To celebrate his centennial, here's a Kirby piece that's never been reprinted in color!
Appearing in the September, 1966 issue of Esquire magazine...this art was later reused, in pieces, as clip art for various projects including MarvelMania publications.
The Spider-Man was retouched by John Romita to keep him "on-model".
The art (probably photostats) was hand-colored with Dr Martins dyes used for decades by comics colorists for their color guides.
Inking on this spread looks like Joe Sinnott. (The Thing is a dead-giveaway. Nobody inked him like Sinnott!)
These two pages were b/w in the original publication, though the art was probably provided in color.
(In b/w publishing, blues and greens print as light gray, reds and oranges print as dark gray.)
Note the unusual, never-seen-again leg-webbing above on Spider-Man!
The inking on these two pages looks, to my eye, like Frank Giacoia.
Wonder who has the originals?
Are they in the Esquire art archives, or were they returned to Marvel?
On a side note: the best way to appreciate Jack Kirby the creative person is to read/hear his own words.
For those who want to understand Kirby the man, a fairly-complete list of interviews with The King thanks to the Kirby Museum...
HERE!
LONG LIVE THE KING!
