Folks keep asking me when I will complete and release my big, exhaustive, long-promised biography of Jack Kirby. The answer is soon, almost certainly next year. I have a very good excuse why I didn't have it out this year for the 100th anniversary of Jack's birth but I can't tell you what it is right now.
Most of you figured out that my previous "very good excuse" was that the Kirby family asked me not to publish it while there was ongoing litigation. Now that there isn't, there's a new "very good excuse" but I don't foresee it or anything else that might come along preventing me from getting it out next year. It will be very long.
In the meantime, the fine folks at Abrams ComicArts are issuing an updated edition of my 2008 book on Jack, Kirby: King of Comics. This edition is 16 pages longer (a new chapter and some artwork that wasn't in the first edition), with smaller pages and new, softer covers. Oh, yeah — and a few corrections. That's the new front cover above.
The Abrams website says it'll be out on August 1 but I'm assured there will be copies aplenty at Comic-Con International, which kicks off on July 20. It will of course be available from fine booksellers everywhere and even some of the crummy ones.
Hey, speaking of fine booksellers everywhere: For some reason, the Barnes & Noble website lists me as the author of a number of comics that were actually written by Mr. Kirby. In some cases, I wrote forewords or text pages for these books and I assume some computer grabbed my name off the inputted data instead of Jack's. Anyway, I've written to ask them to fix this. Too many people have gotten credit for Jack's work over the years and if you see that happen anywhere, get it fixed. Even if the credit's going to me.