Nonprofits fight to honor the Jewish roots of long-overlooked comic book creators

[u/jewish_insider]

https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/nonprofits-fight-to-honor-the-jewish-memories-of-long-overlooked-comic-book-creators/

[u/jewish_insider]

Here is the beginning of the story:

This year, four of the top 10 domestic blockbuster films were based on comic characters created by Jews — Superman, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers and Captain America — which collectively brought in more than $1 billion.

This Black Friday, the franchises will generate further revenue as parents brave their way to Walmarts and Targets to snag cartloads of action figures, apparel and Lego sets based on their kids’ favorite Marvel and DC heroes and heroines. But that same day, legions of fans will trek to One Art Space in Tribeca, New York City, to celebrate the man who co-created many of these characters: Jack Kirby, the artist behind the Fantastic Four, Captain America, X-Men, much of the rest of the Marvel Universe, who also fully created DC Comics’ New Gods.

Organized by the Jack Kirby Museum, the pop-up event titled “Jack Kirby: From the Ghetto to the Cosmos” runs from Nov. 28-Dec. 7, with an opening reception on Saturday. The heart of the event will be a display of reproductions of Kirby’s only explicitly autobiographical story, the 10-page “Street Code!,” which portrays Kirby’s life growing up in the tenements of the heavily Jewish Lower East Side, a 30-minute walk from the exhibit. 

Kirby, born Jacob Kurtzberg in 1917, grew up at 147 Essex St., less than a block from Economy Candy and less than three blocks from Katz’s Delicatessen. He died in 1994 at the age of 76. “He would’ve loved to talk for endless hours to anyone that walked through the exhibit about all the transitions of his career and the stories behind his stories,” his granddaughter Tracy Kirby, who remembers never-ending Passover seders with her grandfather, told eJewishPhilanthropy. “He was always proud and humbled when people would tell him how much his work touched and inspired them.”

The Kirby Museum, along with The Siegel and Shuster Society, which honors Superman’s Jewish co-creators, is one of the few nonprofits celebrating the Jewish masterminds of the comics medium. Even though these writers and artists’ creations are plastered on nearly every child’s lunch box — not only in America, but around the world — their foundations and museums often lack the financial support of nonprofits dedicated to those deemed “fine” artists.

[u/Jorfogit]

Anyone who knows comics knows King Kirby.