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 Let me begin by readily admitting that i’m completely unqualified for the job of reviewing this book. I never grew up  reading Marvel and DC. Oh, the occasional comic on holiday out of boredom, but this usually ended in complete mystification as to what the hell is going on ???,as it seemed i’d need to read 30 different comics going back a coupla years to know exactly why Spiderman was having to take on Daredevil, or the Avengers, or whoever  in that month’s issue. I normally existed on a diet of IPC weeklies, Commando War Picture Libraries, and that wussy Look-In, with Gary Glitter pinups (Arrrgh!). So as to who, or maybe more correctly, what, Jack Kirby was, I wasn’t aware. It was only in the nineteen - eighties, that I really became aware of Kirby, having purchased Destroyer Duck issue one, and upon reading the continual rigmarole surrounding his ongoing struggle with Marvel that seemed to appear in every issue of The Comics Journal at that time. It was then that I became more conscious of his importance to what we generally consider as the modern comic book. I began to look at Kirby’s art here and there, and after an initial sense of snobby dismissiveness, began to see just what was so special about the work of a man who many may have sneeringly dismissed as a mainstream corporate hack.

 Mark Evanier’s eagerly awaited biography arrives as a timely reminder of just why Jack Kirby should be rightly valued as one of the best comic book creators of all time. The front of the book’s dustjacket epitomises everything  that Kirby’s art was, and is, about. The Hulk’s huge fist seemingly smashing itself right into our faces from out of the cover, all brute force and energy and insanity. Everything that Kirby drew was infused with this boundless  force of life, and most importantly, endless imagination ! This is the thing above all else that strikes me about what makes Kirby great! How many ideas can one man have? If comic creators now had even a sliver of Kirbys boundless energy, enthusiasm for his medium and brain-splittingly ludicrous imagination,the comic world would be a far better place.  I always think this energy and imagination is best seen in the copies of his pencilled pages, here for instance in the terrific reproduction of the wonderful 10 page Street Code, in itself almost a distillation of everything Kirby’s art was, as well as being a beautifully poignant autobiographical piece. Simply looking through this book, at the endless examples of Kirby’s work should be able to tell you more than mere words will about what makes Jack Kirby’s work special and groundbreaking. What also becomes apparent in the beautifully reproduced examples herein, is the development of his artwork from the early comics workshop system imitator of popular strips, to one of the ultimate comic art stylists. The illustrations alone are worth the price of admission here. One has to commend the excellent design job on the book by Mark LaRiviere and E.Y.Lee.

As to the writing, well, initially, I had a problem, though in retrospect the problem was mine, and not Mark Evanier’s. My first feeling was of a sense of a lack of depth, a need for a quite hefty amount of biographical information, every single finickety nugget of fact that Mr Evanier may be able to throw light on about the King of Comics. Just what was Jack smoking in those cigars that allowed him to come up with such amazing, at times, almost deranged flights of imagination, for instance ? The ins and outs of Jack’s up and down relationship with Stan (Working For) “The Man” Lee. That kinda stuff. I was looking for a biog that was the Ultimate, Definitive Graphic Novel on Kirby. What I felt  I initially got from Mark Evanier was the Kirby Convention sketch.

But then, after reading the book in it’s entirety, and sitting down to think about reviewing it, I began to think differently. I was missing the point. I realised I knew virtually nothing about Kirby’s comic career, his life in comics. This book actually filled me in on that life, all those decades. And what really made me think differently about it was that by the end of it I had been moved to tears, the big wuss that I am. All the detailed ins and outs, stories, anecdotes and gossip I thought I required from this book, I really didn’t need. You can find all that stuff in a myriad of Kirby related stuff out there. All those old Comic Journal arguments and interviews, all the Jack Kirby Collectors, all that other stuff. The truth of this book was something else. It was this. That sometimes, the sketch will always tell you more about the artist than any finished picture will (especially if the finished picture has been ruined by a bad inking job.And Jack always felt he never wanted to ink his work-it was all there in his pencils.And he was right.). This is the quality inherent in the biography that Mark Evanier has written; it is a beautiful, lovingly rendered portrait of an artist, drawn with respect, love and compassion for his subject, not just as an artist, but as a dignified human being. It is of course, perfectly embellished by the Artist’s own work, and Evanier knows only too well that Kirby’s work spoke volumes about the man himself.