DAY 190: Giffen & Hex
This is Keith Giffen.
I’ve been stupidly obsessed with him since he was a writer on THIS comic back in the 80′s:
But as fate would have it, I’ve been unknowingly collecting his work since the 70′s, since he was an artist on one of the first issues I ever read:
Like a lot of artists back then, he was hired to bring his best “Kirby” to the title. And let’s just say that he did NOT disappoint.
I mean, it’s clearly NOT Jack Kirby, but it’s damn close. But the point is, I was digging on Giffen back when I wasn’t even aware of it.
Later, he made a dent with his run on Legion of Super-Heroes. But I actually became aware of him as an artist when I picked up an issue with THIS issue:
The meta nature of this thing was groundbreaking to me, not to mention his style, which was like nothing that was out there at the time.
Hell, his plotting & panel composition alone caused readers to have to stare intently into pages for minutes just to make out what was going on.
It’s like it was a game to him, seeing how minimal he could make each panel.
Sort of a deconstructed approach. Which only got more & more deconstructed year after year, until you got awesome shit like THIS:
I guess where I’m going with this is that I’ve had a Giffen checklist for a number of years. And I’ve essentially bought runs of comics, as well as individual issues, based on the fact that he illustrated them.
Even titles I wouldn’t normally buy.
Which is where we’re at today.
I just read THIS issue:
This Jonah Hex spin-off tossed him into 2050, where he battled post-apocalyptic weirdos, armed with only his six-shooters.
I only own a few of the other Giffen drawn stories.
And now I regret that I’ll probably end up buying the entire run of this, even though that only requires me to buy, what, 15 more issues?
Still, that last panel where he discovers a stuffed version of himself from the past
will probably make me buy everything AFTER that, too.
Or rather BEFORE that.
