Translator and manga scholar Matt Thorn replied to some of my thoughts on Jack Kirby a while back. I thought I’d reprint his comments here (I’ve added some markers just to make it clear who’s speaking.
[Noah:] He [Jack Kirby] draws awesome monsters, though. Which is no small thing, and which I really appreciate about him.
Matt Thorn:What you said. Kirby was much, much better (IMHO) at drawing the ugly and grotesque than at drawing the beautiful, which is probably why D.C. took the embarrassing step of having someone re-draw Kirby’s Superman. I prefer Kirby’s take, but the whole thing about Superman is that he’s all shiny and handsome and sparkly, right? Kirby’s Superman looks like a college wrestler with a chip on his shoulder. Which is very cool, but, yeah, not the image of Superman D.C. wants to convey (then or now). The Thing is probably the character that is most iconically Kirby in my mind. Grotesque, and yet sympathetic, and somehow just very cool, in a very anti-Superman kind of way.
[Noah:] Haney’s not subtle, and the quality varies obviously. But he’s way more attuned to a world outside his skull than Kirby is.
[Matt Thorn:] Noah, I think you nailed it there. Kirby seems unable to successfully step outside of the world inside his own skull. His half-hearted attempt to write “groovy slang” illustrates that he didn’t know much about or really care much about the world outside his skull, at least not after WWII. And that is of course fine. As others have noted above, many great artists are enormously successful at being what I controversially characterized as “self-indulgent,” and what Mike more generously characterized as doing work that is “personally meaningful to them.” Whether you see it as a feature or a bug, I think it’s fair to say that Kirby’s worlds are more or less self-contained, and while they may speak to “the human condition” at large, he was never one whose work really reflected the world outside his door.
Which, AGAIN, is PERFECTLY OKAY.
Perhaps this non-post is interesting as an rare example of two people agreeing about something here, but Kirby’s Superman heads were not redrawn for the reasons stated, but because at that time DC only allowed for a narrow interpretation of the look of their major character/properties. The Jimmy Olsen and Perry White heads were also redrawn, for the same reason. And Kirby’s work at DC and throughout his entire career absolutely “reflected the world outside his door”. The 4th World books explored contemporary issues ranging from genetic experimentation, mind expansion and communal living, to various sorts of considered responses to rampant militarism including conscientious objection.
“He was never one whose work really reflected the world outside his door”?!?! Darkseid was based on NIXON, fer crissakes!
I think the suggestion that Darkseid was supposed to be Nixon is rather a confirmation of Kirby’s inability to get outside his own head than a refutation of it.
How so, Noah?
Thanks for this great post! In 40+ years, my view of Jack’s work evolved from blind fanboy to balanced appreciation. So much so that — bucking the trend at my own panel (https://www.facebook.com/events/476845019017398/) — I now don’t mind DC’s alterations on Jack’s Superman characters. I think the quote “…he didn’t know much about or really care much about the world outside his skull, at least not after WWII.” sums it up best.
David Marshall
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Who was ” Haney ” ? Bob ?
There does not appear to be a link to the original article…
Walter, I’m confused; the link works for me?
And yes, the Haney in question is Bob.
Arlen…Darkseid as Nixon (or vice versa) is just completely ridiculous in just about every way, at least to me. It doesn’t suggest to me that Kirby had anything perceptive, or even really coherent, to say about the world outside him (which doesn’t mean that Darkseid isn’t a fun character, of course.)
Noah, then I guess you’re standing alone, AGAINST what JK himself has said in interviews, and writers from Charles Hatfield to Mark Evanier to practically every writer in every issue of The Jack Kirby Collector have written reams backing JK up.
…Ran my mouse over across it again , and no link came up .
Walter…that’s really odd. But here it is:
https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2011/07/bursting-with-boredom/#comment-21055
Arlen, I’m not standing alone. I’m sure Matt Thorn would agree with me. And…in any case, my general take on Kirby is way outside the critical consensus. I’m just not that into him.
Noah, “not being into him” and not knowing what you’re talking about when it comes to critiquing him are two different things.
…Thank you , I’ll read it at length when I can .
Wait…I’m not saying that Darkseid isn’t supposed to be Nixon. I’m saying that, presuming he is Nixon, it’s such a preposterous take on Nixon that it confirms me in my view that Kirby doesn’t really care what’s happening outside his skull.
Okay? I’m not arguing with you about facts; I’ve just got a different take on the evidence at hand.
What is so “preposterous” about it, metaphorically speaking? Have you actually read JK’s words and the critical analysis supporting it?
I mean, I’ve read a fair bit about Nixon. I’ve read Darkseid stories. It just seems absurd to me on its face. But…I don’t need to convince you or anything. I’m happy to agree to disagree.
I’m not here to “convince” you either; just pointing out “the facts” that you haven’t read what JK said about Darkseid/Nixon, or what others have said about it either, it seems. You’re just calling it “preposterous”!
This whole Nixon/Darkseid thing doesn’t jive — regardless of what Kirby may have said in interviews later. The timeline is way off.
Darkseid appeared in late 1970 — fully two years before the Watergate break-in and four years before Nixon’s resignation.
Nixon had only been president for about a year and a half when Kirby drew his first Darkseid story. At that time, Nixon’s approval rating was in the 60 percent range.
And even at Nixon’s worst, he never came anywhere near Darkseid’s league. Hitler or Vlad the Impaler, maybe. But Nixon? That’s just plain silly.
Nixon was REALLY disliked by those who disliked him , Russ .
Now , today , Obama has won two elections and those who REALLY dislike him , well…( Just check over this very same invention we’re discussing this on !!!!!!!!! )
I understand, Walter, but in 1970, Nixon was nowhere near the evil icon he’d become just a few years later. Mark Evanier said that Kirby modeled Darkseid after Hitler — which makes perfect sense.
Nixon simply was not in Hitler’s, or Darkseid’s, league.
“But Nixon? That’s just plain silly.”
That’s all I was trying to say.
Russ, I’m surprised you would not understand the nature of Nixon from YEARS before the watergate era, which you absurdly claim is only when people saw the “real” Nixon?!?! and how he was ALWAYS despised by the Democratic/left-wing & leaning part of the American body politic, going back to the ’50s when he was a poor-man’s McCarthy! A guy like Kirby, coming from a working-class jewish/immigrant bg, and a voracious reader, would have probably leaned anti-Nixon from the get-go! And gee, Russ, what happened in the middle of ’70 that might’ve further demonized nixon? A little incident called Kent State? Nixon created the conditions–with his “Law & order” campaign that implicity and explicity targeted student rebellion–that helped pull that Guardsman’s trigger finger. Remember “Tin Soldiers and Nixon’s coming…”? Betcha JK knew that song from the “Forever People” youth surrounding him in Cali.
…and your further comments, like Noah’s, are WAY too literal; most great creators like JK try to use metaphors without the sledgehammer literalness you’re both requiring JK ascribe to meet your requirements. JK said Darkseid was “his” Nixon, plenty of accredited writers have waxed poetic on it, and I tend to believe ALL of them over the TWO of you.
Arlen — Nixon was no Darkseid, and trying to pigeonhole him into that category after the fact makes no sense.
Nixon kicked McGovern’s ass by a landslide during the 1972 election, and not because he was perceived as evil incarnate.
I know, because I’m probably one of the few people not related to McGovern who voted for him in 1972.
You voted for McGovern, Russ? I tip my hat to you; that was a good call.
Arlen wrote: “JK said Darkseid was “his” Nixon”
That’s a heckuva different statement than saying Kirby “modeled” Darkseid after Nixon.
Noah — I was young and foolish…
;)
Actually, everyone in Chicago back then voted Democratic… even the dead people.
I will stop wasting my time here on 2 literal-minded mindsets like those on display here, so the 2 of you can continue your circle-jerk alone; Evanier: “The style and substance of this master antagonist were based on just about every power-mad tyrant Kirby had ever met or observed, with a special emphasis on Richard Milhous Nixon. Nixon was kind of the monster du jour for many in 1970 and he’s still a fine template for various forms of villainy.” http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2006_11_10.html#012391
Arlen — Accuracy is accuracy. Mark’s citing his opinion — as am I. I lived through that time period, and while Nixon later became quite the villain (I even referred to a futuristic despot leader in one of my 1974 strips as “Nixler”), in 1970 — when Darkseid was spawned — Nixon was not thought of as the evil scourge as he was just a few years later.
History without accuracy is fiction.
Russ, Evanier WORKED with Kirby during that time; his is more than just an “opinion”; as to your “opinion”–which you never bothered, btw to engage my previous post’s points pro-“evil scourge,” re: Nixon/McCarthy, Kent State, etc.–tells me you’re either a pro-Nixon apologist, or you were living on the Bizarro World in 1970.
Arlen, you’re moving close to personal insults with very little provocation. Do it again and I’ll delete it. Fair warning.
Russ…probably best to just leave it. Everybody’s position seems clear, so I think we’re just headed towards more heat than light at this stage.
Fine, I’ll go; you guys can then continue to insult Kirby all on your own. http://comicsbulletin.com/columns/4946/the-auteur-theory-of-comics/#overlay-context=users/jason-sacks
“And…in any case, my general take on Kirby is way outside the critical consensus.”
Only if “critical consensus” is defined as the comics community. Surely Noah’s take on it is the same as any aesthetically minded person who hasn’t grown up with those comics.
“Nixon simply was not in Hitler’s, or Darkseid’s, league.”
He was no Pol Pot, either. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t partly responsible for the latter’s rise to power.
…Critical consensus in comics is a strange animal…
The comics critical consensus majority is a minority outside the comics world.
I’m sympathetic to the Kirby detractors here on the matter of his value to an intelligent ideological art, but I agree with the assessment that Nixon was despised and should’ve been despised long before Watergate — that was just the conclusion, as is so often the case, that the left was right about what makes someone or -thing popular.
FINALLY a voice of reason here OTHER than my own! Thanx, Charles!
I really, really, really despise Nixon. He was a horrible human being, a war monger, and for all intents and purposes a mass murderer. Also a pathological liar and a bully.
But you can despise him without thinking that it makes sense to turn him into a mythological embodiment of evil. Nixon was a corrupt scumbag, not a world conqueror. Turning him into Darkseid is kind of too good for him, is a big part of the reason it’s ridiculous.
The Nixon thing is ridiculous because it isn’t in the actual comic, a far as I can tell. A work of art should stand on it’s own merits. If you’re relying in a quote from the author or his buddy, you’ve got a problem.
…I don’t know if I’m considered byArlen to be one of the ” literal-minded circle jerks ” , whatever………
Arlen, I’ve deleted that. One more like that and I’ll ban you.
Okay, Arlen’s been banned. Please don’t further respond to his comments, since he’s no longer able to reply. Thanks.
I’m not wanting to have anything in common with the thankfully departed caped guy, but Russ, I seriously doubt that Jack cared less about the current public “approval rating” of the then-standing president, whether or not he based a character on said warmongering crook.
I agree that Kirby did a startlingly good job drawing the grotesque, but I still think Beautiful Dreamer and Big Barda were pretty hot.
(I’m assuming it’s okay for me to post without mentioning Nixon.)
Darkseid is an all-purpose totalitarian dictator/strongman inspired by the likes of Hitler/Mussolini but not limited to any one.
If you’re looking for a one-on-one contemporary public figure that would be Glorious Godfrey and the Justifiers for Billy Graham.
You’d have to be pretty literal-minded to read the Fourth World series and not perceive that Kirby was engaged with his times. Through a cracked lens, but that’s the poetry. As goofy as those comics can be they age a lot better than Green Lantern/Green Arrow.
I think that’s an extreme mischaracterization of Billy Graham. Have you ever listened to one of his sermons or read anything he wrote? There are plenty of slick hucksters behind pulpits, but Billy Graham gets the attention he does because he speaks in earnest, and with genuine care for his audience. He asks questions and encourages serious thought about questions people spend much of their lives trying to avoid. I’ve only read a few GG stories, but I don’t think he could be more different.
James — I never voted for Nixon (As I mentioned previously, I voted for McGovern in 1972), and thus I don’t have a dog in the fight when it comes to “apologizing” for him.
All I’m saying is that in 1970, when Kirby created Darkseid, Nixon was not widely reviled as he was a few years later, so stating that “Nixon was based on Darkseid” is most likely factually incorrect.
I’ve believe I’ve read most, if not all, of Kirby’s Fourth World fanzine interviews circa the early 1970s, and I don’t recall reading anything where Kirby said that.
Darkseid, from everything I recall from that era, was based more on Hitler than anything else.
Noah: “Nixon was a corrupt scumbag, not a world conqueror.”
All american presidents have been world conquerors since, at least, WWII. It’s just that if there’s a lesson Hitler, Mussollini and Hirohito teached them is that the days of the Roman Empire were over. The American Empire is based in economic domination, corrupt (usually right wing dictators) puppet leaders and limited police military actions. The Chinese today are learning fast.
I know that this thread is fairly unraveled by now, but it seems that I find myself siding with Russ on simple matters of history. These two things seem likely (with a third question added on):
1. The Nixon of 1970 was not perceived in the same way — even by his opponents — as the Nixon of 1973 and after. That year, Nixon’s approval ratings hovered around 60%. He was viewed (domestically) as a political moderate/pragmatist. Yes this was the time of Cambodia, Kent State, and CSNY’s “Ohio.” But this was also the Nixon who publicly supported the ERA, attempted price controls, backed environmental enforcement (and Earth Day), regulated Big Tobacco, and did not try to stop the progressive agenda of the Democratic Congress.
This is before the Imperial Presidency, the enemies list, and of course Watergate became associated with the man. Sure he was a Cold Warrior, but he was not — I think — seem as a Goldwater or a second-string McCarthy.
My point is not that he’s a liberal — or that’s he’s *really* anything. But I am curious how he was viewed back then. Were other political cartoonists viewing him as a ruthless dictator and power-mad autocrat? Was Kirby — if you accept his version of events — the only one? It seems unlikely.
2. It seems to be a fact that Kirby’s stories about his creative process in the 1960s and ’70s tended to evolve as he grew older, growing more elaborate and even inflated. I am no Kirby exert, but I can recall plenty of doubtful stories about his intentions or thoughts behind The Hulk, Galactus, Dragon Man, and even his own later work — stories that seemed to become embellished with time, making things sound more serious, more poetic.
Again, is that the case here? I don’t know. But Russ seems to indicate such a timeline. Has anyone made an effort to track the ways in which Kirby’s stories changed over the decades?
3. I would, finally, like to here what evidence we have for Kirby being a “voracious reader.” I’ve heard this many times, but I am not sure why we think that it is so. (Indeed, if I recall correctly, his wife said that she had few memories of Kirby reading.)
Once again, I have no problem believing Kirby did love to read. I simply wonder how we know this. Do we see evidence of deep reading in his comics? (I, for example, don’t see a deep understanding of evolution in his little essays for, I think, Devil Dinosaur — just a pretty standard, Life Magazine-level images of life and energy and what ‘science now tells us’…. Of course,that is just one subject. fantastically inflected.)
I honestly do not know. But I do know that this blanket claim is often made to link Kirby to other writers or to vouch for his historical accuracy/acumen. On what grounds is it made?
None of these comments is meant to disparage Kirby, for whose work I have no great feeling either way. (Heck, I love Charles Schulz, but I don’t believe that he loved Tolstoy, no matter how many times he said it — and in part because of the number of times he said it.) But the facts behind the discussion interest me nonetheless.
It really becomes tiresome to continually have to defend Kirby against people who for whatever reason prefer the absolute scumbags who ruined his life up at Marvel, or people who prefer the imaginary character/properties that he made up over the formerly flesh and blood artist. It is disheartening when one’s only support comes from those who restate one’s own points in the form of garbled “theories” and present them while dressed as a character/property themselves. But that being as it may, here again we have another pointless and malinformed attack on screwed and dead Jack and I start feeling that life is too damned short to explain that some people don’t form their opinions from popularity polls and that Kirby was a liberal Democrat and so was perfectly aware of what a piece of shit Nixon was early on. Hell, even as a child I knew Nixon was a bad one, and that well before 1970. I do see a good amount of real world influence reflected in his stories and I see more realism in his drawing than there is in most other cartoonists’ work. I agree with John Hennings that Kirby could draw some gorgeous women and other aesthetically pleasing things besides monsters, but I do also recall him saying that he did base Glorious Godfrey on Billy Graham, because he did not care for the way that evangelical Christians push their beliefs on others. And on that note, I think I will vaporize.
Hi James,
My comments and questions may be pointless, but I do not think they could or should be characterized as an attack.
Also, I don’t see how my questions have any bearing on whether Jack was screwed (he was) or whether he is dead (he is).
Yeah, I grew up in a left-wing house too. My first memory of a political event was watching the 1972 returns and McGovern’s defeat. But I am honestly wondering how many liberal Democrats were viewing Nixon in 1970 as the embodiment of evil (not just a shit).
Do we have political cartoons that resonate with this putative Kirby vision? How does Nixon appear even in underground comix of the time?
Of course answers to these questions may not tell us what was going on in Kirby’s head. (Then again, it sounds like Kirby didn’t tell us, at the time, much about a Nixon-Darkseid connection.) But if this is an open question — and not decided merely on what Jack poor dead screwed Jack look his best — then it seems to be evidence worth considering.
Peter: it wasn’t so much what you and Noah, who always says that he hasn’t actually read Kirby’s stuff, said, but the general tone of diminishing Kirby’s intelligence and awareness. It has been ongoing for many years and from many sources, it serves the purposes of people who profited by his work while robbing him and it has become exceedingly tiresome. Then, I was appalled to see the “support” that followed my initial response and given the expected responses to come from the usual commenters—-I just have to avoid this void.
“who always says that he hasn’t actually read Kirby’s stuff”
? I’ve read hundreds of pages of Kirby. I’m sure that’s much less than folks who are fans, but…
Reagan, too, was immensely popular in the polls at the same time as being loathed by liberals and the left. It’s hardly a categorical impossibility to have people holding a view different from the statistical majority. It’s called a minority.
And the view that Nixon was fairly liberal is in the context of how awful the Republican party has become since. It’s a contemporary reading.
Billy Graham recorded in a private conversation with Nixon, 1972: “This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain… I go and I keep friends with Mr. Rosenthal at The New York Times and people of that sort, you know… And all — I mean, not all the Jews, but a lot of the Jews are great friends of mine, they swarm around me and are friendly to me because they know that I’m friendly with Israel. But they don’t know how I really feel about what they are doing to this country. And I have no power, no way to handle them, but I would stand up if under proper circumstances.”
I think it’s safe to say Kirby had his ears to the ground in some ways…
I talk about the Bill Graham/Nixon/Darkseid connection here: http://comicscomicsmag.com/2010/02/billy-graham-as-glorious-godfrey.html
“Reagan, too, was immensely popular in the polls at the same time as being loathed by liberals and the left. ”
Yes, another mass murderer.
I am to the right of most people here, and I’m a Kirby fan, but I fully accept Evanier’s comment that Kirby based Darkseid on Nixon. For one thing, there’s a certain facial resemblance — not really a literal one, but in a way Kirby’s Darkseid resembles the way one might expect Kirby to caricature Nixon. For another, Evanier has no real reason to lie on this point. For a third, Kirby was obviously trying to channel the hippie culture in his Fourth World stories, and that culture despised Nixon early.
The point about Nixon’s approval ratings in 1970 seems ridiculous to me. George W. Bush was well north of 60% in 2002 when he was routinely compared to history’s worst monsters in certain circles. For one reason or another, this is the way American political opposition (on both sides of the aisle) works — with hyperbolic comparisons.
I’m actually puzzled by the emotion attached to resisting this. Do some people struggle this much with liking an artist with views different from their own? Isn’t that just the price of pluralism? How do you survive in the modern world with an attitude like that?
“Kirby seems unable to successfully step outside of the world inside his own skull. His half-hearted attempt to write “groovy slang” illustrates that he didn’t know much about or really care much about the world outside his skull, at least not after WWII.”
Wow, that is completely unconvincing. We could talk about whether the allegories could have been less heavy-handed, or whether he could write youth culture like an insider, or had a viable exit strategy for Vietnam, or whether the Forever People’s respective gimmicks were anything other than embarrassing, but how could anybody read the Fourth World comics and conclude that Kirby “didn’t care much about the world outside his skull after WWII”? The unifying Darkseid storyline in Forever People, New Gods, Mister Miracle is all about the allure and tactics of totalitarianism, and it’s no coincidence that the most frequent confrontations with that character were in the youth culture title. Kirby’s return to those characters in the 1980s is also unjustly neglected, and its themes of corporate franchising and disillusionment with technology also reflect its times. I’m open to arguments about Kirby’s success and failure as an artist, but his detractors should build a solid case from the work. The discussion on this site is often erudite and compelling, but this copy-paste “article” doesn’t rise above the kind of opinion you see on Usenet or the DC message boards.