KING KIRBY: a play by Fred Van Lente & Crystal Skillman

"The Midtown Comics Podcast has teamed up the husband and wife team of comic book writer Fred Van Lente and playwright Crystal Skillman to present their play, King Kirby. King Kirby was performed for a live audience this summer, but now it’s presented to you in audio format for the first time for free!"

Jack Kirby is my nameBrief review based on my personal knowledge of Jack:

Hits several (but not all) keynotes in Jack's long and illustrious career as well as several (but again, far from all) of the most prominent abuses shoveled on him directly and indirectly by the comics industry.  Based on my first hand experience with them, gives an adequate but not altogether thorough idea of what Jack and Roz were like, and what Stan Lee is like; I wouldn't say this is a grievous fault since it's hard to sum up the wonderful complexity of any human being in just an hour's time, much less four people (Joe Simon is the 4th major role in the piece; I have no first hand knowledge of him).

kirbyself__span

The actors cast in the roles (Steven Rattazi and Amy Lee Pearsall) remind me of Jack and Roz as opposed to sounding like Jack and Roz, but they're fine performers and their interpretations of Jack and Roz' personalities are nice tributes to their memories (Nat Cassidy as Stan Lee comes much closer, but that's because there is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to sound bytes by Stan).

The complexities of the various business deals and legal conflicts that marked both Jack's personal career and the comics industry as a whole are streamlined but at least presented with enough detail to make the issues understandable to audiences unfamiliar with them.

In short:  I really, really enjoyed this and recommend it highly to everyone.

Jack Kirby and his creations

Thanx to Midtown Comics for staging and recording this live reading of comic book writer Fred Van Lente and playwright Crystal Skillman's play:  When in Manhattan go visit Midtown Comics -- it's a helluva great store!

And a special thanx to Tom Spurgeon's The Comics Reporter for the tip off.

And yeah, I know some people are going to say the Spider-Man depicted here is Steve Ditko's design; nonetheless, Jack took the first swing at designing the character and passed the job on to Ditko because he was so busy with other books.

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