A Story from Joe about Gil Kane...

My pal Howard Victor Chaykin has noted that this is the centenary of artist Gil Kane and he has been observing the day with tales of Gil. Like Howard, I was an assistant to Gil. He called up one day and recruited me to work for him. This was in the early '70's and I was working on E-MAN for Charlton. Gil said he liked how I "composed in depth" rather than just cropping compositions. I did layouts and breakdowns from scripts and Gil would tighten them up into full pencils. I think I worked for him for a little more than two years. I've figured out that my favorite Gil Kane memory is from 1975. He and I were guests at NewCon in Boston and we were leaving the Howard Johnson's con hotel to find dinner. The charming Hilarie Staton was with us as was editor/writer Archie Goodwin. I think our friend Colleen was also with us, but I'm not sure about that. Gil had decided he'd get us into Trader Vic's, though it was Saturday night and we didn't have reservations. Gil was tall and slim with an impressive presence. The rest of us followed Gil as he approached the maitre'd. "My boy", Gil intoned. He always called everybody "My boy". He got the maitre'd's attention. "I'm sorry we're a little late for our reservation, but I'm sure you have our table ready." The guy had to crane his neck to look up at Gil and couldn't look down at the reservation book. And when he tried to look down at it, Gil did this thing with his extremely long fingers -- fluttering them all over the pages. The poor guy tried to follow Gil's elegant voice, but was totally overwhelmed. Archie was amazed but not surprised and grinned. This was life with Gil. Gil had his failings but being around him was educational and amusing. Though, of course, he did die owing me money.