The King

Lately I've been thinking about Jack Kirby. I have come to the following conclusion: He was good.
I used to hear more about Kirby when I was a young Marvelphile, waaaaaaay back in the 1980's. I didn't get it. I found his figures to be boxy and squat and his designs too jumbled, his line too thick. I understood his historical significance, but as an artist, I didn't care for him. It wasn't until very recently that I began to appreciate the dynamic qualities of his style, the way figures leaped off pages and fist flew with unabashed fury.
Lately, I've begun to appreciate the stylization of his designs, all those squiggly, jumbled objects and the fat and fuzzy lines. Call it maturity, or a better trained eye, or perhaps a greater sense of what I like, but I love the way his pages all come together.
And I don't know who actually created what, I wasn't there and I haven't seen the evidence, so whoever actually created the look and feel of the fantastic four really did something. Just take an image of the FF zipping along in a boxy, squiggly flying car, something like Speed Racer meets Depero, with a flaming guy circling about, leaving a jagged line of flame behind him, as they trawl through the Negative Zone or the 5th Dimension or where ever, the background another brilliant amalgam of Futurism, Deco, and Pop Art.
I think from a sort of pure art sense, Kirby's work is visionary, daring, and well, fantastic.