One of the Kirby 100

I’m truly honored to be included in the book KIRBY 100: One Hundred Top Creators Celebrate Jack Kiby’s Work. The release of the book coincides with the centennial of Jack Kirby’s birth one hundred years ago this week.

Most of the Marvel superheroes were either created or co-created by Kirby. But for a time, he jumped ship to rival DC Comics to create The New Gods, Mister Miracle, OMAC, Kamandi, and many other characters. Here, I muse about a two-page spread I found to be an example of raw energy and imagination far beyond what anyone else was doing (or has done since) in comics. Years before anyone ever built the first monster truck, Kirby brought us “The Mountain of Judgement.”

There are some serious heavyweights of the comic art world, corraled into this magnificent tome by Jon B. Cooke and the fine folks at TwoMorrows Publishing. 

Happy Birthday to you, Mr. Kirby and thank you for all your wonderful creations.

See the story at 13thDimension.com 

My First March

I’ve never been involved in a protest. I was a child in the 60s, and was completely aware of what was happening in Vietnam and in streets of America, but I was too young to take part. By the time I was 15, the Vietnam War draft was discontinued and when I was finally 18 the war had ended and President Nixon was long gone.

I’ve never romanticized about the glory of mass protest or war — both can be a dangerous commitment. My problem has always been, that because of the times or other circumstances, I’ve never served my country.

On Jan 19th, the night before Donald J. Trump took the oath of President of the United States, I took the train from my home in Red Bank, NJ and joined 25,000 fellow Americans in NYC to be heard. I plan on serving my country with a commitment to resist all forces that would degrade our liberties.

What I’ve Been Reading

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You may have heard David McCullough as the narrator on many of Ken Burns’ documentaries on PBS such as The Civil War,  The Brooklyn Bridge, and many episodes of the American Experience. McCullough speaks like the voice of history, probably because he’s not just reading a script, but because he’s steeped in the material.

His latest endeavor, weighing in at 752 pages is titled  The Greater Journey. It’s a collection of accounts of some the 19th Century’s greatest American artists, medical students, writers, thinkers, diplomats and scientist, who all were drawn to Paris for enlightenment. Such names as Mary Cassatt, Oliver WendelL Holmes, John Singer Sargent appear in their their formative years and go on to greatness. But my favorite was the story of the painter Samuel Morse, who invents the telegraph on a steamship voyage home from France.

Other great accounts are the horrors and stupidity of the Franco Prussian War and the surgery school that fed human remains to a cage full of dogs. Those were the good old days!