The Thing by J.J. Kirby

This is my 50th piece of art by J.J. Kirby, an artist whose work I immediately fell in love when he was working at Wildstorm and one of the true artists’ artist of the industry (ask his peers, I have, and the answer is always the same: incredible sense of design, use of colours, techniques, mediums, freshness…).

I won this one at auction where it was presented as an unpublished cover. Well, my intuition is that the auction house and/or the consignor simply wanted to pimp the sale up. Which simply didn’t work at all, luckily for me :) Only J.J. could shed some light on that but I don’t think it’s necessary to appreciate the art itself.

I find the idea behind this piece to be quite simple theoretically but oh so bold in execution.

The titled angle is fantastic, especially considering that the Thing written in his eye is not (so we can tell it’s not a simple reflection?), resulting in the words being instantly readable.

Then J.J. intelligently framed the words with the two circles of the iris and pupil to highlight them within the eye but also with the thick black line defining the whole eye. A simple but brilliant set of devices.

Also of note is that even with but one eye present, you can tell that ol’ Ben is pissed off. The somehow pinched lips revealing his teeth for one is so fun. You can clearly tell that clobbering time is a’comin’.

And lastly, no over rendition on Ben’s scaly skin like many artists would. Just a few seemingly spontaneous lines that possess the same weight. Economical and yet so effective in instantly recognizing the character, even without the words.

In the end, just a great drawing by a monster of an artist.