Jack Kirby

Jack Kirby, 84, who scored the only touchdown in USC's 6-0 victory over UCLA in 1947 that propelled the Trojans into the Rose Bowl, died March 9 of lung and heart complications at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, his son Steven said Tuesday. A native of Los Angeles, Kirby played football, baseball and track at Dorsey High before enrolling at USC. After a stint flying torpedo planes for the Navy in the Pacific during World War II, he returned to USC.

Joe Simon, a comic book industry pioneer whose defining career moment came in the dark days of March 1941 when he delivered a star-spangled superhero named Captain America, has died. He was 98. Simon died Wednesday night in New York City after a brief illness, according to a statement from his family, and his death adds a solemn final note to the 70th anniversary of his greatest creation, Captain America, who leaped across the big screen this summer with the Marvel Studios film "Captain America: The First Avenger.

Jack Kirby, highly respected comic book artist who helped to create and humanize such super-heroes as Captain America, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, has died at age 76. Kirby died Sunday at his home in Thousand Oaks of heart failure. He was known for drawing the square jaw and rippling muscles that became the prototype for the comic book hero, and for the perspective that made fists seem to fly off the page in dramatic battles.

Comic book publisher Marvel Worldwide Inc. has won a federal court ruling in a dispute over the rights to such popular characters as the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk. The heirs of comic book artist Jack Kirby had sought to assert their rights to the characters in 2009, shortly after the Walt Disney Co. announced it would acquire Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion. Kirby's estate wanted control over the characters they said he created from 1958 to 1963, under a provision of copyright law that allows creators to revoke rights granted to corporations after a certain number of years.

For someone chosen to write a book that chronicles the life and artwork of one of the top comic book artists of the century, Ray Wyman Jr. doesn't seem to have had much in the way of credentials going for him: Other than having read comic books as a kid, he admittedly knew "next to nothing" about the subject.

Comic book publisher Marvel Worldwide Inc. has won a federal court ruling in a dispute over the rights to such popular characters as the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk. The heirs of comic book artist Jack Kirby had sought to assert their rights to the characters in 2009, shortly after the Walt Disney Co. announced it would acquire Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion. Kirby's estate wanted control over the characters they said he created from 1958 to 1963, under a provision of copyright law that allows creators to revoke rights granted to corporations after a certain number of years.

Fighting over superheroes The battle between Marvel Entertainment and the Jack Kirby estate is bringing out each side's inner Hulk. The comic book publisher and movie producer, which was recently acquired by Walt Disney Co. in a $4-billion deal, has unleashed a lawsuit that seeks to invalidate the copyright termination claims made by the heirs to the iconic artist. It's the latest in the fight over profits from lucrative superhero characters. The suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan on Friday, against the Kirby heirs attempts to halt the family's bid to reclaim the characters.

On Saturday mornings, "X-Men," a brooding group of mutant super-heroes, is among the biggest rages. Today's Nintendo generation may not know it, but the "X-Men" were developed in 1963 by Jack Kirby, one of the most respected comic book artists of the century. A Kirby prodigy, "Teen-age Mutant Ninja Turtles" co-creator Kevin Eastman, describes him as a "comics artist's artist."

Loved Geoff Boucher's story on Jack King Kirby ("A Credit to His Name," Sept. 27). It's richly deserved that Kirby is finally getting a little attention, although far too little too late, for his contributions to comics and American culture. I was a huge Marvel comics fan when young and stopped reading them in my teens. I thought it was disinterest, but I realized late in life that I lost interest mainly because Kirby had left Marvel. They had a lot of artists go through Marvel and DC, but only a few were magic for me, people like Kirby, Steve Ditko, Barry Smith and Jim Steranko.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a recent comic book that didn't have the stylish scrawl of the artists somewhere on the cover, but that was not the case when Jack Kirby was making pop-culture history back in the 1960s with his wildly kinetic drawings of the X-Men, Hulk and the Fantastic Four. "I think I have a highly unique and unusual style, and that's the reason I never sign my drawings," the proud Kirby told an interviewer in 1987, seven years before his death. "Everybody could tell any of my covers a mile away on the newsstand, and that satisfied me."

Fighting over superheroes The battle between Marvel Entertainment and the Jack Kirby estate is bringing out each side's inner Hulk. The comic book publisher and movie producer, which was recently acquired by Walt Disney Co. in a $4-billion deal, has unleashed a lawsuit that seeks to invalidate the copyright termination claims made by the heirs to the iconic artist. It's the latest in the fight over profits from lucrative superhero characters. The suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan on Friday, against the Kirby heirs attempts to halt the family's bid to reclaim the characters.

Loved Geoff Boucher's story on Jack King Kirby ("A Credit to His Name," Sept. 27). It's richly deserved that Kirby is finally getting a little attention, although far too little too late, for his contributions to comics and American culture. I was a huge Marvel comics fan when young and stopped reading them in my teens. I thought it was disinterest, but I realized late in life that I lost interest mainly because Kirby had left Marvel. They had a lot of artists go through Marvel and DC, but only a few were magic for me, people like Kirby, Steve Ditko, Barry Smith and Jim Steranko.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a recent comic book that didn't have the stylish scrawl of the artists somewhere on the cover, but that was not the case when Jack Kirby was making pop-culture history back in the 1960s with his wildly kinetic drawings of the X-Men, Hulk and the Fantastic Four. "I think I have a highly unique and unusual style, and that's the reason I never sign my drawings," the proud Kirby told an interviewer in 1987, seven years before his death. "Everybody could tell any of my covers a mile away on the newsstand, and that satisfied me."

Jack Kirby, 84, who scored the only touchdown in USC's 6-0 victory over UCLA in 1947 that propelled the Trojans into the Rose Bowl, died March 9 of lung and heart complications at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, his son Steven said Tuesday. A native of Los Angeles, Kirby played football, baseball and track at Dorsey High before enrolling at USC. After a stint flying torpedo planes for the Navy in the Pacific during World War II, he returned to USC.

Jack Kirby, highly respected comic book artist who helped to create and humanize such super-heroes as Captain America, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, has died at age 76. Kirby died Sunday at his home in Thousand Oaks of heart failure. He was known for drawing the square jaw and rippling muscles that became the prototype for the comic book hero, and for the perspective that made fists seem to fly off the page in dramatic battles.

On Saturday mornings, "X-Men," a brooding group of mutant super-heroes, is among the biggest rages. Today's Nintendo generation may not know it, but the "X-Men" were developed in 1963 by Jack Kirby, one of the most respected comic book artists of the century. A Kirby prodigy, "Teen-age Mutant Ninja Turtles" co-creator Kevin Eastman, describes him as a "comics artist's artist."

Joe Simon, a comic book industry pioneer whose defining career moment came in the dark days of March 1941 when he delivered a star-spangled superhero named Captain America, has died. He was 98. Simon died Wednesday night in New York City after a brief illness, according to a statement from his family, and his death adds a solemn final note to the 70th anniversary of his greatest creation, Captain America, who leaped across the big screen this summer with the Marvel Studios film "Captain America: The First Avenger.

For someone chosen to write a book that chronicles the life and artwork of one of the top comic book artists of the century, Ray Wyman Jr. doesn't seem to have had much in the way of credentials going for him: Other than having read comic books as a kid, he admittedly knew "next to nothing" about the subject.