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Birth
Jacob Kurtzberg was born to Rose and Ben Kurtzberg, both from Poland, and raised in the Lower East Side of New York City. He is the oldest from his brother, David. (Jack Kirby Museum: Biography) -
Early life
In his time, a kids favorite pastime was to fight. Jake's gang, the Jewish kids of Suffolk St., would fight either an Italian gang or an African-American gang that lived there. Although Jake was small in stature, he was able to save his brother from an attack from his rival gang. Jake also got influenced from his mothers side of the family, which almost everyone was a storyteller, hearing stories of demi-gods, werewolves and vampires even before the movies. -
At the age of 14, where it all began
In a rainy day, Jake noticed a pulp magazine in a rain drenched gutter. After taking it and reading it, Jake got so amazed that he dedicated himself to learn how to draw. -
Entering the comics world and meeting Joe Simon
Do to family bankrupts, "Jack" (auto-signing newspapers in his school) left school and went to work. He later came to draw animated cartoons such as Popeye and Betty Boop (both signed with different names, such as Curt Davis, Jack Curtiss, Fred Sande, etc.). After working and renouncing from jobs, he finally found his place working for Victor Fox where he met Bill Everett (Creator of Sub-Mariner and Daredevil) and Joe Simon, his later-to-be WWII partner. -
Working for Timely: the early Marvel
Simon and Kirby were offered to go to work with Timely Comics. Only having the Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch as main stars, team began to work, creating characters such as Hurricane, Vision, Red Raven, Tuk the Cave-Boy, Mercury, and their most distinguished character: Captain America. -
Moving to National: the early DC
After their success in Captain America, the duo moved to National to see if there were better profits there. After that they worked on creating characters like Sandman (DC) and Martian Manhunter. Later Jack and Joe were sent to work in the army, ending their partnership for the time -
Period: to
The 50's
After the war, Kirby realized that the super-hero community had faded, and he went on to draw comics of horror, romance and cowboys. He also worked on news strips when abandoning the field -
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The 60's
Black Panther and Captain Marvel were mostly the best successes that Kirby produced, because their early heroes were made stars for most of the period -
Rise of the super-heroes and Stan Lee
When Simon decided to work for Archie, Kirby gave his goodbyes to his one-decade long partner. On the other hand, Kirby moved to Timely again (now Marvel). By this time, DC revived the heroes with the Justice League, and later Kirby would create an similar on the Fantastic Four with Stan Lee. -
Marvel heroes
Creating the Fantastic Four gave the company an opportunity to rise again. Early heroes like Hulk and Ant-man were Kirby ideas as two scientist become heroic in different ways. Thor, Doctor Strange and Nick Fury were other good creations. Iron man and Spider-man, however were drawn by Steve Ditko for reasons still not revealed. Teams like the Avengers and the X-men were greatly his drawing and Stan Lee's genuine writing. -
DC heroes
After creating the Silver Surfer by his own and completing 100 issues of the FF, Kirby left Marvel because his ideas weren't considered, so he moved back to National (now DC). Here he created the Fourth World story line, expanding the DC universe and creating Darkseid, DC most powerful enemy. (Later Thanos would be created from this idea) -
Retirement
After moving and removing over and over again between Marvel and DC, Kirby finally decided to retire to stay with his wife, Roz, and his two children, Neal and Susan. -
Death
Kirby faded away, leaving a great void in his long legacy of science fiction and unique analogy that countered the laws of physics. Now his legacy lives on as the ultimate drawer, inker and writer that gave his talents for both Marvel and DC. (Jack Kirby Museum: Biography)
