This Blog Wants You

No new posts this week as Kirby-Vision takes a short break, so here’s a reminder of our call for contributions for our annual Jack Kirby birthday portrait 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 send in their portraits of ‘The King of Comics’.

You can find our previous galleries here and here, both of which were a great success. 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.

The deadline for inclusion is Friday 26th August. All submissions can be sent to the usual address, please mark your emails “Birthday”. Thank you.

The First Avenger

Captain America: The First Avenger by Canadian graphic designer and illustrator Michael McCabe. You can find a step by step breakdown of this illustration at Michael’s blog here, which includes this top tip for all budding cartoonists,  “…when I was drawing Captain America’s shield I didn’t have a circle template large enough so the bottom of a Tim Horton‘s coffee cup did just as good a job.”

A Kurtzberg Gallery

Many thanks to Minneapolis artist Jason Sandberg for inviting Kirby-Vision to feature a selection of his Kirby inspired artwork. Jason credits Kirby as a catalyst for his “love of drawing” and these acrylic painting’s “mix aspects of different Kirby drawings into a new composition, I try to paint the canvas as if I were Jack”. Jason has exhibited his work in Minnesota and Manhattan and has appeared in print in various national indy art magazines. You can find more of Jason’s work at his website – here.

Clockwise from top left: The Kurtzberg Monster vs U.S. Army, The Kurtzberg Skyline, The Kurtzberg Sprinter, The Kurtzberg UFO, The Kurtzberg Paradise and The Kurtzberg Aristocrat.

Heroes & Villains

Two action packed pieces that wouldn’t look out of place on the covers of their respective books by Alex Williamson. Alex is a senior designer for a sign/vehicle wrap company and a part-time artist (currently working on sample pages) and co-creator of the webcomic Brass Falcon. You can find more of his work at his website – here.

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.

Hulk and Kalibak

Two great pieces for you today courtesy of Tampa Bay based artist Elliot Fernandez. Elliot writes – “When I was six years old, I inherited a collection of comics from some relatives that included much of Jack Kirby’s early works. However, I didn’t really understand Kirby’s contribution to the art world until about ten years or so ago. As I continued to grow in my appreciation of the craft involved in comic creation, it became plain to me that Kirby was not only the master, but was years ahead of his time. His work as an artist and storyteller has had a fundamental impact on my own work as well as my life and my world view.”

Pin-Ups

Created to celebrate the release of the Thor movie, Brendan Tobin gives up some Kirby-love in the shape of the old Marvel Masterworks pin-ups.

Vision

Simon and Kirby’s Vision, re-designed as the protagonist of a imaginary 1960’s movie, by recent graduate of the School of Visual Arts, Seni Oyewole. Seni is currently working on various personal projects including character design, comics and animation. You can find more of Seni’s work at his blog and DeviantArt page.

Hulk Will Smash

Today’s Kirby-goodness comes courtesy of North Carolina based artist, Loston Wallace. First up there’s the Green Goliath himself, which features a mighty colouring job by Steve Downer, followed by a host of sketch-book workouts featuring some favorite grotesques from Tales to Astonish/of Suspense.

Loston is an alumni of the Joe Kubert School of Art and has provided artwork for the role playing industry as well as the DC Comics Licensing Department producing children’s books based on DC’s animated properties. His comic credits include: Klyde & Meriem, Flash Gordon and Lorna, Relic Wrangler. You can find more of Loston’s work at his website and DeviantArt page.