Jack Kirby

Kirby met Rosalind Goldstein when his family moved to Brooklyn. They married on May 23, 1942. They had four children: Susan, Neal, Barbara, and Lisa. He bought a house in Mineola, Long Island, New York, in 1949. In 1969, the entire family moved to Southern California. He died of heart failure at his residence in Thousand Oaks, California, on February 6, 1994.

Jack Kirby was born on August 28, 1917, in the Lower East Side (LES) neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, to Rose (Burnstein) and Benjamin Kurtzberg. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Austria. His father worked at a garment factory.

Since childhood, Jack had a liking for drawing. He initially learnt by tracing characters from cartoon strips. He joined the ‘Pratt Institute’ in Brooklyn when he was 14, but quit within a week due to financial issues.

In 1936, he began working for ‘Lincoln Newspaper Syndicate’ under the pen-name “Jack Curtiss.” In his three-year-stint there, he created strips/characters such as ‘Black Buccaneer,’ ‘Abdul Jones,’ ‘Cyclone Burke,’ and ‘Socko the Seadog.’ In 1939, he joined ‘Fleischer Studios,’ a movie animation company, where he worked as an “in-betweener” for ‘Popeye Cartoons,’ but quit it after a while.

He began creating comics for ‘Eisner & Iger,’ founded by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger, which provided comic-book packages on publisher’s demands. He drew his first comic book for ‘Wild Boy Magazine.’ He then created other comic strips under the pseudonyms “Curt Davis,” “Ted Grey,” “Fred Sande,” “Teddy,” “Lance Kirby,” and “Jack Kirby.”

Kirby joined ‘Fox Feature Syndicate’ and teamed up with their artist and editor Joe Simon. Together, they also worked as freelancers. Their collaboration lasted for almost 15 years. In late 1940, they created the patriotic superhero ‘Captain America’ for publisher Martin Goodman’s ‘Timely Comics.’

In 1941, the first issue of ‘Captain America Comics’ released and earned them immediate success, establishing the duo as skilled comic-book artists. Before this, they had introduced many other characters which such as ‘Mercury,’ ‘Tuk the Caveboy,’ ‘Hurricane,’ ‘Red Raven,’ and ‘Comet Pierce.’ Within a short span of time, they produced 10 issues of ‘Captain America’ and then decided to leave ‘Timely Comics,’ as they felt that they were not being paid their promised share.

Simon and Kirby then joined ‘National Comics Publication,’ known for their superheroes ‘Superman’ and ‘Batman.’ They altered a previous character and created a new hero: ‘Manhunter.’ Their new series, ‘The Newsboy Legion’ and ‘Boy Commandos,’ became very popular.

In his illustrious career, spanning five decades, Kirby won innumerable awards and honors. He received the 1967 ‘Alley Award for Best Pencil Artist’ and many other ‘Alley Awards’ over the years. In 1971, he was awarded the ‘Shazam Award’ for ‘Special Achievement by an Individual’ for his ‘Fourth World’ series. He was given the ‘Inkpot Award’ in 1974 and was inducted into the ‘Shazam Awards Hall of Fame’ in 1975. Kirby was the inducted into the inaugural ‘Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame’ in 1987. He received two awards posthumously: the ‘Harvey Award’ and the ‘Eisner Award’ in 1998.

An asteroid discovered on September 22, 2001, was named ‘Asteroid 51985 Kirby,’ to honor him. The ‘Jack Kirby Awards,’ and the ‘Jack Kirby Hall of Fame’ were named in his honor.