No Better Cause

This is one of the drawings that I bought from Gil Kane himself, at the time he was creating a lot of Superman material for DC. It's an iconic pose, with iconic power auras like Kane was prone to draw at the time. This and some other stuff I've been hoarding for years is coming up for auction at Heritage Auctions. I'm loathe to let them go, but I have no better cause than to help our daughter to continue her college education.

Gil Kane — Superman — 1980s

Check Out What You've Been Missing

Remember when Superman was a fairly light-hearted guy? I haven't seen the reboot, maybe he's a jolly old soul these days? I miss the late silver, early bronze Man of Steel.

Gil Kane — DC house ad

Doom!

Gil Kane — The Micronauts — May, 1982

Stories to Stagger the Imagination

Here is an interesting duo of images to compare, but I'm at a loss to describe how or why they came to be this way. The top image is an inked and nearly finished comic cover by Gil Kane. It functions well as a cover ready for production—coloring, adding the issue #, price and DC logo. But it never went 'beyond' that stage (a pun that is stillborn) . . . but the bottom image is the same cover, rendered completely by Neal Adams, and made its way to the comic spinners where I bought it 42 years ago.

Okay, so why wasn't Kane's cover used, though you can see the title changed, and actually Neal Adam's cover is better because the angle of the comet earth is more acute, aiming right for our intrepid moon men, and the angle of the scene puts them in more imminent danger. Was Kane's rejected? But why not have him redraw it? A whole bunch of other meaningless questions come to mind, but all I know is—any answers might stagger the imagination and would come from . . . BEYOND the UNKNOWN!

Gil Kane — From Beyond

Neal Adams — From Beyond the Unknown #3 — 1970

Artists Proof

My time is pinched right now, for a number of reasons. I can only post single images here and there that I have already scanned, with little or no commentary. But I'll have some lengthier great stuff in a couple of weeks. You'll be seeing plenty til then, just sort of a miscellaneous potpourri.

This piece is from a portfolio you'll see more of down the road. Gil Kane himself sold me this artist's proof portfolio containing his art and several other cartoonists'. The portfolio didn't live to be published as an edition, for several reasons—mostly copyright problems.

StarHawks—Gideon's Vision—49

And with this post, so ends the StarHawks arc of what I've been calling Gideon's Vision. It also marks the end of the double tier format that Gil Kane took great advantage of for his dynamic layouts. From this point StarHawks reverts to a daily single strip, with few papers printing it. Even in a reduced single strip format, Kane's art is brilliant.

I could post that next arc sometime as well, if I thought enough people were interested. But this blog's viewership has dwindled during this series. With the next post I will get back to some serious eyecandy.

Okay Joe—NOW you can start reading!!!

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