Congratulations to Jack Kirby on being awarded a 2017 Bill Finger Award for his long history  of comic book writing. Mark Evanier has the details here.

Mark Evanier comments briefly on the announced settlement between the Kirby family and Marvel, which comes just ahead of when the Supreme Court would have made a decision on whether or not to hear the case. No details on the settlement are forthcoming from him, but “real happy” is good news. While I don’t expect financial details to come out, I’m pretty sure that any settlement that Evanier feels would have made the Jack and Roz Kirby “real, real, real happy” would include a noticeable increase and the presence and prominence of Jack Kirby’s credits in conjunction with characters he created or co-created at Marvel appearing in print and on screen (credits which usually currently range from “completely absent” to “buried and weakly worded as ‘based on comics by…’ or ‘special thanks to…'”), so keep an eye on that in months to come.

Also good news is another post indicating that recent events mean he can finish his long-awaited biography of Kirby. Until then, don’t forget that THE ART OF THE SIMON AND KIRBY STUDIO is out soon (Evanier recently reporting he already has his copy and describing the book).

Sorry for the lack of posting recently. No promises, but I hope to get some more stuff up soon.  In the meantime, I did want to note Mark Evanier’s post today about Jack Kirby on the 20th anniversary of his passing.

Harry Mendryk has a nice detailed look at Kirby’s double-page splash to BOYS’ RANCH #6, “Remember The Alamo”.

He also drops the news that a lot of material from Joe Simon’s collection will be available for auction from Heritage Auctions starting next month, including that page, other BOYS’ RANCH pages, STUNTMAN, THE FLY and more.  The first few pages listed are over here. This will almost certainly be the best selection of pre-1960 Kirby artwork ever made public, and even if it’s outside your price range Heritage also always includes nice large scans to look at.

On the occasion of some financial records related to Kirby creations, the Wall Street Journal has an interesting article, “Fighting to Rescue the Lost Avenger” by Bruce Bennett.

The Comics Journal is hosting a roundtable discussion (part one, part two, part three) about Jack Kirby, specifically some issues raised by Charles Hatfield’s recent publication HAND OF FIRE, featuring contributions by Jeet Heer, Sarah Boxer, Robert Fiore, Glen David Gold, Doug Harvey, Jonathan Lethem, and Dan Nadel. And I just noticed that HAND OF FIRE is also available as an e-book for the Kindle and other formats, significantly more affordable (and searchable) than the print formats, so I’ll probably pick that up when I have the time to read it.

I just quickly skimmed through, since I haven’t read HAND OF FIRE yet, but I see SILVER STAR is discussed quite a bit in the roundtable, if not in the book, so a good chance to remind you that it’s available digitally from Image for just $9 (also available directly in the Comixology and Image apps). Haven’t checked it, since the three different print editions I have are enough for now, but from the page count I’m pretty sure the digital version includes the 1970s screen treatment by Kirby and Steve Sherman.

This is a neat little discovery.  FOREVER PEOPLE #1 [1971] was reprinted in a 1975 anthology LOOKING AHEAD, along with some study guide questions (Do you think the symbolism of “boom tube” and “mother box” would be lost on young readers?). Rand Hoppe has some images and excerpts.

Charles Hatfield has a book coming up in January 2012 from the University Press of Mississippi called HAND OF FIRE: THE COMICS ART OF JACK KIRBY, a 300 page exploration of some key aspects of Kirby’s work through the years.  Should be an interesting read.  Hatfield has a site up for the book, with a contents page and more to come, the publisher has a page with some more details and you can pre-order a copy at Amazon.

The estate of artist Marvin Stein, who drew quite a few S&K studio comics, has been selling some of the work from his files, including the piece over at the right, a Jack Kirby pencilled piece from circa 1958 for an unrealized proposed comic strip called Space Busters.  Most of you have probably seen the page before, in various recountings of the history of the Sky Masters strip, but the large scan at the site is quite a bit sharper and more detailed than any I’ve seen before, so worth a look.