Jack Kirby drawing of TRON!
I recently learned that, apparently two years ago, a number of concept art pieces for planned animated cartoons from the company Ruby-Spears were unearthed and put online. The images were from the 1980s, and includes a concept image for an animated Tron TV series. This in itself is of course fascinating, and yet another cancelled Tron project to add to the pile (or, in this case, a project that wasn't even begun).
However, what really got me excited is that the concept image is drawn by none other than legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby! I had actually previously imagined what Tron might look like in Kirby's distinctive style, not knowing that such an image actually existed.
As a bonus, here's a version of the image colored by the amazing artist (and Kirby superfan) Tom Scioli:
When the picture was originally put up online, it was labelled as "Teens of Tron", which might possibly have been the intended name for the planned cartoon? If so, it's a pretty goofy title.
Still, as a fan of both Tron and Jack Kirby, seeing the two combined was pretty mind-blowing to me. I have a suspicion (though no evidence) that the visuals of the 1982 film might in some small part have been inspired by Kirby's style, since I think there are some possible similarities here and there (Sark's helmet and the look of the MCP are two things that immediately come to mind).
(You can read more about Kirby's work at Ruby-Spears here, and see some of the other concept images here.)
