Amy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
brightknightie) wrote2026-03-12 08:33 am
brightknightie) wrote2026-03-12 08:33 am
Entry tags:
Lin Carter's Gondwane Epic v. Kirby's Thundarr the Barbarian
Beloved Saturday-morning cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian (1980-1981, but reran for ages) recently got its very first comic book incarnation.
Knowing that the comics were coming, and looking forward to them, on New Year's Eve, at Half-Price Books with my annual gift card from my sister, when I curiously looked over four old paperback volumes of Lin Carter's 1970s "Gondwane Epic," I was primed to be struck that they must somehow have influenced the creation of Thundarr, which I'd known to be a child of Jack Kirby's genius and the network's desire to cash in via a "Star Wars + Conan" mash-up, but... such similarities! A distant future of leftover science and emergent sorcery; a destroyed moon and devastated earth; a barbarian, a sorceress, and a non-human as three adventuring companions; even a sub-plot that the barbarian doesn't have ordinary human emotional reactions (which has been my head-canon for decades). It couldn't be an entire coincidence, right? Well...
The four slim yellow Daw paperbacks by Lin Carter that I saw and bought were: The Warrior of World's End (1974), The Enchantress of World's End (1975), The Immortal of World's End (1976), and The Barbarian of World's End (1976). Checking Wikipedia, I learned that the chronologically last book in the series, which was not at Half-Price Books that day, was actually the first written and published: The Giant of World's End (1969). From the titles, the descriptions, and, yes, the painted covers, I was convinced that there should be some connection. And, even if there were no direct connection, I would probably enjoy reading something seeming so parallel to the well-loved childhood series, I thought.
(I actually own Thundarr on print-on-demand DVDs from maybe a decade ago. It's not all that objectively good, not like AtLA, which was very good in its first season and became astonishingly good by its end, or even D&DC, which was remarkable for its day and remains uniquely deep within such constraints, but, to this day, I get chills every time I hear the Thundarr opening credits spiel.)
So. Was there a connection?
Wikipedia, fan wikis, and Google Search AI Mode lead me to believe that: Lin Carter, in addition to being an author and editor at Daw publishing, and an industry (sci-fi, fantasy, comics) columnist, was a major writer on ABC's original Spider-Man animated TV show during its "fantasy-oriented" second season in 1968–69. Carter was a professional presence in the professional circles where the creators of Thundarr, including Kirby, would have also been. The "Gondwane Epic" was published and public in plenty of time to have been read by folks working on Thundarr. And Carter was a relentless self-promoter (wannabe proto-influencer?) who talked up his own ideas and work to the point where this characteristic is noted of him on his Wikipedia page.
But.
There is absolutely no hard evidence of the least trace of influence. Not a scrap or crumb. These guys were not buds.
And, well, Lin Carter was not a very good writer. Yikes.
I really wanted to enjoy these books. I thought I would run gleefully through these thin volumes at the start of the year, while waiting for the new comic series to start coming out, stirring that part of my imagination.
But I couldn't get even halfway through the chronologically first, The Warrior of World's End (1974). The grammar, punctuation, and spelling are correct. But the tone. The tone! Is this guy mocking his characters, or his audience, or is he actually this smug and self-satisfied? The last straw was when I found him using words and phrases from Lewis Carrol. It was not a cute Easter egg; it was gross smugness in his own cleverness. His world-building is painful, page after page of informing us about history unconnected to characters, with utterly unbelievable timeframes for civilizations. He doesn't seem to like his characters and seems to be always subtly mocking them. There's this constant detached amusement of the narrative voice. And if the narrative voice isn't taking this seriously, why should the audience? One of the critics cited on Wikipedia wrote that Carter's tone in his Gondwane books was like he was trying to ape L. Frank Baum of Oz fame, which I think I agree with, and the mismatch between Baum's tone and the sword-and-planet/sword-and-sorcery genre mash-up is severe.
I think that I might still try to read that first-written The Giant of World's End (1969) if I can get it through the library someday. It likely had something, to inspire (and get published) all these prequels. But no more of the prequels for me. I do not recommend them. I will probably donate them to the library book sale, but I almost feel guilty toward the person who might buy them there.
Knowing that the comics were coming, and looking forward to them, on New Year's Eve, at Half-Price Books with my annual gift card from my sister, when I curiously looked over four old paperback volumes of Lin Carter's 1970s "Gondwane Epic," I was primed to be struck that they must somehow have influenced the creation of Thundarr, which I'd known to be a child of Jack Kirby's genius and the network's desire to cash in via a "Star Wars + Conan" mash-up, but... such similarities! A distant future of leftover science and emergent sorcery; a destroyed moon and devastated earth; a barbarian, a sorceress, and a non-human as three adventuring companions; even a sub-plot that the barbarian doesn't have ordinary human emotional reactions (which has been my head-canon for decades). It couldn't be an entire coincidence, right? Well...
The four slim yellow Daw paperbacks by Lin Carter that I saw and bought were: The Warrior of World's End (1974), The Enchantress of World's End (1975), The Immortal of World's End (1976), and The Barbarian of World's End (1976). Checking Wikipedia, I learned that the chronologically last book in the series, which was not at Half-Price Books that day, was actually the first written and published: The Giant of World's End (1969). From the titles, the descriptions, and, yes, the painted covers, I was convinced that there should be some connection. And, even if there were no direct connection, I would probably enjoy reading something seeming so parallel to the well-loved childhood series, I thought.
(I actually own Thundarr on print-on-demand DVDs from maybe a decade ago. It's not all that objectively good, not like AtLA, which was very good in its first season and became astonishingly good by its end, or even D&DC, which was remarkable for its day and remains uniquely deep within such constraints, but, to this day, I get chills every time I hear the Thundarr opening credits spiel.)
So. Was there a connection?
Wikipedia, fan wikis, and Google Search AI Mode lead me to believe that: Lin Carter, in addition to being an author and editor at Daw publishing, and an industry (sci-fi, fantasy, comics) columnist, was a major writer on ABC's original Spider-Man animated TV show during its "fantasy-oriented" second season in 1968–69. Carter was a professional presence in the professional circles where the creators of Thundarr, including Kirby, would have also been. The "Gondwane Epic" was published and public in plenty of time to have been read by folks working on Thundarr. And Carter was a relentless self-promoter (wannabe proto-influencer?) who talked up his own ideas and work to the point where this characteristic is noted of him on his Wikipedia page.
But.
There is absolutely no hard evidence of the least trace of influence. Not a scrap or crumb. These guys were not buds.
And, well, Lin Carter was not a very good writer. Yikes.
I really wanted to enjoy these books. I thought I would run gleefully through these thin volumes at the start of the year, while waiting for the new comic series to start coming out, stirring that part of my imagination.
But I couldn't get even halfway through the chronologically first, The Warrior of World's End (1974). The grammar, punctuation, and spelling are correct. But the tone. The tone! Is this guy mocking his characters, or his audience, or is he actually this smug and self-satisfied? The last straw was when I found him using words and phrases from Lewis Carrol. It was not a cute Easter egg; it was gross smugness in his own cleverness. His world-building is painful, page after page of informing us about history unconnected to characters, with utterly unbelievable timeframes for civilizations. He doesn't seem to like his characters and seems to be always subtly mocking them. There's this constant detached amusement of the narrative voice. And if the narrative voice isn't taking this seriously, why should the audience? One of the critics cited on Wikipedia wrote that Carter's tone in his Gondwane books was like he was trying to ape L. Frank Baum of Oz fame, which I think I agree with, and the mismatch between Baum's tone and the sword-and-planet/sword-and-sorcery genre mash-up is severe.
I think that I might still try to read that first-written The Giant of World's End (1969) if I can get it through the library someday. It likely had something, to inspire (and get published) all these prequels. But no more of the prequels for me. I do not recommend them. I will probably donate them to the library book sale, but I almost feel guilty toward the person who might buy them there.