The Gil Kane Punch of the Week 13

This week's punch comes courtesy of Kevin Church, master of the verbal equivalent of the Gil Kane punch and writer of the very popular blog, BeaucoupKevin, as well as the best web comic about life in a comic book store, The Rack. Kevin also recently completed a fantastic spin-off miniseries from The Rack, featuring the character Lydia, which gave Kevin an opportunity to turn his satirical eye on the world of office politics. In addition, you can get a collection of The Rack's first year here. I made a small contribution to the collection, and I'm grateful to Kevin for helping me pad my CV.

Enough pimping for Kevin--let's get to the punching!

This one, featuring fake Bucky punching out Cap, comes from Tales of Suspense 89, written by Smilin' Stan Lee and drawn by Gregarious Gil Kane.

I especially love Cap's word balloon in this panel. Before getting to the grunt, I actually thought that Cap was talking while getting punched through the air.

This reminded me of another great punch, from Tales of Suspense 91, with Kane inked by Joe Sinnott. Kane filled in for Jack Kirby on Tales of Suspense 89-91, and this panel, where Cap scatters 6 guys with one punch, is very Kirbyesque.

Kane may have been trying to mimic Kirby's style here in order to give the art on this strip a consistent look through his fill-in, but what we also get here is a kind of transitional panel, which reveals the influence of Kirby on the Gil Kane punch. Kane worked in Simon and Kirby's studio in the 1940s, and Kirby's influence on Kane is often obvious (Kane, for example, often used something similar to Kirby Krackle for explosion and cosmic energy). Clearly, Kane's sense of dynamic action runs directly from Kirby, but Kane then made it his own with his signature punch.

Thanks to Kevin for the awesome punch!

I would recommend that you buy this book

If you're like me and you like things that are good, then I recommend that you buy this book:


Kevin Church and Benjamin Birdie's The Rack is a fun web comic about life in a comic book store, and even if you've been reading the series online, there are some nice extras that make the book worth owning. Included in those extras is a fantastic interview with the creators, done by me in my civilian identity. So if you're longing to know the secret identity of Dr. K, then the book will be worth the cost right there.

Waimea Debuts!

I just want to throw a plug in here for a new webcomic called Waimea, written by the Internet's Kevin Church and drawn by newcomer Mike Dake. As the website describes, "Waimea is a serialized-biweekly graphic novel that tells the story of three people who find themselves living under unusual circumstances in Hawaii."

The first episode is already an impressive effort. Mike Dake's art has an animated style that works well with this material, and Kevin Church has created characters and a situation that had me immediately hooked in the first seven pages. Church's characterization is humorous and surprisingly heartfelt. I say "surprisingly" because I'm surprised that such emotional authenticity could come from the biggest douchebag on the Internet.

Seriously, check out Waimea. It's free, so it can't hurt, and there's some real talent at work here.