The 25 page document titled “Three Presentations” by “Jack Kirby & Ted Pedersen” contains some rare Kirby pencil art for “RAAM” and “The Golden Age of Prester John.” A third presentation, “Time Diver,” doesn’t include any illustrations.

Prester John, a legendary character popular from the 12th through the 15th centuries in Europe, was also used by Kirby in “Whosoever Finds The Evil Eye!” published in Martin Goodman’s June 1966 Fantastic Four 54.

The two scans below illustrated the Museum’s Newsletter in John Morrow’s Spring 2011 Jack Kirby Collector 56; also in that issue were better scans of the RAAM art, which Jack dated 1972.

Coincidentally, John printed a letter from Shaun Casey of Kenmore, WA who knew Ted Pedersen, who passed away in 2010. Shaun included a condensation of some emails they exchanged regarding Kirby. Apparently, Kirby was Pedersen’s writing partner’s neighbor in Thousand Oaks. Pedersen also says he, Kirby and SF writer Jack Vance pitched a series that CBS was interested in, but never bought. Pedersen also says he introduced Kirby to Ruby-Spears.

It woud be interesting to learn more about the timing of these events. Please contact us either through email or in the comments to this post, if you can provide some insight.

The Golden Age Of Prester John pencil art photocopy

The Golden Age Of Prester John details pencil art photocopy

Three Presentations cover

So I’m looking through the pages and pages of photocopies in the museum’s holdings, this one batch being in an 8 1/2 by 11 three-hole looseleaf binder, and one piece jumps out at me – a pitch page from the Big Barda And Her Female Furies comic.

I contact John Morrow, who’d never seen it, so we spend some time deciphering the poorly photocopied pencil marks at the top of the page. We come up with:

“Barda and gals bring Lump to Earth with them. [illegible…] powerful, the Lump has an inferiority complex–and the gals try to help him overcome it, while the Lump helps them out of scrapes… traps…”

“Barda and gals run “Beauty Rock” island we talked about–which is center for spy activity–and paid for by free nation govts.”

“Island is cover for military training base for gals–”

Barda was eventually introduced in Mister Miracle 4, Lump in Mister Miracle 7, the Female Furies in Mister Miracle 8, Head in Mister Miracle 10, and Apollo was introduced in OMAC 7.

John published the pitch page in his Spring 2011 Jack Kirby Collector 56.

I suspect Kirby created a third page detailing Barda and the Furies themselves, but we’ll just have enjoy what we’ve seen so far.

Barda And her Female Furies presentation pencil art photocopy

Big Barda And Her Female Furies original pencil art