Comics legend Jack Kirby will be honoured at this year’s D23 Expo, making him one of the first people from Marvel to be honoured at “The Ultimate Disney Fan Event” in Anaheim, California. Known as the “founding father” of the Marvel Universe, Kirby will be posthumously honoured for his remarkable creative achievements.
Having first grabbed comic fans’ attention in the spring of 1941 with Captain America, a character he created with Joe Simon, he followed this debut with a prolific output of comic books in the Western, romance, and monster genres. These were all a prelude to his defining work helping to create the foundations of the Marvel Universe.
Photo of Jack Kirby taken by Susan Skaar during a session in the studio at Jack’s home in Thousand Oaks, CA. The photos were later published in The Art of Jack Kirby (Blue Rose Press, 1993). © Kirby Museum website
During the next decade, Kirby and co-creator Stan Lee would introduce a mind-boggling array of new characters and teams – including The Avengers, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Silver Surfer, Ant-Man, Wasp, Black Panther, S.H.I.E.L.D., and The Inhumans.
Kirby was inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame’s 1987 inaugural class and continued creating comics throughout the ’90s, before passing away in 1994.
Hosted by Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger, the Disney Legends Award ceremony will take place at 10am on Friday 14 July 2017, in Hall D23. Other honourees of this year’s Legends Award are Carrie Fisher, Clyde “Gerry” Geronimi, Manuel Gonzales, Mark Hamill, Stan Lee, Garry Marshall, Julie Taymor and Oprah Winfrey.
It would have been Kirby’s 100th birthday on 28 August 2017, and the Jack Kirby Museum is celebrating with a 100 Days Of Jack Kirby event.
