Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: Gil Kane

Gil Kane & Kevin Nowlan — Never Fade Away

Original Art and The Artists

Superman: Blood of My Ancestors, November 2003

Superman: Blood of My Ancestors is an unusual project. Gil Kane was the original penciller, but he passed away before he could finish it, and then John Buscema took over the penciling, and did manage to finish it — before his passing shortly thereafter.

So, when the book finally see print in 2003, both pencillers, giants in the industry were gone.

Kevin Nowlan provides finishes for both. (And as a bonus, because Kevin inked Gil’s pages, they won’t fade away like so many of the other Kane “marker era” pages from his latter DC comics career.)

Not a ton of Superman in this one-shot since much of the story revolves around an early ancestor of the House of El. In fact, most of the Buscema pages look like a classic barbarian tale.  Kal-El’s distant relative is a dead ringer for Conan.

Who knew?

Gil’s depiction of Superman in flight made the back cover of the one-shot as well. It reminds me a lot of this great house ad for Gils underrated run on Superman in the early 80s, just prior to John Byrne’s overhaul of the character and the mythos.

Jack Kirby & Gil Kane — Titans, Together

Original Art and The Artists

San Diego Comic-Con, July 1993

Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Jim Salicrup at the Topps booth, 1993 San Diego Comic-Con. Photo by Greg Goldstein

30 years ago, I had the good sense to snap this fantastic photo of Jack Kirby and Gil Kane at the 1993 San Diego Comic-Con. (Jaunty Jim Salicrup, the Topps Comics EIC, is the happy fella in the middle.)

Fantastic, but, as it turned out, bittersweet: This was the final time these two legends had a chance to greet each other. (Jack passed away the following winter.) I’m not sure they were both scheduled at the Topps booth at the same time, so it may have been a very happy coincidence. 

I’ve discussed Topps Comics (and trading cards) numerous times in previous posts — it was a wild ride with many great moments. This was one of my favorites.

And did I say good sense? Hardly. If I did, I would have handed off the disposable camera to someone else and jumped in the photo as well.

Kane and Kirby both delivered for Topps; we launched the “Kirbyverse” with unused and under-utilized concepts from Jack’s files, and Gil Kane drew the Jurassic Park adaptation and prequel. And both provided art for our massive Star Wars Galaxy series, which featured more than 400 cards — with art from nearly that many individual creators.

Gil Kane — Titanic Team-Up

Original Art and The Artists

Marvel Team-Up #14, October 1973

Spider-man art by Gil Kane. From the collection of Greg Goldstein

Spider-Man and Sub-Mariner need a few pages of bantering and brawling in this early issue of Marvel Team-Up before they figure out that they left on friendly terms just two years prior. But that’s often the classic (sometimes cliché) formula. Characters meet, fight, and then figure out who the real enemy is and join forces to stop them. (In this case Tiger Shark and — I kid you not — the Aquanoids.)

Gil Kane provides, as always, dynamic and dramatic pencils and composition — although finding regular inkers for him on this series seems challenging. Here the enigmatic Wayne Howard takes a stab at Gil’s unique styling with mixed effects throughout the issue.  (Although I like the results on this specific page.)

Great cover too, with inks by Frank Giacoia. (Although the Marvel trade dress is out of control with not much room for the main imagery.)

For more on the first Sub-Mariner / Spider-Man crossover, see this fun article below:

Sub-Mariner #40 (August, 1971)

Gil Kane & Neal Adams — Face To Face

Original Art and The Artists

Savage Tales #4, May 1974

Thanks to artist Ken Landgraf, I finally get to see the original prelims and pencils — and partial (Neal Adams) inks — to this great Conan page from Savage Tales #4. And as a bonus, we solve one mystery and create a new one. (Ken owns photocopies of Gil’s pencils from this story and others.)

Gil Kane pencilled the story (pretty loosely in some places), and Neal Adams inked some of it as well, supported at a minimum by Vince Colletta, Frank McLaughlin, and Pablo Marcos. (Credits supplied by Roy Thomas in Savage Sword of Conan #2). Marcos also provided the wash tones on the story, necessary to add depth to a black and white, and also provide some consistency to the art style.

Neal, of course, was a pro at collaborative art creation. His “Crusty Bunkers” a group of (ever-changing) artists at his Continuity Studios, filled in many times during deadline crunches for Marvel, DC, Charlton and others during the 70s.

(The specific inking credits here are listed as Diverse Hands, and this appears to reference the fact that some others outside Continuity also worked on the project.)

And now the mystery; when the story is reprinted for the first time in color in a Marvel Treasury Edition, two faces that weren’t in panel three in the Savage Tales version now appear. Turns out they were originally pencilled by Gil — but inked over in the final art, probably to give it more depth for B&W.

Which means — Either Roy, Gil or someone else had to remember that change and go back and pull it from inked copies for the color version.

Wild.

Faces come, faces go…

Gil Kane & George Perez — Dinos, Bigger And Better

Original Art and The Artists

Jurassic Park #4, August 1993

Here are two great pages from the final issue of the 1993’s Jurassic Park adaptation, penciled by Gil Kane and inked by the George Perez. As I noted previously, the key Dino action takes place in issue #4 which covers half (or more) of the film. (Thanks a lot, Universal.)

Fun fact: Universal had a giant launch party for the JP licensing and marketing program at New York City’s Museum of Natural History in February 1993 (at the annual Toy fair event) and Topps received several invites. So what happens when I hop out of the Subway to walk to the museum? I run into George Perez, and we make our way in together. I had a great time, but George was even more thrilled. It was clear he was absolutely delighted to be a part of this.

Fun fact #2: Topps also had a few invites to the NY premiere of Jurassic Park at the Ziegfeld Theater and Walter and Louise Simonson were able to accompany us to the theater, and a swell time was had by all. But, apparently, the final version of the shooting script had not made it from Universal / Amblin to Topps to Walter, so naturally he immediately noticed that his script and the Final Cut differed in a few places. (Fortunately, only a few.)

Oh well…

Gil Kane & George Perez — 30 Years of Jurassic

Original Art and The Artists

Jurassic Park #3, July 1993

Jurassic Park opened thirty years ago June 11, so it seems like an ideal time to present some more great Jurassic Park pages from 1993’s adaptation drawn by Gil Kane and George Perez this week. (I still can’t believe it’s been thirty years.)

Here’s a terrific splash from issue three, with George’s telltale detailed inking mostly only evident in the original art; the color obscures many of those fine details in the published page.

Fun fact: Because of licensing restrictions (including embargo dates) and publishing schedules, the film’s script and the four-issue comic breakdown are somewhat uneven. Not that much happens in Issues #1 and #2. Issue #3 has this cool opening, and some cool T-Rex action in the second part, but most of the exciting Dino action happens in issue #4. (Writer Walter Simonson did a terrific job balancing the script under those challenging restrictions.)

For more on that, check back in on Friday.

Gil Kane — Bloody Vengeance

Original Art and The Artists

Ring of the Nibelung #2, (The Valkyrie), February 1990

Gil Kane tackles Richard Wagner’s The Ring of The Nibelung opera series (adapted here by Roy Thomas) with dramatic results.

It’s a prestige format series, so Gil employs a large art format, and, unlike the majority of his DC work from this period, it’s primarily pen and ink, as opposed to marker. Therefore, the pages — pretty much all terrific — are collectible and displayable without worrying about the art fading to nothingness.

(Ask anyone — myself included — who has owned a page from either Sword of the Atom mini-series and they can explain further.)

What would Gil himself say about this dynamic page? I’m not exactly sure, but it would begin this way:

“Greg, my boy…”

Bob Layton — Iron Redux

Original Art and The Artists

Iron Fist #1(1975) Re-Imagination, 2005

Continuing our Iron Man 60th anniversary series, here’s another great Bob Layton piece. 

This time, we have a 2005 re-imagination of Gil Kane’s Iron Fist #1 cover(1974).  Bob completely changes the POV of the action, transforming the piece into his own — while still honoring the original.

Since the background equipment is still intact in Bob’s version, lets call it: “One Minute Earlier.”

Gil Kane — War And Peace

Original Art and The Artists

The Hawk And The Dove #4, March 1969

Gil Kane serves up a fun action page from the original short-lived series of the unusual superhero team, Hawk and Dove. (Created by Steve Skeates and Steve Ditko.)

(Come to think of it, all of the Hawk and Dove series have been short-lived.)

I’m not typically a fan of Sal Trapani’s inks on Gil’s pencils, but credit where credit is due: Sal creates an amazing illusion of shine on that tile floor on the original. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything quite like it.

Separately, on a slightly more critical note, apparently it’s no big deal that Hawk might have destroyed an original masterpiece based on the next few panels… WTH?

Welcome to Day three of the 12 DC Days of DeCember.

When DC finally collected the series in color for the first time, the production department used (effectively) a light touch on the recoloring — it’s a very accurate representation of the original.

Mike Mignola — Happy Anniversary, Topps Comics

Original Art and The Artists

Bram Stoker’s Dracula, #3, December 1992 (& A Topps Gallery, 1992-1995)

Better late than never — Topps Comics actually launched its first title, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, in October, not November of 1992. By mid 1993, we had film adaptions, SF anthologies, Kirby superheroes and dozens more under our belt.

It was a wild ride.

In early 2023, we will have a more extensive look back with some new art, photos, memorabilia, etc. In the meantime, here’s a gallery of previously posted art. (Each piece links to the original post.)

Stay tuned.