Well, this suuuuuuuucks. 2020 is making Apokolips look like Chocolate Cake Land. So who’s up for some distraction? As with life, when it comes to the massive career of Jack Kirby, it’s the little things that can mean the most. Here’s a smattering of some of those little things — little being relative, since this…
KIRBYOLOGY!: Peanut, Dumpling, and Big Daddy
Who needs Small, Medium, and Large when Jack Kirby gave us Peanut, Dumpling, and Big Daddy? … So I’m going to be talking about Jack Kirby at a conference for word nerds. In January, I’ll be taking a trip to New Orleans for the American Name Society’s annual conference and giving a presentation called “Baron…
KIRBYOLOGY!: Warren Ellis’s KARNAK and a Reminder to Not be the Worst
I have a superpower of sorts. I can look at anything — a crowded coffee shop, a walk in the park with my dog, a conversation with a neighbor, a ride down the elevator, or just the creaky process of getting up in the morning — and immediately predict, in great detail, how it’s going…
KIRBYOLOGY!: Charles Glaubitz, Dickheads, and STARSEEDS
A while back I talked to Charles Glaubitz about his ongoing cosmic epic Starseeds, which has been published in two volumes so far. Here’s part two of our talk, with more of Glaubitz’s thoughts on his quantum work, Jack Kirby, and penis hats. Glaubitz’s approach to the concept of starseeds is opposed to what you’ll…
KIRBYOLOGY!: The Most Prophetic of Jack Kirby’s Orange Monsters
Jack Kirby’s comics are, often literally, a punch to the face of fascism. Some of those punches, inspired by Kirby’s harrowing experience as an army scout in World War II, flew into the future, catching America’s current top fascist squarely in the jaw. As Elana Levin discussed for The Daily Beast, anti-life evangelist Glorious Godfrey…
KIRBYOLOGY!: The Sheer Energy of That Hammering of Mad and Beautiful Ideas
Understatement alert: Jack Kirby’s career was characterized by an excess of ideas. Giants of the Promethean Galaxy! An epic beginning with an epilogue! The first romance comic! The Silver Surfer! The Black Racer! Paranex the Fighting Fetus! MODOK! Home Geneticus! Odin’s hats! The pinnacle of that excess, I reckon, was the 1970s, when Kirby was…
KIRBYOLOGY!: Jack Kirby’s Gigantic, Inspiring Imagination
Jack Kirby thought big — literally. Some of Kirby’s most memorable characters were space giants, sea monsters, orange freaks, and cosmic colossuses that towered over his other characters, who weren’t exactly teacup poodles. But even Ben Grimm is an ant compared to Galactus. I feel small lately. 2018 has been a parade of small minds, nonexistent…
KIRBYOLOGY!: The Glory of Jack Kirby and Geof Darrow’s Mad Machinery
My favorite comic artists are Jack Kirby (duh) and Geof Darrow. Aside from their prodigious, unearthly imaginations, they wouldn’t seem to have a lot in common — though they did share a workplace for a while, toiling in animation for Hanna-Barbera. The experience wasn’t a creative peak for either, athough it honed Darrow’s skills and…
KIRBYOLOGY!: Holy Krackle! 9 Jack Kirby-Inspired Religions
Like so many smug liberal snowflakes, I hate religion. Not that I want to. My inner abyss is as bottomless as a cup of diner coffee. I’d love to fill it with something other than beer and comics. And maybe someday I will. Some folks have sustained brain damage that made them more religious afterwards,…
KIRBYOLOGY!: Walter Simonson and His Irrepressible, Cosmic, Fantastic Four
Walter Simonson is, by any measure, one of the greatest comic book creators ever. He also might be the best post-Kirby creator on Kirby’s best creations: especially on Thor in the 80s and Orion in the early aughts. Both runs are classics. For my money, which I spend on too many comics, I don’t think…
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