Pierre Speaks: Jack Kirby

As a kid.... I was not too crazy about Jack's work.

What??

How can this be??

Although I saw some cool stuff sometimes in what he did, I was much more attracted to the work of Sal Buscema, George Perez, Joe Sinnott and others at the time.

Sometimes Jack would draw some cool stuff.... but sometimes..... he would do some weird stuff too.

What I would fail to see at the time was that a lot of the artists that I was admiring were deriving their style from Kirby's work. Heck in some cases they would flat out copy what Jack had done before.

For example I was a big fan of the FF when Rich Buckler was drawing the book and it was masterfully inked by Joe Sinnott. But little did I know at the time that Buckler would often swipe poses from Kirby.

So little did I realise at the time how much Kirby's work was influencing me.

By being influenced by the Bucemas, Perez, Byrne, and countless others.... I was indirectly influenced by Kirby whether I knew it at the time or not.

Years later while I was working on Bob Morane, a great guy by the name of Gabriel Morisette would introduce me to the Jack Kirby Collector.

Seeing Jack's pencilled work was an illumination.

It was great seeing Jack's work before it was inked by someone else.

Although in the case of Joe Sinnott, I can't help but think that Joe was making Jack's work better. Or something like that. ;)

I was finally able to see for myself the power in Jack's pencil.

Heck often while working on Bob Morane I would draw a Jack Kirby character, then I would tweak it slightly to turn it into a Bob Morane character.

Since the Bob Morane style was influenced by Bruce Timm on Batman Adventures, and Bruce Timm was influenced by Kirby, and Kirby in turn was influenced from working in animation.... understanding that.... I could use Kirby's style to help me do my work on Bob.

Later I was able to see some great Kirby work like the New Gods and Mister Miracle in TPB. And other series never collected AFAIK in TPB like the Demon, Machine Man, Black Panther.

Loved it.

I also got my hands on "the Complete Sky Masters".

The mixture of Kirby's work with Wallace Wood's use of light and shading is pure magic. I would recommend it to anyone. If you can get your hands on that book.... don't hesitate.

You can still see Kirby’s influence in the work of others like Darwin Cook, Bruce Timm, Mike Mignola, Steve Rude, and countless others I fail to mention.

Heck even though I try to not copy his style, I do try to capture the essence of his style in my work.

I will let you decide whether I am succeeding or not. ;)

Until next time.