Evigt relevant, og så er demagogen stadig orange. Fra Forever People #3 (1971).

Hent der, hvor du lytter til podcasts eller hop ind og lyt via Nummer9, Supersnaks Soundcloud eller podcastets Instagram og Facebook. Og hvis du har mod på mere, så hop tilbage og lyt til vores diskussion fra julen 2019 af Kirby samarbejde med Stan Lee under skabelsen og udviklingen af Marvel-universet. Endnu engang tak til Morten og Kim!

Kasseret side af Kirby fra Thor 169, med hans noter i margin, skåret fra af Lee

For folk der kender min indstilling til Lee, er det nok ikke overraskende, at teksten fokuserer på det kreative samarbejde mellem Lee, Kirby og Ditko og førstnævntes efterfølgede uproportionale anerkendelse og belønning. Her et lille uddrag:

Ditko forlod i frustration Marvel i 1966, Kirby fulgte ham fire år senere. Andre kræfter kom til, men det blev aldrig det samme. Det er sigende, at mens Ditko og Kirby begge fortsatte distinkte og dybt originale kunstneriske livsbaner, skabte Lee hverken før eller siden noget, der kommer i nærheden af det, de lavede sammen. Samtidig er det imidlertid klart, at netop den kemi og den spænding, de to meget forskellige kunstnere opnåede i samarbejdet med Lee udmundede sig i værker af en ganske sjælden vitalitet.

Nåja, og så har jeg her muligheden for at supplere artiklen med en virkelig fed — og både for Lee og Kirby repræsentative splashside fra Fantastic Four #57 (1966). Hvil i fred!

Jack Kirby, Joe Sinnott og Stan Lee, fra "This Man... This Monster!", Fantastic Four #51 (1966)

I sidste uges udgave af Weekendavisen kunne man læse min artikel om Jack Kirby, skrevet i anledning af hundredeåret for hans fødsel 28 august i år. På grund af en redaktionsfejl, trykte avisen desværre en kladde i stedet for den grundigt omskrevne — og i mine øjne væsentlig bedre — udgave af min tekst. Da det er for sent at rette op på i sig selv, bringer jeg derfor den egentlige, færdige tekst her. Med ekstra billeder. God læselyst!

Jack Kirby er energi! Spændstigt trukne linjer, intenst strålende parallelskraveringer, kompakte sorte prikker, der sitrer på papiret. Kantede figurer, heroiske af statur, med ansigterne fortrukne af følelser og hænderne strakt mod os i voldsom forkortning. De brydes i eksplosive slagsmål, deres kroppe i fejende bevægelse. Vildtvoksende arkitekturer og teknologiske abstraktioner, kvasi-kubistisk undfanget i hvad der kunne være den femte dimension. Sammenstillingen af grovkornet hverdag og bjergtagende kosmiske panoramaer. Billeder der truer med at bryde rammerne.

Jack Kirby og Syd Shores, forside til Captain America Comics #1 (1940)

Hans bedst kendte tegning er nok den med Captain America, der pander Hitler i gulvet. Den har netop nu, i Trumps Amerika, fået nyt liv i antifascistiske kredse. Figuren skabte han i 1942 sammen med sin ven og forretningspartner Joe Simon, i indignation over tidens begivenheder i Europa. Fascismens nemesis, tveægget gestaltet af to unge jødiske mænd som et arisk supermenneske.

To år senere, kort efter D-Dag, stod Kirby på Omaha Beach som del af General Pattons 11. infanteri-regiment, omgivet af tusindvis af lig. Resten af livet hjemsøgtes han af mareridt. Han fortalte, at han den dag så Gud.

Jack Kirby, forside til Foxhole #1 (1954)

Ragnarok
Mest berømt er hans arbejde for Marvel Comics i tresserne. Samarbejdspartneren var Stan Lee, selskabets karismatiske ansigt udadtil. Lee var redaktør, kreativ sparringspartner og skrev den farverige tekst i boblerne i Kirbys færdigtegnede tegneseriefortællinger, men var ikke i egentlig forstand forfatter på historierne, selvom hans byline fordrede det og selvom han på den korte bane endte med broderparten af anerkendelsen.

Kirbys arbejde for Marvel er det substrat, hvorpå den nu Disney-ejede koncerns tilsyneladende endeløse række af superheltefilm, tv-serier, videospil, legetøj og merchandise bygger. Blandt de hundredevis af figurer og koncepter han og Lee introducerede finder vi Iron Man, The Avengers, The X-Men og The Inhumans. Dertil kommer den første sorte superhelt, The Black Panther, oplyst enevældig i et højt sofistikeret afrikansk kongerige og i øvrigt filmaktuel til februar. Samt Jekyll og Hyde-figuren Hulk og deres fortolkning af den nordiske tordengud, som begge kan mødes i filmen Thor: Ragnarok, der har premiere sidst i oktober. Deres Thor hidrører fra et højteknologisk Valhalla og kæmper for orden i et kosmos, der uvægerligt bevæger sig mod den undergang vi hører om i Vølvens Spådom.

Jack Kirby, Vince Colletta og Stan Lee, fra "And Now... Galactus!", The Mighty Thor #160 (1968)

I deres desperate kamp for jordens overlevelse bliver det kvartettens yngste medlem, den flammende Johnny Storm, beskåret at stirre ind i evigheden. Han må erkende, at menneskets rolle er ubetydelig, dets kamp for overlevelse uhildet. The Silver Surfer er bevidst om dette, men anfægtes ikke desto mindre og hjælper de Fire med at fordrive Galactus. Denne medmenneskelige handling sikrer heltenes sejr, men Johnnys grundlæggende, forstandstruende indsigt bliver stående.

Forbudstidens synder
Kirbys skæbne blev tegneseriehæfterne. Som jøde var det svært for den vordende tegner at finde ansættelse i avis- og illustrationsbranchen, så han startede på laveste trin. Tegneserieforlagene var fremvokset under forbudstiden som skalkeskjul for organiseret kriminalitet og fungerede da, qua deres papirleverancer, som dække for smugling af sprit over den canadiske grænse.

Branchen var, og forblev, derfor præget af udbyttermentalitet. Al ophavsret tilfaldt udgiverne, mens de kreative kræfter var provisionslønnede. Kirby skulle senere i sin karriere forgæves kæmpe for økonomisk kompensation svarende til det enorme bidrag han havde ydet. Først for nylig lykkes det hans familie posthumt at opnå en anseelig godtgørelse fra Marvel/Disney, om end ophavsretten samtidig blev konsolideret hos koncernen.

Jack Kirby og Mike Royer, fra "The Glory Boat", New Gods #6 (1971)

Hovedværket her er den barokke Fourth World-saga, udsendt af Marvels konkurrent DC som fire fortløbende hæfteserier i begyndelsen af halvfjerdserne. Denne inspirerede bl.a. George Lucas da han undfangede sit Star Wars-univers, og er i disse år en del af den kosmologiske baggrund i Warner Bros.’ DC-film, særligt sidste års bombastiske langgaber Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice og Justice League der har premiere i november.

Kirby introducerede her en helt ny gudeverden, rejst fra asken af den gamle og udskilt i to kontrasterende kloder: den uspolerede, blå planet New Genesis og den slaggespyende dødstjerne Apokolips. På førstnævnte er Mosesfiguren Highfather visest blandt ligefolk, mens sidstnævnte domineres af Darkseids fascistiske rædselsregime. En skrøbelig fred hersker mellem dem, beseglet med et børnebytte af de tos førstefødte.

Det er fortællingen om, hvorledes denne fred falder fra hinanden med Jorden som gudernes kampplads. De byttede børn står centralt: Scott Free, Highfathers søn opvokset i Apokolips’ opdragelsesanstalter, søger friheden i flugt fra den skæbne han ved han må påtage sig, mens Orion, Darkseids søn opfostret af Highfather, søger frelse ved moralsk stillingtagen, men plages af en destruktiv vrede, som man fornemmer vil blive skæbnesvanger.

Jack Kirby og Mike Royer, fra "The Pact", New Gods #7 (1971)

Denne fortættes i Darkseid, Kirbys Lucifer-figur. I evigt oprør mod en ubegribelig orden søger han den såkaldte Anti-livsligning, der lover total kontrol. En metafor for den yderste konsekvens af vores vilje til magt og frihed og den mørke side af det helteideal, Kirby stedse arbejdede med. Den moralske handling er nødvendig, men står for fald. Troen er stedse drevet af tvivl.

Jack Kirby og Mike Royer, fra "The Pact", New Gods #7 (1971)

Billede fra Devil Dinosaur #4 (1974), af Jack Kirby og Mike Royer.

I myself will be contributing a piece to the rolling celebration taking place all week at Danish comics site Nummer9, masterminded by my friend and occasional collaborator Henry Sørensen, whose feature-length 2009 essay on Kirby leads a variety of homages and critical takes. He posted the first part of it today, soon to be followed by the second, as well as the first of a series of tributes by Danish cartoonists. Meanwhile, Danish afficionados Morten Søndergård and Kim Schou have posted a two-hour podcast on Kirby. All of this, regrettably is only available in Danish, but if you do read the language stay tuned for more, including an article by yours truly which will feature the image above (from New Gods #5, 1971) and will subsequently be posted somewhere (probably here) in English, I hope.

Oh, there have of course also been a few posts on Kirby on this site. Among them are my thoughts on Kirby’s extraordinary transitional work on the Challengers of the Unknown in the late 1950s, my take on his last Fantastic Four story with Stan Lee, and my review of Evanier’s 2008 monograph, which has just been re-released to mark the centenary. Also, there is the provocative 2007 article by aforementioned Søndergård on his possible involvement not just in the creation of Spider-Man, but the execution of some of the first comics pages featuring the character. I don’t really believe it, but it is worth your attention, as is the debate it sparked, which features Evanier (again!) as well as Blake Bell, expert Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko, and others.

UPDATE: here’s my essay in Danish at Nummer9 and in English at The Comics Journal.

PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING

The week in review.

Sorry, I can’t let it go. Yesterday I filed an article on the media shit storm over Charlie Hebdo‘s provocation, Riss cartoon speculating that poor, dead Aylan Kurdi might have become an ‘ass-groper in Germany’, had he been given the chance to grow up in Europe. I guess this small cartoon, buried deep within an issue with David Bowie on the cover and with many other, very different cartoons (one of which is at least as offensive…) is newsworthy, in the sense that anything Charlie does these days is potentially so. But: this is a still rather marginal left-wing magazine we’re talking about and casting it as the reincarnation of Der Stürmer or whatever in the manner of many, mostly uninformed left-wing critics is not only hugely overblown, but ignorant of context. Not to mention insensitive to the multivalent qualities of even heavy-handed cartoons. Look, it’s perfectly legitimate to criticise this cartoon for bluntly furthering an anti-refugee agenda — it clearly does, whether intentionally or, more likely, not –but this is mostly because of the media treatment of it.

People actually reading Charlie would be less inclined to jump straight to that conclusion, and perhaps also take it as commentary on our remarkably schizoid and certainly (and understandably) confused perception and representation of the refugees arriving in Europe: one day innocent children in need of help, the next ass-gropers and rapists in Cologne and elsewhere. I suspect that Riss is disgusted with the increasing sacralisation of the devastating image of little Aylan, especially on the left, and the concurrent demonisation of refugess based on the actions of some. Neither is helpful in handling what is clearly a real problem, leading as they do to dangerous complacency. This, as much as anything, is expressed by that cartoon.

For what it’s worth, above is Dominique Sopo, president of France’s biggest anti-racism grassroots organisation, SOS Racisme, fiercely contesting the accusation that Charlie is racist.

Links:

“The Supreme Court is saying that campaign spending is a matter of free speech, but it has set up a situation where the more money you have the more speech you can buy. That’s a threatening concept for democracy. If your party serves the powerful and well-funded interests, and there’s no limit to what you can spend, you have a permanent, structural advantage. We’re averaging fifty-dollar checks in our campaign, and trying to ward off these seven- or even eight-figure checks on the other side. That disparity is pretty striking, and so are the implications. In many ways, we’re back in the Gilded Age. We have robber barons buying the government.”

— David Axelrod

The week in review

Watching (selected parts of) the Republican National Convention this past week has accentuated the distinct feeling that we have been witnessing a gradual dismantling of democracy in America over the past fifteen years or so. The nadir so far was still the stolen election in 2000, closely followed by the disgraceful first election of George W. Bush on the backs of a vulnerable minority in 2004. However, the political deadlock in Congress for the past four years has been a dismaying spectacle to say the least, as has the Obama administration’s utter failure to correct the political abuses of its predecessors in its foreign policy.

And now we’re getting myth-making on a grand scale, with bald-faced lying and deception the order of the day for the Republican candidacy. Romney seems to be the ultimate candidate of this particular moment in time. Entirely malleable in his effort to reach the majority that will win him the election, he is now running along with a right-wing ideologue whose approach to facts as something equally malleable was made apparent in his address on Wednesday. And with the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court in 2010, the stage is set not only for the mass propagation of these lies, but the further marginalization of the greater electorate.

I know, politicians have always lied and American politics have long been dependent on special interest, it just seems to me that we are witnessing an accelerated decline these years. For all its disappointment, the Obama administration have achieved — or seemed to achieve — a few important victories for democracy, from ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to fledgling universal health care, but overall the prospects that the fundamental problems of the system by which they rule, starting with its dependence on big money, will be solved are bleaker than ever. This election will not even carry the entertainment value of the last one, it’ll just be depressing, but it will also be a real test of a severely tested democratic system.

Links:

We must gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and feelings for all oppressed people… Remember, we have not established a revolutionary value system; we are only in the process of establishing it. I do not remember our ever constituting any value that said that a revolutionary must say offensive things towards homosexuals, or that a revolutionary should make sure that women do not speak out about their own particular kind of oppression. As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite: we say that we recognize the women’s right to be free. We have not said much about the homosexual at all, but we must relate to the homosexual movement because it is a real thing. And I know through reading, and through my life experience and observations that homosexuals are not given freedom and liberty by anyone in the society. They might be the most oppressed people in the society…

— Huey P. Newton, 1970

The week in review

This week Obama finally put on the line his position of gay rights. Forget the spin, it was an important moment. One that will hopefully vindicate the despicable distraction the Bush government used to get elected in 2004. One for the books, even if it loses Obama the election, and it seems we can be pretty confident it won’t.

This week’s links:

The week in review

Vacation and work have kept me away for a while, a will probably continue to do so for a little while yet. While in Boston, I checked back on one of the city’s premier cultural institutions.

The new wing of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston is emblematic of museum branding today, all the more so because of the particular intractability of its foundational stipulations. In a cultural climate where having a great collection simply isn’t enough, institutional visibility has become closely tied to event culture. for a museum that can’t even rehang its collection, this is of course a problem, so what do you do? Raise $180 million and hire go-to starchitect Renzo Piano to facilitate all the things museums seem convinced they have to do to stay afloat these days: an new wing housing a concert hall, a gift shop, a restaurant, a children’s art room, an exhibition space for artists-in-residence, a greenery. All sustainable, geothermal and daylight-harvesting, of course.

You do what you gotta do to survive, I suppose, but the absurdity of this trend for museums to go extra-curricular is particularly clear at the Gardner, whose intermittently great collection is forever trapped in a mediocre hang by the vanity of its founder, who insisted that everything be presented exactly as she left it at her death. This results in many important works being hung at low visibility and in often idiosyncratic and unenlightening juxtaposition, with the preciously empty frames of masterworks stolen in 1990 remaining on the walls as if to consecrate this “vision.” A new wing could have worked wonders for the presentation of the museum’s masterpieces, if only.

Still, Boston has a new, reportedly great concert hall and I’m sure Piano’s elegant building will attract customers. It has the potential to become a strong cultural center, if it does not blow too many leaks and if the museum’s direction finds ways of breaking its somewhat stale reputation. A good thing, even if the overall tendency is troubling.

A bunch of recent comics links:

What a week. Starting with Fantask’s fortieth anniversary celebration last weekend and ending with my participation at NNCORE’s foundational meeting with a short Berlin jaunt to see the astonishing Renaissance portraits and Hokusai shows there. I hope to return a bit to the portraits (though I can’t promise anything), but just wanted to say a few words about Hokusai here.

A huge retrospective covering the artist’s eighty-plus year career, the show really brought home just how prodigious an artist he was. He must have been drawing all the time. The kind of artist whose ambition is to understand no less than everything about the world through drawing, like Leonardo or Dürer. From the proliferating analytical notations in his manga and other instructional booklets to the elegant summaries of his brush paintings, his is a recording of human experience as such. Not the idea of it, and not really with an attempt to comment, but rather a continuous ambition to formulate a vision that suspends it within a order that grasps it all without reducing it to style. In a sense, what all cartooning should aspire toward.

Some links:

The picks of the week from around the web.

Happy Labor Day!