Jack Kirby Study

In the bloom of youth, when I was “the kid who loved to draw,” one of my favorite things to do was to imitate panels or entire pages from my favorite comics. People, cars, buildings, animals, spaceships – you could learn how to draw everything by looking at comics. Redrawing pages and panels was a major part of my early self-education. I spent my formative years studying the great comics masters without once realizing that was what I was doing.

I still get to draw for my job occasionally – so I have not given up on drawing entirely – but I’ve drifted from the habit of drawing for pleasure and fallen far from the practice of drawing on paper.

HB and 4B pencils on Strathmore 300 bristol paper!

It has been more than a decade since I’ve created art regularly in any other medium aside from digital. I would like to return to the days of curiosity-driven study and joyful sketching. I’ve spoken often about getting back to the basic pleasures of drawing in the real world but haven’t made much progress.

Well, here is a nugget of progress. It’s a study of Fantastic Four, issue #91, page two. I wasn’t trying to create an exact replica, just looking at and following Jack Kirby’s design and layout. I think I may have followed too closely in spots – resulting in a piece that looks like Kirby on a bad day – but it was fun to do and the fun was what I was hoping for.

There will be more drawing on paper to come, and maybe more comics drawn on paper since this was such a good time!

The end.