Cut to present day and it was with great expectations to see that a university press would be publishing Charles Hatfield’s “Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby.” Hatfield, after all, is a college professor of English at California State University, Northridge, and the author of “Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature,” as well as many articles over the years for “The Jack Kirby Collector.” However, when I finally saw the cover I had that same sinking feeling I had years earlier: “That doesn’t look like Kirby.” Sure enough, as Hatfield explained on his blog: “Re: the cover, I love Geoff Grogan’s image, and I’m proud to have it! I commissioned it. The Press and I discussed many options for the cover. There were legal constraints, of course. The decision to go with a new, original illustration rather than a photo of Kirby was my call. I’m digging the results!”

Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby by Charles Hatfield (University Press of Mississippi, 2011), illustration by Geoff Grogan.

As I designer I know there were infinite possibilities, regardless of the rights issue, beyond a choice of a photo or Kirby art. With all due respect to Geoff Grogan I am hard-pressed to understand why someone would opt for an imitation of the artist the book is about. Can you imagine a book on Matisse, Picasso or Pollock, or pretty much any “fine” artist, with faux art on the cover? For me it represents that a serious take on comic artists and Kirby in particular still has a long way to go.

Published almost simultaneously this year was “Lee and Kirby: The Wonder Years,” an oversize trade paperback edition of “The Jack Kirby Collector,” written by the late Mark Alexander, with a cover (and interior) designed by publisher John Morrow. Unfortunately, once again, for a book about Lee and Kirby’s “Fantastic Four” years, Kirby is nowhere to be seen on the cover.

Lee & Kirby: The Wonder Years by Mark Alexander, (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2011) design by John Morrow.

Actually both these tomes represent a long-standing tradition of packaging books about and containing art by Kirby with someone else’s art on the covers. Kirby drew hundreds or more covers in his lifetime, yet apparently isn’t qualified to grace his own books.

An early example of this is the “Silver Surfer Novel,” published by Marvel/Fireside Books in 1978. Hailed as the first new (and final) collaboration in many years between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, “All New…The Ultimate Cosmic Experience!” Lee and Kirby shared equal billing on the cover over a painting by Earl Norem.  Perhaps the conventional wisdom was that “painted covers look like paperback covers,” yet when Marvel signed a deal with Lancer books in the mid 1960s to reprint their comics for the first time in mass-market paperback format, it was recycled (and pastiched) Kirby art that they utilized.

The Silver Surfer by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (Fireside/Marvel 1978), cover painting by Earl Norem. In contrast to the Lancer paperback from 1966, which featured Kirby art.

Marvel continued this practice going forward. The cover of “Fantastic Four” Number One, November 1961, is one of Kirby’s most iconic covers. For Marvel’s “Fantastic Four Omnibus” Volume One (2005), which contains only Kirby’s art within, they featured an Alex Ross painting based on the cover, although they did issue a variant cover as well as one with Kirby’s original cover. Covering the same material with Kirby’s name once again featured prominently, the “Fantastic Four Masterworks” Volumes One through Six, issued in 2009, displayed covers by Dean White. For the “Fantastic Four Omnibus” Volume Two they issued an alternate with a painting by Mexican artist Ladronn. “The Hulk Omnibus” and “Masterworks” volumes sport competing “interpretations” by Ross and White, respectively. “The Avengers Masterworks” Volumes One and Two again featured cover art by White while prominently flaunting the Kirby moniker; likewise “Captain America Masterworks,” “The Avengers Omnibus,” and “Thor Omnibus” series. According to Marvel, “Thor” contains: “The painstakingly restored classic tales that gave birth to the greatest saga of myth and adventure to ever grace the comic book page!” Similarly, despite touting Kirby, the “Tales From Asgard Omnibus” selling copy boasts “Read these stories as never before with all-new, modern coloring and six extraordinary interlocking covers by current THOR artist Olivier Coipel.” For the record, Marvel, unlike DC and many other publishers in these days of high-res scans, has continued the practice of hiring artists to trace and recolor the original pages, so one can make the argument that you aren’t getting Kirby art in the interiors as well.

Dueling Fantastic Four Number Ones: Kirby’s original...

... Alex Ross ...

... and Dean White reinventions. The White covers are signed Kirby/White although the art is only based on Kirby’s.

In 2008 Abrams published the Eisner Award winning “Kirby: King of Comics” by Kirby biographer and former assistant Mark Evanier. While not his long awaited biography, this coffee table book featured beautifully reproduced artwork plus a succinct biography. The cover, by designer Paul Sahre, solved the rights issue, as well as which Kirby art does one display from what comic book company, by creating a dynamic wraparound collage featuring tightly cropped images of various elements and characters: a gray Hulk, a hint of Captain America’s shield, a rocketship, etc. Unfortunately, Sahre left mid-project due to creative differences, so the interior does not display the same level of creativity he was able to put on view earlier with “Maximum Fantastic Four,” with its inventive folded poster cover and panel-by-panel enlargements, a tribute to “FF” #1, ironically published by Marvel in 2005. The Abrams cover was a toned-down version of Sahre’s original design and oddly, they chose to devote a gatefold to an Alex Ross “interpretation” of a Kirby splash, quite a bit of real estate to give away for a work of art not by the subject at hand.

Paul Sahre’s original Kirby: King of Comics cover (Abrams, 2008). The published version removed Sahre’s wrap around white lettering.

Likewise three versions of The Incredible Hulk by the same trio of artists

The Incredible Hulk, art by Alex Ross

The Incredible Hulk, art by Dean White

Kirby's iconic world eating godlike Galactus reinterpreted by Ladronn andWhite.

Sahre’s inventive poster cover for Maximum Fantastic Four (Marvel, 2005) that folds out to reveal Kirby art for the cover of Fantastic Four number one.

One can only hope that when Evanier finally gets around to publishing his biographic opus on Kirby that the cover will feature art by the subject, or a design that pays tribute without resorting to simulation or trying blatantly to appeal to a contemporary audience. Sometimes imitation is not the highest form of flattery.

Copyright F+W Media Inc. 2012.

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