Top 15 Jack Kirby Quotes

Darkseid constitutes the kind of men Kirby was acquainted with in his youth. The slum lords, made famous in Will Eisner’s A Contract With God, were men (perhaps women?) with agendas. They operated on morals dictated by their business mindset. The cost of rent, the living conditions, and the quality of life they allowed for their tenants was in line with their standards. To them, that standard was appropriate. To call them “evil” or “unethical” is an inaccurate assessment. They were gods within the worlds they created.

There was power in the work of Jack Kirby that changed the way I looked at things. There was no one else like him and there never will be.

He created a new grammar of storytelling and a cinematic style of motion. Once-wooden characters cascaded from one frame to another—or even from page to page—threatening to fall right out of the book into the reader's lap. The force of punches thrown was visibly and explosively evident. Even at rest, a Kirby character pulsed with tension and energy in a way that makes movie versions of the same characters seem static by comparison. The frenetic action and the rooftop fighting so common on the superhero set did not just materialize out of nowhere. Mr. Kirby remembered much of it from his Depression-era youth on New York’s Lower East Side, where, he once told an interviewer, the incessant fights among rival gangs were often staged up and down fire escapes and during running battles across tenement rooftops.

Jack’s aliens did not look like anyone else’s aliens. They were dangerous with “alieness.” His characters in general, alien or human, posed with drama. There was something alive, almost sinister, about the locations he drew, whether it was the swamp where the alien craft first landed, or the boarding house where the chase finally ended. Even the coloring was strange, full of raw hues and knockouts where one color was washed over most of a panel, like a raw spotlight shining on the scene. Most of all, the work was vital, bursting with energy even in those panels where characters were merely standing around. And if they were in motion, they moved with authority. It was like no other comic book I had ever seen. In microcosm, that was the genius of Jack Kirby. He was like no other artist who worked in comics, a uniquely gifted individual who brought a new sensibility and a fire to the art and storytelling of American comic books, a fire that burns to this day. I’m happy to say I’m still learning from him.

I loved Jack's work and the first time I saw it I couldn't believe what I was seeing. He asked if we could do some freelance work together. I was delighted and I took him over to my little office. We worked from the second issue of Blue Bolt through ... about 25 years.

…Jack took a call. A voice on the other end said, ‘There are three of us down here in the lobby. We want to see the guy who does this disgusting comic book and show him what real Nazis would do to his Captain America’. To the horror of others in the office, Kirby rolled up his sleeves and headed downstairs. The callers, however, were gone by the time he arrived.

Jack Kirby—co-creator of the Marvel Universe and big chunks of DC’s—remains one of the most influential writer/artists in the history of comics. Many of Kirby’s works involve the fight against fascism, embodied in characters such as Doctor Doom and the Red Skull. This wasn’t just an imaginary battle for Kirby, who killed Nazis in World War II and was ready to throw down with any fascists he encountered stateside. Many people have fought for freedom in the military; many others have done it through art. Few have waged the war for freedom on two fronts quite like Kirby.

I can’t get over this guy. He creates 100 villains at a sitting and then kills off half of them. Any one of these villains I can make a million off of.

My favorite thing about Kirby’s artwork was his storytelling. He was really a film director doing comics.

His real dream was to make movies.

Unlike other comic book creators who were given either stateside or way-behind-lines assignments, and perhaps because Kirby understood Yiddish, the Jewish German dialect spoken by his family, he was sent as a scout behind enemy lines to draw maps. He endured and survived many harrowing violent experiences during his service, almost losing his feet to trench foot. He had no time for fascists or racists.

Even when he was given someone else's idea, he would build it into something unbelievable and new, like a man who was asked to repair a vacuum cleaner but instead built it into a functioning jet pack.

Jack didn’t have the resources or the stomach lining to fight Marvel over copyrights, character ownership or past contractual sleights that he believed he suffered.

Jack Kirby’s massive contributions to comics are common knowledge. His influential pulp-epic motifs. The revolutionary dynamism of his art. But here I’d like to talk about a more specific set of “King” Kirby’s innovations—his use of “minority” protagonists. Whether stressing the multi-ethnic makeup of America or revising racist preconceptions of Africa, Kirby’s work challenged comics’ unremarked upon WASPiness and white supremacy in quiet and not-so-quiet ways.

…I don’t think there was one state that wasn’t represented there. The experience helped me appreciate the variety of the country, in the people, the language, and culture. It is incredible to think that we are as diverse as we are and how we have held together as one culture. Really, it is the one clear fact of this country that makes it unique to the world.