Argo And The Jack Kirby Connection

Aug 19, 2017

Jack “King” Kirby at home behind his drawing table. Photo by Bob Latimer.

Jack Kirby is the undisputed “King of Comics”, a mantle he still holds claim to, even years after his unfortunate passing. His sense of design and the sheer scope of his artistic eye conjured forth hundreds of characters, from Captain America in the 1940s (with Joe Simon), to the giant monsters of the early ‘60s, to the pantheon of Marvel Super Heroes and villains from the early ‘60s onward, to the cosmically charged “Fourth World” saga at DC Comics… his imagination knew no boundaries. He’s even credited with the creation of the Romance Comic genre (again with longtime partner, Joe Simon)!

But after many years of working for the Big Two, Kirby began to grow weary of comics and wanted to move into animation and film. To finishing out his Marvel contract in 1978, Kirby moved to doing storyboards for Marvel’s Fantastic Four cartoon for Hanna-Barbera, which opened the door to more work in TV and film for the next decade. That same year, Kirby was contacted by producer Barry Ira Geller, who wanted to collaborate with Kirby on an ambitious SF/Fantasy project: a film adaptation of Roger Zelazny’s Hugo Award-winning novel, Lord of Light. For that production, Kirby (working with longtime inker, Mike Royer) created 13 astounding images that were reproduced and made into media kits by Geller to help promote the project, which also included plans to turn the Kirby-designed movie sets for the film into a permanent theme park to be called “Science Fiction Land”. Unfortunately, the project was forced to fold after problems arose within the production.

But that’s not the end of the story.

In 1979, the CIA undertook a daring plan to rescue six American embassy workers who, after the American embassy in Iran was overrun and hostages were taken, hid out in the Canadian embassy until they could be secreted out of the country. A CIA operative named Tony Mendez, working with Academy Award-winning Make Up artist John Chambers (Planet of the Apes), and his special effects associate, Bob Sidell, came up with a plan to rescue the embassy workers from Iran by posing as a film production crew looking to film on location in Iran. The plan was to get into the country on a “scouting mission”, then coach the embassy staffers in how to look like an authentic film crew, then leave the country once the “scout” was finished. Those who have seen Ben Affleck’s film ARGO, know how the situation played out. Geller and Kirby never knew how their project had been used to save lives until the operation was finally declassified in 2007.

Affleck’s film disappointingly didn’t include Kirby’s artwork, but thanks to Mr. Geller and the folks at TwoMorrows, it has been preserved in all its POP ART glory for all to enjoy.

You can own this amazing artwork by picking up Kirby 100 (MAY171932) from TwoMorrows Publishing this August 23 at a comic shop near you!