Jack Kirby
21 quotes
Biography
"I feel that story, first. I know those people, first. When I put them down they've already lived."
"I don't classify gods as far as their power goes. I classify them as far as their personality goes. Each god, if he used his power right, could defeat another god. If I used my power right I could defeat anyone on Earth if I wanted to. As a man, if I used my physical strength at its best, I could overpower anybody I wanted to. If I did it right. It's the same way with the gods. If they used their super-powers right, they could defeat any other god. Darkseid is no different except that Darkseid is an evil guy with a lot of class. He's the kind of guy that might outthink you, and with super-powers involved it could be in a very dangerous and earthshaking way."
"I feel that nonviolence coupled with some kind of sustaining influence can work in comics. I don't feel that you have to show blood and gore and guts. I think it's repellent. I've seen enough of it in its reality, and it's just as repellent when it's drawn as in reality. I see nothing of any value in anything that has what you call shock value. I see nothing in that except using that sort of thing to prove a point. In other words if you're making an anti-war document or if you're trying to tell the truth about a certain subject, and the blood and gore was a part of that subject, I wouldn't omit it. If I were going to make an exposé on anything I would show anything connected with it. For instance, in a gangster movie I would show the results of being a gangster-the life activities as well as the end and death. I would show exactly how it is they ended. I would show the bullet holes because it's part of the picture, but I wouldn't exploit it for its value alone. I see no entertainment in that sort of thing."
"I wasn't the kind of student that Pratt was looking for. They wanted people who would work on something forever. I didn't want to work on any project forever. I intended to get things done."
"I was a young man. I was still growing out of the East Side. The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it."
"Superheroes may be superhuman in stature but inside they’re human beings and they act and react as human beings. It doesn’t matter whether you’re doing legendary characters like Hercules or modern characters, you’ll find that humans are humans and they’ll react the same way in certain situations."
"I never do fairy tale people, I do people just as they are."
"If somebody wants to kill you, they make you a scout."
"Before setting off for duty, the auteur cranked out an increased flow of comics, stating that he wanted “to get enough work backlogged that I could go into the Army, kill Hitler, and get back before the readers missed us.""
"There were mostly women and some men; they looked like they hadn’t eaten for I don’t know how long. They were scrawny. Their clothes were all tattered and dirty. The Germans didn’t give a shit for anything. They just left the place; just like leaving a dog behind to starve. I was standing there for a long time just watching thinking to myself, ‘What do I do?’ Just thinking about it makes my stomach turn. All I could say was, ‘Oh, God.’"
"Jack Kirby’s massive contributions to comics are common knowledge. His influential pulp-epic motifs. The revolutionary dynamism of his art. But here I’d like to talk about a more specific set of “King” Kirby’s innovations—his use of “minority” protagonists. Whether stressing the multi-ethnic makeup of America or revising racist preconceptions of Africa, Kirby’s work challenged comics’ unremarked upon WASPiness and white supremacy in quiet and not-so-quiet ways."
"Jack didn’t have the resources or the stomach lining to fight Marvel over copyrights, character ownership or past contractual sleights that he believed he suffered."
"Even when he was given someone else's idea, he would build it into something unbelievable and new, like a man who was asked to repair a vacuum cleaner but instead built it into a functioning jet pack."
"Unlike other comic book creators who were given either stateside or way-behind-lines assignments, and perhaps because Kirby understood Yiddish, the Jewish German dialect spoken by his family, he was sent as a scout behind enemy lines to draw maps. He endured and survived many harrowing violent experiences during his service, almost losing his feet to trench foot. He had no time for fascists or racists."
"His real dream was to make movies."
"My favorite thing about Kirby’s artwork was his storytelling. He was really a film director doing comics."
"I can’t get over this guy. He creates 100 villains at a sitting and then kills off half of them. Any one of these villains I can make a million off of."
"I loved Jack's work and the first time I saw it I couldn't believe what I was seeing. He asked if we could do some freelance work together. I was delighted and I took him over to my little office. We worked from the second issue of Blue Bolt through ... about 25 years."
"There was power in the work of Jack Kirby that changed the way I looked at things. There was no one else like him and there never will be."
"Ideas can never be traced to any one source. They are tossed back and forth between people until the decision makers step in and choose what they think is a success formula."
"Life at best is bittersweet."