Daily Archives: 17 November 2011

And here we go… the perfect example of what it means to have a good inker versus a bad “finisher.” Anderson provides layouts, Gil finishes them. So this issue of Ka-Zar shows evidence of Anderson’s exquisite panel composition, without any of the detail. Gil, though a fine inker, is not a good penciler or fill-in artist.

This issue is ugly. The art isn’t incompetent, but it’s definitely ugly.

Besides the art, it also shows the fundamental problem with Jones’s pacing. Ka-Zar shows up, finds Shanna with her monkey man husband and monkey girl stepdaughter and tries to be a big man about it.

These events take place about a day and a half after Shanna got lost. It makes no emotional sense.

The majority of the issue is Ka-Zar hanging out with the monkey man and it works. It just can’t cure all the pacing problems.

It’s very unfortunate.

I want to love this issue but I can’t.

Jones gets Shanna and Ka-Zar out of the Atlantean technology, away from their sidekicks, and back out into the jungle. Ka-Zar is jungle adventure after all.

The issue opens with this amazing argument–going at least three pages (while they’re setting up camp)–between the couple. It’s fantastic stuff about Ka-Zar’s immaturity and so on.

Then Shanna gets whisked away by a raging river and ends up with these awesome monkey people. They’re very nice, desperately romantic (spouses kill themselves after being widowed unless they have a child) and Shanna takes up with a monkey man and his adorable daughter.

Jones writes Shanna, for the most part, as an intelligent, strong woman. But she falls in love with every suitor she meets… in an hour. And she’s always ready to get married.

So, while it’s a good comic, it’s too screwy.