Hooray! At last, another guest post from the man James Bond wishes he could be - Bashful Barry Pearl! This time around, Barry's looking at Jack 'King' Kirby's writing style. (Hey, do you think JK was related to Nat Cole? They had the same middle name!) Over to BP...
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I love Jack Kirby, it was his comics that created a comic book fan out of me.
But Kirby seemed to have a problem when, in the 1960s, he wrote without a collaborator. It was as if he forgot what he'd written at the beginning of his continued stories (Fourth World, Eternals, Black Panther). Instead of elaborating on already introduced plot points, he developed new ones, leaving me, the reader, hanging. He also “jumped” around in the same issue, presenting concepts, but not developing them as he went on to the next.
Kirby also emulated the 1940s writing style of Joe Simon, where his dialogue basically discussed the action or the plot of the stories. He wasn't successful in emulating Stan Lee's style, where characterization and personal development were necessary, especially when relationships needed to be developed.
Kirby succeeded as a writer with the DC war comic The Losers because it was all about the action, and didn't really have any developing relationships.
Many devoted Kirby fans insult me when I mention these points. Be kind, but I'd like to read your opinion, whether you agree with me or not. Kirby was a fantastic storyteller, but I felt he needed a partner to keep him on track and write better dialogue. Sadly, the comics that he also supplied the dialogue for were not big sellers.
Below is a selection of Kirby pages to remind you of his writing style.
What do you think, Crivviess, is Barry spot on with his assessment, or do you think he's way-off beam? Let's hear your thoughts, theories, and observations in our ever-lovin' Crivens comments section. And whether you agree with him or not, I'm sure you'd like to express your appreciation for BP taking the time to compose this guest post.
Okay, I'll start things off and maybe others will follow. I'd agree with you 100%, BP. Jack was a great ideas man, but his scripting was caption-heavy, and he tended to say what you could already see happening in the panels. His dialogue was stilted and awkward, and though I got used to it a few pages in, I still found myself having to re-read some parts because of the way Jack emphasised certain words, and because his grammar and phrasing didn't flow smoothly. It's almost as if he was trying to be 'profound' in every speech and thought balloon, but it was beyond him. Can you imagine if Jack had dialogued 'This Man... This Monster!' instead of Stan? Few people would even remember it today, in all likelihood.
ReplyDeleteFor those who grew up reading Marvel comics, Jack's writing style could be very jarring. Jack's writing used to be more fluent when he was writing back in the 40's and 50's, so the 70's style was something that may have evolved. The style was heavy, hard to get through and sometimes incongruous with what Jack had drawn ( or, given that Jack supposedly wrote and placed the balloons before the art, the art was sometimes incongruous with what he had written). My belief was that Jack was aiming for maximum impact, rather than finesse. Some of his best writing had a biblical feel to it; the worst writing was incomprehensible.....
ReplyDeleteBut maybe it depends on the voice.....in October '75 ( or was it November?) Stan was interviewed on the early evening BBC magazine programme Nationwide. Stan proceeded to read from a US comic, with the comic pages fully taking up the whole of the tv screen. The comic? Captain America #193, Kirby's return to his co-creation. The pages, the aftermath of the first Madbomb detonation. And it sounded absolutely fantastic and I was entranced !!!!!
Re Barry's point on Jack's plotting and hanging plot points: as we know Jack was a big fan of Milt Caniff, and Caniff would develop major characters and then have them disappear for months and sometimes years on end, then re-introduce them when least expected. Caniff would leave his readers hanging....and desperate to come back for more. I believe Jack was trying to emulate Caniff's tried and tested formula. Of course Jack was never on his 70's comics long enough for this to happen, or for me to reference to! But is you read Terry or Canyon, you can start to see what Jack was aiming for.
Finally Kirby's odd writing style made his comics unique, and completely different to what else was on the stands. Have you ever read the DC comics that Kirby drew from other writer's scripts? With respect to Messrs O'Neil, Conway and Fleischer, not unique, and not in the slightest bit interesting.
Spirit of '64
Wish I'd seen that episode of Nationwide, S64, but I wonder how Jack would've felt about Stan reading aloud his (Jack's) scripting and making it seem like his own? I'm not very familiar with Milt Caniff's work - I know OF it of course, but I've only ever read a couple or so examples. It's true that JK's odd writing style was unique, but considering that most of his '70s mags didn't last very long, his 'uniqueness' wasn't a particularly good thing. Perhaps they seemed more interesting because of the readers having to work harder to understand them? However, Jack's stories were at the very least moderately entertaining, but hardly memorable - not for the right reasons anyway. Stan just seemed to give them a depth and 'spirit' they wouldn't otherwise have had.
ReplyDeleteGave to agree with Barry 100% as well .I couldn't follow Jack's DC work on New God's and Forever People at all . However, I thought Kamandi had a strong storyline probably as it was self contained, ditto but to a lesser extent the Demon and Jimmy Olsen, everything else for me was very average. When he went back to Marvel I really liked his work on the Eternals and Black Panther . But there is no doubt that Jack's work with Stan was the best
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you liked his '70s Marvel stuff better because you were more familiar with the characters, McS, because I didn't find it any better than his DC mags. And none of them lasted very long either, which kind of shows that his style of storytelling wasn't all that popular with most readers. I think his longest-lasting mag at Marvel in the '70s was Captain America, which he did 22 issues of and two Annuals, followed by The Eternals at 19 issues. Yeah, Stan and Jack were some team.
ReplyDeleteHi Kid,
ReplyDeleteThanks to Barry for his guest post and your blog for hosting.
Jack was a creative tour-de-force, but his writing left a lot to be desired and a strong editor was required to guide his boundless energy, which he no longer had the services of as he edited practically all the books he worked on.
I still love looking at the pictures and dynamic "storytelling" in his 70's comics, but reading the dialogue & captions is hard work, rather than enjoyable and compares poorly to Stan's input from the glory days of the 60's.
Cheers,
Duncan
Thing is, a few pages in and I adapt to Jack's writing style, and his stories are still entertaining, but like you say, they just don't 'sing' like they did when Stan scripted them. However, fair's fair - Stan couldn't draw very well so that kind of evens things out. Thanks for commenting, I'm sure Barry appreciates you taking the time, as do I.
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw the advert on the Marvel bulletins page in 1975 that Jack was back it was the most exciting comic news I had heard...ever!All sorts of thoughts entered my head;A new comic series about Gods,never got into the DC New Gods,so this would be 'Gods' done right, the Marvel way;Also back on Captain America,brilliant,more Cosmic cube stories,crossovers with Ironman,Shield,Hydra,Red Skull,Avengers etc,A new Black Panther series from #1 and perhaps a return to FF and Thor.It was just unbelievable that the Golden era of 1960's Marvel was coming back..Hurrah.But it did not happen.The Eternals was interesting but did not seem like a Marvel comic;Black Panther promised so much but delivered nothing like the Panther/Cap issues of Tales of Suspense;(possibly delusional expectations,I was only a kid).Captain America was more like it and those issues with Giacioa inking were great but after #200 it tailed off,for me anyway.Machine man and other titles were lost to me though I loved all the covers he did especially on FF and Thor.There was no second flowering of Marvels Golden Age and while I agree this was partially because the scripting was different from Lee/Kirby collaberations I think the art work had notably deteriorated.I love Kirby but only diehard fans would claim this was a return to greatness.Glad he went back to Marvel but he was never going to touch what he and Stan had achieved in the 1960's.Styles change and by late 1970's the King had been deposed and whilst it was sad what a body of work he had already left us.Final point would be that even if Stan had returned and scripted every Kirby comic from 1975-1978 it would have made no difference.There are definate parallels with Neal Adams attempts to write,it just did not work for me, and that is being kind to an artist who produced some of the greatest comics of all time.Keep up the good work lads.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Jack's art had been in decline for a while by that time, Triple F, and even the mighty Joe Sinnott on covers couldn't quite salvage Jack's pencils and return the finished pages to the level they'd achieved in the '60s. Even the Stan and Jack Silver Surfer book was a disappointment, really just going over old ground and recycling 'The Galactus Trilogy' as what looked like a movie treatment.
ReplyDeleteAs I once (cleverly, I thought) said elsewhere - that's what happens when you're the giant whose shoulders everyone else is standing on; you become the bottom of the totem pole. Sadly, that's what happened to Jack. They were still competent, professionally-produced comics, but they were really nothing more than pedestrian, throwaway stories, created merely to fill a space and meet his allotted monthly page count.
Keep up the interesting comments, FFF.
First, I am very happy to read the comments here. Too often, when someone writes that Kirby may not have been always perfect, they are criticized. That is the poster doesn’t list his disagreement with the post, instead, the insult or attack the poster.
ReplyDeleteAs I understand it, Kirby’s health, as he entered the 1970s began to decline. His eyesight was fading and he had trouble with his hands. Also, we must remember that the drawing boards had their size great reduced at this time, making detailing more difficult.
That's because Crivvies are all civilised people, BP. (Although a few nutters sometimes creep in to sow discord.) Yes, I've mentioned Kirby's age and ailing health in his later years in other posts, and they must certainly be considered relevant factors in the decline of his art, though not necessarily his writing. Incidentally, to avoid confusion, may I just point out to readers that Barry is referring to the size of the art boards Jack (and other artists) drew on, not the drawing boards that the art boards sat upon.
ReplyDeleteKid, I thoroughly recommend you have a look at Caniff's Terry & the Pirates, particularly those featuring the characters Burma and the Dragon Lady, and the first couple of years of the Steve Canyon strip ( I haven't had the chance to go beyond these yet).
ReplyDeleteRe pedestrian, throwaway stories produced by Jack: disagree. Jack may not have been at the top of his game, but I think he was still giving it his all. I look at comics such as Cap# 206 - 212, Devil Dinosaur # 3-7, Eternals #8-13, Machine Man #3-6, and the 2001 Treasury and #3-7, and find that, though flawed with dialogue, the stories were rich, entertaining, and superior to most of what Marvel was then putting out.
Re covers: I though the 70s Marvel covers were a bit of a curate's egg, the worst being those on Kirby's own edited comics, and the best ( eg Invaders #5, Thor #250, FF #171, all inked by Sinnott) recapturing some of the mid 60s glory.
Spirit of '64
I will eventually get around to reading more of Caniff's work, but I've got a universe to conquer first, S64. (Bwahaaaahaaaa!) I used the word 'pedestrian' because I don't think Jack's later, self-written stories were particularly memorable (not to me anyway) - none of them are in the same league as the '60s Lee/Kirby collaborations. I find The Eternals and Devil Dinosaur a mildly diverting read, but I don't consider any of them classics.
ReplyDeleteAs for Captain America, it wasn't well-received by the fans (who preferred the writer just prior to Jack), which is why JK didn't stay on the title. I'd have difficulty agreeing with you that the Kirby mags were better than the rest of Marvel's then-current output. I thought Thor and Conan were generally a far more absorbing read than anything Jack was doing.
I think Sinnott occasionally managed to capture a hint of '60s glory, but only a hint. Jack's artwork had deteriorated too much by then. Take a wee look at my post 'Jack's Back' for further thoughts by moi on the subject.
Hey, I think Crivens is a great blog. People can disagree with me and we can have a chat about it without falling out. Other sites won't even publish dissenting opinions.
You are absolutely right Kid. We all love comics in general, I think, and we all have our favourites. I love hearing other people's opinions and especially what they like, don't like and what they might recommend as a good read. Kirby was the best and he peaked with Stan and that was not just dumb luck. Stan raised his game and definitely helped Jack reach a career high.. they seemed to inspire each other and for me he edited Jack better than anyone else. He filtered Jack's ideas into a readable sequence which I did not realise at the time but once I saw 1970s DC and Marvel comics edited by Kirby himself the distinction became obvious. But even Stan had difficulty controlling Jack's amazing creativity and ideas as can be seen in, blasphemy, The Galactus trilolgy! It begins with the conclusion to the epic Inhumans story needing part of #48 to present that ending! Almost an over-run as if Jack was constrained by having a neat and tidy ending every month. So it basically became one long unfolding epic with everybody from Black Panther, Surfer, Galactus, Inhumans,Dr.Doom in one crazy super story set in New York, Wakanda, Himalayas,Latveria, Egypt, Sub-space, Africa et Al. Just incredible. Without Stan the editor at the top of his game it would have been incomprehensible and an information overload..... however it became the single greatest run of quality art and story in the history of Marvel. (calm down, but it was!) The team supreme!
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I'd add to that, Triple F, is that it wasn't just Stan's editing but also his scripting that imbued those '60s tales 'with something extra' that Jack seldon (if ever) achieved on his own. If it hadn't primarily been for the Marvel Age of comics, the medium probably wouldn't still be around today. Make Mine Marvel!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Barry. Jack was an ideas man, but needed someone to write good dialogue for him. Lee and Kirby may have had their personal disagreements, but professionally they were a match made in heaven (or Asgard).
ReplyDeleteNo doubt about it, DS. I'm always amazed when some rabid Kirby-worshippers say that Stan couldn't write for toffee and that they preferred Jack's solo stuff. Eh? Were they reading the same comics as me?
ReplyDeleteWell spotted Kid.Of course his writing was equally as important.Possibly the best analogy would be Tower comics:everybody raves about the artwork by Wood,Ditko,Kane etc but the stories were adequate at best.This was Marvels ultimate fate if Stan had not hooked us with his unique voice in his writing,if you follow me.
ReplyDeleteGood comparison with Tower Comics. I have several original issues, plus all seven volumes of the DC reprints of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (the 7th volume included non-Tower stories), and although they look great, they don't 'sing' in the way that Stan's scripts did. I don't think that either Jack or Wally could see the huge difference Stan's scripting made to a story. (Their loss, but ours as well, seeing as how if Stan or Archie Goodwin or Roy Thomas had scripted Kirby's and Wood's solo work, it would've been a whole lot better.)
ReplyDeleteI liked Kirby's writing when I was a kid...I think he geared his stories more toward an audience of 9 - 12 year olds, probably because that was who was reading his work in the beginning. When I was in that age range, I loved his style, but the older I got, the more "corny" it started to get. I actually stopped reading most of his work when he returned to Marvel. Right now, I'm reading his Black Panther series on Kindle (Amazon offered the entire series for free last week) and it's the same thing. I think he was loaded with great ideas and stories, but really needed someone to dialog those ideas and stories.
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough, G, there are those who think that he was gearing his DC stories towards an older readership, but I'm not convinced. Or maybe his ideas and concepts were intended for older readers, but delivered (as in scripted) in such a way as to also appeal to a younger crowd? You pays yer money and you takes yer choice, as they say. Yeah, he had loads (maybe too many) of interesting ideas, but his writing could be a bit clumsy. I suppose you could say that his work was like a song - great music, not so good lyrics.
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