The Short Box Podcast: A Comic Book Talk Show · Badr Milligan of The Short Box Entertainment Company | Comic Book Podcast

Michael Cho is channeling the King: An interview about Jack Kirby, Silver Age comics, and Thundarr

·1 hr 21 min·5 clips

Michael Cho says Thundarr worked because it felt like “the real action cartoon” with “a flaming sword that looks like a lightsaber.”

Michael Cho starts with Kirby love, and not the vague kind. Superhero work made sense to him once he stopped dodging the Jack Kirby part of his own instincts. What grabs him is the idealized hero who gets knocked around and keeps going. Captain America gives him the clean example: heroic endurance first, then the way a page asks the reader to help finish the image. The best stretch is the practical stuff. Cho talks about two-color art as a small trick with a big payoff. Leave something out and the reader may put it back in, which can pull them closer to the picture. Color can help, but it can also get loud. In a full-color Avengers scene, all those reds, yellows, and blues can shove against the mood. His puppy grief example is funny because it is so blunt: Captain America should carry pathos there, but the costume keeps dragging the eye back to spectacle. So Cho strips the page down. A halftone can do the job while the reader quietly supplies the blue. That gives the emotion more room. He is not preaching minimalism, exactly. He is talking about cutting the visual noise when the scene needs feeling. He still loves that approach, though he clearly does not love being boxed into one look or one method. The host lets that tension sit, which makes the whole thing feel loose: Kirby affection, color choices, reader participation, and a bit of artistic troublemaking at the table.

As heard by us

A focused comics conversation that turns Kirby influence and two-tone color into practical craft talk.

Michael Cho's appearance on The Short Box stays focused on comics craft. The clearest stretch comes when he talks about leaning into his Jack Kirby side as an entry point into superhero work.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want Kirby talk that gets into the art.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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