Did you know that at the age of 14, Jack Kirby sent some gag cartoons to The New Yorker? I did not!
The teenaged Kirby, who would go on to co-create Captain America, the Fantastic Four, and many, many other superheroes (Pretty much the entire Marvel universe, natch!), did get a rejection for the entire batch from the magazine.
io9 has one more sample here. TwoMorrows has more in its new KIRBY UNLEASHED tabloid. The print edition is sold out, but digital editions may be had for $5.95. This is a rerelease of his 1971 portfolio, with some extras and updates:
This extremely scarce collectible spotlights some of JACK “King” KIRBY’s finest art from all eras of his 50-plus year career, including exquisitely detailed 1930s pencil work, unused comic strips, illustrated World War II letters, 1950s pages, unpublished 1960s Marvel pencil pages and sketches, and Fourth World pencil drawings (many done expressly for this portfolio in 1970)! We’ve gone back to the original art to ensure the best reproduction possible, and Kirby’s assistants at the time—Mark Evanier and Steve Sherman—have updated the extensive Kirby biography they wrote for the original printing, and added a new foreword explaining how this portfolio came to be! PLUS: We’ve recolored the original color plates, and added EIGHT NEW COLOR PAGES, including Jack’s four GODS posters (released separately in 1972), and four additional Kirby color pieces from the 1960s and ’70s! It’s all presented at the colossal KIRBY COLLECTOR tabloid size!
That's terrific, I had no idea! Interesting because, while it's good for a 14 year old, it's still obviously the work of a kid. Somewhen between 14 and, say, 20ish, when he began working for a newspaper syndicate and Eisner, he got a lot better and became "Jack Kirby." I'm fascinated by that period; a lot of artists seem to have it (from what I recall in his book "Mythology," Alex Ross went from "not bad for a kid" to "Holy Moley!" in about a week and a half).
ReplyDeleteAlso says something about what the New Yorker meant to cartoonists back then.