Pencils by Jack Kirby, Inks by Evan Who --?

In 1993 I got to ink a Jack Kirby sketch for a book called Jack Kirby's Heroes and Villains: Black Magic Edition. This was a version of a 1987 hardcover book -- called Jack Kirby's Heroes and Villains -- which collected pencil drawings Kirby did in a sketchbook given to his wife, Roz, as a gift*. Most of the sketches are of characters Kirby created or co-created. The 1994 Black Magic edition collected inked versions of the sketches by a number of comics artists, some well-known, some lesser-known, some only known to small press comics readers.

Greg Theakston published both editions through his Pure Imagination imprint. Pure Imagination was basically just Theakston, and Theakston basically just put out Pure Garbage. The material wasn't the issue, he mostly published work by Jack Kirby (and other beloved older creators) that he didn't need to pay a license for, or various oddities and rarities that had fallen through the cracks of the comics industry. What was rotten about Pure Imagination's output was the presentation. Shitty reproduction, shitty art direction, shitty writing, shitty editing, even the physical format of the books was kind of shitty. The pricing was shitty, too, at least ten dollars higher than comparable books with far better quality. 

Pure Imagination printed (mostly) color comics in (mudd, grainy) black and white, using the infamously shitty "Theakstonizing" process that bleached the color out of old comics to isolate a debased version of the black and white line work. Which would then either be touched up so it could look kind of lousy, or be printed as-is so it would look fucking awful. Yes, it allowed a generation of readers to finally see how cruddy most of Golden and Silver Age superhero comics actually were when the DC Archive and Marvel Masterwork programs started rolling out. These books had better production values but also had quality issues (ha ha, get it, "issues"?) such as badly retouched line art, garish digital recoloring and introductions by Roy Thomas (the slick, glossy paper is a point of contention for many people, many thinks it looks terrible, others seem to love it even though they're clearly very, very wrong).   

The better (or somewhat better) reprints using this process were kind of like those colorized old b&w movies. Wonky, warped and "wrong", but  legible and accessible (especially considering the prices of rare older comics that kept them far beyond the reach of nerds like me). Theakston's books, on the other dirty hand,  were like those old bootleg VHS tapes, dark, grainy and static-filled, the tracking all wrong, scenes jumping, rolling or missing, making it difficult to fully enjoy the viewing experience of, say,  Legend of the Superheroes, The Star Wars Christmas Special or Riki Oh: The Story of Ricky. For good or bad, it was the only way to see any of these things. You bit your tongue and opened your wallet -- unless you were lucky enough to have friends bringing over their copy of Laputa or The Forbidden Zone. 

And if you wanted to read expensive early work by Jack Kirby or whoever, people like Theakston were the only games in town. They ran cheap shops, made cheap product, and often ingratiated themselves into the lives of the creators that  they exploi -- er, published. They tended to talk a great deal about  honoring and celebrating the legacy of so-and-so and such-and-such, and standards, and recognition and respect, and then put out books that  looked like bound amateur-quality fanzines. It made one weary. 

I picked up a number of Theakston's Kirby releases, but at a certain point I just kind of had that "What the fuck am I doing?" moment and stopped even looking at them in the store. The books were more frustrating than entertaining or enlightening. When better tech and intentions made Pure Imagination and most of its ilk obsolete, I dumped everything I had except Sky Masters (iirc), drawn by Kirby and Wally Wood (a collection harder to fuck up, a Silver Age-era newspaper strip originally in black and white and better archived). I'm sure there's a better-quality version of it available now that I should upgrade to. That would be nice to see. I know it was recently reprinted in Brazil. Which does not help me in any way.

So, anyway, Theakston called me up to ask me if I wanted to ink one of the Kirby pieces for the Black Magic edition..Theakston didn't t have the greatest reputation among my cartoonist friends, most of whom had more experience in the industry than I had. But that didn't matter. Of course I wanted to be in the book, of course I would love to (try to) ink (a photocopy of) a Kirby pencil sketch, and of course I would like getting $75 and a free contributor's copy. I had the original version of the book (which means I actually have two Pure Imagination books -- no, I have three, including the Black Magic comp. Zod help me, I still have a fucking Pure Imagination collection in my house! And one Craig Yoe book, but that's another kettle of don't get me started) and thought it would be a blast and a small point of pride to be included in the new edition with a lot of name artists.

I asked to ink the Medusa piece, because Sarah and I both liked the character. I was sent a photocopy of the sketch. I had a lightbox. I had art supplies. I had a drawing table. And then I started to sweat. Because I also had to ink Jack Kirby.  Wait, what? I didn't realize at the time that I would have to actually ink the fucking thing. What was I thinking? I wasn't an inker! I've never been "an inker"!  I had never professionally inked over someone else's pencils in my life. And I still haven't. 

Except for this Medusa drawing, which I inked over Jack Kirby.  

And I was terrified the entire time. 

The. Entire. Time.

I worked so slowwwly. 

I kept having to wipe my hands because I was sweating so much.

A few times I would draw a line or two and have to get up and walk away from the board to calm myself down.

I am not exaggerating. 

I did not want to fuck it up. I did not want to embarrass myself in front of my peers and the fans who bought the book. I wanted to do right by Jack Kirby. I wanted to express my admiration and respect for his work. That might sound goofy, but I think a lot folks would understand that, and I'm positive most of the contributors approached their page with the same attitude, more or less. Maybe not the "fuck itup /embarrass myself" stuff so much

On the other hand, I knew a number of artists would hack the shit out of it, because every anthology-type project has some contributors who phone it in. Or telegraph it in, or yell it in. Some folks are hacks, and some are busy, or maybe their day went badly. Whatever. There are always half-assed contributions. Even some full-assed contributions. Possibly from the publisher, even, who gave himself extra pages to gum up.

Anyway. I got it done. It was the best I could do at the time, and it isn't horrible. Like a better-than-average fanzine cover of the day. You can see I didn't know what I was doing with Medusa's hair. I couldn't handle a brush, I worked with a Hunt 102 and a set of rapidographs. When I got nervous or felt out of my league I used a rapidograph to slowly work in a  contour line. The background elements are all rapidograph, circle guides and a ruler. I added the ladies room as a nod to my being a goofus. It's stiff, it's tentative in a lot of places and overly mannered, but it's solid and it pops pretty well. It's a more attractive piece than it is a well-inked piece. I'm not ashamed of it. 

I've always wanted to do another take on it to see what it would look like. I still have the photocopy of the sketch. Maybe some day.

I don't consider this a Kirby piece, of course. It was published, it's taken from Kirby's pencils, but he didn't participate in the process. It's a piece of professional fan art made for a book. I think it's still pretty neat that I inked a Kirby drawing for publication.

Last bit of business regarding the gig: Apparently, I was one of the lucky ones who not only got paid on time for my work, but didn't have to do too much hassling to get my art back. I'm fairly sure one friend of mine just gave up trying to get his check. There was talk, there was rumor and there were grumblings. There always were in that world of Pure Imagination.

(*The sketchbook was taken apart in the 2000s, and the original artwork is now in the hands of original art dealers and collectors. Apparently there was a financial need that led to the book being offered for sale, and because no one would match the asking price for the complete sketchbook, it was broken up to sell off individual pages.

Jack Kirby died in 1994. Roz Kirby died in 1998. Disney/Marvel reached a settlement with the Kirby estate estimated at somewhere between $40-100 million in 2014.)

My address at the time I inked the piece, stamped on the back of the drawing for the art to be returned.  I wonder if I still have that stamp somewhere.  I think I threw it out. I shouldn't have.