Jack Kirby

A sad day for those who hoped, perhaps against hope, that Jack "The King' Kirby's heirs would get some of the money their father's creations have made over the years. Characters including Captain America (created in the '40s with Joe Simon), The Hulk, Iron Man and Thor-- you know, if they called next year's potential biggest-movie-of-all-time THE AVENEGRS "JACK KIRBY'S AVENGERS" they would not be far from the mark. Deadline has analysis, seeing it as a big setback for lawyer Marc Toberoff, who has won many unlikely IP cases against giant studios in the past:

Gerry Giovinco's blog is always worth reading, but here's a telling piece setting the two titans' accounts of the origins of Marvel side by side and coming to a conclusion:

The notorious 1990 Comics Journal interview with Jack Kirby is now online in its entirety, and you can see what made it notorious. The 71-year-old Kirby was not shy about asserting his place in the creation of comics' best known characters and at the expense of his collaborators.

Before he designed the Thunder God whose movie opens tomorrow, Jack Kirby had designed two previous characters named Thor, and over at the Kirby Museum they look back at the Sandman version and the Tales of the Unexpected version. We've seen THOR btw and will have a full review tomorrow. Short version: entertaining but 3D sucks.

It is explained here. Everything is explained here.

"They're big, they're sharp-edged and they contain a lot of energy." Is there anyone other than Galactus who could possibly be behind this???? Head for...

Looking to get high today? What If Kirby is a new site devoted to new, detailed, mind-blasting scans of Jack Kirby's artwork, and honestly just a few minutes of browsing sent The Beat tripping into new realms. Purchase of a membership in the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center gives access to the real hard stuff however: even bigger scans.

The following is a selection of new titles due to be published in September 2010.

There is no particular order to the titles presented below.

This list is not comprehensive, as there are over 275 graphic novel titles scheduled for this month. If you would like to browse them at your leisure, click here. Instead, I have selected titles which caught my interest. These are not necessarily titles I will purchase, but which I will definitely look at once they arrive at my local comics shop or bookstore. Please be advised that publication dates are not set in stone. Also, your local comics shop might receive copies before your local neighborhood website or library. Links connected to publishers will link to the publisher's website, sometimes to the exact title. Links for the ISBN-13 (also known as the Bookland EAN) will take you to the title as featured on BarnesAndNoble.com . I consider my tastes to be rather eclectic. If you feel I've neglected or slighted a title, publisher, or creator, please feel free to mention it in the comments below.

Monthly lists such as this will be posted at the end of the previous month. I will also be posting specific subject lists (comic strips, comics history and surveys, superheroes...) for each season, but these will not have a set schedule.

Via PR, Dynamite has announced that Kurt Busiek will be the writer of the Jack Kirby/Alex Ross project they've been teasing. Based on some...

Disney has issued a memo supporting Marvel in the rights dispute with the heirs of Jack Kirby. THe document is included in the post;...

You might wonder why the first city to stage a major fine art retrospective on the whole career of Jack Kirby is Lucerne in Switzerland. Since Kirby died in 1994, there have been several modest exhibits, including a small display I curated in 1994 at the Cartoon Art Trust in London, as well as the Masters of Comic Art show which began in Los Angeles and included Kirby as one of the fifteen creators spotlighted. ... Of course the idea of an exhibit of Jack Kirby art is enticing enough; but it includes such personal effects as copies of his letters home to wife Roz from the front in WWII: ...Left him enlightened, somewhat calmer but his problem like some problems was laid in the lap of time which is the only other substitute for John J.

Dave Itzkoff at the NY Times uncovers the story of  a vault of 600 pages of unpublished Jack Kirby concept art.  After leaving DC...