Category Archives: Jack Kirby

Contribute to the Annual Jack Kirby Birthday Gallery

Sunday 28th August marks the 94th 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 Jack Kirby birthday portrait gallery.

You can find the previous galleries here and here, both were a great success and all of the artists who contributed excelled themselves with their tributes. We’re looking forward to seeing what you can all come up with this year and if you can’t find the time to contribute then please spread the word to any Kirby fans that you may know of.

All contributions can be sent to the usual address, deadline is Friday 26th August, please mark your emails ‘Birthday’. Thank you.

Thor Inked & Coloured

The Mighty Thor inked and coloured from original Kirby pencils courtesy of Mark Welser. “I’ve been doing a lot of Kirby styled art lately and felt it was starting to get too far away from the source material so I did what I’ve wanted to do for a very long time -actually ink over some of Jack Kirby’s pencils. If you ever want to discover how much you still need to practice as an inker, do this.” You can find more of Mark’s artwork, including an impressive gallery of re-imagined movie posters, at his DeviantArt page here.

Original Kirby pencils via comicartfans

Mercuri & Guilotina

A big welcome to these pages to fellow Kirby Museum blogger, Robert Steibel, who presents two pieces of Kirby inspired art for your viewing pleasure. First up is an original character, Mercuri. Created in Gimp and utilising Kirby’s trademark visual dynamics, Robert describes Mercuri as a “kick-ass, female version of Jack’s Silver Surfer.”

Secondly, Robert inks and colours Jack’s pencils of Guilotina, a sketch produced for the unrealised project, Big Barda and her Female Furies.

Robert writes and draws the daily comic Apple Creek and you can see his other new comics projects like Wild Life at his blog, here. Last but not least, Robert writes the weblog, Kirby Dynamics for The Kirby Museum, which we recommend as an essential part of your daily Kirby intake.

Savage Thing

Today Kirby-Vision features two gorgeous pieces of Kirby inspired artwork courtesy of Bill Reinhold. Above you will find commission artwork of a surly Ben Grimm in black ink and wash, and below Bill inks Jack’s pencils for a piece that originally appeared in Gary Martin’s The Art of Comic Book Inking.

Bill is a renown penciller/inker who kicked off his comics career in the early eighties. Since then he has worked for all the major comic publishers on a host of books such as The Punisher, The Badger, Earth X, Green Arrow, Detective Comics and Jack of Fables. The co-creator of the Epic Comics mini Spyke, Bill is currently illustrating Magnus Robot Fighter for Dark Horse Comics. For more check out Bill’s extensive portfolio at DeviantArt.

Colour Me Kirby

One of Jack’s legacies is the wealth of pencil and black white artwork which continues to inspire artists to indulge in honing their techniques. A perfect case in point is this colouring exercise courtesy of regular Kirby-Vision contributor, Marc Basile.

Hail to The King… The Movie!

The recent Kirby tribute exhibition Hail to The King is showcased in this great little mini-doc which includes interviews with the co-curators Jason Atomic and Garry Vanderhorne on the inspiration behind the show.Due to popular demand Hail to The King will be opening for a month long run at London’s Orbital Comics from June 9th – July 9th. Kirby-Vision would like to wish Jason and Garry all the best on what looks like an exceptional show.

Hail to The King! …a slight return

Just time for another heads-up about the forthcoming Kirby tribute show, Hail to The King!, which opens this week at the Resistance Gallery in London. Co-curator Jason Atomic has been drumming up publicity at his blog for what promises to be a Kirby-tastic night. Here’s just a small selection of some of the artists contributing:

Jason Atomic

Vlad Quigley

Feroze Alam

Carl Stimpson

to be continued…

Kirby-Vision will be taking a break for the next few weeks but fear not as we’ll be back in April with more of the same, so keep those submissions coming in to the usual address. Meanwhile here’s a couple of Kirby-related links to keep you going until we return.

Brendan Tobin and Pedro Delgaro‘s annual celebration one of Kirby’s most bizarre creations, March MODOK Madness, is currently in full swing with some equally bizarre fan-art posted daily.

25 writers & artists analyze Jack’s work panel-by-panel in a series of short articles entitled, Kirb Your Enthusiasm, at the Hilobrow website.

And don’t forget to check out the sterling work of my fellow bloggers here at The Kirby Museum. All of the blogs hosted here are listed on the left-hand side of the home page which you can access by clicking the Museum logo at the top of this page.

Hail to The King!

Kirby portrait (acrylic on canvas)

Two paintings by Jason Atomic from the forthcoming Kirby tribute exhibition, “Hail to the King”. The show at, London’s Resistance Gallery, opens on for one night only on April 7th (viewings by appointment after this date) and will feature Kirby inspired art from Atomic, Feroze Alam and Vlad Quigley. Watch this space for more details.

Non-submissive Female (aerosol, acrylic, marker & collage on canvas)

Four Forty-Nine

The ever popular Fantastic Four #49 re-created for a private commision by Boston based illustrator Paul Thomas Gould.

Original cover, below, by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott.