Jack Kirby Quotes

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

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

Kid ... Comics will break your heart. ~ Jack Kirby

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

I didn't have an affinity for horror. But I knew that commercially it was viable. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

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

Ideas can never be traced to any one source. They are tossed back and forth between people until the decision makers step in and choose what they think is a success formula. ~ Jack Kirby

I was being brought up on peasant stories; my mother came from Europe and she'd been a peasant and that was the area where the Frankensteins and the Draculas came from and it was entertainment for the people. Nobody had TV, and that was the way peasants would entertain themselves, by telling these stories. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

The artist is the lowest form of life on the rung of the ladder. The publishers are usually businessmen who deal with businessmen. They deal with promotional people. They deal with financial people. They deal with accountants. They deal with people who work on higher levels. They deal with tax people, but have absolutely no interest in artists, in individual artists, especially very young artists. ~ Jack Kirby

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

My anatomy was self-taught. I feel everybody has that ability. I drew instinctively. Mine was an instinctive style. ~ Jack Kirby

I began to learn about the universe myself and take it seriously. I know the names of the stars. I know how near or far the heavenly bodies are from our own planet. I know our own place in the universe. I can feel the vastness of it inside myself. I began to realize with each passing fact what a wonderful and awesome place the universe is, and that helped me in comics because I was looking for the awesome. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

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

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

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

I achieved perfection, my type of perfection - visual storytelling. Storytelling was my style. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

I taught myself how to draw, and I soon found out it was what I really wanted to do. I didn't think I was going to create any great masterpieces like Rembrandt or Gauguin. I thought comics was a common form of art, and strictly American in my estimation, because America was the home of the common man - and show me the common man that can't do a comic. So comics is an American form of art that anyone can do with a pencil and paper. ~ Jack Kirby

MUSINGS
The little poets sing of little things:
Hope, cheer, and faith, small queens and puppet kings;
Lovers who kissed and then were made as one,
And modest flowers waving in the sun.
The mighty poets write in blood and tears
And agony that, flame-like, bites and sears.
They reach their mad blind hands into the night,
To plumb abysses dead to human sight;
To drag from gulfs where lunacy lies curled,
Mad, monstrous nightmare shapes to blast the world.
[click on the thumbnail by Jack "King" Kirby] ~ Robert E. Howard

Of course, mothers were very conventional, everything was very conventional. You had to have approval. ~ Jack Kirby

Drawing a good figure doesn't make you a good artist. I can name you ten men, right off the bat, who draw better than I do. But I don't think their work gets as much response as mine. I can't think of a better man to draw Dick Tracy than Chester Gould, who certainly is no match for Leonardo Da Vinci. But Chester Gould told the story of Dick Tracy. He told the story of Dick Tracy the way it should have been told. No other guy could have done it. 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, you do it. If you think a man draws the type of hands that you want to draw, steal 'em. Take those hands.

The only thing I can say is: Caniff was my teacher, Alex Raymond was my teacher, even the guy who drew Toonerville Trolley was my teacher. Whatever he had stimulated me in some way. And I think that's all you need. You need that stimulation. Stimulation to make you an individual. And the draftsmanship, hang it. If you can decently: learn to control what you can, learn to control what you have, learn to refine what you have. Damn perfection. You don't have to be perfect. You are never going to do a Sistine Chapel, unless someone ties you to a ceiling. Damn perfection.

All a man has in this field is pressure. And I think the pressure supplies a stimulation. You have your own stresses, that will supply your own stimulation. If you want to do it, you'll do ~ Jack Kirby

Homo Sapiens and their guns. ~ Jack Kirby

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

I've done things that I wouldn't ordinarily seem capable of doing. And I've proven myself in situations where there's life and death at stake. And so, I can live with myself knowing that it's not a matter of guts or anything like that. It's a matter of willingness to go the length, to transcend yourself. ~ Jack Kirby

I don't want to take somebody else's beating. That makes me unhappy. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

Aw, where we come from the Anti-Life Equation is one of many others
almost as awesome!! But they merely exist!! ~ Jack Kirby

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

To my mind, the most successful and the best comic book illustrators are those who translate the real world into a consistent code. If you look at Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko, their drawings look nothing like the real world, but they are internally consistent. In terms of a comic book it can work just fine. ~ Dave Gibbons

There was one time they knocked me out and laid me in front of my mother's door. And in order for my mother not to be shocked they readjusted my clothes and they saw that nothing was rumpled and I looked very comfortable next to the apartment door, so when my mother would open the door it wouldn't be that much of a shock. ~ Jack Kirby

I came out of school one day, and there was this pulp magazine. It was a rainy day, and it was floating toward the sewer in the gutter. So I pick up this pulp magazine, and it's Wonder Stories, and it's got a rocket-ship on the cover, and I'd never seen a rocket-ship. ~ Jack Kirby

Life at best is bittersweet. ~ Jack Kirby

I admired anybody who could make a buck with his drawing. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

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

Perfectionists are their own devils. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

It's not letting your anger out that gets people hurt. Its keeping the anger locked up in side that hurts you. ~ Jack Kirby

I get a lot of comics, and I can look at a comic and tell immediately whether I'll enjoy it or not. There are elements in the stories that I have no rapport with. I see dirty language, I see sleazy backgrounds; I see it reflected in the movies, the movies are comics to me. And I don't see a sleazy world. I see hope. I see a positive world. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

I feel my characters are valid, my characters are people, my characters have hope. Hope is the thing that'll take us through. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

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

Jack [Kirby] and Joe [Simon] wrote and drew the stories themselves in the beginning and I was just, like, the office boy. But after a while they had more writing than they could handle and I was the only guy around, so they said, "Hey Stan, you think you can write this?" When you're seventeen years old, what do you know? I said, "Sure, I can do it!" And that was it. ~ Stan Lee

Comics have a caste system - an editor has to act in a certain way, an artist has to be humble. ~ Jack Kirby

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

Mort Meskin was a consummate professional, dedicated to his work. A great talent. ~ Jack Kirby

My parents were immigrants. And the place for all immigrants was the factories. They were the source of cheap labor. ~ Jack Kirby

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

Nobody ever wrote a story for me. I told in every story what was really inside my gut, and it came out that way. My stories began to get noticed because the average reader could associate with them. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

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

Every father was his own man. He did what he wanted. If your mother went shopping, your father never went with her. ~ Jack Kirby

Once we've learned enough about the universe we will admit to ourselves that we will never know everything. ~ Jack Kirby

Some artists, such as Jack Kirby, need no plot at all. I mean I'll just say to Jack, "Let's let the next villain be Dr. Doom" ... or I may not even say that. He may tell me. And then he goes home and does it. He's so good at plots, I'm sure he's a thousand times better than I. He just makes up the plots for these stories. All I do is a little editing ... I may tell him that he's gone too far in one direction or another. Of course, occasionally I'll give him a plot, but we're practically both the writers on the things. ~ Stan Lee

I never sued anybody, I never fought anybody or was in conflict or contention with any other party in a legal way. I feel that it hurts people, it hurts their families. ~ Jack Kirby

I like entertainment. I'm an innate admirer of good entertainment. I'll listen to MTV, I'll listen to Mozart, I'll listen to anything that has a good element in it. ~ Jack Kirby

It's funny how easy it is to point out other peoples mistakes and make our own mistakes seem insignificant. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

All human beings have the capability of doing what they want, what they're attracted to. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

I was a good student in the subjects that I wanted to be good in. The curriculum in my section was excellent. ~ Jack Kirby

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

Remember how unimportant you are because that knowledge will gain you more respect than someone who thinks the world revolves around them. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

A good commander can beat the odds. A great commander can beat the gods. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

If a carpenter makes a chair that's comfortable for the person who's going to sit in it, he's done his job. If a train engineer gets a train in on time, he's going to make someone happy who's waiting at the station. And if an artist draws the kind of a picture that people are going to enjoy looking at, or he makes a visual story which people are going to enjoy reading, he's done his job. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

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

There are people that I didn't like, but I saw them suffer and it changed me. I promised myself that I would never tell a lie, never hurt another human being, and I would try to make the world as positive as I could. ~ Jack Kirby

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

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

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

I'm OMAC! Evacuate this section! I'm going to destroy it! ~ Jack Kirby

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

But I figure passion's like the wind in the trees out there. Blows hard for a while and feels strong and clean while it's blowing and maybe it even blows so long and hard that you start living with it. It feels like the wind's a part of you, like it's essential, if you know what I mean, something you can hardly imagine life without. But it's got to pass. So you can get on with things without all the confusion of that wind in your hair. ~ Jack Ketchum

That's the trouble with innocents. They aren't innocent of doing, just of knowing what they're doing. ~ Jack Butler

Then, as she turned to walk away, Fred dropped the guillotine."So we're making Ev CEO," he said, his fork clenched in his hand. "You're going to get a passive chairman role and a silent board seat. We have some paperwork for you and a recommendation for a lawyer."Jack felt like he had just been hit in the face with a baseball bat. "Say that again," he stuttered to Fred, thinking he had heard incorrectly.Fred repeated himself almost verbatim: We're making Ev CEO. You're getting a passive chairman role. You will have a silent board seat. Here's the paperwork. Call a lawyer. ~ Nick Bilton

Jack sprung to his feet out of reach. "I'd prefer to finish this intact. "

"My apologies," Cabal said, grinning viciously. "l keep forgetting, you're only human." His smile softened to full amusement as Jack raised his sword in challenge.


"Human or not," Jack said as he slowly approached him. "I carry the advantage of unworldly knowledge. "

" Is that what you're doing?" Cabal laughed; "Something unworldly?"

"I have a vast library of knowledge inside my head from my homeland."

"What knowledge could your world offer that would be useful here?"

"How about a toilet?" Jack winked at Nicole.

"Perhaps you should build one and leave us all in awe." Cabal declared.

"People could call them 'Jacks' for short." Nicole added to the conversation. ~ Alaina Stanford

On Individualism:

"Because I say Republicans are stupid, and hold that liberty, equality, and fraternity are exploded bubbles, does not make me a socialist," Martin said with a smile. "Because I question Jefferson and the unscientific Frenchmen who informed his mind, does not make me a socialist. Believe me, Mr. Morse, you are far nearer socialism than I who am its avowed enemy."

"Now you please to be facetious," was all the other could say.

"Not at all. I speak in all seriousness. You still believe in equality, and yet you do the work of corporations, and the corporations, from day to day, are busily engaged in burying equality. And you call me a socialist, because I deny equality, because I affirm just what you live up to. The Republicans are foes to equality, though most of them fight the battle against equality with the very good word on their lips. In the name of equality they destroy equality. That is why I called them stupid. As for myself, I am an individualist, and individualism is the hereditary and eternal foe of socialism."

"But you frequent socialist meetings," Mr. Morse challenged.

"Certainly, just as spies frequent hostile camps. How else are you to learn about the enemy? Besides, I enjoy myself at their meetings. They are good fighters, and, right or wrong, they have read the books. Any one of them knows more about sociology and all the other ologies than the average captain of industry. Yes, I have been t ~ Jack London

All life is but a skull-bone and
A rack of ribs through which
we keep passing food & fuel-
just so's we can burn so
furious beautiful. ~ Jack Kerouac