...Two points:

1) Mark and Dan's series was the closest version to the original series since before the "G.E.O.R.G.E." period, where everyone got super-identities. It was an enjoyable series that, like Walt Simonson's Orion, was abused and ignored by DC with regards to promotions. They didn't promote the book worth a frack.

...On a side note, one thing Mark did that was notable with the series was to take Chop-Chop and turn him into something other than a stereotype. Very high marks - no pun intended - for that move, natch.

2) If you hated what Chaykin did to Blackhawk, you'll *really* hate what he's doing to the Phantom Eagle!

...True. I should have mentioned the 303 as another probable inspiration. I suspect that both the 303 and the International Squadron had their influences when you get down to it.

Off subject, I was a huge fan of Blackhawk and looked forward to reading your (and Spiegle's) series tremendously. It was the earlier work by Reed Crandell drew me to the original character, I followed the title when it migrated over to DC, and believe it or not, was not offended by the transformations in #230. It was Chaykin's take that soured me on the character, I didn't mind Chaykin's story that much, it just wasn't MY Blackhawk. I think I would have felt the same way if The Watchmen would have been the original MLJ or Charleton characters as once planned. Ditko's Question was such a beloved character for me, I would have gone through the roof to see him depicted as Rorschach.

Perhaps you can shed some light on an obscure Blackhawk rumor. An associate of mine once told me (Jan) Blackhawk was to appear in a guest role (similar to The Atom and Plastic Man) in the Super Friends. This would have been the original Wendy & Marvin series, not the Wonder Twins or Challenge. I found this to be suspect, but have seen additional mention of this over the years. Do you have any information on this you'd like to share?

Jack was, at times, very "down" on the business he was in. There were times he was quite worried about being able to make a living in it...or being able to do so without working in an ugly, unhealthy relationship. In the interview you cite, I would suggest that Roz was putting a positive spin on the past, remembering the good times and minimizing the bad. In conversations with me, both she and Jack would sometimes recall more of the negatives.

I guess I do not understand your use of the word "blacklisting" here. I actually don't think that's the appropriate term for one employer deciding they didn't want to hire a certain person. In the life of every writer or artist, there are folks who want to hire you and those who don't for whatever their reasons. Jack was no different from anyone in this regard.

The matter of costumes in Jack's work deviating from issue to issue seems to bother you more than it ever bothered the folks with whom he worked. The reason for it was that Jack was an absent-minded guy...the kind who sometimes would light a cigar, then notice he already had a lit one sitting in the ash tray. He used to sometimes be told at Marvel to go home and start on the next issue of Thor...and on the way home, he'd get to thinking about an idea for Fantastic Four, and when he got home, he'd forget and draw an issue of Fantastic Four instead of Thor. One of the reasons he got along with Stan Lee was that Stan occasionally made similar mistakes. Also, at the time, stats and Xerox machines were not as readily available. Today, when an artist draws a story, he can make copies of it before he sends it off. There was no machine available to Jack in the sixties to do that, so he often did not have reference handy for earlier issues.

And of course, the other obvious reason for inconsistencies was that he was drawing so much...producing so fast. That was what his employer wanted and that's what the pay scales necessitated.

Yes, I think you;re reading too much into Roz's statement about not caring who got credit for the work. There were times when credit didn't matter and was not such an issue because no one was getting any. But there were times when Jack felt that others were getting credit for his work...and then the Kirbys most definitely objected.

I don't think Jack received nothing from the industry. I believe he and most of the key creators in comics were horribly underpaid and I believe they and their work were not treated with due respect. To the extent that Jack and others did receive certain rewards (often, of the non-monetary kind), and lot of that came from his fans and not from his working situations. I think it's sad that Jack did not not live long enough to reap some of the rewards that, for example, Stan Lee is now receiving because of his reputation. As I think I said on that NPR interview, it's great that Stan's a celebrity and people are throwing money at him. I wish Jack had gotten more of that.

As for negative stories about Jack...there certainly are some and as I say, I don't think he was great at managing his own career and made some big mistakes. There's also a lot of nonsense that people make up for reasons I don't pretend to understand. Don't make the mistake of assuming that since you haven't heard a lot of negatives, any negatives you do hear must be the truth. I didn't delve into much of this in the recent book because I didn't have the room, and some of it is very complicated and requires an understanding of Jack's whole relationship with various folks at various times. The next book I'm doing on Kirby covers all that. I think he still comes off pretty well in spite of everything.

My examples of blacklisting employers are merely a reference to how other industries stop workers from flip-flopping between competitors. it's been suggested that Mr Kirby was not afraid to burn bridges, as he was all but certainly guarenteed employment by the other publisher if he so chose. Roz Kirby, in an interview with John Morrow in 1995, stated that they knew Jack could always find work if he needed, even during times when the industry was slow. You knew Mr Kirby personally and all I have from him are a couple of short letters and autographed items. If you're telling me Jack was never disgruntled, not blacklisted and never switched publishers to get a better wage, I can only take your word as fact and screw others who have opined conversely,

In the same interview quoted above, Mrs. Kirby also states that if Kirby needed to do research, he would go to the library, but wouldn't be there long. He'd return after not finding what he was looking for, and just "make it up". Perhaps an inside look as to why costumes and such would deviate from issue to issue? Jack just didn't like going back and doing the research? He was doing a LOT of work at periods of his career and he was creating continuity, not forced to adhere to it's existense. He came from an era before readers were concerned with what happened issues before. The golden-age Daredevil was mute for some issues but could speak fine in others. Did Jack Kirby believe artistic inconsistancies were somewhat frivilous? Perhaps the popularity of his work and the seriousness of the fans snuck up on him. I remember reading that in the early days of Marvel, fans would walk up to the studio and the office staff would give them personal tours and original artwork free of charge. Within a few short months, dozens of fans would be camped outside Stan Lee's apartment, hawking for an autograph or a chance to talk "Marvel" with The Man.

Again in the same interview, Roz explained that her favorite time was during the early days of Jack's career, when they weren't worrying about "Who did this" and "who did that". Am I reading too much in this statement to suggest Roz thinks Jack was better off before he starting worring about who was taking the most credit for the work to which he was contributing?

Once again in the Morrow interview, was the insight from Roz on how regardless of the opinions of his work during his Fourth World run at DC, he was allowed to do whatever he wished and "Okay, Jack" was pretty much the canned answer for anything he wanted. She reveals that some people hated his (writing) work during this period, but he always tried his best.

I can't locate the entire interview on line, but the excerpts published here:
http://twomorrows.com/kirby/articles/10roz.html
covered some of the subject matter printed above.

Anyway, I'm sorry if I offended you in any way as it appears as if you're convinced I'm trying to disrespect Mr. Kirby. When Glen David Gold of The Washington Post reviewed your book, he stated that you believe Kirby received nothing from an industry to which he was so influential. He also wrote that you tend to "tred lightly" when it comes to "Dark Kirby". His opinon of course, but do you really believe this? Jack Kirby is without question the most famous comic book artist of all time. How can your say he received nothing from the industry? Are you talking of monetary compensation then? Roz Kirby suggests they had always done "alright" in that department. Are we talking baseball type disrespect? Where early major leaguers had to work a second job just to make ends meet, but current player like A-Rod and Manny make hundreds of millions? Who's to blame for this type of disrespect? The original owners of the MLB teams? The fans, who didn't buy "team-wear" to show their colors? A history of the publishing industry in general will prove that publishers were often despicable to novice writers. Stories by writers looking to get there work published were often used as fill between pages of pornography. Early sport writers would find their boxing reports adjacent to pictures of "apartment house wrestling", photos a models clad in their underwear in provocative poses, portraying some fictional league where wrestlers and onlookers would gather in Manhatten apartment to view these "cat-fights". I never read anything on Jack Kirby being disrespected in such a way. Jack Kirby drew comics. He was one of the first creators identified in the medium itself. The comics as well as the artist himself became very famous. Kirby became so famous that he received carte-blanche in the way of total creative control at one point of his career. After death, the man is a legend, respected and revered. Are there lies, unfounded rumors and inconsistancies in the Jack Kirby story that soil his memory? Perhaps. Very little sees print however, as most are satisfied with tredding lightly on any negative aspects of the man.

In any case, Jack did not change publishers very often in his career...certainly a lot less than the average comic artist. And the few times he did change were almost never because of better wages but because he felt forced out of a company by other issues, and felt he had no choice.

There are many criticisms that could be made of Jack, and I've said many times that I don't think he managed the career part of his life well. But I really don't see what was "elitist" about anything he did in this regard.

As to the other topic here of Jack and Johnny: I am again confused on what some folks are saying so I'll just report that I discussed the matter with Jack, with Jack's lawyer (who is now my lawyer on some matters, by the way), with Johnny Carson's producer and with, believe it or not, Johnny Carson. None of these folks seemed to think the lawsuit would have been laughed out of court...which is why it was settled quickly and with money, as so many lawsuits are.

As I said, I think (and have written) that Jack made a lot of mistakes in his life in the way he handled career matters. I don't happen to see any in the threads being discussed here...but maybe I'm not understanding what folks are saying. Or maybe some of you don't understand how limited his options sometimes were.

Steve Repogle: I repeat for the last time--ignore it again and I will ignore you--that the account of the incident in "The Jack Kirby Collector" gave no hint of so much as a threat of legal action by Kirby at all, let alone that it prompted the apology. In addition to that, it's claim that said apology came quickly is corroborated by Ken Holtzhouser above. I refuse to be faulted for not accepting that Kirby-devoted publication's account at face value, and don't deny that you suggested that I should have ("...you should check around...."). It appears to me that you just don't like the idea of anything this comic book legend did being criticized. That's not the way the world works. I'll tell you right now that I disliked everything I saw of his 70s DC work (the entire runs of THE DEMON and OMAC, plus some KAMANDI), as well as his CAPTAIN VICTORY at Pacific, and fully believe he was better off with somebody else scripting, choosing inkers, etc. And, yes, given the appearance that Carson had already apologized and clarified Kirby's status ("TJKC" asserts Johnny did this as well) before the legal action, I did indeed see the suit as "frivolous."

Regardless, Mr Evanier and others seem to suggest I'm looking for an arguement or I'm being disrespectful to Mr Kirby. I figured that might happen - but please accept that this is not the case. I didn't mean to suggest Kirby had been blacklisted, only that in most any other industry, employees (and even consultants, although to a lesser degree) are often blacklisted if they go back and forth between competitors several times, especially if finiancials are a reason for the migration. As an example, several years ago I managed a team of engineers providing corporate technical support. Being in Boston, we had several competitors nearby. A couple of our better enginners took it upon themselves to switch between competitors while the industry was hot, often making the switch for a salary increase that was nominal at best. They would sometime switch allegencies two to three times a year. It would have been funny, if our customers didn't suffer from the constant changes. Finally, I had to draw a line in the sand, and suggested to my team that anyone that had done the flip-flop more than once would not be rehired for a monetary increase beyond what they were making when they left the company. In a similar vein, I once complained to the manager of a local fast food restaurant that there was no one on staff that could take an order unless said order was a numbered menu item. He explained that he had only one person on staff besides himself that could speak or read English, and the rest of the staff understood only Spanish. His explanation was that the KFC a few doors down had recently increased the starting wage by 30 cents, and his entire staff moved on. He said he was waiting to hear if he could raise his wages by 35 cents to get most of the help back, but the district was making a stand, suggesting he should not get in a "bidding-war". I only suggested that outside the comic world (and maybe the medical field), workers disgruntled over wages that consistantly flop over the "the other side" will eventually end up on the outside looking in.

Mark, I will indeed read your book to better my knowledge of Kirby, but my synopsis was as accurate as possible for a indusrty outsider who gathered information from informal discussion with both comics professionals and other fans alike over the course of nearly 50 years. Might I suggest to you that although Kirby's work is nearly ALWAYS respected, Kirby's work ethic and opions are sometimes looked upon as elitist. For one moment, please consider the following. You're a young rookie, trying to make it in the comics world and get your shot with one of the "Big-Two". You hand in you work, and your editor notices comic deviations and plot inconsistancies with earlier issues. Would that be acceptable? Never. Was Kirby allowed to turn in such work? He was. Mark, call it jealousy if you will, but there were creators working the industry during Kirby's later runs that were expected to meet certain standards, but believed quality was not taken into consideration.

After the strong feelings that have been exposed here however, I believe using undocumented conversations and letter exchanges with comic professionals when stating my opinion may be a disservice to the subject. Therefore, if an inker has told me in the past that a certain penciller was a real prick to work with, I will no longer include allusions to such opinions while writing. I apologize if I hurt any of Mr Kirby's friends or family in the process.

But your comment that Kirby's lawsuit would have been laughed out of court was wrong. You may not have had all the facts, but they are available, and you should check around before you make such sweepingly inaccurate statements... about Jack Kirby... in a comic forum.

In that vein, and not a humorous one...

"Anonymous" writes : Given how quickly and sincerely Carson apologized, I would expect a lawsuit over it to get laughed out of court, which is probably why the account of the incident in “The Jack Kirby Collector” made no mention of it.

This sounds as though the writer thinks the lawsuit was frivolous, but no - being called "The King of the Con-Men" by name on national television was no laughing matter. Jack got a lawyer. He had a good case. Carson and his producer recognized this and made an apology quickly before the case could proceed. It was a good apology, Jack was satisfied, and he drew Carson a cartoon to show there were no hard feelings.

The lawsuit would not have been laughed out of court. Jack's good name was key to his livelihood.

Jeez, sometimes I wonder about these forums. Is "Anonymous" really an adult, and has he ever had any experience with our legal system? Outside of Matt Murdock's cases, I mean?

Nice catch, Mark,. And from 1959, long before we'd hear Neal saying it and giving the impression he'd made it up himself. Or maybe were just young and impressionable back then. Cheers.