In Their Own Words: When Jack Kirby Left Marvel Comics
Kirby had stuck with Marvel
since he went back to them in the late 1950s.
Working with Stan Lee (or alone, depending on your point of view) he had
co-created characters that would serve as the foundation upon which the Marvel Empire
would be built, and indeed still remains upon.
Even today the billion dollar movie franchise that Marvel now enjoys is
focused around Kirby characters – Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, the X-Men –
Kirby either had a direct or indirect hand in their creation. Marvel, and Stan Lee for that matter, continues
to reap the financial benefits of these and more characters, but Jack Kirby
never saw the big, big dollars, nor do his children today. No wonder they’re bitter and angry.
But Kirby clearly saw some of
this coming. In the late ‘60s he was
becoming disenfranchised with the treatment that he was getting from Marvel.
The extrovert, Stan Lee, was getting all of the public recognition, while the
introvert, Jack Kirby, yearned for it.
Stan would mention Jack, but, for the most part, Stan was busy being the
spokesperson for the company that paid his bills – Marvel Comics – so there was
only so much Stan would say. Interviews
with Stan were, and still are now, at the mercy of editors, writers and
journalists who, at times, felt that the sound bites Stan gave were far more
interesting than any reality he might present about the companies working
practices. “Excelsior! ‘Nuff Said! True
Believer!” These phrases, and more, held more interest than, “Jack Kirby drew
that.”
Across the road (figuratively)
DC Comics produced largely anonymous comics, by interchangeable writers,
artists and editors, and only began to place credits on their books well into
the 1960s. Even then, to the public at
large, it was still the company that produced the work, not the individual. Even with Disney names of artists and writers
only became common knowledge in the late ‘60s and into the ‘70s, the same
applies for companies such as Western Publishing, Charlton and more. Kirby knew this, but he wasn’t overly pleased
with the arrangement, nor was he pleased with the renumeration that he was
being offered. Steve Ditko had similar issues to that of Jack Kirby, resulting in Ditko walking out on Marvel in the late '60s, in mid-story. DC Comics soon snapped him up.
When Kirby came to Marvel he
was the most important artist that they had.
At the time the staff, in art terms, was Kirby, Steve Ditko, Dick Ayers,
Don Heck, Stan Goldberg and a handful of freelancers. Gradually more and more
artists came on board as Marvel became more popular. By the end of the ‘60s and going into the
‘70s Marvel was awash in artists, both new and old, Gene Colan, Jim Mooney,
John Romita, Steranko, Barry Smith, Neal Adams, Wally Wood, Herb Trimpe, Werner
Roth, George Tuska, John Severin, Marie Severin, Frank Brunner, Jim Starlin,
Rich Buckler, John Buscema, Sal Buscema – these artists, and many more, were
all there or getting ready to kick the doors down. Marvel was changing and Kirby didn’t see his
role in it. The problem was, clearly
those in charge, seemingly with the exception of Stan Lee, saw a role for Kirby
either. Thus when Kirby announced that
unless he was given a raise in his annual salary (reported at $35,000pa – good
money for 1969) then he would leave, his bluff was called.
Kirby was gone. The King had
abdicated his throne. Clearly he
believed that life would be far better at DC Comics, where he was promised the
world, editorial control, the ability to write, to draw, to oversee his own
little universe and not be told what to do and when to do it. At first the marriage was perfect. DC Comics released Kirby's new concepts and proudly announced, "Kirby Is Here" on the covers of his books, damned glad to have stolen Marvel's main asset. The offer was perfect, he'd only work on his own characters, his art would be left alone and not changed by the office and he'd have his pick of titles. The shame is that offer wasn’t adhered to…
Kirby Moves To The Distinguished Competition
JACK KIRBY: There comes a time when you’ve had a gut-full
of everything. I had a gut-full of Marvel, a gut-full of New York.
First of all, Marvel already had very popular strips going, and they
didn’t throw any ropes around me to hold me. It was my decision. They knew I
was going to make it anyway, and so I went over to DC to do it. They didn’t care because they had all these
artists waiting in the wings who drew like Jack Kirby. Kirby imitators.[i]
STAN LEE:
There was never a time when Jack Kirby just sat down and told me what,
if anything, was bothering him. The same held true for Steve Ditko. It's hard
to correct a misunderstanding if you don't know what it is that's
misunderstood.[ii]
STEVE DITKO: You learn that all they (publishers) ever want is a half-assed reprint of the story you did for them last
JACK KIRBY: A lot of ingratitude. It hasn't left me
bitter; it's just that it shouldn't work out that way. If there's anybody who
knows Stan Lee, I'm the guy who knows him. Stan Lee as a person is no better or
worse than anybody else. I wasn't competing with Stan. I got along very well
with Stan. We were very good friends. And, my God, I came up with an army of
characters! I felt that his [Lee's] plans, somehow, didn't mesh with mine. Stan
was already a publisher at that time and could call the shots. If you can call
the shots on somebody…you win.[iv]
STAN LEE:I don't even know the real reason
why Jack Kirby left Marvel. He never told me. He may have just been tired of
having his name always linked with mine. Because when he went to DC, he did
things on his own. He wrote and he illustrated his own books. So that may have
been what he wanted to do. I suspect
that Jack just felt maybe like I felt after all those years, I wanted to do
something different...that he wanted to do his own thing. The first few years
of his career, so many things said by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby...I suspect he
woke up one morning and said, gee, all these years everything has said by Stan
Lee and Jack Kirby and he probably wanted to prove how good he is on his own. I know we never had a fight. We got along
beautifully.[v]
JACK KIRBY: The situation demanded it. That’s the only
thing I can tell you. The details would bore you. But I can tell you that the
situation demanded it. I do what I have to do. I can’t vacillate. I’m not an
indecisive man. I do what I have to do, and I did it at that time.[vi]
STAN LEE:
I knew why he left at the time but right now, I absolutely cannot
remember. The one thing I remember and
felt bad about when Jack left, was that I had been thinking about - and maybe I
even talked to him about it - that I wanted to make Jack my partner in a sense;
I wanted him to be the art director and I though that he could serve in that
function and I would serve as the editor. Maybe this was way earlier, but I was
disappointed when he left because I always felt that Jack and I would be
working there forever and doing everything.
I wasn't
thinking of Jack being art director because I would be leaving; I just thought
that it would be great working with him in that capacity. I was serving as art director
and thought that he could take it off my shoulders, so I could just worry about
the stories. It probably wouldn't have worked out anyway, because I might have
disagreed with him about things - not about his own work, but if we started
critiquing other artists' work, Jack and I might have looked at it differently.
So it might just be that I never could have worked with any art director who
would function the way I did, because I guess no two people see anything the
same.[vii]
STAN LEE:
I've also heard that some people tried to inflame Jack by telling him
that I earned more money than he. It's true. I did. But the situation wasn't
that cut-and-dried. Jack was paid as a
freelancer for his artwork. I too was paid on a freelance basis, for my
scripts. We were both paid "by the page."
Jack's
penciling rate per page was far higher than my script rate, but I could write
faster than he could draw so it pretty much evened out. But the reason I earned
more was I was also the editor and art director, for which I received an
additional salary.
Many times
in the past I had asked Jack to take an executive staff job at Marvel. I felt
if he were willing, I'd give him my art director duties; he could supervise the
artwork and I'd concentrate on the editing and handle the scripts. We would be
full partners with his salary equaling mine.
However,
Jack never accepted the offer. He told me he'd prefer to freelance. I was
disappointed because I felt that the two of us, working as a team, would have
been dynamite. But that's what irritates me about people telling Jack how
unfair it was that I made more money than he. He could have had exactly the
same financial arrangement as I did, but he never accepted it.[ix]
JACK KIRBY: There's a dark side to comics. It involves
personalities, differences, a lot of things. It has nothing to do with creating
characters and stories. Those things can develop and so you've got to meet
those things head on and I did. I made decisions about those things about as
easily as I made decisions about a story.[x]
STAN LEE:
I remember there was one time some artists had wanted an increase in
their page rate, and they felt they weren't getting paid enough. Martin was in
a pretty gloomy mood that day, and he said to me, “You know what they don't
realize? They don't realize the risk that I'm taking, because if the books
don't sell, it costs -- I lose a lot of money, and I have no guarantee the
books will sell, and we have periods for month after month after month where I'm
losing money where the books don't sell. But I don't cut their rate. I don't
fire them. I try to keep going as much as possible.” And he gave me this whole thing from the
publisher's point of view.
JACK KIRBY: As things went on, I began to work at home and
longer came up to the office. I developed all the stuff at home and just sent
it in. I had to come up with new ideas to help the strip sell. I was faced with
the frustration of having to come up with new ideas and then having them taken
from me. So, I was kind of caught in a box and I had to get out of that box,
and when DC came along and gave me the opportunity to do it, I took it. I
believe working for DC can lead to other experimentation and a better kind of
comic book, and the kind of comic book that could lead to all sorts of
different things.[xi]
STAN LEE:
I just don't feel its right for people who are our better artists or
writers to be working for a competitive company. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I
feel you should have loyalty to one company.[xii]
CARMINE INFANTINO: Jack Kirby and I were old friends. We had
done that strip that never sold and, in the '50s, I worked for him and Joe
Simon. While Jack was at Marvel, we would talk from time to time. In '69, I was
flying back and forth to California
overseeing Hanna-Barbera's work on DC's Super-Friends TV show. I called and
said, "Jack, I'm coming out to California.
Do you want to get together and have a drink?" He said,
"Absolutely." So we did. And when we talked, he showed me these three
covers. They were Forever People, New Gods, and Mister Miracle. I said,
"They're sensational. When is Marvel putting them out?" He said,
"They're my creations and I don't want to do them at Marvel. Would you
make me an offer?" I said, "Absolutely."[xiii]
JACK KIRBY: I was living here in California,
in Irvine. I
get a message that Carmine Infantino is out in California and wants me to come up to his
hotel. To make it short, they wanted me to save Superman. I said, welt, I
wasn't too happy with what was happening at Marvel. I thought, maybe this is
the time to change. But, I said, I don't want to take work away from guys who
have been doing it for years. I said, I'II take that book, Jimmy Olsen. I'll
take the one that has no sales…and I'II do my own books, titles of my own.[xiv]
CARMINE INFANTINO: He wanted a three-year contract. I said,
"No problem; you got it." So I made him an offer, which was more than
what he got over there, and then I gave him a contract. It was that simple. He
was very unhappy at Marvel and wanted to come over to DC. Marvel wouldn't pay him for writing and I
would, so he made more money with us.[xv]
JACK KIRBY: He said yes, because he felt that I could do
it. He had every confidence in me. I had confidence in nobody but myself.
That's the type of guy I am. If I'm
going to do a job, any job-and believe me I've done quite a variety of jobs-I
will think it out, I will find its key, and I will make it sell. So, I turned
Jimmy Olsen into something different. I
took a risk. I changed Superman into a human being. Because Superman is a human
being, except that he has these exceptional qualities. Superman, in reality, would live a very short
life among us. If he lived next door to me I would feel very uncomfortable. I wouldn't
care if he were for truth, justice or anybody. If I ever got into a fight with
him, I wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell. And I depicted that in the
book. I had the heavyweight champ go up to Superman and he says, 'I don't feel
like a champ next to you.' He didn't like Superman because there was no way he
could beat him. Human beings do not like superior people.[xvi]
CARMINE INFANTINO: Kirby requested to draw Superman's Pal, Jimmy
Olsen. In fact, Jack wanted to write and draw the entire Superman line. But I
said, "Well, we'll try you on Jimmy Olsen. Let's see what happens. If it
works, you'll get them all."[xvii]
JOHN ROMITA: When Jack Kirby left Marvel to work at DC he
called me up a couple of days after he left and asked me would I be interested
in working for him on a personal basis.
He said, “John, I want to write more and I want to draw less. I’m going to do about three or four features
in a series and I want guys like you to do them.” In other words he wanted me to do one of the Fourth World titles.
First of all I was so flattered.
I had spoken to Jack many times and he knew I admired him and he was
always very generous to me with his compliments. He used to tell me to throw my eraser away so
I could turn out more pages. He and
Buscema were always on my case because I was not fast. I was very painfully slow and they wanted to
get more pages out of me. So Jack said,
“You come over and I will keep you in artwork.
I will supply you with artwork for as many years as you need it.”
STAN LEE:
When Jack left, John became Jack Kirby to me. Suddenly the guy who was doing Daredevil was
late, I said, "John. Can you do this Daredevil script?" "Sure,
I'll do it," he said and he did it beautifully "John, can you do this
cover?" "John, can you do Captain America?"[xix]
JACK KIRBY: I can only say that DC gave me my own editing
affairs, and if I have an idea I can take credit for it. I don't have the
feeling of repression that I had at Marvel. I don't say I wasn't comfortable at
Marvel, but it had its frustrating moments and there was nothing I could do
about it. When I got the opportunity to transfer to DC, I took it. At DC I'm
given the privilege of being associated with my own ideas. if I did come up
with an idea at Marvel, they'd take it away from me and I lost all association
with it. I was never given credit for the writing which I did. Most of the
writing at Marvel is done by the artist from the script.[xx]
CARMINE INFANTINO: I had seen the movie Planet of the Apes and
thought it was great. We could see that New Gods and Forever People weren't
doing as well as we'd hoped, and we needed something new for Jack. Inspired by
Planet of the Apes, I suggested we do a comic book with a boy in a
post-cataclysmic world run by animals. Jack liked the idea and revived the name
Kamandi from an idea he had in the '50s for a newspaper strip about a
prehistoric caveman. Kamandi did well and continued even after Jack went on to
other things. If we're keeping score, you could consider Jack and me
co-creators on Kamandi.[xxi]
JACK KIRBY: DC was
actually like a haven because I was an individual there. I was able to do
something under my own name. In other words, if I wrote, “Jack Kirby” wrote it.
If I drew, “Jack Kirby” drew it. And the truth was there, and I began to write
and draw, and I felt at last a sense of freedom, and with the sales rising from
those books, my freedom became more apparent to me, and I felt a hell of a lot
better.[xxii]
JOE SIMON:
I wouldn't let Kirby write anything. His work was very fragmentary. The
last time we got together, we did The Sandman. I gave him complete layouts on
the whole book. That was their best-selling book for several years—the first
issue. And the second issue, DC did themselves. It was a real dog. It was a
copy of the first issue. They used the same story, practically.[xxiii]
CARMINE INFANTINO:
I was very surprised when Jack's version of Jimmy
Olsen didn't sell. Jack's art was better than what had been in the title
before, but it didn't help the sales. I don't know how you figure these things;
while Jack's fans may have started buying the book, it might have been too
different for the regular readers.
The King Returns To Marvel
JACK KIRBY: Of course, I honestly think the reason I'm
back is because I wanted to be back. I'm home. And being among the people of
Marvel is good ground to be on. They're good people. They're cooperative. We
share laughs; we share problems. Sharing is what I'm all about. I like to share
and I find that's easy to do at Marvel. I feel that whatever I do and put in
the stories will be read sincerely by the readers and whatever comments I get
will be sincere. I'm glad to be working at Marvel for that reason. I'm going to
do the best I can, give the best stories I can, and always try to see what new
dimensions can be thought of to make the strips better than they can be. I'll
do the best I can. If they read the books, I think they'll enjoy them. I know
Marvel's readers enjoy all the books. I just hope
to add my books to the list.[xxv]
The Silver
Surfer book for Simon and Schuster is a cooperative effort between Stan Lee and
myself. We're working as we've always worked. It's going to be the Silver
Surfer, in depth, because it's a serious book; it's a comic as comics should
be; it's the "human" side of the Surfer, explored inside and out.
I've always
enjoyed working with Stan - we've been a successful team. In the collaboration,
something good comes out; it's the chemistry of a good team. Joe Sinnott, who
is inking it, is a part of that chemistry, too. I tried to make the artwork as
visually interesting as possible, so that the finished product will be a
landmark![xxvi]
[i] The Comics Journal
#134 (February 1990)
[ii] Stan Lee Excelsior
(Fireside, 2002)
[iii] Creepy #3 (November
1977)
[iv] Comics Scene #2
(March 1982)
[v] Stan Lee Interview
(1974)
[vii] Stan Lee
Conversations, pgs 150-151 (Univ. Press of Mississippi 2007)
[viii] FOOM #10 (Marvel
Comics, 1975)
[ix] Stan Lee Excelsior
(Fireside, 2002)
[x] The Comic Feature
#25 (1984)
[xi] The Comic Feature
#25 (1984)
[xii] The Comics Journal
#42 ( 1978)
[xiii] The Amazing World of
Carmine Infantino (Vanguard, 2001)
[xiv] Comics Scene #2
(March 1982)
[xv] The Amazing World of
Carmine Infantino (Vanguard, 2001)
[xvi] Comics Scene #2
(March 1982)
[xvii] The Amazing World of
Carmine Infantino (Vanguard, 2001)
[xviii] AI with John Romita
(2005)
[xix] Comic Book
Marketplace #61 (July 1991)
[xx] Rockets Blast Comic
Collector #81 (1970)
[xxi] The Amazing World of
Carmine Infantino (Vanguard, 2001)
[xxii] The Comics Journal
#134 (February 1990)
[xxiii] Comic Book
Marketplace #62 (August 1998)
[xxiv] The Amazing World of
Carmine Infantino (Vanguard, 2001)
[xxv] FOOM #10 (September
1975)
[xxvi] FOOM #19 (Fall 1977)
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