That's amazing that you were close friends with Jack Kirby. I was familiar with the Marvel material from the early '60s because my brothers had (and still have) all those classics, like
The Fantastic Four #1,
Amazing Fantasy #15,
Tales of Suspense #39, etc . But, the Kirby comics I remember most fondly and hunting down new at the newsstands were ones like
The New Gods,
Kamandi,
Mister Miracle,
OMAC, et al., when Kirby's style had become even more graphic and he was being inked by Mike Royer. I'm happy for you that you were able to have a close friendship with an inspiration. Sometimes meeting your heroes can be disappointing or heartbreaking. I studied under Harvey Kurtzman and Will Eisner when I was at the School of Visual Arts. Kurtzman was a huge inspiration growing up. At the end of the semester, when he said, "You know, you were my greatest disappointment," it was crushing to hear and pained me for years. By the time I made something of myself with my illustration career, Harvey was so ravaged by ALS, he barely remembered me, even though I'd been to barbecues at his house. To be honest, while Harvey and Will were great artists, they weren't very good teachers. I learned more studying their work in Art Spiegelman's class than I did directly from them.
You might appreciate the book cover I did for two friends who published a Stan Lee biography in 2003. The background was my little tribute to Kirby.
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