2. Jack Kirby was a social democrat, Steve Ditko was a Randian individualist. Yet if you were imagining who could adapt Atlas Shrugged, Kirby would come to mind first.
-
Show this thread
-
4. Kirby the social democrat drew large, muscular world conquering heroes & heroines:pic.twitter.com/iYT6DA6x3B
3 replies 10 retweets 56 likesShow this thread -
5. Ditko the Randian individualist drew characters who were scrawny, wirey, grotesque, over-powered by the world, mystical (Dr. Strange) and animalistic (Spider-Man & his foes)pic.twitter.com/jWxJU7GrDL
2 replies 13 retweets 58 likesShow this thread -
6. As befits his politics, Kirby did create characters who were born in poverty (as he himself was) but they were always robustly healthy proletarians, in the mold socialist realism. Think of Big Barda, who grew up in the ghettos of Apokalypsepic.twitter.com/TFI2KCrq1l
3 replies 11 retweets 75 likesShow this thread -
7. As a Randian, Ditko believed that good people were rational, world-conquerers. Yet his imagination swerved in a different direction, against idealization towards surrealism (Dr. Strange's nightmare world) & frailty/vulnerability (Spider-Man).
3 replies 7 retweets 60 likesShow this thread -
8. I think the disjunction between style & politics in Kirby & Ditko shows that good artists can never be reduced to their programmatic beliefs, that their aesthetic impulses often take them in directions beyond conscious intent.
4 replies 16 retweets 122 likesShow this thread -
9. Of course Jack Kirby's social democracy comes through not so much in his style as in his thematic concern with groups. Kirby, rare among American artists, had little use for individualism. His characters were always defined by group identity.
2 replies 8 retweets 47 likesShow this thread -
10. Kirby grew up in a world of groups: gangs, The Boy's Republic, the army, the team of Simon & Kirby (and its bullpen), his family. Ditko, by contrast, was one of nature's isolates.
1 reply 6 retweets 39 likesShow this thread -
11. Kirby's stories always came back to groups: Captain America was an army man, the Boy Commandos, Challengers of the Unknown, Sky Masters, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Inhumans, New Gods. Often these were stand-ins for ethnicities or classes
5 replies 7 retweets 48 likesShow this thread -
12. Ditko's characters, by contrast, were loners, misfits, oddballs & radically unclubbable: Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Mr. A, the Creeper, etc Often their masks covered their entire face, a mark of their social isolation.
4 replies 10 retweets 47 likesShow this thread
13. In 1965, Ditko quit Marvel & wrote a letter to Kirby saying (in effect) "Marvel & Lee are screwing us, you should quit too." Ditko as a bachelor could quit, but Kirby was married with four kids.He couldn't. At least not right away.
-
-
14. In the early 1970s, Kirby did a gentle spoof of Ditko in an allegorical story about an Ayn Rand inspired eccentric who builds his own rocket to the moon, ahead of NASA. http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/effect/2011/11/02/2011someday/ …
3 replies 6 retweets 42 likesShow this thread -
15. As an arch-individualist, Ditko died as he lived, alone. When the police discovered his body earlier this month in his apartment, he had been dead for two days.
5 replies 9 retweets 34 likesShow this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.