Rare Prester John pencil art

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.

One thought on “Rare Prester John pencil art

  1. james

    FF #54 has long been one of my favorites of Jack’s run. It is a great example of his peak form in a particularly inventive issue that also humanized the characters, from the baseball game at the beginning to the Black Panther’s expensive hi-tech gifts to the FF including an excellent rolling gyroscopic bubble, to the depiction of Prester John is his chair.
    No doubt a lot of fans asked Jack over the years, “Prester John was the coolest. What happened?”

    Reply

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