FeedBack: Jack Kirby

As always, it was good to see Jack Kirby’s name in Konformist, which recently ran the abbreviated bio from Lambiek’s. Lambiek’s is the oldest comics shop in Europe, a must-see place for any visit to Amsterdam. The times I’ve been there the wares have been amazing as have the exhibits. That bio, however, was quite short and glosses over many of the major controversies in Kirby’s career, including an ongoing attempt to obscure his name.

As recently as this last Comic Con in San Diego, comics guy Stan Lee billed himself as the sole creator of all the Marvel licensing properties (Fantastic Four, Iron Man, The Hulk—all now major Hollywood box office draws) and sold the pleasure of his companionship for $300 a plate dinners. The dinners included a grab bag of autographed memorabilia. Those who know that Jack Kirby created those properties, while Lee served a minor editorial role, regard these as way over-priced barf bags. Kirby was paid a per-drawn-page rate for those creations and got no percentage for their licensing. Lee makes exaggerated claims about his involvement to gloss over the inequity and protect the corporate owned copyrights, thereby also depriving Kirby even of some measure of the celebrity he deserves.

Lee’s employers, Marvel Comics, recently produced a title called Young Allies with material reprinted from the Golden Age of comics, 1930s-40s. It included a text piece reprint from 1941 by Stan Lee, with the writer well credited but not the illustration artist. What looks like an uncredited Kirby illo accompanies another text reprint in the issue with another full Stan Lee writer credit.

Here’s an excerpt:

--In a few minutes the two lads ran into two other boys while turning a corner. "Hey look where you-all am goin'!" cried one of the boys, as he dropped a piece of watermelon out of his hand.

"Put that melon away and follow us, Whitewash," ordered Jeff. "Someone's in trouble and we've got to assist her!" "Yahoo!" yelped the darky lad. "I'se just itchin' to meet up with some trouble--providin' it ain't bigger than me, ob course!"
...

"Let's see now, who am missing?" asked Whitewash Jones. "Dere's me ob course, 'n Knucks, 'n Jeff'son, n' Tubby--"

In the new material that comprises most of this issue of Young Allies, writer Roger Stern makes Whitewash one of the Tuskegee airmen. It includes a long apology on the first page about how Golden Age comics were so poorly credited—but not a thing apologizing for the reprinted racial stereotypes. It looks like that's one credit that Lee doesn't want to take.

Kenn Thomas
Steamshovelpress.com