A campaign has begun to get Jack Kirby a commemorative Google Doodle on the day of what would have been his 100th birthday. A doodle may seem like a minor accolade, but these things are seen by literally millions of people, and may turn them on to the life and works of one of the titans of American comic books.
(Thanks to Dylan Todd for the graphic design and Leonard Piece for the invaluable editing)
Please help spread the word on this. I would really like to see this happen.
For what it’s worth, here is the e-mail I sent to Google. It is, admittedly, quite long, but I have Many Feelings about Kirby. Feel free to crib from this for your own e-mails:
This coming August 28 marks the centennial of the birth of Jacob Kurtzberg, the man who would go on to be better known as Jack Kirby, the King of the Comics. I believe such a momentous occasion merits a Google Doodle (and much more, to be completely honest).
Jack Kirby is best known for–and perhaps rightly so–his contributions as the primary artist at Marvel Comics during its foundational period in the 1960s. In this decade which would see the previously troubled publisher become the dominant force in comics ever since, Kirby, as dynamo artist and story plotter, would contribute to the world such figures as the Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the Black Panther, and others. As a younger man in the 1940s, he and his collaborator Joe Simon created the Sentinel of Liberty, Captain America, and shocked the nation by having their quintessentially American hero socking Hitler across the jaw on the cover of their first issue, years before the US officially entered World War II. Naturally, these powerful ideas and colorful characters have gone on to make literal billions of dollars for Marvel and its now-parent company, Disney.
Kirby didn’t really ever see any of that money.
Indeed, frustrated with low pay and lack of credit (frequently given instead to his more gregarious collaborator, Stan Lee, who would become and has remained the public face of the company), Kirby would leave the successful comics universe he helped build in 1970 to join their chief competitor, DC Comics, where he would go on to create such characters as the New Gods, Darkseid, Etrigan the Demon, and Kamandi the Last Boy on Earth, all of whom have been adapted by DC (and their parent company, Warner Bros) into other media. Notably, Darkseid is set to be the major villain of the Justice League film franchise. Additionally, during an earlier stint at DC in the 1950s, Kirby plotted a new origin for Green Arrow that has gone on to be the backbone of the CW show Arrow.
I could list literally hundreds of characters that Kirby created during his nearly six decades working on comics, but honestly, these almost pale in comparison to his contributions to the visual language of comics. Any comics artist today that uses a two-page spread, a six panel grid, or dynamic foreshortening is walking in Kirby’s footsteps. His legacy can be seen in the lines of scores of artists working today: Bruce Timm, Darwyn Cooke, Mike Allred, John Romita Jr, the Image Comics founders and many, many more all owe a debt to Kirby.
Outside of his comics work itself, Kirby deserves recognition for his roles as a World War II veteran (where he worked as a scout), a proud and prominent Jewish-American, and a loving husband and father, whose children and grandchildren have gone on to found the Kirby 4 Heroes campaign, which raises money for comics creators in financial need.
While appreciation among comics fans for the King of the Comics has grown exponentially since his death in 1994, the fact of the matter is that his name is not well known among the general public, and if people associate any name at all with the foundations of Marvel Comics, it is Kirby’s collaborator Stan Lee alone. Hopefully, Disney’s naming of Kirby as a “Disney Legend” this year will help raise awareness of the greatest artist the medium of comics has ever known, but putting his name/face/work/whatever in front of millions of Google users as a Doodle couldn’t hurt either.
Additionally, the medium of comics has historically been relatively underrepresented among Google Doodles, with Doodles (rightly) celebrating Will Eisner, Little Nemo, and Asterix, but not much more. A celebration of comics’ single greatest creator on his centennial would definitely be a step in the right direction.
Thank you for your consideration.
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