Friday, May 27, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
That Creepy Gil Kane
Here's the inside front cover of Creepy #16 from Warren Publishing. As always, copyright and
TM Warren Publishing or the respective copyright holder.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
While at times it's hard to ID early Gil Kane art when it's inked by a DC staff inker, there are telltale signs that it's Gil Kane. He had a certain way of drawing water splashing, and the "feathering" on the rocks looks like it was drawn by him. From All Star Western #82. I think this was inked by Joe Giella, a fine artist in his own right.
And, in the final blog entry of the night, the cover to Mystery in Space #46. Kane was versatile and able to draw just about anything, and draw it well. He had a good design sense that was very close to that of Jack Kirby in the sense of being able to design machinery and backgrounds. Editor Julius Schwartz used Kane's talents on many a science fiction cover or story as well as on The Atom and Green Lantern. Mystery in Space TM DC Comics Inc. With all the DC Comics Gil had a hand in, hope I don't get sued by them for using so many of their images!
Beware My Power, Green Lantern's Light...
A Gil Kane Green Lantern cover. As the Marvel Age progressed, and was gaining popularity, perhaps the DC editors loosened up a bit and allowed Kane to show more of his talents by having him both pencil and ink covers and interiors.
This particular cover wouldn't be unusual on an issue of the Hulk, for example. Kane did his share of work for Marvel, and this cover just seems to me to be reminiscent of Marvel. Although lore has it that the DC editors thought that the key to Marvel's popularity was ugly art. In any case, with a new Green Lantern movie on the near horizon, Gil Kane merits recognition for making the character popular in the comics, although he always had reservations about the quality of the writing he was given to illustrate. Green Lantern copyright and TM DC Comics Inc.
Gil Kane was a one of a kind artist
Gil Kane, along with some of the other DC artists, was often diluted or covered up by the homogenous inkers that DC would assign to ink his stories. For all that, Kane's talent always showed through, from his earliest stories to Rex the Wonder Dog to his science fiction stories to his western storiesto Green Lantern, to his own self produced projects like His Name is Savage and Blackmark, and finally to such classy projects like The Ring of the Nibelung he did with Roy Thomas while at DC. This blog will from time to time seek to comment upon, admire, and examine such work, as well as the man who produced it. Long live Gil Kane.
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