Wikipedia:Peer review/Jack Kirby/archive1

Jack Kirby

This peer review discussion has been closed.

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for June 2009.

I've listed this article for peer review because Jack should be a GA, and has potential to go up to FA. I recently put it up for GAN, but I now accept that it still requires a lot of work to get it where it needs to be. Anything from the recent failed GAN you want to reiterate or anything you think the reviewer missed or got wrong? There are plenty of sourcing issues. Any suggestions you can provide would be helpful (where to look, any books you know of). Anything else you think this article needs to really help it shine, be bold and speak up.

Thanks, BOZ (talk) 02:16, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is interesting, especially the first half of the article, but it's a long way from GA. My impression is that the sourcing and the writing deteriorate from "Marvel Comics in the Silver Age (1958-1970)" to the end. I have quite a few specific suggestions, most of them related to prose or the Manual of Style, and many of these carry over in a general way to the second half. In addition, I have concerns about the lack of sourcing and related matters in the second half.

Lead

• "During the 1940s, Kirby would create a number of comics for various publishers, often teamed with Simon." - "created" rather than "would create"?

Early life (1917-1935)

• Date ranges get en dashes rather than hyphens, thus: 1917–1935. Ditto for all date ranges in the article.

Entry into comics (1936-1940

• "Per his own sometimes-unreliable memory... " - "According to" rather than "per"?
• "However, he took offense to those who suggested he changed his name... " - Suggestion: "took offense to suggestions that"?

Marriage and World War II (1943-1945)

• "The pair hired writers, inkers, letters, and colorists in order to create a year's worth of material." - Wikilink inkers? Also, letterers (linked) rather than "letters"? Also, wikilink colorists?
• "landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy on August 23... " - Word missing, maybe "He"?
• "Kirby and his wife corresponded regularly by v-mail, with Roz sending "him a letter a day" while she worked in a lingerie shop and lived with her mother." - The "with" connector is questionable. Suggestion: "Kirby and his wife corresponded regularly by v-mail. Roz sent "him a letter a day" while she worked in a lingerie shop and lived with her mother."

Postwar career (1946-1955)

• "After returning from the army, Kirby's first daughter, Susan, was born on December 6, 1945." - Susan didn't return from the army. Suggestion: "After Kirby returned from the army, his first daughter... "
• "the kid-gang western Boys' Ranch " - To separate the two linked items, perhaps Boys' Ranch, a kid-gang Western? After the change, you might want to use some semicolon separators in the sentence to make it easily readable.
• "Showing it to Crestwood general manager Maurice Rosenfeld, Simon asked for 50%... " - The Manual of Style suggests using "percent" rather than the symbol in simple constructions like this. Ditto for 92% shortly thereafter. I see that you've used "percent" in some places and not in others.
• Initially published bimonthly, Young Romance quickly became a monthly title and produced the spin-off Young Love — together the two titles sold two million copies per month, according to Simon[33] — later joined by Young Brides and In Love, the latter "featuring full-length romance stories". - A bit too complicated. Suggestion: Initially published bimonthly, Young Romance quickly became a monthly title and produced the spin-off Young Love. Together the two titles sold two million copies per month, according to Simon, and were later joined by Young Brides and In Love, the latter "featuring full-length romance stories".
• "Despite the glut, the Simon & Kirby... " - Generally "and" is preferred to the ampersand. Ditto in the image caption. Also, the phrase appears in the caption as Kirby & Simon but here as Simon & Kirby. Maybe Kirby and Simon would be best.
• "had relaunched Captain America in a new series, in 1954, Kirby and Simon created Fighting American" - It's not clear from this whether 1954 refers to the re-launching or to the creation. If the latter, you could make this clear by removing the comma after 1954.

Marvel Comics in the Silver Age (1958-1970)

• "The landmark series became a hit that revolutionized the industry with its comparative naturalism and, eventually, a cosmic purview informed by Kirby's seemingly boundless imagination — one coincidentally well-matched with the consciousness-expanding youth culture of the 1960s." - This sentence struck me as oddly polished, which led me to notice that it and the paragraph that includes it is not sourced and should be. A good rule of thumb is to source every paragraph as well as any statistics, any direct quote, and any claim that might reasonably be questioned. Is this sentence by any chance a direct quote? Is it an instance of plagiarism; that is, an instance of copying someone else's work without giving credit?

• Quotations of four lines or more should appear in blockquotes rather than fancy quotes. WP:MOSQUOTE has details. Ditto for the quotations in fancy quotes later in the article. Quotations of less than four lines should be embedded in the text in ordinary quotation marks.

Final years and death (1981-1994)

• Orphan paragraphs consisting of only one or two sentences should generally be merged with other paragraphs or expanded.

References

• Quite a few of these are incomplete.
• Page ranges, just like date ranges, get en dashes rather than hyphens.

I hope you find these suggestions helpful. Finetooth (talk) 20:39, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! :) BOZ (talk) 22:40, 17 June 2009 (UTC)