Jack Kirby

So the Thing's Jewish! (Via Volokh.) And so were Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. (Poor Dr. Mahathir. Not only does he have democracy and such-like Jewish tricks to contend with; he's going toe-to-toe with the people who brought you Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Spider Man, the X-Men.)

And here is a page about Jacob "Jack Kirby" Kurtzberg, tough kid from the Lower East Side.

I'm a huge Jack Kirby fan, in case you haven't noticed. His comics just stunned me when I first discovered him in about the fifth grade. I got so wrapped up in comics then that my dad strictly forbade me to take drawing in junior high. (Worse, I was forced to play the French horn.) So I tried to teach myself drawing by copying Kirby's style, which - in my childish way - I didn't realize was a style, you see. I thought all human beings just naturally look like they have pots of ink pouring down their foreheads, among other disinguishing characteristics. (See here, for instance.) Which is why I find the subject of this issue so humorous.

And here are various interviews with comic artists and writers, talking about Kirby's influence on them. Here's Alex Ross; here's Kurt Busiek; here's Alan Moore; here's Will Eisner. You can poke around for yourself.

I got Belle to read some Kirby when she was pregnant with Zoë. The Forever People and The New Gods. Two of my favorites. I think it had a salutary effect. When she was one year old, the kid sort of looked like Modok. Now she looks more like Big Bear.

(NOTE: the kid smiles all the time, unless you tell her to smile. Then she looks like Big Bear. Also, those headphones aren't plugged into anything. She just likes to wander around wearing daddy's 'hear things'. I'm not blasting music in her ears to make her look this way or anything.)

Comments

[woof]

Normally I would trust the Forverts on little issues such as whether the Thing is a token Jew. And yet the Thing appears not to remember his Jewish upbringing so well: he is depicted reciting the Sh'ma over a dead man. The proper comment is the blessing for the Lahd of Justice.