Jim recalls a time of Jack telling his stories to the other artists. We had a skiffle band at the time, and Kirby came in one day and picked up an electric guitar, and started wind milling like Pete Townshend.” I have a photo of Kirby playing a Stratocaster. Kirby had no restraints put on him and the ideas he came up with, particularly towards the end of his tenure, were just completely psychotic off-the-wall aberrations. I’d ink them and watercolor them, and they’d be used to pitch shows. During post production season my job was to wait for Jack Kirby to come in with a thick stack of crescent board tucked under his arm on which he had drawn anything which came into his mind in terms of characters and possible show ideas. He met Jack Kirby and Jack took on a role as mentor for the young artist. Jim Woodring an award winning illustrator had just been hired by John Dorman to help out on storyboards. He was the essence of an idea man, no longer restricted by having to work up every little detail, or backgrounds, he was simply throwing out ideas- something he had done all his life. He was able to work on large scale boards, which helped his vision immensely, plus the people who he worked with were in awe of his history and talent.

Jack’s new animation job had some immediate benefits. Which team made the greater contribution to their field? Totally apropos of nothing a research organization asked Haven’t a clue if true, but it’s the quirky kind of stuff you accumulate when researching history. And so it fell to John and Paul and George and Ringo, who hit world culture at the same time as Reed and Sue and Johnny and Ben, to be known as “The Fab Four.” “Did you know Stan Lee initially wanted to call Marvel’s original and still greatest creation the FF, “The Fabulous Four”? No kidding, everything that we know today as Marvel Comics might have been built on a flamboyantly gay epithet if then-publisher Martin Goodman had not prevailed and made Stan change it to The Fantastic Four. One by decision, one by murder most foul. The two teams most responsible for the culture explosion of the 60’s and 70’s were now irrevocably split- never to be put together. He was also known as the passion and wit behind the cultural eruption of the 60-70’s, and his death ended the Love generation.

Lennon had been the driving force behind the skiffle band that became the Beatles, and a half of the greatest songwriting team in history. David Mark Chapman assassinated John Lennon in front of the Dakota mansion where Lennon lived with his wife Yoko Ono. If Jack’s optimism and dreams were shattered by the downfall of the Lord of Light production, then a whole generation’s faith and hope died on a dreary Dec. We’re honored to be able to publish Stan Taylor’s Kirby biography here in the state he sent it to us, with only the slightest bit of editing.

Twisted Tears by Stan Taylor