Better Jack "King" Kirby TV Animation Stuff: Thundarr the Barbarian

I can't leave off my day of Jack Kirby tributes with a slam job on Grantray-Lawrence and some of Marvel's shoddier 1960s offshoots. Let's look at something fun. Something cool. Something nice.

After leaving Marvel a second time in the late 1970s, Kirby did designs for Ruby Spears Productions, contributing secondary characters and villains to their 1980 post-apocalyptic epic Thundarr the Barbarian. Yeah, Thundarr's sword was nothing more than a re-purposed lightsaber and Ookla the Mok was essentially Chewbacca the Wookie, but I loved this show. Come to think of it, perhaps those were major reasons for my fondness for it.

Actually, there was another reason. Although Stever Gerber created the show, and Alex Toth designed the main characters (Princess Ariel is instantly recognizable as Toth's work), Thundarr has a definite Kirby feel to it. The concept is very reminiscent of Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth. Kamandi issue #20 was one of my most-treasured comic books, and there's no way to overestimate its impact on my own storytelling sense and continuing taste for weird, ruined-earth settings; i.e., Planet of the Apes, Ark II, Mad Max and Mark Schultz's brilliant Xenozoic Tales-- the cartoon adaptation of which was reminiscent of both Kamandi and Thundarr, but with dinosaurs instead of Moks.

The stories were pretty exciting, with scripts by comics vets Gerber, Martin Pasko and Mark Evanier. The animation is pretty standard Saturday morning limited stuff, but light years better than The Marvel Superheroes. And Kirby more than likely got paid for his work this time around, so it also has that going for it.

The King on Saturday Morning Television: Marvel "Animation" of the 1960s!

I've really got Jack Kirby on the brain today. Here's a "classic" television cartoon from Grantray-Lawrence Animation. It's an adaptation of The Avengers #4 (March 1964), featuring the story "Capt. America Joins... The Avengers!"

Even by my rather low standards for post-modern ironic love of kitsch, there's little to recommend here beyond the drawings taken directly from Jack Kirby's artwork-- with George Roussos inks-- and the voice acting from none other than John Vernon, who would go on to play the conflicted former Confederate leader Fletcher in Clint Eastwood's action-packed The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) and Delta House's uptight nemesis Dean Wormer in the immortal comedy Animal House (1978).

Hmm. I guess I should mention he also played the mayor in Dirty Harry (1971), also starring Clint Eastwood, but directed by Don Siegel-- who has no connection whatsover to Grantray-Lawrence or Jack Kirby.

I hope Kirby got a royalty or percentage from his contributions to The Marvel Super Heroes-- the images here are exact reproductions of his comic illustrations. The image of Capt. America all covered in seaweed, lying on the bunk with the Wasp hovering overhead is a pretty memorable image from the book. But almost every scene in this cartoon is line-for-line Kirby and the overall effect is similar to what you'd get if you were lying on the floor listening to an audio dramatization from Power Records, holding the booklet inches from your face and tilting it while squinting.

Why do I have this feeling the King got squat, which makes this crap even more depressing?

Another Jack Kirby Interview Video...

This one has an introduction by Harlan Ellison. Remind me one of these days to tell you about the time Ellison got extremely pissed off at me. Not me specifically. I've never met him. But I'm reasonably confident he at one time or another fired a broadside aimed at some group or other of which I'm a member and I survived with just some shrapnel in my shin that aches on rainy days.

Jack Kirby on the Jack Kirby process:

I see that story first. I feel that story first. I know those people first. When I put them down, they've already lived.

It's Probably Best to Let Jack Kirby Speak for Himself...

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Jack Kirby!

It was yesterday. August 28, 1917 saw the birth of one Jacob Kurtzberg. He used a number of artistic pseudonyms early in his art career but soon settled on the name we know best: Jack Kirby. Or, as I like to call him, the King. If you ever hear me using that expression in a conversation, rest assured I'm discussing Jack Kirby and not Elvis Presley.

Unless I'm doing my horrible Presley impression. But you'll know the difference.

Jack Kirby is without a doubt my all-time favorite comic book creator. While there are others whose linework I strive to emulate in my one meagre efforts, Kirby remains my creative gold standard in all other respects. The concepts and characters that sprang from his fertile imagination! And his art is just so cool, with its idiosyncracies and wholly original stylistic elements; he, along with Will Eisner, created the visual vocabulary of the American comic book. Underpinning all of his stories is a love and understanding of humanity no doubt derived from his hardknock New York City upbringing and his formative World War II experiences. Even when Kirby depicted gods in his stories, they were still possessed of all the human frailties.

I believe Kirby, like some of the best American novelists of the 20th century, had this empathetic sense, and the skill to weave it into his stories. You might be rocketing into space with Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm to face the cosmic menace of Galactus in some ridiculous situation-- but the emotions were real. Visceral. Black Bolt walked with regal aloofness, but his enforced silence also meant deep loneliness and isolation. Darkseid contained all the things Kirby disapproved of in leaders, from Hitler to Nixon. Funky Flashman was his version of a the worst kind of glory-hogging, self-aggrandizing huckster boss, yet attractive in his optimism the way these guys usually are. Terrible Turpin and his death wish. Orion and his secret face and barely contained fury, Mr. Miracle and Big Barda the gender-role switched lovers.

Humans all. Kirby's legacy is one of humanism within the might and majesty of outrageous superheroics.

Happy birthday, Jack Kirby! Sorry I missed it!

The Dude Draws Space Ghost...

Steve Rude really knows how to draw Space Ghost, doesn't he? Rude does a lot of commissions-- I believe-- but he also does pieces for reasons of his own. This one, I believe, he originally did in pencil to sell but no one bought it, so he inked it and then colored it with markers. The end result is so much visual fun.

Rude, of course, is an excellent renderer. Anatomy par excellence. But the thing I most admire about his work is his uncanny ability to capture the feel of a character. When he draws Peter Parker ogling Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy, he doesn't swipe poses from John Romita or Gil Kane, but the end result looks as if someone found it while cleaning out an old filing cabinet of late 60s Marvel inventory pieces. When he draws Thor or a member of the Fantastic Four cast, it's as if Jack Kirby himself sat at his right side and offered advice. His Space Ghost drawing evokes Saturday morning in front of the TV, bowl of Cap'n Crunch or Cocoa Pebbles, Mego Star Trek action figure and Mrs. Beasley doll commercials every five to ten minutes.

He doesn't seem to have that same acumen for DC characters for some reason, unless they're ones Kirby created, like Darkseid or Orion. Don't get me wrong-- you get the ace drawings, just not the atmospherics. He does draw a wicked Black Canary and Zatanna, though. Perhaps their mostly black costumes seem to lend themselves to negative space design work and interesting silhouettes, and the Dude rises to the challenge.

Wow! Great! Wash Your Face and Try Again... in 3D Next Time!

bande annonce - Battle Royale 3D バトル・ロワイアル3D 予告編
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BR in 3D. That's right! Toei Company has converted the cult classic Battle Royale into current gimmick format 3D for a November 20th release. I suppose as a 3D skeptic and Battle Royale super-fan I should be outraged or something, but I'm not. I'm happy the movie is getting a re-release. As much as I love this movie, it's not exactly a work of art. We're not talking colorizing Citizen Kane here, and we've already seen special editions and a crappy sequel. Battle Royale is a pulp movie all the way, meant to be watched through partially-closed fingers or else clinging in fear to someone's letterman sweater-- that's how I first experienced it, and man, that guy was pretty angry and surprised-- in a rocking theater full of drunks and carnival rowdies. So I applaud anything that puts it back on the big screen.

My only concern is the visual quality. The movie's cinematography is already on the murky side, and from what I understand, 3D conversions sometimes further darken images. Apparently, that was one of the many, many, many, many, many failings of M. Night Shyamalan's much-derided Last Airbender fiasco. What's the point of a movie known for its groovy ultra-violence by the likes of Aki Maeda, Kou Shibasaki and Chiaki Kuriyama if we can't see all the gore?

By the way, the local Books-A-Million has volume one of Tokyo Pop's hardcover Battle Royale Ultimate Edition. Battle Royale is one of those rare cross-media events where I actually prefer the movie to either the prose novel or the manga. The novel and the comic lack Maeda, Shibasaki and Kuriyama for starters.

But more importantly, I find the novel's English translation flaccid. It doesn't help that the plot is pretty repetitive-- unless you like detailed descriptions of weaponry followed by flatly-written death scenes, forty or so of them. It's been a while since I read it, but it was a slog and I'm not sure what happened to my copy. Big disappointment.

The comic, with Keith Giffen's localization, more than makes up for the book's dullness by turning almost every character into an over-the-top deviant, pervert or baby whore. To call the results lurid is to understate them. I tried to hold out long enough to reach the Takako Chigusa sequence-- that's where Chiaki Kuriyama made her cinematic bones and earned the part of Gogo Yubari in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill-- but gave up in despair and disgust a chapter or so short of my goal.

The movie more wisely generates pure horror by depicting most of the kids-- with a few notable exceptions-- as pretty much your average, ordinary 9th graders. After all, its tagline is, "Could you kill your best friend?" Sure, if she's a psychotic extortionist and casual murderer who pimps me out to yakuza hoods. I'd kill her twice! But otherwise? No, definitely not.