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I'm going to try posting 9 StarHawks a day, 3 each morning, noon and night, to finish out this arc over the next few days.

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I'm really, really, REALLY tied up on deadlines. But rather than post nothing for awhile, I'm going to keep going with several StarHawks a day. My stats show that many of you are not seeming to be interested in these strips. I understand if you already have em, but otherwise?

Keep checking back, there's lots of other cool stuff to come!

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Alone

I've been wanting to digress from StarHawks, just for a bit, to have a little break from black and white, but I didn't want to disturb the mood too abruptly. So how about this magnificent distant planet view of a galaxy rise, painted by Bob Eggleton, entitled Alone.

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Aren't these strips sparkling and jewel-like, even in black and white. As I've said before, Kane's spaceships are incredible for a daily strip.

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Grand Old Flag(g)

I'm not really advocating for you to be a marine, but I'm certainly proud of our marines in harm's way. This is a grand old 1918 poster by grand old James Montgomery Flagg.

Semper Fi!

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Space Opera Extravaganza

StarHawks, as rendered by Gil Kane, was an extravaganza of sci-fi space opera visuals. Kane never seemed to tire of drawing space vehicle hardware, which was always in perfect perspective. His organic critters were in perfect context as well. In my book, other than Alex Raymond, I would have to say Kane's visuals top any other sci-fi panel art ever. Much of what has been published as sci-fi in the comics over the years has been mostly a series of talking heads, with just a hint of futurism here and there. Not StarHawks. It's front and center—with an amazing amount of work for the throw-away concept of the daily funnies.

Starting with the next post, I'm going to bring you the last arc of the two-tier layouts, when it was being written by fan favorite Archie Goodwin. It's an arc that I've given the name 'Gideon's Vision'. It's all in black and white, as many fans prefer of great ink.

I'm going to upload just one strip per post, and label them by name and #, so that they're easier to organize in this bottom to top world of blogging. And I'm going to start off with the first seven strips, but then intersperse the rest of them with the other usual pictorial digressions. But the whole story will be there, so keep coming back to see em all.

And one more thing: I'm dedicating this entire arc of Gil Kane art to Joe Bloke of Grantbridge Street & Other Misadventures, for being a friend of this blog and a major fan of Kane. Hey Joe!

The panel above was used as a promo in at least one newspaper to welcome the StarHawk series to the comic pages. It was originally worded and used as a Christmas greeting in the papers, published on Christmas day of 1978.

Whet Your Appetite

Gil Kane really reached an apex with his StarHawks strip, initially written by Ron Goulart. Kane's art is strong and confident, full of inventive detail. These random panels are to whet your appetite for more StarHawks.

Visual Poetry

To me, this timeless portrait of a dolphin is pure visual poetry.

And what's even more special to me is that the photographer is our very own cousin who lives in the desert these days, but used to live seaside. She lay low on the deck as her husband navigated their boat, while being flanked by escorting dolphins breaching the surface.

The elegance of lines and motion interfaced by animal and water are exquisite. It's fascinating to see the envelope of water traveling with the dolphin.

The photo won an award in a national photography magazine. This image is copyrighted, so only the photographer can authorize it's reproduction, and she can be contacted through me. If anyone reblogs this photo, please retain the copyright notice with it.

Drawn by Drew

Just one more Struzan post for now.

To have Drew Struzan create the cover art for a George Lucas retrospective book is not only appropriate, but would have been inexcusable if it had not been drawn by Drew. I'm sure Lucas' later films would have done 'ok' at the box office without Struzan's art promoting it, but those posters and book covers guaranteed an epic and eternally iconic image for Star Wars and Indiana Jones in the history books and viewer's minds.

Below, the beautiful art, sans messy type (although I must admit that the main title gives it the Lucas touch):

And as always, I'm fascinated by comparing the original reference material and what the artist has done with it. This photo of Lucas was pretty strong to begin with:

Variant Covers

I'm not one to normally fall for the 'variant cover' scam perpetrated by devious yankee publishers (really, I'm not . . . stop looking at me like that . . . really . . . I'm . . . not), but when it's an artist I really like . . . and . . . and . . . let me catch my breath here . . . and when you put them all side by side and it's, like, one big image, y'know . . . y'know it's almost like a poster kinda thing . . . well then, I'm hooked. I hadda go two or 3 stores to get all four variants. I mean, me buying TV Guide, I never even watch TV (really . . . I don't). I wasn't big on the Phantom Menace movie (really). I mean it was sorta fun, but really, so many flaws. But this art by Drew Struzan, OMG, flawless:

So when ya put em all together ya get this big image . . . but all that type and that bar code thingy sorta ruins it, ya know?

So it's nice to see it all, sans type . . .

Gosh I like Drew Struzan's art. I'm just an old fanboy after all.