Tuesday, July 06, 2010

What if... Jack Kirby Drew Archie?

My favorite charity The Hero Initiative is at it again, this time with Archie #600. Archie Comics has printed 50 blank-covered copies, and Hero will have 50 stellar artists do original Archie covers on the special edition books to be auctioned of to benefit Hero and needy comic book artists.
I grew up on Archie comics and I love the characters, so I wracked my brain to come up with an appropriate cover concept that would do the event justice. I drew a couple of sketches in my style, then in the Archie style and nothing really seemed to click. Then it hit me: what if Jack Kirby, The King of Comics himself had drawn Archie? That would have been great! Kirby is so distinctive, he would have made the characters his own.
The more I thought about it, the more I liked it! After all, Jack drew Jimmy Olsen for DC. And his take on Archie might have been close to that. So I attempted to pull off a reasonable facsimile thereof. Dunno how successful I was, but it was fun paying tribute to The King for a great cause.