Good morning. Rob Steibel is back with another installment of his Jack Kirby: Behind the Lines column, this time looking at '60s Captain America:
Note how Jack makes the Skull's face distorted, emphasizing his evil. He's literally twisted.
Shores' inking gives the face a three-dimensionality and the line variety and texture gives the image a bit of photorealism you don’t see in Jack’s pencils filtered through most of his other inkers, aside from Wallace Wood in the famous Skymasters dailies and Sundays. Here’s an example of Kirby/Wood from my old Kirby Dynamics weblog sent to me by a reader. Beautiful delineation of the machinery and note Wood's distinctive shadows on the faces.
Obviously Wood was a lot slicker than Shores, and Woody was considered a master craftsman as an inker, but I do think Shores was going for this type of effect over Kirby -- less cartoony and drifting a bit towards photorealism -- and in that sense I think Shores was successful although reactions to any artist or approach will be varied.
Elsewhere:
—Morrie Turner. Cartoonist Jimmie Robinson pays tribute. The San Jose Mercury-News gathers social media reactions to Turner's passing.
—Reviews & Commentary. Novelist Adam Roberts on Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. Atomic Books continues to gather best-of-2013 lists from notable creators, including Josh Bayer, Conor Stechschulte, and Lale Westvind.
—Interviews & Profiles. Raighne Hogan interview Zak Sally in three parts. Heidi MacDonald talks to outspoken Image publisher Eric Stephenson. Old but new-to-me: Jim Steranko interviews Barry Windsor-Smith.
—Misc. Presented without comment: "Batman scholar" Will Brooker's response to the recent Alan Moore interview.
