I'm sorry for being so out of commission for so long. I'm just beginning to recuperate from a cold I had for the majority of this week. Tuesday was spent sleeping for near 24 hours straight. The remaining time was spent keeping things up on the business end with a box of kleenex permanently by my side.

As a word of warning, I wanted to let you know that we're moving servers this weekend. If the website is acting a little wonky, it's probably because of the move. As such, I'm not going to post anything new until the website is back to it's normal working conditions early next week.

Okay, back on topic! Jack Kirby.

My passion and interests tend to go in phases. I'm a man of many interests... but at different periods of my life I immerse myself in one of many passions. These last few weeks it's happened to be American Comic Creators.

For about two weeks now I read through the amazing "Kirby: King Of Comics" biography/artbook by Mark Evanier, the "Eisner/Milller" Conversation book published by Dark Horse comics and I'm halfway through the wonderful reprint collection DC is doing of "Jack Kirby's Fourth World".

I'm in comic book heaven.

As a good friend and assistant to Jack Kirby during the 1970s, Mark Evanier's "Kirby: King of Comics" is a wonderful encapsulation of what makes Kirby the genius that every comic artists attests. You can feel the love and admiration for Kirby's work on every page. As a friend, Evanier is able to bring a level of intimacy to the legend of Jack Kirby that a sincere fan couldn't.

It took me a long time to "get" Kirby's work. I remember my friends in elementary school used to make fun of Jack Kirby's work. At the time I wasn't really into comics but my best friend and neighbor Josh was. Keep in mind, this was the late 1980s/early 1990s when guys like Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld and Todd McFarlane were all the rage. Josh and his comic book friends were into the typical favorites like Wolverine (who just began a solo series) and Ghost Rider. And even as a naive kid with no interest in comics, I remember Josh and his buddies being very animated and colorful in expressing their hatred towards Kirby's art. The theory these 12 year-olds concocted was that Kirby got a job at Marvel because he was Stan Lee's cousin. At the time I hadn't seen a panel of Kirby's work... but the hatred piqued my interest.

At the age of 14 I began to fall in love with comics. I sought an excuse to collect comic and found it in Peter David and Rick Leonardi's Spider-man 2099. It didn't take much time for me to move on to the sexier Image books.

By that time I still hadn't seen any of Kirby's work. I think the only time I read anything about him through high school was in one of Frank Miller's regular rants in the "Blam!" Letters Pages of an issue of Sin City. Frank was making a big deal about how Marvel wasn't treating Kirby fairly by denying the return of his original artwork. I thought it was typical Frank: quick to get angry at just about anything in the name of creator freedom.

Flash forward to college. I was attending UC Berkeley and had the fortune of discovering the amazing Comic Relief comic shop run by Rory Root and his gang of misfits. As a total Comic Geek, I would be in the store every Wednesday around Lunch time to see what the newest comics were. By chance, I started to realize that that was the same time the cartoonist trio of Dan Clowes, Adrian Tomine, and Richard Sala would make their regular visit to the store.

These guys are masters at cartooning (as can be seen in their critically awarded books: Eightball, Optic Nerve, and Evil Eye). I had no clue why they would even visit because they never bought a thing. Their typical visit went like this: they'd come in together, say a cordial "hello" to the clerk, look at the various New Releases, converse amongst themselves to wryly comment on all the crap the was on the shelves, and walk out of the store a mere 5 minutes after entering. Yes, a little arrogant... but this was Clowes, Tomine, and Sala!

But ONE DAY there was a dramatic change in their routine. Marvel had just released "Captain America: The Classic Years" volume 1. This was a reprint of the first Joe Simon and Jack Kirby Captain America comics from the 1940s. Clowes, Tomine, and Sala each quickly grabbed at copy of the book, started flipping through them and began GUSHING outloud about Kirby's art. "Look at this perspective!" "It's all so RAW!" "Even in the 1940s, Kirby's page explode!" "There's a purity and ignorance that allows him to break all conventions and make it work!". Gushing. From a group of professional comic "snobs" that know how to create damned good comics.

And they politely put the books back on the shelves and walked out of the store.

After they were out of viewing distance, I walked up to that Captain America comic and flipped through the pages searching for the brilliance they praised. I couldn't see it. It looked juvenile. There was a panel with some missles that looked okay... but I couldn't see what the big hoopla was about.

But I didn't give up. I soon purchased an Essential Fantastic Four Vol. 1 and, slowly but surely, started to see what everyone else saw. Kirby's pages explode.