I wish I could say that Kirby was an influence of mine from early on. Unfortunately, when I was a kid, I thought of him as an old, lower tier artist. It wasn't until college, when I started reading more about the creation and origin of comics that Kirby's glamor started to make any sense.
Kirby wasn't the best draftsman. If you wanted realism, Kirby was not your man. What he lacked in fidelity, he made up for in dynamic layout and fantastic spreads. Kirby didn't recreate life. Kirby reinvented life. He turned the boring and mundane into the bold and miraculous. His pages were crammed with more cosmic action and divine adventure than even modern cinema can recreate. To read but a panel is to get pulled into a wondrous world of of gods and monsters. The art from his hand is like a trap meant to capture the imagination.
Yet he wasn't an artist.
Jack Kirby did not view himself as an artist. Rather, he saw himself as a husband and a father, working to provide for his family. He would start at the top right corner of his drafting paper and draw until he reached the bottom left corner. He didn't work to create pieces of art, he worked to create a life for his family. In doing so, he was able to save the comics industry and reinvent it over and over again, over generations. Kirby was not obsessed with one particular genre of worked, but told stories that touched upon both the earth and the heavens. His street characters showed the grace of gods, while his gods possessed the fallibility of men. His influence can still be felts generations later amongst artists the world over.
Jack Kirby wasn't an artist.
He was a god among men who worked for the betterment of others.
Lesson Learned: Hard work and persistence pays off.
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