Friday, May 27, 2011

This is an excellent page from the June 1966 issue of Undersea Agent, number 3, from Tower Comics. Here Kane shows just a hint of his great sense of design in the drawing of machinery on the last bottom panel. He also drew some Noman stories for Tower.
A very nice page from a Gil Kane western story from 1970.

Although some have criticized Kane's inking of himself, this is a great page, full of life and action. From All Star Western v.2#3. Kane drew a lot of western stories in the fifties for DC, this was a welcome return to the genre for him.

Monday, May 23, 2011

That Creepy Gil Kane

Gil Kane certainly didn't limit himself to Marvel or DC during any part of his career.

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.