Following-up on our previous ASK me, Gene Popa wrote to ask…
In response to Andrew Paquette's question, you said (and I paraphrase) that Jack's preference when he went to DC was to produce his issues himself (with his own staff), and submit the completed work to the publisher. I'm curious, in 1969 (when he left Marvel) or later in '75 (when he left DC) did Jack give any thought to offering himself to Gold Key?
Considering that producing complete issues from story to art to lettering and coloring is precisely what Western used to do for Dell, I wonder if they would have been receptive to allowing Kirby to provide such service to them? Granted, the market beyond the Big Two was rapidly shrinking in that period, but Gold Key still seemed to be holding its own as an important publisher (at least for the time being). I'm tantalized by the idea of covers for New Gods and The Eternals being painted by the likes of George Wilson and Jesse Santos!
Well, I started working for Gold Key (Western Publishing, actually) in 1971 and at that point, I don't think anyone there really knew who Jack Kirby was other than he was the guy who drew all those hit books for Marvel that they, Western Publishing, didn't want to emulate. And they probably thought those were all Stan Lee creations.
One thing that some folks don't get about the "credit" thing with Marvel was that while Jack was a little upset that readers thought all those books were wholly created by Stan, he was really angry that that was the understanding of those in the comic book industry who had hiring power and the power to set page rates. That included the new people who were running Marvel as of 1968-1969, many of whom didn't see why Jack Kirby was any more valuable than anyone else drawing for the company or even the next kid who walked in the door with samples.
Carmine Infantino, when he was in charge at DC, was a rare exception. I do not think he or his company utilized Jack well but at least Infantino understood that Kirby was more than a guy who could draw neat-looking pages.
The Western Publishing I worked for was as resistant to outside studios as any company then in existence. They made a kind of halfway-exception for only one comic that I can think of. They briefly had a comic called The Little Stooges (Larry, Moe and Curly Joe as kids, basically) that was largely put together and drawn by Norman Maurer…but Norman controlled the rights to the Stooges and had a long history of working with Western. Western also wasn't going to pay anyone, including Jack, anything near what DC or Marvel paid Jack.
When he left Marvel in 1970 (not '69), it was because he felt he couldn't work there any longer and DC had made what seemed like a real good offer. When he left DC in '75, Western was a failing company with serious distribution problems. I knew the folks there and they had no interest in spending what it would have cost to get Kirby and launch a whole new line. In fact, they were even more timid than DC was about investing in anything different.
Jack had actually approached Western Publishing once, back when they were doing comics for Dell. This was in late 1958 or early 1959, a time when many comic book companies were going outta business or at least cutting back. Almost all of them were turning away writers and artists because they had more than enough freelancers to fill all their comics. Jack went up to their New York offices and was told that. The editor he met there — name unknown to me and probably not anyone we ever heard of — scolded him because of what horror and crime comics had done to the comic book industry. Wally Wood told me a very similar story but later on, he did do some work for Western.
I don't think Jack ever thought the door was open there and it probably wasn't. Sadly, from about 1957 until the end of his career, he was pretty much trapped into working for DC or Marvel…and I don't think either one treated him as well as he deserved. If either had, I believe that company would have been way more successful. But thanks for the question, Gene, and here's that box again…
