And I mean that quite literally since there are many different comic book publishers in this post but Kitchen Sink is not one of them. Now when I sorted through all the Gil Kane cover way back when there were some where either I had totally forgotten that Gil Kane worked on them or I had never guessed he would ever work on. And there were a few of things I have never heard of. Which are all here in the weird world of Gil Kane.
Now CHECKMATE might not qualify for the weird since I already posted a cover from this series in a previous post but it is more on the fringes of the regular DC universe and since the NEW 52 f - worded most of DC´s books up for the foreseeable future ( or at least until REBIRTH brings the old DC universe back, entirely or in parts ) I want to read more from this series. Plus the Gil Kane covers are gorgeous so I had to post more.
I thought about doing a kind of checklist of the weird and strange, starting with the more regular books and then going with the more obscure and outlandish ones and while I still plan to incorporate that I don´t think it´s a good idea to constantly flip back and forth between publishers so we will do all DC books, then another publisher and so on.
Now they may not look like it but the covers for LEGENDS OF THE DC UNIVERSE issues 28 and 29 are done by Gil Kane and then painted by Alex Ross. What´s more, they actually have interior art by Gil Kane who returns to do a two parter on two of the classic Golden Age DC characters he´s most associated with, the green gladiator and the tiny titan.
I mean how cool is it to see Gil Kane back on two of his signature characters in a story by Steven Grant ? Plus the inks are done by none other than the great Klaus Janson. LEGENDS OF THE DC UNIVERSE really is one of those series that have fallen by the wayside and I definitely have to check out more issues from this undeservedly forgotten book. Here are examples of Gil Kane´s and Klaus Janson´s brilliant interior artwork.
Speaking about forgotten things Gil Kane also did the cover for the annual to TSR´s FORGOTTEN REALMS published under license by DC. Since I never was a big role playing fan this one went totally unnoticed by me.
What I DID notice - and in a big way - was ATARI FORCE, a comic that came out in the 80s and which is the guilty pleasure of many comic fans like myself. Or was because for some reason this series was frowned upon by many comic critics and fans but lately there have been more and more voices detailing the accolades of this shortlived book. For its time the storytelling and characters were quite complex and you can´t fault the art by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez followed by comic greats like Ross Andru or Eduardo Baretto. Dynamite Entertainment is even in negotiations with Atari to publish new comics based on their properties and ATARI FORCE is scheduled to be reprinted. I hope they not only include the 20 issue series of which I have most of the issues but also the first 5 issue mini series that proceeded it and which is much harder to find in back issue bins.
So who remembers DC´s Impact universe ? Back in the 90s - you know, the decade that had such awful comics - DC licensed all the superhero characters from Archie Comics to bring young readers new and exciting stories about The Fly, The Shield, The Black Hood, The Web ( for which Gil Kane did a bunch of covers ) etc. My brother had a few issues of The Jaguar - which was a female now - and I read The Comet. There was a team book still to come out at some point but they folded before that.
Apropos licensed properties, back in 1968 Gil Kane worked on ACTION MAN which was actually the Ideal Toy Company´s answer to Hasbro´s G. I. Joe. The twist with Action Man was that he could tranform into different heroes : DC heroes like Superman, Batman and Aquaman but also Marvel heroes like Spider - Man and Captain America as well as Phantom, Lone Ranger, Flash Gordon, Steve Canyon and Sgt. Fury ( not sure if that was Nick Fury ). Talk about covering all their bases. Anyway, since the toy was so popular a comic was made but it was done by DC and they could not use Spider - Man or Captain America therefore the whole transforming into various heroes schtick was dropped for a different approach. I don´t want to go into detail because it would make the post too long and I don´t know that much about it but you can check out Matthew Peterson´s Hero History : Captain Action on the MAJOR SPOILERS website and DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND has A Mind Divided by Gil Kane and Wally Wood.
Another DC comic book with Wally Wood was T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS.
And we´re staying with books based on licensed toys with MONSTER IN MY POCKET by Harvey Comics of which I found issues 2 to 4 at this year´s Comic Con in Stuttgart. The short lived comic series only lasted 4 issues.
Here´s an original art page by Gil Kane from issue three :
Another comic based on a licensed property for which Gil Kane did covers is BACK TO THE FUTURE where Doc Brown and Marty traveled to Chicago during the prohibition area, ancient Rome or a world ruled by dinosaurs.
And I can´t talk about comics based on licensed properties without mentioning Topps´ adaption of the first JURASSIC PARK movie.
It was ritten by none other than Walter Simonson and the pencils were done by Gil Kane and inked by George Perez which was an odd choice.
Here´s a licensed property comic most readers probably missed on purpose : iMAGE Comics and Dark Horse´s WILDC.A.T.S. / ALIENS.
Speaking of strange crossovers Gil Kane also did one of the covers for iMAGE´s WETWORKS / VAMPIRELLA one shot by Anthony Wynn. There also was a comic book companion piece published by Harris Comics.
Apropos iMAGE, Gil Kane also did one of the variant covers for the final issue of STORMWATCH written by Warren Ellis, inked by Tom Palmer.
Since I mentioned George Perez earlier, he was the only reason to buy Big Entertainment´s I - ROBOT series loosely based on Isaac Asimov´s classic science fiction story. Gil Kane did a few pages in the first series but I didn´t get an issues of the second series penciled by Pat Broderick.
It´s safe to say that we have now arrived at the more obscure series like DOCTOR TOMORROW by Acclaim Comics, formerly known as Valiant.
I´m not sure how well known John Byrne´s 7 issue DOOMSDAY SQUAD published by Fantagraphic Books is but Gil Kane did some of the covers.
STAR HAWKS is more for the older readers of my blog. Initially published by Ace Books in 1971 followed by STAR HAWKS II in 1981 Blackthorne republished the first comic as a four issue series from 1985 to 1987.
One comic where I´m never sure of is EDGE by Malibu´s Bravura Imprint. The interior art is by Gil Kane and it is available as a trade paperback.
You might have noticed that so far there have been no Marvel books. One of the reasons for that is that Gil Kane´s work on the Marvel books falls more into the mainstream part of comic series, another is that there will be - and have been - other posts that deal with it. That said there are two series I want to mention here the first one being OMEGA THE UNKNOWN.
The other one is another comic book series based on a licensed property, DOC SAVAGE - MAN OF BRONZE. I believe the inks are by Tom Palmer.
Which is a nice segueway to another comic book by Gil Kane with savage in the title. GIL KANE`S SAVAGE published by Fantagraphic Books.
Starting off our birthday list is Marisa Miller who turns 38. I thought she was the one who played the Baroness in the first G. I. Joe movie but that was the other hot model with Miller as her last name apparently. Sienna.
Marissa DID star in a comic book movie though, Dark Horse´s R.I.P.D. which I still haven´t seen. I thought my brother brought the movie with him the last time he came back from Spain but either he didn´t or it is lost somewhere in the labyrinth of his room with all the other stuff.
Since the Spice Girls were a big thing all over Europe I´m much more familiar with Geri Halliwell who celebrates her 44th birthday. My favorite music video of her - not my favorite song but my favorite music video - is It´s Raining Men but the video is once again blocked by GEMA so you have to console yourself with this littel GIF I found at either Tabatha Leggert´s An Indisputable Ranking Of The Spice Girls´ Solo Work at BUZZFEED or DIARY OF A POP FAN´s The 20 Best Solo Spice Girls Singles.
It is kind of interesting to see how little of what we experienced as giant shock waves in pop music actually survived in Today´s teen´s minds.
Lisa Boyle turns 52 and I have to call foul on her imdb entry that states she is best known for her roles in Bad Boys, Face / Off, Lost Highway or The Nutty Professor. I didn´t even know she was in those movies. No, if you know Lisa Boyle it´s either from her pictures in PLAYBOY and the over 25 Playboy magazine Special Editions where she was often paired with Patricia Ford, her roles in such erotic classics like Friend Of The Family, Midnight Tease, Dreammaster - The Erotic Invader and I Like To Play Games Too or her recurring role as Fawn on the cult sitcom Married With Children. She played one of Kelly´s bosom buddies - with a huge emphasis on the bosom part - and constantly outshone Christina Applegate like in this scene from the episode Spring Break - Part 1 from season 10 where she really pushed her 35Cs so tightly together in her red bikini top when she´s leaning forward that I totally forgot that Christina was in the shot.
Now because I didn´t want to post any of her erotic movies I was looking for her best scenes from Married With Children but I couldn´t find any clips from that. So I had to make my own GIF which alone took me more than a day because I couldn´t find any clips just with her parts and so had to look for entire episodes. Which I found aplenty and had me facing a new dilemma, namely that I now had a few new animated GIFs that I would have posted in earlier posts if they had been available to me at that time. Anyway, one of my pet peeves is giving props to uncredited sexbombs and while I don´t want to include any other in this post there will be a few mentioned down the line. Back to Lisa Boyle I say Thanks for the mammaries and you can check out her erotic movies via YouTube.
Speaking about hot women who appeared in PLAYBOY, Kimberly Conrad celebrates her 54th birthday and the Playmate of the Month in January 1988 and Playmate of the Year 1989 is best known as the second wife of Hugh Hefner which sounds like either a very bad horror flick or an truly excellent erotic movie. I wanted to post one of her more iconic pictures but since they all are NSFW I opted for one of her best PLAYBOY covers.
We start our In Memoriam section with director Charles Crichton who got to work with freezeframe JaMILF Lee Curtis in A Fish Called Wanda.
Today is also the anniversary of Robert Mitchum´s who was in the classic Night Of The Hunter or Cape Fear which was remade by Martin Scorsese. He also was in Macao where he got to work with sex symbol Jane Russell.
Since I could not decide on one of his films here is a documentary.
Going on we have Lucille Ball best known for her lead role in the cult sitcom I Love Lucy and I have to confess that I haven´t seen one episode yet. What can I say? I grew up in Germany where the chances to see a movie with Hans Moser ( the actor, not the head of a porn movie empire who was first married to Teresa Orlowski and later 80s cult porn actress Sarah Louise Young ) - our last birthday of the day - was much higher.
Because I mentioned Steve Canyon in the post I want to leave my readers with this video of Milton Caniff which I could not fit into an earlier post.
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