Cartoonist Jack Kirby Drew Captain America Eliminate Hitler on the cover of the first issue Captain America Comicsthis is the footage heard around the world. The bombing of Pearl Harbor has not yet occurred and the United States is faltering about whether to join the European battle. At that time, anti-interventionist German American laymen held a Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden, the largest American land ever. The first issue of the comic book was published in December 1940 and sold more than one million copies.
“It was to inspire intervention,” told Observer, a professor and curator at the University of Oregon professor and curator Ben Saunders told Observer in part of the new show “Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity,” in the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. “If Kirby died in the late 1950s, he would still be remembered as one of the most important figures in the early comics. But when he miraculously miracles in the Sixties and developed all the major Marvel heroes, he had the great second act of his career.
Although he did not invent Superman (This difference belongs to Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster Fantastic Four,,,,, the Avengers,,,,, X-Men,,,,, Black Panther,,,,, Mr. Miracle,,,,, Incredible Hulk and New God.
After the United States entered the war, Kirby put down his pen and registered. He was assigned to the 11th Infantry F (his uniform is on display) and landed on the beach in Normandy a few days after the D-D, fighting under General George S. Parton.
“He saw all kinds of suffering,” Sanders said. “He saw people who hadn't eaten food. There was a vivid story about hungry dogs. He had a story about killing soldiers with his hands.”
After 1946, the appetite for the Crusader Cape began to weaken. Rather than reprinting the comics in the newspaper, the publisher began debugging original works, and the genre was flooded with detectives, warlocks, aliens and adorable little animals.
“Their initial popularity was the romantic genre after returning from World War II,” Sanders said. “There was no romantic comics before that. They actually invented this genre.” It coincided with the new independence of women, many of whom tested in the job market during the war and discovered new confidence. Movie stars like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck made the movie Now, travelers,,,,, Mildred Pierce and Gay sistersdirect targeting women. “You’ll see the audience expanding here,” Erton said of the post-war comics. “They started selling to young women, which is not the traditional comics market.”
Kirby's early work features rough characters and complex page layouts that capture the action in a way that penetrates the boundaries of the panel, creating an irrelevant sense of destruction. After the war, he adapted a more natural aesthetic with six grids set to panel layouts per page. The numbers account for a more conventional proportion and the view becomes more natural. “In the early fifties, when the material became more complex, there was a strong backlash, and adult themes were forbidden. If you consider how sci-fi in your thirties viewed science fiction, or criminal black, then they wouldn't be considered an art genre,” Sanders provided Sanders. ”
When Kirby arrived in time (Marvel in the 1960s), they were making romance, westerner and B-film-style monster books. The editor was a former assistant to Simon and Kirby in the 1940s named Stan Lee (a mash-up of his real name – Stanley Martin Lieber), eager to reunite.
“When Kirby comes back, the kid he remembers will become the editor-in-chief of the office.” He and Lee enjoyed a sometimes smooth Rocky relationship, which for years, was the rumor mill. “It's a tense tension for who gets credit and money. But neither Jack nor Stan has the material they created. People say things like Stan Lee stripped Jack Kirby, and that's not right, because Stan doesn't own his material either.”
Between 1958 and 1962, they produced many monster stories, starring the beasts, named Bombu, Goom, Googam, Gogam, Gorgilla, Groot, Groot, Moomba, Oog and Rorgg. When superheroes make a comeback, Kirby and Lee borrow elements from their earlier sci-fi stories, using the Space Race as a central plot device and putting things in trouble, Mr. Fantasy, the Invisible Woman and Human Torch against Space Invaders and the Huge Bliss of Bliss. The characters show emotional complexity and sometimes quarrel with colleagues while dealing with Quotidian challenges such as paying rent.
Instead of creating Spider-Man, Kirby painted the cover that introduced him (based on the similarities of artist Steve Ditko, Lee rejected). Incredible Hulk,,,,, The powerful Thor,,,,, Iron Man,,,,, Sgt. Nick Fury (For years, race has changed from white to black), X-Men,,,,, Ant man,,,,, Wasp Until 1967, many others bowed. the Avengers #1 brings together several of these characters in the earliest stirring of the Marvel Universe and revives the version of the war creation Captain America exist the Avengers #4, reflects the national psychological fear around the Vietnam War.
“It's a lot of work he's generated,” said Saunders. “We think his pre-war work is teenager and has more conscious cartoons about their traits. In the late forties, his style became more natural. He was closer to the perspective of realism and reality in building the lens.”
Release in July 1966 Fantastic Four #52 is King Wakada's coal tiger, well known Black Panther. Wakanda paved the way for today’s crucial movement with its state-of-the-art technology – Afforfordism. On display on Skirball is Black PantherThe costumes in the movie, along with replicas, show the first images of Wakanda.
“He gave up realism with more confidence. There was a period on miracles saying, 'Forget all this. I'm going to be an abstract expressionist'.” Just like that The dream machine and Jacob wrestled with Angels Represents the late departure of older artists. “If Kandinsky had a late drawing of a superhero comic, that would have looked like that.”
Kirby's formal embrace of collages has resulted in no other comics on the market. He began removing images from a bunch of Sunday supplements and magazines for visual memory. Jacob and the Angels It's an example of pure Kirby. Technology becomes divine. The chariot of the gods Jack Reading is definitely a book,” Sanders said. He was interested in the concepts that early humans could have encountered with technologically advanced foreigners.” In 1969, Kirby moved to DC Comics, moving his family from New York to Southern California, where he spent the rest of his life. 2001: Space Odyssey.
Design elements such as clothing and weapons illustrate the victory of the form, which includes features such as winged helmets, horn faces and decorative armor. His frame became Rococo in ornamental crowds, a work that spilled out of the book and spilled into the real world with his costume design for Shakespeare’s UC Santa Cruz production Julius Caesarone of them is the Skirball performance in particular. But his first passion is still a comic book. “He likes to be a cartoonist,” Sanders said. “He never lost confidence in what the media could do. Jack is a great artist who happened to draw comics.”
“Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humans“exist Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles until March 1, 2026.
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