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Jack Kirby at Ruby-Spears: Arnold Schwarzenegger?!

As many of you will know, comics legend Jack “King” Kirby worked for the Ruby-Spears animation studio from 1980 to 1987. This commenced with production design for Steve Gerber’s Thundarr the Barbarian (1980-81), after initial design man Alex Toth left the project due to one of his patented disagreements with various people!

As well as generating original ideas such as Thundarr, R-S also dabbled in licensed properties—Kirby had worked on conceptual art for possible comics-related shows involving Thor (1981), Wonder Woman and Hawkman (both 1983), amongst others. None of these went into production, alas. In 1988, just after Kirby left the studio, they did do a quite well-done Superman show, which sadly lasted only 13 episodes, but boasted Marv Wolfman as script editor and Gil Kane as production designer. Kirby may have worked on this if he’d stayed a while longer…

R-S also licensed a series of shows which used real-life celebrity likenesses—Mister T (1983-86), Rambo: The Force of Freedom and Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos (both 1986). Kirby did indeed draw some production art on all three.

Sad to say, in the last couple of years he worked for R-S, Kirby’s work was in serious decline—several years of struggling with essential tremors had taken a heavy toll on his ability to work, and his art had become quite rudimentary, even crude at times. One reason Gil Kane was brought on board was to develop and refine Kirby’s designs, which frequently were deemed unsuitable at this point… Kane gave the ideas, as he put it himself, a better level of “representational” value.

Anyhow, to get to the point: towards the very end of Kirby’s R-S stint, around 1987, it appears that they were trying to get an idea off the ground involving Arnold Schwarzenegger! It makes sense, after doing Rambo and Chuck Norris—Arnie was one of the biggest action guys of the era. The show never happened, but there’s some interesting Kirby art in support of it to peruse…

Arnold Schwarzenegger 01
Let’s overlook the fact that Jack didn’t know how to spell Schwarzenegger…

What can we gather from this? Arnie is a good guy (natch), and he sports some interesting gadgets—his badge has a “time wheel” powered by his belt, which presumably enables him to teleport across space and time.

More Arnie art below!

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Behind-the-Scenes of Tik & Flea

Tik & Flea is a newspaper-style strip I’m working on, which I’ll be posting on my Patreon page periodically (please consider signing up—even better, joining a paid tier to help support me doing this stuff!), based on the fab adventures of Tikki and Kila. I recently wrote a behind-the-scenes piece about it for an aborted e-zine I was playing around with; I decided to repost it here…

Working on Tik & Flea 1
At work on the second version of the first TIK & FLEA strip!

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2024 Viewing (Q1-2)

Just to catch up on what we watched, in terms of mostly old television, during the first half of this year! Previous viewings are here.

The Rockford Files seasons 4-6 (DVD)
Mission: Impossible seasons 1-4 (DVD)
Starsky & Hutch seasons 3-4 (DVD)
Dragnet (1967-70) seasons 1-4 (download)
Kojak season 6 (1989/90) (download)
Maverick seasons 1-2 (download)
The Deputy season 2 (download)
Bat Masterson seasons 2-3 (download)
Jesse Stone movie series (2005-15) (DVD)
Reacher season 2 (download)

I don’t necessarily think these posts are the most interesting to readers… but, it has become a kind of “log” for me anyway. Nonetheless, to try to make it slightly more interesting, a bit of commentary follows…

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Tod Slaughter Take 2

Following up this post… I did a Tod Slaughter commission back in April, and the postal service lost it in transit. So, I started work on a replacement.

Anyhow, shockingly enough, the postal dopes eventually found the original, and sent it back to me! In doing so, they did manage at some point to damage the well-packaged artwork (albeit fairly minimally), just to add extra insult. Cue rant about incompetence and overpriced services.

So, I completed the second version last week (a few obstacles in recent weeks slowed things down), and will be remailing TWO pieces to the commissioner shortly. Perhaps a steel envelope is needed this time. As it happens, I think this new one is better.

Tod Slaughter Take 2 (2024)

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About Neil

(Also Known As: Overrated Writers I Hate #1. Maybe.)

I have no idea whether or not the allegations against our beloved, saintly Lord Neil of Gaiman have any validity. It wouldn’t necessarily surprise me, but I’m happy to be on the fence.

However, it’s not the worst time to indulge my view about his character and his work. I believe the two, being more or less inseparable, are best summed up with the word charlatan. I’ve spent 30-odd years being astounded (and quite disappointed) by the amount of praise and gushing idolatry directed at this insufferably smug, annoyingly fey, all-appeasing goon. His work is, without doubt, amongst the most shallow, meaningless, insincere and vacuous ever to be published to significant acclaim.

Neil Gaiman
LOVELY NEIL… having teased every single strand of his pseudo-scruffy hair with tender, loving care, all the more to maximise the gothic, windswept image he’s so carefully manufactured—gorgeous.

Worst of all, his powerful influence upon comics, and indeed the whole of pop culture, hasn’t a single redeeming quality. The influence is gigantic, pernicious, leeringly oppressive. It swept along a whole generation (several generations?) of disenfranchised youth looking for something to buy into (even if it was a big fat nothing)—and an awful lot of insecure, older nerds got swept along too, with the seductive allure of being part of something the “cool kids” approved of. And that was crux of it. Gaiman came up with a marketing strategy. Not a “creative vision”—a posture and an image, a vibe that would sell itself to a particular set of receptive sensibilities vulnerabilities.

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Births & Deaths

So, as almost all horror fans know, today is the birthday of both Vincent Price and Christopher Lee… and just yesterday was Peter Cushing’s date of birth, by odd coincidence.

Lee, Price & Cushing, 1982
Christopher Lee, Vincent Price and Peter Cushing—publicity shot from 1982, during the shoot for HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS.

Also, for me, a significant day for losses. On this day back in 2006, we not only lost the legendary cartoonist Alex Toth—my mother also passed away. Has it really been 18 years? Not to me. Time makes no sense these days.

A few pics of mom, anyhow, as I was scanning & restoring some old family photos a while ago. (Need to do more.)

Mom as a baby, 1943
Vintage baby shot of my mother!

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Underrated Artists I Love #2: Herb Trimpe

This has been a long time coming, and, for me, an obvious choice! You can see #1 here.

Ah, Herb Trimpe. Some people actually don’t like Herb’s work—and some people dismiss him simply as a “Jack Kirby Clone”. These people are horribly & completely wrong. I found Herb in the mid-’70s, as a little kid, in UK reprints of his Hulk stories via the weekly Mighty World of Marvel. In spite of initially reading his last name as “tripe” (yeah, yeah, those people above would agree!) (I was just learning to read at the time), I immediately took to his work—and I’ve never changed my mind.

Incidentally: as any real fan knows, Herb’s last name rhymes with shrimpy.

If you’re with me thus far, I’ll assume you agree that Herb Trimpe was an awesome Hulk artist. Here’s Herb’s back cover for Marvel Treasury Edition #5 (1975), which is a fine example of how good a match H & H were…

Marvel Treasury Edition #5 back cover
Someone made him angry…

I still have vivid memories of seeing this book, bearing a striking front cover by John Romita of Hulk charging through a brick wall (see it here), displayed on a newsstand inside the Mander Centre in Wolverhampton, while out shopping with my Aunt Winnie sometime in ’76. The Hulk—the “sympathetic monster” version—had a lot of appeal to me as a Monster Kid and a huge King Kong fan. Anyhow, more about Herb…

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Ranked: David Bowie Albums

So, folks, should this be the first in a series? Ranking albums by a particular artist? What do you think? Maybe I’ll do it again! First up, it had to be BOWIE. Of course. Who else?

So: I’m ranking what I take to be the THIRTY studio albums by David Bowie. Some people might exclude the Tin Machine albums or the Labyrinth soundtrack, but I think they’re significant enough to count as canon. Okay?

Let’s begin with NUMBER THIRTY…

(IOW, the worst Bowie album!)

Never Let Me Down (1987)

30. Never Let Me Down (1987)

The infamous “Phil Collins” period of Bowie, as some fans call it. “Day-in Day-Out” and “Time Will Crawl” are pretty strong singles, but the overwhelming ’80s production and lack of conviction make this undoubtedly his worst album.

 

Tin Machine II (1991)

29. Tin Machine II (1991)

I’m one of those bad fans who thinks Bowie’s period of “being in a band” (1989-91) was pretty dull, even if he psychologically benefitted. This, the second TM album, has exposed genitals on its cover—and its contents are, indeed, largely bollocks.

 

Hours (1999)

28. Hours (1999)

This late ’90s effort almost comes to life in spots, but Bowie seems weary and directionless. I do believe he was struggling to find his muse at this point. Listless and tiresome.

 

Tonight (1984)

27. Tonight (1984)

“Loving the Alien” and “Blue Jean” are extremely great single cuts, but the lows of this album are truly abominable. Bowie murders the Beach Boys classic “God Only Knows”, and turns Iggy Pop’s “Tonight” into a hideous reggae duet with Tina Turner.

 

Earthling (1997)

26. Earthling (1997)

You could argue that Bowie dabbling in drum & bass is an interesting experiment. But personally, it isn’t anything I needed to hear. The cover is embarrassing. “I’m Afraid of Americans” (and its video) is excellent, but otherwise a fairly sad exercise.

 
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American Recordings

Not only is today Fred the Elder’s 30th birthday—on the day he was born, the first of Johnny Cash’s final six-album run with producer Rick Rubin, American Recordings, was unleashed.

I am bit of a Johnny Cash fan (ie. I own about 20 of his albums!), so I didn’t want to pass this without a mention…

American Recordings Cover
The dogs are named Sin and Redemption, BTW.

30 years? Really? Below is the unforgettable video for lead single “Delia’s Gone”…

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