Kirby's visual influences

Artists can get inspiration from almost anything when it comes to painting or drawing.
Jack Kirby is no exception. Examples of visual influences in Kirby's body of work are countless: let's see a few of them.

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), French, is considered the progenitor of modern sculpture.
Both classic (his first full scale work drew inspiration from Michelangelo's Dying Slave) and modern, he is best known for works like The Kiss and...The Thinker, probably the most popular of all (I'm sure you've seen it before).

More than any other Rodin sculpture, The Thinker moved into the popular imagination as an immediately recognizable icon of intellectual activity; consequently it has been subject to endless satirical use.
This began already in Rodin's lifetime.

(Wikipedia)

Below: the large-scale bronze cast, finished in 1902.


Under Kirby's pencil the guy turns to criminal mastermind.
(from F4 #15 June '63)



How about some geographic and/or archaeological references?
Let's see, ever heard of Easter Island ? (aka: Rapa Nui)
Yeah, the one with all those enigmatic statues.
(<--- waiting for some visitors from outer space?)


They must've striked young Kirby imagination...





(below: what a sight, better than S/F movies!)


Here they are, on Tales to Astonish #5 cover (Sept '59)...
(no better quality scan, sorry)


...and TTA #16 (Feb '61)
(I'd love to own these books!)


A few years later, we get to meet our bighead fellows again in the very 1st issue of Thor !
Some spaceship payin' a visit to planet Earth: "We're on planet Earth at last!"
"This oxygen-rich atmosphere is much different from the one of Saturn, it enhances our powers!"


"Our stone-crafted bodies are invulnerable!" (Love this sequence!)
Oh, and they are equipped with deadly weapons too.


Unlucky for them, first encounter with earthlings couldn't be worse: the newborn Thunder God!
At first Thor knocks a few of them off...


Then, as they unleash their frightening mechanical monster...








...a little of hammer swinging and...watch it fly in pieces!


Terror-struck by Earth natives superpowers, the aliens have no choice but to leave...(typical 1950's plot line!)


Thor rescued planet Earth!