Dale Messick
Dale Messick was originally born as Dalia Messick, in
April 11, 1906, South Bend, Indiana. Messick was the daughter of Cephas
Messick, who was an art teacher, and a sign painter. Like her mother, Messick
had an interest in art and drawing, and was naturally talented in such fields.
Messick also helped her mother sew and design, and put hats together, which
started Messick’s fascination with fashion, which became apparent in her Brenda Starr Reporter comics. However,
even through Messick was artistically skilled, she struggled at a young age
with school, having to repeat the third and eight grade of her school career.
She barely made it through high school, only staying to graduate because her
parents encouraged her to do so. Later, Messick studied at the Art Institute of
Chicago, however, she shortened her studies to pursue a career as a
professional artist. Her first professional job was as a greetings card
designer. Her salary was greatly reduced by her boss due to the Great
Depression taking place at that time. This cut in pay influenced her decision
to quit. Being the main and only income for her family at that time, Messick moved
to New York to find a new job, landing another job as a greetings card designer
with much higher pay. However, Messick at this time was also putting together
her first comic portfolio. She was hoping to get a job that provided more
enjoyment compared to card designing, along with a higher salary. Despite
Messick’s talent and quality of her first comic portfolio, she was rejected
multiple times by the publisher of The
New York Daily News and the head of the Chicago tribune-New York Syndicate, Joseph M. Patterson, who was very
disapproving of women in the workforce. However,
Mollie Slott, Patterson’s secretary, recovered Messick’s portfolio submission
that Patterson threw away, telling her to make certain small changes in her
work in order to get published. Messick took Mollie’s advice and changed the
minor details of her work and resubmitted it. Not long afterwards, Patterson
finally approved Messick’s new work, first debuting Brenda Starr Reporter on June 30,
1940, which quickly became one of the
most iconic comics of its time.
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby was born August 28,1917 as Jacob
Kurtzberg. He grew up on the Lower East
Side of New York where street fighting and self-preservation became a part of
everyday life. He is a self-taught
artist that captured techniques of drawing from anyone and everywhere he
could. He studied Alex Raymond’s Flash
Gordon comic strip and adapted his techniques not styles and made them his
own. He shortened his name to Jack
Kirby. Kirby always had a love of
stories and was drawn to comics at an early age. Kirby’s style of drawing was not to simulate
reality but to tell great stories. His
figure drawings depict figures in action.
After working several jobs as an animation and comic illustrator, Kirby
started working with Joe Simon. This
partnership lasted for years and produced Captain America. Kirby worked at Detective Comics (DC) and
after World War II, Kirby eventually started working at Marvel Comics. Kirby and head editor, Stan Lee, created the
first Fantastic Four in 1961. Kirby and
Lee developed an interesting way of developing their stories and
characters. Both men would talk about an
idea, then Kirby would start to draw the story.
Lee would just add some dialogue and editing. As Kirby’s work pace slowed down, he was able
to improve on his detail. His comic,
Thor, is known for the detailed costumes and majestic landscaping. Kirby left Marvel in 1970 and went to work
again at DC. In 1975, Kirby returned to
Marvel to create the Silver Surfer with Lee.
Kirby passed away on February 6, 1994.
His work and creations are legendary and will live on forever.
Steve Ditko
Steve Ditko was born on November 2, 1927 in Johnstown,
PA. Ditko attended Cartoonists and
Illustrators School in New York. He
started his professional illustrator career in 1953 for Charlton Comics. Ditko started working at Marvel Comics in the
early 60s. It was here that Ditko and
Stan Lee created Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.
Ditko also did work on The Incredible Hulk. Ditko has a unique style and technique. His landscapes are surreal, very detailed and
his characters express mood and anxiety.
After several years at Marvel, Ditko and Lee had a falling out. Ditko moved to DC Comics where he was granted
more freedom to express his personal philosophy. In his work on The Question and Killjoy,
Ditko was inspired by Ayn Rand and Aristotle, the Greek philosopher. In his creation of Dr. A, Ditko took a
controversial position against criminals.
This caused some loss of the fan base but the comic continued until the
end of the 70s. It was revived later on
without Ditko in 2000. Ditko created
Shade, the Changing Man that eventually became one of DC longest running comics
in the DC vertigo series. Ditko is a
very private man and has not granted an interview since the 60s. His contribution to comic illustration is
also legendary.
Works Cited
Henderson, Ashyia N. "Dale Messick
Biography." Story. Accessed February 20, 2016.
http://www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2006-Le-Ra/Messick-Dale.html.
"Jack Kirby (Earth-1218)." Marvel Database.
N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
"Steve Ditko." Marvel Database. N.p., n.d.
Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
-Nancy Brockert
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