:
Jeff McKenzie
Volker Stieber
Les White
And finally, Italian Renato Stevanato gifted not one but five portraits which will form part of his own celebratory post at his blog, cartoonstherapy.
A huge thank you to all the artists who took the time to contribute to today’s Birthday celebration, making it our biggest portrait gallery ever. And of course a huge thank you goes out to Jack Kirby for his continuing inspiration. Long live The King!
Wednesday 28th August marks the 96th anniversary of the birth of Jack Kirby. To celebrate the occasion, Kirby-Vision would like to invite all of our readers to contribute to our annual Birthday Portrait Gallery.
As you can see from our previous galleries – 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009 – everyone who has contributed has excelled themselves with their tributes. There’s a lot of love out there for Jack and we’re looking forward to seeing what you all come up with this year.
You can send your portraits to the usual address, deadline is Sunday 25th August and please mark your emails ‘Kirby Portrait’.
Thank you.
An irreverent portrait of Jack and Stan (inspired by Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Untold Story) by Israeli artist Yitzhak Shtarker.
It’s always a joy to find new work from Marc Basile in the Kirby-Vision inbox. This time around Marc has created a series of pin-ups for a fantasy King Size Annual featuring reprints of Jack’s monster creations from the fondly remembered Atlas anthologies.
Kirby portrait rendered in chalk pastel by Steve Coates. Steve writes: “Based on a photograph by Dr. Mark Miller, which was published in TwoMorrows Inc.’s Jack Kirby Collector number twenty-one and is used with permission. The study was used to produce a finished piece which will be featured at the Jack Kirby Museum booth during the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo to be held on the last weekend of April. Rand Hoppe, museum trustee, will be in Calgary for the event.”
Jim Rugg inks original Kirby pencils. “These are inking exercises I did while working as an inker for DC/Vertigo’s American Virgin series a few years ago. I found some of Jack Kirby’s pencil art, and I guess my brain was in inking mode and I couldn’t resist having a go at these.”
Jim is the co-writer/artist of the PLAIN Janes, Street Angel and Afrodisiac and his self-published title Rambo 3.5 won the 2010 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Mini-Comic. You can find more of Jim’s work at his website, blog and Flickr photostream.
Our second tribute this week to feature Jack himself, comes courtesy of James Burns.
