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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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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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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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2023 Viewing (Q4)

Long overdue: the viewings for the approx last quarter of 2023. Previous viewings @ here.

Haven’t felt much like blogging for some time (hardly anyone reads this thing & the Internet in general has become something I really dislike—a rant for another time, mebbe!), but this is a tradition now. Onwards.

The Rockford Files seasons 1-3 (DVD)
Starsky & Hutch seasons 1-2 (DVD)
Columbo seasons 3-10 (DVD)
The Deputy season 1 (download)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series 2 (DVD)
The Return of Sherlock Holmes series 1-2 (DVD)
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes series 1-3 (DVD)
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes series 1 (DVD)
Reacher season 1 (download)
Tulsa King season 1 (download)

Some commentary…

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David Soul

I was very sorry to hear of David Soul’s passing just recently. It reminded me of back in 2020, when, halfway through watching the original (best!) James Bond movies, Sean Connery passed on. This time we were in the middle of watching the complete Starsky & Hutch series.

About that series… of course, it’s a mixed bag. It started out very, very gritty, but it seems they quickly realised with a strong younger audience they should probably dial that aspect back a bit. But never fully, which means by the third season we still get very edgy, adult episodes side-by-side with absurdly camp, jokey nonsense. At its best, Starksy & Hutch is superb—at its worst, the cheesiness is off the scale.

Starsky & Hutch

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2023 Viewing (Q3)

That time again! The previous viewings are here. This is the old TV stuff we watched in the third quarter of 2023…

(NOTE: Yes, I know this is about three weeks early. There was a lot to cover and I just felt like it. OK? Thanks!)

The Fugitive season 4 (DVD)
Kojak season 5 (DVD)
Harry O season 2 (download)
Kojak: The Belarus File TV movie (DVD)
Kojak: The Price of Justice TV Movie (DVD)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series 1 (DVD)
Columbo seasons 1-2 (DVD)
Lonesome Dove TV mini-series (DVD)
Broken Trail TV mini-series (Blu-ray)

Yes, ’twas very sad farewells to both The Fugitive and Kojak. We still have the five “season six” movies from 1989-90 to watch for Baldy, though. As to Doctor Kimble…

Fugitive Finale
Kimble stalks the one-armed man in the finale of THE FUGITIVE (1967).

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Moonlight Shadows Cover (What If)

If you’ve been tuning in regularly, you’ll have seen the written extracts from Moonlight Shadows, my unfinished Lon Chaney Jr book (here and here)… recently, by way of producing some new work samples—because I really need to upgrade my portfolio soon—I did a new version of the cover for the book. (No, I’m not thinking about finishing the book off! But never say never…)

Moonlight Shadows 2023

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2023 Viewing (Q1-2)

OK, let’s cover the first two quarters of 2023—that’s half a year! 2023 is half-over, already! It never stops. The previous viewings are here, as ever. This is the antique episodic TV we’ve watched so far this year…

The Fugitive seasons 2-3 (DVD)
Kojak seasons 1-4 (DVD)
The Munsters season 2 (DVD)
The Invaders season 2 (DVD)
Harry O season 1 (download)

It was watching the original Kojak TV movie, The Marcus Nelson Murders (1973), which is a terrific and very gritty film based on real events, which prompted a full rewatch of the ’70s classic…

Telly Savalas Kojak

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