54 YEARS AGO TODAY

Triptych Zero

After 23 years of honing his craft the King opens a comic with a full page panel followed by a double-page spread for the first time.  The historic FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #1 wasn't reprinted until 7 years later, the same month Kirby left Marvel for the second time.

41 YEARS AGO TODAY

Kirby University schools you in Symbolism 101.

Horns = Evil

70 YEARS AGO TODAY

If you loved Kirby and you loved love you must haved loved being able to purchase his second Romance comic in 2 weeks. Both had covers AND interior art by Kirby!!!

Proto Sue Storm...?

46 YEARS AGO TODAY

For a quarter you could have bought SUPERMAN'S PAL JIMMY OLSEN #141 with 22 pages of new Kirby artwork (he also wrote it!) including 3 pages of collages.

JIMMY OLSEN #141 also included a self-portrait of Jack Kirby, a reprint of the historic 13 page first appearance of the Newsboy Legion from 1942 and the cover of the comic it was from (STAR SPANGLED COMICS #7).  

Unlike Marvel, DC paid artists when they reused their product. DC waited 32 years to reprint JIMMY OLSEN #141.

49 YEARS AGO TODAY

When you saw this image at the store you could have wrongly assumed that this was a symbolic cover (also known as a no-scene-remotely-like-this-inside cover)

With the Mangog saga Lee/Kirby seemed to be trying surpass their  earlier Galactus trilogy in the FANTASTIC FOUR. Instead of merely eating the Earth, this villain wanted to destroy the universe by unsheathing the cover-depicted Odinsword. 

The four years Marvel paid Kirby to hone his monster-creating skills (1958-1962) was money well-spent. 

70 YEARS AGO TODAY

AN ERA IS BORN. 

Kirby did the covers for the next 11 issues of YOUNG ROMANCE. He also provided interior art for all of those issues.

90 YEARS AGO TODAY

Jack Abel was born. He became a Kirby inker after having been a penciler earlier in his career.

Abel inks Kirby's second Groot cover.