Tom Kelly shares his contribution to Hero Initiative‘s recent “Wake Up and Draw” event. On August 28th, 40 plus artists marked the occasion of Jack Kirby’s 96th birthday with morning warm up sketches. These one-off pieces are to be auctioned later in the year and have been collected in a special gallery at ComicArtFans.
Tom’s Thor vs. Darkseid piece was created on “6×10 Bristol Board using tech pens, black marker, brush and ink, plus a tooth-brush for the spatter effect”.
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!
Hey folks, just a reminder that there’s just a week left for you to submit artwork to our Birthday Portrait Gallery in celebration Jack’s 96th birthday on Wednesday 28th August. We will need to receive your artwork by Sunday 25th August for inclusion in the gallery. Please send your portraits to the usual address, marking your emails ‘Kirby Portrait’.
Inhumans Crystal and Lockjaw plus arch-fiend Arnim Zola – Two fabulous new Kirby tributes courtesy of James Burns.
Ladies and Gentlemen, please be upstanding for the amazing artwork of Italian artist Renato Stevanato, whose Forever Fans blog is a one-man love-letter to the King of Comics. Here we present just a taster of the wealth of tribute art that can be found at the blog. KIRBY-VISION heartily recommends all of our readers to take the time to visit this unique project.
And finally Renato has gifted this last piece to this very blog. Renato, we are truly honored.
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.
Over to regular contributor Marc Basile for the story behind his latest submission:
“My daughter was around 5 years old and we were watching The Cartoon Network together as usual. A PUP NAMED SCOOBY DOO was on and in the episode Shaggy said something about a mummy-werewolf. My daughter turned to me and said, “Dad that would make a great Jack Kirby monster……..you should do it.” And so it was.
Skylar is about to embark on her college career and become a talented designer in her own right, so when I came across the original inked version, I thought it only fitting that it should be my next submission. I dedicate this to you baby. Love dad.”
Many thanks to French artist, Oliver Hudson, for these Kirby cover re-creations. Above, you will find Oliver’s version of Fantastic Four #82 using his own (yet to be published) characters. Below, Oliver provides colours to a Erik Larsen inked Captain America #193 cover. Sterling work I’m sure you’ll agree. You can find more of Oliver’s artwork at his Facebook page, here.
Many thanks to Rick Thibodeau for sharing his recreation of Jack’s Fantastic Four #12 cover. The piece, 3D acrylic on wood, was created some years ago and Rick finally pulled it out of storage to photograph it and add it to his blog. Rick writes: “Intended to add lettering as another layer but couldnt figure a good way to cut the wood (all done by hand)”.
