Jack “the King” Kirby is probably the most famous comic book artist in the history of the medium. Along with Stan Lee, Jack Kirby was the face of Marvel Comics during its breakout success in the 1960s. Kirby’s art style became the “house style” at Marvel Comics for years and even today, many artists pattern themselves after him. Kirby’s influence was not just restricted to the world of comic books, though. Here are three other pop culture icons whose paths have crossed with Kirby’s over the years in unusual ways.
1 Johnny Carson. In 1982, Kirby drew a 3-D comic called Battle of the Third-Dimensional World that included 3-D glasses with the tagline “Jack Kirby, King of the Comics” printed on them. At some point that year, legendary Tonight Show host Johnny Carson came across these glasses, and did a bit of riffing on the tagline, saying he was put off that this Kirby guy was calling himself the “King of the Comics” when nobody had ever heard of him. As you might imagine, Kirby was quite displeased about this whole debacle. Ultimately, Kirby’s status in the comic book community was explained to Carson and the matter was resolved amicably, with Carson devoting time in his show to apologize to Kirby for his mistaken comments. Talk about the King—not too many people ever received an on-air apology from Johnny Carson!
2 Paul McCartney. On Paul McCartney’s 1975 Wings’ album, Venus and Mars, there is a song called “Magneto and Titanium Man” about three Marvel villains who commit a robbery. The inspiration for the song came from McCartney’s kids, who would read comics when the family went on vacation. When Wings went on tour to support the new album, Gary Sherman, brother to Jack Kirby’s assistant Steve Sherman, thought that Kirby and McCartney should meet, so he concocted a story that Kirby had a drawing that he wanted to give to McCartney. McCartney’s people agreed and Gary had to tell Jack that he had to do a drawing for McCartney—and quickly! Kirby, with his typical awesomeness, whipped up a great drawing of Magneto, Paul, Linda, and the band in less than an hour. McCartney thanked Kirby for the drawing and for helping to entertain his kids, and gave him free tickets to his concert that night. At the concert, McCartney introduced Kirby—“In the audience tonight, we have the creator of Magneto and lots of other comic characters, and I’d like to dedicate this song to Jack Kirby”—and then played “Magneto and Titanium Man.”
3 Frank Zappa. The late, great Frank Zappa was a big comic book fan and even put advertisements for his albums in Marvel comic books in the 1960s. Later in life, Zappa and Jack Kirby lived near each other and became friends. In fact, after the great success of Zappa’s 1982 song “Valley Girl,” Zappa tried to convince Kirby that he should adapt the song for a comic strip—and Kirby actually went along with the idea! The strip that Kirby drew was never published, but the fact that Jack Kirby actually managed to do a comic strip based on a Frank Zappa song only further confirms how awesome he is.