Jack Kirby was born on this day in 1917. I was trying to think of what I should write this year on this day when I received a message from my friend Kurt Busiek…
I was talking with Paul Levitz about early Marvel and creator influences, and a question came up that I'm not sure I've ever seen you talk about before. Kirby's work schedule sounds grueling — constant, long hours — but he also clearly read books and magazines of interest, since he had inspirations from SF pulps, books on "ancient astronauts," Playboy pictorials, stage shows and more.
How did he fit his reading in around his work and his family life? Did his reading habits change over the years? What got most of his attention?
I'd love to hear about that sometime.
Jack was interested in just about everything. A lot of fans who met him were surprised when he asked them about themselves…about their work and their interests. I did not notice any change in his reading habits over the years though I have the sense that less and less of it was from the boxes of old pulp magazines he had around and that his mind decided it had quite enough science-fiction in it and his reading turned more towards reality.
He read the newspaper and was always up on current events. At a store, he sometimes picked up a book just because it was about something that was totally alien to him.
He had a subscription to Playboy which I believe he got from Harvey Kurtzman back in the late sixties when Harvey was trying to get Jack to work with him, if not on "Little Annie Fanny" (which Jack declined) then on a new feature for Playboy which he also declined. It sounded like an American Barbarella. and Jack, who didn't feel a man with three daughters should be drawing nude women, told Harvey to call Wally Wood….which Harvey would not do.
But I know Jack read Playboy for the articles because he and I sometimes discussed them. I was on a Vonnegut-reading binge back then and we talked about that author and Jack had definitely read at least a few of Kurt Vonnegut's novels.
I'll tell you one thing Kirby rarely read: Comic books by other people. He'd read them if there was a reason…say, when Carmine Infantino asked him to read a certain book because he wanted Jack's opinion of it. Those opinions were rarely favorable but Jack would always ask Carmine not to repeat what he'd said because Jack believed professionals should never criticize one another in any sort of public way. (Obviously, he made an exception for one or two people.)
How did he make time for it? He just did. I think for Jack, reading or watching certain TV shows, was a break from whatever story he presently had on his mind. He also loved looking at magazines with lots of photos in them. I believe a lot of photos in Life or Look inspired Kirby drawings but that if you were to put the photo side-by-side with the drawing it inspired, you'd never see the slightest connection.
I keep coming back to my first answer: He was interested in just about everything. I think he approached a lot of it with the attitude of "Well, let's see what this guy has to say." I have the feeling he was sometimes more interested in the thought processes of the author than he was in the particular subject that author was discussing…but I'm not sure why I feel that way. It was easy to discern that Jack's train of thought was not linear; that it leaped around from place to place, just as many conversations with him did. If you believe that people think the way they read and read the way they think, that might explain a lot.
He really was remarkable and the more he's on my mind — as he is in some way every day — the more I miss those conversations and just being around him.