Amazing Heroes Issue #177- Cover

Amazing Heroes Issue #177- Cover

Periodical
comic strips

The cover of Amazing Heroes, Issue No. 177 is a full art piece. The title is in yellow and the price, next to the title, is $3.50 ($4.25 in Canada). The remaining text is “Gil Kane” in black bold in a box with a hot pink background. The rest of the text reads “On The Ring, the future of comics, and the end of the age of heroes” and “Also: CAPTAIN AMERICA-the movie.” The illustration on the novel is very dark toned. It is set at night with a bright full moon at the top shining light on fog in a swampy background. In the foreground, a Caucasian, male hero in a mask with wings on the side is riding on a galloping white stallion. The hero has a cape that is flying in the wind. The horse is mid-stride with no feet on the ground. The horse is armed in jewels and has red eyes. The hero has a glow surrounding him.

Gil Kane is the artist of the cover which features the main character from The Ring. Kane is a famous artist in the comic book industry, starting from when he drew the new and improved Green Lantern in the late 1950s and officially 1960. He was involved in comics long before that when he started as an inker at Marvel in 1944, but started getting serious into drawing and did major works for DC, notably Green Lantern, Batman, Superman, Conan, and Spider-Man. A lot of his works are in revival superheroes. Amazing Heroes featured many comics from Marvel and DC, so it is no surprise that one of DC’s major artists at the time would be a cover feature. Kane’s professional comic career fluctuated between Marvel and DC. Ending up with DC, he published The Ring, a four-part-mini-series which is an adaptation of Richard Wagner’s Ring, a four-part epic music composition. The Ring became a graphic novel which is discussed in an article in this comic. The reason why Gil Kane is featured in this novel is that Amazing Heroes, like many other publications of this time, saw comics through the lens of the collectible market. To make collectibles, comic publishers would use popular artists, creators, and story features to increase the value of special issues both in the present time it was being sold and for the future. As for the content of the cover itself, the illustration of The Ring is a mythological epic based on a musical composition. It is a German piece originally performed in 1876. Ring is a 15-hour long musical performance presenting actions of an array of mythological creatures. Kane’s rendition was an adaptation of the musical performance in Graphic novel form. It shows the variability of mediums of this piece of art as well as how comics can modernize art.

Cover: Gil Kane
Executive Editor: Kim Thompson
Managing Editor: Thomas Harrington
Art Director: Mark Thompson
Assistant Editor: Jason Sacks
News Correspondent: George Kaplan
Production Assistance: Roberta Gregory
Typesetting.Proofreading: Graig Maynard & Jasons Sacks
Circulation: Michelle Byrd & Sharon Kingsford
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books, Inc.
Printed at: Port Publications, WI

MSU Special Collection Comic Art, PN6725.A47

Fantagraphic Books, Inc.

March, 1990

Tiffany McIntyre

Rights Restrictions Apply

http://chambl91.msu.domains/CriticalFanscape/items/show/11
http://chambl91.msu.domains/CriticalFanscape/items/show/8

6-5/8 & 10-1/4 in.

English

Periodical

1981-1992