Jack Katz

Jack Katz (September 27, 1927 – April 24, 2025) was an American comic book artist and writer, painter, and art teacher known for his graphic novel The First Kingdom, a 24-issue epic he began during the era of underground comix.

Influenced by such illustrative comic-strip artists as Hal Foster and Alex Raymond, Katz attended the School of Industrial Art in New York City. He began working for comic-book publishers in the 1940s, during the period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books. Though continuing to work in comics through the 1950s, his slow pace and highly detailed, idiosyncratic art style prompted him to leave that field for 14 years. Circa 1969, he returned to mainstream color comics as well as to black-and-white horror-comics magazines, and after a move to California embarked upon The First Kingdom, a serialized work that later became considered a precursor to, or an early form of, the graphic novel. He completed it in 1986, and went on to write and draw further works in that vein, and to teach art.

Background Katz was born in Brooklyn, New York City, on September 27, 1927. He moved to Canada a few days after he was born. He returned to the United States when he was around eight years old. While attending the School of Industrial Art in New York City, he established bonds of friendship with future comic artists Alex Toth, Alfonso Greene, and Pete Morisi.

Katz married three times and had four children. He died at a hospital in Walnut Creek, California, on April 24, 2025, at the age of 97.

Early career Katz's work in mainstream comics spans both the Golden and Silver Ages, and was done under a variety of pseudonyms such as Jay Hawk, Vaughn Beering, Alac Justice, Alec Justice, and David Hadley. He got his start in the industry in 1943, working in the C. C. Beck and Pete Costanza studio on that duo's feature Bulletman. In 1944 or 1945, working as a letterer in the comics studio of Jerry Iger, he became acquainted with artist Matt Baker, whom he considered "one of the top illustrators, and a good storyteller". From 1946 to 1951, he worked as an art assistant on various King Features Syndicate comic strips. Katz worked on Thimble Theatre as an assistant artist, working with Bela Zaboly and Louis Trakis. Katz worked briefly on Terry and the Pirates as an assistant to George Wunder. As a "detail man", he came into contact with Hal Foster and Alex Raymond, two of the artists who inspired him most in his early years. Katz has considered Foster his "guiding light" since the age of six and believes Foster laid the foundations for the graphic novel. Raymond praised Katz's illustrative style and said that working in comics was a waste of his time. Stanley Kaye urged Katz to persevere. Katz was inspired by Dean Cornwell and Harvey Dunn's illustrations to put a lot of detail in his work. The intricate style slowed Katz's work pace, and he was let go. He began working at Timely Comics under Stan Lee around 1954. He first found work with Stan Lee at Marvel Comics and worked on books such as Sub-Mariner, Monsters on the Prowl and Adventure into Fear. Katz then worked on House of Secrets and romance comics for DC before moving on to write and illustrate stories for Jim Warren. The story opens on a new, post-nuclear era with tribes fighting for survival on a primitive, fantastic Earth filled with gods and monsters. Gods meddle in human affairs, their appearance, temperament and vices resembling the gods of Ancient Greece. The story spans generations and has a huge cast of characters. It abounds with theories to account for religion, evolution, migration and why humans allow themselves to be distracted from the, "plaguing questions of our existence". The story's protagonist, Tundran, is introduced in Book Four. He overcomes obstacles in order to return to his father's usurped kingdom of Moorengan as a liberator. Along the way he falls in love with Fara, a "transgoddess" incarnate, and their adventures together represent the most linear plot line in the story.

The First Kingdom is the first part of a trilogy, which Katz said would include Space Explorers Club and Destiny. He said the first 20 issues are the introduction to the real Kingdom story in issues #21–24. The chance for humanity to break this cycle comes with the arrival of Queltar in #20, who encourages a select few to join him and embrace their true potential among the stars.

A number of stylistic touches set Katz's illustrative style in Kingdom apart from that of other comic artists. It is highly detailed. All of his human (and humanoid) forms have ideal, heroic bodies rendered with anatomical accuracy; and there are no gutters, with murals filling single-panel pages throughout the work. The quality of Katz's art matures as he progresses further into the story: the panels get larger and he shifts from pen to brush in the fifth book, a suggestion from Jim Steranko. Eisner happily obliged, and in his foreword, he claims the work helped carve a niche for the graphic-novel medium. Both Eisner and Jerry Siegel considered Kingdom to be innovative in many respects. Katz's stated intention in the first issue was to trailblaze, "The work I am undertaking...is the first in a series of books in which I hope to extend the dimension of comics to the potential art form that one of its earliest and greatest artists, Hal Foster, laid down the foundations for." Comics historian R. C. Harvey believes Katz was the "...first person in comics to pursue a personal vision at such length". In 2005, Century Comics (under its former name, Mecca Comics Group) released the first volume of an anticipated four-volume set, collecting issues #1–6. The second volume collected issues #7–12 and followed months later. Century Comics went out of business before it could publish the final two volumes. In May 2013, Titan Comics began reprinting the series in six volumes, remastered from the original art and relettered. For this edition, Katz drew two new chapters for the series, The Space Explorer's Club and Destiny.

Painting In 1956, Katz left the comic book industry and began painting and teaching art in Brooklyn. In September 1962, his work was featured in a one-man show at the Panoras Gallery in Manhattan at 62 West 56th Street. The show received a write-up in The Brooklyn Eagle newspaper. Katz continued to paint through the early 1960s, though there are no records of many of these works.

Katz's painting style, like his comic art style, focuses on human subjects and anatomy. "The figures in the paintings...embrace, entwine, writhe, contort, and suckle. The work blends the realistic with the exaggerated. It is a 1930s, 1940s world, its view unimpeded by fifty years of art trends and theory. The Ashcan School comes to mind." Funded as a Kickstarter project, the book contained various unfinished stories and comic strips by Katz.

In March 2025, Katz's art and personal materials was displayed at Rice University as part of the exhibit, Comics Sans Frontieres Conference at The Moody Center for the Arts.

Rice University donation In March 2025, the Jack Katz and Caroline Gold Collection was donated to the Archives of the Impossible at Rice University by his former wife, Caroline Gold. The collection contains Jack’s original graphic novels, writings and illustrations. It will be available for future study and public access at Woodson Research Center at Rice University.

Awards Katz was one of the recipients of the Inkpot Award in 1976 at San Diego Comic-Con. In 2023 Jack Katz received the Will Eisner Hall of Fame Award at San Diego Comic-Con. Professor Andrew Kunka accepted the award on his behalf and a short acceptance speech was shown on video.

Exhibits

September 1962 - Panoras Gallery - New York City, NY - Solo exhibit of oil paintings. October 2020 - Berkeley, California - "The Golden Age and Beyond". Solo exhibit covering Jack's entire career. March 2025 - Rice University, Houston, Texas - The First Kingdom exhibit at Moody Center for the Arts.

Selected bibliography Comics Archie Comic Publications, Inc. Archie (pencils, inks, 1943)

Fawcett Comics Bulletman (full art, 1943)

Hillman Periodicals Western Fighters (full art, 1949)

Quality Comics Doll Man (inks, c. 1950)

Better/Standard/Pines/Nedor Publications Adventure into Darkness (pencils, 1952–53) Exciting War (pencils, 1952) Lost Worlds (pencils, 1952) New Romances (pencils, 1952) Out of the Shadows (pencils, 1952) The Unseen (pencils, inks, 1952–53)

Feature Comics Black Magic (full art, 1952)

Marvel Comics Annie Oakley (full art, c. 1955) Arrowhead (full art, 1954) Astonishing (full art, mid-1950s) Battle Action (full art, mid-1950s) Battle (full art, 1955) Battlefront (full art, 1954–55) Battleground (full art, 1954–55) Fear (pencils, 1972) Journey into Mystery (full art, 1955) Journey into Unknown Worlds (full art, 1955) Jungle Tales (full art, mid-1950s) Marines in Battle (full art, 1954) Marvel Tales (full art, 1954) Menace (full art, 1954) Monsters on the Prowl (pencils, 1971) My Love (full art, c. 1971) Mystery Tales (full art, 1955) Mystic (full art, 1954) Strange Tales (full art, 1954–55) Sub-Mariner (pencils, 1969) Uncanny Tales (full art, 1954–55) Unknown Jungle (full art, 1954) War Comics (full art, 1955) Western Kid (full art, mid-1950s) Wild Western (full art, mid-1950s)

Skywald Publishing Company Nightmare (pencils, 1970–1973) Psycho (pencils, 1971–1974) Tender Love Stories (pencils, 1971) Zangar (pencils, 1971)

DC Comics Falling in Love (pencils, 1972) Heart Throbs (full art, c. 1972) House of Secrets (pencils, 1972) Love Stories (pencils, 1972–73) Young Love (pencils, 1971) Young Romance (writer, full art, 1972)

Warren Publishing Creepy (writer, full art, 1972)

Comics & Comix Co./Bud Plant Inc. The First Kingdom (writer, artist, 1974–1986)

Pocket Books The First Kingdom (includes #1–6, 191 pages, 1978, )

Mecca Comics Group/Century Comics The First Kingdom, Book 1 (includes #1–6, 198 pages, 2005, ) The First Kingdom, Book 2 (includes #7–12, 2006, ASIN 097666514X)

Graphic Novel Literature Legacy (2009, )

Titan Comics The First Kingdom, Book 1: The Birth of Tundran (includes #1–6, 208 pages, 2013, ) The First Kingdom, Book 2: The Galaxy Hunters (includes #7–12, 208 pages, 2013, ) The First Kingdom, Book 3: Vengeance (includes #13–18, 208 pages, 2014, ) The First Kingdom, Book 4: Migration (includes #19–24, 208 pages, 2014, ) The First Kingdom, Book 5: The Space Explorers Club (160 pages, 2014, ) The First Kingdom, Book 6: Destiny (112 pages, 2014, )

Other works Jack Katz Sketches, Volume 1 Jack Katz Sketches, Volume 2 (2004)

Windcast Publications Anatomy by Jack Katz, Volume One (2nd ed., 152 pages, 2008, )