Jack Kirby, born Jacob Kurtzberg, began his art career in the mid-30s drawing "in-between" panels at Max Fleischer's animation studio, then at the Lincoln Newspaper Syndicate where he drew a number of strips using a variety of pseudonyms. By the late 30s Jack had moved on from syndicate work to free-lancing and illustrating comic books. Jack met Joe Simon at Fox Publications. Joe had already created Blue Bolt and asked Jack to work with him on the title. This led to one of comics’ most important teams. The team produced the first issue of Captain Marvel -- Joe and Jack laying out the stories and Jack tightening up the pencils with his dynamic skills. Jack, with Joe, penciled the first 10 issues of the team’s first truly big comic book success, Captain America. Jack’s pencils gave the character a tremendous impact, and Captain America became one of the most enduring characters of the comic medium. In 1954 the team formed their own company, Mainline Publications. During this period they produced Foxhole, Bullseye and Police Trap, among other titles. When Mainline went under due to distribution problems, Jack began working again at DC Comics. He illustrated the Green Arrow in Adventure Comics, and worked on mystery and science-fiction stories. Jack pencilled a syndicated newspaper strip for the Tribune Syndicate, Skymasters, in a deal arranged by Jack Schiff and inked by Wally Wood. Jack again returned to Marvel where he created or co-created nearly every character Marvel introduced for several years: Fantastic Four, Iron Man, the X-Men, Nick Fury, the Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Avengers, and many others. Later, Jack did more work for DC Comics where he brought forth The New Gods, Kamandi, the Forever People and Mister Miracle. Towards the end of his career, Jack worked on a number of his own projects, such as Captain Victory, for independent comic publishers. Jack Kirby’s comic book career spanned an incredible 70 years, and he was one of comics' most prolific artists.