Redartz: Hello, all! Recently we have taken a look at the artistic creations of several prominent Bronze Age artists, including Sal Buscema, John Romita and Ed Hannigan. Today we will pay homage to another, an artist whose stylistic changes garnered as much attention as his storytelling: Keith Giffen. Giffen is known as much as a writer as an artist, but here we will concentrate on his visuals. His career ranges from the mid 70's up to today, and includes work at Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, First comics, Valiant and Image (and thanks to Wikipedia and the Grand Comics Database for some of the background information).
Keith Giffen started his career at Marvel in 1975. In the mid 70's he did many individual stories, including issues of Marvel Premiere, Amazing Adventures and Super-Villain Team-Up. However, he made his biggest initial impact as penciller on Defenders. Here his art was pretty strongly influenced by the work of Jack Kirby, as seen in this Hulking splash page:
Here we have a couple more Defenders pages, inked by Bob McLeod. Note the "Kirby krackle" on the Red Guardian. And "The Presence" next to her looks like he came right out of an issue of "New Gods". But there was more to Giffen's work than stylish semblances. On the page to the right, we see an early example of Giffen's experimentation with panel layout and composition. And I did, by the way, really like Giffen's Hulk...
Not tied to Marvel, it wasn't long before Giffen started producing work over at DC. Here he tackled All-Star, Claw and Challengers of the Unknown, but he found fame on the Legion of Super-Heroes and Justice League. Starting with issue 285 (Mar. 1982), Giffen began pencilling the Legion, and his distinctive artwork helped raise the title to the upper echelon of DC's publishing. Due to Keith's futuristic imagery (along with great writing courtesy of Paul Levitz), Legion became one of the first DC titles I collected religiously.
| Inks by Bruce Patterson |
| Inks by Larry Mahlstedt |
Here we have f our pages of his work on Legion. Giffen makes frequent use of halftones, shadow and silhouette. He also had great skill at the manipulation of color. Some of his panels had an almost ephemeral appearance that I found greatly appealing, such as the page at left. Additionally, he did fabulous space scenes. Perfect for the Legion.
These two pages were inked by Larry Mahlstedt, who finished many of Giffen's later issues. Giffen's pencils still have a taste of the sheer power of Kirby, but have a tighter, more linear design. And again, we see his play with panel arrangement and color. On the left, we get a glimpse at one of Giffen's 30th. Century cityscapes. Very clean, sharp and aerodynamic; looks futuristic to this viewer.
Oh, by the way, another feature of Giffen's Legion work I enjoyed was the inclusion of the "Interlac" script on signs, screens, walls, and anywhere (including the artists' signatures). Giffen and writer Levitz gave us a translation, here is a chart of the Interlac symbols (again, thanks to Wikipedia):
| Inks by Bob Oksner |
| More inks by Bob Oksner |
Still later, Giffen adopted a looser, more expressionistic style as seen in his work on Ambush Bug and Lobo. His mixing of image, tone, and lettering almost approaches collage...
And he carried his composition and technique over to the post-Crisis Justice League, doing the scripting and providing breakdowns for penciller Kevin Maguire...
More recently, Giffen's art has returned to a more detailed look. But based upon his history, give him a couple more years: He may change yet again. Regardless, I have always found his artwork to be interesting, appealing, and often humorous. And he's willing to take a few chances; I give him cred for that.
Finally, a selection of some Giffen cover art; enjoy, and then let us know what you think!