Gil Kane died on 31 January in the year 2000 A.D.

Time enough has now passed that although I still feel the loss of his gargantuan talents I am past the garment rending and hair pulling stage. I will never be beyond the celebrating his work stage though. So what follows is a brief visual burst of Gil Kane's genius from the '80s. After all ACTIONs speak louder than words and Gil was a man of great experience...

"So I know the one quality that I'm always trying to push through in my work is grace and power. Sort of primitive lyricism that I've been capable of. I thought that that's the one quality that sort of saved me and permeated my work and gave me any kind of legitimate status...the thing that I had going for me was that the only thing I wanted to express essentially was the sentimental fall with grace and power, and I try to do that with every drawing I ever did." Gil Kane Gil Kane: Art And Interviews by Daniel Herman (Hermes Press, 2002)

Superman was created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster

KANE: I liked those stories. Gil Kane on the GilWolf™’ Superman comics Gil Kane: Art And Interviews by Daniel Herman (Hermes Press, 2002)

Gil Kane (1926 - 2000)

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Hopefully, this being the anniversary of Gil Kane's passing, The Internet is alive with chat about this man with élan. After all last time on I Will Make You Care About Gil Kane Before Death Claims Me I was more than likely getting all teary-eyed about the fact no one seemed to talk about Gentleman Gil much these days. Serendipitously I had read Charles Nicholl's Guardian review of Andrew Hadfield's Edmund Spenser: A Life. Said review began:

"There is a rather deadly kind of literary fame which TS Eliot neatly defined as a "conspiracy of approval". It condemns a writer" to be universally accepted; to be damned by the praise that quenches all desire to read the book; to be afflicted by the imputation of virtues which excite the least pleasure; and to be read only by historians and antiquaries". (Fairy Singer, Colonial Apparatchik by Charles Nicholl, The Guardian, 21/07/2012)

Although I can feel my face fair sodden by your salivations at the prospect of me going on about TS Eliot or Edmund Spenser I am, in fact, going to stop there because I think the point has been made. It's a good point; one all the better for not being mine. Is that's what has happened to Gentleman Gil? Is he a victim of the "conspiracy of approval"? I don't want that to happen here; in my series of wholly unbiased and never (never!) hyperbolic pieces on Gil Kane the idea will be be to arouse you to such a state that you might go and try some of his stuff. If you go, "Well, Gil Kane sure sounds good. Now, how about I dip my eyes in some sweet, sweet Tony Daniel magic!" then I have failed.

Or as Johnny Cash put it somewhat more succinctly:

"Did you forget the folk singer so soon? And did you forget my song?"

We are in fact a couple of posts into "Gil Happy!" already so we have avoided the whole here's what I'll be doing oh no I won't rigmarole this time out.

There'll be other stuff too but there will definitely be more Gil Kane and always, always more COMICS!!!