Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics

Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics is the graphic biography Jack Kirby deserved—and the one only Tom Scioli could have made.

Born Jacob Kurtzberg on Manhattan’s Lower East Side to Jewish-Austrian immigrant parents, Jack Kirby brawled his way out of poverty and into the pages of history. From the streets of New York to the foxholes of World War II in Europe, and from there to the very summit of a medium he single-handedly reshaped, Kirby’s life reads like one of his own comics—explosive, monumental, and unstoppable. Along the way, he co-created Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Avengers, Black Panther, the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, the Eternals, the New Gods, Darkseid, and hundreds of other characters that forged global pop culture as we know it.

Told from Kirby’s perspective in a warm, streetwise first-person narrative, Scioli’s Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics threads the artist’s personal saga together with the history of the comics industry itself. Scioli—himself an Eisner-nominated cartoonist whose work pulses with Kirby’s DNA—recreates many of the King’s most iconic panels across every genre he mastered: superheroes, war comics, romance, crime, and cosmic fantasy. Each drawing is filtered through Kirby’s own experiences as a soldier, a husband, and a creative force who never stopped inventing.

Publishers Weekly hailed it as “a must-read for Kirby fans” that “captures the mythos of the 20th century comic industry’s golden age.” Library Journal named it one of the Best Books of the Year, celebrating how Scioli “details Kirby’s life with the same passion and crackling energy the King of Comics brought to his own work.” Kirkus called it “a fast-paced celebration of an underheralded legend.”

The book pulls no punches. It lays bare Kirby’s decades-long fight for creator credit and fair compensation, his restless moves between Marvel and DC, and the deeply complicated legacy of his collaborations with Stan Lee. Scioli, whose own bold lines and kinetic storytelling are a direct inheritance from the King, brings the hard-won perspective of a fellow cartoonist to every panel he draws. This isn’t a dry historical account—it’s a conversation between two artists across generations, one reaching back to grip the other’s hand.

Published by Ten Speed Graphic in 2020 (and reissued in paperback in 2023), this 208-page full-color hardcover is essential reading for comics fans, students of the medium, and anyone who wants to understand how the Marvel Universe was really built.

Perfect for fans of I Am Stan, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, The Art of Jack Kirby, and any graphic biography that celebrates a creative genius who changed the world.

Created by Tom Scioli.