Art For Art’s Sake Special: Keith Giffen RIP

This month we lost another great of comics, the writer and artist Keith Giffen, co-creator of Rocket Racoon, artist on Legion of Superheroes, and the man who brought some much needed Bwah-Ha-Ha to superheroes…

His death on 9 October 2023 following a stroke was announced by his family, in the most Keith Giffen of ways, in a pre-written post by Giffen through social media…

Tony gave you an obituary back on 12 October but I wanted to give you some idea of the artistic range of Giffen here.

His career spanned nearly 50 years, beginning in 1976 at Marvel as artist in an issue of     b, where he’d go on to co-create Rocket Raccoon with Bill Mantlo later in the same year.

From there, Giffen went on to write and draw for pretty much every comics company of note, both creating memorable characters such as Ambush Bug, Lobo, and Trencher or, especially for DC, revitalising existing titles and characters – including DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes in the ’80s and ’90s.

 

And then of course there was Justice League and Justice League International with  JM DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire, the brilliantly funny reworking of the Justice League of America that was perhaps the first time a generation of superhero fans realised comics with tights could be funny.

And I was one of those readers picking up Justice League #1 in 1987, loving all the bwah-ha-ha and the completely different sort of super-people here. That was the first time I really noticed Giffen’s name on comics. Prior to that, I’d been a bit of a Marvel-only kid in the ’80s.

Then I started working at Nostalgia & Comics Birmingham UK at 16 at rather a perfect time to really expand my reading – Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Maus, Mage, and so many more. But Justice League was nothing like those.

Justice League, thanks to Giffen and all concerned showed me and millions of others over the years that, yes, superheroes could be grown-up and dark but perhaps it would be good if they weren’t like that all the time.

 

Anyway, working a comic shop and being down in a basement full of disorganised back issues, hundred and hundred of boxes of them, with the job to sort them all out meant I saw a hell of a lot of comics I’d never seen before. And Giffen as an artist was one of those I noticed. Yes, I admit, I did my fair share of reading along with all the sorting.

 

Anyway, long story short, I found out, then and in the years that followed, that Giffen the artist was just as good as Giffen the writer. And of course there were several different styles of Giffen the artist – the early Kirby-influenced stuff, the tighter, Jim Starlin classical-looking stuff, even the rather controversial loose, stylised, heavy on the inks stuff that had perhaps a little too much of José Muñoz in it. All different, all recognisably Giffen.

So, thank you Keith. Thank you for making so many fans happy with all of the comics you made. And for me, thanks for the Bwah-ha-ha.

Keith Giffen (November 30, 1952 – October 9, 2023)

Now, a little gallery of just some of Keith’s artwork – beginning with his debut, Marvel Preview Vol. 1 #4 ‘The Sword in the Star’ (1975)…

 

And then a little Rocket Raccoon – from his debut in Marvel Preview Vol. 1 #7 (1975)…

 

A couple from his run of Marvel Comics’ The Defenders…

 

The Legion of Superheroes… the first time round…

 

Introducing more of the funny… the Legion of Substitute Heroes…

 

The very first Lobo…

 

A little Superman…

 

And a little more Superman – but a lot of Ambush Bug…

 

The very bizarre Hex… what if Jonah Hex travelled from the 19th to the 21st Century…

 

The Dr. Fate mini-series…

 

And more Lobo… but he’s changed a little, had a bit of a Simon Bisley makeover from which Giffen picks up the ball…

 

Batman, Giffen style (with a lot of Munoz thrown in)

 

And The Legion of Super-Heroes the second time around…

 

Trencher – Giffen goes Image…

 

DC’s New 52 – there were actually a few good books in there… including Didio and Giffen’s OMAC…

 

And almost right up to the present – Inferior 5 from 2021…

 

And of course, you really can’t leave without at least a little bit of Giffen’s Justice League and JLI, with plots & breakdowns by Keith Giffen, scripts by J.M. DeMatteis, and art by Kevin Maguire and Al Gordon.

But first, a lovely old bit from Justice League by Kyle Baker…