Gil Kane was a Latvian-born American comics artist whose career spanned the 1940s to the 1990s and virtually every major comics company and character.
23 Facts About Gil Kane
2.
Gil Kane additionally pioneered an early graphic novel prototype, His Name Is.
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Gil Kane was born Eli Katz on April 6,1926, in Latvia to a Jewish family that immigrated to the US in 1929, settling in Brooklyn, New York City.
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Gil Kane attended high school at Manhattan's School of Industrial Art, but left in his senior year when he saw an opportunity to work at MLJ Comics.
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That same year Gil Kane either was drafted or enlisted in the Army and served in the World War II Pacific theater of operations.
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Gil Kane contributed again to the "Sandman" feature in Adventure Comics and, as penciler Gil Stack and inker Phil Martel, to the "Wildcat" feature in Sensation Comics.
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In 1949, Gil Kane began a longtime professional relationship with Julius Schwartz, an editor at National Comics, the future DC Comics.
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Gil Kane drew stories for several DC series in the 1950s including All-Star Western and The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog.
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Gil Kane similarly co-created an updated version of the Atom with writer Gardner Fox.
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Gil Kane briefly freelanced some Hulk stories in Marvel Comics' Tales to Astonish, first under the pseudonym Scott Edward and then in his own name, defying the practice in which DC artists moonlighting at Marvel used pseudonyms.
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Gil Kane then found a home at Marvel, eventually becoming the regular penciller for The Amazing Spider-Man, succeeding John Romita in the early 1970s, and becoming the company's preeminent cover artist through that decade.
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However, Lee and Gil Kane created an anti-drug storyline conceived at the behest of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and upon not receiving Code Authority approval, Marvel published the issues without the Code seal on their covers.
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Gil Kane seemed to prefer this, and I'm generally happier with the later stories we did together than the first few.
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In 1971, Gil Kane met Michel "Greg" Regnier, then the editor of French-Belgian comics anthology Tintin Weekly.
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Gil Kane was one of the contributors to the DC Challenge limited series in 1986.
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Gil Kane was one of the many creators who contributed to the Superman: The Wedding Album one-shot wherein the title character married Lois Lane.
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Gil Kane collaborated with writer Mark Waid on The Life Story of the Flash graphic novel.
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Gil Kane remained active as an artist until his death on January 31,2000, in Miami, Florida from complications of lymphoma.
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Gil Kane was survived by his second wife, Elaine; as well as a son and two stepchildren, Scott, Eric and Beverly.
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Gil Kane received numerous awards over the years, including the 1971,1972, and 1975 National Cartoonists Society Awards for Comic Books: Story, and the group's "Newspaper Strip: Story Strip Award" for 1977 for Star Hawks.
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Gil Kane received the comic book industry's Shazam Award for Special Recognition in 1971 "for Blackmark, his paperback comics novel" and was given an Inkpot Award in 1975.
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Gil Kane was named to both the Eisner Award Hall of Fame and the Harvey Award Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1997.
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Work by Gil Kane was part of the 1995 Muckenthaler Cultural Center exhibit "KAPOW: A Showcase of Superheroes", in Fullerton, California.