Friday 28 September 2007

Friday Night Fights: Jack-in-a-Grid

The trusty old nine-panel grid can be used to achieve a huge array of effects.


Here, with no variation in panel shape of size, no change in type of shot, and no backgrounds, Jack Kirby forces us to concentrate on the dynamics of the two figures in motion.

(It's a shame that the colourist didn't get the point, changing colours with each panel and building to a deep red two panels before the end of the fight, with nowhere for the intensity to go but down.)

They’re fighting for Bahlactus, and the new bout of Friday Night Fights.

Panels
Fighting American “Poison Ivan” by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, from Fighting American issue 3 Prize Group, October-November 1954, reprinted in Fighting American, Marvel Comics, 1989

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's interesting to see where Kirby decides to have figures extending beyond the panel borders - wonder how much conscious thinking he put into that?

Steve Flanagan said...

Given his page rate, I can't see Kirby spending much time consciously puzzling about composition. I think it's more lkely to be one of those Whistler things (Lawyer" "The labour of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?" Whistler: "No. I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime." )

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the originals had better coloring? I rememeber comparing an original FF splash page with the reprint and Sue's dress was two completey different colors...