New York Kartoon Kaption Kontest Entry Kredited to Kirby!

We recently did a couple of posts on a New Yorker cartoon caption contest that featured a cartoon by Harry Bliss that was a direct lift from an old Jack Kirby comic book cover.

The 'toon was a fun homage to the King, but didn't credit its original source. But now, thanks to Kirby fan Tom Lammers, it does! Check out the new attribution:

Drawing by Harry Bliss, after Jack Kirby

Way to go Tom! I'm hoping the Kirby Kredit also appears in the print edition of The New Yorker when the winning caption is selected.

UPDATE! The New York Post has an article about Lammers' efforts to get Kirby kredited by The New Yorker.

Thomas Lammers, a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh, said he thought the cartoon looked familiar.

He then dug out the original from his collection, which had the same monster as the New Yorker cartoon and the same background.

He said he e-mailed the magazine about the similarities two weeks ago, but never heard back. He said the editors "probably had no idea what the source" of the image was when they saw the cartoon, but the lack of any credit to Kirby in the piece stuck in his craw.

"This is a guy who was a very popular comic-book artist. He co-created the Fantastic Four and a lot of other things people made a lot of money off of, and never got proper credit then, and isn't getting proper credit now," he said.

New Yorker spokeswoman Alexa Cassanos said the magazine contacted Bliss, a Kirby fan who said he'd done the piece as an homage to the artist nicknamed "King."

"Harry did it with all good intentions. He thought it was an overt reference, and not an attempt to plagiarize. He thought it was a tribute," Cassanos said. "To people in the comic world, it's a recognizable image."