The late Jack Kirby created Captain America, The X-Men, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, The Silver Surfer, Thor, Sgt. Fury, Kamandi, and many other famous characters. He was, and remains, at least twice as good as any other comic book creator I can think of. His groundbreaking innovations in layout, plot, character, and theme have not only influenced thousands of comic book creators, but the movie and animation industry as well.
Kirby: King of Comics, by Kirby's longtime friend and assistant, Mark Evanier, is part biography, part coffee table art book. The text of this lavishly-illustrated, 224-page, large format book runs 35,000 words, but Evanier says he's working on a 500,000 word biography of the world's greatest comic book writer and artist (I'll buy that when it comes out, too).
Not only was Kirby a man of awesome talent, he was also very kind-hearted. I've met a lot of my literary and artistic heroes and many of them didn't seem to be very nice. Not Kirby. I met him when I was 16 years old and I hung around him for three days. I'm sure I was a terrible pest, but he was as genial as could be, and he even gave me his address, inviting me to stay at his house if I ever came to California. What a guy. Link
