Friday Comic Book Day.
It's amazing how many people found their style at Standard in 1949/1950. Like George Tuska. In the second story he even uses an FHP, whch is a term I introduced in an article in the Jack Kirby Collector which no one has picked up on (probably because it doesn't start with a K). A Floating Head Panel is s device that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby used a lot in their monster stories from the late fifties and early sixties. Some even spilled over into the early hero period and Lee used it with other artists as well. It is my term for a panel where the main character is surrounded by three or more characters saying different things, a sort of comic book version of a 'town gossip' montage in movies. You know, when the hero has to do something daring and voices in his head say: 'you can't do it', 'you're a coward', 'go home, already' and stuff like that. I find is a very powefull and unique comic book storytelling device and I wondered if Jack Kirby was the ony one using it or if maybe Stan Lee had introduced it. Well, looking through the history of comics, I could find no more than one or two instances f Jack Kirby using it before that and none of Stan Lee doing it. But it did find samples of this technique by Jack Cole, Will Eisner Alex Toth. Turned out that it was only the great storytellers who used this device. And here we have George Tuska doing it as well...
2 comments:
I wonder how early the film precursor of the Floating Head Panel appeared. I'm trying to recall specific instances, but I think I've seen that sort of sequence even in silent films.
I think motages of all sorts had their heyday in the thirties. This particlura kind of commentary could ony have existed when there was sound. Still, I know of no exact examples of this device, whic in my opinion is inspired by movie montaes but has a particular unique comic book use. It oes what comicsdoes best: it capsules time. In the movie version, tere is nog limit to the number of elemetns or even meanings in the montage. In the comic version, the number of people is limited to the size of the panel and in all case I have sen, they all represent the same message; the town doesn't agree, what will my friend think, the papers pick it up, etc...
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