Over on the New York Times website, George Gene Gustines has assembled what they call a "slide show" to discuss Jack Kirby's artwork on a particularly fine issue of Fantastic Four.
I have two quibbles, one being that they've opted to reproduce from one of the deluxe reprints of the story, not from the original. Remember what I said a few messages back about how short-sighted movie studio execs often allowed the treasures in their library to rot rather than spend money on preservation? Well, Marvel Comics did that. In fact, they were doing it long after they were making beaucoup bucks on reprints. There were years there where some in the office — those who cared, which was not everyone — were tearing out follicles by the fistful over this. They simply did not have good stats or negatives or reproduction copies of 10-year-old issues of their books they wished to reprint at that moment so they had to print them off bad stats with faded linework. Incredibly, at the same time, no one wanted to spend the money to make extra negatives or stats to ensure that the current issues could later be properly reprinted in ten years or whenever.
With very few exceptions — most of them due to a handful of caring staffers who went way beyond the norm to do so — Marvel's reprints have lost serious linework and detail from the artistry of some very talented illustrators. This is another one of those matters about which there should be more outrage. (There are also some examples for which DC Comics should be whomped upside the head but not as many.)
So that's one of my quibbles. The other is that nowhere is the name Joe Sinnott mentioned. Joe inked the material that's being presented and with his fine linework made a major contribution to The Art of Jack Kirby.
Other than for those points, it's a great little tribute. Always so good to see classy venues catch up with Kirby.