I stumbled across these awesome Gil "Sugar Lips" Kane images from the middle 70's. This is Gil's take on the Lone Ranger for Aurora's model toy line.
Clearly Kane is suppressing his individual style as he tries to recreate the look of the model itself.
But Kane unleashes a bit in the rest of the story that comes with the model. Here's a sample page.
And here's a link to the... rest of the story. (Trying to sound like Paul Harvey when I wrote that line.)
Beautiful stuff ain't it!
Gil Kane is a talent who is much underestimated in the history of comics. His innovations were significant and his style is at least as distinctive as Kirby. Like Kirby he saw the world in a somewhat different way and tried to put that vision onto the page.
And to prove that even more here is some artwork from the Tonto Aurora "faithful companion" kit. I can't find the whole story alas.
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Have people OVERestimated or UNDERestimated Gil Kane? ;-)
ReplyDeleteAfter all, he was one of the first "graphic novelists" with the paperback BlackMark, his dynamic style became the Marvel cover "look" during the 1970s, and his design abilities (Silver Age Green Lantern costume, among others) rivaled Kirby or Infantino!
(I do admit his tendency to draw "looking up" people's noses was a bit irritating...)
Oops!
ReplyDeleteThat's a glaring typo on my part. I meant to say "underestimate" and typed the other. It's now corrected. I agree with what you say to the power of ten.
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I think I blended "overlooked" and "underestimated". Sheesh!
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And, Gil was one of the few to have illustrated BOTH the Lone Ranger AND his descendant...
ReplyDeletehttp://atocom.blogspot.com/2010/08/1960s-green-hornet-kato-by-gil-kane.html