Complete Jack Kirby

by Greg Theakston

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• ISBN: 1566850088
• ISBN13: 9781566850087
• Release Date: January 1900
• Publisher: Fisicalbook
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Complete work, in order of publication, of the King's work.

This series, put out by Pure Imagination, is a black and white reprinting, in order of publication, of all the comic book work that Jack Kirby did that is not currently the property of bigger publishing houses, like Marvel, DC and Image Comics. However, that is plenty of work. The reproductions are done by Greg Theakston, using his Theakstonization process, bleaching the color out of old comic books, scanning the ink work, then doing a reconstruction. Mostly, it is good, tho the linework is some times a bit ragged. Theakstonizing is an imperfect process - as are most reproduction processes. The production value is high, with high grade paper and ink. This volume, being the first, includes much of Kirby's newspaper comic strip work, as that is where he started, since he started when that was all there was. Comic Books in America started as reprints of comic strips, and Kirby's comic strip work was included in one of the first comic books, JUMBO COMICS. This volume does not reprint all of Kirby's comic strip work, which is extensive, but there is a companion volume, called Comic Strip Kirby available from Pure Imagination. Early work in this volume includes, "Solar Legion," "Blue Bolt," and "Mercury in the 20th Century" a comic series Kirby did for Timely, which was his first work using the "god as hero" motif, that he later used in his creation of "The Mighty Thor" for Marvel. HIs partnership with Joe Simon begins toward the end of this volume. There is biographical data, interviews with Kirby and other comic artists, as well as an analysis of how his art is evolving by Greg Theakston, who was a friend of Kirby's in the later third of his life. Theakston is knowlegable, and his writing is engaging, though he has an unfortunate propensity to use juvenile slang, and casual language, which only serves to diminish his authority as a comics historian, but that's an unfortunate reality of American Comics, no one takes the form entirely seriously, not even those who have an academic approach. The book includes an early work of Joe Simon's, supposedly for comparison purposes, tho Theakston doesn't do an artist analysis of it, which is strange. It is also unfortunate that he doesn't reprint the first issue of "Blue Bolt," which Simon did without Kirby - thus missing the first part of the story line. The way this series is set up, is that each comic is reprinted in order, to enable the reader to see Kirby develop, so you don't get all the "Blue Bolt" stories in an uninterrputed order, for instance, as Kirby did other stories in-between issues of "Blue Bolt." You can get this volume, and the rest of the series, brand new, directly from Pure Imagination on their website for twenty-five dollars.

Jack Kirby, The Early Days

If you are a fan of comic book art, of course you know about Jack Kirby, one of the great American artists of the 20th Century, on a par with Duke Ellington, Picasso, Hemingway and Bob Dylan with his place in artistic history. This book collects his early years, back when he was slaving away at the dawn of comic books during the Golden Age. While the artwork pales somewhat with his later work, his genius is obvious at this early time in his life. The tales of his life growing up on the Lower East Side of New York City is worth the price of the book. The first of a series that intends to collect his complete artistic output. A+!