Wow! He did indeed. I would say based on things I've read Mr. Kirby was all about content. My assumption is that Stan was all about the broad strokes. He was trying to sell books. I think Stan knew what was going to sell and Jack knew what was going to be considered good. I like to think that anyhow. It is a crying shame that things worked out the way they did for Kirby. I believe they did quite a bit of co-creation. They were very much in a marriage. As we all know things get blurry in a marriage. Unfortunate an ending as it may have been I am eternally grateful that it existed.
Absolutely, a marriage.
I think FF
was Stan's baby in terms of being commanded to come up with a superhero comic, and Atlas (predecessor of Marvel) at the time was still producing monster/horror tiles when DC had just re-ignited the superhero genre.
FF started it all for Silver Age Marvel.
But by '65 Kirby was at least as involved in plotting and story development of FF as Lee, who basically wrote dialog after Kirby presented him with finished pages.
I never really got into Thor or FF ( I know!!! The first of the classics!!! )
Those 2 titles contained Kirby's best work for Marvel even though he filled in on various other titles early on like the Avengers, X-Men, Captain America, and most of the covers for the "twin billing" titles where the feature characters would change every couple of years, and lots of covers in general, like the first Daredevil:
Interesting side note that cover was inked by
Submariner creator Bill Everett (who also drew the characters in the lower right panel, note the style mis-match).
Everett was highly regarded by his peers but not sure why he didn't have a bigger role in Marvel's resurgence.
Submariner was an original Timely character from the '40's, and might be the original comic book anti-hero. Fell off the radar in the '50's and then kept popping up in FF and Avengers (he was instrumental in the "re-launch" of Captain America); but Everett only illustrated a few issues when Subby got his own half of
Tales to Astonish, then disappeared again for a while until inking the last few Kirby issues of Thor.
Everett turned out to be one of Kirby's best inkers in a few issues of Thor from around '68:
Other notable early Marvel Kirby inkers were Chic Stone on FF and Thor, followed by Colletta for a l-o-o-ng run on Thor:
Coletta used insanely fine lines but they brought more facial character to Kirby's work than any other inker.
They gave his era of Thor a feel like no other. (Note Hercules was yet
another bad guy later turned Avenger , LOL!!) (as was Black Panther!)
and Joe Sinnott for a l-o-o-ng run on FF:
The Kirby/Sinnott Surfer** was always my favorite, Surfer was a Kirby character thru and thru; his first appearance was in a single panel of FF #47; pure Kirby foreshadowing of a full-blown story arc that would carry through the next 5 issues and introduce Galactus to the world and then the Black Panther and Klaw and Vibranium.
Chic Stone did some wonderful 2-tone fade coloring on covers:
Oh yes, the Kree were also introduced in FF.
And Ronan the Accuser:
The recent Guardians of the Galaxy movie resonates with me, too. I think it's the best movie treatment of the Marvel spirit of the '60's I've ever seen.
And there's Ronan again.
He's probably about due to become an Avenger, LOL!.
I actually like the Avengers animated series on DXD, especially a season a couple of years ago where they've updated the origin stories of these characters I remember from my youth, but have remained essentially true to the Marvel "ethos".
Yeah they were most certainly cooking on a few different herbs and spices to quote my favorite Jewish Cowboy P.I.. Wow. Jewish Cowboy P.I. Three words you sure as hell do not typically use together. Now there is an idea for a Netflix show or a string of books. Kinky takes on the heavies in NY. Maybe I could meet him down in Kerville, TX at the Butt-Holdsworth library and give him the pitch. Maybe remind him it is another way to promote his Kona coffee and midlevel cigars. I digress.
LOL! It's tough job and I'm happy to let you do it.
BUt I'm sure Kirby was a straight arrow excpey maybe for scotch and his trademark stogie.
IIRC Ditko claimed to be but still, that Dr. Strange stuff, but it could just be the proof of his eccentric genius, like Dali... who needs drugs with a mind like that?:
This precedes the Vulcan mind meld by a good 3 years, BTW.
But Steranko, bein' under 30 when he came to Marvel and a musician to boot, now
there's a likely suspect...
You know this just might be my favorite veer sir. And not a damn thing to do with guitars.
I'm havin' a hard time stoppin', myself.
Steranko's got a page, BTW:
http://www.thedrawingsofsteranko.com/
Note Steranko also spent time in Wally Wood's studio (who also did some work at Marvel from '65-'66, including Daredevil and even inking an issue of FF IIRC) and was adept at copying other artists's little signature graphics tricks of the trade.
Cap'sface on that cover of #111 is lifted straight from Reed Crandall's Blackhawk: (gotta post a link, can't post more than 8 images in a single post)
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SnAo3xxCtK8/TXShtrBKH6I/AAAAAAAALGg/-B6t-P43jGU/s400/Blackhawk+1.jpg, and the cover of Agent of Shield #6 is a tribute to Wood himself.
And he did 3 X-men coves at the very, end, too.
Did you know the original series was actually cancelled for a few years before they came screaming back in the '90's?
Man there's another set I wish I still had.
** some folks consider Sinnot to be Kirby's greatest inker, (I agree).
He was FF inker for almost 5 years beginning in November of '65 (#44) with the introduction of the Inhumans just before the Galactus story arc, all the way to the end of Kirby's tenure at FF (#102, Sep. '70, cover actually by Romita), and also did some Captain America and even some Steranko Shield episodes.
Coletta similarly is considered to be
the Thor inker by some.