Norwegian Kirby

Some years ago, while visiting Norway, I went to the Gustav Vigeland Museum and the incredible Vigeland Sculpture Park.  While inside the museum, I happened across a statue that I felt bore quite a resemblance to Jack Kirby.  I shot the picture below and had kind of forgotten about it until I had a recent Facebook conversation with Klaus Nordby.  So here it is, along with a photo of Jack for comparison:

Below is a full shot of the statue:

Interestingly enough, while digging up info on Gustav Vigeland, I found the image below, apparently taken outside at the nearby Vigeland Park:

Probably much ado about nothing, but I thought the resemblance was fairly close.  Anyway, if you ever happen to go to Norway, you must visit the Gustav Vigeland museum and the Vigeland Park,  Here are some images of the sculpture park which Gustav Vigeland designed:

Early Postcard featuring "The Monolith"

If you are interested, you can learn more about Gustav Vigeland here:

Vigeland Sculpture Park
 or
Gustav Vigeland (1869-1943)

Strange Kirby Blog

Recently, someone told me that my Kirby blog was "strange".  Well, I take that as a compliment (who wants a run of the mill Kirby blog anyway?), so, in keeping with our recent "Kirby Batman" entry, here's Kirby doing another character not his own: DR. STRANGE!

OKAY....WAIT....WHAT?

 

 

 

 

Jack Kirby: Thanks For Calling!

I was lucky to have met Jack Kirby and, during the 1980s, had a number of phone conversations with Jack and Roz.  Some time ago I tried to convert one of the tapes I made into a video format, the audio came out poorly, and I've meant for the longest time to get back to it, but haven't.  A recent Facebook discussion with Greg Theakston reminded me of this project.  Anyway, here's the poor audio version, hopefully, I'll revisit this project soon, and do a better job of it.

Kirby Goes Batty!

Jack rarely worked with other people's creations.  Here is his "take" on Bill Finger & Bob Kane's Batman.  These rare pencil images come from the much maligned "Super Powers" series.  True, Jack's work was hit and miss at this late stage of his career, but it's still interesting to see Kirby's interpretation of the Dark Knight.

For The Morbidly Curious

Some time back on the now defunct Kirby-L there was some debate as to whether Jack Kirby had actually had a heart bypass operation.  One Kirby friend claimed he had been swimming with Kirby and had never seen a bypass scar, but just recently I was viewing some Kirby video and I think I see some evidence of a bypass scar.

Judge for yourselves by looking at these screen captures:

I know that hair does not grow in scar tissue, so when you look at this earlier picture of Jack with all the visible chest hair, it's fairly obvious that something changed:

Kirby-L R.I.P.

R.I.P.

Well, Kirby-L was finally shut down last night.  I'm not sure what the point of doing that was.  This incarnation of Kirby-L had been around since 1999 and was an off-shoot of a list by the same name which had been started even earlier by Chrissie Harper in 1996.

A number of splinter groups have been started in an attempt to replace Kirby-L, but, as of this writing, none of them even come close to the number of members Kirby-L had at the time of it's closing which was well over 700.

At this time

"Jack Kirby Creates" has 27 members

Kirbyville  has 32 members

JackKirby  has 51 members

Personally, I think it would have been more admirable of the Kirby-L moderator to offer the list back to it's original creator Chrissie Harper than to simply "nuke" it in this inelegant way.

Jack thinks killing Kirby-L "stinks"

Kirby Double Page Splash

Kirby made great use of the double-page splash.  Click HERE to see 103 of them on one site!  (Thanks to Dr. Marc Miyake for pointing me to this page)

Jack Kirby