The exquisite draughtsman!

Jack Kirby was an amazing artist, a creative writer and a ground breaking editor. But to me he was an  exquisite draughtsman. His style changed with time as every artist would, but his skill as a story teller was always constant. For me the height of his mountain of work was during is Fantastic Four period, from the wedding of Read and Sue in Fantastic Four Annual #3 October 1965, with Vince Colletta inking his work, to his last full work on that comic book in Fantastic Four #102 September 1970, with inks supplied by Joe Sinnott. His last work for the FF was parts of an unfinished strip, finished of by John Buscema and John Romita SR published in Fantastic Four #108 March 1971.

To prove my point just take a look at the above picture of the Fantastic Car from December 1968, in a story called "Enter..the exquisite elemental!" issue number 81. Although my picture is taken from the black and white Fantastic Four pocket book #18 from MarvelUK in 1981, to fully show the clearness of the great man's work. This story was, as always written by the legend Stan Lee, with Joe Sinnott inking Kirby's work. During this period the king would love big splash pages, action scenes, futuristic gadgets and stylish heroes. This page has it all. The Fantastic Car fills the page as it plummets downward to join the action from a great height. By far the best design of the fab four's flying bathtub. He uses sharp lines to give the impression of speed. Again these sharp lines are used to make the metal fuselage look shiny and sleek. The background is a cityscape full of boxes and square lines, a very modern city. But this isn't draw square on to the Fantastic Car, but at a slight angle again to give urgency to the vehicles flight. The very muscular Read Richards with hair blowing in the wind pilots the craft, Crystal sits at the rear with perfect hair looking beautiful and Ben Grimm on one side pointing to where the action is. Speech bubbles bounce around the panel.with snappy dialogue from Stan Lee filling in the story with banter and techno jargon aplenty. If you could tell a story in one panel this is how it would be done. Not a millimetre of space wasted.

 I always tried to draw like Jack Kirby. I used his shapes, his layouts, his male and female body forms. I'm  a poor artist, not because the technic was wrong, but because there aren't many artists in the same class as the Kirby. Some come very close, like John Byrne, John Buscema, John Romtia, Jim Steranko, Neal Adams, Barry Smith, George Perez, Alan Davis and maybe some more, but there is only one King!

Make Mine Marvel.