u/taoistchainsaw

Shared by Rodriguez on FB!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1HwGM5kgSr/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Compiled and shared by Ferran Delgado on FB: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1GfSnxuFes/?mibextid=i

Delgado on FB: These are the complete 26 Sunday strips adapting The Black Hole movie. The horizontal distribution of the original art allowed to rearrange the panels in vertical format, and sometimes it was published only half of it in some newspapers.

I mainly used the strips posted in this site linked, but I did a quick digital cleaning and I added a few pieces of original art, the unused previous piece and a sample of the sketches supplied to Kirby by Disney:
https://tainthemeat.wordpress.com/2018/09/03/black-hole-jack-kirby/
The source is quite bad but at least it allows to read them and took a glimpse, while waiting for a definitive edition.

In this site you can see some pages of the French edition released at the same time as the movie with European color which was superior:
https://whosoutthere.ca/2023/03/07/into-the-black-hole-with-kirby-and-royer/

You can download them as PDF in the "Files" section of this group.

Michael Royer: "As a point of interest (or none at all), I designed and drew the Sunday page BLACK HOLE title panel as well as lettering, correcting robots and inking. I have a full set of B&W proofs if any one is interested in putting them into print. Offered to loan them to IDW but I guess they weren’t interested. My price must have been too high. Two comp copies of whatever they printed. LOL >sigh<"

(1-13) https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1GfSnxuFes/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Compiled and shared by Ferran Delgado on FB:

These are the complete 26 Sunday strips adapting The Black Hole movie. The horizontal distribution of the original art allowed to rearrange the panels in vertical format, and sometimes it was published only half of it in some newspapers.

I mainly used the strips posted in this site linked, but I did a quick digital cleaning and I added a few pieces of original art, the unused previous piece and a sample of the sketches supplied to Kirby by Disney:
https://tainthemeat.wordpress.com/2018/09/03/black-hole-jack-kirby/
The source is quite bad but at least it allows to read them and took a glimpse, while waiting for a definitive edition.

In this site you can see some pages of the French edition released at the same time as the movie with European color which was superior:
https://whosoutthere.ca/2023/03/07/into-the-black-hole-with-kirby-and-royer/

You can download them as PDF in the "Files" section of this group.

Michael Royer: "As a point of interest (or none at all), I designed and drew the Sunday page BLACK HOLE title panel as well as lettering, correcting robots and inking. I have a full set of B&W proofs if any one is interested in putting them into print. Offered to loan them to IDW but I guess they weren’t interested. My price must have been too high. Two comp copies of whatever they printed. LOL >sigh<"

Ferran Delgado on FB:

Short after doing the storyboards for the 1978 FF animated series, Disney hired Kirby at request of Mike Royer to adapt the movie "The Black Hole" as newspaper strip, in his return to a medium he bowed never to return after the Sky Masters fiasco.

The Sundays were produced from layouts provided by Disney, and the adaptation lasted 26 Sundays.

The site https://whosoutthere.ca/2023/03/07/into-the-black-hole-with-kirby-and-royer/ posted a few comments by Mike Royer, who inked, lettered and fixed the robots of the strip.

RG: Mr. Royer, I’ve long been baffled as to why Disney (or Western Publishing, at any rate), thought it necessary to commission two separate comics adaptations of The Black Hole. I’ve always surmised that Kirby was considered too wild for them, but that’s just speculation on my part.

Since you were working for Disney at the time, and you inked the Kirby adaptation, I presume that you played some kind of role behind the scenes as well. Could you share some of the facts with me (and my readers)?

MR: Jack Kirby was selected to draw THE BLACK HOLE Sunday comic strip on MY recommendation. Gold Key editors always selected their OWN artist for similar licensed material… plus they were in no position to pay their artist the fee I got Jack. I inked and lettered HOLE and made necessary changes to the robots to protect the image for toy, etc. sales trademarks. Jack was an impressionist and I made the robots “on model.”

Jack became so bored with the scripts, that were done “storyboard” like by someone who had NO understanding of how to make comic art interesting and exciting, that he asked me to layout the FINAL Sunday page, which I did. I had told the powers that be at Disney that Jack must get his originals back but, of course, being Disney, they did not return them as they had promised. Jack only got the remaining pages not yet sold by the Circle Galleries after threatening Disney with a lawsuit. Disney gave me one of the Sunday originals because someone had spilled a cup of coffee on it.

The head of our Creative Services dept. at Disney was not a big fan of Kirby* and after I had inked the first Sunday he had another staff artist “fix” the faces, which stood out like what they became: inept changes. I yelled “DON’T CHANGE THE FACES!” They gave in to my warning.

It was an interesting time back then. Bob Foster and I were the ONLY artists in Creative Services who had worked in comic books and strips. They would never take our word about things until our department head, Bob and I, were on a conference call with Sylvan Beck (King Features Strip Editor in New York) and then they believed what we had to say about the ways a Sunday strip could be drawn to fit many formats. It was very frustrating at times knowing more than your “bosses.”. But… it is the same old story. Middle management was loaded with MBAs who didn’t know shit from shinola! We used to joke that if one had an MBA anyone could get hired at Disney… You didn’t have to know a damn thing about anything else except how to get the MBA.

Image captions:

1. Unpublished sample by Richard Sparky Moore and Mike Royer that was discarded after hiring Kirby.

2. The format allowed to get published as half page and full vertical page. Sunday dated Oct 28, 1979.

3. Sample of the layouts Kirby got from Disney. After a while, Kirby was awfully bored to work from these.
   Sample courtesy of JKC #74.

4. Sunday from TCJ #134. Published Sunday from the net.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18z393JMFz/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Six Legged goat needs his own goddamn cartoon, comic series, and movies. I love you six legged goat!

1. CREATURE CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - SIX-LEGGED GOAT ILLUSTRATION.

2. CREATURE CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN -TIGER MUTANT ON SLIDE ILLUSTRATION

3. GADGET CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - FLURREN'S MYSTIC MIRROR ILLUSTRATION.

4. LOCATION CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - CAPITOL DOME IN D.C. ILLUSTRATION

5. LOCATION CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - DIONA'S SECRET CHAMBER INSIDE MT. RUSHMORE ILLUSTRATION.

6. LOCATION CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - FLURREN'S DEN ILLUSTRATION

7. LOCATION CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - FUN HOUSE TURNING BARREL ILLUSTRATION

8. LOCATION CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - INSIDE AZTEC PYRAMID ILLUSTRATION

9. LOCATION CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - RAT CHIEF'S CHAMBER OF SORCERY ILLUSTRATION.

10. LOCATION CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - SPOOKY CATACOMBS ILLUSTRATION.

11. VEHICLE CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - ANCIENT PERISHING TANK ILLUSTRATION

12. VEHICLE CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - MINDOK'S SUPER WARPLANE ILLUSTRATION.

13. VEHICLE CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - RESCUE SHIP ILLUSTRATION

14. VEHICLE CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - ROBO-CHARIOT ILLUSTRATION.

The AuctionLink auction can be found here:

https://www.comiclink.com/Auctions/search.asp?PreviewCode=2026sept&where=auctions&title=Jack+Kirby&GO=GO&ItemType=CA

ComicLink auctions recently uploaded still more of the unseen Jack Kirby character and concept art from the Ruby-Spears animation studio archive!

1. CHARACTER CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - KUBLAI'S ROBOT WARRIOR ILLUSTRATION.

2. CHARACTER CONCEPT - WHALE-LIKE SEA MONSTER ILLUSTRATION.

3. CHARACTER CONCEPT - BEAST TRANSFORMED INTO PRINCE ILLUSTRATION.

4. CHARACTER CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - AKTON THE WIZARD ILLUSTRATION.

5. CHARACTER CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - ARGOTH IN CLOAK AND HOOD ILLUSTRATION.

6. CHARACTER CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - MANTA WIZARDESS ILLUSTRATION.

7. CHARACTER CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - MEENA'S PEOPLE ILLUSTRATION

---

8. CHARACTER CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - OVERSEER ILLUSTRATION.

9. CHARACTER CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - RESIDENTS OF FUTURISTIC CITY ILLUSTRATION

10. CHARACTER CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - SCARLET CAT ILLUSTRATION

11. CHARACTER CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - TAI THE SWAMP WAIF ILLUSTRATION.

12. CHARACTER CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - THORN'S SKULL STAFF ILLUSTRATION.

13. CHARACTER CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - VILLAGERS ILLUSTRATION.

14. CREATURE CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - CRUSTACEAN SEA MONSTER ILLUSTRATION

15. CREATURE CONCEPT - THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN - MUTATED ANIMALS ILLUSTRATION .

If you enjoy these definitely search through the archive here with keywords “Ruby-Spears archive” and “ComicLink”

The auction to be found here: https://www.comiclink.com/Auctions/search.asp?PreviewCode=2026sept&where=auctions&title=Jack+Kirby&GO=GO&ItemType=CA

More to be compiled soon!