Jack Kirby

Kirby's work spans the history of comics and crosses the borders of countless different and widely varied genres, all done perfectly and with the distinct boldness of figurative drawing and amazing dynamic compositions and page design that came to typify a Kirby page. Kirby's pages were brilliantly designed, subtly but inescapably leading a reader's eye across the page, into the action and through the narrative via his graphic design which nonetheless never got in the way of keeping the story clear and readable. Most distinctively, where more and more artists seem to want to imitate reality in their drawing and page design, often looking like storyboards for a live action motion picture, (or worse, cluttering a page with graphic flurries and drawing tricks, all sound and fury signifying nothing) Kirby's pages exhibited a design and dynamic that could ONLY exist on a comic book page; sequences and action that might look ridiculous in another medium or at the hand of another artist seemed not only serious but believably dramatic and even glowingly transcendent at the masterful pencil point of Jack "King" Kirby.