Recommendations for good Jack Kirby works

[Darth Seuss]

I'm new to this site, and while not new to collecting comics, I was never able to afford Golden Age and don't know much about them. I am a very much a Jack Kirby fan, having started reading/collecting comics as a kid with Kamandi and Omac, among others, and later discovering his Marvel work (I was lucky enough to have a few good Silver Age comics for a while).
Now I'm interested in finding some of his Golden Age work, but I really don't know much about what titles he worked on. I'm most interested in horror and science fiction, then super hero, crime, and possibly some war or Western if there are any someone highly recommends. I'm not much interested in any romance.
Are there any particular horror or science fiction comics with "must read" Kirby work anyone can recommend? There's so much available here that I don't even know where to start. Thanks for you time/thoughts/recommendations...

[Roygbiv666]

I'm sure others will chime in with more specifics, but you can start with a list of Kirby's work in chronological order and see if we have them on the site:

http://www.comics.org/penciller/name/Jack%20Kirby/sort/chrono/

the order seems a little out of wack, start about halfway down the page.

[kusunoki]

Great to see another Kirby fan (although I'm sure most of the community here is...). Off the top of my head, I would recommend from the site:

Blast Off 1
Bull's Eye 3
Foxhole 2
Strange World of Your Dreams 1
Western Tales 31

Whoops. Looks like Blast Off is not actually PD. You can get a taste of it from Race for the Moon, which Yoc has recommended.

[Geo (RIP)]

Here's some from the Harvey section:

Alarming Tales most issues, more then one story.
Race for the Moon first issue, cover only, 2 & 3, all Kirby art with Al Williamson inks.

Geo

[jfglade]

 Check out "Black Magic" which is sub-listed under Prize. It isn't quite horror and it isn't quite science-fiction but it is as close as Simon and Kirby came. There are seveal "ghosts" involved as assistants but some of the work is unmistakably penciled by Jack Kirby.

 Unfortunatly, you'll find that the bulk of the Simon & Kirby material isn't in the public domain, but some is.

[crimsoncrusader]

Blue Bolt #3-10
Young Romance #1
Clue Comics vol. 2 #1-3

[josemas]

Kirby did some pretty powerful crime stories in various issues of Prize's Justice Traps the Guilty and Headline Comics.

Best

Joe

[BobS]

I highly recommend reprints of the first 30 or so issues of Fantastic Four. No Kirby fan should be without them.
Bob

[bminor]

I would recommend his work at DC in the early seventies.

I love:

The Demon, only sixteen issues.
Kamandi, forty issues.
OMAC, six issues.

All lovely inked by my favorite Kirby inker, Mike Royer.
Also of course the entire fourth world:
New Gods
Mr. Miracle
Forever People
Jimmy Olsen,(his run on the character)
To me he was at his peak as both a writer and an artist in this period.

BMinor

[narfstar]

Wow differences of opinion but that is OK. IMHO Kirby was far at his best with Simon. I did not like Royer on Kirby.

[bminor]

Narf,
When I look at a original Kirby drawing and then look at a Kirby drawing inked by Royer. I see his work not added too or subtracted from.
What I am trying to say Royer did not add his own "style" to Kirby's work.
When Everett inked him you saw Kirby underneath and Everett's unmistable and  beautiful style overlaying Kirby's pencils.
The same would go for Wally Wood. There is no mistaking Woods style overlaying Kirby.
Vince Colletta the same, his fine brush stroke is unmistakeably Colletta.

As a young lad I never saw Kirby artwork in it's penciled state. I did eventually see some for the first time in the Steranko History of Comics. That beautiful full page of Captain America jumping over a bunch of Nazi's. It was like looking at a Royer inked page, (in my opinion).
Respectfully your,
bminor

[Geo (RIP)]

I'm with Narf on this. I liked his early stuff much more then the what I felt was rushed work of his later years. His art started changing in the early '60 at Marvel, to a looser style which I didn't care for so much.
The man was great, you have to give him that no matter what.
His influence carried a lot of weight on how and what comic books looked like.

Please remember everyone, these are just options, not hard facts.
So go easy on folks that don't hold the same feeling/options you do.


Geo

[narfstar]

I guess I would say that Kirby needed some hiding. I respect Royer's desire and ability to let Kirby shine. I just think that what Simon added to the mix made Kirby look even better. I just did not like how Kirby started to make everyone look like a body builder even the women. Others liked the look and that is cool too.

[Yoc]

It took me a long time to warm up to Kirby as well.
I was big on Adams, Perez, Ploog, Smith and Wrightson early on and LOVED the early Ditko 'Dr Strange' I finally got to read in the old b&w novel sized reprints.  My dear old dad turned me onto Walt Kelly and I'm forever thankful for that.

-Yoc

[darkmark (RIP)]

Well, I've always liked Jack...at least up through the New Gods.  After that, you could see the weaknesses in his writing, and his inability to understand that led to his downfall.  At least until he got into animation, thank God for which.  I met Jack, attended his birthday party, and am glad I had a chance to cross paths with him.  With Lee and Ditko, he recreated comics in the Sixties.