When I was a kid, I read comics, mostly Superman, with Curt Swan's classic art, Batman, featuring Dick Giordino's pencils, and Justice League of America, with art by Dick Dillin.
These guys had clean lines and were doing pretty much the same thing, masterfully so, month after month.
So when I encountered Jack Kirby's artwork, again as a kid, there was a disconnect, it was odd.
Dark.
Blocky.
His characters weren't Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent handsome.
And his ideas... they were big. And kind of out there.
Like OMAC. Buddy Blank is a corporate cog nebbish at Psuedo People Inc when he's chosen by faceless representatives of the Global Peace Agency to be their instrument of peace. His first adventure deals with the Build-A-Friend women Pseudo People produces- killer intelligent bombs. Really.
Then there was the Demon. From Camelot to Gotham City, Merlin's weapon against Morgaine Le Fay, Etrigan the Demon, shared the life of an immortal knight, Jason Blood.
Kirby let himself go wild on projects like these, and his magnum opus, The Fourth World Saga, epic ideas that he wrote and drew as a solo artist after over a decades worth of collaboration of work at Marvel with Stan Lee.
Since then, I've read and re-read Kirby's work for DC, and I'm impressed every time. I just wish it hadn't taken me thirty years to get there.
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