Space Opera Extravaganza

StarHawks, as rendered by Gil Kane, was an extravaganza of sci-fi space opera visuals. Kane never seemed to tire of drawing space vehicle hardware, which was always in perfect perspective. His organic critters were in perfect context as well. In my book, other than Alex Raymond, I would have to say Kane's visuals top any other sci-fi panel art ever. Much of what has been published as sci-fi in the comics over the years has been mostly a series of talking heads, with just a hint of futurism here and there. Not StarHawks. It's front and center—with an amazing amount of work for the throw-away concept of the daily funnies.

Starting with the next post, I'm going to bring you the last arc of the two-tier layouts, when it was being written by fan favorite Archie Goodwin. It's an arc that I've given the name 'Gideon's Vision'. It's all in black and white, as many fans prefer of great ink.

I'm going to upload just one strip per post, and label them by name and #, so that they're easier to organize in this bottom to top world of blogging. And I'm going to start off with the first seven strips, but then intersperse the rest of them with the other usual pictorial digressions. But the whole story will be there, so keep coming back to see em all.

And one more thing: I'm dedicating this entire arc of Gil Kane art to Joe Bloke of Grantbridge Street & Other Misadventures, for being a friend of this blog and a major fan of Kane. Hey Joe!

The panel above was used as a promo in at least one newspaper to welcome the StarHawk series to the comic pages. It was originally worded and used as a Christmas greeting in the papers, published on Christmas day of 1978.