About the King

Just a quick post tonight. I mentioned this last night at Howling Curmudgeons, and I was always going to post it here, too, but it's taken me twenty-four hours. Something's got to let up soon.

Anyway, for those non-comics people in the audience, you may have heard of Jack Kirby anyway. His hands were involved in the creation of Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, The X-Men, the Silver Surfer, Thor (as a comics character), and multitudes of other characters that aren't quite as well known. There's a big new biography of him (and by big I mean "in size" just as much as "in importance"--it's 12.5" by 9.5") by Mark Evanier, who started out his own writing career as Kirby's assistant. It's called Kirby: King of Comics, and Evanier has been out doing the whole book promotion thing. Yesterday he was on Fresh Air, and if you didn't happen to hear it (I stumbled over it myself when I was in the car), you can catch up at this link. You can also read a little bit of the book. By the way, if you're interested in Kirby, Evanier maintains this book is a quick overview. The detailed magnum opus is still to come.