From Phil Rushton…
I guess there are as many ways of writing as there are writers but I was interested to hear that you are currently writing two books at the same time (does the subject of the non-Kirby one also have a surname beginning with 'K'?).
Personally, I find it hard to switch my attention between different tasks when writing so I couldn't help wondering how you go about dividing your time between these projects. Also this led me to wonder how Jack Kirby generally approached the business of writing (assuming that drawing was an essential part of the same process for him): did he tend to have several jobs on the go at any one time, or — as I suspect — did he approach each new story as a kind of journey that had to be completed at speed before moving on to the next tale — kind of like the Casey Jones of comics?
Early on in what we sometimes laughingly call my career as a (mostly) freelance writer, I made a decision. It was to never have all my income come from one source…and in 52 or 53 years of doing this, I never have. This decision was partly because I wanted to write a lot of different things — comic books, animation, live-action TV, books, etc. And I also realized that if I worked for a lot of different folks, it wouldn't be such a crisis if one fired me. So, for example, in July of 1983, I had these three comics on the stands featuring my work…
Those were three different comics with three different kinds of stories done for three different publishers with three different artists and three different script formats. Not only that but at the same time, I was a staff writer on the TV show That's Incredible! and I was story-editing the Richie Rich cartoon series for Hanna-Barbera and I think I may have been writing a variety show pilot for Sid and Marty Krofft and/or some cartoon scripts for Ruby-Spears Productions.
When you decide to do so many different things for so many different outfits, you have to keep jumping from one project to another and back again. You don't really have a choice. You just learn to do it. There are obvious downsides to this but in a way, it can be exhilarating. When you tire of one project or you hit a roadblock in your thinking, you can just go work for something else for a while.
And I never worried about losing 100% of my income if one of those comic books were canceled or one of those studios decided to replace me. I probably couldn't carry all those loads today but in 1983, I was 31 years old and still paying off on the house I'd recently purchased. (Also in 1983, I wrote the pilot for the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon show and for another Saturday morning show from which I removed my name…and I think there was something else.)
Like I said: You just learn to do it. It helps if you're organized and able to get ahead on some of your assignments.
Jack Kirby did not work at all like that. First off, he almost always worked for one company at a time. There weren't that many he could work for and the few that were willing to pay him decently wanted exclusivity before they would guarantee him steady work.
Secondly, the way he worked best was to put 100% of his attention on one story at a time. He kept everything in his head and it unnerved him when, as sometimes happened, they'd call and tell him to stop work on that story for Comic Book A and to instead knock out a story for Comic Book B because their schedule suddenly demanded it. It was by no means impossible for him but I think he worked better to finish one before even thinking about the next one.
When Jack was working on continued stories, as he often was, he'd have to jump from Part 1 of a storyline in Thor and then do Part 2 of a storyline in Fantastic Four and then do one standalone story for Captain America and then do Part 2 of that Thor storyline and then do a story for a Fantastic Four Annual and then do Part 3 of the ongoing storyline in the regular Fantastic Four comic and so on. I wish (and he wished) that the business would allow him to do all four parts of the Fantastic Four story and then all three parts of the Thor story and so on. But it never worked that way.
I hope that answers your question, Phil. And no, the "other" book I'm working on is not about someone with a surname beginning with "K" — and no more guessing. You'll find out in a few months here.
