See this earlier post for more background on THUNDARR.

“City of Evil” is a second season episode, opening with Thundarr and company chasing an evil wizard to retrieve a guantlet of power. The gauntlet is the most Kirbyesque element of the episode, with one close-up that seems to be taken straight from Kirby’s design. I’ll try to get a screen capture of it. Anyway, they defeat the wizard and return the gauntlet to its rightful owner, but the wizard then finds a shrunken city full of scientists and plans to use the power of the gauntlet to restore the city and rule the world. Another good Kirbyesque element in the episode shows up later when the shrunken residents of the city attack in tiny flying sleds.

Fun episode, with some clever ideas and neat visuals.

PRISONERS OF GRAVITY was a half-hour TV show hosted by Rick Green that was produced for the public television station TVOntario from 1989 to 1994 and discussed various topics from comic books and science fiction. In 1993 they ran a full show devoted to Jack Kirby.

The highlights of the episode are obviously the clips from an interview with Kirby. He looks a lot frailer than he did in the earlier interviews I’ve seen, and talks a bit more hesitatingly, but he still seems sharp and seems to enjoy talking about his experiences. He talks about his childhood, the creation of Captain America, his interest in mythic gods and his importance of the love of his family.

The show also has clips with various other creators talking about Kirby (full list below). Especially nice was the clip of Will Eisner telling the oft-repeated (including in Eisner’s THE DREAMER) story about Kirby standing up to the mob towel service back in the Eisner/Iger studio days. Max Allan Collins also tells a nice story about getting to play his tribute to Kirby song “King Jack” with his band Seduction of the Innocent for the Kirbys in San Diego. It’s a nice selection of clips giving a range of reactions to Kirby and his influence.

Repeats of the program currently run in Canada on BookTV, although it’s an edited version to allow for commercials, so part of the Kirby interview is removed in thie episode. I know the show has been syndicated to American markets in the past, although I don’t know if it is currently. They also used ciips from the Kirby interview on a few later episodes.

Producer Mark Askwith singles out his Kirby interview as one of his favourites, and talks about the experience, over on this retrospective article about the series.

A full episode guide is available, and contains this original episode description.

471013 JACK KIRBY AIRDATE: JANUARY 7/93

This week’s episode of Prisoners of Gravity pays tribute to Jack Kirby, the man whose dynamic art style redefined superhero comics when he co-created Captain America in 1941. In the early 1960’s Jack Kirby and Stan Lee created The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk and Thor — characters who now form the core of the Marvel Comics Universe. Kirby and his work are praised by Will Eisner, creator of The Spirit; Walt Simonson, the writer/artist who inherited Thor and The Fantastic Four at Marvel Comics; and Scott McCloud, writer/artist of Zot! Also featuring comic book creators Max Allan Collins (writer, Ms. Tree), Kevin Eastman (co-creator, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Len Wein (writer, The Uncanny X-Men), Dave Gibbons (artist, Watchmen), with Canadian fantasy writer Charles de Lint (Spiritwalk) and science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany (Dhalgren).

A transcript of just the Kirby interview parts of the show was printed in TJKC #14 (reprinted in COLLECTED JKC #3).

BOB was a short-lived series starring Bob Newhart that ran from 1992 to 1993. During the first season, Newhart played a veteran comic book artist, Bob MaKay, returning to the industry to draw a revival of his character Mad Dog (the comic book angle and most of the supporting cast was dropped for the brief second season before the series was cancelled for good).

The 15th episode, broadcast on January 29, 1993, was titled “You Can’t Win” and had the cast attend a comic industry awards presentation, the fictional “Busters”, and featured several real world comic creators in cameo roles, including Jack Kirby (the others were Sergio Aragones, Bob Kane, Mel Keefer, Mell Lazarus, Jim Lee and Marc Silvestri).

In Kirby’s cameo, he’s introduced as the creator of Captain America by Lazarus and shown, wearing a tuxedo, rising from his seat (with Roz Kirby sitting next to him). Later he’s shown at the podium, with a sign showing his signature and Captain Victory behind him, announcing one of the fictional characters as the winner for best cover artist. The Kirbys are also placed so they can be seen in the background of several shots of the table of the show cast.

This 1987 documentary directed by Ken Viola features interviews with ten comic book artists. Kirby is the third of them, with a one minute introduction by Harlan Ellison followed by four minutes of Kirby talking, with a mix of Kirby artwork and video of Kirby speaking on the screen.

It’s a fun but far too brief interview, very interesting especially for those of us who didn’t get a chance to meet him. He talks about his motivations in coming up with the new and different, things that hadn’t been done in comics before, to generate sales, and the biblical inspirations behind Galactus and the Silver Surfer. As he said, he was “a guy that lives with a lot of questions”, and while he didn’t come up with any answers to the big ones, he explored them in comics better than anyone.

Well worth checking out if you can as probably the most easily available video of Kirby, as well as such odd things as Ditko doing a voice-over about his beliefs over some Mr. A artwork.