This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:31] Unknown speaker: We'd like to get started, so if everyone could take their seats, that would be wonderful. Thank you.

[0:38] Unknown speaker: A spark makes a universe.

[0:40] Unknown speaker: Welcome to Sotheby's annual auction of comic book art and comic book related items.

[0:45] Unknown speaker: We are especially lucky today to have on hand several originals from the legendary cartoonist Jack Kirby, generally regarded by fans and collectors as the king of comics.

[0:51] Unknown speaker: An idea makes a spark.

[0:57] Unknown speaker: Mr. Kirby's recent death has driven up the value of much of his work, and if you look in your programs, you'll see our appraiser's updated prices reflect that.

[1:05] Unknown speaker: He comes into this real world fighting.

[1:08] Unknown speaker: Our first item is Mr. Kirby's reproduction of the pencils to the cover to Amazing Fantasy No. 15, first appearance of the superhero Iron Man.

[1:19] Unknown speaker: Spider-Man. Pardon me, Spider-Man.

[1:23] Unknown speaker: I must confess, shockingly, I am not a comic book fan myself. I don't let them in the house, frankly. My boys fight enough as it is, but clearly, even if this isn't art in the traditional sense, it is a valuable piece of Americana, and the bidding will begin at...

[1:40] Unknown speaker: That's enough. I don't want to hear that number. Nothing's worse than hearing what you're worth after you're gone.

[1:46] Unknown speaker: So, to the young man in the honor rock. Ideas create universes, create characters, story.

[1:52] Unknown speaker: Next up are the pencils to Mr. Kirby's cover to Fantastic Four No. 1, the very first appearances of... those characters from the movie.

[2:03] Unknown speaker: But how a character finishes isn't up to him.

[2:06] Unknown speaker: Now, remember, even though this is commercial illustration, and the artist has largely subtracted himself from the work to appease the marketplace, unlike the purity of a Rembrandt or a Matisse, these are still historically significant works.

[2:20] Unknown speaker: Any more than how he begins.

[2:22] Unknown speaker: So we have set the bidding to begin at... You're supposed to grow up. You know, learn the world isn't divided into heroes and villains, but that never happened to me. You know, from the day I was born, they were all I could see.

[2:39] Unknown speaker: Later, nervous Nellies would say, all that superhero stuff is too violent. Are you kidding me? Did you grow up on Suffolk Street, Lower East Side? It was like the farm team for the Mafia. Wait, no, not like. It was the farm team for the Mafia.

[2:53] Unknown speaker: Suffolk Street Jewish kids were always having to beat back the Irish Catholics over all Ludlow. Your lice, your lice, come out, your lice. Christ killers. Potato fuck. Gonna yank down your trousers and make sure you're circumcised, kike.

[3:07] Unknown speaker: Your mother found that last night, Patty. Whew, you Jaime Jew piece of shit. You talking about my mother? I'm gonna cut off the rest of it.

[3:14] Unknown speaker: I like fighting. It'll let me express my creativity. I used to take the train to different parts of town to pick fights, just to see the different styles in different parts of town.

[3:25] Unknown speaker: Not bad. Better uppercut than Ozone Park, but your dodging and weaving has got nothing on Flatbush. I give Hell's Kitchen a five out of ten.

[3:37] Unknown speaker: Running home from school in the rain when I first saw it. Rushing past me in the gutter, I couldn't have been much more than ten. I saved it. Just before it got swept into the storm drain, a pulp magazine.

[3:50] Unknown speaker: Science wonder stories. On the cover, a rocket ship blasting toward the moon. Spaceman with ray guns and shiny plastic space suits. Between the covers, escape. Into stories.

[4:04] Unknown speaker: Oh, such stories. Pirates fighting aliens on the moons of Saturn. How could a kid resist? There it was. For the first time, the spark.

[4:16] Unknown speaker: Attention, solar legion. Fort Roosevelt destroyed by rocket cruisers of unknown identity. Scout units in Ursus Major ordered to inspect all ships in that sector. Roaring rockets. Fort Roosevelt wiped out. I'll bet my wings it was El Ramis and her cutthroats.

[4:30] Unknown speaker: If I spot that she-wolf and her mangy crew, I'll blast them clear to... Uh-oh. Ray flashes. And there was something. I mean, something. Where there used to be nothing.

[4:42] Unknown speaker: What the hell is this? You little pisher. You've covered the third floor landing with your for-cocked chalk drawing. Go stick your ass in the sewer, you old cockroach. We can't afford paper. Let's see what your father says about that.

[4:56] Unknown speaker: Kurtzberg! Shit. I'm sorry, Dad. I just... I got all these ideas in my head.

[5:03] Unknown speaker: Out of space stuff again, huh? You know what they say. If you fill your head with that garbage...

[5:08] Unknown speaker: No. Oh, what's happening here? This space guy is fighting that space guy. And this one's saying, Roaring rockets, blast them!

[5:18] Unknown speaker: I don't see any words. Drawings faster. You mad? I'll just stay here a while. Watch your finish, if you don't...

[5:28] Unknown speaker: He used to come in and just sit. So tired. Now they use him in that sweatshop on Delancey, spitting out rags. Twelve-hour days, working, working.

[5:40] Unknown speaker: I was supposed to become him. I almost did. My father got fired from his job working at Sewer Machine the day I was supposed to enter Pratt on an art scholarship. The middle of depression.

[5:55] Unknown speaker: I get the first art job I applied for. Unfortunately.

[5:59] Unknown speaker: I'm Popeye the Sailor Man. I'm Popeye the Sailor Man. I'm strong to the finish 'cause I eats me spinach. I'm Popeye the Sailor Man.

[6:15] Unknown speaker: Annoying motherfucker, ain't he? You're gonna have to be stronger than him to be an in-betweener. We just draw the movement that connects keyframes in a scene. It's no biggie, right? Just wait till you do it over and over and over.

[6:26] Unknown speaker: Say the first keyframe was Popeye whipping out a can of spinach. And the next was him dumping the spinach in his mouth. My job would be to draw Popeye lifting the can at a ten-degree angle. Eleven-degree angle. Twelve. Thirteen. Just eat the fucking spinach already!

[6:42] Unknown speaker: I'm Popeye the Sailor Man. I live in the frying pan. I turned up the gas and blew off my ass. I'm Popeye the Sailor Man.

[6:57] Unknown speaker: I might as well be running a fricking sewer machine like my father. Brother workers! Where are your pensions? Where are your vacations? Local 20239 of the Commercial Artists and Designers Union has come to rescue you!

[7:10] Unknown speaker: We already broke the backs of the fat cats at Disney and Hollywood. Why should New York be immune? Rise up! Seize the means of production! Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike!

[7:21] Unknown speaker: Come on, Jack! Join us to line stretch from Broadway to 7th Avenue! Oh, it shows how much you know. You know who's behind the Commercial Artists and Designers Union? The Longshoremen. I grew up with these guys. Lansky's boys. Mobsters.

[7:33] Unknown speaker: Key animators are trying to enter the studio. They said they'd stand with the in-betweeners. Hold the line, boys! Don't let the scabs in! We outnumber the cops ten to one!

[7:47] Unknown speaker: Time to try a different industry. Where are you going? I'm trying my luck over in comic books. You in?

[7:52] Unknown speaker: Comic what? The new comic books. It's like they threw out the rest of the newspaper but the funnies and sell them directly to kids for a dime a pop. They run out of syndicated stuff. Now they're paying for original features.

[8:02] Unknown speaker: How much? Ten, eleven bucks a page. Point me in the right direction.

[8:10] Unknown speaker: Hey, I got three more pages to ink by noon. We need more coffee in here. Let me see that flip and I gotta swipe the punch from last Sunday's Terry and the Pirate. Hey, hey! You bet your turn! I'm swiping it.

[8:20] Unknown speaker: Someone turn that radio to the Dodgers game. Screw you and your bums. The Giants are playing the Boston Braves over at the polo ground. Dodgers! Giants! I'm the king of the comics, boys. King of the comics.

[8:30] Unknown speaker: You're the king, boss. Apparently, we've been getting complaints about misspellings in our comic books. So I went out and got us an editor. He used to be a cartoonist in the Hearst papers in Syracuse, so watch your language.

[8:43] Unknown speaker: Boys, meet Joseph Simon. Hello. I'm sure it's going to be a real pleasure working with you, fellas. You know, I once knew a whore in Syracuse. They said she was the best whore in town. I wasn't impressed. It's a small town.

[8:56] Unknown speaker: Uh... Meet my art director, Jack Kurtzberg. He was at Fleischer across town before they had their labor troubles. Art director means I'm the paste-up guy. How do you do? There better not be any labor troubles here, Sergeant. That's your job.

[9:10] Unknown speaker: I don't want no Rembrandt's production. That's my watchword. This comic book thing? Trust me, it ain't going to last. The kids are all going nuts over Superman now. All they want to see is costumed heroes beating up mad scientists.

[9:24] Unknown speaker: But I've seen trends come, and I've seen trends go. And this one will be gone before the year is out. But before then, we've got to separate as many dimes from little monsters as possible. Because...

[9:35] Unknown speaker: There are more morons than people. Atta boys! Carry on, Sergeant. I'm king of the comics. You're the king, boss.

[9:44] Unknown speaker: Okay, boys. What do we got? Third issue of Mystery Men Comics. Fifth issue of Wonder World Comics. Oh, yeah. I almost forgot, Sergeant. Not long ago, I figured out a surefire formula for comic book success.

[9:56] Unknown speaker: Something every single Fox Features comic book story has to have. What's that? On every story, put a big explosion on the third panel of the first page.

[10:05] Unknown speaker: What? A big red and yellow explosion. Kapow! Third panel, first page. The kids eat it up like Pavlov's dog. But... Red and yellow, Sergeant, or it's your job!

[10:17] Unknown speaker: I wouldn't worry about it, Joe. The boss is colorblind. I gotta get out of here. Jack, I hate to do this to you, but I can already see we're running short on this month's Fantastic Comics.

[10:27] Unknown speaker: I gotta sign you another eight-page or do by the end of the week. It's no problem. I'm not doing anything right now, anyway. What about that Blue Beetle story Fox assigned you this morning?

[10:34] Unknown speaker: I just handed it to you. You laid out and penciled the whole thing? Yeah. Before lunch? Yeah. This looks great. How much are you making here? Fifteen a week.

[10:45] Unknown speaker: Would you like to make eighty-five? Would I? Meet me at my apartment tonight, Haddon Hall, uptown near Columbia. We wanna increase our income, we gotta increase our output. Marty Goodman over at Timely Comics is paying fourteen, fifteen dollars a page for new comic book characters.

[11:05] Unknown speaker: Between your speed and my horse sense, I figure we can triple the money Fox is paying us if we moonlight over there, too. I've got some sci-fi strips I wrote and drew on my own. Cosmic Carson. He's just like Elliot Ness.

[11:17] Unknown speaker: Elliot Ness never wore a fishbowl on his head that I was aware of. You ever try busting gangsters on Saturn with that one? That's cute, Jack, but we gotta go for something that'll sell.

[11:26] Unknown speaker: It'll sell because it's good. What's so funny? I love you. Seriously, kid. Deeply and truly. How did you fall into this racket again? I was gonna jump off a roof if I turned into my dad.

[11:39] Unknown speaker: Tell me about it. My dad was a tailor. Mine worked in a sweatshop. Pants. Pants. Fucking pants.

[11:48] Unknown speaker: I like this. I do. And I get it. You like the amazing story stuff, and that's great. But this isn't about what you want. This is about what they want. The kids want Superman. We gotta give them a Superman.

[11:57] Unknown speaker: Only... different. An idea nobody's done before. Fox has got Blue Beetle, right? So why not different animals? Like a bird. Hawkman. They got that at National. Cat? Wildcat National. Fish.

[12:10] Unknown speaker: Submariner at Timely. Aquaman at National. Okay, forget animals. Elements. Fire. Human Torch. Timely. Earth. Rockman. Also Timely. Air. Airman. Centaur. Water. Ha!

[12:27] Unknown speaker: Aquaman. Submariner. Right, right. Jeez, this is harder than it looks. We interrupt this broadcast for an important news bulletin. Paris has fallen to the Third Reich.

[13:01] Unknown speaker: Nazi panzers and stormtroopers roll for the once-proud French capital as British forces retreat. German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler is now the undisputed master of the European continent.

[13:36] Unknown speaker: Say, maybe we're going about this the wrong way. Yeah? Yeah. Maybe we should start with the villain.

[13:43] Unknown speaker: So, Mr. Goodman, what do you think? A good fit for Timely Publications? You want your hero punching Adolf Hitler in the face on the cover of the first issue? He's Captain America, the superhero that represents patriotism, that smashes the U.S.'s enemies. It's what he does.

[13:59] Unknown speaker: But Hitler, a real person, on the cover, in the face. Can he sue us? The guy's dictator of Europe, Mr. Goodman. I don't think he's the litigious type.

[14:07] Unknown speaker: Yeah, he'll just plow some tanks through the bullpen. I'm sorry. Captain America Comics, huh? All right. I'll need 64 pages of story by the 4th. You two better know what you're doing.

[14:17] Unknown speaker: 64 pages by the 4th? We're going to have to hire a couple more artists. Oh, no. There's no way you're cutting down my page rate. I got parents and a little brother to feed back on Suffolk Street. But 64 pages, even you can't do that.

[14:08] Joe Simon: You're going to have a tough time. Trust me.

[14:21] Stanley: Christ killer!

[14:23] Joe Simon: I knew violence. I made it real.

[14:25] Joe Simon: Give those Nazis what for, Cap!

[14:39] Joe Simon: One million copies. I just got off the phone with the distributor.

[14:44] Joe Simon: The first issue of Captain America Comics sold one million copies.

[14:48] Joe Simon: We've blown Superman and Batman out of the water!

[15:09] Stanley: What? What is that?

[15:13] Joe Simon: That is Martin's cousin-in-law, Stanley.

[15:17] Joe Simon: He made me hire the kid as an assistant.

[15:20] Joe Simon: It's tough finding enough things to keep him occupied.

[15:22] Joe Simon: Hey, kid! You finished that pro story I assigned to you?

[15:25] Stanley: You bet! Here it is, Joe! Captain America foils the traitor's revenge!

[15:36] Joe Simon: Who's Stanley?

[15:38] Stanley: Me! Oh, that's my pen name!

[15:41] Stanley: I'm going to write the Great American Novels someday, so I've got to save my real name for that.

[15:44] Stanley: I decided to change my name, just like Jack!

[15:47] Stanley: I changed my name to Kirby so it'd sound less Jewish, kid.

[15:50] Joe Simon: Yeah, and you changed your name so it sounds Chinese.

[15:53] Stanley: You traded one pissed-off minority for another, Stanley.

[16:00] Joe Simon: Oh, that's Martin. Time for his saltines and milk.

[16:06] Joe Simon: I'm going to go.

[16:08] Joe Simon: If he plays that damn flute while I'm trying to work one more time, I'm going to start throwing things at him.

[16:12] Stanley: Pass him down. He's harmless.

[16:18] Joe Simon: Timely Comics, home of Captain America, United Statesman, and Mr. Liberty.

[16:22] Joe Simon: Except no imitations.

[16:24] Stanley: You're the editor of Captain America Comics?

[16:26] Joe Simon: Yeah.

[16:27] Stanley: I want you to look out your window and pick a lamppost on Times Square, you dirty Jew cocksucker, because when Hitler comes, we're going to hang you from it.

[16:34] Joe Simon: Oh, you want the editor-in-chief. Here he comes now.

[16:38] Stanley: Jack, you're not going to believe this. One of your biggest fans is on the line.

[16:43] Joe Simon: He read your last text page and he thought it was the cat's pajamas.

[16:46] Stanley: Oh, B, thanks. Joe! Hello.

[16:54] Stanley: Ah! He called me all sorts of names! That's not funny, Joe!

[17:00] Joe Simon: Why am I laughing?

[17:04] Joe Simon: You want to grab lunch?

[17:05] Stanley: Oh, come on. What are you doing? I'm drawing here. That was a perfect panza.

[17:09] Joe Simon: Sorry, sorry. You got to erase it.

[17:11] Stanley: Nah, it'll just slow me down. Next panel.

[17:13] Stanley: It is to be continued. You want to go to lunch?

[17:15] Joe Simon: Yeah, you go without me. I got 12 pages to tear through before I can come up for air.

[17:19] Stanley: And I got all of Captain America versus the camera fiend and his darts of doom tonight.

[17:24] Joe Simon: Sounds like way too much work to do on an empty stomach. Let's go.

[17:27] Stanley: What gives? Hey, I could drop you like a sack of manure.

[17:30] Joe Simon: Come on, I ever see you wrong before?

[17:39] Stanley: What's the big idea?

[17:40] Joe Simon: He's so thick, I couldn't say anything up there. You know what this is?

[17:44] Stanley: A dime?

[17:45] Joe Simon: You got some?

[17:46] Stanley: Sure, a couple.

[17:47] Joe Simon: Just a couple, though.

[17:48] Stanley: Yeah, I could count them if you...

[17:50] Joe Simon: That won't be necessary, unless you have about 60,872.

[17:54] Stanley: What are you getting at?

[17:55] Joe Simon: I've been talking to Goodman's accountant.

[17:57] Joe Simon: For over a year now, I hear Captain America's doing great. I see it flying off the newsstands.

[18:02] Joe Simon: But overhead, Goodman keeps saying. Overhead.

[18:04] Joe Simon: So no royalties for you and me.

[18:06] Joe Simon: But at dinner last night, his own accountant shows me the books.

[18:09] Joe Simon: Captain America's been in the black since day one.

[18:12] Stanley: He's a Welsher?

[18:14] Joe Simon: They're all pirates in this business, Jack. All pirates.

[18:17] Joe Simon: You should consider yourself lucky you have me looking out for you.

[18:19] Joe Simon: Now, come on, let's go to lunch.

[18:21] Stanley: I lost my appetite.

[18:22] Joe Simon: You'll get it back. See that tall building over there on Lex?

[18:25] Joe Simon: It's an office building. There aren't any restaurants in there.

[18:27] Joe Simon: We're dining in today, Jack. In the office of National Comics.

[18:31] Stanley: National Comics?

[18:41] Receptionist: Good afternoon, National Comics. Home of Superman Comics, Batman Comics, and Wonder Woman Comics.

[18:48] Receptionist: Hold, please. The chairman of Warner Brothers on line one.

[18:53] Joe Simon: Tell him to jump in a lake. I'm fraternizing with genius.

[18:57] Receptionist: Jack Kirby, a real honor.

[19:00] Receptionist: Your drawings leap off the page and punch you in the face. I love it.

[19:04] Joe Simon: Mr. Liebowitz. We spoke on the phone.

[19:06] Receptionist: Right. You must be the business half of this duo.

[19:09] Receptionist: You own the suit. A pleasure.

[19:12] Receptionist: I'll level with you fellas. National's sick of competing with your Captain America.

[19:17] Receptionist: So we'd be more than happy to give you a year's contract to create new comics material for National for, say, $500 a week.

[19:26] Receptionist: And name billing on the covers of all books we do for you.

[19:32] Joe Simon: Artists and writers never get name billing on the covers, Mr. Simon, was it?

[19:39] Receptionist: In comics, it's the characters that are the stars.

[19:42] Receptionist: Superman, Batman, never the artists.

[19:47] Receptionist: Take it or leave it.

[19:51] Joe Simon: Well, drop the contracts. Have your lawyers give our legal people a call.

[19:56] Stanley: Shit! Wait, we have lawyers?

[19:59] Joe Simon: I'm dating a girl who has a cousin who knows a guy. Only thing is, we gotta come up with another hit series.

[20:03] Stanley: You kidding me? That's the fun part.

[20:06] Joe Simon: I've been thinking. You know how we gave Captain America that kid sidekick, Bucky, to give him somebody to talk to while he's kicking Nazi tails?

[20:12] Stanley: Sure, the little pest.

[20:13] Joe Simon: Since the kids seem to relate to him so much, why don't we cut out the adult hero altogether?

[20:17] Joe Simon: Send out the kids to fight Hitler themselves. Yeah, I see it.

[20:20] Stanley: I think it's swell!

[20:21] Joe Simon: Oh, Jesus Christ! Where did you come from, Stanley?

[20:24] Stanley: Come on, I can tell you guys we're up to something secret. Come on!

[20:29] Stanley: You guys can tell me. I could be like your sidekick. I could get you coffee, art supplies, milk and saltines.

[20:37] Joe Simon: We don't need any saltines. We don't need this kid, Joe.

[20:40] Joe Simon: I don't know. It might be useful to have another pair of hands around it.

[20:43] Joe Simon: Look, Stanley, this is some real hush-hush, top-secret stuff we got going on here.

[20:48] Joe Simon: You can't tell your cousin Martin about it. Or any of the other 1800 relatives he's got working for him.

[20:54] Stanley: Scout's honor, Joe! More lips are sealed!

[20:58] Joe Simon: You're gonna regret this.

[21:00] Joe Simon: Ah, give the kid a break. We can rent a hotel room near Timely and work on the national stuff during our lunch hours.

[21:05] Joe Simon: Stanley can run us over some-

[21:06] Joe Simon: Alright, let's get back to Timely. I still got the latest issue to get done. Oh, and I gotta-

[21:09] Joe Simon: Slow down, Jack. You're always rushing around.

[21:13] Joe Simon: Listen, Doris has a friend she's trying to set up. You wanna go to the movies with her and meet tonight?

[21:18] Jack Kirby: I was gonna work from home tonight.

[21:20] Joe Simon: Jack, you ever think-

[21:21] Jack Kirby: What?

[21:23] Joe Simon: You ever think you might try enjoying yourself a bit before that?

[21:27] Jack Kirby: I'm going home. To work, Joe.

[21:37] Jack Kirby: Oh, no. Oh, no.

[21:39] Jack Kirby: Hey, kid. You alright? I'm Jack. Jack Kirby. I live upstairs.

[21:44] Rosalind: Rosalind. Roz.

[21:46] Jack Kirby: What's wrong, Roz?

[21:47] Rosalind: I can't find my key and they- my whole family went out to see my stupid kid sister's concert and they locked the door and you said your name was Kirby? I thought the family above us were the Kurtzbergs.

[21:56] Jack Kirby: Oh, Kirby's my, you know, pen name. I'm an artist.

[21:59] Rosalind: Oh, I bet your parents don't like that one bit.

[22:02] Jack Kirby: Oh, yeah. My mother thinks it's worse than Hitler. But the art with that name on it got us out of the east side slums out here to glorious Brooklyn.

[22:10] Rosalind: Oh, yeah. The promised land. I seen you out there playing stickball.

[22:14] Jack Kirby: Yeah.

[22:15] Rosalind: I remember thinking he looks just like John Garfield, but he's so short.

[22:19] Jack Kirby: I'm sorry. I'd like to talk.

[22:21] Rosalind: So I see.

[22:22] Jack Kirby: Yeah. Blah, blah, blah. That's me. It drives everybody crazy.

[22:26] Rosalind: It's fine by me.

[22:28] Jack Kirby: Yeah?

[22:29] Rosalind: Yeah. So, Roz.

[22:31] Jack Kirby: Yeah.

[22:32] Jack Kirby: You just gonna hang out here on the porch waiting all alone? Or what?

[22:35] Rosalind: I don't know. Wanna go upstairs and see my etchings?

[22:39] Jack Kirby: Um.

[22:40] Jack Kirby: I have some here, but the stuff I'm working on now is up there.

[22:43] Rosalind: Oh.

[22:44] Jack Kirby: What?

[22:45] Rosalind: You actually have etchings.

[22:48] Jack Kirby: Yeah. I told you. I'm an artist.

[22:50] Rosalind: Wow. You sure are. Lots of grown men to wear beating each other up.

[22:54] Jack Kirby: Yeah. Wanna come up? See some more drawings. I mean.

[22:58] Rosalind: Maybe.

[23:04] Jack Kirby: I gotta tell you.

[23:05] Rosalind: What?

[23:06] Jack Kirby: I like enjoying myself. I like Roz a lot.

[23:09] Joe Simon: So, about our new hero.

[23:12] Joe Simon: I'm thinking heroes. A kid from each allied country. Holland, England, France, the U.S.

[23:17] Joe Simon: Yeah. We could make the American a tough street kid from Brooklyn like Dead Ed Kids. You got a title?

[23:22] Jack Kirby: I'm thinking on it.

[23:24] Joe Simon: So. Working for another company. Behind my back.

[23:30] Martin: Hi, Martin. I guess it's time for us to leave.

[23:35] Martin: You're fired. After you finish the tenth issue of Captain America.

[23:41] Jack Kirby: What? Stanley. That little cocksucker.

[23:46] Joe Simon: Jack.

[23:47] Joe Simon: He ratted us out the first chance he got. If I ever see that little pitcher again, I'll rip his fucking head off.

[23:52] Joe Simon: Jack. Calm down. We don't know that. Everybody in this business owes everyone else. Besides, who cares? We get to work for National that much quicker.

[24:00] Jack Kirby: Yeah. For our new idea, we have no title for.

[24:03] Joe Simon: Well, as a kid, I always liked that book Boy Allies. What do you think of Boy Commandos?

[24:11] Jack Kirby: I think I'm gonna be one. Thank you.

[24:14] Joe Simon: Oh. This boy's got a report to basic training in August.

[24:18] Joe Simon: He'll be good for research.

[24:20] Joe Simon: Well, I guess I don't even have to ask the question. Say, honey, you're taking all this really well.

[24:37] Rosalind: What?

[24:38] Jack Kirby: I mean, I'm going to war, baby.

[24:40] Rosalind: Well, you are, and you're gonna come back.

[24:42] Jack Kirby: Are you sure about that?

[24:44] Rosalind: You're the hero.

[24:45] Jack Kirby: Roz.

[24:47] Rosalind: You're my hero, honey, and I won't be lonely because you'll write me, Jack, and draw everything you see. Sheets and sheets every day. You promise?

[24:56] Jack Kirby: I'll try.

[24:57] Joe Simon: She's right, boy. Correspondence is a real art. Words. That's what they remember.

[25:02] Joe Simon: Take a lesson from my letters, son.

[25:07] Joe Simon: I hope that in the final settlement of the war, you insist that the Germans retain Lorraine, because I can imagine no greater burden than to be the owner of this nasty country where it rains every day and where the whole wealth of the people consists in assorted manure piles.

[25:22] Joe Simon: P.S. Of course, these remarks are intended for a joke. I label it because some of my jokes are not always appreciated.

[25:29] Joe Simon: Now move out, motherfuckers!

[25:37] Jack Kirby: Dear Roz, General Patton drove the Third Army like cattle across France after D-Day, but by the end of the summer on the German border, we ran out of everything.

[25:47] Jack Kirby: Food, water, ammo. We were stuck where we were.

[25:50] Jack Kirby: Metz, the giant fortress city over the Moselle River.

[25:54] Jack Kirby: What are you fuckers doing here, huh? What are you fucking doing here?

[25:58] Jack Kirby: You fuckers are fucking up the whole thing. You're dead.

[26:02] Jack Kirby: You motherfuckers are supposed to be fucking dead.

[26:07] Jack Kirby: Someone must have radioed to command our unit having wiped out. It hadn't.

[26:11] Jack Kirby: But that screwed up the General's whole strategy, his beautifully laid out battle plan.

[26:16] Jack Kirby: He didn't see us as people, just a page being penciled, move this here, that there.

[26:21] Jack Kirby: George C. Scott? Him I'd follow to hell and back. This cocksucker?

[26:27] Jack Kirby: I will fill that fucking jeep with your fucking dog tags if you don't cross that fucking river.

[26:40] Officer: Private Third Class Kirby reporting for assignment, sir.

[26:42] Officer: Private Third Class Kirby? Your name is Kirby, soldier?

[26:45] Jack Kirby: That's right, sir.

[26:46] Officer: Jack Kirby, the cartoonist?

[26:48] Jack Kirby: Yes, sir. I draw Captain America.

[26:50] Officer: Boy Commando? You're something else. You know that, boy?

[26:53] Jack Kirby: Yes, sir. I mean, thank you, sir.

[26:55] Officer: You can draw?

[26:56] Jack Kirby: Yeah, of course I can draw.

[26:58] Jack Kirby: I should be like Bill Maudlin, you know, running around drawing cartoons of guys in jeeps.

[27:03] Jack Kirby: So the folks back home will know what's going on over here.

[27:05] Officer: Alright, Private. No guard detail for you. I'm making you a scout.

[27:10] Officer: Here, go into these towns we don't control, see if you can find any Germans.

[27:13] Officer: Mark on these maps positions of tanks, mortar emplacements, camps.

[27:17] Officer: Come back here, give me a full report.

[27:20] Jack Kirby: Dear Roz, I have been made a scout.

[27:23] Jack Kirby: Somebody wants to kill you in the army, they make you a scout, the human target.

[27:28] Jack Kirby: I make my way through these old French towns, four, five, six hundred years old, like nothing we got in the States.

[27:34] Jack Kirby: This beautiful architecture now just piles of rocks in the mud.

[27:38] Jack Kirby: And the rain coming down, always with the rain.

[27:41] Jack Kirby: It made your heart break. I mean, just the stupid, the stupid cruelty of it.

[27:46] Jack Kirby: Once, I was walking through the middle of some ruined village, and this mangy, starved dog came out of a hotel and he looked up at me with these eyes.

[27:55] Jack Kirby: I mean, these pathetic, shallow eyes.

[27:58] Jack Kirby: How could you?

[28:00] Jack Kirby: I went inside the hotel to get out of the rain.

[28:02] Jack Kirby: It had these iron spiral staircases, velvet drapes, it was like something from the movies.

[28:10] Soldier: Hey, Yankee, fuck you.

[28:13] Soldier: Get out, Yankee.

[28:17] Unknown speaker: Now, now, you get out.

[28:21] Unknown speaker: Fuck you, you get out!

[28:22] Unknown speaker: No, you get out!

[28:25] Unknown speaker: This is the fucking Hotel American now!

[28:27] Unknown speaker: How have you heard, son?

[28:29] Unknown speaker: Come!

[28:29] Unknown speaker: What's that? Horensen? Horsen?

[28:31] Unknown speaker: You talking about my mother?

[28:32] Unknown speaker: So sprecht ihr von meiner Mutter nicht?

[28:35] Unknown speaker: My parents came from Austria.

[28:37] Unknown speaker: Ich bin Osterreicher wie deine Führer, Schweider!

[28:41] Unknown speaker: Never talk about a guy's mother, never, you hear me?

[28:51] Unknown speaker: It's how we do things on the Lower East Side.

[28:55] Unknown speaker: We called it butcher's work.

[28:57] Unknown speaker: Going through these abandoned towns nobody held because nobody wanted them and mixing it up with whatever Germans we could find.

[29:02] Unknown speaker: This one dumb bastard, he got punched through a wall by a steel-jacketed bullet and his helmet flew off.

[29:07] Unknown speaker: I found some photographs in it.

[29:09] Unknown speaker: Him with his sweetheart, him with his parents when he was six wearing little fucking lederhosen.

[29:15] Unknown speaker: Dumb bastard.

[29:17] Unknown speaker: One minute you're playing in the street and the next minute...

[29:23] Unknown speaker: Some crazy comic book artist blows your fucking head off.

[29:28] Unknown speaker: And then I come back to base camp in this haze of murderous anger.

[29:33] Unknown speaker: I mean, I come back and...

[29:34] Unknown speaker: Mail call!

[29:35] Unknown speaker: Not one from your wife, Kirby.

[29:39] Unknown speaker: Dear Jack, how do I love you?

[29:43] Unknown speaker: Let me count the ways.

[29:45] Unknown speaker: I love you to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.

[29:49] Unknown speaker: Yes, oh yes.

[29:51] Unknown speaker: Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.

[29:55] Unknown speaker: Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, huh?

[30:01] Unknown speaker: Do you know how many love poems there are to copy out of the Brooklyn Public Library?

[30:05] Unknown speaker: We don't need all those King Arthur E.V.'s and Thou's.

[30:07] Unknown speaker: We're from Brooklyn.

[30:09] Unknown speaker: Oh no, love is the star to every wandering bark whose worth's unknown although his height's been taken.

[30:16] Unknown speaker: With each word, each letter, after a while...

[30:19] Unknown speaker: Love not alters with time's brief hours and weeks, but bears it out.

[30:23] Unknown speaker: I feel myself turning back into a human again.

[30:26] Unknown speaker: Even to the edge of doom.

[30:28] Unknown speaker: After spending most of the day as a monster, the villain turned back to...

[30:32] Unknown speaker: Well, maybe not the hero, but close enough.

[30:36] Unknown speaker: If commissioned officers did their full duty, then there would be no trench foot in Third Army.

[30:41] Unknown speaker: To win the war, we must not only conquer the Third Reich, but trench foot.

[30:46] Unknown speaker: All commanding officers must continuously remind the men of the importance of clean, dry socks.

[30:53] Unknown speaker: Only clean, dry socks can crush Hitler.

[30:55] Unknown speaker: Clean socks or not, my legs turned purple and puffed up like an elephant's.

[30:59] Unknown speaker: I got sent to a hospital in Paris and then back to New York.

[31:03] Unknown speaker: I was one of the lucky ones.

[31:05] Unknown speaker: I saw some guys with black legs, and my black legs fell off.

[31:09] Unknown speaker: First thing Roz said when I walked in...

[31:12] Unknown speaker: Oh, I hope you're drawing hands okay.

[31:14] Unknown speaker: She never pretended to understand the superheroes, but she was one in how she took care of me, gave me a family.

[31:20] Unknown speaker: Kids!

[31:21] Unknown speaker: Four. A whole studio of Kirbys.

[31:23] Unknown speaker: Kids, get over here!

[31:25] Unknown speaker: You've got to get to school!

[31:26] Unknown speaker: No, you don't get to stay at home and just draw funny pictures all day like Daddy.

[31:31] Unknown speaker: I don't care what the other dads do.

[31:33] Unknown speaker: He is not unemployed.

[31:34] Unknown speaker: Your dad is an artist.

[31:35] Unknown speaker: Kids, they always know.

[31:37] Unknown speaker: Me and Joe are out of work.

[31:39] Unknown speaker: The Boy Commandos won their war, so the series got cancelled.

[31:43] Unknown speaker: No work today?

[31:44] Unknown speaker: Nope, not today.

[31:47] Unknown speaker: I'm going to create on the mural in the upstairs bathroom.

[31:52] Unknown speaker: You've been painting that mural for two weeks.

[31:55] Unknown speaker: Tropical fish are going to cover the toilet.

[31:58] Unknown speaker: Rosalind, my girl, what's the good word?

[32:00] Unknown speaker: Hi, Joe.

[32:01] Unknown speaker: How's Harriet doing?

[32:02] Unknown speaker: Fine, fine.

[32:03] Unknown speaker: Expecting.

[32:04] Unknown speaker: Large and eating everything.

[32:06] Unknown speaker: Where's our boy?

[32:07] Unknown speaker: Mural?

[32:08] Unknown speaker: Mural.

[32:09] Unknown speaker: Let's put a stop to that right now.

[32:10] Unknown speaker: Jack!

[32:11] Unknown speaker: Here's what I've been keeping myself busy.

[32:13] Unknown speaker: Take a look at this cover mock-up I drew.

[32:16] Unknown speaker: Young Romance.

[32:17] Unknown speaker: I was an artist's pick-up.

[32:19] Unknown speaker: A 100% all-true love confessional.

[32:23] Unknown speaker: Designed for the more adult readers of comics.

[32:25] Unknown speaker: Let me see this.

[32:26] Unknown speaker: No, Linda, we can't go on like this.

[32:30] Unknown speaker: You know I'm engaged to your kid sister, Jane.

[32:32] Unknown speaker: But darling, Jane is a child.

[32:35] Unknown speaker: She doesn't have the fire to kindle the spark of your genius.

[32:39] Unknown speaker: You need me, John.

[32:41] Unknown speaker: And this is Jane coming into the studio when no one can see her?

[32:44] Unknown speaker: Oh, John.

[32:48] Unknown speaker: Lev Gleason's crime comics are flying off the stands.

[32:52] Unknown speaker: I've seen their market surveys.

[32:53] Unknown speaker: Over 50% of their readers are adults.

[32:55] Unknown speaker: Guys our age.

[32:56] Unknown speaker: What kind of a big revelation is that?

[32:57] Unknown speaker: In the service, I get recognized all the time.

[33:00] Unknown speaker: Me too.

[33:01] Unknown speaker: How?

[33:01] Unknown speaker: You rode a horse up and down New Jersey for the Coast Guard the whole war.

[33:05] Unknown speaker: And during that time, how many successful U-boat attacks were launched against Atlantic City?

[33:11] Unknown speaker: Zero.

[33:13] Unknown speaker: You know what your problem is, Mr. Kurtzberg?

[33:16] Unknown speaker: You never learned to play the system to your advantage.

[33:18] Unknown speaker: Losing Boy Commandos may be the best thing that ever happened to us.

[33:22] Unknown speaker: Time to focus on the adult market.

[33:25] Unknown speaker: They have more money to spend.

[33:26] Unknown speaker: Listen to me.

[33:27] Unknown speaker: Next to true crime magazines in the drug stores and the newsstands, what do you see?

[33:31] Unknown speaker: Meets me, prophylactics.

[33:33] Unknown speaker: True love magazines, you dope.

[33:35] Unknown speaker: If Gleason's going for the guys, we'll go for the gals.

[33:38] Unknown speaker: What do you say?

[33:39] Unknown speaker: Mike, I got anything else better to do?

[33:41] Unknown speaker: Great.

[33:43] Unknown speaker: Oh, but this production schedule.

[33:45] Unknown speaker: You better get me a few winkers on this, Joe.

[33:47] Unknown speaker: I can do it.

[33:49] Unknown speaker: This takes time to get right, honey.

[33:52] Unknown speaker: Uh, and why couldn't that be me again?

[33:54] Unknown speaker: Because you got a million things to do with the house and...

[33:58] Unknown speaker: Holy smokes, did you do this?

[34:00] Unknown speaker: Uh-huh.

[34:01] Unknown speaker: Like when you were showing me.

[34:02] Unknown speaker: Just stay in the lines, keep the shading, and...

[34:05] Unknown speaker: Oh, look at that red dress deeper slapping her man right in the face for not listening to what the lady of his dreams can achieve.

[34:12] Unknown speaker: I work all night.

[34:14] Unknown speaker: So do I, she said with a tear in her eye.

[34:17] Unknown speaker: Oh, baby, you're good.

[34:20] Unknown speaker: Your art's perfect for this subject material, Jack.

[34:23] Unknown speaker: Idealized households, just like out of the Sears catalog.

[34:26] Unknown speaker: You make everything look like it's made out of saran wrap.

[34:29] Unknown speaker: Yeah, Joe, uh, thanks.

[34:31] Unknown speaker: I was thinking.

[34:32] Unknown speaker: Yeah?

[34:32] Unknown speaker: Maybe now that we're successful, we got all these employees and everything.

[34:36] Unknown speaker: Yeah?

[34:36] Unknown speaker: I was wondering maybe I could write my own stories now.

[34:39] Unknown speaker: Cosmic caution again, huh?

[34:41] Unknown speaker: More than that.

[34:42] Unknown speaker: I got Starman Zero and Tiger 21.

[34:45] Unknown speaker: They're both trips about space, exploration of the stars.

[34:48] Unknown speaker: I mean, all this love stuff, it's so mundane.

[34:51] Unknown speaker: Let's branch out.

[34:53] Unknown speaker: Mundane selves, Jack.

[34:54] Unknown speaker: Are you still on that science fiction kick?

[34:57] Unknown speaker: People think all those rockets and aliens are weird.

[34:59] Unknown speaker: They can't get into it.

[35:00] Unknown speaker: So you say.

[35:01] Unknown speaker: Why are you busting my chops like this?

[35:03] Unknown speaker: You stick to the drawing table.

[35:05] Unknown speaker: It's your element.

[35:05] Unknown speaker: You're genius.

[35:07] Unknown speaker: Let me handle the rest.

[35:08] Unknown speaker: You remember what you said back at Fox when I wanted our credits to read by Simon and Kirby instead of by Kirby and Simon?

[35:13] Unknown speaker: Yeah, I said whatever you say, Joe.

[35:16] Unknown speaker: You own the suit, right?

[35:18] Unknown speaker: Yeah, we both own suits now, Joe.

[35:23] Unknown speaker: The first witness this afternoon will be Dr. Frederick Wertham.

[35:29] Unknown speaker: Doctor, will you come forward and be sworn, please?

[35:34] Unknown speaker: Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give the United States Senate will be the truth, all truth, and none but the truth, so help you God?

[35:40] Unknown speaker: I do.

[35:40] Unknown speaker: Doctor, do you have a prepared statement?

[35:42] Unknown speaker: Yes, a brief one.

[35:44] Unknown speaker: All right, Doctor, proceed in your own manner.

[35:46] Unknown speaker: Thank you.

[35:47] Unknown speaker: I have practiced psychiatry and neurology since 1922.

[35:51] Unknown speaker: In 1929, I was the first psychiatrist to be awarded a fellowship by the National Research Council to do research on the brain.

[35:59] Unknown speaker: Some part of my research at that time was on brain syphilis.

[36:03] Unknown speaker: It came in good stead when I came to study comic books.

[36:07] Unknown speaker: The question is this, are comics good or are they not good?

[36:13] Unknown speaker: If you want to raise a generation that is half stormtrooper and half cannon fodder with just a dash of illiteracy, then comic books are good.

[36:21] Unknown speaker: In fact, they're perfect.

[36:23] Unknown speaker: On the one hand, we have the Superman comic books.

[36:27] Unknown speaker: They arouse in children fantasies of sadistic joy in seeing people punished over and over again while you yourself remain immune.

[36:35] Unknown speaker: We've called it the Superman complex.

[36:37] Unknown speaker: A couple of kids in leather jackets and duckbills knock over the local malt shop, and Ozzy and Harriet think it's the end of Western civilization.

[36:44] Unknown speaker: Middle America's looking for scapegoats, and this quack gives them comics.

[36:48] Unknown speaker: Come on down to the Lower East Side, I'll show you some juvenile fucking delinquency.

[36:52] Unknown speaker: On the other hand, we have these so-called romance books.

[36:56] Unknown speaker: But our love books aren't even for kids.

[36:58] Unknown speaker: It says so right on the cover.

[36:59] Unknown speaker: Look, for the more adult readers of comics.

[37:02] Unknown speaker: On this one here, we have the heading for the more adult readers of comics, which seduces the young girl into thinking she's becoming part of something illicit or sexual.

[37:14] Unknown speaker: Oh, give me a break.

[37:16] Unknown speaker: You're the blowover, Jack.

[37:17] Unknown speaker: He's calling us fascists.

[37:18] Unknown speaker: I know, Jack.

[37:19] Unknown speaker: Me, a Jew who nearly got his ass shot off in France.

[37:21] Unknown speaker: Take it easy.

[37:22] Unknown speaker: Now, Mr. Chairman, I detest censorship.

[37:26] Unknown speaker: I believe adults should be allowed to write for adults.

[37:29] Unknown speaker: I believe that what is necessary for children is supervision.

[37:33] Unknown speaker: In other words, if a father wants to go into a store and say, I have a little boy of seven.

[37:39] Unknown speaker: He doesn't know how to rape a girl.

[37:41] Unknown speaker: He doesn't know how to rob a store.

[37:44] Unknown speaker: Please, sell me one of these comic books.

[37:46] Unknown speaker: By all means, let the clerk sell him one.

[37:49] Unknown speaker: But I don't think the boy should be able to go see this rape on the cover and buy the book.

[37:54] Unknown speaker: I thank you, gentlemen.

[37:56] Unknown speaker: Joe was right, like he always was.

[37:58] Unknown speaker: It did blow over.

[38:00] Unknown speaker: On to us.

[38:03] Unknown speaker: Now, now, though we of the comic book industry wholly reject Dr. Wortham's outrageous accusations and hysterical witch hunt, we of the newly formed Association of American Comic Magazine Publishers have voluntarily chosen to adopt a Comics Code to guide the content of our titles.

[38:25] Unknown speaker: The 41 provisions of the Comics Code constitute the most restrictive set of principles for any communications media in use today.

[38:33] Unknown speaker: Mothers of America, remember, watch for the seal of the Comics Code Authority and feel safe.

[38:40] Unknown speaker: Are you all right, Joe?

[38:42] Unknown speaker: This could be a lot worse.

[38:43] Unknown speaker: This new code thing doesn't affect us at all.

[38:47] Unknown speaker: What?

[38:48] Unknown speaker: It's over, Jack.

[38:49] Unknown speaker: Our company, our partnership, it's all over.

[38:51] Unknown speaker: No, no, no, no, it's not.

[38:53] Unknown speaker: Listen to this.

[38:54] Unknown speaker: The letters of the word crime on a comic's cover shall never be appreciably greater in dimension than the other words in the title.

[39:00] Unknown speaker: We don't publish any books like that.

[39:02] Unknown speaker: Here's another.

[39:03] Unknown speaker: No comics magazine shall use the words horror or terror in its title.

[39:07] Unknown speaker: See, we got nothing to worry about.

[39:10] Unknown speaker: You don't understand how this business works.

[39:12] Unknown speaker: Hey, I've been in it longer than you.

[39:14] Unknown speaker: Not the dirty part, the mud the magic stands on.

[39:16] Unknown speaker: I've tried to keep you from that.

[39:19] Unknown speaker: Listen, the printer prints comics for us on credit.

[39:22] Unknown speaker: We sell the books to the distributors on credit.

[39:25] Unknown speaker: Who sells them to the newsstands on credit.

[39:27] Unknown speaker: Yeah, okay, so what?

[39:28] Unknown speaker: Our distributor is leading news company.

[39:31] Unknown speaker: What do you think they sell?

[39:33] Unknown speaker: Crime suspense stories involved of horror and crypt of terror.

[39:38] Unknown speaker: Our credit was tied up with leader.

[39:39] Unknown speaker: We can't pay our printer.

[39:40] Unknown speaker: They're bust.

[39:41] Unknown speaker: We're bust.

[39:42] Unknown speaker: But, but, but, but maybe we could.

[39:44] Unknown speaker: No, we couldn't.

[39:46] Unknown speaker: I talked it over with my wife and I'm getting out of the comics business for good.

[39:51] Unknown speaker: I got a job offer in advertising.

[39:53] Unknown speaker: I'm gonna take it.

[39:54] Unknown speaker: But what about Simon and Kirby?

[39:57] Unknown speaker: I mean, what about me?

[39:58] Unknown speaker: Come on, Jack.

[40:00] Unknown speaker: We both knew this comic book thing was temporary.

[40:04] Unknown speaker: There was no work.

[40:05] Unknown speaker: I mean, no work anywhere.

[40:07] Unknown speaker: Publishers were going bust left and right.

[40:10] Unknown speaker: I had to go back to the one place I swore I'd never go back to.

[40:17] Unknown speaker: Hey, Stanley, remember me?

[40:20] Unknown speaker: Remember?

[40:20] Unknown speaker: How could I forget?

[40:22] Unknown speaker: Put her there, tiger.

[40:24] Unknown speaker: I brought some recent samples from the titles I've been penciling freelance.

[40:28] Unknown speaker: It's mostly from National.

[40:29] Unknown speaker: Green Arrow, Challengers of the Unknown, some sci-fi stuff.

[40:32] Unknown speaker: No.

[40:33] Unknown speaker: Perish the thought.

[40:34] Unknown speaker: Put that portfolio away.

[40:36] Unknown speaker: That's for mortal creatures.

[40:37] Unknown speaker: Not you, Jack.

[40:39] Unknown speaker: Consider yourself hired.

[40:41] Unknown speaker: In the pantheon of comic artist deities, you're the king.

[40:44] Unknown speaker: The Zeus.

[40:45] Unknown speaker: The Jupiter.

[40:46] Unknown speaker: The Odin?

[40:47] Unknown speaker: Pardon?

[40:47] Unknown speaker: He's king of the Viking gods.

[40:49] Unknown speaker: I've always been into Thor, Asgard, all that stuff.

[40:53] Unknown speaker: Well, I'll have to remember that.

[40:54] Unknown speaker: Here, have a seat.

[40:55] Unknown speaker: Boy, Martin's really got you squirreled away in the back room here.

[40:58] Unknown speaker: I'd ask 15 different guys from his other businesses how to get back here.

[41:01] Unknown speaker: I don't mind.

[41:02] Unknown speaker: It's been quiet ever since that Senate hearing nuttiness.

[41:07] Unknown speaker: Like the whole fort ran for the hills the minute they saw little Chief Red Bear and his Braves coming up over the ridge.

[41:13] Unknown speaker: But don't you worry, Jack.

[41:15] Unknown speaker: We will hold off the Injuns together.

[41:17] Unknown speaker: Excelsior!

[41:19] Unknown speaker: What?

[41:20] Unknown speaker: What is that?

[41:20] Unknown speaker: What's what?

[41:21] Unknown speaker: Excelsior?

[41:22] Unknown speaker: It's the motto of the state of New York.

[41:24] Unknown speaker: Oh, yeah?

[41:25] Unknown speaker: What's it mean?

[41:26] Unknown speaker: You know, I have no idea.

[41:28] Unknown speaker: I just started saying it one day.

[41:29] Unknown speaker: It's got this crazy ring to it.

[41:31] Unknown speaker: Excelsior!

[41:33] Unknown speaker: Excelsior.

[41:36] Unknown speaker: I'm the last man standing since Martin and Dr. Wortham cleared out the bullpen.

[41:42] Unknown speaker: I've had this job since I was 17 years old, except for when I went into the service.

[41:46] Unknown speaker: No, you don't say.

[41:47] Unknown speaker: Martin's run it pretty much the same way this whole time.

[41:56] Unknown speaker: The war is over, Stanley.

[42:00] Unknown speaker: The superheroes are dead.

[42:02] Unknown speaker: Kids are sick of fighting.

[42:03] Unknown speaker: They want to laugh.

[42:04] Unknown speaker: Laugh.

[42:05] Unknown speaker: We need comedy.

[42:06] Unknown speaker: Funny animals.

[42:07] Unknown speaker: Stan, the man's all over it like a cheap suit, boss.

[42:09] Unknown speaker: Editorial?

[42:10] Unknown speaker: Here are new titles.

[42:12] Unknown speaker: Comic capers.

[42:13] Unknown speaker: Comic cartoons.

[42:14] Unknown speaker: Wait.

[42:15] Unknown speaker: Comic comics.

[42:17] Unknown speaker: There's a war on, Stanley.

[42:19] Unknown speaker: Why are you publishing all this phony baloney funny animal crap?

[42:22] Unknown speaker: We're kicking Kami Keister in Korea.

[42:24] Unknown speaker: And we've got to get the children.

[42:25] Stan Lee: America behind the fight against International Oriental Bolshevism. Your wish is my command, O Publishing Aladdin. Scratch that whole comedy line. Now it's Battle Front. War Action. Battle Action. Battle War. War. Battle Action. War. Dear God, Stanley, why do you have dead Asians all over my covers? It's 1956 for Christ's sake. We're not Klansmen. Have you seen the killing the Japs are making with those Godzilla movies? Science fiction. Horrors spawned by the atom bombs, Stanley. That's what the kids want to see. Aye, aye, Cap'n. Yeah, okay. Now we're gonna go with Tales to Astonish. Tales of Suspense. Strange Tales. Our latest four-color masterpiece. Yeah, Groot, the monster from Planet X. I was captured by the creature from Krogar.

You gotta roll your R's like this. The creature from Krogar. Make that a scream. I spend all half the day dreaming up these nutty titles. They actually pay me for it. So, thus have you seen the meager spoils of my modest fiefdom, Sir Jack of Kirby. But what I have here at Marvel Comics is yours. Uh, Marvel, that's what we decided to rename Timely after you and Joe left. Um, yeah. Say, why did you guys leave anyway? I wasn't around to see it.

[44:01] Jack Kirby: Who can remember? That was a long time ago, Stanley.

[44:05] Stan Lee: Stan. Just Stan is fine. I actually had my name legally changed to Stan Lee.

[44:11] Jack Kirby: Okay, I did the same with Kirby. Yeah, look at us. Couple of phonies. Kurtzberg and Lieber. Showman. You know what? The show must go on. Now, the pay is nothing fancy.

[44:24] Stan Lee: How not fancy? Thirty dollars a page. I would give my artist the shirt off my back if I could.

[44:33] Jack Kirby: And if they didn't think I was coming on to them. Now, Marvel publishes eight titles a month. Four stories an issue. Twelve page lead. Six or eight pages for the rest. I can give you as many as you want to tackle to start.

[44:42] Stan Lee: I'll do all of them.

[44:47] Jack Kirby: Come again? All of them. I'll do all the stories in all your books.

[44:54] Stan Lee: Well, that's 28 stories. That's over 300 pages a month, Tiger. I need the work and you know I can do it. I'll need to send some stories over to the other artists, Ditko, Heck, Ayers, if only for variety.

[44:59] Jack Kirby: I got no problem with that. I'm your new one-man bullpen. You know what you are, Tiger? You're the king.

[45:06] Stan Lee: You're the king of comics. Thanks, Stanley. Stan.

[45:11] Jack Kirby: You know who I've just been golfing with, Stanley?

[45:18] Stan Lee: What? What now, Mon? Ask.

[45:24] Jack Kirby: Why, who have you been golfing with, Mon? Jack Leibowitz over at National. He says their best-selling title of 1961 is something called Justice League of America. Looks like the long underwear men are back in a big way.

[45:31] Stan Lee: So why the hell are you wasting my money with this juvenile monster junk? Superheroes, Stan. We need superheroes.

[45:36] Jack Kirby: I give up. All right, Stan. I've got Gigantis and X the Thing That Lived for you. I quit.

[45:48] Stan Lee: What? This. This stupid, boring, meaningless job. It's only supposed to be temporary, you know, but it's gobbled up two decades of my life. I've always bent over backwards to please Martin, but this? Superheroes again? It's too much. I shall march into the publisher's office and hand in my resplendent resignation and then sally forth to a land where the writer is truly respected. Hollywood.

[46:18] Stan Lee: Whoa, whoa, whoa, Stan. I know it's your life and all, but I got four kids to feed. Who's gonna give me assignments?

[46:23] Jack Kirby: Regal words would stay my hand any other time, oh comics king, but my course, nay, my destiny is clear. You know, my wife says I should do the superhero thing, but do it like something I might read. Something different, fresher.

[46:34] Stan Lee: Hey, yeah, I mean, that's not a bad idea. Why don't you do... I jotted some thoughts down. The Fantastic Four. You never get tired of alliteration, do you? It is mankind's most astonishingly awesome achievement. This is, it's kind of thin, a page and a half. It's just an outline. It's gonna need some fleshing out before it's a proper story.

[46:59] Jack Kirby: That's what I have you for. Dude, let me change stuff, Stan. Let me add to the story. I've always wanted to do more science fiction stuff, you know, spaceships to the stars, alien civilizations, that kind of thing.

[47:10] Stan Lee: Do whatever you want as far as I care, as long as you, you know, stay within those guidelines.

[47:15] Jack Kirby: Why not? Who did Captain America, Boy Commandos, Young Romance, for crying out loud. You're what's known as bankable, Jackie, baby.

[47:28] Stan Lee: That's true. I mean, what have you done? Copy other publishers your whole career.

[47:34] Jack Kirby: That's one way of putting it. I guess Martin calls it adapting to current market trends. You gotta make the trends, Stanley, not follow them. Throw the first punch. I've known that since I was 10 years old. Together, our combined creative catalyst will shake the halls of Comic-Dom asunder. Who dares stand in our way? Face front, true believers. Verily, I just proclaim the magnificent Marvel Age of Comics is about to begin.

[47:58] Stan Lee: Why can't you talk normal? Anyone with their ear to the nation's quads knows that Stan Lee's Fantastic Four and other Marvel comics are the hottest thing to hit campus since the bongo drums. What is the secret of his success?

[48:10] Audience Member: From Southern Illinois University. I saw my sister wearing a Spider-Man t-shirt and that's how I got my first Marvel comic. My favorite is the Hulk. He's the innocent being hounded by the man. Also, he's really good at kicking the army's ass.

[48:24] Audience Member: From Cornell. The psychedelic cosmic scapes of Fantastic Four and Thor display a depth of psychological examination and philosophical metaphor that make the reader ask deep, deep questions of the universe like, what is human? What is the divine? Do our thoughts and desires matter in the full panoply of space-time? And are you holding? Seriously, are you?

[48:52] Narrator: How does Stan the Man, as he's dubbed himself in the credits and letters columns in his own comics, do it? Here, Stan Lee is in action at his weekly Friday morning plotting session with Jack King Kirby, a veteran comic book artist, a man who created many of the visions of your childhood and mine. The King is a middle-aged man with baggy eyes and a baggy Robert Hall-ish suit. He is sucking a huge green cigar and if you stood next to him on the subway, you would peg him for the assistant foreman in a girdle factory. We've already had the Fantastic Four fight Dragon Man, the Inhumans, but for our next dish, I know we can go even bigger. This time, what if the entire ever-loving world is threatened by a huge, god-like figure, Universus Cosmicus Galactus?

[49:41] Jack Kirby: Yeah, I see. He comes to Earth to devour it. He feeds on the very energy of planets and with him is a herald, the Silver Surfer, and he engages the FF in cataclysmic combat.

[50:03] Stan Lee: Oh, he's too much! Even for them, the FF lies defeated. Earth is on the brink of oblivion. Sue, Ben, Johnny, Reed, they failed humanity when humanity needed them the most. Right. Then, suddenly...

[50:20] Jack Kirby: Uh, you go ahead.

[50:22] Stan Lee: The Silver Surfer has a change of heart.

[50:31] Jack Kirby: Ah, yes. The nobility and bravery of the Fantastic Four makes him realize that the Earth is worth saving. He turns on his master and though Galactus is beaten back, he uses his power cosmic to trap the Silver Surfer here on Earth, where only the FF knows of his sacrifice. He's forced to wander the planet forever, hated by the very people he gave up everything to save.

[51:01] Stan Lee: Lee sags back on his desk, limp and spent. Kirby has leapt out of the chair he was crumpled in. Great. That's great. The cigar is out of his mouth and his baggy eyes are aglow. His high voice is young with enthusiasm. Stan Lee has done it again.

[51:14] Jack Kirby: You cut the crap, huh? That's not how Stan Lee and I work together. See, this is what really happens.

[51:23] Stan Lee: Yeah. Hey, on our next issue, let's have the Fantastic Four fight God.

[51:27] Jack Kirby: Yeah, enough said. Face front, Tiger. You're the king. And now I gotta come up with 24 comics pages of story, and he gets all the credit, just because he writes out the dialogue after I turn the pages in, which is based on my notes written on the boards, a lot of which he ignores. Thank you very much.

[51:43] Stan Lee: Hey, who's the shiny guy? You told me to have him fight a God, right? Well, God, who we're calling Galactus, runs around the galaxy eating planets. He needs their energy to survive, so he needs somebody to go out and scout out the planets for him. And he's on a flying surfboard.

[52:00] Jack Kirby: Yeah, he's the Silver Surfer, the Herald of Galactus. What will you think of next? That's why they call you the King, Jack. King Kirby.

[52:11] Stan Lee: Yeah, you call me that, Stan. And now all the hoary hosts of Marvel Dundoo, too. Mm-hmm. You're gonna print that?

[52:21] Jack Kirby: Eh, I like my version better. Unbelievable. He's got the suit, Jackie.

[52:27] Joe Simon: Hey, Joe! How's the advertising game treating you?

[52:33] Jack Kirby: That's better than being torn apart by hungry wolves, some days. Yeah, you know, the college kids are calling him a modern-day Homer. He gave a lecture at Carnegie Hall, for Christ's sake. Carnegie Hall! I mean, what the fuck? He brings the magic.

[52:43] Stan Lee: No, he doesn't. Sitting here at the drawing table, working into the wee hours of the night, taking his three sentences and turning them into this, an actual comic, a story, something someone can lose themselves in. That is the magic.

[52:54] Jack Kirby: No, that's work. Work is magic! Why doesn't anyone understand that? Why does everyone worship the bosses? That crazy butcher Patton they turn into a hero, and Stanley? You know who came by the offices the other day? Fellini. Fucking Fellini! I like very much you comics. You are not so different, you and I, you know? Movie director and the comics man. You work at the artist's hand like the father in heaven fills the lifeless, disgusting lump of clay with the life. You come to Rome. We make the movies together. You are modern-day Virgil, Signore Lee.

[53:35] Jack Kirby: Virgil? Seriously? Still playing your goddamn flute, Stanley? Why don't you call him out on it? What? You see him every day. Why not ask for more credit? Your old co-plotter, at least.

[53:46] Stan Lee: I got a family, Joe. I got mouths to feed. I can't get a rep for being difficult. Jesus. Always with the family, like you're the only one in the world who has one. That was your excuse for not leaving Fox, remember? I'm the king of the comics, Sergeant. It kills me they call you that now. King of the comics. Great. World's smartest cockroach.

[54:08] Joe Simon: Look, kid, the reason I asked you to lunch today is I'm going to be doing a thing.

[54:14] Jack Kirby: A thing? You know what a copyright termination is?

[54:19] Joe Simon: Yeah, for the sake of argument, let's say that I don't. Law says a certain amount of time passes, 28 years. After you sell a property to somebody, you can get the rights back.

[54:24] Jack Kirby: Okay, so?

[54:34] Joe Simon: Calendar says it's 1969, so minus 28. 1941. Holy shit, Joe, you're grabbing Captain America back?

[54:41] Joe Simon: My lawyer's already filed the papers. Goodman's gonna go nuts. I'm gonna lose my job. I don't believe you. This is more than just this week's rent. This is security for life. You know how much money they're gonna pay me to keep hold of the Cap property?

[54:49] Jack Kirby: Okay, this is gonna look bad, Joe. This is gonna look really bad on me. I was hoping maybe you'd throw in with me, but you know what I don't understand, Jack? You draw people punching each other in the face every day. You grew up in a street gang. You served in fucking France, yet you refuse to stand up for yourself. You refuse to fight.

[55:05] Jack Kirby: You ever see the look on a guy's face when he realizes both his arms been blown off by a landmine? No, because you spent the war riding a horse for the Coast Guard, which incidentally makes no goddamn sense at all. You ever see what a 10-year-old kid looks like after he gets pushed off a five-story tenement roof during a block fight? Oh, it's okay. I'll tell you, Joe, because you grew up sipping tea in Syracuse. The kid looks like a garbage bag filled with blood and shit exploded. You fight, huh? I got my fill a long time ago.

[55:38] Joe Simon: You can't hide in your awkwardness, Jack. The world will find you. It always does. So?

[55:52] Jack Kirby: So. Joe gonna get Cap back?

[55:56] Joe Simon: I'm afraid I can't comment on ongoing negotiations. You're probably just gonna pay him off, right? I mean, I know Joe. He doesn't have a burning desire to regal the children of America with the patriotic adventures of the star-spangled Avenger. He wants a check.

[56:05] Jack Kirby: And what do you want, Jack? What do you got? For my enemies, a wingtip up the ass. For my friends, well... I want what he was gonna get. Whatever you're paying Joe to keep Cap, that's what I want. You'll sign a statement affirming our ownership of the character? Sure. That we always owned it from the beginning? You got it. And we own all the other characters you ever worked on or ever created while working here? Including the ones I did with Stan? Especially them.

[56:34] Jack Kirby: I'll have our lawyers deliver the papers to your house by courier tomorrow.

[56:38] Joe Simon: Joe always had the business sense. Anything else?

[56:41] Jack Kirby: Yeah, I quit. What?

[56:45] Jack Kirby: You want to know why I signed that away so quickly, huh? No, you wouldn't. All you know is how to read last month's sales sheet. Any idiot can do that. I can create. I can give up Cap, I can give up the Hulk, the X-Men, anything I made here, because I'm just going to make more. I can. This whole time I was here, I was making up my own line of characters that he, Stan, can't take any credit for. And I'm taking them to National.

[57:08] Joe Simon: You're defecting again? Paul's here.

[57:11] Jack Kirby: I haven't talked to them for a while. They're going to let me write and draw. I'm doing the whole thing at last. We'll see who the real fucking Homer is.

[57:23] Announcer: Attention, FanCon attendees. The Robbie the Robot photo opportunity has been moved to Hall B.

[57:29] Announcer: The Robbie the Robot photo opportunity has moved to Hall B.

[57:33] Fan: Wow, Jack Kirby! Jack Kirby!

[57:36] Jack Kirby: There you go, kid. Yeah, that's me.

[57:40] Fan: I've been following your work with Stan, like, forever. The minute I hear there was a con in my hometown, like, finally. I mean, we're so lucky you moved out here to San Diego. Are you doing stuff with the movies? Oh, my kid has asthma, actually. Warmer climate.

[57:56] Fan: Did you read Stan's new interview in Comics Now? All the movie stuff he wants to do with Marvel? Can you imagine? All your guys on the big screen, like, maybe Thor.

[58:05] Jack Kirby: Yeah, you like Thor, huh?

[58:08] Fan: Are you kidding? I grew up on it. Now I'm reading it to my kids. What about the stuff I did on my own, huh? New Gods. New Gods.

[58:16] Fan: I tried, but it was a little too cosmic for me, you know?

[58:22] Jack Kirby: And who was your writer again? All those exclamation points, so over the top, like somebody spitting on you while you talk. But movies, you know? It's a good interview. You should read it.

[58:35] Fan: It's insane. Look at me going on and on like a goon. I should get into comics, huh?

[58:40] Jack Kirby: Yeah.

[58:42] Fan: Man. Hey, can I take a picture? Oh, sure, yeah. Excelsior! Oh, how could I forget? Can you sign this, too? Mm-hmm.

[58:50] Fan: The Tour de Force. An original. I think it's from Fantastic Four post-Galactus, right? Like number 67 or 68. Where did you get this? It is original.

[59:01] Fan: Should be. I paid, like, half my savings. A thousand bucks.

[59:05] Jack Kirby: A thousand bucks? Yeah, like I can afford to give you any more of my money. I found eight more on the con floor. I wrote them all down. Names and addresses of art dealers selling stolen pages.

[59:17] Jack Kirby: Yeah, I know. Crooks, every one of them. These art dealers are robbing you blind. Where did they get these pages from? Fantastic Four, Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Avengers. These are supposed to be your fans, but they're parasites.

[59:32] Jack Kirby: Where did they get this art in the first place? From the offices, I guess. I heard the suits just gave them away as freebies to executives the company did business with. You know, guys who made TV shows and toys and stuff.

[59:44] Joe Simon: But if I sign this... What's that?

[59:46] Jack Kirby: The lawyers mailed me this stupid form. I saw it first. I didn't want you to get mad.

[59:50] Joe Simon: You always get mad. Why? What does it mean?

[59:52] Jack Kirby: I sign it. And?

[59:54] Joe Simon: They give me what they've got left. What's that?

[59:58] Jack Kirby: Eighty-eight pages. Eighty-eight pages?

[1:00:00] Joe Simon: Out of how many thousands? I lost track.

[1:00:03] Jack Kirby: As many as it took to tell the stories I wanted to tell.

[1:00:05] Joe Simon: Don't do it, Jack. The pages are bad enough, but they want you to sign away your rights, your arts on Frisbees, movies, everywhere I look. It's you, Jack, and you're not even there.

[1:00:15] Jack Kirby: No one cares about anything new I do. All I want is the old stuff. I mean, nothing new sells.

[1:00:20] Joe Simon: But you can't just let them take away all the work that you...

[1:00:22] Jack Kirby: What choice do I have? Jack!

[1:00:30] Joe Simon: Do you know why I let you talk me into going up to your apartment that day we met? Because every day I'd hear you rushing up those stairs full of places to go, and I'd imagine you were coming to talk to me.

[1:00:44] Joe Simon: Every girl out there growing up just trying to flirt with you all because they just wanted to get married, get out of there. And you didn't care about them. And I loved you even more for it, because what I loved is how you were always moving, never sitting still. You'd get an idea, and the room lights up, and we'd talk for hours, and I see... I see you. Without that, I don't know who I'd be, who our kids would be. What you've done with these heroes fighting, flying, running, they are all you. And if that isn't worth fighting for, I don't know what is, because I fought for it.

[1:01:28] Jack Kirby: I'm not your hero, Ross.

[1:01:33] Joe Simon: Every time I go in rooms with bosses and lawyers, I come out someone else. Every single drawing that has come from this hand, you created. You've made up.

[1:01:48] Jack Kirby: Yeah.

[1:01:49] Joe Simon: From nothing. And that's something, that's something, Jack.

[1:01:53] Jack Kirby: Yeah.

[1:01:54] Joe Simon: You've got to find a way to come to peace with that.

[1:01:56] Jack Kirby: Okay. Okay. Let's get some sleep, huh?

[1:02:07] Jack Kirby: Hello, Martin.

[1:02:08] Stan Lee: Just me, Jack. Crazy, huh? Plot twist.

[1:02:12] Stan Lee: It doesn't matter who it is. You're all the same to me. See, making me the suit. Well, I like wearing suits, there. Come on.

[1:02:18] Stan Lee: Oh, just cut to the chase, Stan.

[1:02:20] Stan Lee: That was always your problem. I'm gonna get right into the action. Throw the first punch before we even establish the situation. Make it clear. We're old friends.

[1:02:29] Jack Kirby: We weren't friends, Stan.

[1:02:31] Stan Lee: See, that hurts my feelings. You know how sensitive I am. Look, I take the time to come out here, talk to you. I don't leave you to some flunky lawyer. Why? What the hell do you guys want now?

[1:02:43] Stan Lee: Look, all this talk about who created who, taking characters back, sharing credit, that's not what this is really about, is it?

[1:02:54] Jack Kirby: It's the truth.

[1:02:55] Stan Lee: Really? You're a big fan of the truth. Is your name really Kirby? I mean, come on. You were ashamed.

[1:03:03] Jack Kirby: I was not. You take that back.

[1:03:04] Stan Lee: What then?

[1:03:05] Jack Kirby: I was never ashamed of being Jewish, but Kirby, you know, it sounded Irish. Tough. Nobody thought of Jews being tough. If they grew up where I did, they'd know better, but...

[1:03:13] Stan Lee: Oh, you consciously changed something you knew wasn't true in order to get a better story, right? Twisting it all around. Who I am, what I did. I was in those pages.

[1:03:24] Jack Kirby: It wasn't you telling me what to do. It was me creating. You could have... You could have told them, Stan.

[1:03:30] Stan Lee: That's my sin. When people said I was a genius, I said, who, me? That only made them yell it louder. Little old me. Excelsior. Those were my stories, too.

[1:03:41] Jack Kirby: Let's say for the sake of argument, because I am a reasonable person, that you're right. Nobody cares, really, whose stories they were. I love rocket ships and skyscrapers falling over as much as the next guy, but in the end, you focused on the wrong story, Jack. People want magic.

[1:04:06] Stan Lee: Not because they're innocent little children at heart, but because this world is a whirlwind of crazy, and magic is the only way to make sense of it all. A genius, me, dictates his ideas to talented craftspeople, you, and the result is love enriching.

[1:04:24] Jack Kirby: No, no. The work is the magic. If it was magic, it wouldn't be work.

[1:04:32] Stan Lee: Jack, it's so much easier to be something than it is to do something. That's why, no matter how many times this story is told, I will be the hero, and you, the trusty sidekick.

[1:04:48] Jack Kirby: I hate sidekicks.

[1:04:49] Stan Lee: When you sign this, you get your art. And no more letters bothering us, okay, Jack? No more talking about who did this or who did that in interviews or conventions. Just, you've done it before. This says I give up royalties and future payments. If you sign, we got a gift for you. 88 pages.

[1:05:10] Jack Kirby: Do you know how many pages I've...

[1:05:12] Stan Lee: No money for reprints, no toys, no coloring books, no lunchboxes, and certainly no fucking movies. The art boards, the physical art. I can sell them to the few people who actually know what my name is. I got four kids, and a wife, and nothing to give them when I'm gone. You know I've worked my whole life just like you, but every time you look at me, I see it. Disgust. For the new kid. Me. He always hated me. I get it. So just sign it.

[1:05:42] Stan Lee: Nice scene. Dramatic. Maybe you can write. But tomorrow, when you've woken up in reality, you sign. That's the truth. Weeks later, when they come back to you with a counter, you sign. You sign. When you get your art, none of the good stuff, of course, that's long gone. Swear to God I wasn't even around when it vanished. But credit, you know, that's just not...

[1:06:18] Jack Kirby: Hey, I read. I followed all you did after you left, Jack. What you wrote on your own. It was good. That's the truth. Every interview I've ever given, any article, any book, I say you were the king, Jack. That you're the king of comics. You know that's true. You left me a nickname.

[1:06:36] Jack Kirby: You sure are a generous guy, Stan. At the end of the day, it's about what's right for the story. You know? I've got to live mine. Everybody does. That's why you gotta make shit up.

[1:06:49] Stan Lee: Face front, true believer!

[1:07:03] Auctioneer: Our next item, original pin-up of superhero Invisible Girl from comics magazine Fantastic Four number 10. Pencils by Jack Kirby. Bidding will also begin at $5,000.

[1:07:15] Jack Kirby: I just bring the art in, dump it off, collect my check and go home. I forget about this stuff. How was I supposed to know? For many people, getting a piece of one's childhood is priceless. And that's what he is, it seems. A piece of everyone's childhood. Do I hear $6,500?

[1:07:30] Auctioneer: How many pieces of art are we discussing here? Sold to the gentleman in the rear for $7,475.

[1:07:39] Jack Kirby: I've worked for modern from 1957 to 1969. Next reproduction cover, Amazing Spider-Man number one. Pencils by Jack Kirby. On at least 40 titles. Bidding will begin at $10,000.

[1:07:52] Jack Kirby: So it's got to be in the neighborhood of, what, 20,000 pages? All sold to line some faceless guy's pockets. Sold to the man in the plaid for $14,950.

[1:08:04] Jack Kirby: Comics. They were supposed to be temporary.

[1:08:08] Announcer: Attention, FanCon attendees. Happening right now on the main stage, Nicole Nichols and George Takai share favorite Star Trek memories.

[1:08:16] Fan: Oh, here, Mr. Kirby, would you mind signing?

[1:08:20] Jack Kirby: Sure, sure, slow down. You'll live longer. Let me see, The Coming of Galactus. First appearance of the Silver Surfer. Yeah, it was a good one.

[1:08:30] Fan: It's the first thing I ever remember reading on my own, by myself, with my own two eyes.

[1:08:35] Jack Kirby: There you go.

[1:08:37] Fan: It's been really great meeting you, Mr. Kirby.

[1:08:39] Jack Kirby: Well, what's the rush? You just got here.

[1:08:42] Fan: I'd love to say, but I just drove 10 hours from Chicago. I have to get back because I couldn't get the time off of work.

[1:08:47] Jack Kirby: You drove 10 hours from Chicago just to come here for 15 minutes?

[1:08:51] Fan: Yeah. I figured this might be the only time I get to meet you. After all, you're the king.

[1:08:59] Jack Kirby: Comics. They'll break your heart.

[1:09:05] Jack Kirby: Cosmic Carson's rocket ship crashes on the outer ring of the galaxy. So the Solar Legion takes the drastic step of growing an android replica to take his place. Without Carson, the evil generals and the space pirates, they'll take over the entire galaxy. Only thing is, this new guy, he ain't a goody two-shoes. He may look like one on the outside, but inside, he's a brawler, huh? A good-for-nothing street punk. But he's got to keep up appearances, you know? Because he knows, no matter what his natural tendencies might be, it's the right thing to do.

[1:09:58] Announcer: King Kirby

[1:10:07] Announcer: Written by Crystal Skillman and Fred Van Lenten

[1:10:09] Announcer: Starring Steve Rattazzi as Jack Kirby

[1:10:12] Announcer: Amy Lee Pearsall as Roz Kirby

[1:10:14] Announcer: Joseph Mathers as Joe Simon

[1:10:17] Announcer: Matt Cassidy as Stan Lee

[1:10:19] Announcer: Timothy McCown Reynolds as Martin Goodman

[1:10:22] Announcer: Music composition and sound editing by Bobby Cronin

[1:10:25] Announcer: Original stage production directed by John Hurley

[1:10:28] Announcer: Recorded at Midtown Comics downtown in Manhattan