13. A high school drop out who worked in the low-rent world of comic books and TV animation, Kirby knew that the markers of class & ethnic origin were not easily erased & the brutal bargain meant betrayal of family & friends. That's in fact an obsessive them in his work.

14. Kiby's rocky superhero The Thing (from Fantastic Four) is often seen as an ultra-ego: with his working class diction, roughneck demeanor & origins in Yancy Street. The Thing with his obdurate frame can also be seen as marker of Kirby's recognition that identity is not easily erased