The King Kirby Podcast Drama

In 2020, playwrights Crystal Skillman and Fred Van Lente joined me to talk about transforming their acclaimed stage play King Kirby into an ambitious audio drama. The original play explored the life, imagination, and complicated legacy of comics legend Jack Kirby — from the birth of the Marvel Universe to the battles over credit, ownership, and artistic identity that followed him throughout his career.In this conversation, Crystal and Fred discuss the challenge of adapting such a visually explosive story into a purely audio experience. They break down how sound design, voice performance, and narrative structure became tools to recreate Kirby’s cosmic imagination for listeners, while still grounding the story in the emotional realities of Jack’s life, his partnership and conflicts with Stan Lee, and the larger history of the comics industry. We also get into the timing of the project during the pandemic-era rise of audio storytelling, why Kirby’s struggles over creator rights remain relevant today, and how the medium of audio drama unexpectedly mirrored the intimacy and imagination of old-time radio adventures that inspired Kirby himself. It’s a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at honoring one of comics’ greatest visionaries while reinventing his story for a new audience.Here's a link to the series https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/king-kirby/id1543433086