Friday Night Fights: Citizen Kane (GIL Kane, that is)

You know, it's been awhile since I've jumped into the ring of Friday Night Fights, the weekly event celebrating the smashy-clobbery stuff we superhero fans can't get enough of.

Switching things up a bit, fighting-mad space god Bahlactus has decreed that all battle scenes should be in black and white only, sorta like that cinematic masterpiece The Raging Bull.

Well, I'm more of a Citizen Kane man myself, so I thought my color-free frenzy could feature the work of the late, great Gil Kane.

As one of the most distinctive stylists in comics history, Kane (no relation to Bob) was one of the first artists I could readily identify as a kiddie comic fan. In fact, my friends and I classified him as "the nose guy" in response to his repeated "nostril canyon" close-ups of characters. Although Kane has never been one of my favorites ("distinctive" can easily become "distracting"), there WAS an aspect of his work I prefer over everybody else: Gil was the undisputed king of the Sprawling Smackdown!

As a master of foreshortening and human anatomy, Kane would super-charge characters with so much dynamic, explosive power that stray hands, feet, or elbows would routinely extend into adjoining panels. Punches were never the stiff, Rockem-Sockem pokes of lesser artists, but thunderous blows that sent the target sprawling head over heels at a steep backwards angle.

Assembled as a montage of panels from Marvel Team-Up #16 (1973), Comic Coverage proudly presents the flashing fisticuffs of Spider-Man, Captain Marvel and the evil Basilisk, as choreographed by Gil "Citizen" Kane!

(click on the scratchy Newsreel film footage for a larger view!)

Comments

[Wes C]

Ahhhhh this we can agree on; Gil Kane could draw one hell of a figure.

As with you, he's not one of my all time favorites. A little Kane go a long way.
I like him, but I don't hunt down his work like I do with Toth, Rude or Kirby.

He seemed to have a lot of sympathetic inkers at marvel in the 70's. It always looked much better than when he inked himself.

I find his covers to be the perfect dose.
As I said several times before, he really had a knack for laying a cover out and packing it full of energy, all while getting the point of the story across.

The "nose guy" bit is priceless.
He seemed to love that pose a helluva lot.
Kinda like Ditko with those splayed out fingers

[SLK]

I agree; Kane was one of the best figure artists in the business. The evidence speaks for itself- -take a look at the Showcase collections of Green Lantern, Atom and Batgirl. I don't mean this in a salacious way but Kane drew the best butts around!