Don’t forget: Superhero.

April 11, 2012 1:06 PM

"I wish there was some way I could borrow Victor Von Doom’s Time Platform and take the kids back to visit the secret headquarters of my father’s imagination, that smoky, paneled bunker of ink, conversation, bookshelves, creativity and love." Neal Kirby remembers his father Jack "King" Kirby
posted by MartinWisse (10 comments total)

Read that yesterday and had a good five minute cry afterward, which probably says a lot about how over the moon I am for Kirby's work.

Here's the thing: how much goodwill could Marvel generate by doing the right thing? How much money could they make by doing the right thing and branding an archival reprint effort along the lines of DC's recent reprints of Jack's Fourth World, OMAC and Kamandi material?

But that sort of thinking is antithetical to Disney and Ike Perlmutter's penny-pinching ways.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 1:09 PM on April 11, 2012 [4 favorites]

The King.
posted by Artw at 1:18 PM on April 11, 2012

To think that a few men created so many of our modern myths.....
posted by sendai sleep master at 1:33 PM on April 11, 2012 [3 favorites]

Well, that was lovely. My oldest boy is within shouting distance of adolescence, so stuff like this really affects me lately. Thank you for posting it.
posted by jbickers at 1:47 PM on April 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

My dad's name is Neal Kirby, so when I read that first sentence I was all
'WHAAAAAAAA?!'
posted by ZaneJ. at 2:24 PM on April 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Synchronicity-filter: I just came across an article on Comics Alliance the other day about an 'erotic' comic done by Jack Kirby. The link itself is SFW, and it's really more of a parody then anything, and pretty hilarious, Sample text:

In the year 3048 AD there were no more men on earth! So the Astro-Chicks went planet-prowling! Their Mission: FIND MEN!!

On the planet "Spazma 4", in the Vibra Star System, the Astro-Chicks finde one!"

posted by delmoi at 3:58 PM on April 11, 2012

I wish there was some way I could borrow Victor Von Doom’s Time Platform and take the kids back to visit the secret headquarters

Neal would put a little grease in his hair and grow a cheesy mustache to look like someone from that time period, only to find that Mr. Walt Disney had actually been Neal himself! The dark pleasure of being a despot would tempt him to stay in the past, but when they returned to the present with Jack Kirby's Secret Art Box, Bob Iger would triumphantly seize the box only to find it full of scrap paper, Kirby's art having been left safely in the past.
posted by straight at 4:29 PM on April 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Jack Kirby looking totallt badass.
posted by Artw at 4:53 PM on April 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Through random means I am in possession of an interview DVD of Jack Kirby talking about his life and work. It is wonderful.
posted by JHarris at 7:12 PM on April 11, 2012

Lovely. A true creative hero - the article is right, it is amazing to think that one person turned out all those worlds.
posted by lucien_reeve at 3:29 AM on April 12, 2012