From Joe Frank, I have these two questions about Jack Kirby…
What was the last Marvel story Jack drew before heading over to DC in 1970? And with all the other Marvel books he had going, did Jack ever come close to missing a deadline on his 100+ issue Fantastic Four run?
I'm fairly sure that the last four comics Jack drew for Marvel before leaving for DC were, in this order: The story that ran in Silver Surfer #18, then the story that ran (with heavy alterations by others) in Fantastic Four #108, then the story that ran in Thor #179, then the story that ran in Fantastic Four #102. He put that last one in the mail to Marvel and then phoned Stan Lee to tell him that the issue of F.F. that was arriving momentarily was his last job for Marvel…which it was for several years.
And the reason I'm fairly sure? Because my then-partner Steve Sherman and I saw pages from the last three of these issues in Jack's studio that month. This was the month after he'd hired us and we knew that Jack was leaving Marvel but Marvel didn't know yet.
Covers not by him because he'd left.
The comics Jack worked on back then went down this assembly line: There was some sort of plot conference with Stan, usually very short. Then Jack plotted and penciled the story — and I think "plotted" understates his contribution to the writing. Then Stan would do whatever he did that he felt justified the writing credit. Then you had someone inking the book, someone coloring the book and someone doing various editorial and production chores and sending it off to the engravers.
The process — and a similar one, sans Stan, when Jack went to DC — began each issue with someone deciding what Kirby should do next. Throughout that stint at Marvel, the person telling him "Do another issue of Thor" or "Do an issue of Captain America" was Stan. At DC, it was Carmine Infantino. Whatever they told him to do was completed in the expected time but in a few instances, there was a deadline crisis not of Jack's making.
For example, Stan had decided that a high priority was for Jack's Fantastic Four stories to always be inked by Joe Sinnott. So they might get Jack started on an issue of Thor and then realize that if they waited for Jack to finish that and then draw an F.F., the latter wouldn't be ready for Joe when Joe was ready to take on his next assignment for Marvel. Jack really, really, really hated for them to tell him to stop drawing Story A, and do Story B and then go back and finish Story A. So he might rush to finish Story A and then do Story B…and B would get in a little later than Marvel preferred.
In Kirby's last year or so on Fantastic Four, Joe Sinnott took a vacation and missed several issues of that book. The second choice to ink that comic then was Frank Giacoia but Giacoia had all sorts of other commitments, not all of them for Marvel. Thus, the schedule kept being changed on Jack to try and get pages to Giacoia earlier and earlier.
The day I met Jack in July of 1969, he had almost completed the art for Fantastic Four #97. There was a little skirmish which I did not fully understand at the time but I think it went something like this: Someone at Marvel — I don't know who — accused Jack of being late with that issue and Jack got pissed and said something like, "No, I'm not. You guys changed the schedule on me!"
Something similar happened at DC when Jack was doing Jimmy Olsen. Whenever Jack finished one issue of anything, he'd phone Infantino and say, "Okay, what do I do next?" and Carmine would consult a schedule he had and say, "Do another New Gods" or "Do another Forever People" or whatever. A problem arose though because due to its strong sales, DC had upped the frequency of Jimmy Olsen from eight-issues-a-year to monthly…and no one had updated Carmine's copy of the schedule.
Vince Colletta, who inked Jimmy Olsen, had a contract with DC that guaranteed him a certain quantity of work. When he handed in one story, he had to be immediately given another to start on. Someone in the DC Production Department suddenly noticed that in ten or so days — I don't know the precise date — Colletta would be ready for another assignment and there was nothing in the pipeline that they could give him or wanted to give him. Jack got a call from the head of the Production Department telling him he was late on his deadlines on Jimmy Olsen. But Jack wasn't late. He was just producing the stories in the order in which Infantino (the guy running the company) was telling him they were needed.
The issue that had to go to Colletta very shortly was issue #144. The plot of it — at least the portions in there about the Loch Ness Monster — were developed by Steve Sherman and Yours Truly. One Sunday, figuring he didn't have to start drawing it (and probably rewriting a lot of it) for a few weeks, Jack assigned us to write the script…and Steve and I did. The day after he sent us off to write it, Jack found out he had to have Jimmy Olsen #144 in the mail the following Friday…the day we were due to hand in out draft of the script.
This was before Federal Express or any kind of overnight mail so Jack went right to work using what he remembered of the plot we'd discussed. I don't know how long it actually took him to write and pencil the story but his wife Roz mailed it off for him via Special Delivery just before the post office closed on Friday. They received it in New York and had it lettered in time to give it to Colletta on the day they had to give work to Colletta.
And then on Saturday, Steve and I delivered the finished script. Jack paid us for it — out of his own pocket, by the way — and he liked it enough that he wanted to have us take over writing Jimmy Olsen from then on. It had by then become a pain-in-the-haunches chore for him and he wanted us to henceforth write it and then he'd try to squirm his way out of drawing it too. There's a long story about why that didn't happen but that's a tale for another time. It was funny though that we handed in the script and Jack had to apologize to us and say, "Sorry, men. I couldn't wait for you. I had to go ahead and do it myself!"
Less funny was that the gent in the DC Production Department — who didn't like Jack's work or the fact that Jack was editing comics for DC from the opposite coast — kept telling people that The Almighty Kirby (said sarcastically) had blown his deadline on that issue. There were a few other incidents of this sort but to the best of my knowledge, the only time Jack ever missed a deadline was when someone changed the deadline on him. And sometimes, he even made the changed deadline. He was a super-hero in a great many ways.
