Jack Kirby would have been 107 years old today but if he isn't with us, his influence still is. It's not just that characters he created or co-created are continued in comics and expanded into TV shows and movies. It isn't even that darn near everything he wrote and/or drew in comics keeps being reprinted, often in expensive editions which lovers of his work snatch up. It's that everywhere I look — and not just at comic conventions — I see his influence.
For years after he left us in 1994, I would say, "If he wasn't your favorite artist, he was probably your favorite artist's favorite artist." I should probably add another generation in there and say, "He was your favorite artist's favorite artist's favorite artist." And I should probably also point out that the writing was, to Jack, always vastly more important than the drawing. I have never met anyone who had so many ideas, let alone so many good ideas.
You can see how good he was in all those comics, all those reprints. What you may not see — though maybe you can — is what a wonderful human being he was. He was nice to almost everyone, even a few people he probably should have crushed like the bloodsucking mosquitoes they were. Everyone who was fortunate enough to meet him has a story of how approachable he was, how he always made time for others, how if you showed the slightest smidgen of creative ability, he would encourage you.
I love most of the people I've known in comics but Jack was in a class all by himself. That's me in the Red Skull mask in his studio in 1969. I was learning a lot from that man then and I knew it but it was a decade or two later than I began to realize that it was a lot more than I realized at the time.