Kirby's Panels

Comic books are graphic narratives. All of Kirby's skill and style - style that, as comic book great Will Eisner often said, was a way to disguise artistic limitations - would be irrelevant if he lacked a story-telling ability. It is in the shift between panels that the comic book is energised. 

This sequence of four panels from The Fantastic Four (slides 37 - 38) offers a short introduction to Kirby's storytelling. The first panel sets up the action - a gun is fired - before the second panel answers - the shot is reflected. In panel three, the shot returns to the aggressor, and in the fourth, the consequences are revealed. 

This taut, concise narrative line is embellished by the swirling shading and the posture of the characters: the initial dynamism and contortion of the first panel eventually resolves into the almost static figure in the fourth, with competing elements of stability, as in the defending posture of panel two, competing with flux, like the flames in the final panel.

This competition between poise and imbalance lends a simple sequence an epic, hysterical ferocity.

This two panel sequence from Captain America uses a similar tension: the protagonist's body falls, awkward and disjointed, while the antagonist hangs calmly, a static focus around which the drama curls (slide 39).

Another four panel sequence from The Fantastic Four (stripped of dialogue) uses a simple anecdote to represent the relationships between the characters without intruding on the action (slide 40).

The emergence of The Thing (slide 41) has become an iconic moment in comic book history, and Kirby's use of three panels for a moment's transformation lends it the appropriate gravitas.

By the 1970s, in this example from The Fourth World, Kirby relies on shapes and no characters to create a building sense of anticipation (slide 42).

Splashing and Reversing Time

Slide 31

The detail of a Kirby splash page has been frequently described (Charles Hatfield demonstrates how a single page can follow the progress of an entire battle, revealing both the order of attack and the subsequent chaos). However, this panel from The Demon (a minor DC character) highlights the complex chronotope that Kirby could invoke to express the movement of time.

Reading from page left to right, Kirby draws the eye towards the moment of action: the 'draaga' assault the protagonist. Threat and terror are literally foregrounded, while the speech bubbles lead the reader back to the 'warlock' on page right, who is directing the action.

This movement, however, works in contradiction to the time of the panel: the warlock's invocation happens before the draaga attacks. The reader experiences the diegetic time of the comic book in reverse. The traditional movement of time - as per the panels of a comic book - from left to right is rendered uncanny: the impact of the combat distorts and disorientates time itself.

The splash page to Fantastic Four (slides 32 - 36) plays with the chronotope in an even more radical manner. At first glance, the scene is simple enough: the heroes are entertained by a tribal dance. 

In this single page, Kirby’s art (and Stan Lee’s dialogue) simultaneously celebrate and subvert the trope of the African primitive. The exotic costumes, and the podium on which the Fantastic Four are seated, suggest the hierarchy of traditional jungle adventures, such as Tarzan, in which the white colonials are elevated above the ‘natives’ – the conversation between The Thing and The Human Torch bristles with racial anxiety.

Yet a black king sits above the protagonists, and both Mr Fantastic and Wyatt Wingfoot (a native American, in another subversion of the racial stereotypes) recognise a complexity. There is even a hint, in the Black Panther’s statement, that this tribal dance is a commodification of traditional dance for the benefit of outsiders, mirroring the adaptation of culture for tourists. 

Without Kirby’s visuals, the full impact of this subversion is missed. A subtle detail at the foot of the page – an advanced weapon held by a tribal warrior – or the hierarchy on the podium draws out the subtext that a simplistic reading of Wakandan culture, as offered by The Thing, fails to engage with its tensions. 

Even the paratext of Kirby’s note (‘They’re nice people!’) and the details of the credits (‘The Ballet Forbush’) complicate the racial tropes: ‘ballet’ being a high art form in contrast to the alleged primitivism of folk dance. While ‘Terpsichorean troupe’ may be an ironic comment on the dance, it is well within the range of Stan Lee’s love of extravagant language rather than a mockery of Wakandan pretensions.

Of course, a splash page is not enough to prove that Kirby has mastered the comic book. 

Kirby's Classics

Kirby's contribution to the visual vocabulary of the comic book is usually summed up in terms of a collection of techniques: 'the kirby krackle', a series of dots that signify not just movement but a fizzy dynamism that cannot be contained by the human body (slide 22); the dynamic posture that defies anatomy to suggest motion (slide 23); the mastery of multiple genres, including the now unfashionable western and romance (slides 24 - 25) and the clarity of narrative across multiple panels. 

His most ostentatious strategy, however, might be his use of collage, another avant-garde style which Kirby could legitimately claim to have been in from the start. Richard Hamilton's 1953 Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? is one of the earliest collages to reach popular attention and, there at the back, on the wall of the house, is a Kirby cover (slide 27). 

Having been part of the collage, Kirby would turn to the medium nearly a decade later, including collages as part of his attempt to picture the sublime: Reed Richard floats through the negative zone (slide 28), or the Fantastic Four look out onto another dimension (slide 29). Finally, (slide 30), Kirby created a series of unpublished collages that were distinct from his comic book work, suggesting a prolonged interest in the medium. 

The Technological Sublime

Although Charles Hatfield apologises in Hand of Fire (2012) for his enthusiasm for Kirby, he not only locates his study within the academic, but identifies the technological sublime as a characteristic of Kirby's style. Drawing on Burke's Philosophical Enquiry (1757), Hatfield sees the cosmological grandeur and futuristic city-scapes that pepper Kirby's work as an expression not of simple awe but terror. Technology is not celebrated but presented on an anti-humanistic scale that evokes the vulnerability of the person within a mesh of advanced machinery.


(slides 18-21)

In 1976's adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kirby pictures both the immensity of deep space and the Artificial Intelligence HAL as a threat to the human. HAL surrounds the astronaut like a womb and a labyrinth: the man is adrift, floating within the machine's geometric architecture. This is not the happy synthesis of the organic and the mechanical, but the submission of the human before the elemental scale of an artificial intelligence.

Both the cosmos and the machine parallel the romantics' preoccupation with the sublime: the reminder of humanity's relative irrelevance in a universe of vast, incomprehensible powers. Yet Kirby's addition - the recognition of technology as a threat alongside the natural world - reveals his balance between art historical themes and a twentieth century anxiety. 

Kirby and Fandom

Unlike many areas of academic study, comic books have a rich culture of independent researchers. Sometimes characterised as a 'fandom', these researchers exist outside of the academic mainstream and it is here that Kirby's claims to genius are most eagerly presented.

The Abstract Comics blog serves as an example of how this fandom attempts to command legitimacy: original research appeals to established art-forms - in this case, a series of comparisons between Kirby's art and familiar artists, insisting on clear parallels. The analysis is simple: images are placed side by side, without detailed commentary, as if the statement itself becomes a self-evident argument. 

Slides 5 -7

These examples do imply that Kirby's aesthetic was informed by art history and the avant-garde of the early twentieth century: Picasso's cubism finds an echo in Kirby's dynamic perspectives (slides 8 - 9) or Otto Dix's caricatured portraits are reflected in single Kirby panels (slides 10 - 11) - which also recall Diderot's advocacy of the theatrical tableaux to represent not only individual characters but also their relationships. The distortions of the human face appear in both Picasso and Kirby, evoking a distinctive twentieth century terror and fear (slides 12 - 14).

However, it is the integration of the avant-garde

aesthetic into the commercial demands of the comic book industry that makes Kirby more than a mere imitator: the styles he evokes had been well-established by the time he began professional work, and he uses them more as a reference point rather than furthering their aesthetic concerns.

Furthermore, Kirby does draw influences from other sources: his vision of Asgard, the Norse mythological realm, follows cues from Aztec art (slides 15- 17) - perhaps hinting at another avant-garde strategy, a form of 'primitivism'. While all of these influences can be detected, fandom tends not to convince but signifies the genius of Kirby, falling short of defining the nature of his genius.

Why Jack Kirby?

For comic book fans, Jack Kirby needs no introduction. For Alan Moore, perhaps the most famous contemporary comic book author, Kirby is the creative force behind the 'Marvel Revolution' - the introduction of mature themes and literary qualities into the superhero genre. He is known as 'the king' and, when a comic book wants to represent God, it is the image of Jack Kirby that is presented. 

Slides 2-4

Having worked with Joe Simon until the 1950s - and in Will Eisner's studio - Kirby's apprenticeship had him churning out comic books in multiple genres. In 1958, however, he began working for Timely Comics and teamed up with Stan Lee. Although this partnership would ultimately dissolve in recriminations over ownership of the creative process, their collaborations included The Fantastic Four and The Avengers, heralding the 'Marvel Revolution' and reviving the importance of the superhero comic.

From an article in The New York Herald Tribune (1966) onward, Stan Lee's importance was frequently emphasised to the detriment of Kirby, but Marvel Comics undeniably changed the potential of the superhero. Modern icons - or branded products - such as The X-Men, Iron Man, and a re-imagined Captain America - emerged from their work and the eventual acceptance of comic books as a legitimate - and adult - medium in the 1980s (usually attributed to the publication of Watchmen, Dark Knight and Maus) could be traced back to the ambition of the Lee-Kirby comic books.

This period, however, contains much of the work that has established Kirby as the king of comic books. The Fantastic Four run, of around one hundred issues, can be seen as a showcase for Kirby's genius.

Following his departure from Marvel, Kirby moved to rivals DC and began his Fourth World (1971- 75) narrative. Featuring all-Kirby creations, and spread across a variety of minor DC properties, The Fourth World is often seen as his master-work, despite exposing his weakness as a writer.

He returned to Marvel in 1976, but his twilight years were spent on a variety of projects, mostly unsuccessful or marginal. During the 1980s, the question of creators' rights came to the fore, and reclaiming the legacy of Kirby became an aesthetic, legal and financial campaign. The years of litigation on his behalf became a cause célèbre that revealed the unfair working practices of the comic book industry. 

What is my research about?

My research examines the dramaturgy of theatre and applies it to the study of comic books.

This has three phases: exploring the ideas of dramaturgy developed during the eighteenth century - primarily in the writings of Diderot and Lessing - to discover whether there is a systematic process behind their scattered meditations on performance.

Then, this system is applied as a interpretative tool to the comic book, paying particular attention to the superhero genre that has dominated anglophone comic books since the 1950s.

A further, suggestive, investigation is then made into whether the comic book format can be used as critical tool for the analysis of theatrical dramaturgy.

The question remains - why bother? For phase one, my study was inspired by my work as a theatre critic: I find a great deal of performance unsatisfactory, feeling that something is missing from the production. Tracing theatre studies back to its origins in Aristotle, dramaturgy appeared as an under-represented and ill-defined notion. Yet Diderot and Lessing do provide a clear set of parameters for the application of dramaturgy as a critical tool and the awareness it offers - especially in terms of the relationships between creativity, chronotopes of space-time, social context and performance - are a practical foundation for both theatre production and analysis.

I am an advocate of a heightened awareness of dramaturgy, and its history, towards a more engaged and rigorous contemporary theatre.

Bringing comic books into the study was a natural addition: comic books have become an increasing academic concern in recent years - perhaps inspired by the energy of Francophone and Belgian scholarship, but lack a cohesive discipline that draws together the interests of narratology, sociology and aesthetics. Theatre studies, with its parallel concerns, provides a potential systematic methodology. 

As a fertile strand within theatre studies, dramaturgy becomes the method to test this hypothesis.

Phase three? That's all about impact. I can hand people copies of my theories in prose, but it doesn't get the same smile...