Jack Kirby

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Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg; ; August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994) was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators.

He grew up in New York City, and learned to draw cartoon figures by tracing characters from comic strips and editorial cartoons.

He entered the nascent comics industry in the 1930s, drawing various comics features under different pen names, including Jack Curtiss, before ultimately settling on Jack Kirby.

In 1940, he and writer-editor Joe Simon created the highly successful superhero character Captain America for Timely Comics, predecessor of Marvel Comics.

During the 1940s Kirby regularly teamed with Simon, creating numerous characters for that company and for National Comics Publications, later to become DC Comics. After serving in the European Theater in World War II, Kirby produced work for DC Comics, Harvey Comics, Hillman Periodicals and other publishers.

At Crestwood Publications, he and Simon created the genre of romance comics and later founded their own short-lived comic company, Mainline Publications.

Early life (1917–1935)

Jack Kirby was born Jacob Kurtzberg on August 28, 1917, at 147 Essex Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, where he was raised. His parents, Rose (Bernstein) and Benjamin Kurtzberg, were Austrian-Jewish immigrants, and his father earned a living as a garment factory worker. In his youth, Kirby desired to escape his neighborhood. He liked to draw, and sought out places he could learn more about art. Essentially self-taught, Kirby cited among his influences the comic strip artists Milton Caniff, Hal Foster, and Alex Raymond, as well as such editorial cartoonists as C.H. Sykes, "Ding" Darling, and Rollin Kirby. He was rejected by the Educational Alliance because he drew "too fast with charcoal", according to Kirby. He later found an outlet for his skills by drawing cartoons for the newspaper of the Boys Brotherhood Republic, a "miniature city" on East 3rd Street where street kids ran their own government.

At age 14, Kirby enrolled at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, leaving after a week. "I wasn't the kind of student that Pratt was looking for. They wanted people who would work on something forever. I didn't want to work on any project forever. I intended to get things done".

Personal life and death

In the early 1940s, Kirby and his family moved to Brooklyn. There, Kirby met Rosalind "Roz" Goldstein, who lived in the same apartment building. The pair began dating soon afterward. Kirby proposed to Goldstein on her 18th birthday, and the two became engaged. They married on May 23, 1942. The couple had four children together: Susan (b. December 6, 1945), Neal (b. May 1948), Barbara (b. November 1952), and Lisa (b. September 1960).

After being drafted into the U.S. Army and serving in the European Theater in World War II, Kirby corresponded with his wife regularly by v-mail, with Roz sending daily letters while she worked in a lingerie shop and lived with her mother at 2820 Brighton 7th Street in Brooklyn. During the winter of 1944, Kirby suffered severe frostbite and was taken to a hospital in London for recovery. Doctors considered amputating Kirby's legs, which had turned black, but he eventually recovered and was able to walk again. He returned to the United States in January 1945, assigned to Camp Butner in North Carolina, where he spent the last six months of his service as part of the motor pool. Kirby was honorably discharged as a private first class on July 20, 1945, having received a Combat Infantryman Badge, a European/African/Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with a bronze Battle Star.

In 1949, Kirby bought a house for his family in Mineola, New York, on Long Island. This would be the family's home for the next 20 years, with Kirby working out of a basement studio just 10 feet (3.0 m) wide, which the family referred to jocularly as "The Dungeon". He moved the family to Southern California in early 1969, both to live in a drier climate for the sake of daughter Lisa's health, and to be closer to the Hollywood studios Kirby believed might provide work.

In an interview, Kirby's granddaughter Jillian Kirby said Kirby was a "liberal Democrat".

On February 6, 1994, Kirby died at age 76 of heart failure in his Thousand Oaks, California, home. He was buried at Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village, California.

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Career

Kirby joined the Lincoln Newspaper Syndicate in 1936, assisting in newspaper comic strips and single-panel advice cartoons such as "Your Health Comes First!" (Under the pseudonym Jack Curtiss). He continued until late 1939, when he began working with Fleischer Studios as an inbetweener (an artist who fills in the action between major motion frames) on Popeye cartoons at the same time in 1935. He left the studio before the 1935 Fleischer strike. He went from Lincoln to Fleischer, "I went from Lincoln to Fleischer." "I had to get out in a hurry because I couldn't take that sort of thing," Fleischer founder Ed Miliband called it "a factory in a sense, like my father's." These were industrial pictures," they said.

Around that time, the American comic book industry was burgeoning. Kirby started writing and drawing for Eisner & Iger, one of a handful of companies making comics on demand for publishers. Kirby did what he remembered as his first comic book work for Wild Boy Magazine through the company. This includes strips from "The Diary of Dr. Hayward" (as Fred Sande), the Western crimefighter feature "Wilton of the West" (as Jack Curtiss), "The Count of Monte Cristo" (as Jim Watson), and "Socko the Seadog" (as Teddy), all of which were intended for Jumbo Comics and other Eisner-Iger customers. In two "Lone Rider" Western stories in Eastern Color Printing's Famous Funnies #63–64, he first used the surname Kirby as the pseudonymous Lance Kirby. (Oct.–Nov.) (1939-1939) He eventually settled on the pen name Jack Kirby because it reminded him of actor James Cagney. However, he took offense to those who suggested he change his name to cover up his Jewish roots.

Kirby moved on to comic-book publisher and newspaper syndicator Fox Feature Syndicate, earning a then-healthy $15-a-week salary. With the comic strip The Blue Beetle, which was released from January to March 1940, starring a character created by pseudonymous Charles Nicholas, a house name that Kirby retained for the three-month strip. During this period, Kirby met and began working with cartoonist and Fox editor Joe Simon, who in addition to his regular duties, went freelance. "I loved Jack's work, and the first time I saw it, I couldn't believe what I was seeing," Simon said in 1988. He wondered if we could do some freelance work together. I was thrilled and I led him to my tiny office. We went from the second issue of Blue Bolt to... about 25 years.

After leaving Fox and collaborating on the first issue of Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel Adventures ([March] 1941), the first solo title for the previously unknown superhero, and in which Kirby was forced to imitate creator C.C., C.C. Beck's drawing style was used by the pair, who were recruited on staff at pulp magazine publisher Martin Goodman's Timely Comics (later to become Marvel Comics). In late 1940, Simon and Kirby created Captain America, the patriotic superheroe. Simon, the company's editor, and Kirby as art director, said he and Goodman worked together to give the duo 25% of the film's earnings. The first issue of Captain America Comics, which was released in early 1941, sold out in days, and the second issue's print run was limited to over a million copies. The team's success established them as a leading creative force in the market. Since the first issue was revealed, Simon asked Kirby to join the Timely staff as the company's art director.

Simon said he was disappointed that Goodman was not paying the two of them the promised percentage of income and that he had to find jobs for them at National Comics Publications (later renamed DC Comics). Kirby and Simon negotiated a contract that would pay them a total of $500 per week, as opposed to the $80 and $85 they earned at Timely. Both the pair feared that if they were going to National, Goodman would not pay them, but many people were aware of them, including Timely editorial assistant Stan Lee. When Goodman eventually discovered it, he told Simon and Kirby that after finishing work on Captain America Comics #10 he'd better leave. Kirby was bitterly convinced it was precisely Lee who betrayed them, refusing Simon's pledge to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Kirby and Simon spent their first weeks at National trying to produce new characters while the company searched for how to use the pair. National's Jack Liebowitz told them to "just do what you want" after a few failed editor-assigned ghosting jobs. The pair then reimagined the Sandman story in Adventure Comics and created the superhero Manhunter. The Boy Commandos feature debuted in July 1942. The ongoing "kid gang" series of the same name, which was launched later this year, was the creative team's first National feature to be recognized as such a distinct entity. It was the National's third best-selling product of the month and has sold over a million copies per month. They had a success with the Newsboy Legion, a homefront kid-gang group that appeared in Star-Spangled Comics. "Like Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Joe Shuster's creative team, was a mark of quality and a proven track record," DC Comics writer and executive Paul Levitz said in 2010.

Liebowitz predicted that Simon and Kirby would be drafted, so he asked the artists to create an inventory of data that would be published in their absence. In order to produce a year's worth of content, the pair recruited writers, inkers, letterers, and colorists. Kirby was first drafted into the US Army in 1943. He was drafted into Company F of the 11th Infantry Regiment after basic training at Camp Stewart, near Savannah, Georgia. On August 23, 1944, two months after D-Day, he landed on Omaha Beach, Normandy, but Kirby's reminiscences would place him just 10 days later. Kirby recalled that a lieutenant who learned that comedian Kirby was in his service made him a scout who would travel into towns and draw reconnaissance maps and photos, which was an extremely dangerous job.

Simon and Kirby worked at Harvey Comics, where the duo created Boy Explorers Comics, the kid-gang Western Boys' Ranch, the superhero comic Stuntman, and Captain 3-D, as well as Crestwood Publications (Justice Traps the Guilty).

By making romance comics, the team found the greatest success in the postwar period. Simon, inspired by Macfadden Publications' romantic-confession publication True Story, transplanted the concept to comic books, and with Kirby created a first-issue mock-up of Young Romance. Simon, who was hosting it, begged for half of the comic's earnings. Teddy Epstein and Mike Bleier, a Crestwood publisher, decided, stipulating that the creators will receive no money up front. Young Romance #1 (cover date Oct. 1947) "became Jack and Joe's biggest hit in years" "Because Jack and Joe's biggest hit in years" Crestwood was compelled to raise the print run by the third issue to triple the initial number of copies by the pioneering title's 92% print run. Young Romance's initial bimonthly debut and created the spin-off Young Love, earning two million copies per month, according to Simon; the two titles were later joined by Young Brides and In Love, the two "featuring full-length romance novels." Hundreds of imitators from publishers such as Timely, Fawcett, Quality, and Fox Feature Syndicate spawned young Romance. Despite the abundance, the Simon and Kirby romance books continued to sell millions of copies per month.

I'm sorry that Timely Comics' 1950s iteration, Atlas Comics, had revived Captain America in a new series in 1954. Kirby and Simon created Battle American. "We hoped we'd show them how to do Captain America," Simon said. Although the comic book had originally depicted the hero as an anti-Communist dramatic hero, Simon and Kirby turned the story into a superhero satire in the aftermath of the Army-McCarthy hearings and a public condemnation of the Red-baiting U.S.'s banging. Senator Joseph McCarthy McCarthy McCarthy (Richard McCarthy) was the subject of an interview.

Kirby and Simon, a Crestwood salesman, formed Mainline Publications, securing a distribution deal with Leader News in late 1953 or early 1954, subletting space from Al Harvey's Harvey Publications at 1860 Broadway, at the urging of a Crestwood salesman. The Western Bullseye: Western Scout; the war comic Foxhole because EC Comics and Atlas Comics were having success with war comics; and the crime comic Police Trap, which appeared to be based on real data submitted by law enforcement officials, were among the four mainline's favorites. Crestwood refused to compensate the team after the pair rearranged and republished artwork from an old Crestwood story in In Love, and the team requested an investigation into Crestwood's finances. The pair's lawyers said that the company owes them $130,000 for services carried out over the previous seven years during their review. Crestwood paid them $10,000 in comparison to their recent delayed payments. Kirby and Simon's relationship had been strained. Simon left the field for a career in advertising, while Kirby went freelance. In 1971, Kirby recalled, "He wanted to do other things and I stuck with comics." "It was fine." There was no reason to continue the relationship, but we parted friends."

Kirby made a brief return to Timely Comics, now known as Atlas Comics, during which time Marvel Comics was the direct predecessor of Marvel Comics. Inker Frank Giacoia had contacted editor-in-chief Stan Lee for help and told him that he might "get Kirby back here to pencil some stuff." Kirby drew 20 stories for Atlas from 1956 to 1957, beginning with the five-page "Mine Field" in Battleground #14 (Nov. 1954), Kirby penciled in several cases (with his wife, Roz) and wrote stories about the Western hero Black Rider, the Fu Manchu-like Yellow Claw, and others, among other topics. However, distribution difficulties in 1957 caused the "Atlas implosion" to be cancelled in several series and no new material was released for many months. It will be the following year before Kirby returned to the nascent Marvel.

In Showcase #6 (Feb. 1957), Kirby co-created with writers Dick and Dave Wood the non-power adventuring quartet The Challengers of the Unknown, a non-superpowered adventuring team, while contributing to such anthologies as House of Mystery. Kirby drew barely more than 600 pages in World's Finest Comics and Adventure Comics, which included 11 six-page Green Arrow stories. In a rare occurrence, Kirby inked himself during 30 months freelancing for DC. Kirby recasts the archer as a science-fiction hero, pulling him away from his Batman-formula roots but leaving Green Arrow co-creator Mort Weisinger alienated him.

He started drawing Sky Masters of the Space Force, a newspaper comic strip created by the Wood brothers and initially inked by the unrelated Wally Wood. Kirby resigned from National Comics Publications as a result of a labor dispute in which editor Jack Schiff, who had been instrumental in getting Kirby and the Wood brothers the Sky Masters contract, said he was due to royalties from Kirby's share of the strip's earnings. Schiff successfully sued Kirby. Some DC journalists had chastised him for lack of drawing "the shoelaces on a cavalryman's boots" and picturing a Native American "mounting his horse from the wrong side."

Kirby began freelancing for Atlas several months after his time in Washington, D.C., and Kirby, who had been harbouring pessimistic thoughts about Stan Lee (the cousin of Timely publisher Martin Goodman's wife), who Kirby, who at the time told Timely that he and Simon were secretly working on a National project. Kirby will spend 12 to 14 hours a day at his drawing table at home, creating four to five pages of artwork a day, due to poor page rates. In Strange Worlds #1, his first published work at Atlas was the front page of and the seven-page story "I Discovered the Secret of the Flying Saucers." Kirby began with Christopher Rule as his regular inker, and later Dick Ayers, but later evolved into a line of supernatural-fantasy and science fiction stories starring giant, drive-in monsters like Groot, the Thing from Planet X; Grottu, King of the Insects; and Fin Fang Foom for the company's numerous anthology series, including Amazing Adventures, Strange Tales, Tales of Suspense, and World of Fantasy His bizarre, unearthly creatures' designs were a hit among readers. In addition, he worked for Archie Comics for a short time, reuniting briefly with Joe Simon to help develop the series The Fly and The Double Life of Private Strong. In addition, Kirby appeared in Classics Illustrated.

As artist Gil Kane described:

The Hulk, Thor, the X-Men, Magneto, Doctor Doom, Uatu the Watcher, Ego the Watcher, the Inhumans and their undefinable city of Attilan, comics' first black superhero, and Wakanda are among Kirby's highlights from his time as the Black Panther, the comics' first black superhero. Kirby was originally meant to pencil the first Spider-Man tale, but Lee recalled, "I hated the way he was doing it." Not that he did it wrong; it wasn't that bad; it just wasn't the type I wanted; it was too heroic." 12 Lee then turned to Steve Ditko to write the tale that would be published in Amazing Fantasy #15, for which Kirby also penciled in the pages. Several of Lee and Kirby's newly created characters were mixed into the team name The Avengers, which would bring back old characters from the 1940s like the Sub-Mariner and Captain America. Lee and Kirby will contest who deserved praise for such as The Fantastic Four's in later years.

In Fantastic Four #48-50 (March–May 1966), chronicling the arrival of Galactus, a cosmic giant who wanted to conquer the planet and his herald, the Silver Surfer, is often quoted as Lee and Kirby's finest achievement. In the 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time poll of Marvel's readers in 2001, Fantastic Four #48 was ranked as #48. "As the fourth year of the Fantastic Four came to an end, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby seemed to be just warming up." Editor Robert Greenberger wrote in his introduction to the tale. In retrospect, it was certainly the most fetorial period of any monthly title during the Marvel Age." Les Daniels, a comics scholar, said, "[t]he mystical and metaphysical elements that engulfed the saga were especially suited to young readers in the 1960s" -- and Lee soon discovered that the tale was a favorite on college campuses. Kirby continued to push the medium's boundaries, designing photo-collage covers and interiors, and inventing new drawing techniques such as the one for depicting energy fields now known as "Kirby Krackle" and other experiments.

Joe Simon was involved in a lawsuit involving Captain America's ownership, which was launched by Marvel after Simon registered the copyright renewal for Captain America under his own name in 1968 and 1969. Kirby promised to help the company in the case, but as part of a pact between Kirby and publisher Martin Goodman, he may have had to give Marvel any rights he may have required to the character.

Kirby grew dissatisfied with Marvel's work, lack of complete creative control, rage over suspected plagiarism, mistrust of suspected sales by publisher Martin Goodman's silence, and dissatisfaction with Marvel's inability to praise him specifically for his plotting and co-creations were among the reasons. Kirby began to write and draw some of Marvel's sequels, including "The Inhumans" in Amazing Adventures volume two, as well as horror stories about the anthology title Chamber of Darkness, and he was given full credit for doing so; but, in 1970, he was offered a ban on legal retaliation. If Kirby protested, the company refused to negotiate any contract changes, essentially dismissing his contribution to Marvel's success because they considered Lee solely responsible. Kirby, who was earning $35,000 a year freelancing for the company (adjusted for inflation, the equivalent of nearly $234,000 in 2021), left Marvel in 1970 for rival DC Comics, under current editorial director Carmine Infantino.

Kirby spent nearly two years negotiating a deal to leave DC Comics, where he signed a three-year deal with a promise for two years in late 1970. He produced a string of interlinked titles under the umbrella "The Fourth World" umbrella, which included a trilogy of new titles — New Gods, Mister Miracle, and The Forever People — as well as the extant Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen. Kirby chose the latter book because the series was lacking a cohesive creative team and he didn't want to cost someone else a lot of money.

Kirby's three books dealt with aspects of mythology that he had not previously read in Thor. This new mythos will be created by the New Gods, while In The Forever People Kirby will attempt to mythologize the lives of the young people around him. Mister Miracle, Mister Miracle, was more of a personal legend in the third book. Kirby channeled his feelings of cling into something, according to Mark Evanier. Mister Miracle's wife was based on Kirby's wife Roz, and he even caricatured Stan Lee within the book's pages as Funky Flashman, a character Lee found offensive, although Kirby denied it when confronted with the insult by Lee's protege, Roy Thomas, who was also mocked with the term 'Selman.

The central villain of the Fourth World series, Darkseid, and some of the Fourth World's theories appeared in Jimmy Olsen before the publication of the other Fourth World books, giving the new titles more exposure to prospective buyers. Al Plastino and Murphy Anderson redrawn the Superman and Jimmy Olsen faces drawn by Kirby, and later by Murphy Anderson. Les Daniels wrote in 1995 that "Kirby's mixture of slang and myth, science fiction, and the Bible made for a heady brew, but the scope of his imagination has remained." "Kirby's dramas were staged across Jungian vistas of raw symbol and wrath in 2007, according to comics writer Grant Morrison. With the vigor of Jack Kirby's boundless imagination let loose on paper, the Fourth World saga comes to a conclusion.

Kirby, in addition to his artistic endeavors, suggested a variety of new comic styles, such as the ability to gather his published Fourth World stories into square-bound books, a trend that would eventually be called the trade paperback, which would become common practice in the industry. Infantino and company were not responsive, and Kirby's plans were only relevant in the case of releasing the one-shot black-and-white journals Spirit World and In the Days of the Mob in 1971.

Kirby also produced OMAC, Kamandi, The Demon, and Kobra, among other DC series, and appeared in Our Combat Forces' "The Losers." Sandman's new creation appeared together with former partner Joe Simon for the last time. Kirby produced three issues of the 1st Issue Special anthology series, as well as Atlas the Great, a new Manhunter, and Danger Street Dingbats.

Mark Evanier, Kirby's production assistant, remarked that DC's policies during the time were not in sync with Kirby's ingenuity, and that he was often forced to work on characters and projects he did not like. During the meantime, some artists in DC did not want Kirby because he jeopardized their positions in the company; they also had bad blood from previous competition with Marvel, and court issues with him. Since he was working from California, they were able to jeopardize his work with redesigns in the New York office.

Stan Lee announced that Kirby would return to Marvel after being left in 1970 to work for DC Comics at the comic book convention in 1975. "I mentioned that I had a special announcement to make in Lee's monthly column, "Stan Lee's Soapbox." Everyone's head blasted as Jack's return to a completely incredulous audience, as he led us on the rostrum. You might imagine how it felt clownish around with the co-creator of many of Marvel's greatest strips ever more."

Back in Marvel, Kirby wrote and drew the monthly Captain America series, as well as the Captain America's Bicentennial Battles one-shot in the massive treasury style. He created the series The Eternals, which featured a race of inscrutable alien giants, the Celestials, whose behind-the-scenes involvement in primordial humanity would become a key component of Marvel Universe continuity. He made an adaptation and expansion of 2001: A Space Odyssey, as well as an abortive attempt to do the same for the classic television series The Prisoner. He wrote and drew Black Panthers, and he obtained numerous covers throughout the line.

Machine Man and Devil Dinosaur are two of Kirby's other Marvel creations during this period. The Silver Surfer: The Ultimate Cosmic Adventure, Kirby's last comics collaboration with Stan Lee, was published in 1978 as part of the Marvel Fireside Books series and is considered Marvel's first graphic novel.

Still dissatisfied with Marvel's treatment, and Hanna-Barbera has offered him a job, perhaps because he lived close to the same city Kirby left Marvel to work in animation. He worked on Turbo Teen, Thundarr the Barbarian, and other animated television shows for television in this area. In addition to a well-paid tribute to his comedies, Kirby maintained good relationships with the workforce, especially with the younger artists who often credited him as their inspiration. He worked on The New Fantastic Four animated film reuniting him with scriptwriter Stan Lee and retaining their connections as cordial on a professional level. In 1979-80, he illustrated an adaptation of the Walt Disney film The Black Hole for Walt Disney's Treasury of Classic Tales syndicated comic strip.

Kirby produced concept art for film producer Barry Geller's script treatment adapting Roger Zelazny's science fiction book Lord of Light, for which Geller had purchased the rights in 1979. Geller hired Kirby to create set plans for a Colorado theme park that would be used as architectural renderings for a Colorado theme park dubbed Science Fiction Land; Geller revealed his plans at a November press conference attended by Kirby, former American football star Rosey Grier, writer Ray Bradbury, and others. Though the film didn't come to fruition, Kirby's drawings were used in the CIA's "Canadian Caper" in which several members of the US embassy in Tehran, Iran, who had avoided capture in the Iran hostage crisis, were able to flee the country disguised as members of a film location scouting crew.

Kirby and Pacific Comics, a young, non-newsstand comic-book store, produced one of the industry's first creator-owned books, culminating in Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers, as well as the six-issue miniseries Silver Star (later collected in hardcover format in 2007). This, as well as other independent comics publishers like Eclipse Comics (where Kirby co-created the character Destroyer Duck in a benefit comic-book collection published to help Steve Gerber fight a court lawsuit against Marvel), helped establish a precedent for ending the work-for-hire system, wherein comics designers, as well as freelancers, have no right to characters they created.

In 1983, Richard Kyle commissioned Kirby to create "Street Code," one of Kirby's last works published in Kirby's lifetime. In the second issue of Kyle's revival of Argosy, it was released in 1990. During the 1980s, Kirby continued to do periodic cartoons for DC Comics, including a brief revival of his "Fourth World" saga in the 1984 and 1985 graphic novel The Hunger Dogs. Jenette Kahn and Paul Levitz, a DC executive, had Kirby re-design the Fourth World characters for the Super Powers toyline as a way of entitling him to royal responsibility for several of his DC creations. Kirby and Gil Kane were aided in the creation and layouts of the Ruby-Spears animated television series The Centurions in 1985. DC and a Kenner-made toy line issued a comic-book collection based on the show.

Kirby spent a considerable amount of time sparring with Marvel executives over the ownership rights of his initial page boards in the twilight of his life. Many of these pages operated by Marvel (due to outdated and legally questionable copyright allegations) were sent as promotional gifts to Marvel employees or simply robbed from company warehouses, according to the company's president. After the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976, which greatly expanded artist copyright capabilities, comics publishers began to return original art to designers, but only if they signed a statement reaffirming Marvel's ownership of the copyright. In 1985, Marvel released a statement requesting that Kirby swear that his artwork was made for hire, which allowed Marvel to keep copyright in perpetuity in perpetuity, in lieu of requesting that Kirby forego all future royalties. If he signed the contract, Marvel gave him 88 pages of his artwork (less than 1% of his total output), but the right to reclaim the work if Kirby broke the terms. Since Kirby slammed Marvel, calling the company thugs and claiming they were arbitrarily holding his creations, the company's estimate of 10,000 to 13,000 Kirby drew has increased.

Jack Kirby, a director of Charles Band, created concept art for the films Doctor Mortalis and Mindmaster (1992) and Mandroid (1993), respectively. Doctor Mordrid's debut was planned as a planned recreation of the Marvel Comics character Dr. Mordrid. The band's option was strange, but the band's option had expired.

Kirby, a 1993 British company, retained control of characters from several series of "The Kirbyverse" series. These titles were based on sketches and concepts from Kirby's files, some of which were intended for the by-defunct Pacific Comics and then licensed to Topps for what became the "Jack Kirby's Secret City Saga" mythos. Kirby's last comic book before his death, Phantom Force was the last comic book he wrote about before his death. The story was co-written by Kirby, Michael Thibodeaux, and Richard French, based on an eight-page pitch for an unused Bruce Lee comic in 1978. Image Comics' #1 and 2 were released, with various Image artists inking over Kirby's pencils. Genesis West's issue #0 and #4 were released, with Kirby providing pencils for issues #0 and 4. After Kirby's death, Thibodeaux created the art for the remaining issues of the series.

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