#the king of comics

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

THE ART STYLE IS UNMISTAKABLE -- FROM THE MIND OF THE KING OF COMICS.

PIC INFO: Spotlight on concept art for the faux C.I.A. film "Argo," made when it was still an adaptation of sci-fi/fantasy novel, "Lord of Light," written by Roger Zelazny. Artwork by legendary comic book artist Jack "King" Kirby, c. 1978-'79.

Source: http://legacy.fanboyplanet.com/comics/mc-argojackkirby.php.

[kraken17]

From Instagram: jackkirbyart

[poppetsisters]

Hi, amateur Jack Kirby scholar here. While this is a great quote, I want to elaborate on Jack Kirby's political philosophy, because it's something I don't think anyone would've expected.

The quote this came from is Groth's legendary interview with Jack Kirby for The Comics Journal #134 (February 1990), published only four years before Kirby's death.

The context of the answer comes from Jack's opinion on the Senate Subcommittee Hearings:

GROTH: How did you feel about the Senate Subcommittee Hearings? Did you think that was a witch-hunt, or did you think there was any validity to the public’s concern? KIRBY: I didn’t feel one way or another about it. I was only hoping that it would come out well enough to continue comics, that it wouldn’t damage comics in anyway, so I could continue working. I was a young man. I was still growing out of the East Side. The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it.

This leads Groth to ask about Jack's opinion on communism.

KIRBY: Oh, communism! That was a burning issue. It was an outrageous issue. To be termed a communist would damage your whole family, damage your whole world — your friends wouldn’t talk to you. I’m talking about other people — because I wouldn’t go near the stuff. Sure, I was against the reds. I became a witch hunter. My enemies were the commies — I called them commies. In fact, Granny Goodness was a commie, Doubleheader was a commie. GROTH: What was it about communism that you didn’t like? KIRBY: Well, it was a radical concept to me. Like any other American, I wasn’t sophisticated enough to study all its facets. All I knew about it was it was foreign to democracy. And here I was, I had been fighting for democracy and always aware of two political parties and brought up in that kind of atmosphere. Anything radical was dangerous to me, as it was to the average American. Nobody knew where a thing like that would lead and we were always afraid of chaos. So communism became the doorway to chaos, and the doorway to chaos was the doorway to evil. Your family might be hurt. Your friends might be hurt. You didn’t want to see a thing like that.

Something about Jack's answer fascinates me to no end. Clearly he's made his stance that he doesn't like communism, but the reason why is the kicker! He doesn't actually know what communism is, in fact he's very self-aware that he doesn't understand it. He only seems to hate communism because of what happened to people that believe in it, which sounds more like he has a problem with how his society handled communism than the philosophy itself.

In fact, he has a lot more negative things to say about the man who initiated the witch hunts in the first place:

GROTH: How did you feel about McCarthy? KIRBY: I didn’t like McCarthy. I didn’t like his methods. I liked this other fellow — he was a gray-haired man from Maine I believe. He sat opposite McCarthy and challenged him. Walsh was his name.

Jack is likely referring to Joseph N. Welch, who is from Iowa, not Maine. Welch's question "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?", is seen as a turning point in the history of McCarthyism.

GROTH: Was he the one who asked McCarthy if he had no shame? KIRBY: Yes. He sounded more logical to me, more temperate. You didn’t feel like the stormtroopers were going to knock on your door the next day when you listened to this guy. When you listened to McCarthy, you knew they were going to drag you away, or your parents. McCarthy sounded like a threat, and if you didn’t fit certain specifications as an American —he laid down the specifications, he laid down the rules. That’s what put the fear into everybody, because all of us are afraid that we’re not going to fit certain rules. McCarthy put the fear of the devil into the entire public. When Walsh began to talk, he began to make sense. He talked not exactly like a statesman but a rational human being. McCarthy was a hunter. McCarthy didn’t care who he shot in the woods. But he was getting prestige. He wanted something, and he was going to get it any way he could even if he cut you down. Walsh wasn’t like that at all. Walsh was a man who discussed issues and who discussed McCarthy’s demeanor. Walsh was a guy who threw cold water on McCarthy and reminded him he was just a politician with just the ambitions of a politician, and he was never going to be a Hitler. It was reflected in the newspapers to me that the public was regaining its confidence because there was going to be chaos and that was a big fear.

It really does sound like Jack hated McCarthy more than he did Communism. Though Kirby admits to his lack of knowledge on communism, he has an excellent ear for fascism. I have to imagine Granny Goodness being a commie was more a reference to Joesph Stalin than anything else. In case there's still some doubt, Jack also drops this quote earlier in the interview

KIRBY: I knew this much — that everybody voted Democrat down my way. If you were poor, you voted Democrat and if you were rich you voted Republican.

So we've established that Kirby is, at the very least, left of centre, but Jack Kirby's production assistant and author of Kirby: The King of Comics, Mark Evanier, claims that he also had something to say about Objectivism.

This particular anecdote comes from the article A Failure To Communicate: Part Four by Mike Gartland, published in The Jack Kirby Collector #24 (April 1999):

According to Mark Evanier (based on conversations he had with Kirby), Jack originally intended for this storyline (Fantastic Four #67) to represent his take on the Objectivist philosophy. What Jack had read of Ayn Rand and had explained to him had gotten him to thinking about the philosophy and its pitfalls (some, of course, will dispute that there are pitfalls in it and that is their right), which led him to do a story about it. Jack probably did not consciously think, "Here's my answer to Ayn Rand"; his primary goal was, as always, to just write a good story. But in Jack's original story, the scientists are well-intentioned, with no evil plans. They are attempting to create a being totally self-sufficient, intellectually self-reliant; not encumbered by superstition, fear, or doubt; in short, a being based on Rand's absolutes. Of course such a being would be totally intolerant of those who created him; a truly Objectivistic being would not cope with the flaws in others.

As the article would go on to state, and what you would know from reading Fantastic Four #67, is that this plot never made it to print. To my knowledge, Kirby himself never confirmed nor denied the events described by Mark, but Evanier is one of the best secondary sources you could get on Jack Kirby's career, especially after 1969.

But nothing beats the man himself, and if you know Kirby, you know that he puts himself into his work constantly. Even if his words are edited by forces out of his control, his actions speak much louder. My advice: Find Kirby in his art, and the meaning between the panels.

[sunriseovergotham]

characters have to be a little bit awful in ways that you cant defend. its good for the ecosystem. your honor he did do that. He did in fact do that

[mild-goth-sauce]

An informational comic I drew last year for my Comics 2 class, reposting it to my new account (had to jump ship from the old one unfortunately) with some minor grammar changes and learned my lesson in adding watermarks! Happy early pride :)

[fckbatmanhiskidsareminenow]

multilingual batkids. they learn each others languages so they can mix and match. for example:

tim in french: have you figured out how we’re gonna tell b we’re not going to that gala yet?

damian in arabic: no i thought that was thomas’ job?

duke french: me? no jason said he’d do something

jason in arabic: hey don’t drag me into this!

dick in romani: i’m gonna kill him i really i am

steph in russian: who are we killing?

dick in english: ah! nobody! wait i didn’t know you spoke romani

tim in greek: you’re an asshole

jason in english: wait my greek is rusty say it again slowly

tim in greek: you’re an asshole

jason: …. you motherfucker

cass signing: nice drawing

damian in chinese: thank you

dick yelling at bruce about something he did

jason in spanish: what language is he speaking right now?

tim also in spanish: uh all of them i think

jason: does bruce even know-

tim: no he doesn’t

[sabertoothwalrus]

I wanted to revisit sock princess

[insomniphic]

What's your take on Odysseus's trauma and recovery back in Ithaca?

*looks at all the comics I made*

Lol but really, I realistically expect it to be severely rocky. He’ll have good days, mostly bad days, but what keeps him grounded is of course his family, you know?

But imagine losing your entire fleet under your command...

...only to come back to an entire population of thousands of people, expecting that you will lead them.

What if he fails again?

[mebssann]

local old man finally gets new clothes

[ashrayus]

ski trip ^_^

[stonelions]

i was thinking the other day how we tend to draw cas and dean (correctly tbh) like

but in doing so we are betraying another fundamental dynamic of theirs which is more like,

[katanasonata]

"please just order, I don't need to hear the backstory of your cactus allergy"

[ratective]

i think they would’ve let simon crash for some time after the series finale only to be faced with the devastating consequences of that decision

[proxycrit]

Linktober day 11: rollin’ inn

After a day fighting a volcano, the heroic group stumble back to the inn to take a Long Rest. Unfortunately for Link, his sleep is interrupted by mournful ghosts partying it up in his brain.

(Mineru and rauru were the last of their kind ever since the already small insular zonai kingdom was decimated by a strange, flesh bending plague. A lone miner found the two children, and decided to take them in despite concerns of the curse.

He raised them. When they asked him to help fight the source of their blood family’s extinction, who was he to say no?)

More about this totk au! (It all started when zelda did not get teleported into the past, and then spiraled from there)

Patreon!

[kyri45]

Best sibling dynamic ( a light-hearted updated given the latest news, stay safe everybody)

Shadowpeach Bio Parent AU (PREV / FIRST / NEXT

Next Update is coming on November 8 at 1PM ET

[enigmaris]

DPxDC idea that has been floating around my head for a few months now:

Gotham, given its whole... thing with Lazurus Pools and general bad vibes, has a ghostly representative. Lady Gotham, when she bothers to be coporeal, looks like an influential lady from the 1920s, straight art deco elegance. A real classy girl.

Jazz is touring college campuses around the US. She has full ride offers from Gotham University, Metroplis College, and Star City State, to name a few. Danny, upon hearing that his sister is going to GOTHAM of all cities, decides he is going on this trip with her. He might be only 15, but his big sister isn't getting mugged while he has half an afterlife left to live!

Lady Gotham is all a flutter! Why the last ghost king was so frumpy! King Phantom is so handsome and powerful, and he is coming to her city. She absolutely has to show off her best side! She feels like a teenaged girl getting her home ready before a new beau comes to visit. She's flustered, she's nervous.

Meanwhile, John Constatine wakes up with cosmic alarm bells going off because something really, really bad is happening. He investigates to dicsover that for the past three days Gotham has not had a single crime.

No murders, muggings, hell not even a single jay walker!

Gotham the most cursed place on the North Or South American continent is suddenly more squeaky clean than whatever small farm town Superman grew up in.

No crimes, no smog in the air. Crime Lords seemingly gone in a puff of smoke, Assassins asleep in their beds.

Its so freaky. Even Batman is spooked and he is never spooked by anything.

Constantine is certain some demon or other nefarious being is harnessing Gothams cursed energy for some evil plot. Gathering the power to use it like a nuclear blast. Batman is concerned about mass mind control.

Lady Gotham is doing the metaphysical equivalent of hiding all of your stuff in a closet before a guest comes over because you dont have time to actually clean. She had to shoulder the thing closed! She just knows that when the lock fails there will be a huge mess.

Jazz and her family are just surprised about how nice Gotham U's campus is. She'd heard it was so dark and dangerous, but everyone is smiling and pleasant to her! Danny is just happy Jazz is safe from various villains.

So we have Batman investigating his rogues gallery for mind control plots, Constatine hunting for demons, Jazz and her family taking a walking tour of Gotham U, and Lady Gotham using every bit of her ghostly powers to make sure her damned, cursed city doesnt embarrass her in front of her crush!