Happy Birthday Captain America, Newsboy Legion, The Boy Commandos, Fighting American, Boys Ranch, Fantastic Four, The Hulk, The X-Men, Etc. Etc.

It must have been early 1966 when I first encountered the work of comic book creator Jack Kirby, who would have turned 90 today. I did not then get to read a story he drew – I merely glimpsed the work in question, in passing, from a few respectful feet away, held by boys a year or two older than I was. The gang huddled together, backed up against the lockers waiting to enter the classroom, and they turned each page slowly only when each member was ready to find out what happened next. They chuckled in pleasure, in anticipation, to themselves, one of them exclaiming “Oh, yeah!” as another page turned.

It was several years before I actually read the story myself. I had no desire at first sight to find out what was hidden beneath that horrifying ugly cover of a devil-horned giant, with a bald, naked silver guy (on what might have been a surfboard) chasing three normal looking blue-suited humans and one orange rock man.

It was probably disturbing to me as well that the rock man had no shoes. Batman was on TV that night though, and I had questions about the show to ask of classmates my own age. The cover left my sight, but I did not realize then it was still in my mind.

Later months and years went by: my hipper younger-brother occasionally purchased some other comics by that “Marvel” company. I immediately recognized the characters as the ones I had glimpsed before. Kirby’s artwork was not to my taste but like all comics then we read them indiscriminately out of some sort of unspoken childhood obligation.

The artwork on the insides was as disturbing as the covers, but without looking them up again, I can still remember my first sight of the character called the Black Panther – like a living black shadow, ready to pounce upon the creations of another guy called Psycho-Man.

Then there were the Inhumans: Gorgon with the hoofed feet, Karnak with the sensitive hands and big head, Medusa with the living red hair, and their giant dog Lockjaw with the perpetually pouting lower lip.

There was also a story of the bald, naked silver guy on the surfboard fighting a really ugly robot. I remember the end of the story where the robot -- called, of course, Quasimodo – defeated by the Surfer’s “Power Cosmic” showed his loss with a face in anguish greater than I had ever seen before.

These were not the homey, safe DC Comics of Batman, Superman and the Flash. These were the powerful forms of the Marvel Comics Group, and their stories seemed to me always drawn by Kirby. His story telling between the covers thumped my head the hardest. Perhaps my disturbance came from a combination of the power of Kirby’s story telling, along with how gritty and urban they appeared alongside the seemingly more sedate and conservative DC Comics.

Artists of the time tell how Kirby created a style of story telling barely constrained by the limits of the page. What Scott McCloud called "The Invisible Art" of Comics, was how the best comics drew the reader's eye from panel to panel, from page to page. Kirby drew instinctively this way and reading his work, following the frames of what his mind said was the best way to tell this story, can become addicting. My mind became educated to the unfamiliar style and I began to keep my eyes out for more.

I later found that Kirby had been creating comics since the beginning of the industry, most notably his first hit: co-creating Captain America with partner Joe Simon. The two moved from company to company in those days, coming up with more ideas and characters, creating the first romance comic, as well as turning out significant work in westerns, science fiction, combat and supernatural stories; and of course, more super heroes. After twenty years experience under his pencil, Kirby teamed with Stan Lee to birth “The Marvel Age of Comics” where the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, the X-Men, Thor and Spider-man all began. Though Lee was the glib front man, putting words to the pictures, a whole lot of the more-significant ideas, according to subsequent research and interviews, most attribute now to Kirby.

Eventually Kirby wanted more money, more credit from the company he’d led to greener pastures, so his children would not have to worry about insurance or college. Unable to come to an agreeable contract with Marvel he moved to DC Comics and came up with the so-called Fourth World series of books: “New Gods,” “The Forever People,” and “Mister Miracle - Super Escape Artist.”

Words and pictures both by Kirby, they were his most-personal effort to-date. The “New Gods” stories somberly carried a serious weight of the past, with super-beings of two opposite worlds caught in an eternal planet-shattering battle, while “The Forever People” showed the cost of that war on the young but, dressed-up in the fashion of the late 60s youth movement, it also told the tale of hope for the future. “Mr. Miracle” was about another cost of war – individuality – and to me it represented Kirby himself the most. He had escaped the slums of New York by natural talent and tenacity, fought in Europe against the Axis tyranny, slipped through the knots of mediocrity tied tight by corporate interests. As long as he kept his ideas flowing by the power of the mind he could always survive.

Of course, the Fourth World did not last long. Kirby never gave us the big finish he’d had in mind, and no one can tell where the characters could have gone because no one is Kirby.

The later years of his life, while not as productive – his work no longer seen as hip or cool he did not get the jobs from the major publishers – found him in a controversial bid for creator’s rights, as he used the legal system in an attempt to get his original artwork back from Marvel.

While younger artists without half his creativity got big deals and solid contracts, Kirby went without. He never saw his creations become multi-million dollar motion pictures, or his works become hard-bound collector’s editions.

For those of you not impressed by the comic book, you can also view Kirby’s influence outside the four-color printed page:

You could crawl out from under a rock and check Star Wars (Lucas has admitted being “influenced” by Kirby’s “New Gods” series as much as by Kurosawa’s “Hidden Fortress”). Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” based in large part on his research into the life of Kirby.

Kirby worked harder than most. When I was first getting into comics, it seemed at least two or three books a month on the stands carried his stories. Right now, it seems that DC, Marvel, and newer publishers like Image Comics have more Kirby in reprint form the first few months of this year than any time while he was alive. You can find these in your local comic book shop. If you ask for a Kirby comic in a shop and they do not know who Kirby is, then you should find another shop.

In order of importance, I would recommend “The Fourth World Omnibus” and “Fantastic Four” – after that, you could try others like Kamandi, The Eternals, and Captain America. If you become extremely fanatical after that, you might even enjoy the more-quirky Devil Dinosaur.

The New York Times ran a great piece on Kirby over the weekend, and Kirby’s friend and historian Mark Evanier (his great blog you’ll also find linked to the right) will finally get his long-awaited Kirby biography on the bookshelves this October.

There is also a virtual visit and more information in store at the Kirby Museum and a very good Kirby documentary included on the ‘deluxe’ edition of the first Fantastic Four movie.

Happy Birthday, Jack Kirby! As a schoolmate of mine said a long time ago: “Oh, yeah!”