Print this pageFifteenth in a series of posts, each one analyzing a single panel from a Jack Kirby-drawn comic book.
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Other artists draw lines, Jack Kirby drew shapes. The shapes were born of some odd undersea palace where all metal has striations, and every hand is carved, rough-hewn, from a crumbly yet indestructible rock. There was no better character than Black Panther — a force of shapes — for Kirby to pour his wet concrete id into. A cultural theorist might have plenty to say about a character called Black Panther, who first debuted in 1966, but he’s less interesting as a metaphor than he is as an artist’s model, perfect for trying out new positions without a distracting cape or foolish headband. Kirby made the character an obsidian void of musculature, an empty shell punctuated only by eyes, a dark knight before The Dark Knight. In panels like this one, from Black Panther #1 (January 1977), he’s a crumpled interrobang as he suffers a blow to the solar plexus here, a crescent of masculinity as he dodges a thug’s bullet there, a silent judging phantom — moving, stretching, punching, leaping. Kirby’s creation could be construed as the floating guilt of a nation as a golem with a 42-inch chest, but only because we see what we want in great art. In my case, a vessel for action.
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CHECK OUT “Cosmic Debris: Kirby in the ’70s,” a series running in tandem with “Kirb Your Enthusiasm” at the 4CP gallery of comic book details | Kirby cutaways and diagrams collected at the Comic Book Cartography gallery | Joe Alterio’s Cablegate Comix and HiLobrow posts about comics and cartoonists, and science fiction | The Jack Kirby Chronology | scans of rare 1940-50s Kirby comics at the Digital Comic Museum | Joshua Glenn on the New Gods generation
POSTS IN THIS SERIES: Douglas Rushkoff on THE ETERNALS | John Hilgart on BLACK MAGIC | Gary Panter on DEMON | Dan Nadel on OMAC | Deb Chachra on CAPTAIN AMERICA | Mark Frauenfelder on KAMANDI | Jason Grote on MACHINE MAN | Ben Greenman on SANDMAN | Annie Nocenti on THE X-MEN | Greg Rowland on THE FANTASTIC FOUR | Joshua Glenn on TALES TO ASTONISH | Lynn Peril on YOUNG LOVE | Jim Shepard on STRANGE TALES | David Smay on MISTER MIRACLE | Joe Alterio on BLACK PANTHER | Sean Howe on THOR | Mark Newgarden on JIMMY OLSEN | Dean Haspiel on DEVIL DINOSAUR | Matthew Specktor on THE AVENGERS | Terese Svoboda on TALES OF SUSPENSE | Matthew Wells on THE NEW GODS | Toni Schlesinger on REAL CLUE | Josh Kramer on THE FOREVER PEOPLE | Glen David Gold on JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY | Douglas Wolk on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY | MORE EXEGETICAL COMMENTARIES: Joshua Glenn on Kirby’s Radium Age Sci-Fi Influences | Chris Lanier on Kirby vs. Kubrick | Scott Edelman recalls when the FF walked among us | Adam McGovern is haunted by a panel from THE NEW GODS | Matt Seneca studies the sensuality of Kirby’s women | Danny Fingeroth figgers out The Thing |
I dig your form-over-content take on Black Panther, Joe. He originally did have a cape, I think — but you’re right that he’s much more fluid-protean-emptyvesselish (and less Batman-like) without it.
“Crumpled interrobang” – perfect! You can see the restlessness of Kirby’s creativity when you posit it this way. He turned the limitations of a character who was almost a silhouette into a showcase for his compositional skill.
As I’ve been going through the entries in this series I’ve been thinking, “Where’s the punching?!” But as I looked down the list of contributors I knew in my heart that Joe would pick a shot of dynamic action violence.
Thanks, David and Josh! I fully appreciate Kirby’s functional storytelling skills, but there is something nearly *edible* about the jagged, hashed, swooping line work of Kirby. It’s like his brain itself was holding the pencil.
Brilliant panel choice, Joe! Visceral dynamism, and a shape “for Kirby to pour his wet concrete id into” is genius.
Great description of Kirby’s art, Joe! Black Panther’s costume design was the simplest [kinda like Alex Toth's The Fox] and, so, Jack hadda bring everything he knew into that form to make it rock. Plus, SHAPES. If I’ve learned anything from Kirby it’s that, when he abandoned accuracy, he made it all work with shapes and brought it to a 4th World level. Just look at that panel. It’s broken but it’s right!
Now I feel really bad that I questioned Joe’s use of “interrobang.” PS: Now that David mentions it, I think this is the only punching panel in the series!
Thanks, Dean. 4th World: engage!
The insight here makes me want to do a bunch of close crop enlargements of Kirby’s Panther on 4CP, like he’s a living Rorschach blot!
I’d go see that shrink, the one who used Kirby rorschach blots to plump my psyche, any time.
This panel also features one of my favorite Kirby-isms. Check out the Panther’s hips and what should be his glutes. That looks an awful lot like a groin, instead. He seems to have done this during fight scenes (early Avengers pages with Cap have this a lot). “That punch was so hard that…”
Yeah, the BP here sorta looks like those Masters of the Universe action figures whose torsos swiveled around completely.
Great choice of panels. Reminds me of Michelangelo’s unfinished captive figure sculptures. That was an uncrumpled Alteriobang!
I don´t know if you´ve invented the word “interrobang” and what it means exactly, but it is my favorite new word. Sounds like the perfect name for site that does exactly what is done in this series – maybe it would be a cool name for another series of his kind. And honestly: why aren´r you people publishing this series as a book with some extra essays and great reproductions of images – by which I mean a pulpy look, of course or maybe even some cheap paper as part of the point – you know: Pulp Scholarship.