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Well-regarded by his peers and fans as "King" Kirby, he began working at Marvel Comics (then Timely Comics) in 1940 with frequent collaborator Joe Simon. Along with writer/editor Stan Lee, Kirby is credited with Marvel's increased success in the early 1960s with the creation of a strong group of superheroes and the development of a distinct style for Marvel's characters. 


In the 1960s, Kirby and writer-editor Stan Lee co-created many of the Marvels major characters, including the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the Hulk. The Lee-Kirby titles garnered high sales and critical acclaim, but in 1970, feeling he had been treated unfairly, Kirby left the company for rival DC.

At DC, Kirby created his Fourth World saga, which spanned several comics titles. Kirby returned to Marvel briefly in the mid-to-late 1970s, then ventured into television animation and independent comics.

He created a new grammar of storytelling and a cinematic style of motion. Once-wooden characters cascaded from one frame to another—or even from page to page—threatening to fall right out of the book into the reader's lap. …. Even at rest, a Kirby character pulsed with tension and energy in a way that makes movie versions of the same characters seem static by comparison. [ NYT Obit.]


But Did You Know:

Jack Kirby helped to popularize Golden-Age romance comics.

Before he helped jumpstart the Marvel Universe, Jack Kirby was a prolific romance comic artist in the '40s and '50s, having co-created series like Young Love and Young Romance, which is regarded as one of the first books in the genre. These titles were overwhelmingly popular at the time, even more so than superhero books, and would routinely sell more than 1 million copies per issue.

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