Monday, January 23, 2012

Blackmark by Gil Kane





















10 comments:

  1. I love this material! Kane was clearly inspired and he was a bit of a trailblazer, trying to publish this without a major company.

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  2. I'm rereading this right now and am really impressed with the high quality of his work, and with how he worked within the framework of a paperback book to create something so dramatic and literate. My one quibble is that the Fantagraphics book doesn't include Archie Goodwin's name as the person who actually wrote the text.

    My first exposure to this material was in the Marvel Preview magazine, and although it was interesting to read, it picked up the story in mid-stride and the material wasn't formatted for the magazine-size pages. As such, at the time, it struck me as interesting but unusual. Now, through the Fantagraphics reprint, I can actually enjoy the material in its original format.

    By the way, I'm writing a review of the material that will appear next Wednesday (March 14, 2012). If you don't mind, I'd like to link to your AWESOME gallery of Blackmark Images.

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  3. That sounds cool,and I'd love to read the article. Blackmark is way up there amongst my favorite things! As you may already know, I am pretty much computer illiterate, but link away

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  4. Cap: Thanks for the response. I have, indeed, linked to your blog in my review of Blackmark. I like this book so much that I actually decided to do a two-part review (I'll run part two next Wednesday). Since I've got the Marvel Preview and the Fantagraphics book, I'm planning to scan some pages and include them side-by-side so people can see how Kane rearranged the panels of the paperback-sized art into the magazine size.

    Here's part one of my review: http://mikemitchellonline.blogspot.com/2012/03/comics-review-bring-on-barbarians.html

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  5. By the way, does anyone else think that the image of the warriors falling/leaping off the cliff looks like a scene from Frank Miller's 300? I wonder if Frank saw this panel and was inspired to include it in his book/movie?

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  6. I remember seeing an ad for something called" savage unfinished works" in a fanzine from the 70's .It was unpublished artwork from either a 3rd bBlackmark or material he didn't use for #1 and 2 ( i can't remember now) ..have you ever heard of this and do you have a copy?

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  7. I wish! You're referring to an ad in the back of some fanzines promoting a mag of the unpublished art for His Name is Savage #2, featuring Gil Kane, Gray Morrow, and Neal Adams. The ad showed samples from the mag, and I've blown up the Gil Kane panel and posted it back on Feb 13th of this year as Unpublished Gil Kane. It is, to me, one of Kane's greatest images

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  10. Created a blackmark page on facebook

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