Doodle Penance: "jack kirby machines"

I'm pretty psyched about this week's Doodle Penance, not because I think I've done an especially good job with the doodle, but because this week's search term was absolutely, 100%, or-your-money-back guaranteed from the start to be fun to draw. And I did have a lot of fun with my doodle.

Someone found our site this week after a search for "Jack Kirby machines."

I can't think of a nicer way to spend a Sunday morning.

I figure what this person was looking for was a good set of principles for building his own Kirbytech machinery, so I've created this handout that outlines a few of the most important points. I hope it's helpful.

(Isaac says, "Don't ask! Just click and enlarge it!")



Have a look at how some of these ideas are employed in a couple of panels from Fantastic Four #46.

You can use the principles of Kirby machine design to create something as complex as a two-man Terrigen-mutation-scanning device ...



... or something as simple as a cigarette lighter:



Mike, what have you got?

—All's I've got is a Jack Kirby machine:
There's a lot I'm dissatisfied with where the drawing is concerned. But my greatest mistake was giving it a name! I should merely have referred to is as a Jury-rigged Apparatus for Cartooning Kind-of-Kinetic, Idiosyncratic, Robotic Beings with exposed circuitrY, instead of shortening it to Jack Kirby! But now, as you can see from the vexed expression in the view-screen, it can reason...can compute...can feel...and, as is plainly evident from its uni-wheel, it wants to move...to be free..! Despite all the fear it may engender, I pity this machine-man, this monster!