Top 100 Quotes About Jack Kirby
#1. My favorite artists from comics were early ones like Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko who had a real heavy ink style. Captain America, co created by Jack Kirby, was a favorite of mine and I sometimes use an altered version of his costume on some of my characters.
Marcel Dzama
#2. You're always trying to do something that, on one hand, honors all those stories, that is still in some way the same character that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were doing back in the sixties. But, at the same time, you want to be able to tell new stories and not just rehash what's come before.
Jason Aaron
#3. One of the things that kept most comics from being monthly was that very few artists could produce 24 pages per month. Jack Kirby was very much the exception to the rule, but his towering presence at Marvel started to dictate the whole shape of the industry - and that's where problems set in!
John Byrne
#4. I give you real world-changers like Homer, Jack Kirby, and the aforementioned Shakespeare as the archangels of pure story.
Bill Willingham
#5. During the Mavelmania days in the late '60's I got a phone call one evening and I answered it and this voice said, "Mike Royer? This is Jack Kirby. Word is you're a pretty good inker." That's how it started.
Mike Royer
#6. I learned early Jack Kirby favorite movies were the Warner Brothers from the '30s. When you look at Jack Kirby's comic books, or at least when I do, I can make an instant connection. When he said he loved those movies it was like, "Of course."
Mike Royer
#7. I live in the past when it comes to movies, but my own career is a matter of remembering the nuts and bolts and things like eating chocolate cake and drinking milk with Jack [Kirby] in his kitchen, but that's all I remember.
Mike Royer
#8. JACK KIRBY is also the central personage of this novel because this is not a good novel. This is a seriously mixed-up book with a central personage who never appears. The plot, like life, resolves into nothing and features emotional suffering without meaning.
Jarett Kobek
#9. My most vivid memories of those times weren't the actual nuts and bolts, but just pleasant times sitting with Jack [Kirby] in his studio, going over the pages and looking out the window at my kids playing in his swimming pool .
Mike Royer
#10. I'm very much influenced by your traditional comic book artists like Jack Kirby, Alex Toth and Walter Simonson. Their styles were sort of what I was gravitating towards.
Tim Fish
#11. My hero in comic books is Jack Kirby: 'Spider-Man,' 'Fantastic Four,' 'Captain America,' Marvel Comics. He was really the basis for Marvel Comics.
Walter Mosley
#12. If I wanted to own some Jack Kirby original art unless it was something that Giacoia or Sinnott had inked I was too close to it. I didn't want to collect his pages inked by me. Of course 40 years later I'd LOVE to have some of that stuff.
Mike Royer
#13. I'm a guy who had to perform some way. I had to perform in some way. If not as an actor, I'd perform as an artist. It would have been something that would be outstanding in its own way.
Jack Kirby
#14. My anatomy was self-taught. I feel everybody has that ability. I drew instinctively. Mine was an instinctive style.
Jack Kirby
#15. You fought fair. If the other guy wants to fight and you knocked him out, you did your best for him. You didn't want to hurt him any more.
Jack Kirby
#16. I'm a happy man because whatever I'm doing, I do for myself and I do a little creating here and there for others, and they work out very well.
Jack Kirby
#17. A man is entitled to draw things in his own style. I didn't hurt Superman. I made him powerful. I admire Superman, but I've got to do my own style.
Jack Kirby
#18. I feel like an independent man, and I am. This is the kind of feeling I always wanted. You can rarely get that ... Well, I could rarely get that in the early part of my life.
Jack Kirby
#19. I would've liked to have been a better businessman when I was younger. And of course, I couldn't, because it wasn't part of my atmosphere. I never lived with accountants, I never lived with lawyers.
Jack Kirby
#20. I had very high respect for the Pratt Institute, but I thought that I had done my best, and that was not their version of the best.
Jack Kirby
#21. My monsters were lovable monsters. I gave them names - some were evil and some were good. They made sales, and that's always been my prime object in comics.
Jack Kirby
#22. A character to me can't be contrived. I don't like to contrive characters. They have to have an element of truth.
Jack Kirby
#23. Aw, where we come from the Anti-Life Equation is one of many others
almost as awesome!! But they merely exist!!
Jack Kirby
#24. Mort Meskin was a consummate professional, dedicated to his work. A great talent.
Jack Kirby
#25. I don't like to work in an office. I like to work in my house, to be among my own thoughts. The idea is for an editor to let his artist alone, let them be themselves, let them exchange their own ideas and you'll come up with something salable.
Jack Kirby
#26. My parents were immigrants. And the place for all immigrants was the factories. They were the source of cheap labor.
Jack Kirby
#27. I'll never speak to another person without telling the truth. I've been a cruel man in my time, I've been a devious man in my time, like everybody else. I've told lies in my time. But I've seen enough suffering to experiment with the truth.
Jack Kirby
#28. The people who worked in comics were terrific guys. I had a good association with them, and I enjoyed comics for that very reason.
Jack Kirby
#29. Of course, mothers were very conventional, everything was very conventional. You had to have approval.
Jack Kirby
#30. Any kind of music can be written badly and it can be written wonderfully. I admire a top performer in any field.
Jack Kirby
#31. I was a good student in the subjects that I wanted to be good in. The curriculum in my section was excellent.
Jack Kirby
#32. I feel that my characters all have some part of my character. I feel that they're all me in some way, certainly not in individuality, but they all bear elements of what I feel.
Jack Kirby
#33. I achieved perfection, my type of perfection - visual storytelling. Storytelling was my style.
Jack Kirby
#34. Some of my friends became gangsters. You became a gangster depending upon how fast you wanted a suit. Gangsters weren't the stereotypes you see in the movies. I knew the real ones, and the real ones were out for big money.
Jack Kirby
#35. I hated to fight all the time just to enjoy my day. Fighting wasn't the kind of thing that I enjoyed, but I grew to enjoy it because I did it so long.
Jack Kirby
#37. I feel that any man that tries, any man that comes out with something we like, is a good man. A man doesn't have to be Leonardo Da Vinci to be sincere.
Jack Kirby
#38. Nobody ever asked me to do anything. Nobody knew what to do. When comics were brand new, nobody knew what kind of comics to make. So you were mostly on your own.
Jack Kirby
#39. I was an artist, but not a self-proclaimed great artist, just a common man who was working in a form of art which is universal.
Jack Kirby
#40. A climb-out fight is where you climb a building. You climb fire escapes. You climb to the top of the building. You fight on the roof, and you fight all the way down again.
Jack Kirby
#41. I draw people as I see them. I'm not involved in making artistic masterpieces. My, my object is to mirror people and I've always done that.
Jack Kirby
#42. I never duck out of a fight; I don't care what the hell the odds are, and I'm rough at times, but I try to be a decent guy all the time. That's the way I've always lived.
Jack Kirby
#43. Kid ... Comics will break your heart.
Jack Kirby
#44. Everybody was wary. This was a time when communists marched through the streets, waving flags and shouting. The unions did the same thing so you began to associate them.
Jack Kirby
#45. Superman is going to live forever. They'll be reading Superman in the next century when you and I are gone. I felt, in that respect, I was doing the same thing. I wanted to be known. I wasn't going to sell a comic that was going to die quickly.
Jack Kirby
#46. I didn't have an affinity for horror. But I knew that commercially it was viable.
Jack Kirby
#47. My parents loved me. My father used to carry me around on my shoulders. I know my father loved me. All families love their children, and we were good boys.
Jack Kirby
#48. I've never done anything bad. I can't do anything bad. It's got to be professional. It's got to look professional. It's got to read professional. In other words, it serves its purpose by entertaining a reader.
Jack Kirby
#49. My own son feels I'm uncool but my grandson loves me. Being cool or uncool is a generational thing. But as a personal thing, I really love everybody in sight.
Jack Kirby
#50. I didn't like Army life. I didn't like taking orders. I didn't like discipline. I didn't like being yelled at. You'd get 10 years for punching a sergeant so I couldn't punch a sergeant.
Jack Kirby
#52. I'm not the sort of fellow who does the same thing all the time. I began using a lot of science fiction apparatus. I came out with the atom bomb two years before it was actually used because I read in the paper that a fellow named Nicola Tesla was working on the atom bomb.
Jack Kirby
#53. I won't do anything bad, and I resent very deeply bad people who haven't got the ability, who try to interfere with the kind of work I'm trying to do because nobody's going to benefit from it.
Jack Kirby
#54. My ambition was always to be a perfect picture of an American.
Jack Kirby
#55. I always resent anybody interfering with anybody else trying to do his job. Everybody has his own job to do. If he's good, he'll do well, but if he's mediocre, he's not going to do as well as he should.
Jack Kirby
#56. I didn't save my money for a lawyer. I was a very young man, and saved my money for having a good time.
Jack Kirby
#57. A good commander can beat the odds. A great commander can beat the gods.
Jack Kirby
#58. I always enjoyed doing monster books. Monster books gave me the opportunity to draw things out of the ordinary. Monster books were a challenge - what kind of monster would fascinate people?
Jack Kirby
#59. I don't want to take somebody else's beating. That makes me unhappy.
Jack Kirby
#60. In the Army when we had judo classes, out of the class of 27 just me and another guy graduated. I grew to enjoy it because I knew I could do it well. I tried to do everything well.
Jack Kirby
#61. I tried to, from my very early years, I've been an inveterate movie goer and still am and I, I love the medium. So what I, what I draw and what I'm still doing, is part of that particular orientation.
Jack Kirby
#62. Speaking as a human being, not as a businessman - the unions are great. The unions are great for the working people because they protect you, but I didn't see them that way as a young man. First of all, the papers would connect them with thee communists - labor unions were communists.
Jack Kirby
#63. I'd had a belly-full of being subservient. I had to find something else to do, and I did. I went to the animation houses. I went to new fields.
Jack Kirby
#64. I could do whatever I liked to do during the day. I didn't have to work in an office. I could work at home. I could work at my leisure. I worked 'til four in the morning. I worked with the TV and radio on - it was a great setup. I was a night person and still am.
Jack Kirby
#65. I want to be better than five guys. I was that way when I used to box, I was that way in any sport. I want to compete with five other guys. If I beat five other guys, I'd like to see if I can beat six.
Jack Kirby
#66. If you're a thorough professional, and they won't let you do a professional job, nobody's going to benefit from it. The people who produce it won't benefit. The people who buy it won't benefit from it. They're going to get a half-assed product.
Jack Kirby
#67. My style is personal, my style of writing is personal, and I believe in that. I believe what comes out of me is an individual thing, and that's why I, I believe in the individual.
Jack Kirby
#68. I feel that life is a series of very interesting questions, and very poor answers. But I myself am willing to settle for the questions. If the questions are interesting, I feel I evoke them in what I do. I feel that should be good enough for everyone else.
Jack Kirby
#69. There was violence because first of all, there were ethnic differences and names. If you were small, they called you a runt, and you had to do something about that even if there were five other guys.
Jack Kirby
#70. The average politician was crooked. That was my ambition, to be a crooked politician. I'd see them in these restaurants, and they'd all hold these conferences. I'd see politicians who were supposed to be on opposite sides of issues all together at one table.
Jack Kirby
#71. Every father was his own man. He did what he wanted. If your mother went shopping, your father never went with her.
Jack Kirby
#72. When Superman came out it galvanized the entire industry. It's just part of the American scene.
Jack Kirby
#73. I couldn't draw anything that was too outlandish or too horrible. I never did that. What I did draw was something intriguing. There was something about this monster that you could live with. If you saw him you wouldn't faint dead away.
Jack Kirby
#74. I feel that man can transcend himself to a point where he can accomplish greater things than he thinks. I see people depressed and I see people who devalue themselves and I feel that's a terrible, terrible waste. But I love the people who try. But try fairly, try honestly.
Jack Kirby
#75. I had to make a living. I was a married man. I had a wife. I had a home. I had children. I had to make a living. That's the common pursuit of every man.
Jack Kirby
#76. If America gave anybody anything it is ambition. Bad things would come out of it because some guys are in a hurry, but that doesn't mean they're evil or anything, it just means they fall into bad grace somehow.
Jack Kirby
#77. Everybody can draw, in my estimation. If you give a man 50 years, he'll come up with the Mona Lisa.
Jack Kirby
#78. I was happy because I made enough money to give to my parents. I made enough money to get married on. I made enough money to enjoy myself a little more than I would have if I didn't have enough money.
Jack Kirby
#79. Comics have a caste system - an editor has to act in a certain way, an artist has to be humble.
Jack Kirby
#80. I'm OMAC! Evacuate this section! I'm going to destroy it!
Jack Kirby
#81. It's funny how easy it is to point out other peoples mistakes and make our own mistakes seem insignificant.
Jack Kirby
#82. Once we've learned enough about the universe we will admit to ourselves that we will never know everything.
Jack Kirby
#83. Remember how unimportant you are because that knowledge will gain you more respect than someone who thinks the world revolves around them.
Jack Kirby
#84. I feel that every professional is the art school for the next guy. I feel that maybe a lot of the dynamism in my own work, having been felt by the rest of the artists, they'll react to it and put elements of that in their own work, feeling that it'll help it.
Jack Kirby
#85. I felt the comics grew because they became the common man's literature, the common man's art, the common man's publishing.
Jack Kirby
#86. If you're drawing a Western town, you can duplicate that Western town from instinct alone. Some artists may take it from other illustrations or duplicate what you've drawn, but it will never have that gut reality that's instinctive in the artist.
Jack Kirby
#87. It's not in the draftsmanship, it's in the man. Like I say, a tool is dead. A brush is a dead object. It's in the man. If you want to do it, you do it.
Jack Kirby
#88. You had to grow up sometime. The fellows who grew early, they were in jeopardy. They became the cops and the crooks, and the crooks became the gangsters. The crooks became the Al Capones.
Jack Kirby
#89. I admired anybody who could make a buck with his drawing.
Jack Kirby
#90. An artist has to be humble, an editor must be officious, and a publisher must be somewhere out in the galaxy enjoying godhood. It was a caste system, pure and simple. And it was accepted that way. Nobody thought of contracts, nobody thought of insisting on better deals.
Jack Kirby
#91. I took a great joy with inventing new kinds of mechanisms. I invented new kinds of machines. I've been a student of science fiction for a long, long time, and I'm very well-versed in science fact and science fiction.
Jack Kirby
#92. I wouldn't call Adolf Hitler a corporal. Adolf Hitler was looked up to. He was revered almost like a God because he was feared. Adolf Hitler took all of Europe, and my generation had to confront Adolf Hitler.
Jack Kirby
#93. It's not letting your anger out that gets people hurt. Its keeping the anger locked up in side that hurts you.
Jack Kirby
#94. I've done my job extremely well. My only beef is that a lot of people have put their fingers in whatever I've done and tried to screw it up, and I've always resented that.
Jack Kirby
#95. An American is a guy, a rich guy with a family, a decent guy with a family with as many kids as he likes, doing what he wants, working with people that he likes, and enjoying himself to his very old age.
Jack Kirby
#96. I was handed a chocolate bar and an M-1 rifle and told to go kill Hitler.
Jack Kirby
#97. I never had stock endings. I didn't believe in stock endings. To make the [reader] happy was not my objective, but to make the [reader] say, "Yeah, that's what would happen" - that was my objective.
Jack Kirby
#98. I wasn't the kind of student that Pratt was looking for. They wanted patient people who would work on something forever. I didn't want to work on any project forever. I intended to get things done.
Jack Kirby
#99. My purpose was what my father's purpose was - to make a living and to have a family. I was going to do the right thing. My dream to me was to have money to support it and to live in the kind of house I liked.
Jack Kirby
#100. I write from a people's point of view. I love people because I understand them. I understand an enemy, I understand a friend, I understand grey areas, and I understand black areas.
Jack Kirby
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