John Schork

Jack Kirby is very probably the single most influential figure in the history of American comics. He produced countless stories in a career that spanned seven decades, inventing and re-inventing genres and styles every step of the way. He inspired generations of artists and writers; created and co-created thousands of characters; defined the visual vocabulary of superheroes; and believed in the potential of comics to be both entertainment and art, long before most people imagined these stories would be remembered past the four weeks that they sat on newsstands. This week would have been Kirby’s 97th birthday, so to celebrate, we asked some of our favorite creators and other comic pros to contribute their impressions of his characters, life, and legacy – and the response has been overwhelming. Yesterday, we posted the first set of these all-star tributes, and here's the second, even more expansive selection!

There had certainly been plenty of heavily-merchandised blockbusters before, but the Batman '89 phenomenon affected pop culture in so many ways and crept into every dimension of commercial entertainment. Twenty-five years ago, it was just always there; part of the atmosphere of the era, reflected wherever you turned. From candy-filled Keaton heads in supermarket checkout aisles, to endless souvenir magazines on newsstands, to articles in newspapers and magazines, to the packs of trading cards and stickers on countertops, to Batmobile toys in Happy Meals, the entire world had gone Batty. Twenty-five years later, we've reached out to some of our favorite creators and entertainers to look back on the summer of Batman.

In the interest of adding to "the long list of things that weren’t gonna photoshop themselves," Director of Publicity for Oni Press John Schork recently took to his personal Tumblr account to gift humankind with one of the most breathtaking mashups of our time. Jack Kirby + Taco Bell = Jack Kirby's Fourth Meal.

Growing up in Kansas, the hate-mongering picket practices of Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church were an almost omnipresent source of annoyance, so I was happy to discover that Oni Press had taken note of the group's noted interest in comic book culture by sending them an envelope full of reading material. What kind of reading material, you ask? Try half a dozen copies of The Auteur #1 by