Dave Sim Versus Jack Kirby
by Jeet Heer
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Anyone interested in Dave Sim should try and get a hold of copies of Comic Art News and Reviews, a fanzine he frequently wrote for in the early 1970s.
As a teenage fan, Sim interviewed and analyzed many major creators who shaped his art, including Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, and Jules Feiffer. In retrospect, the Feiffer essays Sim wrote are particularly piquant because the young fan praised the alternative cartoonist for his insights into gender relations. Who knew back then that Sim would grow up to be a character out of Carnal Knowledge?
Equally ironic is an outburst against Jack Kirby that Sim penned in the very first issue of Comic Art News and Review. Sim was upset that Kirby had been given too much artistic freedom by his editors at DC:
I maintain, as I have for some time, that Kirby has little or no talent. His writing disgusts me even more than the early work of Gerry Conway. His creations seem to be of less than human quality. […]
Now for some conclusions on this topic. Why do these characters exist? They are Kirby creations and it is a well-known fact that the only way to maintain Jack Kirby as a staff artist is to cater to his wants. One of these wants is total freedom to change, distort or completely destroy anything in the panel art at DC. He changed Superman into something less than he should be, totally demolished anything it took DC thirty years to build Jimmy Olson into….and left both characters when he was through with them. This is somewhat reminiscent of ushering a spoiled child into a room full of antique toys, permitting him to smash them at will and guiding him to yet another room.
Now, the almighty King demands that he be granted a team of artists at his California headquarters that he might continue his Fourth World Farce. Whom would he take? Neal Adams? Jim Aparo? Joe Kubert? Certainly sacrificing these gentlemen to the pseudo science fiction slop of the Fourth World means nothing…if the King is satiated by it.
At least on the issue of creator rights, Sim became wiser as he grew older. The entire magazine Comic Art News and Reviews testifies to the vital fan culture that existed in Southern Ontario in the early 1970s. A run of the journal can be found in Robarts Library at the University of Toronto. If anyone has access to the library, they should definitely check it out: it’s a goldmine waiting to be opened up.
Labels: Dave Sim, fanzines, Jack Kirby, Jules Feiffer
Sim slates Kirby for his Fourth World saga?
That's like Billy Ray Cyrus calling Elvis Presley uncharismatic!
I tried – several times over the decades – to get through at least one volume of Cerebus… It really did feel like reading a telephone book.
Guber
Sim was a young teenager in the early 1970s. I hate to think about the kind of crap I used to write at that age.
1972, and no doubt in love with the scripting prowless of a Stan.
It's true that Sim was all of 16 in 1972, so I don't hold him responsible for anything he wrote back then. But it's also true that a surprising number of his lifelong artistic interests — notably Feiffer & Eisner — can be seen in his youthful fan writing. Which is why I think this stuff is worth pointing out.
To be fair to Dave, he wasn't really enamored by Stan Lee. Rather he loved the classic DC comics universe that Kirby was disrupting.
What a find!
This, though argued with a particular vehemence, was basically the consensus opinion on Kirby at the time it was written. I've read stories about how the hot comic artists of the day used to hold up copies of Kirby's seventies work and just break out in communal laughter. Nearly every artist of any stature who enjoys a lengthy career seems to go through a lengthy period where they're taken for granted. The irony, of course, is that Dave is suffering the same vitriol from this generation's cocky young (and not so young) loudmouths.
I want to read the rest of that Feiffer essay. It's pretty fascinating considering how his ideas changed over time. Funny he doesn't seem to realize that the first long Feiffer cartoon he quotes is also a swipe at the whole consumerist Playboy mythos.
Sim might have been stunningly wrong about Kirby (and artistic freedom), but this reads like he was pretty smart for a teenager. Too bad that comic books rotted his brain. He's not the only one, of course.
pseudo science fiction slop?
isn't that a Funkadelic song?
no, wait, cosmic slop.
cosmic slop.
I just noticed this was written in 1972, so my comment about the perception of Kirby as a man who's well past his prime may not be as accurate about his standing among fans and peers as it was some five years later.
I think Jeet is also right in thinking Dave may have been reacting out of loyalty to the DC pantheon.
Reminds me of the way fans reacted to Nextwave.
Sim has also spoken of the one chance he got to meet Jack Kirby (when up for a Kirby Award, or he almost did anyway, and has regretted missing the chance to meet him ever since), he's done homages to the man's work ("Latter Days", pg. 128, as well as an issue of "glamoupuss" I don't have yet). I once asked him personally about the chances about a definite Kirby tribute, and he described a period where he was interested in drawing like Kirby, smiled and said "it's a lot harder than it looks".
He is a DC fan and a Superman fan, and he was 16 at the time, so his complaints about "Jimmy Olsen aren't too different from any other comics fan's at 16. He did say on his blog a couple years ago that he respected Stan Lee for his ability to come up with a correct quantity of words to fit the available space with minimal art editing (the basics of the "Marvel Method"), and thinks that's an ability Kirby lacked. Kirby's scripting wasn't as inviting and descriptive as Stan's. Even huge Kirby fans can admit that. It's not disrespect to Kirby to say so. Reconciling younger Sim statements with older Sim statements is a fun mental challenge (welcome to the life of a Dave Sim fan), but he has demonstrated in word and deed countless times over the last few decades his respect for Kirby and everything he brought to comic books, from Captain America to Captain Victory. He's not a big fan himself — he said at one point that the only Kirby art that makes him go goggle-eyed with awe always turns out to be from the "In The Days Of The Mob" (is that the title?) magazine Kirby got DC to do one issue of — but regardless of what he said when he was 16 years old, and critical complaints worthy of someone who's written and drawn a few hundred comic books himself on a professional schedule, he clearly respects Jack Kirby and his work.
"Anything it took DC 30 years to turn Jimmy Olsen into…"
An ambiguously powered dork in a plaid jacket and polka dot bow tie who was always involved with gorillas for some reason? I agree Dave Sim Jack Kirby really butchered that amazing conception of the character.
I have seen many cases of comic fans first loathing the work of a certain writer/artist then growing up to like him/her or at least respect him/her. I bet that everyone had the oportunity to remember which things they used to loathe in earlier points of their lives, they would be surprised.
And about his writing about gender relationships.. Was Dave Sim kidnaped and replaced by an evil twin at a later point of his life? O.o Does this evil twin still have the real sim chained in a basement making him draw for him as he mocks him that not only he is ruining his reputation as a sane being, he is making money at his expenses?
Honestly, the way he is talking here about treating women like human, thinking beings compared to his later life vs "the female void" is a world of difference O.o
The older Dave Sim talks with Jim Steranko about Jack Kirby on episode 3 of CerebusTV which is airing tonight at 10pm eastern time.