Tales to Astonish: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and the American Comic Book Revolution [Hardcover]

Ronin Ro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2, 2004

The spectacular life and times of Jack Kirby, the legendary forefather of American comic books.

For fifty years, Jack Kirby drew more pages than any other comic book artist. As talented as he was prolific, Kirby was responsible for many of the most well-known and beloved superheroes in popular culture.

With his first writing partner Joe Simon, he created Captain America, DC Comics's Sandman, and the lucrative genre of the romance comic. In the 1960s, Kirby paired with Stan Lee to develop a pantheon of heroes that included, among others, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, the X-Men, Thor, Iron Man, the Avengers, the Silver Surfer, and the Inhumans. Together with Lee, this artist and writer forever changed the American comic book by introducing angst-ridden heroes, sympathetic villains, and a dynamic visual style that has influenced every artist who followed.

The inspiration behind The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Jack Kirby has been hailed by Wizard magazine as "Without any doubt...the single most important creator in the History of American Comic Books." In Tales to Astonish, Ronin Ro chronicles Kirby's poverty-stricken origins in the Lower East Side, his early commercial triumphs and failures, his renowned partnership with Stan Lee, his continuing artistic innovations (the production department hated him for pasting photographs into his pages), and his lengthy legal battles with Marvel comics over the ownership of his original art. An insightful portrait of one of its most enduring-and overlooked-artists, Tales to Astonish is also a lively, novelistic account of the comic book industry, from its inauspicious origins to its sensational successes.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Jack Kirby is arguably the most influential comic-book artist of all time: In the early 1940s he cocreated Captain America and drew dozens of other superheroes, essentially creating the template for the genre. But his best-known work comes from the 1960s, when he and writer Stan Lee created the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, and most of the rest of the innovative Marvel Comics cast. Kirby's rough-and-tumble Lower East Side childhood and maverick approach to his art must have seemed a promising subject to Ronin, whose previous books have been on rap music. He paints a colorful portrait--the real-life analog of Kavalier and Clay--of the comic book's early days, and his accounts of Kirby's acrimonious split with Lee and battle with Marvel over ownership of his original drawings show that the industry remained cutthroat. Ultimately, Ronin's treatment is more dutiful than inspired (oh, for some of Kirby's fervor!) and marred by minor errors. The definitive Kirby biography is yet to come; until it arrives, Ronin's is a useful, readable stopgap. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Compellingly depicts the codependent relationship between the charismatic Lee and the rough-edged Kirby.The story packs as much pathos as any of the duo''s signature supersagas." (Entertainment Weekly )

"Ro cleanly lays out Kirby''s story.He does well by the facts." (The Onion )

"Ro deftly handles Kirby''s relationships.Tales to Astonish celebrates the stubbornness that kept Kirby, a superhero of comic books in his own right, creative as if against his will." (San Francisco Chronicle ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 388 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; Later printing edition (July 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582343454
• ISBN-13: 978-1582343457
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,169,616 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

After penning a column for Dance Music Report magazine, Ronin Ro began a groundbreaking run in The Source. From here, Ro contributed to SPIN, Rolling Stone, VIBE, Rap Pages, XXL, Vanity Fair, Playboy, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, and more. To date, Ro has authored eight Books, including the classic Have Gun Will Travel, the definitive Jack Kirby bio Tales to Astonish, Raising Hell (containing original interviews with Run-D.M.C. and others), Dr. Dre: The Biography, the controversial novella Street Sweeper (whose hero, Jerome Usher, reputedly inspired a similar hero in the motion picture Man on Fire) and the upcoming Prince: Inside the Music and the Masks. Currently in New York City, known for epic, classically-structured works, the influential Author is currently at work on two nonfiction projects.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A "King" Deserves a Better Bio, December 6, 2004

By 

Silver Age Fan (Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tales to Astonish: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and the American Comic Book Revolution (Hardcover)

While Ronin Ro's book also provides a history of Stan Lee and Timely/Marvel Comics (among others), its main thrust and chief attribute is a biography of comics legend Jack "King" Kirby. This is certainly not the worst volume I've ever read, but I have to place myself in the camp of the (so far) two Amazon.com members who have posted negative reviews regarding this book.

From a personal taste standpoint, I really don't appreciate Ro's writing style. As other reviewers noted, it is overly simplistic at times in addition to being awkward. Another already mentioned critique is the lack of ANY illustrations or photos save for the Kirby cover drawing. Granted, there's a lot of Jack Kirby art reproduced within many other resources, but some key art reproductions would have been a nice touch. Even more appreciated would have been photographs of Kirby, his family, and other celebrities from the Golden/Silver Age of Comics that are mentioned in the chapters. Such photographs might not have been easily attainable, but a modicum of effort would have dug up some pictorial history.

I don't think I'm imagining this, but it appears that many of Ro's quotations by comics celibrities (including Kirby, Stan Lee and Joe Simon) are simply taken from already published interviews and biographies (e.g., "Excelsior! : The Amazing Life of Stan Lee" by Stan Lee and George Mair, and "The Comic Book Makers" by Joe Simon and Jim Simon). Not exactly the coolest thing to pay money for a book that regurgitates information I've already read.

What's even worse is that the book does contain some inaccuracies, and these could have been prevented by simple fact-checking and basic editing. Some of Ro's subjective observations also go against the generally accepted opinions of comics historians. For example, Ro refers to Timely/Marvel artist Bill Everett as an "old hack," the first time in over 40 years that I have ever heard of Everett described in that vein. Although he may have had a tremendous alcohol problem, Everett has generally been widely respected as a comics artist, and especially so as an inker in his later years. But since I'd hardly consider Ro an expert regarding comics art, I consider the source concerning that and other opinions he's promulgated.

There is information contained in the book of which I was (perhaps surprisingly) unaware. However, considering the other definite inaccuracies in the book, this information is certainly somewhat suspect. Considering the suggested list price of this volume, its overall packaging should have been improved with more material, greater accuracy and more revelations for comics historians. This book is worth a read (although not necessarily a buy), but more for casual or new comics fans.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What Jack Kirby Did on his Summer Vacation, November 23, 2004

By 

Charles W. Anderson (Atlanta Georgia USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tales to Astonish: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and the American Comic Book Revolution (Hardcover)

This book is written like this. This is how Ronin Ro writes. "This guy reads like an eighth-grade book report," I quipped to my wife. She laughed. The whole damn book. Written exactly like this. Don't buy it.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Strange that a Kirby bio doesn't even have a photo ...., February 6, 2005

By 

Bruce Appelbaum (Yorktown Heights, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tales to Astonish: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and the American Comic Book Revolution (Hardcover)

As a 9 year old comic fanatic, I immediately latched on to the Fantastic Four and the progression of other Marvel heroes as they were invented -- and maintained my interest for several decades after. I still occasionally pick up a comic.

I found Ro's book to be pretty poorly written and edited, and I think there are many errors in it. For one thing, it is impossible to keep the chronology straight. Dozens of pages go by without mention of the year. There are flashbacks, but it is not clear when they end. Dozens of repetitions of the same phrases, and people who appear out of nowhere, indicate minimal editing.

Despite the fact that Kirby was King, Ro seems to spend most of the center of the book talking about how Kirby's work was criticized and rejected, how Kirby couldn't write, and when he did, it was unreadable.

How strange is it, though, that a book about the comics industry as it centered around Jack Kirby doesn't as much as have a single photo of the guy, or any examples of his work aside from the dust cover art?

Save your money and give this one a pass.