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Joined: May 2003
Posts: 9,769
cookie monster 7500+ posts
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OP
cookie monster 7500+ posts
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 9,769 |
Interesting op-ed piece in the NYT... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/opinion/26sun3.html?_r=1&oref=sloginEditorial Observer Jack Kirby, a Comic Book Genius, Is Finally Remembered By BRENT STAPLES Published: August 26, 2007 The fear of being forgotten after death is endemic in the creative arts. In the case of the iconic comic book artist Jack Kirby, it happened while he was still alive. By the 1960s, Mr. Kirby had already revolutionized the comic book business more than once. Working as principal artist and in-house genius for Marvel, he created a voice and an aesthetic unmatched by any other company. Marvel took his talents for granted and denied him the credit and compensation he clearly deserved. Worse, he was overshadowed by his loquacious and photogenic collaborator, Stan Lee, who became the public face of an enterprise that depended heavily on Mr. Kirby’s skills. Mr. Kirby eventually quit, leaving behind characters like the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and the Silver Surfer, and ending what was easily the most fruitful collaboration in comic book history. His long and ugly battle with Marvel over the rights to his original artwork galvanized the artistic community and raised his public profile. Still, by the time of his death in 1994, he was clearly worried that Mr. Lee would eclipse him in public memory and that history would deny him the recognition he deserved for breathing life into a collection of universally recognized superheroes who would eventually become movie stars. History was late to the party, but it finally arrived. Thanks to renewed interest in Mr. Kirby’s work — and shout-outs from novelists like Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem — he is more widely known today than he was in the 1960s. Back then, those of us who read him haunted newsstands and drugstores, ripping each new issue right out of the deliveryman’s hands. Two books, including a long-awaited biography, are in the works, and the reprint industry is threatening to resurrect everything Mr. Kirby ever produced. He was introduced to a broader public just last month when the United States Postal Service issued 20 stamps depicting Marvel characters. The images seemed deliberately chosen to maximize Marvel’s marketing opportunities. Even so, Mr. Kirby is credited on eight of the stamps and could have been credited on several more. After all, he did at least some work on nearly every major character Marvel produced. Mr. Kirby did a lot more than just draw. As the critic Gary Groth so ably put it in The Comics Journal Library, “He barreled like a freight train through the first 50 years of comic books like he owned the place.” He mastered and transformed all the genres, including romance, Westerns, science fiction and supernatural comics, before he landed at Marvel. 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. In a recent interview, his friend and biographer Mark Evanier described Mr. Kirby as a man so obsessed with giving voice to the characters that he had to give up just about everything else. He put aside driving, Mr. Evanier said, because he became so distracted that he would sometimes run off the road. Once he got a book plotted in his head he’d sit at the drafting table around the clock if necessary. With a fixation like that, he easily outproduced even his most prolific contemporaries. With interest in Mr. Kirby growing — and his characters already marching across the screen — a movie of his life is clearly in order. Properly handled, the film could give an abused and neglected genius his full due while offering a fascinating glimpse into one of the most vibrant and creative eras in pop cultural history.
Dear, sweet Harley Kwink...I'm madly in love with you. Marry me! We can go to Canadia. Or Boston or something. It'll be grand...You know the cookies are a given. They are ALWAYS a given. You could dump me tomorrow and you'd still get the cookies. Boston..shit, wherever dyke weddings were legalized. And where better to rub their little piggie noses in how bad they suck than right on their doorstep? What are they gonna do? Be jealous of you? Stare furiously at your tah-tahs? Not willingly give you cookies, but instead begrudgingly give you their cookies? Woman, time to wake up to the powers you wield - Uschi
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Joined: May 2003
Posts: 19,633
I walk in eternity 15000+ posts
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I walk in eternity 15000+ posts
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 19,633 |
Great article on Jack Kirby, Harley... thank you.
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 47,810 Likes: 2
Hip To Be Square 15000+ posts
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Hip To Be Square 15000+ posts
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 47,810 Likes: 2 |
When did anyone forget about Kirby? God knows I've tried though!
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Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 2,900
notnotnotnotnotnotnotwedge 2500+ posts
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notnotnotnotnotnotnotwedge 2500+ posts
Joined: Jan 2003
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Interesting op-ed piece in the NYT... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/opinion/26sun3.html?_r=1&oref=sloginEditorial Observer Jack Kirby, a Comic Book Genius, Is Finally Remembered By BRENT STAPLES Published: August 26, 2007 The fear of being forgotten after death is endemic in the creative arts. In the case of the iconic comic book artist Jack Kirby, it happened while he was still alive. By the 1960s, Mr. Kirby had already revolutionized the comic book business more than once. Working as principal artist and in-house genius for Marvel, he created a voice and an aesthetic unmatched by any other company. Marvel took his talents for granted and denied him the credit and compensation he clearly deserved. Worse, he was overshadowed by his loquacious and photogenic collaborator, Stan Lee, who became the public face of an enterprise that depended heavily on Mr. Kirby’s skills. Mr. Kirby eventually quit, leaving behind characters like the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and the Silver Surfer, and ending what was easily the most fruitful collaboration in comic book history. His long and ugly battle with Marvel over the rights to his original artwork galvanized the artistic community and raised his public profile. Still, by the time of his death in 1994, he was clearly worried that Mr. Lee would eclipse him in public memory and that history would deny him the recognition he deserved for breathing life into a collection of universally recognized superheroes who would eventually become movie stars. History was late to the party, but it finally arrived. Thanks to renewed interest in Mr. Kirby’s work — and shout-outs from novelists like Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem — he is more widely known today than he was in the 1960s. Back then, those of us who read him haunted newsstands and drugstores, ripping each new issue right out of the deliveryman’s hands. Two books, including a long-awaited biography, are in the works, and the reprint industry is threatening to resurrect everything Mr. Kirby ever produced. He was introduced to a broader public just last month when the United States Postal Service issued 20 stamps depicting Marvel characters. The images seemed deliberately chosen to maximize Marvel’s marketing opportunities. Even so, Mr. Kirby is credited on eight of the stamps and could have been credited on several more. After all, he did at least some work on nearly every major character Marvel produced. Mr. Kirby did a lot more than just draw. As the critic Gary Groth so ably put it in The Comics Journal Library, “He barreled like a freight train through the first 50 years of comic books like he owned the place.” He mastered and transformed all the genres, including romance, Westerns, science fiction and supernatural comics, before he landed at Marvel. 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. In a recent interview, his friend and biographer Mark Evanier described Mr. Kirby as a man so obsessed with giving voice to the characters that he had to give up just about everything else. He put aside driving, Mr. Evanier said, because he became so distracted that he would sometimes run off the road. Once he got a book plotted in his head he’d sit at the drafting table around the clock if necessary. With a fixation like that, he easily outproduced even his most prolific contemporaries. With interest in Mr. Kirby growing — and his characters already marching across the screen — a movie of his life is clearly in order. Properly handled, the film could give an abused and neglected genius his full due while offering a fascinating glimpse into one of the most vibrant and creative eras in pop cultural history.
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notnotnotnotnotnotnotwedge 2500+ posts
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By the way, that was my first post in the forum I'm supposedly modding since July 11th. Just thought I'd point that out.
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Kisser Of John Byrne Ass 15000+ posts
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Kisser Of John Byrne Ass 15000+ posts
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I'd also like to point out we didn't miss you, or realize you were gone...well, in all honesty I can only speak for myself.
Because that's my opinion....hah.
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notnotnotnotnotnotnotwedge 2500+ posts
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notnotnotnotnotnotnotwedge 2500+ posts
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Why don't you go kiss John Byrne's ass you...
...John Byrne ass Kisser!
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devil-lovin' Bat-Man 15000+ posts
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devil-lovin' Bat-Man 15000+ posts
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KISSER OF JOHN BYRNE ASS!
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Joined: Dec 2000
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devil-lovin' Bat-Man 15000+ posts
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devil-lovin' Bat-Man 15000+ posts
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Piggie, you're welcome for the new user title.
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Kisser Of John Byrne Ass 15000+ posts
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Kisser Of John Byrne Ass 15000+ posts
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Posts: 12,912
Kneel! 10000+ posts
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Kneel! 10000+ posts
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big_pimp_tim-made it cool to roll in the first damn place! Mon Jun 11 2007 09:27 PM- harley finally rolled with me "I'm working with him...he's young but, there is much potential. He can apprentice with me and then he's yours for final training. He will remember the face of his father... Some day, Knutreturns just may be the greatest of us all...."-THE bastard
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Hip To Be Square 15000+ posts
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Hip To Be Square 15000+ posts
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I'm just sayin' 10000+ posts
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I'm just sayin' 10000+ posts
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It's a dog eat dog world & I'm wearing milkbone underwear.
I can get you a toe.
1,999,999+ points.
Damn you and your lemonade!!
Booooooooooooooobs.
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