Jack Kirby

Jacob KUrtzberg: Early Life

Jacob Kurtzberg was born on August 28, 1917 in Manhattan, New York, to Rose and Benjamin Kurtzberg, who were both Austrian-Jewish immigrants. He was raised in Manhattan, but always sought out ways to leave his neighborhood, and to find places where he could learn more about it. He always liked to draw, he was virtually self taught, and cited comic strip artists like Milton Caniff, Hal Foster, and Alex Raymond as inspirations/influences. His first entry into comics was at the Boy's Brotherhood Republic, as a cartoon artist

Jack KIrby: Comic ARtist

Jacob joined the Lincoln Newspaper Syndicate in 1939, where he worked on comic strips and single-panel advice cartoons for the newspaper under the name Jack Curtiss. He left in late 1939, when he went to work for the animation company Fleischer Studios as an inbetweener (someone who fills in the action between major movement frames) for a cartoon called Popeye. However, he did not stay long, "I had to get out in a hurry because i couldn't take that kind of thing" Jacob said, likening it to a factory.
At that time, the comic book industry in America was at an all time high, and he began writing and illustrating for the comic book packager Eisner & Iger, where he made his first comic work, Wild Boy Magazine. He constantly switched pseudonyms, until he decided on Jack Kirby, as it reminded him of the actor James Cagney.
In 1940, he and his family moved to Brooklyn, where he met his future wife, Rosalind Goldstien.

Joe Simon
Jacob worked with Fox Feature Syndicate to produce his first superhero comic, "Blue Beetle", which caught the attention of Joe Simon. They worked together for 25 years, starting with "Blue Bolt"
They Left Fox Feature Syndicate to work with Martin Goodman's Timely Comics, which would later be named Marvel Comics. There they created the now-famous hero Captain America, which had its first issue published early 1941.
However, with Captain America becoming and incredible success, they felt they were not payed enough, they started working for National Comics Publications, which would later be called DC Comics, where they earned $500 ($8000-ish nowadays) a week combined, as opposed to $75-$85. There they created and revamped characters, like Sandman and Manhunter. There would be a long time before they worked together again, as Kirby got drafted in 1943 for WW II.

Postwar
Jacob and Joe started working for Harvey Comics, where through the early 50's, they created title such as Kid-Gang Adventures, Boy Explorers Comics, and Stuntman. They also Attempted to make a 3-D comic, starring Captain 3-D, but if that had been popular, you probably would've heard of him. During this time, Kirby also freelanced for Hillman Periodical and Crestwood Publications, but their greatest success during this time was in romance comics, which sold millions in copies monthly and spawned many knockoffs. With his money, Kirby bought a house, where he and his family would live for 20. Kirby worked in the basement, which was only 10 ft in width, and was nicknamed "The Dungeon".
Atlas Comics, which was the current name for Timely Comics (Marvel Comics), relaunched Captain America in 1954, and made the pair bitter, so they created Fighting American, as a way to "Show them how to do Captain America", which unfortunately wasn't as big of a success.

Without Simon
Simon Left for a career in advertising in 1956. Kirby temporarily returned to Atlas Comics (now Marvel Comics), but in 1957, there were publication issues, causing no new material to be distributed and Kirby left for DC Comics and worked on Green Arrow, however, he had different goals for the character, which eventually caused him to leave.

Marvel and the Silver Age
After DC, Kirby regularly worked with Atlas Comics, despite disliking the editor-in-chief, Stan Lee. Kirby was successful there in many genres, but mostly monster stories, like Groot, the thing from Planet X (yes, the Groot) and Grottu, King of the Insects. Kirby finally worked with Lee in 1961 to produce The Fantastic Four #1 which was a landmark series that revolutionized the industry and from then on, Atlas Comics was called Marvel Comics. Kirby collaborated with Lee to make many ideas, including The Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, The X-Men, Black Panther, Magneto, Doctor Doom, and Spiderman.

DC, Again
Kirby signed a 3 year contract with DC Comics in the late 1970's, however, nothing he did there really caught on as he was often forced to work on characters that he had no interest in. Just a few of the series he worked on were OMAC, Kamandi, The Demon, and Kobra

Marvel, Again
Kirby returned to Marvel in 1976 where he created The Eternals, The Celestials. He also worked on an adaption/expansion of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and continued the stories of the characters he had created previously, like Black Panther and Captain America.